—The Resurgence of Evil, a timeline, by Pierson Haliwell
Thunder rattles my bedroom windows the next night as I pore over the pages of the latest book Tecarus sent, letting my hair dry.
He hasn’t forgotten our deal even now that he’s king, and I’m not giving up on Xaden, especially when it’s clear he hasn’t given up on himself. The answer is out there somewhere, and we’ll find it. Having Brennan in the know only bolsters that hope. Maybe he can’t mend Xaden, but there’s never been a problem my brother couldn’t solve.
I glance over at the mess of practice runes on my desk and momentarily debate working on the delayed-activation rune Trissa spent most of the afternoon drilling into us. Its purpose is to take an existing, dormant rune and turn it “on” by tempering more magic into it. Its actual use? Nothing, since I can’t make the damned thing work.
Cat got it right on the first try.
Imogen followed quickly after.
Kai singed the ends of his spiky black hair.
Dain, Bodhi, Rhi, Ridoc…everyone eventually mastered one except me. Even Aaric, who has yet to manifest a signet, managed the intricacy of the lesser magic.
Whatever. We’re here for two weeks. Eventually I’ll get it right, and if I don’t, then that’s why we work in squads. I don’t have to be good at everything.
I tug the perpetually slipping strap of my Deverelli silk nightdress back up my shoulder and flip the page in Tecarus’s book. My brows rise at the next passage I read, and I go over it once more to be sure I’ve caught on to a pattern. That makes three.
Thunder sounds again, and power rises within me like it’s been called by a friend to come play. I watch the rain that seems to be coming in sideways from the east, then grab the conduit off my nightstand and let it flow.
Felix graduated the alloy in the center to the same size as those that power the daggers, and I may as well multitask and get his homework done while I read. Dunne knows he’s going to expect at least three of them to be imbued before hauling me up the mountains tomorrow for yet more practice. He’s training me like I’m the only thing standing between the venin and Aretia, and with the wards declining every day, I can’t fault him. With Xaden handling province matters in Lewellen, I’m the best we’ve got against Theophanie…at least offensively.
Someone knocks at my bedroom door.
I close the book and stash it on my nightstand with the conduit, then climb off my bed to answer the door. It’s after ten, which means it’s either Rhi wanting to chat like last night or Brennan looking for a partner to raid the kitchens. Either way, this gown is practically see-through, so I grab a robe from the armoire on my way.
Glittering onyx taps against my shields a breath away from the threshold, and I abandon the robe’s tie to yank open the door. My heartbeat stutters, then flies.
Xaden stands in the doorway in flight leathers, soaked to the bone, rain dripping from his hair. War rages in his eyes, like this is both the last and only place he wants to be.
“Hi.” My hand flexes on the door handle. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” I ask Tairn.
“You didn’t ask to be made aware of his arrival, only his departure.”
Fucking semantics.
“Tell me to go, and I will,” Xaden says, his voice coming out like it’s been scraped over coals. “It’s only been seventy-three days.”
“Come here.” I let the handle go and step back to make space. “You must be freez—”
One second he’s standing in the hallway, and the next, his hands are in my hair and his mouth is on mine.
Gods, yes. His lips are cold, but his tongue is deliciously warm as it strokes into my mouth. The kiss wakes up every nerve ending in my body and reminds me just how long it’s been since Deverelli. Between traveling, our close confines with other riders, and his fear of losing control, it’s been too many weeks since I’ve felt his skin against mine.
One kiss from him is all it takes for power to hum along my skin, for need to override any and all thoughts besides closer and more. It’s always closer and more when it comes to him.
The door shuts somewhere in the background and I hear the click of a lock, the thud of his pack hitting the floor, the drag of wet leather as he undoes the clasp of his back scabbard, then slides it over his shoulders, never once breaking the kiss. He takes my mouth just like he did the first time, wholly, completely, like he’s given himself permission to be reckless and he’s going to make the most of it.
He sucks my tongue into his mouth, and I whimper at the frenzy whipping through me, at how much I’ve missed the physical contact between us. My hands rise to his chest, and the chill of his jacket sends a shiver down my back. How long was he flying in that storm? I push gently. “Wait.”
He immediately pauses, lifting his head just enough to look in my eyes. “I shouldn’t be here, I know. Not yet, at least.”
“That isn’t what I meant.” I slip my fingers between the buttons of his flight jacket and hold on to the fabric like we can solve every problem in the world if he just stays in this room with me. “Of course you should be here. I just thought you were in Lewellen.”
“I was.” His focus drops to my lips and heats so quickly that I almost regret stopping him. “Then I launched for Tirvainne and ended up in our home.” The words come slowly, like they’re being ripped from him. “Or at least it will be after you graduate and we’re both assigned here.”
“It’s already home.” My pulse jumps. I can’t remember the last time he talked about the future with anything but dread. “You flew nine hours in the wrong direction,” I tease, undoing the top button of his flight jacket, then the next.
