Page 10 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘Velnock,’ he answered, a softness to his voice. The ancient Verr tongue sent unease rolling through me. His eyes were suddenly the lightest shade of grey. That darkness in him abating for a moment. ‘The ravhorn.’
I’d found it.
Chapter Four
Alma
The ravhorn. Great serpents of scales and poison, large enough to eat a man, but they prefer to devour the dark, burrowing deep where they sleep beneath the earth.
Insidious Theory – Myths of the Deep, 1145
‘Thank the ancestors,’ William greeted as he lurched to his feet from his perch on a low stool by the fire in the study, his bottom lip bruised from how much he’d been biting it.
‘How is she?’ Emrys demanded, pulling off his coat and tossing it on an abandoned chair filled with books, knocking most of them to the ground.
If the boy was alarmed by the dark blood splattered on Emrys’s shirt and jaw, he didn’t show it.
‘Stable,’ Gideon sighed from where he rested against the study door frame, shoulder stooped with tiredness as he rubbed the back of his neck, a rag thrown over his shoulder stained from whatever tonics he’d been mixing. ‘For now.’
Then those sad blue eyes landed on me, nestled between Emrys and Thean. I could only imagine the dirt smeared across my face, dark hair a tangled mess around my shoulders. The wildness in my eyes from the change as the stolen trader’s coat swamped me.
‘Alma?’ William took a cautious step forward, alarmed by the state of me. Probably the reek of me too.
Gideon’s long strides cut through the space between us, halting William’s approach. That strange energy he possessed practically thrumming in the air between us.
‘Show me.’ He held out his gloved hand and Emrys relinquished the sample of the ravhorn from his white knuckled grip.
Gideon turned the vial over, holding it up to the warm study light, twisting it so the grey scales inside gleamed, those gold and silver threads sending my magic biting ravenously into my bones.
Now.It seemed to growl deep in my chest. Ravenous with a hunger I hadn’t felt since Daunton.
‘This sample is petrified.’ Gideon frowned, a light going out in his eyes as his gaze moved reluctantly back to his brother.
A sound slipped between Emrys’s lips as if he’d been punched in the gut, but I couldn’t focus on that. Couldn’t stop. I snatched the vial from Gideon’s hand, moving past him and towards Kat’s desk.
‘I never said I needed a live sample,’ I called over my filthy shoulder, rolling the cool glass against my palm, feeling the sharp bite of scales around my wrist.
Now,it demanded but I kept moving. To the clear surface where Kat’s things lay abandoned like some strange memorial.
Hating how faded the scent of her was. Missing it most of all.
I was cursed with value. One Kat hadn’t even let Master Hale see. One I’d been used for before. Endlessly. All the things I could become, exotic and extinct. All the things that could be harvested over and over again. How they could make more just like me so easily. Use me until there was nothing left to take.
Just as they used all the others.
I pushed the stupid books, papers from the desk. They clattered to the ground, the house letting out a weary groan but I ignored that too as I reached into her bag for her healing kit. Letting the bandages tumble and unroll across the desk, the small vials and balls of cotton – creating a mess, but it was the clank of the healing knife that made me stop.
I grabbed it, hilt cold and heavy in my grasp.
My wrist was caught before I could make the cut, by fingers tipped with pure darkness, as if they’d been dipped in ink, spreading into thin veins up the back of his hand to his wrist.
‘Alma,’ Emrys cautioned, his hold inescapable, making me look up at where he towered over me. Feeling the strange cold sting of his magic against my skin, as scales rose under my flesh with the threat of his touch. Protecting me from whatever wrongness lurked inside him.
Verr.
How raw and pale he seemed with grief.
I wanted to hate him, but as I looked at the anguish in his shadowed face it was like looking into a mirror. I knew he was the only reason she was here now. He’d brought her back to me.
