Chapter 49 Tessa
TESSA
“Idon’t understand,” Axel said, all of them sitting in the Penthouse living room once again. This time they weren’t sitting in jarring defeat, but the shock was still there.
Valter was dead, never to threaten any of them again. Theon. Axel. Maddox. Caris. They were all free of him.
And so was Eviana, though not in the way Tessa had intended.
From the first time she’d visited Eviana at the Faven Palace, she’d intended to free her of the Arius Lord.
She’d worked to build a tentative trust, and then she’d trusted Lange and Corbin to be the good souls they were and build it even more.
They’d clearly done that, and nothing was more evident of that than the way Corbin was holding a sleeping Priya in his lap next to Lange on the sofa.
“Thank you,” Caris said softly as Eliza placed a glass of wine and plate of food on the table before her.
Xan, Eliza, and Razik had all come to the Underground to wait for their return. Even with Bree contained and no longer a threat, Axel wouldn’t leave Kat and Maddox alone.
“Do you need anything else?” Theon asked, his voice monotone as he sat with what had happened.
“No,” Caris said gently. Her gaze slid to Axel. “But I can clear up the confusion.”
“Please do,” Axel said, swiping a hand down his face. “Never in a thousand decades did I think I would be upset my father’s Source was gone.”
“Don’t call her that. Her name was Eviana,” Tessa cut in sharply.
Axel winced. “Sorry, Tessa. I’m just…” He lifted his gaze back to Caris. “Confused doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“As I said earlier this evening, your father was a very paranoid male. It only grew after Rordan’s betrayal. He started taking extreme measures,” Caris said.
“Like linking Cressida’s life to yours,” Theon said.
Caris nodded, toying with the stem of her wineglass. “Nothing was enough for him. He wouldn’t risk not having a son, so Cressida and I both carried a child. Then he needed another, just in case.” She paused for a moment. “His Sources were no different. Eviana was his second Source.”
“We know this,” Tessa interrupted. “He had her… Well, he chose her before she’d even entered the world.”
Caris pressed her lips into a thin line. “You learned of the Sirana Villas.”
Tessa gave a sharp nod.
“You’re not wrong,” Caris continued. “But a bond wasn’t enough. He would have required more of her. Forced more vows and bargains with her.”
Theon’s head snapped up. “He had a Life Bond with her.”
“Surely not,” Axel gasped, his eyes wide.
Caris nodded.
“What is that?” Tessa asked, looking among them all. “What does that mean?”
“A bond between two lives,” Luka told her gruffly. “If one dies, so does the other.”
“He would have altered it to only be one-sided. If she died, nothing would happen to him, and she wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone,” Theon added. “He would have forced her to secrecy like he did with everything else.”
“She wouldn’t have told us even if she could have,” Corbin said, his voice low and soft to not wake Priya.
“Eviana was a lot of things, but she knew what she wanted in the end. If we had known, we would have tried to find another way. She wanted Valter gone because he would forever be a threat to her. She didn’t care the cost, whether it was her or anyone else, as long as that threat was gone. ”
“I don’t blame her,” Tessa said, her fingers curling into the edge of her chair. “She lived a life we were taught to covet, but she knew what it truly was. Forced to bring a child into the realm, she wanted the greatest threat gone. In the end, does it matter? One villain gone out of thousands?”
“We’re working on changing things, Tessa,” Theon said.
She gave him a fake smile. “Will it be fast enough? For the Priyas of the world?” She looked at Axel. “For the Maddoxes who don’t have the privilege of being born into a ruling family?”
“Everything we’re doing is to ensure the realm is different for them,” Axel argued. “It won’t happen overnight, but we’ll never stop fighting for it.”
Tessa fell quiet, reaching for her glass of wine. She took a long drink, knowing there were eyes on her. Her emotions were…undefinable. She didn’t understand them or know how to deal with them. It didn’t feel like grief, despite the sadness. Failure? Disappointment? Inadequacy? She didn’t know.
“Axel?”
Tessa lifted her gaze to find Kat at the top of the stairs, Maddox in her arms.
Axel was already moving, taking the stairs two at a time. He dropped a kiss to her cheek before taking the babe and then grasping Kat’s hand.
“Come,” he said with a sad smile. “There is someone I want you to meet.”
He led her down the stairs, drawing nearer to Caris, and Tessa took another drink of wine.
“Kat, this is Caris. She was…” Axel paused, looking down at his son and then at Caris. “She’s my mother. This is my wife, Katya.”
