Chapter 26 Tessa #2
Just like when she took, her power raced through him. It wrapped around bone and muscle, seeped into his blood. It twisted around his lungs, taking shallow breaths too far apart. It encased his heart, infusing the organ that was scarcely beating.
That fluttered under her magic.
Then stopped beating altogether.
“No!” she cried, pushing up on her knees to hover over him, her face inches from his. “No, Luka Mors. You stubborn, broody ass! You do not get to leave me here. Do you hear me? I said I would let you go, set you free to live a life you wanted. I didn’t let you go so you could… No!”
Someone tried to grab her, but she threw them off.
“We need to leave this place,” someone—Razik—was saying. “It’s out in the open, not to mention enemy territory.”
“And go where?” Eliza asked.
“The Underground,” Razik answered. “It’s the safest space.”
“And warded,” she argued. “We can’t haul Luka through those tunnels, and Theon can’t even stand.”
“But Tessa can cross wards without issue,” Brecken said suddenly. Then she felt him shift, presumably kneeling down beside her because he sounded closer when he said, “Can you Travel us, Tessa? All of us? I’m told Axel is in the penthouse. Then we can…figure all this out. Can you do that?”
She gave a sharp nod, her eyes still closed as she continued to pour herself into Luka.
“Now, Tess,” Brecken whispered.
And she did just that, pulling them all through space and depositing them in the main living room of the penthouse.
“What the fuck?” Axel barked, crashing sounds echoing around her.
Tessa opened her eyes just in time to see Axel rushing toward them, but she lifted her other hand, a burst of energy sending him flying backwards. No one was getting close to him. Not until his heart was beating.
“Somebody tell me what the fuck is going on right now,” Axel demanded, a dark command that made her power pause for the smallest of moments. Her eyes were already closed again, trying to focus.
“Tessa,” came a rasped voice at her side, and she shook her head. Because if she looked at Theon right now, it was over. If he told her it was over, it was too real. Because Theon never lied to her, and if he said it, it was true, and she refused to accept that.
There were noises, people talking, but she wasn’t listening. Didn’t care what they were saying. Because this wasn’t how they ended. She refused to accept this.
Her power was still wrapped around Luka and everything he was, and she just needed his heart to start beating again. Energy flared, a shock of power that she felt ripple through him, but it still did nothing.
A touch to her back, a touch she knew. Darkness and control. She still refused to look at him. But his power was there, and she heard him grunt as she pulled on it again. If she wasn’t enough, she’d use Theon’s power too. If that wasn’t enough, she’d find more power to take.
“Tessa, stop,” someone else was saying. “Not like this.”
But it would be like this because something had to work. Something had to fix this.
“Tessa—”
She didn’t know who was trying to talk to her, but her answer was a feral scream of utter fury and anguish. This was not how this was going to end.
Chaos erupted around her. It wasn’t destructive like it had been beside Lake Moonmist. No, this Chaos settled onto Luka like an armor before sinking into his being.
She felt it in the power she already had laced through his body, in his veins, and around his bones.
It fused and merged, and she could feel it all racing throughout his being.
And then his heart beat.
Once.
Twice.
Nothing once more.
“No!” she cried, resting her cheek against his chest. She could feel the sticky blood on her skin, but she couldn’t feel him. She couldn’t…
“I know you don’t want me anymore, but I still want you, Luka. Please don’t… I still need you. It only works if it’s the three of us. I can’t…”
Tears were flowing down her face, mixing with the blood on his chest, and she couldn’t breathe.
Her chest wouldn’t expand, and still she pressed her hand atop that wound over his heart, right next to where she lay.
As long as she didn’t move her hand, there was still hope, and she had to believe hope wasn’t as useless as she’d once thought.
“What is that?” someone—Axel—asked, his voice low and somber.
“That is going to be a problem,” Cienna said.
“Tessa, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I don’t think…” Theon started, but he trailed off when Luka’s chest rose and fell. Then she felt his heart beat, pulsing beneath her magic as she held him together with all that she was.
One. Two. Three.
Just like when she was a child passing the time in a dark cupboard, she counted those heartbeats, and she kept counting each one.
One hundred sixty-three, one hundred sixty-four, one hundred sixty-five.
Not until she hit three hundred did she dare to open her eyes. Lift her head. See his chest rising and falling, slowly and too far apart, but it was moving.
“Cienna,” Theon said. “What is happening?”
“She is bartering with the gods and the Fates,” Cienna muttered. “Move her so I can work, Theon. Tris, I need you. Gia too.”
“Come, Tessa,” Theon said, gently taking her shoulders and pulling, but she still refused, clinging to Luka. What if everything changed when that connection was broken?
“Tessa, look at me. Now.” The last word held a bite, and she slid her eyes to his while still holding her hand in place.
“Good girl,” he said, cupping her cheek, his thumb sweeping across her skin.
“Now really look. If he was still dying, I would not be standing or forming words. I felt all of that, just like you did. I felt… I don’t feel that anymore. It’s fading. You feel that, right?”
