Tempest of Wrath and Vengeance (Legacy #3)

19. Tessa

19

TESSA

“ B y the gods,” Tessa muttered, following him inside. He was waiting, and while he did something to make the panel close behind them, she lifted a hand, letting light pool there.

Brecken eyed the magic when he slipped past her. “Don’t lose control in here, Tessa. There’s not much room for me to survive.”

“Fuck off, Brecken,” she sneered, kicking off her heels and leaving them by the door before she followed after him.

The first few minutes were fine, but the longer they were in the passage and the lower she descended, the more effort each step took. The more each breath was difficult to take. The more her heart raced. The more?—

Breathe, baby girl, came Luka’s voice down the bond.

Where are you? We can be there in seconds with Luka’s Traveling, echoed Theon.

You can’t just drop everything and come find me , she scoffed, letting them distract her with conversation.

Tessa, if you think I won’t leave the meeting I’m in right now to find you and spill the blood of anyone who got in my way, you’re underestimating what I mean when I say I protect what is mine, Theon answered.

I’m not yours.

The Mark on your hand says you are.

If that’s your argument, then you belong to me, Theon, she retorted.

I never claimed otherwise, little storm.

Well, that was something she didn’t want to think about right now.

Tell me about the Dreamlock Woods, she said, keeping her eyes fixed on Brecken’s back as he led her along.

There was a long pause before Theon said, Tessa, where are you?

The Sirana Villas, Luka answered when she didn’t.

No one asked you, she bit out.

I’m part of this now whether you like it or not.

For now.

There was another long pause before Theon said, What does that mean?

Exactly what I said. This is all for now. I’ll find a way to free myself from you, from Luka, from the entire realm.

I’ll always come for you, Tessa, Theon answered.

Until the day you can no longer find me.

With that, she shoved them out, stacking her mental shields back into place. Brecken had opened a door, daylight filling the passage and guiding her to the outdoors. He hadn’t been lying. This was clearly behind the manor. The large house cast a shadow over the area where they now stood. Looking back, she found a small brick cottage where they’d emerged, and in front of them were two two-story villas nearly identical to the ones in the courtyard.

Except these didn’t have the open arches.

These didn’t have any windows at all.

They were just ivory buildings with climbing roses. She couldn’t even see a door to enter.

“Brecken?” she asked uncertainly.

“This way,” was all he said, setting off again.

She hurried along, her now bare feet feeling the sting of the cold cobblestones.

“Slow down, Brecken,” she hissed.

“Can’t. If we get caught, you better be ready with that power of yours.”

A minute later, they were slipping in a side door that Tessa would have missed if Brecken clearly hadn’t known it was there. She felt the wards ripple around her, but Brecken was clearly granted free access here. Suddenly, he grabbed her elbow and dragged her into a small closet, the door snicking shut behind them. There was barely enough room for the two of them to both fit with the random cleaning supplies and shovels stashed in here.

“No,” she rasped, shaking her head and trying to push past him. “We cannot stay in here.”

Brecken rounded on her, crowding her against a stack of boxes. He took her jaw in his hand, forcing her to look up at him, and when her power wound around his wrist in warning, he didn’t even flinch.

“All those Fae and mortals you saw in those villas?” he said, his voice low and vicious. “They are happy there because it means they are not here .”

She went still.

“What do you mean?”

“It means for once in your life, Tessalyn, I need you to not focus on yourself.”

Her eyes went wide, anger immediately sparking back to life.

“Does that make you mad?” he went on, still holding her chin. “Piss you off a little bit? Good. It should. Because while you’ve had a shit life, those here have had it so much worse. If you weren’t who you fucking are, this is exactly where you would have ended up. So I need you to listen closely, because if we fuck up even one part of this, more than the innocent people here will suffer for it. Do you understand?”

She held his dark gaze for one second.

Two.

Three.

Then a slow, dark smile curled on her lips that had Brecken’s eyes going wide. She brought a hand up, curling it around his wrist. This time when he felt her power sink into his being, he tried to jerk back, but her power held. Seeking. Wanting. Taking .

