Page 151 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
“What do you mean ‘what else?’” Theon asked, watching him carefully, because of course he was. Always worrying about those he viewed as his.
“What else do I need to know?”
He went quiet, and Luka glanced up in between shoveling mashed potatoes into his mouth. His friend’s hands were bracedon the countertop, head hanging down as he clearly debated how to say something. Luka was about to tell him just to spit it out, but then his dragon stirred in his soul and he could have cried. Because he’d felt his dragon dying, and somehow it was still here. It hadn’t moved, and Luka had been too afraid to try to summon it because what if it had been gone? But something else had summoned it. Or someone. And he didn’t need to turn around to know who was standing in the kitchen doorway. Just like he didn’t need to see the look on Theon’s face as his attention went there too.
“Sleep well, beautiful?” Theon asked. She must have nodded because he followed up with, “Are you hungry?”
“No,” she said softly. “I won’t stay. I just wanted to…see.”
“You don’t have to go?—”
“It’s fine, Theon,” she interrupted. “I just needed to see.”
Theon clearly waited until she was gone before his eyes slid back to Luka. “You need to talk to her.”
“I just woke up. She was sleeping. Haven’t really had time,” Luka muttered, stabbing at some squash.
Theon sighed. “I know. It’s just… There’s a lot happening right now, and we can’t have this hanging over us. It will interfere. I’m assuming you made a decision, and that’s why you’d come to find us?”
“I said I’ll talk to her,” Luka growled. “Can I finish fucking eating first?”
Theon nodded, tapping his index finger on the counter. Once. Twice. Three times. Luka dropped his fork to his plate.
“Say it,” he said, crossing his arms and watching his friend.
“Say what?”
“Whatever it was you were about to tell me before Tessa appeared. Whatever is eating at you so we can move past that too.”
Theon straightened, that hand going through his hair again as a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Jove and the Ladies gave me a path to the Arius seat,” he said. “You asked how I could be the Arius Lord with my father still alive. They gave me a way to do that.”
“Which is?” Luka asked, bracing his forearms on the countertop.
“If I had a formal Match, they would all agree to appoint me.”
“You have a Match. Or had one. Didn’t you say Tessa killed her?”
Theon nodded. “I did. They wouldn’t release Tessa to me until I had the Match Ceremony performed. Felicity was with me under the guise of being my wife. Even she didn’t know it wasn’t real.”
“And now you have Tessa and no wife,” Luka surmised. “How do you plan to take the seat now?”
“That’s the thing,” he said, holding Luka’s stare as he lifted his arm. The new Mark wound around his wrist. “I do have a wife.”
Luka didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. All he could think to say was, “Did she agree to this?”
Theon’s brow furrowed. “Are you asking if I forced her into it?”
“You did force her into a bond. It’s not far-fetched,” he replied plainly.
“Fuck off, Luka,” Theon retorted. “If you can’t see things have changed, then I don’t know what to tell you. I asked her to do this for me, and she agreed with stipulations of her own.”
“Which were what?” Luka ground out.
“Ask her,” Theon answered with a cruel smirk. “Sounds like the two of you have a lot to discuss.”
Then he grabbed Luka’s plate and turned away, apparently done with the conversation. Which was fine. If the fucker wasgoing to dismiss him, he didn’t need to sit here in awkward silence.
He pushed back from the counter, his stool scraping on the kitchen floor.