Tessa didn’t know if Kat knew of Caris’s history. She was sure Axel would tell her everything later, but she smiled warmly as she greeted the female.
“A wife so young?” Caris asked, her smile kind as she stood and reached for Kat’s hands, squeezing them gently. “Aren’t you a vision, my dear?” Kat dropped her head, her cheeks heating. Caris’s attention went back to Axel. “And this is…?”
“Maddox,” he answered, his voice thick with emotion. “Your grandchild.”
Tessa drained her wineglass while Axel passed the babe to Caris, and suddenly Theon was there, fingertips brushing down her arm. She was projecting far too many things down the bond, but she couldn’t stop it.
“So, what are we going to do about Priya?” Tessa asked, glancing at Lange and Corbin.
“What do you mean?” Lange asked. “We promised to make her family. She’ll stay with us.”
“Are you sure? Because if that’s not something you want to do, we can make other arrangements.”
“She’s staying with us,” Lange replied. “We swore it to Eviana, and even if we hadn’t, we’d do the same.”
“Corbin?” Tessa asked, looking at the male. “You are fine with this? With essentially adopting her?”
Corbin nodded, pulling the sleeping child a little more into his chest. “Yeah, Tessa. We’re fine with this.”
Tessa nodded, getting to her feet. “We’ll make sure you have everything you need for her. Make lists. We’ll get it sorted.”
They rose too, heading for the lift to go down a floor to the apartment they’d been staying in. Stopping at her side, Corbin said, “Thank you, Tessa.”
“You made the deal with Eviana. Not me.”
“But you sent us to her.”
And then they were gone, Xan, Razik, and Eliza following.
Without looking at the others, she said, “I’m going to bed.”
Minutes later, she was sliding between the sheets.
Luka and Theon would be up at some point.
They’d stayed to visit more with Caris, and as she lay in the dark, all she could think about were the Priyas and Maddoxes who didn’t have anyone to fight for them.
The Fae children alone at the Estates. Those with mixed bloodlines born for the single purpose of power.
Those forced to bring children into a broken world.
The unplanned babes who may be loved but still subject to the wickedness Devram bathed in.
The forgotten children.
The suffering mothers.
The fathers who didn’t know.
She sighed, rolling onto her side as she pictured Theon’s face when he saw his mother. She could feel him down the bond. Luka too. They adored Caris. Everything a mother was supposed to be, ripped from them before they’d even lived a full decade. Even then, that trauma was used to manipulate them.
And tomorrow she would have to face her own mother. They looked at Caris with adoration and grieved lost time. And she…
Tessa heard the door open. Not both of them. Only Luka.
Her back was to him, and she didn’t acknowledge him while he shuffled around the room. A few minutes later, the bed dipped, and an arm looped around her waist, pulling her back against his warm body.
“Time to talk about it, baby girl,” Luka murmured, pressing a soft kiss to her neck. “You’ve been tossing and turning for the last hour.”
“You were so relieved to see your father again,” she whispered, a part of her sighing in relief at having someone to listen. Something she’d never thought she’d feel if she was being honest.
Luka was quiet for a few seconds before he said tentatively, “I was. I thought he was dead. Then I learned he was alive, and when I found him again… Yeah, I was relieved.”
“And Theon is in awe of seeing his mother once more. Not relieved like you were, but…something similar.”
“The three of us are all shocked at the way this day has gone. Caris was beloved by us.”
She nodded, falling silent. Luka’s hand came up, smoothing her hair back.
“Keep going, Tessa,” he said gently, urging her to keep talking.
Knowing this was foreign to her. To have someone listen and not try to manipulate her based on what she said.
Someone who was listening because they cared and not because they were trying to figure out how to use her to their advantage.
Still, she hesitated because saying this aloud was…
“You are all so grateful to be reunited with a father or mother, and I don’t think I want to see mine,” she whispered.
“Because of who they are to us,” Luka said. “None of us would feel this way if we discovered Valter still lived. There would be little feeling if Cressida was gone.”
“But you wish to see your mother? Xan told you she still lives in the Anala Kingdom.”
“Yes, Tessa. I still wish to see my mother, but you not wishing to see yours is understandable. There is no right way to feel about this.”
“But once again, I do not have a choice.”
“You do,” Luka said simply. “You are choosing the good of the realm over your own comfort. It’s a noble choice. Even so, your feelings are valid.”
“Are they?”