Page 105 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
“We have a purpose,” she was saying softly, never ceasing her back and forth strides. “They could help? No, no. It’s too broken. I’m broken. They’re broken. The realms and the gods. There can never be a balance.”
Each step had her power trailing, the chaos echoing around her in a faint pulse. Not even that cuff could fully contain it. Her hands came up, fisting in her hair and pulling, and her face twisted in an agony that had his chest hurting. Itpainedhim to see her like this.
“You going to say something?” Brecken asked flatly.
But his throat was dry, the words a hoarse rasp when he said, “Little storm?”
She shook her head. “Wasting so much time. We save him, and then we leave. They can be together. Happy. And I can?—”
“Tessa, look at me,” he said, the words sterner, clearer. Breaking through whatever she was battling internally.
Her head snapped up, violet eyes latching onto his, and her mouth dropped open. “You… You came?”
“One day, Tessalyn Ausra, you will understand that I do not lie to you,” he said, rooted in place as she stared back at him. “I will always come for you.”
She worried her bottom lip, one hand drifting back up to her hair as her gaze slid to Brecken. “You brought him here?”
“I did tell you time was running out,” he replied, the lull-leaf between his fingers. “But I suppose I also am trying to prove something to you for some reason.”
She scoffed, the smallest of smiles tugging at her lips, and while Theon was certain he didn’t need to be, a minute part of him was jealous that she’d only smiled at the seraph since they’d appeared here.
Theon cleared his throat. “He said you would explain why we don’t have to worry about him telling anyone I’m in here.”
She was still staring at Brecken when she said, “He has been helping me. At the Sirana Villas and the Pantheon. He helped ensure the Fae were out of harm’s way before I…”
“Then you believe we won’t have unwanted interruptions tonight?”
Her eyes flashed to his, lightning flickering in their depths. “Where is yourwife?”
He smiled then, a dark smirk that had her eyes widening slightly, but she held her ground. “That will be all,” he said, keeping her attention on him as he dismissed Brecken.
He heard the seraph’s chuckle under his breath before he Traveled out, and for the first time in months, he was alone with Tessa.
“Are you jealous, tempest?” he asked, one hand sliding into his pocket while the other came up, his thumb pressing to the corner of his mouth as he watched her.
“No,” she sneered.
“Still with the lies,” he chided.
“Enough,” she snapped, both hands back in her hair, getting caught as she pulled. “I thought— You said— We came back to—” She was pacing in a small circle, nearly spinning in place, and then she whirled back to face him. “You said I could trust you. That you’d prove it to me. That you were mine. You can’t be mine and hers. You can’t…”
“I am only yours, Tessa,” he said, his voice low and clear. “In this life and all the ones to come.”
“You have awife, Theon!” she cried. “How can you say that to me? I mean, I know I’m… I know I wanted… I know there’s you and there’s Luka, but this isn’t that. I know it’s not, and I can’t— I won’t…” She trailed off, shaking her head as she stumbled over her words, fury and agony behind every single one.
“She’s not my wife,” he said when she fell silent, her chest heaving with her emotions.
And she went so preternaturally still, he wasn’t even sure she was breathing. Even her power had stilled, specks of gold and silver, white and onyx, frozen in the air around her, tangled with her hair. She looked fucking ethereal.
“She’s not my wife,” he repeated. “She thinks she is. Everyone believes she is. The priestess who performed the rite and gave the Union Mark was Gia. It’s incomplete and not binding. At least not in that way.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded.
“Gia wove a binding Mark into this one. Disguised it, I guess you could say. If Felicity learns the truth, she will be unable to betray me,” he replied.
“Then she is bound to you.”
“Until I decide to free her from that oath, yes. I suppose she is.”
