Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(70)

It was nothing like I had expected.

They were there, the three of them. Dramin was bleeding profusely from the neck where he was hunched against the wall. Thom was unconscious and covered in blood I prayed was not his. And in between them was Sain. He cowered against the floor like a beaten dog, his hair mussed, his eyes wide as he looked at me with the green that was darker than I had ever seen it. A green so haunted that everything around me froze.

My shoulders hunched in fear as my heart accelerated, the panic at seeing them, at needing to know if they were okay frozen to my bones as I looked at him.

Then a voice more ice than fear passed from his lips.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake.”





Seventeen


I barely even heard him.

I couldn’t focus on his words, not above the way every muscle in my body tightened, not with the way my pounding heartbeat filled my ears and mixed with the echoes of screams until I was surrounded by them. Surrounded by death. Surrounded by pain.

All I saw was Thom.

Without stopping to think, I rushed into the room, Ryland’s body dropping to the floor with a resounding thunk that echoed in my head, elongating into a bass drum of more pain.

More confusion.

More blood.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as I reached Thom, my shaking hand pressing against him. His skin was as cold as ice, his body as limp and lifeless as though he was dead.

Please don’t let him be dead.

The thought was a vice against my heart, a pulse of pain and anger that threatened to explode out of me.

I had only come to terms with everything, with losing Talon, with understanding the caged personalities I faced, with still loving the seemingly lifeless man before me.

I didn’t want to know what kind of monster losing him would create.

Violently, my magic filled him, rushing through his body in a wave that swallowed him. I checked for organ function, for signs of life, and for his magic. It was a checklist in my head—what to do to save a life or some such nonsense. Except, right then, I couldn’t focus on it.

One by one, I found them—the gentle pulse of his heart, the low gasp of his breath, the calming waves of his magic.

He was alive.

And yet … something was off about them. The calmness of them, the way they seemed to be sleeping, the way he was sleeping, yet nothing was wrong.

My magic continued to push through him, smothering him like a warm blanket as I looked beyond the simple, looked for the injury, for what was wrong, for a way to heal him.

Only to find nothing.

No cuts.

No bites.

No scary internal bleeding.

Just nothing.

It was as simple as him being asleep, but I knew he wasn’t.

“Thom?” The question came much louder than I had intended it to, my residual panic flooding through me as my magic pulsed in an intentionally painful wave. It was not enough to cause damage, just enough to wake. Much the way I had done to him centuries before.

I never liked getting up with the baby.

He didn’t so much as stir with the pinch, his body remaining where it was, hunched against the wall, the old peeling paper falling around his head like a crown.

“Thom?” My fingers wrapped around his arms like vices, my magic continuing to move into him as I shook, pulling him away from the wall only to have his head flop back against the aged printed flowers with a snap.

No response, not from his heart rate, not from his magic, not from him.

I couldn’t look away as my mind and body slowly turning to lead. The momentary panic grew before it was swallowed by my anger, my determination rising in me so quickly that, even though I knew I was dangerous, I didn’t care.

“What happened?” I didn’t even try to keep the growl out of my voice as I turned to Sain, my magic sparking dangerously as I fought the need to catch something on fire.

It would be like me to do something like that. Anger always equaled burn victim.

“Sain?” My voice was sharp as I stared at the aged man with my hand still firmly wrapped around Thom’s as though I was afraid he would fall through the floorboards and be lost to another dimension.

It could happen.

Sain only looked at me with wide eyes from where he cowered before me, his hands continually moving one over the other as if he was trying to rub the skin away. The movement was agitated, fearful, and I felt my skin prickle at seeing it.

His intense stare dug into me as I waited for an answer I already knew wouldn’t come. Not with the way he was acting, the movements so much like before, when we were trapped underground, and they had threatened to take away his mug.

Stupid Drak. If Joclyn ever started acting this way, I would have to take matters into my own hands.

The way he was acting had worried me before, but now I knew why.

Sain was not one to show emotion, but seeing him like that, seeing the fear in his eyes and the panic in his body, I knew.

He was afraid.

I wasn’t sure I had ever seen him afraid before. Even when Edmund had been only yards behind us, he had done little more than walk calmly forward, doling out subtle instructions.

Now, however, the emotions came off him in waves, infecting me like a virus. My magic reacted on instinct as he leaned closer to me, his eyes growing wider as the foul smell of his breath drifted through the stagnant air.