Chapter Text
- Violet -
If there’s one thing I know how to do well, it’s how to do the exact opposite of what Xaden Riorson tells me to do.
In fact, he’d probably say it’s the only thing I truly excel at. Compliments from my former-wingleader-turned-revolution-leader are rare these days — especially since we lost Liam last year.
And the opposite of what he ordered is exactly what I’m doing now as I circle Cordyn on Tairn’s back with a V-shaped formation of Gryphons around us. Even at this altitude, the warm air feels heavy with humidity compared to Aretia. The sprawling white palace below us reflects the sun so brightly that I can’t look directly at it long, but I marvel at the pools of water within it — a deeper shade than the turquoise coastline it sits up against.
I may even get extra credit for making disobeying Xaden a family affair this time. I somehow convinced Mira to come along as my muscle and Brennan to negotiate with the proper authority. And even though I intend to be back in Aretia before he returns from his search for more Navarrian defects, I can already picture the wrath of Dunne in Xaden’s eyes when he finds out.
It's his fault, really. He’s the one who insists on somehow both hovering over me and avoiding me at the same time. I’m only defying him because he refuses to do what needs to be done to get the luminary in the name of protecting me and — by default because of our mated dragons — himself.
“You will not be happy with the welcome we’re about to receive,” Tairn warns as we finally land behind a gryphon and his flier, who hops down to face us.
“I’m sure we’ll be fine. You worry too much.”
“We’ll see about that.” My stiff joints ache as I slide down Tairn’s foreleg to land in the soft grass of the perfectly manicured palace lawn. I remove my pack, willing my joints to stop screaming in pain.
“Maybe we should have sent word ahead,” Mira, who is already waiting for me, murmurs quietly. “They look like they’d rather fight than negotiate.”
Shit. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to show off how good I am at ignoring Xaden’s commands after all.
“They’re expecting us,” Brennan notes quietly as he approaches us and we start forward.
“You think?” Mira asks, her gaze scanning our surroundings. I keep my focus on the fliers and their hands.
“There are at least three dozen people watching from the balconies above, and there’s another group behind the gryphons,” Brennan states. “They were waiting.”
“Plus, no one’s screaming at the sight of our dragons,” I add quietly.
Mira grins. “True.”
“Be careful what you say here,” Brennan cautions. “Tecarus will hold us to whatever deal we make. He doesn’t take kindly to broken words. And keep your shields up, though I’m not sure they’ll do much good. Fliers might not wield signets, but most of their lesser-magic gifts involve mindwork, and it’s the one area where they have the upper hand on us.”
“Noted.” I don’t need to check my shields. They’ve been locked into place since we left Aretia — a regular practice for me ever since not shielding against Dain got the man I loved killed.
I push thoughts of Liam aside, taking a deep breath as I scan the lawn. The gryphons stare down at us with dark, beady eyes, clicking their razor-sharp beaks as we approach. Two of the fliers wear the same brown leathers I’d seen before on Syrena and Cat when I met them last Fall, but the guy on the left with the patchy beard has a lighter-colored one and different symbols embroidered on his collar.
“Cadet ?” I ask Tairn.
“Yes.” He pauses. “ According to the feathered ones, a third of their ranks took shelter here after Cliffsbane Flight Academy in Zoyla was destroyed.”
Great. I send up a silent prayer that Cat isn’t among those cadets at the present moment. Back when I met her in Samara, she seemed convinced that I was a threat to whatever she had going on with Xaden. The last thing I need now are her icy stares and snide comments while trying to keep a level head for negotiation.
Brennan greets the three fliers in front of us in Krovlish as we approach them.
“We know who you are,” the tall flier in the center interrupts in the common tongue, studying the three of us as if he’s assessing which is the biggest threat. His attention lands on my wind-ravaged coronet braid and his posture changes slightly.
Guess he’s decided it’s me. Mira moves closer to my side and stares him down, her hand resting just above the hilt of her sword.
“Give us one truth, and we’ll allow you to meet with the viscount,” he says to me, his reddish brows knitting together.
“You’re a truth-sayer?” I ask, venturing a guess. It’s an exceedingly rare power for a rider to possess, but I know I’m right when his pale eyes flare.
“Unlike riders, we do not label ourselves by our abilities, but yes, I have the gift of telling when someone is lying,” he corrects me.
“Noted,” I say for the second time in the last five minutes. My heart starts to race, a feeling of danger prickling along my scalp. I hate being disadvantaged by ignorance, but with the lack of information in the Archives about fliers or what they’ve gone through for the last six hundred years, I’m operating on very little information.
