Page 96 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘Shouldn’t you be busying yourself elsewhere,’ I half spluttered.
‘Indeed.’ Thean rose from their perch, beyond satisfied with my embarrassment. ‘However, I wasn’t expecting you to have such a cracking arse.’
I half choked, resisting the urge to cover myself with my hand. ‘You’re supposed to be watchingWilliam.Not my arse.’
‘I agree,’ Emrys added. A flush bit at my cheeks at just what part he was agreeing with.
I turned to him, finding his stormy grey eyes on the leathers I wore. Disappointingly not on my arse.
My awkwardness was ridiculous. I’d worn breeches before. Been caught numerous times by the Council in them. But there was something very different about standing before Emrys in them. Having very vivid memories of his hands cupping my thighs with more firmness than the leather I wore now.
‘William had to modify this.’ I cleared my throat, tugging the hem of the jacket. ‘Nothing else fitted me.’
Too tall and too full in certain areas. Magic could do a lot, but it needed something to work with.
‘They’re mine,’ Emrys smiled, small and filled with the faintest shadow of sorrow as his fingers ran over the small repair at the inside seam of the arm. ‘My first leathers. Lady Blackthorn put the protection incantations in the stitching herself.’
His thumb and forefinger traced the edge of the sleeve’s stitching. ‘Emmaline had to repair them for me far too often.’
‘I’m sorry you have to see them again on me,’ I swallowed, hoping the enchanted tailoring was easy enough to reverse. I didn’t want to ruin something so sentimental to him.
‘I’m not.’ His voice was rough like gravel, as those pitch-black eyes took me in. ‘I’m more concerned about just how much I like it.’
There was a simmering in my blood in the hunger that lingered in his eyes. So potent it could have derailed our whole mission – so, like a coward, I moved to the pages he’d been considering.
The remains of the diary were scattered amongst everything else. The curve of dark text and ink smears shaped into demonic form. The pages old and growing older the further I flipped through the pile. Things I didn’t know. Had never seen before. So much to understand I felt my shoulders droop. This wasn’t healing incantations and fey summonings. It was so far beyond me.
‘What is it, Croinn?’ he asked, as if seeing the small furrow of my brow and the weight of my thoughts.
‘I don’t know these things.’ I turned another page in the thick ancient script I couldn’t understand. All the markings I’d need to learn. The things they could lead to. ‘Not as I should.’
No, because I’d read the Councils sterilised records. Listened to their lies and devoured it all like poison.
‘You don’t need to know everything, Kat,’ he offered gently, his hands cupping my elbows in comfort. The softness of those words brushing my neck.
‘Then what use am I?’ I asked over my shoulder. Knowing had kept me alive. Had kept me safe and it felt strange to venture forward not having that protection.
He turned me to face him, his hands capturing my face with reverence, thumbs gliding across my cheekbones. A small secretive smile on his lips. ‘We might need improper storage of a ghoul.’
I huffed in annoyance, aiming my fingers to prod his still healing side but he was quicker. Capturing my hand and laying a kiss against my palm, his quiet laugh brushing against my skin.
‘You’ll learn everything you need to and before we know it, you’ll be telling everyone what to do … because, as always, you understand everything better than anyone else could.’
‘You might have too much faith in me.’ I blew a loose strand of hair from my face.
He caught it, that small smile never abating as he tucked it behind the point of my ear.
‘You’re theonlything I have faith in.’
The depth of those words pierced my doubt so easily. How he hadn’t let go of my hand, as our fingers intertwined and I saw the shadow of his magic curl beneath his skin.
Everything had fallen apart, yet we hadn’t. This small delicate thing between us.
‘What are these then?’ I nodded to the papers scattered closest to us. Family trees incomplete and pages from what appeared to be record ledgers.
‘The lords’ bloodlines and all the bastards that could be used to open those houses’ compendiums,’ he answered, his free hand running over the lineage lines.
I eyed the list warily. ‘There are more than I thought.’
