His expression hardens. “And that changes just because I did what I had to do?”
“That’s the problem,” I say, exasperated beyond all reason now. “That’s all you see. What you have to do. What Tanner thinks has to be done.” I sigh. “How am I supposed to go to another world with you? What promises will you break there?”
He just stares at me because, apparently, he has no defense.
And anyway, I hate that I feel like I’m attacking him.
“I’m not someone who could just sit at home while you fought for your kingdom. And I couldn’t bear not knowing if you would change directions or make decisions without me.” My heart feels like it’s breaking right now. “I want to be a team. I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Eva, the last thing I want to do is fight. If you could just trust me—”
“How?” I ask. “You said you wouldn’t deal with Bill without me.”
“I saw in his mind,” he says. “You don’t understand.”
“Maybe I could have if you’d told me.”
He looks at the ground. “I’ve been stressed. There are things I haven’t told you. Things happening at home, in my kingdom.”
“What do you mean?”
He looks up at me balefully. “You’re right. I have always made one-sided decisions. As a commander, it was my duty to keep people safe. And now I’m not there, and my family is in danger. And I’m sorry because I’m trying to protect you, Eva. I’m trying to keep my promise to you as well, but when I saw in his mind—”
“There are no buts to keeping promises,” I say softly. “And if your family needs you so much, perhaps you should go back to your world and help them. I have fires to put out here.”
His shock is evident. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Your people need you,” I say softly. “And I need to fix things with Qualtechnics. And yes, think about this magic inside me and what I want to do about being a fae.” I fold my arms. “And I need to do that alone now I think.”
“We are soul bonds. We should be together.” His hands are in fists. “I promise I won’t act without you again. This was a unique situation, and—”
“Won’t there be another one?” I ask. “Won’t you always think that when it matters, you can do what you want, no matter how it affects me?”
“That’s not fair,” Tanner retorts. “You know it isn’t, Eva. You know I love you, that I wouldn’t hurt you. That I didn’t mean to—”
“I know,” I say. “I know that. You’re not a bad person, Tanner. And yes, my heart calls out to you more than anyone I’ve ever met. But that means it’s also easiest for you to hurt me, and right now, I feel hurt very bad.”
“Because of your parents?” He pins me with a glare because I’ve told him all about them. “Because you think if we fight, even once, we’ll be like them?”
I shake my head. “No. I know you aren’t like either of them. But I also know that both of us are very independent. I’m not sure I can see either of us giving up what we want for the other.”
He stares at me, and I see the truth of what I’ve said hit him like it has me.
Shockwaves seem to reverberate through me, making my heart ache. But as much as I love this man, love to look at him, love to be with him, and admire and appreciate him…
I don’t see how this is going to work out. We’re too different in what we want.
“Tanner, you said I’m an ice fae. I’m powerful.”
“Yes,” he says flatly. “And?”
“I can protect myself while you go take care of things at home.”
He narrows his eyes. “So you’re rejecting me?”
I bite my lower lip. “I’m taking space for myself to figure things out.”
“But you’re my soul bond—”
“Incredible chemistry doesn’t make a relationship work, Tanner,” I say softly. “It also takes two people being willing to set aside what they want and consider another person.”
“I was considering you,” he says. “I was protecting you.”
“Then why didn’t you keep your word?” I look up at the building. “Why didn’t you protect Qualtechnics?”
“This place is garbage!” Tanner says, finally telling me what I knew all along.
“Right. Just like the human world,” I say. “And my priorities.”
“No!” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not saying this right. But yes, this company is garbage because of how it treats you and because of who owns it, and—”
“And I have people I care about here,” I say sharply.
“They are going to lay you off in a month,” he says. “Over nothing.”
I turn back to toward the building. “That gives me a month to try and make things better for the other employees, then, I guess.” I shrug my shoulder. “Anyway, don’t worry about it, Tanner. I’ll handle it.”
“Fine,” he says, calling after me. “If you really want to throw everything away and not listen to me and just go back to a place that will always devalue you, I can’t stop you.”
“You’re right. You can’t,” I say. “Because I may love you, but this is my life.”
“Eva, I swear nothing like this will ever happen again if you just—”
“I need to go work things out. Thanks to you, right now everyone is scared.”
“Fine,” Tanner says. “But if you just let me help—”
I glare at him over my shoulder. “You’ve done enough.”
“Eva, he wanted to rape you,” he calls after me in a last-ditch effort to stop me.
I turn back to him, shaking my head. “Then you should have come and talked to me about it, not just knocked him out and left him in his office.”
Then I go into the building, fighting back tears because the company employees need me, and I don’t have time to fall apart right now.
26
Tanner
By the time I reach the apartment, I’m in a black enough mood that even the thought of talking to my family isn’t enough to calm me.
I knew things would go badly after I attacked Bill, but I didn’t know they would go that badly.
She didn’t even give me a chance to explain. She doesn’t trust that I did what was right.