“Seeing as you’ve arrived without invitation,” the center flier continues, “we require you to prove that you have honest intentions before traveling farther.”
His hands flex near his daggers, and Mira palms the hilt of her sword. We’re one misstep away from drawing weapons, and we all know it. I need to tread carefully.
“I’m here to wield lightning in return for asking your viscount for help,” I say, mustering up my very best impression of someone who actually knows how to wield lightning effectively.
He cocks his head to the side, then nods, glancing toward Brennan. “I’m here to broker a deal for your luminary in return for weaponry,” Brennan declares. The flier nods again and looks at Mira expectantly.
“Fine,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “Make one wrong move toward my sister, and I’ll gut you like a fish. That goes for everyone in this city. How’s that for honesty?” My mouth falls open as I glance sideways at my sister. I should be used to this by now, but somehow I’m still shocked by her on the regular.
“Damn it, Mira,” Brennan growls. The flier’s mouth curves into a smile.
Thankfully, he seems amused and not interested in calling Mira’s bluff. I’m not sure how Mira’s brutish brand of diplomacy is actually working here, but the tension that had been hanging in the air suddenly diffuses.
“I can respect that,” he says. The trio of fliers part to let us through, revealing the figure waiting directly behind them. A figure dressed entirely in black.
His jaw flexes, his hands curl at his sides, and that perfectly chiseled face — well, let’s just say that Xaden hasn’t looked at me with that much anger since discovering my last name at Parapet nearly two years ago.
Shit. Guess I’m getting that extra credit sooner than I’d hoped.
I hold my breath, staring back at him defiantly as best I can. Much to my surprise, however, the anger on his face disappears quickly. I expect his usual mask of indifference to replace it, but instead a rare smile spreads on his lips as he fixes his gaze on mine. He takes a step forward.
“You aren’t where I left you, my love.”
Did he just say… ‘my love’? What the fuck?
***
Two Hours Earlier
- Xaden -
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I look down at my foot as it taps on the sparkling marble floor of Tecarus’ office in a steady beat, my well-worn black leather boots a stark contrast to the gleaming white surface. I never tap my feet any more. Haven’t since I was a teenager, when I realized showing any sign of nervousness was no longer an option.
But here I am, tapping my fucking foot on the floor of a room I never thought I’d be in again, waiting for a man I never wanted to see again — all because of Violet Fucking Sorrengail.
The door swings open behind me, and I hear the sound of padded footsteps.
“Riorson,” Tecarus booms as he sweeps in and walks straight to the other side of his enormous desk. “Welcome. I wasn’t expecting you to show your face around here unannounced like this after the way you left things last time.”
He looks the same as the last time I saw him nearly two years ago — when I ended our weaponry alliance and broke off my betrothal to his niece. Same jeweled rings on nearly every one of his fingers. Same pudge around the waistline. Same creepy white teeth. Every ounce of me wants to stay seated as a big ‘fuck you’ to this pompous ass, but I force myself to rise and give him a courteous nod.
“Forgive the unexpected visit,” I grind out. “But things are moving quickly in Aretia, as I’m assuming you’ve heard.”
“Yes, indeed I have.” He leans back in his chair. “It seems as though there’s been a lot of disruption in both of your homes.”
I clench my jaw. Basgiath isn’t home, especially not now, but I’m not going to argue that point with him. Gods, all this passive aggressive bullshit makes me want to take one of the obnoxious golden figurines off of his desk and throw it at his stupid fucking head.
“We’re ready to reopen negotiations for the luminary,” I say instead. “Cadet Sorrengail is on her way as you requested, along with her sister and Aisereigh.”
Never mind that twenty four hours ago, I explicitly told Violet that she wasn’t coming here under any circumstances. I don’t know why I even try to reason with her any more — clearly, she seems to be completely incapable of following orders.
“Excellent,” he beams. “We will wait to discuss all of the details until after I see the lightning show, but I’m confident that we can broker an alliance. I was just discussing the marriage clause with my nieces a few days ago—“
“Marriage is off the table,” I snap abruptly, cutting him off mid-sentence. His face immediately drops into a frown, his eyes narrowing to angry slits as they focus on me.
Fuck. Here we go.
“Off the table. And why exactly is that?” He demands. “Surely you haven’t flown all this way just to insult my dearest niece—“
“Because I’m already spoken for,” I blurt out.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. A fake engagement was one of a dozen options I’d conjured up to help smooth over this situation on my flight over here. But I had hoped they’d just drop the marriage piece of the agreement without me needing to resort to a lie.
His brows furrow. “Spoken for? By whom?”
“Violet Sorrengail,” I say, keeping my voice as normal and even as possible as I say it. As if there’s anything normal about the idea that I’d be engaged to her.