“Well-the-fuck-aware,” he whispers with a hint of a smirk. “I’d been pissed and skating that mental ice in Lewellen—but I held my shit together instead of punching the two men who raised me after Dad died.” He searches my eyes like I might condemn him for the admission, but I simply work my way down his buttons and listen. “We were beyond the wards, but I didn’t reach for any form of power because even in that state, I knew it could take me back to day zero, and day zero doesn’t give me you. I clawed my way back to myself and left.”
“You kept your control.” Pride has a smile tugging at my mouth as I free his last button.
He nods. “I’m not ignoring my fate. I know there will come a point in time where I’ll become more it than me.” He swallows. “But as dangerous as hope is, you’re right—I have to fight for this. I think I’m stable for now, and I know it’s only day seventy—”
“What is this magical number you have?” Gods help me if we’re looking at triple digits.
He tucks my hair behind my ears. “Seventy-six. It’s twice Barlowe’s longest stretch without draining after his first significant channeling—the cliff incident. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but I figure that making it seventy-six days will indicate that I can stall the progression.”
I blink. “Three days?” My hopes don’t just rise; they soar.
“I told myself I’d wait until day seventy-six to show up at your door, but Sgaeyl changed course once I realized if I could keep control beyond the wards…” He leans in, hovering inches above my mouth.
“Then you can keep control with me?” I shamelessly finish the sentence the way I want it to end. My breath catches when icy-cold water drips onto my collarbone, doing nothing to dispel the rising temperature of my body this close to his.
“Under the right circumstances.” He nods, then retreats a step, stripping off his soaked flight jacket, and I follow suit, shrugging out of my robe so the garments hit the floor at the same time. “This might be as good as it gets, and I want every single second we—” He stops mid-sentence as his gaze rakes over the full length of me with blatant, palpable hunger, warming every inch of my skin that it touches. “Oh fuck,” he groans.
“What would those circumstances be?” My heart starts to race. Whatever he wants, whatever he needs, it’s his. I’m his.
“Are you wearing…” He lifts a hand toward me, then pulls it back, clenching his fist.
“The nightdress you had made for me? Yes. Don’t get distracted. What circumstances?” I repeat, then drag my tongue over my swollen lower lip. That kiss wasn’t nearly enough. I’m starved for him, and if he’s ready, I’m happily willing to feast.
“Not distracted. Obsessed. You look…” His eyes darken as he studies my curves like he’s never seen them. “Maybe we should wait until day seventy-six.” He retreats and reaches for the door handle.
Absolutely not.
“Open that door, and I’ll pin the edge of your pants to the wood and leave you there for the next three days.” I glance meaningfully at my daggers on the dresser. “We can curl up in our bed and just sleep if that’s what you want, but please stop running from me.”
“I definitely don’t want to sleep.” He pushes off the door, and my pulse thrums as he consumes the distance between us. “And I’m entirely incapable of running from you.” His fingers spear through the hair at the nape of my neck and he tugs, tilting my face toward his. “Even when I’m not entirely…me, whatever I am still craves you, needs you, only wants you.”
That’s a feeling I’m more than familiar with.
“I love you, too.” I brace my hands on his chest, my fingertips grazing the patches of soaked fabric near his collar as I surge up onto my toes and kiss him. The need that had simmered comes back in a rush twice as strong, and what starts as soft and sweet turns mind-blowingly hot in a matter of seconds. Our tongues twine, our hands roam, and everything outside this room slips away, overpowered by what really matters: us.
He hooks a hand around the back of my thigh, then lifts. The world spins, and I find the wall at my back as he raises his head. “If I loved you in the way you deserve to be loved, I’d ignore that you’re the only form of peace I’ve ever known and put a thousand miles between us because stable still isn’t whole.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “Instead, I’m here plotting, thinking of every possible way to mitigate the threat I pose so I can tear this very translucent silk from your incredible body and bury myself inside you.”
“Yes, please.” I push the thought down the bond and wrap my legs around his waist, gasping at the chill that meets my thighs.
“Violet.” His moan fills my mind as he stares at me, flexing his jaw.
“I decide what I deserve.” Right now, my body definitely knows it deserves him. I lock my ankles and accept the cold with a small shiver. I’ll have him warm in no time. “What risks I’m willing to take. Now, what circumstances, Xaden?”
“I’m making you cold.” His brow furrows a second before he reaches behind his head and tugs his shirt off.
Mine. All mine.
“And yet you somehow think you could possibly hurt me.” My arms wind around his neck as the shirt hits the floor, my entire body drawing tight at his bare chest and that scar above his heart. I want to lick every line of his torso. “Tell me what you need so I can have you.”
He palms my waist, then dips his head and sets his mouth to my neck. “Fuck, you smell good.”
“It’s just soap.” Then my mind turns to mush and my head falls back against the stone. Each press of his mouth is a shot of electricity that floods my bloodstream, mixing with my power and pooling between my thighs.
“It’s just you.” He kisses up the side of my throat, then down my jawline until his lips hover over mine. “I need you to give me the one thing you love breaking.”
I force my brain to work through the haze of lust he’s creating. “Control.”
“Control.” He nods.
“Done.” I suck on his lower lip and then graze my teeth across it as I let go. “You have it already anyway.” I’m as malleable as putty the second he puts his hands on me.
