Page 156 of Rain of Shadows and Endings

“I think you ask enough of me the way it is.”

Her fingers were still clutching at his shirt, and she felt him tense beneath her hand.

He cleared his throat as he straightened, his hands slipping from her face and hair. “We should get going. Do you need anything else before we go back to the vehicle?”

Tessa shook her head, quickly uncurling her fingers from his shirt and taking a step back from him. She looked around the field, but Luka and Axel were nowhere to be found. The lightness she’d been feeling was already lessening, and she wrapped her arms around herself as the sun slipped behind clouds once more.

Theon glanced up at the sky, then back at her, his brow furrowing as if he couldn’t figure something out.

As if he couldn’t figure her out.

She fell into step beside him, and neither of them spoke as they made their way back down to the street. Theon did not reach for her hand, and for once, the cord that connected them did not seem to mind.

Axel and Luka were waiting for them at the vehicle, both of them looking from Theon to her and back again. She saw Theon shake his head the smallest amount when Axel opened his mouth to say something, and his brother quickly snapped it shut again.

“Are we ready?” Luka asked, keys in hand.

She didn’t answer, dread already filling her at having to go back into the vehicle. She was trying to soak up every bit of being outside.

It wasn’t until they were back on the road, her earbuds back in place as she scrolled through playlists that she realized Theon had not been holding her to him the entire time they’d kissed. There had been no arm looped around her waist. She could have stepped away at any time. In fact, she had been clinging to him.

Startled by the realization, she glanced up at him. He was looking at something on his phone, his features tight and mouth set in a thin line. There was space between them, and he’d hardly spoken since they’d all climbed back into the vehicle. He’d hardly looked at her.

And as she returned her attention to the music on her phone, she wondered what he had wanted to ask of her.

* * *

“Can I ask you a question?” Tessa said, pulling an earbud from her ear.

The entire vehicle fell silent, all eyes settling on her. Axel reached over and turned down the music, and they all waited. It was rather unsettling.

When Theon nodded at her, she cleared her throat softly, pulling out her other earbud. “What is a Guardian Mark?”

“What?” Theon said, obvious shock in his tone.

“I was looking through some things on the computer, and I found some of your old lesson papers,” she replied, skimming the one she currently had open.

Axel twisted even more in his seat to look at Theon. “Seriously? You have old lesson papers still saved on your computer?”

“I never clean my files out,” Theon retorted. “I gave Tessa access to my entire network. Some files are password protected. Obviously those are not.” His attention returned to her. “Why are you looking through those anyway?”

She shrugged. “I’m bored.”

“We only have about an hour left,” Luka said.

“Great,” Tessa replied. “So about this Guardian thing. This paper Theon wrote says it’s a Mark of some kind.”

“It is,” Theon answered slowly.

“Like the Source Marks?”

“Sort of.”

“According to your paper, they incorporated the Guardian Mark into the Source Marks somehow.”

“It is a theory.”

“Right. A theory…” she murmured, continuing to skim through the document again. “But what is it exactly?”

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