“Tessa, stop,” he said, panic creeping into his tone.

She took a step forward. Another. Forcing him to step back as she crowded him against the wall. She reached up, pushing onto her tiptoes, to take his chin in her hand, her nails digging in.

“I need you to listen very closely, Brecken, because if you fuck up even a little bit, you are the one who will suffer for it, and then you will not see the outside of this closet again. Do you understand?”

He had gone utterly still, but his throat bobbed as he gave the barest of nods.

“Do not ever speak down to me like that again,” she said. “I did not walk away from Theon to be used by someone else. I am not Theon’s Source. I am not Rordan’s to use and command. I am not Dex’s. I do not belong to Achaz or Arius or any other god. And I sure as fuck am not your pawn for some vendetta or vigilantism. You can tell me what you wish me to know, but rest assured, I’ll find the truth as I have with everything else. So lie or don’t, but know that whatever choice you make in this moment determines your salvation or destruction.”

“So much fury,” Brecken murmured, some of the tension bleeding from his being.

Tessa’s head canted to the side, not understanding why that would put him at ease.

“You got it, Tessie,” he said casually as her fingers slid from his jaw. He straightened his shirt, tugging at the cuffs. “I can’t tell you everything that happens here because I’m bound by an Oath, but I can show you.”

She eyed him, looking for the catch and trying to decide if she could trust him.

“But in order to do that, I’m going to need you to pretend to be what Cordelia raised you to be,” he went on. “Just long enough for you to understand. Then you can be your own vigilante if you want.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If you are playing me, Brecken, I will find a way to end you.”

His smile was slightly maniacal as he replied, “I’m counting on it.”

A mutual understanding seemed to pass between them before Brecken nodded once and pushed the door open. The moment they were in the hall, his hand clamped around her upper arm, and he led her around a corner to a much wider passage that led up a set of stairs. They passed a few Legacy on their way, but no one batted an eye at them. Not until they rounded another corner and came face-to-face with a male Legacy who stopped in his tracks. Light blue eyes raked over her, and there was no mistaking the hunger in them.

“A new one, Breck?” he asked, his tongue darting out and wetting his lips.

“Yep,” Brecken answered in a bored tone.

“Element?”

“Wind.”

That was definitely excitement that filled the male’s features as he sauntered closer. It took everything in her not to react when he skated his fingertips up the column of her throat before sliding his thumb along her bottom lip.

“I suppose that means I’ll be seeing you real soon,” he said, his tone low and rough.

“She has to be processed first, Arlo,” Brecken said.

“Where’d you find her?” the male asked, stepping closer still and twirling a piece of her hair around his finger.

“Falein Estate.”

Arlo glanced up at him. “No luck with Anala yet?”

Brecken rolled his eyes. “Kyra has her Kingdom and Estate locked down tighter than the Keeper has the center of the Pantheon locked down.”

Arlo snickered. “Supposedly they’re making progress on that.”

“Until then, I’ll keep finding Raye’s,” Brecken said with a shrug. “But I’ve got to get going,” he added, tugging on Tessa’s arm.

She stumbled, and Arlo let out a huff of laughter, slapping her ass as she was dragged past him.

“Easy, Tessa,” Brecken murmured out of the corner of his mouth. “Save it.”

She curled her fingers, hiding the power sparking there. Thankfully, she was still wearing the coat so the bands on her wrists had been hidden from the Legacy.

A minute later, Brecken was ushering her into a decent-sized office.

An empty office.

The moment the door closed, he said, “Go find what you can. I’ll stand guard.”

“What?”

He jerked his chin at the desk. “I can’t tell you where to look. Find what you can. I don’t know how long we have. Could be minutes; could be an hour.”

Uncertain of what exactly was happening, Tessa made her way to the desk. The office itself was fairly sparse. A map of the realm on the wall. A book detailing magic on the shelf. A tablet in the center of the desk.