“If you only knew.” He shakes his head and slides his fingers up over my ribs to cup my breast. My breath stutters as he drags the silk of my nightdress over my sensitive nipple again and again. “My control when it comes to you is an illusion. You are the temple where I worship. I live for the clench of your thighs, your breathy little cries, the feel of you coming around my cock, and above all else, the sound of my favorite three words from this mouth.” His thumb skims my lips before he cradles the back of my head and looks into my eyes. “Keeping my hands off you has been the feat of my life, and you have the power to shred my discipline with a single fucking touch.”
I melt and arch into his hand. It’s a good thing he has me pinned against the wall, because I know my knees would have given out halfway through that confession, let alone what he’s doing with his fingers. “Don’t touch you. Got it.”
“Do you?” Bands of shadow stream over his shoulders to wrap around my wrists, and a heartbeat later, my hands are anchored to the wall above my head. “Is this something you can take if I need it?”
The shadows flow over my palms and through my fingers in a continuous caress that steals my breath.
“Yes.” I swallow hard. “It’s disturbingly hot, actually.”
A corner of his mouth rises into a slow smile, and bands of shadow stroke over my legs like hands, pushing my hemline up my thighs. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
My back bows as those shadows firm along my inner thigh. He hasn’t so much as lifted a finger to wield. He’s doing all of this with his mind. The casual display of power is even hotter. “What else? Because if you don’t actually start touching me soon, I’m going to do it myself and make you watch.”
“We should have done that months ago.” His eyes flare, and he rolls my nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“That feels so damned good.” My hips rock against him. He’s hard and right fucking there, just a few layers of fabric away from where I desperately need him.
He covers the peak of my breast with his mouth, using the wisp of silk and his teeth to make me whimper.
“Xaden,” I blatantly beg, my thighs tightening around his waist.
All traces of teasing leave his eyes as he lifts his head. “Do you have serum?”
“In my pack. Do you want it?” Now we’re making progress.
He shakes his head. “Sgaeyl would eviscerate me. But I want you to shove it down my throat if you—” He winces. “Fuck that. How many daggers do you have in here?”
“Two.” No need to ask which daggers he’s asking about.
“Make that four.” He unsheathes one at his thigh and sets it on the bookcase to my right, then uses lesser magic to float his other one to my nightstand. “Scared yet?”
My lips curve at the reminder of his words from months ago.
“Nope.” I brush a kiss across his lips, knowing I won’t need to use the weapons. “It wouldn’t be the first time I raised a blade to you.”
He stares, utterly bewildered, then flashes a grin. “I’m not sure what that says about us.”
Is it toxic? Maybe. Is it us? Absolutely.
“That we’ve debated killing each other multiple times and have always abstained?” I kiss him, flicking my tongue over the seam of his lips because he’s mine and I can. “I’d say that bodes well for our future. If we’d actually tried to draw blood, I’d be worried.”
“You threw daggers at my head.” His hands clasp my hips, and his mouth slides down my throat, lingering to suck on the juncture between my neck and shoulder.
Gods, that’s nice.
I draw in a breath as my temperature rises at least a degree. He’s going to have me molten before he even starts. “I threw daggers next to your head. Big difference.” Rolling my hips earns me his low groan. “If it makes you feel better, if at any time I think you’re actually going to kill me, I’ll stab you, all right? Just put my conduit in my hand and fucking touch me already.” Holy shit, I just said that.
And I’m not even fazed.
“No conduit.” His hands flex, pulling me against the hard length of him, and he kisses every inch of bare skin he can get his mouth on.
I’m going to combust right here, dangerously close to these books, but at least rain still pelts the glass. “I mean, it’s your house. If you want to set it on—” My heart clenches. “You want me at full power.”
“I’m not taking chances with you.” He loosens the shadows at my wrists, and my hands fall to his shoulders as his mouth whispers along my collarbone in a sweep that sends tingles of pleasure straight down my spine. “Would you like to hold the dagger, too? Or is within reach acceptable?”
“Don’t need it. I am the weapon.” I use his very words from the sparring pit and plunge my fingers into his hair, trying desperately to hold one of the most important conversations of my life while he systematically unravels me.
“I know.” He ghosts his lips over mine and draws back when I lean in for more. “It’s the only reason I let myself knock on your door. Want to change your mind?” He studies my eyes like there’s any chance I’m going to deny what we both desperately need—each other.
“Our door,” I correct him. “I choose you. I choose whatever risk this brings. I see every part of you, Xaden: The good. The bad. The unforgivable. That’s what you promised, and that’s what I want—all of you. I can handle myself, even against you if I have to.”
His gaze darkens. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t.” I skim my fingertips down over his relic, relishing in the feel of him while he’ll let me have it.
“If I slip…” He shakes his head. “Fuck, Violet.”
The way he says my name—part moan, part prayer—wrecks me. “You won’t. Day seventy-three, remember?” I run my thumb down his jawline. “But we can wait to seventy-six if it makes you feel better.”
His jaw ticks against my fingers. “No more waiting.”