She nodded, unable to speak as tears continued to trail down her face. That made sense. Was logical. But still…
“We need to let Cienna work, beautiful,” Theon continued, cautiously reaching for her wrist. His fingers closed around it, directly over the Mark that bound them together. Slowly he pulled her hand away, her fingertips dragging across flesh that was covered with blood. Then they both stilled.
Because the wound was gone. The space she’d refused to move from was healed, but left behind was a Mark. One she’d never seen.
“What is it?” Tessa asked, her voice hoarse from screaming and crying.
“I don’t know,” he answered, pulling her into his chest before standing and gently moving her from Luka’s side. “We’ll figure it out though, Tessa.”
“There will be a cost for this,” Eliza said, arms crossed as she watched the Witches work.
“We will pay whatever it is,” Theon said tightly.
“That’s just it,” she replied somberly. “You don’t get to decide who pays it. Fate will do what it must to keep the balance.”
“Fuck the balance,” Tessa said. “If they want something from me, they can come and claim it themselves.”
“You can’t defy Fate,” Eliza argued.
“Watch me,” was all she said, eyes fixed on Luka until movement caught the corner of her eye.
Then her mouth went dry as she found Kat tucked into Axel’s side, the male’s hard emerald eyes narrowed on her. He tried to move in front of Kat, but there was no way to hide it.
“Don’t look at her like that when you told me you planned to kill my entire bloodline,” Axel said coldly. “Don’t look at her at all, Tessa.”
She nodded, turning back to Luka, but she heard Kat’s whispered, “Axel, stop.”
“I don’t like her here. You know that,” he replied.
She couldn’t blame him. He’d tried to come to her for help, and she’d sent him on his way with only promises of death.
Of course he didn’t want her here when he had a child involved.
At least, she assumed the child in Kat’s belly was his.
With the depravity of Devram, she couldn’t rule anything out.
“One thing at a time, Tessa,” Theon said softly, leaning down to speak in her ear. “Luka first. Then we’ll worry about Axel.”
She nodded again, but she would leave if that was what Axel wanted. As soon as Luka was well enough, she would go.
Lifting a hand, her fingers wound into her hair. Her power was free, pacing in her soul, yet somehow content. It was only then she realized Theon’s darkness was drifting around her, brushing along her skin and soothing her restless magic. Calming her anxious soul.
“You are truly all right?” she asked him, still watching as Cienna examined a wing and Tristyn’s hands hovered over a wound on Luka’s side.
“Feeling him…” he started, and she felt him shudder against her. “It was an agony I didn’t think I would survive, but that faded and continues to do so with each passing minute.”
“You weren’t hit by anything?”
“I was higher up,” Theon said. “The others said they Traveled out, but I couldn’t… I watched the two of you fall and knew I wouldn’t be fast enough to do anything.”
“Do we know what happened?”
“You destroyed a mirror gate.”
They both turned at the sound of Brecken’s voice. He had a few battle wounds himself, but he was already healing. His wings were gone, and he stood off to the side, away from everyone else. As though he wasn’t sure where he belonged. Something she thoroughly understood.
“What do you mean I destroyed a mirror gate?” Tessa asked.
“Each kingdom has a gateway into the realm. The Celeste Kingdom’s was in Lake Moonmist. There is a tunnel that leads to a chamber beneath the lake. Or there was,” he explained. “When you threw that cuff into it, the power it had absorbed from you sought out the power from the mirror gate.”
No one spoke, all of them falling silent as Cienna continued to instruct Tristyn and Gia.
Her plan had always been to destroy a mirror gate.
It was why she’d sent a note to Dex and let him take her.
Granted, she’d expected to be taken to the Achaz Kingdom.
She’d had an idea of where to look for the mirror gate there, but when she’d found herself at the Celeste Estate, she’d thought her plans had been thwarted.
She’d just assumed the mirror gate was in Arobell where Lady Candra resided.
She’d assumed the ruling Lords and Ladies would keep their mirror gates close, but that was apparently not the case.
Tessa broke the silence, trying to keep her mind busy because why was this taking so long? There were three Witches working on him. They had gifts of healing. All three of them. It shouldn’t take this long.
“Do you know where the other gates are?” she asked, Theon’s fingers toying with the ends of her hair. Simple touches to keep her grounded.
“I’ve been searching. When I would go to find Fae for Dex, I would search while I was gone,” Brecken answered.
Tessa nodded, her breath stalling as Cienna stood and came toward them, features tight and emotionless as always.
“He’ll live,” she said. “But you already know that.”
“I didn’t,” Tessa retorted, a breath whooshing out at the words ‘he’ll live.’
“You must have,” Cienna replied, the words short and harsh. “He lives because of you.”
“I didn’t… I don’t know what I did,” she managed to stammer. “But if it saved him, then I don’t regret it.”
“There’s always a cost, and you are playing with life and death.”
“I am life and death,” she said, an eeriness settling over the room as her power flared.
Cienna took a small step back, but that was the only sign of unease she let show. “You say you are prepared for the cost, but there are things far worse than death, daughter of wild and fury. Best you remember that in the coming days.”