Page 66 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

“I have to go.” She tried to step around him, but he was so much larger than her, and his hands braced her shoulders, his blue eyes working to catch hers.

“It’s okay. You’re okay here, I promise.” His voice was so earnest, so kind and desperate to help her, but she couldn’t accept it.

Those who help me wind up dead.

“No, I⁠—”

The door flew open, and Emmeline half expected to see Desmond storming through, hunting for her, but Roremar took one look at her harried expression, at his brother’s hands holding her in place, and the bags in his arms thudded to the counter.

“What happened?” he blurted, racing over.

“I don’t know,” Nico said, voice piqued with the same panic lacing her shortened breaths. “She just woke up, and now she’s saying⁠—”

“I can’t stay here,” Emmeline asserted, attempting to weave between the brothers, but a pair of steel eyes stopped her.

The same silver that had laid on the floor beside her last night. That had, for some reason, been her lifeline when terror dictated her every move.

Emmeline froze. Her breaths still rushed, but as Roremar silently held her gaze, the vice around her lungs loosened.

His hand slipping to hers didn’t make her flinch, her body pliant as he guided her back to the bed, willing to relinquish control for one damn moment.

“I’ve got her, Nico. Thanks,” he dismissed his brother without so much as an explanation.

When Nico didn’t immediately leave, Emmeline wrenched her stare from Roremar’s. Nico hovered beside the door, seeming to chew over a thought. The fingers of her free hand fidgeted against her throat again. Tracking the motion, Nico shook his head, then left, his boots thudding down the stairs.

The silence from his departure sat heavily on Emmeline’s shoulders, the air between her and Roremar thickening. She turned back to him, and his eyes⁠—

That steel stare was heated, anger bubbling to the surface when it landed on…her neck.

She dropped her hand to her lap, chin lowering, and the motion seemed to snap something within Roremar. Jolting, he squeezed her hand, his rings cool against her clammy skin.

They are the one who should be ashamed.

That memory—it had been him. His words soothing her, his vow reminding her that it was not her fault. Her chest uncoiled further.

Don’t hide, he had pleaded from the floor beside her.

Don’t run from me, he had begged in a reading many nights ago.

She lifted her gaze to his.

“How are you?” Roremar asked, his voice gravelly with the anger still pulsing from him.

Confused. Was this connected to the murders? What had the message on the wall meant?

Scared. She wasn’t afraid of much. She’d built her armor so she wouldn’t be, and she’d fought off a number of predators in her life. But fear had wracked her bones at the attack—the combination of an intruder and the shock of seeing starfire bringing back memories of the worst moments of her life.

Furious. That last one—that was the newest. A beast, burning with the starfire she suppressed, sharpening its claws along her bones. Perhaps not ready to strike yet but waiting.

“I’m a lot of things,” Emmeline whispered, and Roremar’s shoulders sagged at her voice. “What happened exactly?”

“I might need you to fill in a few of those pieces, Huntress,” he said.

She stretched into the blurry parts of her mind to find the answers. “I was patrolling the halls, too awake after my readings to go right to sleep.” The image of a bloodied Angel flashed through her mind, the crimson message dripping on the wall following. She sucked in a breath, hand absently flying back to her throat. Swallowing, relishing the pain, she went on, “I ran into the Temple Master. Spoke with him a bit, then went to my dormitory.” The scene played through her memory, her voice void of emotion as she forced the explanation out. “The door was cracked. I pushed it open fully before going in.”

“There was no one there?” Roremar asked.

“They must have been around the corner by the bed. They weren’t behind the door. I was planning to get a dagger from the table just inside, but then I saw the starfire burning over the bed—and the wall—and…I panicked. Grabbed the vase to put it out, and they…”