Chapter 8 #3
“Where are you off to?” Tristyn asked, looking around the passage as though he wasn’t monitoring what kind of threat she was in this moment.
“Shouldn’t you know the answer to that?” Tessa sang, dancing back from them to press a palm to the wall once more. Her power snaked out of her, winding along the rock, and Luka reached out, yanking her hand away.
“The gods help you if you destroy this cave, Tessa,” he growled.
She didn’t even look at him as she said, “The gods never help me. I don’t see why they’d start now.”
Tristyn cleared his throat, sending a warning look to Luka as he said, “I think you’re confusing me with my sister, wild fury. She’s the one who can see the ever-changing.”
Tessa hummed, pulling her wrist from Luka’s grip. Her hands fell to her sides, where she fisted them in the fabric of her dress. “Then what do you want?”
“I’m glad you asked,” he said with a hint of mischief. He pulled his hands from his pockets, opening one before her. In the center of his palm were two rolls of lull-leaf.
Her eyes narrowed as she met Tristyn’s gaze once more. “Is this how your father keeps the peace as well?” she asked, picking up one of the rolls and twisting it between her fingers.
Blackheart’s eyes darkened. “My father views peace as optional in most cases, and he decides when it’s a weapon to wield.”
She only hummed once more. “Then what is this? A peace offering?”
“Without pizza and agaveheart?” Tristyn scoffed. “What kind of a peace offering is that?”
Seconds ticked by, the passage falling eerily silent until she held the lull-leaf back out to him. “I don’t trust you, Tris,” she said with a sigh.
The male’s arrogance faltered, but only for a moment, before he took a single step forward. “What do I need to do, Tessa? I’ve sworn loyalty to you. What can I give you in penance?”
In the next breath, her entire face lit up as she said, “A story.”
Tristyn’s face paled at the words. “I think stories are more your thing, wild fury. Not mine.”
She stumbled forward, somehow tripping on the length of her skirt.
Luka moved to catch her, but she was already clutching at Tristyn’s arm, crushing the lull-leaf roll in her hand.
“You have to tell me a story,” she insisted, panic and mania creeping into her voice.
“We’re the same. You are alone. And I’m alone.
And you survived. I need to know how to survive being alone.
We were alone for so long, and then I thought…
And then we weren’t, and now we are. And I know it’s my fault, but—”
She stopped speaking abruptly when Tristyn reached up and ran a hand down her hair, hushing her with a soothing sound.
“All right, Tessa,” he said softly, and Luka knew he was using his gifts on her right now.
“I’ll tell you a story.” She nodded, her body still too tense even with his power.
Meeting Luka’s gaze, Tristyn said, “I’ve got her. Take a break, Mors.”
“Take a break,” Tessa murmured. “He doesn’t want us.
We struck too deep. We chose destruction.
” Before he could say anything in response, her head snapped up.
She lurched from Tristyn’s hold, suddenly in front of Luka.
Her hands fisted in his shirt, and she clung to him, saying, “But I saved him for you.”
There was a pleading in her voice he didn’t understand as he clasped her upper arms, trying to ease the white-knuckled grip she had on his shirt. “Saved who, Tessa?” Luka asked.
But she was shaking her head, back to mumbling. “He can’t see.” Lifting her gaze to his, grey was peaking through the violet and gold that often hid the color from them these days. “You can’t see.”
“See what, Tessa?”
Her smile was small and sad as she released him, slowly backing away. Shaking her head, she murmured, “He can’t see.”
Then she was drifting down the passage away from him, back to humming and sliding her hand along the wall, her fingers and bare feet leaving a trail of magic behind her.
“I’ve got her. Seriously, Mors. Take a break for a while,” Blackheart said with a grim smile.
“She’s in too deep,” Luka said.
“I know,” was all the male replied before he turned to follow the fury of chaos.
Luka stayed rooted to the spot long after they had disappeared. He wasn’t even sure where they’d end up.
You can’t see.
Stay where I can see you.
I saved him for you.
Saved who? His father? He’d done that. He was the one who had gone to get his father after learning where he was. Not her.
