back on my tempest bullshit again, so have a one-shot approximately set during Maelstrom
Rain streaked down the windows of the conference room so fervently that Tessa wondered if she'd summoned it herself. If the ache in her heart had echoed through to the gods, and Zeus himself had sent a storm at her request. Storms didn't work like that, Tessa knew that, but she couldn't shake the thought.
"Tess." His voice sent two opposing forces through Tessa's soul: one telling her to put her guard up and the other urging her to break those walls she'd put up to the ground. Her heart ached again, with each footstep he took across the carpeted floor towards her.
"I can't," Tessa whispered. Tears threatened to break down her cheeks, but she forced them back as she turned her back on the stormy city. Kaden was hardly a yard away, somber green eyes watching her like she was about to burst. "Kaden, I can't."
Kaden inhaled slowly, eyes never leaving hers. She could feel his frustration, no matter how good he'd become at masking his emotions. It kept him safe. Hell, it kept Tessa and their friends safe. But she could still feel each pang of regret, of longing, of sorrow, wash over him as if being battered against the shore.
"You don't have to do this," Kaden said with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. "We can find another way."
"There is no other way," Tessa argued. She gripped the back of one of the chairs, soft black leather cool to the touch. It grounded her, if only for a moment. "If we want to win, we have to do this. I have to do this."
Kaden set his jaw. "So you're going to throw yourself into harm's way just like that?"
"I've done it for years," Tessa rebuffed. "Where were your complaints every other time?"
Kaden dragged a hand through his chestnut hair, making the ends stick up in a very un-Kadenlike way. "Tessa--"
"No." Tessa drew her hand from the back of the chair, balling it into a fist at her side. "I'm tired of listening to other people tell me what I should or should not do. Because the fact of that matter, Kaden, is that we are all out of tricks. We're all out of options. And if this is the only way to save everyone, to ensure that Rainier doesn't win, then I'll do it. Every time."
Part of her felt bad for snapping at Kaden, but the roar of the blood rushing through her veins drowned that other part out. Sometimes bold decisions had to be made. Sometimes danger needed to be embraced. Sometimes lives needed to be put on the line. Her life.
Tessa swallowed. What was her life? Twenty something years of being a pawn in someone else's game, of being shoved around by the powers that be on a chessboard for a power she didn't want. Tides rolled in and out at her command. Her very existence defied nature. What did that make her? Certainly not human. Certainly not deserving of whatever peace and simplicity she tried to fit herself into whenever fate pitied her enough to give her a break.
Tessa shut her eyes, turning back to the window. The sound of the rain rolled over her, washing away Kaden and the danger and the hurt in her heart that wanted nothing more than to put down her weapons and run into his arms, until all there was echoing through her head was thunder.