Perhaps when she calms down…
Flynn is on the couch, and he looks up at me as I close the door behind me. “You okay? Get off work early today?”
“Yes.” No, I just fucked everything up with my soul bond because I couldn’t contain my rage and my need to eradicate chaos.
I’m already headed toward my room when he calls to me again.
“Oh, a package came for you today. It has instructions. I set it on your desk for you.”
“Thanks, Flynn,” I reply, not wanting any of the chaos that is overflowing my heart to spread to anyone else.
Between my family being in trouble and my soul match sending me away like some insubordinate soldier, my heart is riding the edge between completely losing it and keeping it together.
I know Eva will be fine for now. I sensed no other chaos in the office.
If I do go back to my kingdom, to help them and gain some perspective on what to do about my soul bond, perhaps Ian or Flynn could guard her while I’m gone.
No matter what, I won’t let anything happen to her.
Though, I’m not sure how to help her trust me again.
I might not always be able to consult with her, but whenever I can, I will.
Still, I can’t really blame her for being angry. I knew she would be when I did what I did to Bill.
I shut my door and look over at my desk to see the package Flynn was talking about.
Unwrapping it, I see a note from Chadwick, explaining what it is and how it works.
I let out a sigh of relief, knowing I’ll soon be able to talk to my family. I’ve never needed their comfort more than now.
I unwrap the package and pull out a glass case with reinforced steel edges. Inside the case, I can see a bluish crystal
being held by two brackets inside.
How that dragon acquired a fae communication crystal, I have no clue. Let’s just hope it works.
I see a yellow note that says “press here” over a little red button on the top of the cube. Beneath that, scrawled in refined handwriting, I can see additional instructions.
Couldn’t find a good power source, so transmission won’t last long, but I tested it this morning. P.S. Say hi to your family for me. —Chad
I don’t waste time, too anxious to hear more news of my people to hesitate. I put the cube in the center of my desk and press the button.
Immediately, the crystal begins to hum, and the blue light gets brighter and brighter until a cone of light emits through the top, projecting a fuzzy image onto the wall above my desk.
A second later, a familiar face appears, calming the chaos in my heart for the first time since I saw into Bill’s mind.
“Is this thing working? Hello?” my mother, Atrea, says. Her face, with its refined features framed by long dark hair, is cast in monochromatic hues, but it’s her nonetheless.
“I can hear you just fine. How are you?” I ask.
She beams for a moment, apparently able to make me out on her end now as well. “Ah, there you are, Tynan. It’s wonderful to see you.”
“How are things in the kingdom of darkness?” I ask directly, dreading what I’m about to hear.
To my utter shock, my mother smiles, looking calm and, if I’m not mistaken, a little proud. “Ah, you must have heard how well things are going here, right?”
“What? Going well?”
“Yes. Our warriors are stronger than ever before. The threat of chaos is at an all-time low.”
The feeling of the two of us discussing matters of war is as familiar to me as the back of my hand.
But what she’s saying is the opposite of what I was expecting.
“So my brothers are not struggling to hold the lines?”
She looks confused for a moment. “No. Then again, they’ve been trained by the best.” She smiles proudly. “All of them fight for you, Tynan. Because of their bond with you, because of their love and respect for how you’ve defended the kingdom for so long on your own. Now the forces that would threaten us have been forced to retreat far away from our land,” she says excitedly.
“So our people are well?”
“Everyone is working together like never before.” She seems almost confused by my worry, as if there was nothing to worry about in the first place. “They understand your sacrifice in leaving to help find and protect beacons in the human world. They—we—want you to be able to put all your attention toward your new mission. To be able to enjoy your new adventure, living life for yourself for once.”
I run a hand through my hair, relieved and bewildered at the same time.
“Why were the letters you sent full of ill reports?” I ask, stress flooding out of me even as I try to regain my bearings.
“What letters, my son?” Her face cocks to the side slightly. Clearly, she has no clue what I’m talking about.
“The letters about being in trouble. The conversions to chaos. The battles.”
“We’ve had less people fall into chaos’ grasp than ever before because we’re united.” She pauses, face tensing slightly and I yearn to be there to ease any discomfort my absence has caused, but I listen nonetheless. “I suppose we depended too much upon you before, Tynan.”
“Impossible,” I reply.
“You were always the strongest. The most talented. The most capable of doing the hard things that few in the world of fae can comprehend. We let you carry too much alone. But it’s good for us now to put forth our best effort to take the mantle of responsibility you carried without being asked.”
I let my head drop, the memory of a thousand clashes with chaos running through my mind like a flash of light.
“You grew up too young, Tynan. And you think no one else can take care of things but you. But we can help also. You’re not alone. You never were.”
“I know that. I just wanted to protect you all,” I say quietly.
“And we want to protect you,” she says with a grin. “So stop worrying and get out there and have some fun for once.”
