Storm of Secrets and Sorrow (Legacy, #2)

by Melissa K. Roehrich

“I just know how Tessa can get when she’s hungry. No one wants to deal with that.”

“Theon, I need you!”

“One female will not be the downfall of an entire realm,” Theon snapped. The masked face tilted to the side. “No, but the two of you together will be.”

“Tessa, look at me,” Luka said,

“That’s my girl,” he murmured. “Breathe, little one.”

“Because I want you to.”

“If you were my Match, I wouldn’t call you such a thing,” he said and her eyes darted to the side. Until he said, “I would call you my wife, my partner, my light. Anything but my Match.” He heard her breath catch as she held his stare now, her face giving nothing away. “But you asked what it would have been like. What a casual night in would be like if you were those things to me.”

“Our nights would be spent on balconies under the stars talking or on sofas before fires watching a Chaosphere game. Our nights would be more than fucking fruit, cheese, and crackers. Our nights would be soft words instead of barbed ones to deflect and protect. Our nights would be intimate touches rather than frantic ones of uncertainty. Our nights would be my hands in your hair instead of your fingers

pulling on the strands. Our nights would be anything but whatever the fuck this is. Our nights wouldn’t involve mental shields blocking each other out, and if you tried, I’d call you out on that bullshit. But I can’t do that right now, can I?”

“Our nights would be dark, but you’d love it there because you’d realize we need your light as much as you crave the dark.”

“You fear the dark because you crave it, Tessa. You hate it because you think you are alone there, but your nights would never be spent alone. Never again. That’s what it would have been like.”

“Don’t you know?” he asked, leaning down and whispering in her ear. “Dragons eat the monsters.”

Exactly as you asked of me, she answered. Someone they fear as much as they fear you.