She tapped it, the screen illuminating and asking for a password. She looked up at Brecken with a questioning look.

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know it, Tessa, but if you can get past wards you’re not supposed to, surely you can break into a tablet, no?”

She’d never thought of it that way before.

Fingers hovering over the screen, she focused on letting out a sliver of her power. Too much and she would surely make the thing explode.

It took far more energy than it should have to make sure only a small amount of her power emerged, but she managed it. And to her utter shock, the home screen displayed.

“Holy shit,” she muttered.

Brecken said something, but she didn’t hear him as she picked up the tablet and clicked on the only program on the screen. It was labeled Hybrid. A list of names appeared she couldn’t make any sense of, so she clicked on a random one.

Name: Meera Koplin

Lineage: Water Fae (M) x Water Fae (P)

Element: Water

Current Location: Hybrid Villas

Pairings: Anahita Legacy (Rolf Alings) Result: Favorable (M-37y), placed

Nith Legacy (Klayton Janiak) Result: Favorable (M), disposed

Anahita Legacy (Rolf Alings) Result: Pending

Her brow furrowed as she backed out of the document and selected another name.

Name: Jasper Dusak

Lineage: Water Fae (M) x Anahita Legacy (P)

Element: Water+

Current Location: Serafina Heir Source

Pairings: Water Fae (scheduled after Selection year)

“What the fuck?” Tessa muttered, exiting and scrolling the names more. Then she sucked in a gasp when she clicked on another name.

Name: Eviana Perin

Lineage: Earth Fae (P) x Silas Legacy (M)

Element: Earth+

Current Location: Arius Lord Source (replacement per request)

Pairings: Nith Legacy (Mansel McKinlay) Result: Favorable (F-9y), Serafina Estate

Her breathing was too fast when she snapped her gaze up to Brecken again.

“Keep going,” he said flatly, nodding at the tablet.

“Brecken, are these…”

“I can’t say it.”

“Are they forcing…” She couldn’t say it either. Finally, she rasped out in a rush, “Are they breeding the Fae?”

“In the Villas, yes. But the Hybrid Villas are more than that. Keep going,” he repeated.

Tessa was shaking. Not from shock or fear, but from pure and raw fury .

She scrolled, opening one name after the other. More of the same. Fae forced to fuck a Legacy to produce children. Some children were placed; some were labeled disposed, and Tessa could only assume what that meant. Some were kept here until they were of age, and then they were forced into the same. When she found another like Eviana, she nearly vomited. Lady Isleen had requested a specific combination for her Source.

She tapped the next name.

Name: Lange Castellon

Lineage: Wind Fae (M) x Unknown Sefarina Legacy (P) *unsanctioned*

Element: Wind+

Current Location: Arius Kingdom claimed (unplanned)

Pairings: In negotiations

Tessa swallowed down her angry tears, clicking out of the document and scrolling specifically for another name.

She had just found it when Brecken hissed, “Put it away. We have company.”

Tessa quickly exited out of the program, relocking the tablet before she placed it back in the center of the desk. Brecken was waiting for her in the middle of the room. She ran to his side, settling into place beside him and letting him grip her arm once more just as the door banged open.

A devastatingly handsome Legacy entered, his piercing eyes sweeping over them before he said, “Brecken, I wasn’t expecting you today.”

“Wasn’t planned, Darius,” he answered. “Stumbled upon this one. Figured I’d drop her off before I was sent on my next job.”

The male settled behind the desk, picking up the tablet, and Tessa held her breath as he unlocked it, waiting to see if he discovered anything amiss.

“Ran into Arlo. He said you found her in the Falein Kingdom,” Darius said.

“Yep. Was there for something else and found her working in an archive,” Brecken answered.

The male tsked. “Raye will break at some point, and then we can put all our efforts into Kyra and the Anala Kingdom.”

“And Arius?” Brecken asked.

The male let out a derisive laugh, his silvery-blond hair falling across his brow. “They’re doing the job for us. It’s imploding. Rordan and Maya are just waiting for the right time to finish the job. What’s her name?”

