Cord looked at her in shock, and his expression didn’t change when Michael came into the room and Tegan hugged him. The female who didn’t show any form of affection when she arrived here was now willingly hugging her brother, in front of others.
She looked around the room and then frowned. “I need Marcus...and maybe Lucas.”
“You want the whole happy little Prophecy for a kumbaya session?” Cord asked dryly.
“I don’t know what that is, but I do need them, or can we open links to them?” Tegan looked to Leonid in question before she considered Cord. “You could actually do it,” she mused. “A fire message with an open link?”
“I’m not a communication device,” Cord snapped.
“No, but you are my bonded mate, and you will do this and stop being a petulant child,” Tegan snapped back. “And seriously, creating a fire message and maintaining an open link? You’ve done it before.” She raised her eyebrow as she taunted him. “A feat only you can do, one more thing for you to boast about.”
Michael snort laughed at her bluntness, and the others also chuckled as Cord flushed at her candour.
“Do it, I think I’ve worked out the Prophecy,” Tegan encouraged him.
“Why didn’t you lead with that?” Cord grumbled as he created a fire message and closed his eyes to search for a link to Marcus. He opened one eye a slit to look at his little tiger, who beamed back at him, and with a rueful shake of his head, he cast his Flare.
When the link was open and Lucas and Garrick had both arrived, Tegan told them her theory. The assembled males all considered Tegan, who stood proudly, not at all concerned she held these powerful males’ attention.
“Tegan,” Marcus’s voice came through the fire link. Cord had created an open link and maintained it. “What are you saying, exactly?”
Tegan looked around the room confidently. “You were right to think that we are different prophecies in one, but we are also one Prophecy in many.”
“Yeah, you said that,” Michael said with a smile, “but you’re going to have to break it down into bite-sized pieces for me,” he added with a half shrug.
Tegan frowned as she looked around the room. None of them were following? Surely not. “Okay, what part?”
“All of it?” Michael said as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he looked up at his sister.
“Oh.” Tegan looked to Salem, and he nodded slightly in encouragement.
“What Tegan is saying,” Salem began.
“Is that we have been blind,” Garrick said thoughtfully as he sat in the corner, his hands folded in the pockets of his robes.
Salem looked at the Crimson Prime Castor in surprise. “Blind may be too blunt,” he hedged.
“Blind is what we have been and is what we are,” Garrick grumped from his corner. “I see it now, just as young Tegan does,” he said with a nod in Tegan’s direction. “So many things are being hidden from us,” Garrick bit out in frustration. “Why? Why is it being made so easy for our enemy and so dastardly difficult to us?”
“Dastardly difficult?” Cord couldn’t stop the small smirk as he looked at his Prime.
“How long were you in the cave for?” Garrick demanded of Leonid as he stood. “How long between them slitting your throat and throwing you over the mountain did you sit in that cave and literally hold your head on your neck?”
“Too long,” Leonid said calmly, ignoring the uncomfortable shuffles from the rest of the room at Garrick’s harsh words. “It felt like years,” Leonid admitted, carrying on. “But I believe it was three maybe four weeks?”
“And Cord was with you for twelve days after that or during that?”
“After.”
“And you can see it?” Garrick pressed the Vampyre.
“Yes.”
“And no one else can?” Garrick looked around the room.
“I could,” Cord spoke up as he looked over at Leonid. “When I held onto Leonid, he could show me.”
“So it creates an illusion,” Garrick said thoughtfully. “Is the Darkness the illusion, or is reality the illusion?”