Page 161 of Rain of Shadows and Endings

“You really don’t know?” Axel asked.

“Why would I know? I thought he was an Arius Legacy. I thought he was your cousin or something.”

“Luka can shift his form,” Theon said slowly.

“I don’t understand.”

“Luka can shift into what it is believed Arius’s elite guardians were created in the image of.”

“Which is what?”

A wry smile curved up on Axel’s lips. “Luka can shift into a dragon, baby doll.”

31

THEON

“A dragon,” Tessa repeated.

“You really didn’t know?” Axel asked.

“No!” Tessa said incredulously. “How would I possibly know that Luka can shift into a dragon? Wait. No. Better question. How could you assholes not tell me this before now?”

Axel shrugged. “His eyes change when he gets irritated. And when he’s really mad or if Theon is being threatened, he’ll breathe out smoke. He did it at the last meeting with our father. You didn’t see that?”

“Oh, sorry,” Tessa drawled. “I was too preoccupied with Theon torturing someone with his shadows or darkness or whatever the fuck it is you two control.” She smacked Axel on the shoulder. “No, I didn’t see that.”

“You’re not very observant then,” Axel retorted.

Theon held in his bark of laughter at the look Tessa sent his way. She was still leaning over the center console between the front seats, and she twisted back to Luka. The whole Luka-can-shift-into-a-dragon thing seemed to have distracted her from the Source Marks and what they would require of her. But he’d also spoken the truth. Luka would defend him before either of them would let Tessa put herself in harm’s way for him.

Which was exactly the opposite of his father and Eviana, and not for the first time, Theon wondered if something had gone wrong with his bond with Tessa. Had the Priestess made an error with the Mark somehow? Had he not invoked the wording correctly? Magic was finicky and needed to be done precisely.

She had air magic. There was no doubt about that. When she had shoved him on their balcony last night, he had felt the force of it. He had felt her power wrap around him, and he had felt his darkness rise up to meet it. Just as quickly, her magic had dissipated, but for that split-second their magic had touched, he’d felt…so much he hadn’t been able to process it all.

Pleasure.

Desire.

Euphoria.

Her.

He’d felt Tessa in a way he never had before. He’d felt her strength. He’d felt her power.

He’d felt the storm he often glimpsed in her eyes, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was prepared to harness that power when he could access it. He was going to need her help in controlling it, but to get that to happen, he needed her to trust him.

But if she had air magic, how had she created that crevice in the gardens? And what about the things that had crawled out of it? That was not air and wind, and her assessment had given them nothing else to go on aside from her power level. He’d been researching possibilities, but so far, he’d found nothing to explain it. Luka had searched for hours trying to find traces of the things, but it was as if they’d just disappeared.

He glanced out the window again. The gathering clouds seemed to have lessened some, sunlight breaking through. His eyes flicked back to Tessa, who was still leaning into the front seat.

“This actually explains a lot,” she was saying.

“What does that mean?” Axel asked.

“Luka is always so brooding. I imagine dragons are broody.”

“I am not broody,” Luka muttered.

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