“Alora,” Brecken answered. “Wind element.”

The male nodded, typing and clicking through his screen. “Any ideas on lineage?”

“No, but she’s powerful. My guess is an unsanctioned pregnancy the mother tried to save,” Brecken said, and Tessa was trying her hardest to follow along with this conversation.

“I can’t find her files,” Darius muttered. “I’ll have to contact Lilura Inquest. See what’s going on.”

“You want me to take her to a room until then?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine,” Darius answered, pulling his phone from his pocket and waving them off. “I’ll deal with her once I know her history.”

Brecken squeezed her arm in a signal for her to follow him, but she couldn’t make her feet move. He tugged again, and she only dug her heels into the floor.

“There’s quite a few people interested in my history,” Tessa said, and even she could hear the slight mania in her voice.

Good.

Darius’s head snapped up, ire flashing. “Did you just speak to me?”

“Simply stated a fact,” she replied, slowly undoing the buttons of her coat.

He stared at her in disbelief, his cheeks flushing with fresh rage. “Which Estate were you raised at?”

“What does that matter?” she asked, reaching the last button.

“Because you clearly were not taught your place, and I need to have a discussion with the Mother there,” he sneered, rising to his feet.

“My place? Beneath those more powerful than me?”

“Exactly,” he snarled, rounding the desk.

“Serafina Legacy,” Brecken muttered. He’d long since let go of her arm. “He can see your deepest dreams and desires and?—”

“Impossible,” Darius rasped before Brecken could finish. “You cannot exist.”

“And yet I stand in front of you,” she replied, slipping her coat off and handing it to Brecken. Her power was radiating now, swirls of light encompassing her arms, lightning crackling, and silver and gold ashes swirling around her.

Those were new.

But she didn’t have time to think about it. She may have only had five training sessions with Luka so far, but it was enough to give her control in this moment. One on one? She had the upper hand, and Brecken appeared to realize that as he took several steps back.

“I can see your deepest desires. I can— He’s been lying to all of us,” Darius continued to splutter, his pretty face draining of color.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Tessa said. “Everyone here is a liar.”

“He said he didn’t know your lineage. He said he was taking care of this. You— You’re?—”

Tessa struck, a whip of lightning in her hand before he could speak again. She snapped it out, wrapping the energy around his neck. He immediately dropped to his knees, fingers clawing at his throat. She yanked, and his palms hit the floor as he tried to suck in another breath.

She sauntered forward, dropping to a crouch beside the male and tilting his chin up with her nail. “ This is how my Estate Mother disciplined me,” she said coldly. “Took away my ability to breathe. Locked me in cupboards. Withheld food. And you’re right. It still wasn’t enough.”

She moved quickly then, gripping his throat and letting her magic seep from her palm into the male. It flooded him, and she gritted her teeth as she kept it in line, making sure it stayed focused solely on him. It ripped his power from his veins, devouring and feeding. When she sent another bolt of energy into him, he screamed, rolling onto his back and arching off the floor.

And she smiled as she pushed to her feet and stood over him, watching him writhe in pain because all she could wonder was which of the Fae here had he fucked?

“Do you decide all the pairings, or is there another?” she demanded suddenly, giving him a reprieve.

He shook his head, tears and snot leaking from his eyes and nose.

Tessa lifted a hand, her fingers glowing as light pooled. “To clarify, that was me speaking to you.”

Darius shook his head again. “She has final say.”

“Who?”

“Desiray,” he rasped, wiping his wrist across his nose and mouth.

Tessa looked at Brecken, who only nodded once in confirmation.

Then Tessa pulled her golden sword from a pocket realm and plunged it through the male’s throat, blood spraying across her white pants.

The room went so silent, she could hear the clock ticking on the desk.

“You are kind of terrifying when upset,” Brecken finally said.

She only held his stare as she went to slide her palm along the exposed blade still impaled in the male’s neck.

“Wait!” Brecken cried, lurching forward.

