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“Tessa, what are you doing?”

“We were always meant to destroy one another,” she replied, placing the dagger on the side table. “But you already know that,don’t you?” He didn’t answer, and she smiled knowingly as she began to draw on the back of her right hand with the scion.

“What are you doing, little storm?” he asked again, trying to keep his voice calm and even. He could do nothing. She was stronger than him. That had been proven with the second and third Marks.

“Taking everything from you, just like you took everything from me,” she answered as she continued to work. After a moment, she dropped the scion to her feet, holding her hand out to examine it before turning the back of her hand to show him.

The final Source Mark.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

She smiled. “It was in a book. I’ve been practicing.”

“Marks have to be drawn precisely. If you don’t?—”

“I just said I’ve been practicing,” she interrupted, swiping up the dagger. Her head tilted to the side. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To keep me? Stay bound to me? Forever inseparable?”

“Yes, but?—”

“So I made that happen. That was our Bargain after all.”

“Our Bargain was that you would convince everyone you had embraced the bond,” he said, panic building as she twirled the dagger.

“And I did,” she answered. “Iaskedto stay with you. Told them there was a bond. I agreed to the Second Mark, and I continued my classes. I even convincedyouI was accepting the bond.”

He shook his head in denial, and her malicious smile only grew.

“Why do you think your timeline was pushed back? Irequestedto be given the third Mark, Theon.”

“Bullshit,” he spat, and she laughed.

Tipped her head back andlaughedat him.

“Do you think you are the only one with plans? Do you think you were the only one researching these last months?” A mocking pout formed on her lips as she reached out and lightly slapped his cheek a few times. “Oh, Theon, you will learn soon enough that being the most cunning and wicked is the only way to survive in a realm of villains.”

Then the dagger was slicing across his palm before she was dragging it across the back of her hand.

“I won’t do it, Tessa,” he said, trying to come up with any idea to stop this. “I won’t overpower you. Ican’t.”

“Weren’t you listening, Theon? The Source Mark works both ways,” she said, tossing the dagger aside. It skittered across the floor. “Which means I only need to overpoweryou.”

Forcing his palm to the back of her hand, he clamped down on the cry of agony that formed in his throat as her power flooded into him. Bright and glaring and fierce, it eclipsed his darkness. His magic shrank back, trying to wrap itself around him as if it could shield him from her, but she was a storm as her power poured into him, taking and never wavering. It claimed what it wanted, and while he tried to fight back because this could certainly not end well for him, her power sank its teeth into his and didn’t let up until he yielded.

“Tessa, stop!” he cried as his power started to wane, submission so close.

“Just give in, Theon,” she crooned mockingly, parroting words he’d spoken to her when he’d given her the very first Mark.

“Little storm,” he pleaded. “I was trying to save you. I’ve always been trying to save you.”

With another vicious smile, she said, “You failed. I suppose you’re used to such a thing by now, though.”

He couldn’t swallow down the bellow of pain as her power lashed out at him again, tearing into his magic with claws andfangs. The familiar cords of obsidian black and purest gold floated up, twining around each other until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began, before it settled back into them, sinking into his soul.

Theon sat back in his chair, chest heaving and gulping down air. It took him a moment to realize there was a searing pain on his left hand. He looked down to find Tessa with the scion once more, this time drawing a Mark on his left hand. He tried to yank it back, but he was drained, and she clearly wasn’t as her power held him in place.

“Tessa…” he rasped, his stomach churning.

“The nausea will come and go for the next several hours,” she said conversationally. “I suggest being near a bathroom soon. It is rather exhausting.”