Page 27 of A Legacy of Stars (The Lost God Legacies)
27
TEDDY
M ud squelched under Teddy’s boots as he shoved the assassin’s body down the steep incline. He turned back to face the treehouse. From this angle, he could only make out the faintest glow in the treetop. It was the kind of thing you’d only see if you were looking for it.
He lifted the last assassin, hauled the dead weight over his back, and set to weaving through the thick trees to get rid of the body.
Teddy had often heard it said that when a warrior was about to die, their life would flash before their eyes. But Teddy had been outnumbered, with a rope around his throat, and he had not seen his life.
He’d not seen the last few years as a comfort. Instead, he’d seen the past few days. He’d imagined a future looking into bright green eyes.
Teddy had thought of Stella.
He’d worried about who would protect her in the competition. How she’d be burdened with the guilt of his loss. She was like that—like him in that way—so responsible for everything all the time.
Even when they were in the river, he hadn’t felt fear like he felt seeing her walking into the bathing chamber in his half-soaked tunic. He was terrified the assassins would hurt her—that they’d make him watch. That he’d die choking on his complicated feelings for her.
Stella had looked like something out of a myth. Her blades were an extension of her limbs, her movements exact, efficient, and mesmerizing. She was beautiful and ethereal, like a rain-drenched goddess of vengeance come to deliver him from death’s clutches.
She must have felt him panic, but she was there so quickly. Perhaps she’d seen them coming, though he didn’t know how. It was so dark in the forest at night and, with the lantern on in the treehouse, it would have been almost impossible to see anything below.
Truthfully, Teddy was mortified he’d needed to be saved. Again.
It was hard to admit, even in the privacy of his own mind, that he didn’t want the score settled between them. An outstanding debt left their business unfinished. It gave him a reason to seek her out. It gave him time to figure out what this was.
He’d assumed so much of it was the bond, but when he watched her fight the assassins, he hadn’t felt afraid that the bond would break and he’d feel the pain of it being torn out. All his terror had been wrapped up in the thought of Stella being hurt. Of what those monsters might do if given the chance.
When he woke that morning wrapped around Stella, his face buried in her neck, he’d told himself it was just the bond, just the intimacy of an intense near-death experience and two lonely people who desperately needed to blow off some steam.
But he wasn’t thinking about fucking her now—well, that wasn’t true. He was still thinking about that. She’d fought off those assassins in just Teddy’s soaking-wet shirt and her dagger vest and he’d never seen anything so sexy in his life. But he was mostly thinking about how the fuck he was going to help her through this. He still remembered the cold feeling that had settled over him after his first kill.
It was a dividing line between the hypothetical and reality. It was a dividing line in his life between when he thought he might have what it took to be heir and when he was certain. He could trace so much in his life back to that moment.
He’d been so young. At sixteen, the thought of being responsible for an entire kingdom was unimaginable. But once he’d slid his blades between the ribs of someone who was trying to kill him, it had suddenly seemed much more attainable.
If he could take a life, surely he could be responsible for many more. If he could feel the numbness that came after, the shock of realizing exactly what he didn’t know he was capable of, then he could be capable of greater things—and maybe even worse ones. He’d been fighting for the former ever since.
Stella seemed somehow diminished, as if the swipe of her blade had rent her of something vital and she would forever be tarnished by this brutal lesson in survival.
Teddy had wished it upon her—the vicious knowledge that came with taking a life. He’d wanted her to lose her shine. Now that she had, the loss felt personal.
It was just because she had evened the score. He had liked her owing him. It made him feel a little superior, but also connected to her by something other than the magic of their bond.
But he knew what it was to face down death and realize you have the instinct to fight for your life enough that you’d take another’s. Stella was different—not soft, exactly, but certainly gentler—or maybe fiercer, in a different kind of way.
His father had once told him that no one loved as fiercely as Cecilia Reznik. Now Teddy felt like he knew what Xander meant. Love was something people thought of as soft, but love could have claws and sharp edges and a desperate desire to protect.
He hadn’t felt that before—the fear that he wouldn’t be able to soothe something—that there was no way to make Stella feel better. He had always been able to find a way to be smarter, calmer, better in some way. But now he worried there was nothing he could do to transform this hurt into something healing.
This desire to do something wasn’t just a want. It was a need—an incessant impulse in his chest. He’d wanted her before, but now he wanted to do anything to dispel the coldness of losing that shred of innocence.
Teddy felt wretchedly guilty for wishing away her whimsy and wanting her to have to face harsh realities. He felt more guilty for being relieved that she had.
Rain blurred his eyes as he tossed the last assassin’s body over the edge of the nearby ravine. Then he turned back toward the treehouse.
As he walked, he scoured his brain for how to make her feel better. But that was just it—there was no feeling better.
This was a loss of innocence that left a person cold and isolated, even if they’d been around people who had experienced the same thing. The revelation of discovering that you’re a person who can do what you must to survive is haunting.
He trudged back to the tree and climbed through the branches, trying to imagine what he could do to help her.