Sometimes I worry about Violet. She has your sharp wit, quick mind, and steadfast heart paired with my bullheaded tenacity. When she finally and truly gives that heart, I fear it will overrule the other gifts you’ve given her and logic will cede its voice to love. And if her first two liaisons are any indication of what we might expect… Gods help her, my love, I’m afraid our daughter has atrocious taste in men.
—Recovered, Unsent Correspondence of General Lilith Sorrengail
Xaden can sense them.
My fingernails bend slightly when my hand flexes along the grout line, holding on for dear life as my mind spins. But just because he can sense them doesn’t mean he gave up part of his soul, right? It’s there in his eyes, watching me, waiting for me to reject him, or worse, push him away like I did after Resson.
Maybe it’s more dire than I thought, but he’s still whole, still him. Just with…heightened senses.
I shove my stomach right back where it belongs and hold his stare. “Scared of you?” I shake my head. “Never.”
“You will be,” he whispers, looking over my features like he needs to memorize them.
“Your five minutes are up,” Garrick says from the base of the steps. “And Violet has a meeting to get to.”
Xaden’s expression shifts into something dangerous as he glares at his best friend and leans away from me.
“She told you we think you should sleep somewhere else, didn’t she?” Garrick rolls his neck like he’s preparing for a fight.
“She did.” Xaden starts down the steps, and I follow. “And I’ll tell you the same thing she said to Imogen. Get fucked.”
“Figured.” Garrick turns a pleading look on me, and I smile back as we walk out of the academic wing and into the surprisingly empty rotunda, crossing between two dragon pillars. “Thought you’d at least be logical, Violet.”
“Me? You’re the ones acting based on feelings and with no evidence whatsoever. My decision to trust him is based purely on the facts of our proven history.”
“As much as I appreciate the concern,” Xaden drawls, his voice edging on icy, “you try to dictate the occupants of Violet’s bed again, and we’re going to have problems.”
Garrick shakes his head at his best friend but drops the subject as we make our way to main campus, passing through the chaotic cleanup near the infirmary.
The death roll in the Infantry Quadrant will be painfully long tomorrow.
“For someone who’s about to face the highest-ranking aristocracy in the kingdom, you seem pretty calm, Sorrengail,” Garrick remarks as we cross onto the thick red carpet of the administration building.
The hallway is cramped with people in tunics of various colors waiting for talks to resume, identified only by the heraldry embroidered on cross-body sashes that remind me of our dress uniforms. Our own provinces are easy to recognize, and I even spot Braevick’s as heads begin to turn in our direction.
“I’ve known this was coming and have a plan. Two weeks is a lot of time to overthink every possible scenario,” I reply as the crowd slowly parts to the side of the hall in what I’ve come to think of as the Xaden effect. I can’t blame them for staring. He’s gorgeous. I can’t blame them for backing up, either. He’s not only terrifyingly powerful, he’s known to be responsible for splitting Navarre’s riot and providing weapons to Poromiel.
Safe to say not every gaze trained on him—on any of the three of us—is friendly.
“You’re sure this is what you want?” Xaden asks as we approach the massive double doors of the great hall.
“It’s what she wants,” I tell him, and one of the guards adorned with the crest of Calldyr slips into the hall, no doubt to announce our arrival. “And it’s what we need. You still up for coming with?” I glance at him. “Even beyond the wards?”
The magical barrier is doing more than protecting us from him—it’s protecting him from himself.
His jaw flexes. “Even beyond the wards,” he confirms as we reach the doors and the remaining stone-faced guard in infantry blue.
“I assume you’re expecting me?” I ask the guard.
“You will wait to be escorted, Cadet Sorrengail,” she replies without looking my way.
Pleasant.
“I’m starting to think twice about this meeting,” Garrick says from Xaden’s other side, his gaze scanning the heavily armed crowd in the hallway. “She’s been invited to appear before the Senarium alone, and we haven’t exactly been pardoned for leaving Basgiath and taking a large portion of the riot. Brennan might be sitting in on the treaty negotiations on behalf of Aretia, but we don’t have a seat on the council. Anything could happen to Violet in there.”
