Chapter 2
LUKA
At least Tristyn waited until they all heard the door to her room click shut on the floor above before he rounded on Luka.
“That’s it? What the fuck, Luka? We need to do something,” Blackheart spat, hurling his cup of coffee across the room.
The ceramic mug shattered where it hit the wall, and Luka couldn’t help but smirk.
He’d been handling the tantrums of the St. Orcas brothers and the Arius Lord for over two decades.
Males who were used to commanding a room and being obeyed without question.
He should maybe be concerned that Tristyn was a deity, and maybe he would have been if he hadn’t also been dealing with Tessa the last several months.
“I told you not to coddle her,” Luka replied in a bored tone as he made his way to the food spread. “She can see right through that shit.”
“We need to draw her out of herself, not give her more reason to sink into her power,” Blackheart retorted.
“You all act like she’s going to go off any second.”
“She is unpredictable. Do you not remember what happened at the Pantheon when Theon left?”
A warning growl rumbled from his chest at the mention of that day.
As if he needed any sort of reminder of what had happened.
He relived it every time he closed his eyes.
Every time he slept, which was only when she was sleeping, he hoped Tessa would draw him into her dreams so he could see what exactly was going on in that mind of hers, but it never came.
She clearly didn’t trust him anymore, and the feeling was pretty fucking mutual.
The problem was that since he wasn’t pulled into her dreams, he instead relived the nightmare of that day repeatedly.
Of watching his best friend, his true brother, walk out of that chamber.
Of Tessa thrashing in his arms. Trying to talk to the others over her shrieks of fury and her power that flared more and more.
Gritting his teeth against the shocks of energy that rippled off her, sinking into his being and power, trying to latch on to anything it could.
It had wanted to take, and she had let it do whatever it wanted.
His power hadn’t been enough to counter it, just as Theon’s had never been enough by itself.
Razik had helped, the power of two grandsons of Sargon at least containing her, but it had taken the addition of both Tristyn and Cienna to finally stop her.
And stop probably wasn’t the best word to use.
The siblings had combined their gifts from their father, Pax, the god of peace and calming, and their mother, a powerful witch.
They’d managed to put Tessa into a deep sleep, and Luka had felt a twinge of guilt the moment she’d gone lax in his arms. And while Tessa may have been in a magic-induced coma of sorts, he could still feel her magic thrashing in her soul.
Angry.
Vengeful.
Chaotic.
Everyone else had wanted to leave right then and there.
Eliza was already at the mirror preparing to summon her queen when Luka had stopped her.
He was the real reason they hadn’t left Devram yet.
He was the reason they were still here two weeks later.
Everyone thought it was because of Tessa, and it was in a way, but he was admittedly dragging his feet on this.
He’d initially argued it would be a mistake to take Tessa from the only world she knew when she was already volatile.
She’d wake up in unfamiliar surroundings in a new world, reeling from everything that had been said in that chamber, and her power would consume her.
It might have been true; it might have been an exaggeration.
Either way, everyone else eventually agreed, more afraid of her than they needed to be.
And while it drove him mad she hadn’t uttered a single word to anyone since she woke a day later and all the days since, he hadn’t had to argue about staying when she was displaying just how unstable she was at the moment.
His arguments may have been about Tessa, but in truth, he was trying to think of a way out of this.
He knew Theon’s orders, but the idea of leaving his best friend behind in a world that would be destroyed?
His family? His brothers he’d been raised with?
Suffered and survived with? All those years of plotting and planning?
He wasn’t sure he could live with himself if he didn’t at least try.
But he’d come up short and patience had clearly run out.This morning, every single person, including his father, had said it was time to go.
They’d tried to include Tessa in the decision, and Luka had hoped she’d finally argue, but of course, there’d been nothing from her.
Just her watching, listening, and learning everything she could.
Still following Theon’s orders to this day.
Except she’d learned to be just as cunning and vicious as the Arius Heir too, and while it made her a bigger pain in his ass, it also made the dragon in his soul want her even more. Once again, he was at odds with the thing, especially now that they’d had a taste of what could have been with her.
“You have nothing to say?” Tristyn demanded as Luka layered deli meat onto slices of bread.
