He thought he knew more than me? No way. He couldn’t—
“Quit your growling, wolf. Right now, Tessa is my prey. I’m hunting her. Not to harm her, but to find her. So, I’ve studied Tessa extensively. I’ve read her diaries. I lived with her parents for a month. I’ve seen every photo—watched every video—taken of her since her birth. I wanted to know how she’d react so that I’d know when I find the real Tessa.”
As much as I wanted to argue that I’d lived in her head and he couldn’t possibly know more about her than me, I wanted to hear the rest.
“You see, I didn’t know her before. I knew she was powerful. I’d fought beside her, so I knew that much. But she was more a coworker than a friend. I wanted a closer connection so that I could really help look for her.”
“And what did you find out?”
“I know how hard her life was before you. The visions isolated her. She was bullied. Aside from her brother, she was alone. Completely alone.”
I knew that. I’d seen it in her memories. She was always so thankful to have a life outside the visions that imprisoned her.
“And then she met you, and she wasn’t alone anymore. She gained the power to control her visions. She was free to have friends. Live her life.”
That was also true.
“And not only that, before you bit her, she was about to meet up with the coven there. The one ruled by Luciana. If you hadn’t bitten her, she wouldn’t have been strong enough—confident enough—to defeat the witch. By biting Tessa, you saved her life. You gave her the strength that she needed to take Luciana down.”
Now that was something I hadn’t thought about. She was going to visit the coven eventually. There was no way Luciana would’ve let her live.
Had biting Tessa really saved her?
“It’s time to come home, Dastien. It’s been too many months since you ran away. We need you back.”
“But what if—”
“You can only live your life by what you know to be true. Right now, we know that she’s alive. Hold on to that. Today, she’s been gone two hundred and fifty days. If she’s survived for nearly nine months, I have to believe that she will keep living until we find her. And we will. We just have to find the right place to look. I don’t know when or how, but we will find her. It’s only a matter of time. She can’t stay hidden forever. Nothing—nothing—can stay hidden forever. Not even with Helen’s magic.”
He was Lunar Court fey. Which meant he couldn’t lie.
He stood again. “Take my hand. Let me take you home.”
Van was right. I wasn’t doing any good here. “I can’t keep looking for her. When I…when I hit the dead ends, I lose control. It’s too much for me. The second of hope and the crash when I realize it was misplaced hope…it’s too much. I wish I were stronger. I wish I could be good enough for her, but I…” I was weak without her.
“The rest of us have hunting covered. We’re keeping the peace and defeating what needs defeating.”
Great. Fine. That didn’t make me feel like I was worthy of Tessa, but I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing and survive. “So what the hell am I going back for? What would I do? I can’t just sit around and wait. I’ll go crazy. And I can’t look for her when I have no hope left to spare. So—”
“Why don’t you go build your mate the house she wants? So that when you find her, you can take her home.”
It took a minute for his words to really sink in, and when they did, the strangling feeling around my heart eased up a little.
Build the house. Build our future. And build my hope that I would find her.
I could do that. Maybe I could do that.
Van reached out a hand to me, and this time I took it. I was ready to leave. And when the world went black, and I started tumbling and twisting, I barely felt it.
I had a purpose. That was more than I had an hour ago.
Chapter Twelve
DASTIEN
Six Hundred Twenty-Seven Days Missing
* * *