“Already thought about that,” I assure him. “They need me alive for Andarna’s sake if not Tairn’s. I’ll be fine.”
“She has Lewellen in there representing Tyrrendor and can set the whole damned place on fire with a wave of her hand,” Xaden adds, folding his arms and glowering at the guard. “I’m more concerned for their safety than hers.”
The door on the right opens, and the other guard walks through.
My stomach twists when General Melgren appears in the doorway, his beady eyes narrowing as he looks down his beak of a nose at me. “Cadet Sorrengail, the Senarium is ready to receive you.” His gaze darts to Garrick, then Xaden. “Alone.”
“I’ll be right out here”—Xaden’s tone slips into menace—“deterred by these wooden doors that hang an inch off the ground.”
“Subtle.” I fight the tug at the corner of my mouth.
Melgren gestures me inside but doesn’t take his eyes off Xaden.
“Never going to be,” he replies as I walk into the hall. “I have every faith in your ability to protect yourself, but say the word and I’ll rip the doors off their hinges.”
“You’re such a romantic.” I quickly take in the new furniture arrangement of the familiar room, finding a long trestle table running the length of the hall with dozens of chairs, no doubt to accommodate the negotiations. Six nobles dressed in lushly embroidered tunics and gowns sit facing me at the closest end, representing each of Navarre’s six provinces. I know them all thanks to my mother, but only the one on the far left offers me a tired smile as I approach the center of their grouping and place my hands on the back of the chair.
Lewellen.
“Any last-minute additions?” I ask Andarna as Melgren walks around the table and sits to the right of the Duchess of Morraine.
“Nothing that comes to mind,” she responds.
Here we go.
“Let’s make this quick,” the Duchess of Morraine snaps in a high-pitched voice from the right, a giant ruby jostling along her collarbone when she heaves a sigh. “We have three days to save these negotiations and need every hour of it.”
“I couldn’t agree more—” I start.
“We’ve been briefed by General Melgren and conferred with the king,” the Duke of Calldyr interrupts directly across from me, stroking his short blond beard. “As of this moment, you will be assigned to a—” He glances at Melgren. “What did you call it?”
“A task force,” Melgren supplies, sitting eerily still as he studies me.
“Task force,” the duke repeats. “Which will embark on a quest to find and recruit the seventh dragon breed with an aim to increase our numbers and hopefully provide insight into killing the venin.”
I reach into the pocket of my uniform and pull out two folded pieces of parchment. I hold up the first. “Should we agree to participate, this is a list of Andarna’s demands.”
The Duchess of Elsum raises her dark brows, and the Duke of Luceras recoils.
“You are not in a place to make demands,” the Duchess of Morraine admonishes. “While we owe your mother a debt of gratitude, you are still considered a deserter.”
“A deserter who saved this college, our wards, and our kingdom, not to mention took on multiple venin within these walls a few hours ago, all of which I’ve done without falling under Navarrian chain of command.” I tilt my head. “Makes it hard to assign me to anything, as none of you commands the Aretian riot. And they’re not my demands, they’re hers.”
“The return of our riot is a matter still in negotiation.” Melgren glances down the table at Lewellen. “This assignment is being made in good faith, with the understanding that the riot will remain at Basgiath. Lewellen, seeing as you’ve secretly represented Aretia for years—which is a separate issue this council has yet to address—perhaps you’d be willing to read her demands.”
The rebuke has most of the aristocrats shifting in their seats.
Lewellen holds out his hand, and I give him the folded list. Step one, complete. A smile tugs at the corners of his lined mouth as he reads. “Some of these are quite…unique.”
“As is she,” I reply, launching into step two. “I will take six riders—”
“You will take no one,” Melgren interrupts. “You are a second-year cadet who will only be allowed to participate because we need your dragon. It has already been decided that Captain Grady will lead the task force, due largely to his experience behind enemy lines.”
My stomach sinks. “My RSC professor?” No, no, no, this is not how this was supposed to go. I grasp the list that has Mira’s name inked at the top.