“What is there to say?” Luka countered, annoyed that now they suddenly wanted his opinion, when for the last two weeks they’d been arguing with him.
“Are you even trying to help her?” the male snarled. “Do you even care at this point?”
Of course he fucking cared.
That was the entire godsdamn problem.
He cared about Theon.
He cared about Axel.
And damn it all to the Pits of Torment, he cared about Tessa when he absolutely fucking shouldn’t.
He’d gone in a godsdamn circle. Wanting her and denying himself, forced to spend time with her, finally having her, and now back to not wanting to want her.
The Fates were cruel.
“Tristyn makes valid points.”
Luka turned to his father, finding him standing across the room on his own.
Razik wouldn’t give him the time of day, and Eliza, while not blindly loyal to her mate, was still standing firmly beside him.
Cienna and Gia had claimed seats on the sofa now that Tessa had left, and Luka took a bite of his sandwich, waiting for the male to go on.
Xan crossed his arms, mirroring Razik’s stance and one that Luka often found himself in. “She’s too quiet. Chaos is never quiet.”
“This is information that would have been helpful a couple decades ago, Xan,” Tristyn bit out, pulling a roll of lull-leaf from his jacket pocket and lighting it up before dragging a hand through his hair that immediately fell back into his eyes.
His glowing sage eyes.
“We didn’t know. Nobody knew what she would grow to be. Everyone has been waiting and watching,” Xan replied.
“But you had to have had an idea,” Tristyn argued.
“Everyone had ideas, including Rordan and Valter,” Xan retorted. “You’ve seen firsthand how they tried to prepare for what she could be. We all failed in this the moment we lost her.”
“We lost track of her. They lost track of her. The fucking Fates lost track of her,” Tristyn said, blowing out a plume of smoke. His entire body was already relaxing, the tension bleeding out of his limbs. “But the day you placed that babe in my arms, you—”
The sound of a plate clattering to the table interrupted whatever Blackheart was saying, and all eyes turned toward Luka, where his half-eaten sandwich was now on the table.
“Surely I misheard the two of you because it sounded like you,” he pointed at his father, “brought Tessa to Devram, and then handed her over to you.” He finished, moving his finger to Blackheart. When both males remained silent, he said, “We all came here because of her?”
“Let me guess,” Razik cut in, his words dripping with disdain. “You weren’t abandoned in another realm because you were needed.”
“Needed for what?” Luka asked, turning to his brother to find him smirking in derision.
“The same thing I was abandoned for. A direct descendant of Sargon? The son of Temural’s Guardian? Nothing is more important to him than fulfilling our duty,” Razik said, glowing eyes holding Luka’s.
“I was always supposed to be hers,” Luka muttered, repeating words she’d whispered to him more than once. She’d known, her soul had known, but he’d always thought it meant…
He turned back to their father. “Is that true? Is that the reason I was brought here?”
Xan sighed, his arms dropping to his sides. He winced a little when the collar at his throat jostled. The collar they’d tried countless times to remove without success.
“It’s not just about a Guardian bond. Yes, your Wards are safer with you, but you are also safer when bonded to another. Bonds are more complex than simple words and magic tricks. Surely you all realize that by now,” Xan said.
Luka glanced at Razik, his brother’s features back to stoic, but Luka saw the slight head tilt that told him Eliza was speaking down their bond. And while he suddenly found himself with even more questions, the one that came from his mouth was, “Does Tessa know?”
“Know what?” Xan asked.
“That you brought her here. That you handed her over to Blackheart. That I was…” He trailed off, not sure how to phrase everything he was trying to wrap his mind around.
“Valter told her I brought her here, but she never asked me about it,” his father answered, shifting on his feet. “I expected her to. Waited for the question every time she found her way to my cell, but she never did.”
“And you?” Luka pressed, looking at Blackheart.
“I never told her,” Tristyn said. “I was trying to gain her trust, and that didn’t seem conducive to that goal. I always planned to. It just…never came up.”
“It never came up?” Luka repeated. “She’s been searching for answers for months, her entire godsdamn life, and it never fucking came up?”
“We can only interfere so much,” Cienna cut in.