Page 42 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
‘Katherine,please.’ His grip was too tight, fingers too cold. ‘Forgive me.’
Forgive me.My father’s voice whispered against my cheek. In that moment all I could see was my father’s face, the sadness heavy in his eyes and the tightness of how he held me. Knowing he wouldn’t come back. Knowing he couldn’t.
Knowing they’d kill him.
Quiet. Demure and still.
I looked down at the creature before me, in the ruined Council hall, blood coating his teeth and revulsion rolled through me, the burning sting of rage in my veins.
Looking into the dark eyes of Master Hale, understanding what I had been all this time to him.
A pet to soothe his guilt.
Useful. All I’d ever been to him.
The stench of burning flesh filled my nose, coated my tongue. Hale had made me beg and grovel for his affection. Made me ashamed of who I was. Made me a spectacle.
It was all a lie.
With a sharp tug he dragged me closer, until his breath brushed my ear. Until I could smell the coppery tang of blood that coated it. A choked wretched sound coming out of his lips. It was then I realised he was laughing. Demonic, dark laughter.
Then he wasn’t Master Hale at all.
‘She was alive when you burnt her,little troll,’ he spat, bloody spittle hitting my cheek as his nails became dark claws.Sinking into my flesh and taking gouges out of my wrist. ‘You killed her!’
I screamed, wrenching myself back as his teeth snapped like a feral beast. Elongating. Too big for his mouth that cracked and split. Blood spraying my throat as he bit through his own tongue. Eyes full black, that darkness spreading outwards as his bones began to twist and crack. Becoming something else. Teeth chattering as the darkest laugh crawled out of his throat.
I twisted and thrashed. Screaming with rage or fear, I didn’t know. They’d woven themselves too tightly together. My wrist bloody enough to slip from his clawed grasp. As I fell back against the sharp rubble.
‘You killed her!’ The creature gnashed its teeth, bones popping as it tried to escape his mortal flesh.
‘Stop!’ A feral scream tore from my lips. Fire tore itself from my bones, lethal and wild as it slipped through my veins. My magic tearing itself from its slumber at the bottom of my soul. Just like the dragon should have in that tale. Vicious and starved as it tried to force itself out of my hands.
The stone around my neck flickered and pulsed wildly. The creature that was Hale lunged but before those claws could reach me, bright white light shot from the wishing stone. Straight through the thing’s throat. Just as it had in that pit. Black blood pouring as its eyes rolled back in its head, slumping onto the ruined marble floor. Its body cracking and twisting, a gurgling hiss from its lips as it began to reform.
Move,I commanded myself. Unable to let the words out of my trembling lips.
A crash sounded through the smoke. Screaming. A hissing skittering followed by a roar. Dark things claiming the dead’s souls. Debts come to be collected. And I was in the centre of it.
Then there were hands on my forearms. I screamed, kicking out, but those hands didn’t let me go. They turned me abruptly so I was looking up at Gideon. His blonde hair falling in disarray across his brow, covered in dust. Jacket sleeve torn to reveal the golden metal of his right arm. Dark blood smeared across his cheek, pale blue eyes almost glowing with rage.
‘Up!’ he commanded ruthlessly, hoisting me to my numb feet with hands under my armpits like I was a child.
He half dragged, half carried me over the debris. Moving faster and faster, the roaring collapse behind us, the licking flames, blinding smoke and screeching of dark things being awoken in mortal flesh. Another rumble threatened to take my legs from beneath me as Gideon curled his body over my own, stone bouncing and skidding across the ruined marble.
Thick dark smoke curled around us, streaked through with bright white light, abating the flames and making us a path through the chaos to the main doors. The familiar cold bite of that magic.
Emrys.
We stumbled into the hallway, fragments of rubble meeting my boots as the wardens lay bloodied and dust-covered in the foyer. Smoke curling around the high arched ceilings, the door nothing but shattered wood.
Students screamed and ran past covered in blood and dust. Clutching at patches of seared and burnt flesh. Gideon pushed through them effortlessly as the warning bells continued to screech.
He forced me back into an alcove out of the commotion. I panted, each breath tasting of blood. That wishing stone glowing between us, satisfied by what it had done.
Master Hale.
My stomach knotted and I had barely a moment before I vomited in the small space between us, splattering Gideon’s boots.