“The same.” Melgren nods. “He’s been made aware, and you can expect to hear from him once we’ve settled the Poromish alliance and its requirements and he’s configured the squad of his choosing.”
His choosing. Power rises within me, simmering in my blood. “Which will at least include Lieutenant Riorson, correct?”
The aristocrats all look to Melgren.
“Riorson’s involvement will be at Grady’s discretion.” Melgren stares back at me, unflinching.
“Tairn and Sgaeyl can’t be separated,” I argue.
“Which would suggest Riorson will be among his selections,” Melgren states with about as much emotion as a tree. No wonder Mom liked him so much. “But again, it’s at the captain’s discretion.”
Captain’s discretion. My blood hums. “Determining the members of the squad is one of Andarna’s demands.” In every scenario I’d thought through, Andarna’s compliance had always been the card I’d mentally played.
“Then it’s one that won’t be met.” Melgren folds his hands in his lap. “It’s a nonnegotiable military operation, not a class field trip.”
“We won’t go,” Tairn states.
“We have to go!” Andarna argues, her voice rising.
The parchment crumples in my hand. “She’s right. We have to go.” Andarna deserves this, first and foremost. But if there’s any chance they know how to defeat the venin or how to cure Xaden, then we truly have no choice. “Every possible path.” Which means we have to give.
“Shall we consider the matter settled?” the Duke of Calldyr asks.
Absolutely the fuck not.
“It is,” Melgren states.
“Only if you meet the rest of Andarna’s demands.” I lift my chin. “I think both she and Tairn have shown they’re more than willing to walk—if not fly—away from Basgiath.”
Melgren’s nostrils flare, and I bite back a crow of victory. “We will consider approving her other requests.”
“Then it’s settled,” the Duke of Calldyr announces. “Excellent. This development should help smooth negotiations.”
“At least letting the fliers enter the quadrant would help,” I add, frustration burning in my chest.
“When they can’t even wield to protect themselves?” Melgren scoffs. “The riders will eat them alive.”
“Isn’t that one of Poromiel’s arguments against leaving those additional forces with us?” the Duchess of Morraine asks, and Melgren nods.
They aren’t forces. They’re cadets in need of the protection of the wards.
The duke scratches his neck. “We’ll think on it. The fliers handling themselves in the quadrant would go a long way toward smoothing that negotiation point.”
My thoughts exactly.
“You’re dismissed, cadet,” Melgren orders.
“I’ll walk you out,” Lewellen says, pushing away from the table and rising to his feet.
I slip the mangled list into my pocket and cross the cobblestones to the door, trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered expectations. There’s no telling if we’ll be able to trust whoever Grady selects for the squad.
“I’ll work on these,” Lewellen says quietly, raising the list of Andarna’s demands. “And in the meantime”—he reaches into his tunic and retrieves a palm-size missive—“I was asked to give you this privately.”
“Thank you,” I respond out of habit, taking the parchment.
He knocks twice on the door, and I depart through the one the guard gestures me through on the left.
Opening the missive, I walk into the hall, recognizing Tecarus’s sprawling handwriting.
You have three days to hold up your end of our bargain.
Fuck. That’s not an option. I look up and find every member of my squad waiting, a wall of black and brown holding back a sea of colorful tunics and gowns.
“How did it go?” Imogen asks.
“Give her a second,” Rhi lectures.
My gaze sweeps over them as the door shuts behind me, and then I lock eyes with Xaden, who is crossing the distance between us. “The plan went to shit.”
Which means the one I’m holding in my hand can’t fail.
• • •
Morning light pours in through my window, and I slowly blink awake to the sound of the campus bells chiming eight times. Snow sits stacked on the sill, but the skies beyond are blue for the first time since solstice.
Holy shit, I didn’t just sleep, I slept in. Maybe it was hitting the gym last night with Imogen, or the emotional letdown after I’d vented with Rhi and Tara about why Grady was the worst possible choice to lead Andarna’s mission, but I didn’t wake once, thank gods. I must have drifted off after settling into bed with the book on Navarrian imports predating the Trade Agreement of Resson that Jesinia had tossed at me when I’d shown up to visit Sawyer, still seething. Lifting my head from the pillow, I spot the closed book on my nightstand, my page marked by one of Xaden’s daggers.
