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“You’re lying,” she spat, jerking from his hold and beginning to pace. Her bare feet sank into mud with every step.

“I’m not, Tessa. He didn’t want to bring her there. He didn’t have a?—”

She whirled, pointing a finger at him. “Do not tell me he didn’t have a choice. He could have taken her anywhere else.”

“I know you are upset, Tessa, but it’s his Match?—”

“I’m not upset,” she snarled, fingers dragging through her hair as she tugged at the strands.

“A rain storm certainly wasn’t forecasted in the beginning of winter,” he drawled, and Tessa found herself with light pooling in her palm.

“Is that what you need right now, Tessa?” Luka said with a sneer at her power, black flames appearing and hovering at his shoulders. “Because I can fight with you. That’s fine. We both know I’ll have you knocked on your ass within seconds.”

His flames barely formed the shield in time as she sent her power racing towards him. She still forced him to stumble back a few steps.

And the storm raged around them.Herstorm. Violent winds and rain that burned as it splattered against flesh. Thunder that shook the ground, and lightning that struck nearby, forcing Luka to split his focus and put out fires while countering her magic.

Light welled at her feet, and energy crackled at her fingertips. Luka took everything she threw at him until finally he had enough. Black flames banded around her wrists and legs, throwing her off balance, and she dropped to her knees with a frustrated scream.

“I’m sorry, Tessa,” he said, and gods, he sounded like he truly meant it as he pulled two black bands from his pocket.

She didn’t fight him as he slipped the bands onto her wrists, her power instantly vanishing. Instead, it just thrashed inside of her now. She scarcely felt it.

The storm lessened, but rain continued to fall and lightning still streaked across the sky.

A finger pressed beneath her chin, tipping her head back once more. He said nothing, only held her gaze.

There was too much happening, and she couldn’t deal with all of it. The pain and the betrayal and the?—

“Fuck me,” she blurted, the words desperate and pleading.

Luka’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“Please, Luka,” she begged. “It’s too much. I can’t handle it. I just want to— No, Ineedto drown in something that isn’t this. Something that doesn’t feel likethis.”

“Tessa,” he started, her name sounding like an agonized plea.

“Please, Luka,” she said, the words a broken sob. “I’ve never asked anything of you. Never. Please do this for me.”

“If I thought that’s what you needed right now, I’d fuck you until the only thing you could say was my name,” Luka said, taking her face in his hands.

And she let out something that could only be described as a wail. “Thatiswhat I need!”

“No, little one,” he said, shaking his head. “You need to feel.”

“Feeling hurts,” she said on a gasp as she sobbed harder. “Everything I do is so that Idon’tfeel, and this is why.”

“Feeling is what keeps us from becoming the monsters, Tessa.”

“Maybe I want to be the monster!” she cried.

Luka didn’t say anything to that. He only pulled her into his chest, but she was starting to get her emotions shoved down, locking them away tightly one-by-one. Slowly, the rain turned to a steady drizzle that indeed froze as the temperature steadily dropped, and by the time Luka was landing back in the gardens at the townhouse, a light layer of snow covered the ground. And her?

She was feeling nothing at all.

She felt nothing as he guided her into the house and led her to his room.

She felt nothing as he peeled her wet clothing from her body and wiped dried mud from her skin.