But there would be no waiting. She would set her Hunters free here. Tell them to kill any full-blooded Legacy. She would fall asleep to the memory of their screams echoing in her mind. A lullaby to her soul.

Her blood dripped to the floor, and a moment later, one appeared, his white eyes fixed on her.

“You called, your grace?”

“First, I need a new dagger. I…lost mine,” she said, still annoyed she’d left the thing at Arius House. “Actually, make it two.”

“Of course, your grace,” he said, two golden daggers appearing in his palms that he held out to her with a bow.

She took them, one in each hand, while she asked, “Can you tell the difference between a full-blooded Legacy and one with mixed blood?”

“We can, your grace.”

“Good,” she purred. “Then I have a job for you.”

“Tessa, just listen to me for a moment,” Brecken interjected again, stepping to her side.

The Hunter’s head slowly turned to him. “You speak out of turn, light guardian.”

Brecken ignored him, turning to face Tessa fully. “If you let them loose in here, they will know it was you.”

“Good,” she said again.

“And what about the innocent Fae? They have nowhere to go right now, Tessa. Worse, they may be blamed for this,” Brecken went on.

That had her faltering. Where would they go?

“If you didn’t want me to do anything about this, then why did you bring me here?” she demanded coldly.

“Because I wanted you to see so that you can help do something about it when the time is right.”

“And until then I just…walk away?” She shook her head. “I can’t do that, Brecken.”

“I know it’s hard. I do it every time I’m here, but I needed you to see so you can portal back when it’s time. You’ll be able to cross the wards without detection. As soon as we have some place for the Fae to go,” he insisted.

“You find these Fae and bring them here, Brecken. I can’t possibly trust you,” she said, shaking her head and trying to decide what to do.

On one hand, he was right. The innocents would have nowhere to go. Sure, the Legacy here would be dead, but then what? On the other hand, Brecken was clearly part of furthering this.

“You would have brought Katya here?” Tessa asked tightly.

“They have been trying to get into Anala Kingdom for decades,” Brecken answered. “She was the first fire Fae I found in all my time here. I was supposed to bring her here. She was never supposed to go to the Emerging,” he answered.

“But you brought her to the Celeste Estate.”

He nodded. “I knew what they’d do to her, and I couldn’t… It was the only way I could protect her then.”

“Why do you care?”

Brecken’s gaze flicked to the Hunter, who stood eerily still, waiting for orders.

Tessa turned to him. “Find me a Sefarina Legacy. He answers to Arlo. Bring him to me alive.”

“Yes, your grace,” he said with a bow before gliding away straight through the solid door.

When he was gone, she turned back to Brecken expectantly.

“There is much I can’t tell you, Tessa,” he finally said. “But you are right not to trust anyone.”

“But I should trust you?”

“I brought you here, didn’t I?”

“All the times you left the Estate, where did you go?”

“I was sent to find the hidden Fae. Those who have Legacy blood, and they don’t know it.”

“How do you find them?”

He hesitated before saying, “I can sense power and the strength of it.”

“How?”

“I cannot tell you.”

She nodded because an Oath would truly be preventing that.

“I worked around it as much as I could, Tessa,” he pleaded. “I slipped Darius’s name into the conversation so you knew it. I lured him to reveal crucial information for you to work with.”

She nodded again. “In two days’ time, I am going to let the Hunters loose here. I am going to instruct them to kill every single full-blooded Legacy inside these gates.”

Brecken nodded. “I will try to have some place for them to go.”

“Do not try, Brecken,” she said tightly. Before he could answer, her power struck, wrapping tightly around his throat. “If you are playing me, your death will be anything but short and painless.”

“Understood, Tessa,” he gasped out, but he wasn’t struggling. He wasn’t trying to draw a breath.

Submitting.

That was what he was doing as he stood before her.

The door opened, the Hunter herding Arlo into the office.

“And this one will die today,” Tessa said, releasing Brecken from her hold.

Arlo immediately turned, trying to flee, but the Hunter was there, sword raised. “My grace requested your presence. Now bow.”

