Chapter 43 #2
Then again. And again. I pulled it out. Notifications flooding the screen—news alerts, social mentions, messages from numbers I didn't recognize.
And one I did.
The corridor was empty. The Library hummed around me, its ancient walls vibrating with that same unsettled frequency I'd felt in the chamber. The wards. Weakening.
I felt it in my bones—a subtle wrongness, a note held slightly flat. The Library was stressed. Its protections were thinning. I'd spent enough time connected to this place to know when it was hurting.
I filed it and kept walking, because I couldn't carry one more thing right now.
Draven caught up to me at the end of the corridor. He saw my face and stopped.
"What happened?"
I showed him the screen on my phone. He looked at it. His jaw tightened.
"Someone leaked your identity."
"Someone leaked everything." My voice came out flat. "My name, my face, the facility connection. It's everywhere."
His hand found the back of my neck—warm, grounding, the bond flaring between us.
"We'll deal with it," he said.
I nodded. I didn't have words for the rest of it yet—the Heart of Creation, Silvius's betrayal, and now my face on every screen in the world, all in the space of an hour. My body was still catching up to my brain.
We walked. The Library corridors were busier than usual—people glancing at me, then looking away too quickly, or not looking away at all. I felt the stares on my skin.
Mason was waiting near the main entrance. He wasn't alone.
Kane stood beside him. Mason had a hand on Kane's shoulder—the kind of grip that said he'd steered Kane here and wasn't letting go until the job was done.
"His father is—" Mason started.
"I know."
Kane looked like Kane. Composed. Jaw tight. Ice-blue eyes giving away nothing. But his hands were in his pockets, and Kane never put his hands in his pockets. That small tell cracked something in my chest I didn't have time to examine.
"He needs to be here," Mason said to me. Not asking. His dark eyes held mine—steady, certain. The mate bond hummed between us, and underneath it I felt what he wasn't saying out loud. He's one of ours. Even now.
I looked at Kane. Kane looked back. Months of distance sat between us—all the words we hadn't said, the trust that had frayed without either of us knowing how to stitch it. His jaw flexed once. The only crack in the mask.
"Tess," he said. Just my name. But his voice caught on it, barely. Like he'd been holding it in his mouth too long.
Something turned over in my ribs. I wasn't ready for this. For him. For what his father's betrayal meant for the boy who'd spent his whole life trying to earn that man's approval and hating himself for wanting it.
I hadn't decided how I felt about him being here. I hadn't decided about any of it.
"Okay," I said. Not warm. Not cold. Just—okay. A door left unlocked, not opened.
Kane nodded once. His hands stayed in his pockets.
My phone buzzed again.
I looked down. Past the news alerts, past the unknown numbers, past the messages still flooding in—
A text. From a contact I hadn't deleted, even though I should have.
Mom.
Tessa, it's been a while. You haven't called. I'd love to catch up when you have a minute.
My stomach dropped.
She didn't mention the news. She didn't have to. Months of silence—no calls, no texts, nothing—and now, the same day my face appeared on every screen in the supernatural world, she wanted to catch up.
I stared at the message.
Of course. Of course she was reaching out now. Not when I'd started a new life, a dangerous life, a life that could've used a single phone call from the woman who raised me. But now—when there were cameras and headlines and the whole world watching—now she had a minute.
The timing wasn't coincidence. It was currency. It always was with her.
I locked the screen before I could read it again.
"Tess?" Draven's voice, behind me.
I put the phone in my pocket.
Whatever came next, it was coming for all of us.