I went back to quietly pacing and trying to convince myself that we were making progress. And we had. Tessa was here. She might not be conscious, but that would change. It had to.
And now that we had her, we knew a lot more—her name, what she’d been doing, where she lived. We knew it all.
Tessa thought her name was Cassie Wolffe, which Samantha thought was freaking hilarious. Whoever decided that should be her name was either an idiot or thumbing their nose at us. It was definitely the latter because it took a lot to pull this off for so long.
And it was really that poor choice of names that got the FBI to really believe me. They’d gone to the hospital to touch her—they wanted to see through the magic themselves—but it hadn’t worked. Humans couldn’t see through magic when they had none of their own.
But when Samantha went into Tessa’s room and grabbed Tessa’s arm, and then the FBI agent’s arm—he saw.
That’s why they’d left. They were letting us deal with Tessa. There was no threat to humans, unless they interfered.
I was technically allowed inside the hospital room now, but the last time I…she had another seizure. So, we were waiting for her to wake up before I was allowed in again.
Tessa would wake up. Because Claudia was right. Under all that magic, Tessa was still a werewolf. Tessa was just so clouded, so camouflaged, so entirely cloaked in fey magic that I couldn’t feel her wolf. Not even when I was touching her.
I couldn’t feel her magic either.
As far as I could tell, the person in that bed wasn’t even the least bit supernatural.
It’s like Tessa wasn’t there. Everything that made her who she was…it was all gone.
Except she was there.
That was Teresa McCaide Laurent. My Tessa. I knew it. I believed it. And so I knew everything I was feeling, everything I was seeing, was a lie.
I knew from the books in her bag that she was in school. From her ID, I knew that she had an apartment here. A life. But it wasn’t real. She was living a lie.
I stopped my pacing and looked at the row of seats. My friends—my family—were there. Michael sat watching me. His wolf was close, ready to take me down if I lost control.
Axel was sitting with his head bowed, and his knees were bouncing. He was gripping his hands together and releasing them. Then squeezing them again. He wasn’t losing control, but he was close.
Tessa was my mate, but she was also his sister.
I needed to control myself better. If for no other reason than because Axel was taking his cues from me. He was still so new to the world of werewolves and magic, but I’d been born into it. If I panicked, he would, too.
Samantha had silver skull earbuds in, and her eyes were closed. I knew she could see things that I couldn’t, and I wasn’t sure what was hanging around a hospital. I would’ve thought she was sleeping, but the slight citrus scent of her anxiety was enough to tell me that she was awake.
Claudia was leaning against Lucas, who was also watching me. If Michael and Lucas both came at me, I was pretty sure I’d lose. Which meant I needed to calm down. But how?
I’d waited so long to find her, and now that I had… I couldn’t lose her again. But how was I supposed to fix this? We’d found her only because the archon finally decided to act.
Why? I wasn’t sure.
“What am I going to do?” I met Lucas’s gaze. “What do I do?”
“Do what my mate said and wait. You’re going to wait patiently for Cosette.”
“I don’t know what another fey can do, but…” Samantha spoke without taking out her earbuds, but she opened her eyes, and the scent of her anxiety sharped.
I wondered again about what she saw. Something told me her anxiety didn’t have anything to do with being in a room of witches and werewolves.
“The magic is woven into her soul,” Samantha said, staring straight into my eyes. “It’s blended into the fabric of her being. It’s had so long to permeate her that when you touched her—when you forced her to confront the magic—she nearly died. Instantly. It might not be what you want to hear, but messing with that magic feels dangerous. It was dangerous for me more than a year ago when I tried to reach through the void in your bonds to find her. Messing with the source of that magic now? It’s clearly deadly for her.”
She was right. It made me want to punch something or someone, but I couldn’t. So I rubbed my hands down my face and breathed.
There was always an answer. Always a way. I just had to find it.
I’d spent so long looking for her and then…