Arlo slowly turned back to face her, and she smiled in delight. “Yes, Arlo,” she purred. “Bow.”

“You are not a Lady in the realm. I do not bow to you,” he sneered, but she heard the faint tremble in his voice.

“No,” she agreed, taking a single step forward. “In this realm, I am a goddess, but to you, I am your ending.”

Energy crackled around her, and a glowing orb hovered in the air near her head. She knew she was pushing this too far. Any moment, her control was going to snap, and then there’d be no telling what would happen. That was when she became too wild and uncontrollable, and she could feel her magic straining, wanting to take. Always wanting more and more and more.

Which meant she needed to do this without her magic.

She shoved her power down, tightening her grip on the daggers as she stalked forward. To the Hunter she said, “Get him on his knees.”

Tessa didn’t know what he did, but a moment later, Arlo was screaming in pain as he sank to the floor.

“Stretch out his right arm,” she said.

Again the male screamed as some phantom power yanked him forward on his hands, pulling his arm straight. Tessa was sure it had dislocated his shoulder.

She lowered to a crouch once more, slamming a dagger straight through his hand and into the floor.

His screams were a symphony she wished she could add to a playlist. She hummed along as she used the other dagger to sever his fingers from his hand, one by one. When she was done, she smiled sweetly at the male whose face was a pale mess of tears and drool as he continued to whimper before her.

“Wh-why?” he stuttered.

“Because you touched me as if you had the right to,” she answered plainly. “So I assumed I had the right to take from you too.” He whimpered when she twirled the bloody dagger in her hand, drops of blood splattering. “You looked at me like you had the right to do so as well. Shall I take your eyes next?”

“Pl-please don’t!” he wailed.

“And when the Fae ask the same of you, do you stop?”

His only answer was another sob.

“How many young have you fathered within these walls?”

When he didn’t answer, she yanked the dagger from his hand and drove it into his shoulder. Gods, his screams did something to her. Made her feel alive.

“They don’t tell us,” he wailed. “They call us when we’re needed.”

“And today?”

“I have an appointment tonight,” he blubbered.

Tessa only hummed, yanking the dagger free again to another agonized wail. “Who?”

“I don’t know!” he cried. “I swear it.”

“But you would have come and found me, right?”

His answer was several shallow sobs.

This time she sank her dagger into his side. “Right?” she pressed. “And don’t lie to me, Arlo. I’ll cut out your tongue.”

“Yes,” he said on another sob.

“To take from me.”

He didn’t verbally answer, but he nodded several times.

Then there was only gurgling as she slashed her daggers across his throat, one after the other.

The male fell face-down to the floor, blood spilling and pooling around her bare feet. She frowned as she looked down at the daggers in her hands, unsure of where to store them. Shrugging, she bent and wiped the blades on the male’s clothing, humming to herself. Then she sent them to a pocket realm before she moved to retrieve her sword still impaled in Darius’s corpse. She did the same with the sword, bloody footprints marking her path.

When she was done, she turned to Brecken. “Should we go?”

He was staring at her, his mouth agape. “Tessa…”

She only smiled, her entire being buzzing from the adrenaline of taking.

Of being the most powerful.

Of rescuing herself.

It was another few seconds before he managed to say, “You have blood…everywhere.”

She looked down, finding red sprayed across her white pants and gold sweater. With another frown she said, “Maybe I should just portal us back to Faven? Will I be able to do that if Rordan couldn’t?”

Brecken nodded mutely, and she summoned a portal, both of them stepping through. She hadn’t realized how much time had passed until she saw the twilight sky out the windows.

“I’m going to go. I’ll send word to Dex and the others that you wanted to leave,” Brecken said. “I have some things to get figured out.”

“Two days, Brecken,” she warned as he crossed her room to the door.

He said nothing else, but when he was gone, Tessa knew there was no way she could go to bed. She was too wound up. Felt too reckless.

Too impulsive.

Too wild.

So she summoned another portal and stepped through.