Page 10 of Tempest of Wrath and Vengeance

“You are not the Keeper,” Tessa said, taking another step back.

“Am I not?”

“I… How are you here?”

“The same way you are here,” she answered.

“But I do not know howIam here.”

The female tsked from beneath her hood. “You know where your answers lie, daughter of wild and fury. You simply do not wish to have them.”

“That is not true,” she snarled, lurching forward as light arced from her palms. She directed it to the side a second before it could collide with the female, cracking the edge of the fountain.

“He has your answers,” the female replied calmly.

“He will not answer my questions,” Tessa argued.

She nodded. “He will not until he knows where you stand.”

Tessa growled in frustration, causing Roan to get to his feet and place himself between them.

“And still they guard you,” the female murmured so low Tessa barely heard her. “Perhaps all is not lost yet.”

“Perhaps everyone still underestimates me,” Tessa countered, a gust of wind blowing through the courtyard. Her golden hair blew across her face, snowflakes getting caught in the strands. She brushed them out of the way as a golden mist started floating up from the crack in the fountain lip. Seconds later, a Hunter stood beside her. Roan was growling now, but the female was backing up.

“You stand on the precipice of salvation and destruction, Tessalyn. Choose wisely.”

Then she was gone, disappearing into the very air. Tessa wasn’t remotely surprised she could Travel. It appeared one ofTheon’s first actions as the acting Arius Lord was to rescind the banishment placed on Cienna that had been keeping her confined to the Underground to avoid Valter’s death sentence. But that meant everyone who believed the Keeper was one person was wrong. There was more than one, and as of this moment, she was perhaps the only one who knew that secret.

She smiled to herself as she filed that information away with all the other secrets she’d collected. She’d figure out who the other Keepers were. She already had ideas and would be able to test those theories in time. Brecken had let secrets of his own slip in that alleyway. And the Lords and Ladies? The tension between them was already growing. She could have stayed and witnessed more of that, but this information regarding the Keeper was worth missing out on that.

“You called, your grace?” the Hunter asked, his voice raspy and unearthly as it always was. She’d come to love it. It was as icy as her own soul had become.

He glided in front of her, his pale skin as white as the falling snow.

“You suggested visiting the Pantheon last night,” Tessa answered. “Is that still necessary?”

“He will see you, but you must find your way to him.”

“Then let’s go.”

“And the Arius blood I taste in the air?” the Hunter asked.

She shook her head, making her way to the Pantheon. “Not today. I cannot draw any more attention, especially once we’re inside.”

“Understood, your grace.”

There was a flash of light before he passed her a golden sword with a sheath that buckled across her chest. The sword settled between her shoulder blades as if it had always been a part of her. Always hers. Since the dawn of time.

People scattered, veering down side streets as she approached, and gods, it felt so good. She’d take the terror over the sneers and condescension. The guards at the Pantheon tried to bar her entrance as she approached, but as soon as her lips tilted up and her head canted to the side, they scrambled aside moments before her power struck where they’d been standing. These people would have turned her over solely for existing. She didn’t have it in her to care about morals anymore.

Then again, that wasn’t true either.

It wasn’t true as she strolled through the halls of the Pantheon, going deeper and deeper where no one was allowed but the priestesses. It wasn’t true as she came upon two of those priestesses with a male Fae who clearly didn’t want to be there. It wasn’t true when she didn’t hesitate to send her light arching and wrapping around their slender throats. It wasn’t true when the Hunter tried to tell her they were Zinta Legacy, and she silenced him with a single look before her power fed on the death she bestowed. It certainly wasn’t true as she bent to retrieve the male’s clothing and handed it to him, his trembling fingers closing around the fabric and his eyes staying fixed to the floor.

She crouched before him, tipping his head up with a single finger beneath his chin. “You can access the deepest parts of the Pantheon?” she asked, holding his hazel stare.

The Fae shook his head. “I can only go where the priestesses can. The deepest parts are reserved for the?—”

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