Page 246 of Storm of Secrets and Sorrow

His brows pulled together. “It isn’t pity, Tessa.”

“No? You giving me your extra minutes isn’t because you feel sorry for me? Because there is no need,” she snapped.

“I know that,” he said calmly. “You don’t need anyone to feel sorry for you. I’ve been training you. I know how strong you are.”

She faltered, the sneer on her lips fading a little at his words. “You need to leave.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

He took a single step towards her, and he watched her throat bob. Felt the sliver of curiosity and want slip through her shields. Heard her curse herself in her thoughts.

“I’ll leave if that’s what you really want,” he said after a moment.

“It is,” she snapped.

“All right. Do you need anything before I go?”

“Do I— No,” she said in a rush. “Thank you for bringing the gift. It is important to me.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know what it was,” Luka said.

“I meant it is important to me so I don’t upset Rordan,” she answered, swiping up another cracker.

“I see.”

Violet-grey eyes stared back at him, and he held her gaze, both of them acknowledging she was lying in that stare.

“You can reach us down the bond,” Luka said, getting ready to Travel. “I can’t promise we can come right away, or when I can even come again. But we can feel you, hear you.” She said nothing. “Keep fighting, little one,” he finally said before picturing where he wanted to go.

“Would it have been like this?” she blurted, halting him a heartbeat before he stepped through a rip in the air.

“What?” Luka asked.

She wouldn’t look at him now. She lifted herself onto the table, her feet swinging as she sat, breaking her cracker in half and crushing the crumbs beneath her fingers. “I was to be your Match. Would it have been like this?”

“You need to be more specific, Tessa,” Luka said. “Been like what?”

“You. Me. This. Like tonight. If it is still night. I know you didn’t want it, but…” She shrugged as she trailed off.

In three long strides he was directly in front of her. He moved fast, and she lurched back in her surprise. Grapes rolled to the floor and dishes rattled, but he was stepping between her legs and taking her chin in his thumb and forefinger. A gasp escaped from her lips as her eyes snapped to his.

“Luka, what?—”

“If you were my Match, I wouldn’t call you such a thing,” he said and her eyes darted to the side. Until he said, “I would call you my wife, my partner, my light. Anything but my Match.” He heard her breath catch as she held his stare now, her face giving nothing away. “But you asked what it would have been like. What a casual night in would be like if you were those things to me.”

“I did,” she agreed on a breath, a slight tremor to her voice.

“Our nights wouldn’t be spent like this,” he answered, and he watched her face fall a little at the words. “Our nights would be spent on balconies under the stars talking or on sofas before fires watching a Chaosphere game. Our nights would be more than fucking fruit, cheese, and crackers. Our nights would be soft words instead of barbed ones to deflect and protect. Our nights would be intimate touches rather than frantic ones of uncertainty. Our nights would bemyhands in your hair instead of your fingers pulling on the strands. Our nights would be anythingbutwhatever the fuck this is. Our nights wouldn’t involve mental shields blocking each other out, and if you tried, I’d call you out on that bullshit. But I can’t do that right now, can I?”

She swallowed again, shaking her head in his grasp.

“Our nights would be dark, but you’d love it there because you’d realize we need your light as much as you crave the dark.”

“I hate the dark,” she challenged.

His lips curled in a knowing smirk. “You fear the darkbecauseyou crave it, Tessa. You hate it because you think you are alone there, but your nights would never be spent alone. Never again. That’s what it would have been like.”

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