Page 243 of Storm of Secrets and Sorrow

She turned her head to the side. “Really?”

“Do you want to talk about something else?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“Then Traveling it is, I guess.”

It took her another minute, but then she cleared her throat. “I think you can Travel because you’re not from Devram. You weren’t born here. Scarlett and Sorin could Travel, but they also weren’t from here. Theon said the ability was taken from the Legacy when they were sequestered here, but maybe, since you weren’t born here, it doesn’t affect you.”

“That seems like a pretty good theory,” Luka said.

She rolled over to her stomach so she could see him, kicking her feet up behind her. “Do you wish you knew where you were born? Where you’re from?”

Luka shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter in the end, does it?”

Her gaze fell away from him as she said, “No. I guess not.”

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t think about it,” he added.

Violet-grey eyes lifted back to his. “Yeah?”

He nodded, fighting the urge to reach over and tuck her hair behind her ear. “It’s okay to want to know, Tessa.”

She swallowed, looking away again. “What if… What if there was a cost to know? Do you think it would be worth it?”

“I suppose it depends on the cost.”

“I guess,” she murmured. After a few more beats of silence, she asked, “Why did you really come here tonight, Luka?”

He’d told her the truth. He’d come because they were worried. Theon was downright frantic. But he’d come for her too. Knowing she was likely feeling all sorts of things she couldn’t or wouldn’t sort through. She knew he wasn’t here to try and take her from this place. He’d be a fool to attempt it.

“A couple of reasons,” he finally answered. “One is to explain why I never told you about the bond.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, pushing up and sliding from the bed, but Luka sat up too, grabbing her arm.

“It does matter, Tessa.”

Her eyes hardened as they slid from where he gripped her arm up to his face. “It really doesn’t, Luka, but if it will ease your conscience some, then, by all means, continue.”

The dragon under his skin bristled at her dismissal, but he let her go because she was right. How many times had Theon given her excuses for keeping information from her? He had done nothing different. She was under no obligation to hear him out,and if she told him an explanation wouldn’t matter, who was he to push it?

His lack of immediate response apparently told her the subject was dropped because she disappeared from the small bedroom back out to the main room.

And he followed. Because like he told Theon, they were all moths to her flame. Or in this case, her light. Or justher.

He found her wandering around the space, dragging her fingers along the wall as she moved.

“You know you’re only here because I’m allowing it, right?” she asked.

Leaning against the doorjamb once more, he said, “I’m aware they’ve given you some semblance of control as a show of good faith. But make no mistake, Tessa, you are still locked in a windowless room. It’s just a little bigger than a wine cellar is all.”

Her head whipped to him, violet eyes flashing with sparks of energy. “You have no idea what is happening here, Luka Mors.”

“No?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. Brushing back hair that fell in his face with the movement, he pushed off the doorjamb. “You don’t think you’re being used here?”

“It isn’t like that.”

“Then tell me how it is, little one. Tell me how you’ve got this whole fucked up realm figured out in mere months, when we haven’t been able to figure it out in decades,” Luka said, stopping a few feet from her.

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