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"I just told you," he snarled.
"Okay, could you clarify?" I asked, taking a deep breath, trying not to lose my patience with him. It wasn't like the last few days had been easy for us, either.
"Tessa gave up. She thought you were all dead, that it was just me and her, and she was just waiting to die. She wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't eat. All she's done is sleep. I don't know what more you want me to tell you. That's all there is."
"And what about you? Have you been eating and sleeping?' I asked.
"Of course not. How am I supposed to eat and sleep when she's not eating or sleeping?"
I nodded, understanding dawning. "And you're blaming yourself, aren't you? You think this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't taken her?"
"Obviously. We should have just waited for you guys, made a run for it as a team."
"That's easy to say now," Niall said, stepping forward, so it wasn't just me and Kai. "We were up against an entire battalion of One Realm cult members. You can't expect us to run from that and just hope that we all make it without any of them making it. Would you really have wanted to unleash those people on Agartha? It seems like a fairly peaceful realm, so I can't imagine what they would have thought if we had shown up with a bunch of One Realm cult members attacking us in tow."
"Or if one of us had shown up with Tessa instead of you? Based on what I saw of that guy, things would not have gone well," I added.
"You're probably right," Kai admitted begrudgingly.
The shriek from Tessa's room startled all of us, and I immediately opened my mind, instinctively reaching for her. Once I assured myself that all was well, or at least for the most part, I should have pulled back, but I couldn't help myself.
Her thoughts were a tangle of grief and anger, of relief and love. All of it. Consuming and blocking out any reason she might be able to see as to why things had happened the way they had.
I could feel her sobbing through the bond even though I couldn't hear it. Relief coursed through her, cooling her anger, only to have the anger flare again a moment later.
Finn and Griff were trying to soothe her, and I could tell she had really thought we were all dead. Being mated to Finn and Griff, none of us were sure what would happen if one of them died, but if they both died, then it was a general assumption that she would have as well, which was exactly what she thought was happening.
She was just waiting for death to claim her. And seeing them again was like stepping into the sun after a long winter.
"You separated us. All of you. You pushed me away. You sent me away like—Like I was nothing like I couldn't help!"
"Tessa, please, we were trying to save you," Griff cajoled.
"You were trying to save me by putting me through hell? What kind of saving is that? For days you were still in El Dorado, and you couldn't even get a message to us? I—" She choked down a sob. "I thought you were dead for days!"
Kai flinched as though she'd struck him. I knew she didn't mean being with him was hell, but that was how he was interpreting it. I wanted to reach out to him and reassure him, but I knew anything I said wouldn't make a difference; if anyone was going to soothe that hurt, it would have to be Tessa herself, and right now, she was in no state to do that.
"Please, siren, just breathe. You need to calm down—" Finn's words made me wince. Even I knew not to tell someone to calm down when they were that upset.
"Why should I? You don't seem to care so long as I'm alive right? As long as I can save the realms, it doesn't matter what I have to go through. Did you know that I had to walk through lava to get the stone in El Dorado? That my wings, my brand new, beautiful wings, burnt to bloody stumps as the walls closed in on me? I willingly went through all that because I knew I had all of you waiting for me at the end, but then you weren't. You shipped me off as though I was nothing more than—"
Before Tessa could really get going, there was a knock at the door to the room. She snapped her mouth shut so hard and fast that even I heard her teeth clicking together.
Niall answered it. A woman stood outside and announced, “The welcome dinner will be tonight at eight. Please arrive promptly and appropriately dressed.” She gave Niall a once over, and her lip curled slightly in distaste.
Well, with a demand like that, this was definitely going to be fun. Was Leader Timmon in such a rush to get us out of here that he couldn't even let us reunite for a single evening before we started with all this stuff? Or was there another reason he was so annoyed to see the six of us there?
5
Tessa
When I came out of the bathing chamber, a rich, emerald green dress lay on the bed before me. I was shocked when I picked it up to find that the material split to the sides, revealing what was underneath.
Leggings.
Glorious leggings.
I dried off quickly and got dressed, not wanting to be exposed more than necessary. Anger and relief still flowed through me in equal measure. I'd convinced myself that the four of them were dead and I would also die soon, but they'd come back to me just like Kai promised.
