Chapter 17 #2
“You can’t even draw from a Source,” Rordan sneered. “I suggest you get an heir in your new wife’s belly before facing death.”
“I am death,” Theon retorted, his darkness swirling until his wings formed at his back.
“Be that as it may,” Rordan said, light flickering around him, “you will still fall if you attempt to make good on that threat.”
“No one is going to decide where I stay,” Tessa cut in, standing so abruptly she bumped the table.
Liquid sloshed over the rims of glasses, and her chair scraped lightly, nearly toppling over.
“I am not a possession to be passed around. I am no one’s to be used.
” Her eyes flashed to Felicity, and the female had the good sense to flinch back, inching closer to Theon.
Tessa planted her hands on the table, leaning closer as she added, “Or leashed. And I sure as fuck don’t need my power to remind you of your place, Ms. Davers. ”
She turned, stalking out of the room without looking back at any of the males who thought they could control her.
Her bare feet padded down the stairs and out to the places she knew best. She didn’t stop until she reached the park benches on the edge of the property, sinking down onto one and breathing in the crisp air.
Her eyes fell closed, and she tipped her head back, letting the sun try to warm her face.
The winter months were waning. The snow was gone, and there were signs that spring was trying to flourish.
Trying to find its way up from the frozen ground.
Trying to find the beauty it knew it was capable of if winter would just lift its oppressive hand from its neck.
Trying to grow and become something new.
“You have this knack for disappearing as of late,” drawled a male voice. “It makes everyone so uneasy.”
Tessa slowly opened her eyes, lifting her head to find Brecken standing before her.
He seemed paler, but she supposed everyone did in late winter, not spending as much time outside.
His brownish-blond hair stirred in the wind as his dark eyes took her in, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.
“What are you doing here?” she sneered.
“No one is letting you go off by yourself right now,” he replied with a shrug. “You can’t tell me they weren’t watching you wherever you’ve been hiding these last weeks.”
“So Dex sent you?”
“It was me or Oralia, and I need to keep up pretense. He’s growing suspicious.”
Tessa scoffed, closing her eyes and tipping her head back once more. While she didn’t exactly trust Brecken, the male had helped her get all those Fae to safety at the Sirana Villas and when she’d destroyed the Pantheon.
She heard his footsteps before the bench jostled when he sat beside her. Her lips pressed together, keeping in the words she was longing to say.
But Brecken seemed to know exactly what she was thinking because he said, “Ask it, Tessa.”
“There’s nothing to ask really,” she said, slipping her hands beneath her thighs to warm them while she toed at the ground.
“I could ask why you never told me. I could ask how you could have known what was happening to me and didn’t do anything about it.
I could ask so many things, but it all comes down to survival.
I can’t fault you for that, but I also can’t trust you because of it. ”
“That’s understandable.”
“Even the things you’ve helped me with, if you told anyone, you’d be implicating yourself. So it still comes back to your own basic survival. It’s the way of Devram.”
“It’s the way of most realms,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him while clasping his hands behind his head.
“How old are you? And Dex? Oralia?” she asked, peering at him sidelong.
“Oralia is the youngest of us. Still under a century. Dex is the oldest.”
She nodded, letting those truths settle. “And what do you have to gain from this? Or is it simply blind loyalty to Achaz?”
“We were created for a purpose,” he said, staring out across the desolate courtyard.
“From the time we could crawl we were taught that purpose: to serve Achaz. It isn’t much different here for the Fae.
We are born, complete our studies. Then we find our powers, studying beings the same way heirs watch the Sources here. ”
“And you killed an Arius Legacy?”
Brecken nodded, an arm falling along the back of the bench while the other fell to his side. “And I was rewarded greatly for it. It’s what got me the spot on this mission.”
“To find me?”
He clicked his tongue. “I told you once, your wellbeing was never my concern. You were always Dex’s main priority.”
“And you?”
“I was sent to aid him and the Achaz Legacy here, but I was given tasks of my own. So was Oralia,” he said, and he sounded almost…sad.
When he didn’t explain further, Tessa said, “How come you and Dex and Oralia can make your wings disappear, but it appears other seraphs can’t?”
“There is a difference between the seraphs and the Elite seraphs, just as there is a difference between dragons and Guardians.”
“So…you are a light guardian? Like Luka is to Theon?”
“Kind of. Only we’re all bound to Achaz, not another individual.”
She mulled that over in her mind for a few quiet moments before she said, “A few months ago, you told me your freedom depended on me being who I was meant to be.”
“And it does,” he said, turning to face her for the first time since he’d sat down. “There are so many paths before you. One path offers freedom to some while condemning others. Another path does the opposite. Some paths free many, while some paths bring only death.”
“And who am I meant to be then?”
“Come now, Tessa,” he chided, his signature smirk tilting on his lips. “I know how clever you are. I’ve watched you outwit the Achaz Lord and Dex these last months.” He chuckled under his breath. “You’ve provided quite the entertainment for me.”
“I’m so glad,” she muttered in irritation.
“You’re smart enough to know only you get to decide who you are meant to be. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing since being Selected? Fighting back? Telling everyone they don’t own you? That you can’t be leashed or collared? And yet…”
“And yet, what?” she snapped, her power stirring beneath her skin before quieting once more.
“And yet I’m not entirely sure you’ve convinced yourself of that yet. It’s why everyone continues to try to use you and trap you.”
She stared at him, words failing to come to her in any kind of retort.
“Anyway, it became about more than survival for me long ago. Well before I found myself in this cursed realm,” Brecken said. “Yet as cursed as this realm is, I’d rather stay in it than return to where I came from.”
Startled at the revelation, Tessa said, “You don’t want to go home?”
“That world stopped being my home when someone I loved was taken from me,” he answered, getting to his feet.
“It changed me. Much in the same way you’ve been changed.
I am powerful, but you? You could destroy a world, and I think you would.
You’ve been on the brink. It’s why they fear you so much.
It’s why they keep trying to collar you and leash you.
Because as soon as you fully believe in yourself and what you’re capable of? That’s when you’ll be free.”
There was a lump in her throat, and she swallowed around it as she peered up at him. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked hoarsely.
“So you can decide who you want to be,” he answered. “Not for me or Dex. Not for Theon or Luka or Achaz or Arius. But for you, Tessa.”
She looked away, trying to clear her head.
Maybe it was more pretty words. Maybe it was him trying to gain her trust. It was all anyone had done her entire life.
Become her lifeline so they could manipulate her.
He wanted freedom, and she was his ticket to it.
She wasn’t sure there was anything he could do to prove otherwise.
Then again, she’d once thought the same about Theon.
“Do you know how to take this cuff off?” she asked suddenly, lifting her arm. “We hate it.”
Brecken nodded slowly. “Those were designed to contain beings of Chaos during the Everlasting War. It requires the blood of three different First gods, or, in this case, their Legacy to remove it.”
“I am the blood of three different First gods,” she argued.
“Yes, but you’re the one entrapped. Not only that, we all know what your blood can summon,” Brecken pointed out.
The Hunters.
She’d been so careful not to call them forth since that day near the river.
“I can help you take it off, but it’ll take me a little time to get what we need. But doing so will also mean I won’t be able to be as…helpful,” Brecken ventured.
“Because they’ll know it was you who helped me,” she said with a sigh, twisting the cuff around her forearm. At least it didn’t bite into her skin like the other bands did.
“I’ll help,” he said again, getting to his feet. “Just give me a little time to work out a plan.”
“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” she asked as he turned to walk away.
“What you’ve been doing all along, Tessa. Figuring out who you want to be. But fair warning, you’re running out of time.”