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“I’m not hungry.”

“You’renot hungry?” Axel mused.

“You should eat. You’ll need your strength for tomorrow,” Theon insisted, ignoring Axel.

“I’m not hungry,” she repeated. “I just want to go to bed.”

Theon frowned. “It’s early yet.”

Tessa swiped up her wineglass, draining the last of it. “Yep. And going off experience, I’m going to need the rest for tomorrow more than the food.”

With that, she pushed away from the table, her bare feet padding across the hardwood floor and out of the dining room.

“Should we be worried about that?” Axel asked, drinking from his own glass that Theon was certain wasn’t wine.

“I’m constantly worried about her,” Theon muttered, glancing at her plate that was hardly touched.

“I only knew her a short time before coming here, but she is…different. Very different from the female I met at the Celeste Estate,” Katya said, placing her fork down beside her clean plate.

“How so?” Theon asked, wondering why he hadn’t thought to ask her about Tessa before. It was so obvious now.

“For starters, she left food behind.”

“She does love to eat,” Axel said. “Do you want more, Kat?”

Katya shook her head. “No, thank you, but you misunderstand. She left food behind. She never did that at the estate.”

“What do you mean?” Theon asked.

“She didn’t tell you?”

“We…”

But how was he supposed to tell this Fae that his Source bond was faulty because Tessa wasn’t Fae? How was he supposed to admit he didn’t have control over this situation despite doing everything in his power to have just that?

Katya’s head tilted, and it took everything in him not to shift under her amber gaze. It was as unnerving as Tessa’s stare, but in an entirely different way. This felt like Katya could see through every mask and persona he portrayed.

“You never tried to figure out why she is the way she is?” Katya asked.

“She is not very trusting,” Theon said tightly.

Something akin to pity crossed the female’s face. “Of course she isn’t. Not when?—”

“Not when what?” Theon pressed when Katya cut herself off.

“If she hasn’t told you about her past, I do not think I should be the one to do so,” she said. “Please do not ask it of me.”

Theon looked across the table at Axel, his brother giving a slight shake of his head.

Fine. He wouldn’t press it any more tonight, but once Tessa had the next Mark and he could feel her emotions?

Everything would change.

10

THEON

“Why do we have to be in the same room?” Tessa groused, moving around the perimeter of the Pantheon room. She’d already slipped off her socks and her shoes, and Theon watched her drag her fingertips along the wall as she moved.