A slow smile curves my mouth at his thoughtfulness. Guess I’d been asleep by the time he made it to bed after his daily meeting with Brennan, Lewellen, and, as of yesterday afternoon, Duke Lindell, who fostered Xaden and Liam.
I turn under the warmth of the blankets, fully expecting to find Xaden wide awake given the hour, but he’s fast asleep with one arm curled around his pillow and the other with its freshly pink scar lying on the blanket between us. My heart clenches, and staring seems the only logical action, if only for just a few moments. Gods, is he beautiful. His face is softened in sleep, and all the tension he usually carries in his jaw, his shoulders, is strikingly absent. The last week has been hard on him, being constantly torn between his duties as a rider and navigating the responsibility he carries for Aretia in a space that doesn’t recognize it. I fight the urge to touch him. He’s slept like shit since the battle, too, and if he can get even just another few minutes, he should have it.
As slowly and silently as possible, I scoot toward my side of the bed and sit up, letting my feet dangle just above the floor. My hair is still partly damp from braiding it right after my bath last night, and I make quick, quiet work of running my brush through it so it has a prayer of drying before it’s time to head out into the cold. Once I set the brush back on the nightstand, I stretch with a speed a sloth would be proud of—
A band of shadow wraps around my waist a second before my hair is swept to the side and Xaden sets his lips to the juncture of my neck and shoulder in an open-mouthed kiss.
Oh, yes.
I gasp as an immediate flare of heat races down my spine at the lash of his tongue, the scrape of his teeth, and my head falls back against his shoulder. He moves straight to the hypersensitive spot at the side of my neck like my body is a map only he has the key to, and I spear my fingers into his hair as my back arches. Damn, he knows exactly how to take me from the ground to sky-fucking-high in less than a handful of heartbeats.
“Mine,” he growls against my skin, and his hand skims the hemline of my nightdress before dragging it up my thigh.
“Mine,” I counter, tightening my grip in his hair.
He laughs into my neck, the sound low and intoxicating as his hand crosses over the juncture of my thighs, then grabs hold of my hip and tugs.
My fingers slip from his hair, and the room spins before my back hits the center of the bed. Then he’s all I see, rising above me with a wicked smile in nothing but loose sleeping pants, sliding his hard thigh between mine. “Yours,” he says like a promise, and my breath catches at the intensity in his eyes.
Gods, it feels like my chest is going to crack open when he looks at me like that.
“I love you so much it hurts.” I slide my hands down the warm, bare skin of his chest, my fingertips ghosting the scar over his heart and down to the rigid lines of his stomach.
He draws a sharp breath through his teeth. “Good, because that’s exactly how I love you, too.” His thigh moves between mine with exquisite friction, and then he’s all over me, erasing every one of my thoughts except how I can get him closer.
His hands stroke every curve, and his mouth caresses every inch of skin down to my neckline. Need races through my veins like flame, igniting every nerve ending, then flaring bright as his teeth graze the tip of my breast through the fabric of my nightdress.
I whimper and lace my fingers behind his neck. Holy shit do I need this man.
“That’s one of my favorite sounds.” His words wrap around my mind as his hand glides up my thigh, slipping under my nightdress to toy with the line of my underwear, and I fucking melt. “Second only to those little gasps you make in the moments before you come.”
His knuckles brush over my clit through the infuriating layer of fabric between us, and my hips rock as his mouth moves to my other breast. There are too many damned clothes between us.
He lifts his head to watch me as his fingers dip beneath the barrier of my underwear. Then he’s right there, stroking and teasing, slipping over my clit, and finally, thank-fucking-gods, giving me the exact pressure I need.
“Xaden,” I moan, and my head thrashes on the pillow as power whips through me, racing down every bone, every vein, every inch of my skin.
“Changed my mind.” He slides two fingers inside me. “That’s my favorite sound.” His fingers stroke deep, then curl upward as he withdraws just enough.
