Page 11 of Storm of Secrets and Sorrow

TESSA

“Do you want me to go grab some food while we wait?” Axel asked, swiping at his phone screen.

“No,” Tessa murmured, staring at nothing as they waited for the Lords and Ladies to return. How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? She didn’t know. The thing beneath her skin was pacing, wanting out, out, out, and she wanted out. What was with all the buildings in the Acropolis not having windows? Why did they all have this strange aversion to the sky and sunlight and nature as if they were the vampyres that were not as mythical as she’d once believed?

“Tessa?”

“What?” she answered absent-mindedly, not even sure who had said her name. Her knee was bouncing as she clutched at the bench edge. She wasn’t paying attention to what they were discussing. She really didn’t care. Not as her power thrashed again. Not as it seemed to scream inside her to the point that Tessa wanted to slam her hands over her ears as if that would silence it.

“Tessa,” Theon said again.

“What?” she gritted out.

“Look at me, Tessa.”

Her eyes snapped to his, finding his brow creased as he studied her. “We are prepared if they vote against us.”

“Against us,” she repeated.

“Yes. If they say you cannot remain with me, we are prepared to fight our way out.”

“Right,” she murmured, breaking his stare.

“You choosing this should help matters.”

Choosing this.

She lurched to her feet, her stomach churning. “I need a restroom.”

Theon was on his feet too, that concern deepening. “Are you all right?”

Clamping a hand over her mouth, she shook her head, and Theon finally understood, stepping aside to let her pass. She moved as quickly as she could through the room and out into the hall before shoving through the door to the female bathroom, dropping to her knees and heaving into the bowl.

I wish to stay with him.

The words had been as bitter as the bile on her tongue when she’d said them.

I wish to stay with him.

She knew the Achaz Lord would wonder, especially after the things he’d said to her at his estate home.

I wish to stay with him.

But it hadn’t been a lie. Even if saying those words had tested her very being, staying with Theon was going to give her the best opportunities at uncovering secrets and figuring out who was lying to her, who was trying to use her. If she was bound to the Pantheon, she wouldn’t be at his side for meetings. More than that, being separated would almost certainly be miserable. Whatever bond they shared would be unbearable, and the bands on her wrists were already that.

She heard the door open to the single restroom as her brow dropped to her forearm that was draped along the bowl. There was the rustling of paper, and then shiny black shoes came to a stop beside her. Turning her head, she looked up and met sapphire eyes. Luka extended some paper towels to her, and Tessa reached to grab them before wiping at her mouth.

He crouched beside her, sliding her ponytail over her shoulder. “Tell me what you need right now, Tessa.”

His words brought her back to the first time she’d entered Theon’s suite at Arius House. Luka had said those same words then, crouched before her just like this. There had been so much uncertainty then too.

Shifting so she wasn’t sitting on her heels but rather against the wall, she asked, “Where’s Theon?”

“It would be…problematic if the Lords and Ladies returned and Theon wasn’t present. Particularly with Valter,” Luka answered, maneuvering so that he was sitting on the floor as well. He leaned back on one hand while his other arm rested on a bent knee.

“We’re sitting on a bathroom floor,” Tessa muttered. “Theon would have a fit.”

Luka shrugged. “Sometimes sitting on a bathroom floor is necessary. And Theon has had to take a moment for himself in far less appealing places. He’d understand the need.”

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