Gritting his teeth, he turned and went back the way he’d come. Reaching the main living space, he found Eliza had disappeared somewhere, leaving him with only his brother and father. Which was great. He’d been hoping they all would have fucked off somewhere after the confrontation with Tessa.
Xan was in the kitchen cleaning up the food spread that few people had touched.
Luka suspected it was simply to have something to do.
It appeared sitting around doing nothing wasn’t something their bloodline was accustomed to.
All three of them were restless and itching to act.
To do something. It wasn’t in their nature to hide.
It was in their nature to protect and fight for those they viewed as theirs.
“Apparently she didn’t need you to protect her from me after all,” Razik drawled from the sofa, sitting in the same place Eliza had been.
“I don’t think Eliza needs your protection either, yet you still shoved her behind you,” Luka retorted, stalking past him to help their father.
“Eliza doesn’t need me to protect her,” his brother replied, an arm draped along the back of the sofa as he watched them over his shoulder.
“Yet you do so anyway.”
“She is mine,” Razik replied simply. “She comes before all else, including myself and my Ward.” With a glare in their father’s direction, he begrudgingly added, “She is, indeed, my inevitable.”
Luka ground his teeth, turning away only to put himself in the path of his father.
“She’s not wrong, you know,” Xan said. “Achaz looks to conquer and divide individual realms. It’s what he’s been doing for centuries. The only way to survive it is for a realm to come together and resist him.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Luka ground out, bracing his hands on the counter’s edge, his head falling to his chest.
Xan moved to stand beside him, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms, wincing as the collar bit into his skin. Guilt washed over Luka at the realization they still had done absolutely nothing to even attempt to remove the thing.
“What do you wish she would have done? Left?” Xan pushed.
Luka didn’t know how to answer that. Leaving is what would keep Tessa safest. It was what he should want, but…
He wasn’t upset. He should be, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t even entirely sure he would have tried to talk her out of it. If he was upset about anything, it was that she hadn’t included him in her plan. Irony at its absolute finest.
“Can I speak plainly?” his father asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
He glanced at the sofa to find Razik gone. The only reason he nodded was because they were alone. He had a feeling this wasn’t a conversation he wanted anyone else around for.
“An inevitable bond is not forced, Luka,” Xan said.
“There is a pull you both feel. It is overwhelming, but it is not like a twin flame bond. It is not something destined by the Fates. It is as wild and untamed as the Chaos it comes from, and it only appears when two souls need it most. But in the end, it is still a choice.”
“And you think I would be foolish not to choose it,” Luka said bitterly. “That I would be throwing away something others will only ever long for.”
“You put words in my mouth, son,” Xan said, pushing off the counter.
He paused, gripping Luka’s shoulder and squeezing.
“I think you have experienced much loneliness, loss, and torment in your short years, and it has shaped how you view the world and what you value. And I think the hardest part of all of this for you is that you know she is the same. A mirror of what you are. The hardest part for you is that if you fault her, you must also fault yourself.” He squeezed his shoulder once more before releasing him.
“You still care, and that eats away at you. You feel out of control, drawn to something you don’t want to want, but torn between what you believe is your duty.
So I will say this: remember the bond only comes to be when two souls need it most. It is a bond born of Chaos. ”
He left Luka standing in the kitchen, crossing the room and making his way to the passage that would lead to the cave entrance. But he paused before he disappeared from view, turning back to Luka once more.
“For what it’s worth, she still claims you,” he said. “In the only way she knows how.”
“She doesn’t know what it means to claim someone,” Luka retorted scathingly.
Xan’s only answer was a resigned nod that made a sense of shame crawl up Luka’s spine. He could tell his father was disappointed, but he didn’t understand. He let Razik hold his grudge, but faulted Luka for this?
With a growl of frustration, he stalked towards his room. He needed to fly. He needed to breathe. He needed to talk to his godsdamn best friend.
And he needed to get away from the temptress that had upended his entire world.
She wasn’t the one for this. Just like he’d said all along.