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“Eyes on you,” she mumbled.

“Yes. Exactly. Eyes on me.”

They needed to get that dagger out right fucking now.

Luka looked up at him, huffing out a plume of smoke telling Theon the coast was clear. When his feet touched the ground, the dragon’s large snout was looking over his shoulder as he laid Tessa on the ground. Luka would stay in that form until they were ready to move on, just in case.

“He said something to me,” Tessa said again as Axel and Katya appeared.

Axel passed a flask to Theon, and he gave his brother a quizzical look.

“Cienna gave it to me. Said we’d need it soon,” Axel said grimly.

Theon knocked back a swallow. Fae blood. Of course she’d known.

But so had Tessa.

He’d have to think about that later.

“What did he say to you, little storm?” Theon asked, nodding subtly to Axel, who had casually folded a hand around her arm, pinning it to the ground.

“That he had to kill me. They told him if I lived, Devram would fall,” she rasped, lifting her other hand into the air. “They look like feathers,” she murmured.

“What do?”

But then he felt her fingers drift through his shadow wings, and holy fuck. He lurched back as pure lust bolted through him, despite Tessa bleeding out on the ground.

“Not the time, Tessa,” he gritted out, shaking out his arms and hands to get some control back.

She shrugged weakly. “Don’t really have much time left, do I?” A low growl came from Luka, and Tessa shifted her focus. Her fingers traced down the side of his jaw, and Luka huffed into her palm. “Stay where I can see you, okay?”

Katya had lowered down beside Axel and ripped a piece of fabric from her shirt, pressing it to Tessa’s throat.

“You’re not going to die, Tessa,” Theon said.

Her gaze darted to him. “If not now, you’ll just kill me later.”

“What? No. I’m not going to?—”

“She’s rambling, Theon,” Axel cut in. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Get the dagger out, and we’ll take her?—”

“Katya is never there, but you are,” Tessa said, meeting Axel’s gaze. “You hold me down. Just like now.”

“Get it out. Between the two of us, we can pool our magic to keep the wound closed until we find a Witch in the central districts,” Axel said.

“Deep breath, beautiful. Can you do that for me?” Theon asked, smoothing her hair back from her brow.

Her eyes fluttered closed, and when they remained so for a few seconds, Luka nudged her with his snout. They didn’t open, and Theon wasted no more time. Gripping the dagger, he pulled it straight up, cursing when he found it to be one that could end a Legacy. Where had Jagger gotten this from? They were highly regulated. It would have cost a fortune, even here.

But more concerning, Tessa hadn’t moved when he’d pulled the dagger out.

He felt nothing down the bond.

He felt nothing at all.

14

AXEL