“I wouldn’t call a mission to the human world ‘fun’ necessarily,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair in exasperation.
Well, it was fun when I was with Eva. Holding Eva. Protecting Eva. Looking into her eyes…
“Isn’t it even… a little fun?” My mother is still watching me, a small smile on her face.
“Maybe a little.” I admit to her. “But I have ruined it in my shortsightedness.”
“Oh dear,” she says. “Tell me what you’ve done, and maybe I can help.”
“I called you to make sure you were okay, not to get help,” I say wearily. “It is fine. I will deal with it.”
“No!” She glares at me playfully. “Tynan, this is what I’m trying to tell you. You don’t have to carry everything alone.”
I snap my gaze up, realizing she’s right.
When I was young, I didn’t have a choice but to battle chaos. There was no one else to lead or make difficult choices.
I suppose that’s still my habit when I see something ugly that has to be dealt with. Take care of it before it can hurt someone else. Don’t let anyone deal with the ugliness.
With Bill, I was too angry to think straight, but it also didn’t occur to me to go see Eva and consult with her because I thought this was just something that should only dirty my hands.
Even thinking back to our fight, she wasn’t saying I couldn’t have done it. She was saying I should have told her. Treated her like part of a team.
She wasn’t so much hurt that I attacked Bill. She was hurt by my unilateral decision.
It’s a way of doing things that served me well when I was young and I had no choice, but not now. The right thing today would have been to hold myself back and come to talk to her.
Even if we hadn’t agreed, we could have hashed it out.
She wouldn’t have felt blindsided.
Same with trying to hide the problems with the merger.
I was only trying to protect her, but I should have turned off my panicked brain long enough to realize that it’s not really protecting her if I’m not protecting her heart.
And her heart was hurt by my thoughtless actions, no matter how justified I thought they were.
“You know, many things can be fixed with an apology,” my mother says gently.
“I don’t know if she’ll listen,” I say ruefully.
“She will if you open up to her and be vulnerable. Sometimes you’re so stuck in justifying yourself that you don’t let other people see you are struggling.”
“She doesn’t want me around,” I say.
My mom frowns. “I think she just didn’t want to fight with you. But maybe she has calmed down too. Sometimes soul bonds fight. We are still two different beings. The important thing is how we deal with those disagreements.”
“Did you and Dad fight?”
“Sometimes,” she says. “Though as we got closer and understood each other more and built trust together, it became less often.” Her eyes turn wistful. “And no matter what, every single minute of it was worth it.”
I smile, a little misty-eyed since I barely remember my father. “When you pass through the veil, I’m sure he’ll be ready.”
She laughs. “I know. And when I see him, I’ll be sure to let him know he shouldn’t have kept me waiting so long.”
I laugh, wishing I could reach out and hug her. “Thank you, Mom. And tell my brothers I love them. When we are done here, I will at least bring Eva back to visit.” I swallow. “We may… we may stay in the human world for some time while she adjusts.”
It’s the least I can offer her, though I know it won’t make up for screwing up the Bill thing.
“That’s fine,” my mother says. “I’m sure we’ll love her when we meet her, no mat
ter what.”
“Any last advice?” I ask because I’m really dreading having to go do this.
“Just love her,” my mom says. “Love her like your life depends on it. Love her enough to go against your darker nature and override your automatic reactions. Love her enough to be better every day you’re by her side.”
My chest is tight, but it only speaks the truth of what my mother is saying. It’s not enough to just keep trudging forward in my habits.
I need to adjust, to properly show love to this new person who is going to be a part of my life.
I shouldn’t have thought everything would work out because she’s my soul bond.
But because she’s my soul bond, I will do everything in my power to make sure this works out.
“Thank you, Mother.” I blow her a kiss, and she returns the gesture.
“We’re all with you.”
“And I’m with you,” I reply as the image begins to flicker and the light from the crystal quickly fades. “I love you.”
“I love you too. We all love you, Tynan.” Her last words dissipate into a buzzing sound as the hum in my room dims and everything returns to normal.
All that’s left is to deal with my problems.
Right now, Eva is all that matters to me. Making up with her. Protecting her. Letting her know I am sorry and that I will never act without her again.
That I was a fool for downplaying her world and that I’ll stay here as long as she wants me to.
I’m willing to stop being a stubborn idiot who keeps trying to fix everything, if only she’ll give me another chance.
And if she doesn’t, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to convince her.
As I rush through the living room, I cast a glance at Ian and Flynn who are both intently watching TV.
“Hopefully, that cleared some things up?” Flynn asks optimistically, tossing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “You look a little better now.”
“Yes. It did.”
Ian’s attention moves from the TV to me. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
Nothing anymore.
I rush for the door.
“If you need backup, just call for help. We’ll hear you—” But Flynn’s voice is interrupted by the door closing behind me.
Defended By Darkness: Wings, Wands and Soul Bonds Book 2 Page 16
