Page 205 of Storm of Secrets and Sorrow

Theon glanced at Tessa. She and Katya had gone noticeably quiet. “I could justify two, beautiful, not all of them. Not yet.”

She nodded, her gaze dropping to her lap. “Where will they stay?”

Theon rubbed at his brow. “We’d have to figure out logistics.”

“Who do you pick?”

“The most powerful ones if I’m going to have any chance of justifying this to my father,” Theon said, taking the tablet Luka had already powered up. He swiped the screen a few times. “Lange had the highest power ranking of your friends.”

“Brecken was the next highest, but then it’d be two air Fae,” Luka said.

“Brecken has a thing for Kat,” Tessa blurted.

“Tessa,” Kat said, her eyes wide with shock at the same time Axel said, “Absolutely fucking not.”

“I’m sorry,” Tessa said in a rush. “But Lange and Corbin— You can’t split them up.”

“Corbin has the water element,” Luka said with a shrug. “We’d have three of the four elements covered.”

“We have plenty of Fae in service to the kingdom with those elements outside of fire,” Theon said.

“Please, Theon. Don’t force them apart,” Tessa said, looking up at him with those violet-grey eyes.

The godsdamn begging.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Yeah, all right,” he said with a sigh.

Axel barked a laugh. “You’re serious?”

“I’m already fucked. Can’t get much worse, can it?” Then, looking back at Tessa, he said, “I can’t promise they’ll be assigned to the same positions within the kingdom.”

“I understand,” she said, and he could swear there were thin pools of silver shining in her eyes. “Thank you.”

“Let’s get back to these books,” he said. “We’re wasting time.”

“Of course,” she replied, turning the page of the book that had started all of this chaos.

Because chaos always led back to her.

35

TESSA

The female stood on a cliff, and she was tall. That was the first thing Tessa noticed as she studied her.

The second thing she noticed was that the cliff seemed to float in the sky.

The female’s red-brown hair was tucked inside the cloak she was wearing. It wasn’t until she turned that Tessa could see the fitted black pants, black top, and black boots. She continued to scan the surrounding area, her violet eyes pausing momentarily where Tessa was standing. If she could see her, she didn’t let on, but Tessa was guessing she couldn’t.

Or maybe she was just more concerned with the winged beings who were charging at her from the trees.

Tessa opened her mouth to warn the female, but she didn’t need it. She was already pulling a sword from beneath her cloak, preparing to meet the five warriors head on while she backed towards the cliff edge. Moments before the winged beings caught up to her, she stepped off the side.

Tessa stood in shocked silence, her mouth agape.

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