My breath hitches, and a corner of his mouth rises into a smirk that has my walls clenching around his talented fingers. Power hums, spiraling into a tight coil within me, and my hands slip to clutch his shoulders, pressing into his rebellion relic.
“How do you want me to take you, Violet?” His brow furrows as he adds his thumb against my clit, and the energy gathering within me vibrates. “Here on your back with me above you? Before me on your hands and knees with your ass in the air? Against the wall so I can drive harder? Astride so you can control the pace? Tell me.”
Control? That’s only an illusion when it comes to being with him. The second he touches me, I’m his to do with however he wants.
“All of it.” I’m on fire in the sweetest way possible, and his words fan the flames. I don’t care how he gets inside me, I only care that it’s right. Fucking. Now.
His eyes flare. “I can feel it. I can feel you.” He stares for a second longer, then lowers his head to mine, hovering an inch or two above my lips, and quickens the pace of his fingers, winding me so tight I know the only way I’ll survive it is to shatter. “Bright and hot and fucking perfect.”
And I want all of him, his cock, not just his fingers. I can feel just how hard he is against my thigh, and I need him moving within me, with me, unraveling, wild and unhinged. I just can’t find those words, not when he’s set on making me speechless.
I grasp for the shimmering onyx that connects our minds and pour my pure, acute need into it as my breath comes faster and faster.
“Violet,” he groans, and lines etch between his brow as his jaw flexes, as if he’s holding himself back.
Why would he be fighting this? Fighting us? I’m his, but he’s mine, too. Doesn’t he remember how good we are together? Holding the bond with a viselike grip, I recall the armoire cracking against my back, the sublime feel of him pounding into me, hard and so damned deep, both of us lost in the other, breathing the same heated air, living for nothing but the peak of the next thrust.
The power coiled within me starts to burn, flushing my skin and threatening to incinerate everything I am if I don’t let it go. Gods, how it would feel to have that soft brush of his shadows all over my skin, enveloping me with a thousand caresses as he—
His forehead falls against mine, and he trembles, sweat beading on his forehead. “Fuck, love.”
There’s something about hearing that guttural groan, all rasp and desperation, that hurtles me over the edge with the next stroke of his fingers. I try to hold it close, but power snaps, and light flashes to my left as I shatter. Shadow floods the space for a stuttered heartbeat as pleasure crests in waves, pulling me under and dragging me to the surface again and again.
I catch the scent of burned wood, and Xaden whips both his hands to the headboard above me. The torture twisting his face sobers me up in less than a second. He looks like he’s in unbearable pain.
“Xaden?” I whisper, reaching for him.
“Don’t.” It comes out half demand and all plea.
My hands fall to my chest, and when I trip down our bond, it’s faded and sealed by a wall of chilled onyx. “What’s happening?”
“I need space.” He bites out the words.
“All right.” I get out from under him and scurry off the bed, immediately spotting the scorched crack in the nightstand. At least I’m getting better at not setting the trees on fire. “Is this far enough?”
“Not sure the isle kingdoms would be far enough,” he mutters, slowing his breathing.
What the fuck? “I’m sorry?” I watch in utter confusion as he gathers his control, then nods like he’s certain of himself again.
“I forgot.” He slowly lets go of the headboard and sits back on his heels, gripping his thighs, then letting his hands fall at his sides. “I woke up and saw you sitting there, and it was the most natural thing in the world to reach for you, but I’m not natural anymore. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Violet.”
Oh. “I forgot, too.” The second he put his mouth on me. “You have nothing to apologize for, and don’t say you’re not natural—” Wait. My mouth curves. This is a totally solvable problem. “In fact, I think you just did us a favor.” I take a single step toward the bed, and his head snaps in my direction. “Nothing bad happened, Xaden. You just had your hands all over me, inside me, and I’m perfectly fine. Give me two seconds to crawl across this bed, and you’ll be gloriously fine, too.”
His eyes slide shut, and he gestures to the headboard. “Not fine.”
My gaze narrows on the dark wood, and I have to lean in a little to finally see two faint marks of discoloration, barely a shade lighter than the original stain, right where his thumbs had been. I cover my stomach with my hand like that can keep it from sinking.
Did he just channel?