“This is reckless,” Sgaeyl chimes into my head.
“Well aware,” I snap back at her.
Under normal circumstances, I would have formulated a more tactful way to smooth over this whole betrothal issue. Or more likely, I’d let the Assembly come up with something. But I'd dropped everything mid flight when I learned what Violet was up to — and how much danger she was about to be in.
I can’t think straight when she’s in danger. All rational thought goes out the window.
“Sorrengail?” He sputters in disbelief. His eyes are wide with surprise. “Your assembly correspondence didn’t mention that. Marriage has very much been part of the discussion.”
“We got engaged last month and only just announced it,” I say. “It wouldn’t have been appropriate while she was a cadet and I was an officer, but —“ I shrug. “Well, things have changed since then.”
“I see.” He considers something for a moment, bringing his bejeweled hand to his chin. “I have to say, I would have expected you to marry someone more— aristocratic. But you’ve always been a strategic young man. I suppose you wanted to lock that weapon into your arsenal before I got to her.” He narrows his eyes as he looks at me again for a moment. “Interesting way to play this, Riorson.”
This asshole is about to get his ass beat. I swallow and clench my fists, trying my best to suppress the anger building inside me.
“She is not just a weapon, Viscount.” I spit his title out like it’s a curse word. “But we are willing to enter into negotiations and meet the requirement that you see her wield.”
Tecarus looks at me, leaning back in his chair for a moment. I lower my shields briefly. He’s feeling smug, like he has the upper hand. A chill races through me, and I lock my shields back up tightly.
“Very well,” he says, standing up from his chair. I stand from my chair as well. “Why don’t you see yourself to the front parlor while the staff prepare rooms for you and your companions? I’ll have them make arrangements for dinner — and a show.”
I grit my teeth as I follow him out of his office into the vaulted hallway. This is all a fucking game to him. But I won’t let him sink his gold plated claws into Violet — I’d do anything to keep her out of his grip.
He leaves me then and I make my way to the front parlor.
“How close are they?” I ask Sgaeyl as I walk down the corridor.
“They should be here within an hour.”
“Great,” I say. “One hour to flesh out this very poorly thought out plan and then somehow convince Violet to play along.”
“At least it won’t be hard for you to act like you’re in love with her,” Sgaeyl offers. “You’ve been rehearsing that role in your head for years.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” I mutter.
Like I need a reminder that I am hopelessly in love with the tiny, disruptive force of fucking nature that is Violet Sorrengail.
***
Notes:
Thanks for reading - I’ve written a bit ahead so hope to post more soon. If you liked this, pleeeease hit me with a kudos or a comment! It keeps me motivated and will help me finish (and everyone deserves to finish, right? 😉)
Also thank you to @overjoyedisland for always helping me find/plug holes in my stories and @thoughtsaboutshows for letting me bounce ideas off of you!
Chapter 2
Notes:
Thanks for all the lovely comments! This chapter still draws a bit from canon but after this one it starts to deviate a lot.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Present
-Violet-
“My love?” I whisper at Xaden under my breath as we walk across the entrance to the palace on the other side of the guarded lawn, passing by a half dozen more fliers on our way to a row of open doors made entirely of glass. “Care to explain?”
“I told Tecarus we’re engaged,” he says evenly, as casually as if he’s just reporting on how the weather’s been since he landed.
“You did what?” I ask in a hot whisper, digging my nails into my palms to keep my power from rising up inside me.
“Violet, at least try to look a little less pissed off, please,” Brennan pleads from directly behind us. “We need a united front, and apparently now they need to think you love each other.”
“I can’t believe you brought her here,” Xaden growls, shooting an icy glare back at Brennan.
“I can't believe you sprung a fake engagement on us, with no warning,” Brennan hisses back.
“You mean like how you sprung this whole fucking visit on me?” He snaps back at Brennan, but his eyes are directed at me. “We don’t have much time — so we’ll table that whole discussion for now. I told him we just got engaged last month. I’m wholly devoted to you as you are to me, and let’s just say we’ve been involved romantically since right before the drop in Samara late last year. That will explain why you were with me if it comes up.”
“And can someone please enlighten me as to why you two are pretending to be engaged?” Mira asks.
“I’d like to know too,” I say, narrowing my brows and glancing sideways at Xaden as the glass doors of the palace come into sharper focus. Xaden clicks his tongue in irritation, as if everything he’s saying should make perfect sense to me.
Which, for the record, it doesn’t.
“For one, it takes a marriage to Cat off the table as a bargaining chip. It will be a firm non-negotiable item if I’m already spoken for and will keep me from just having to say I can’t stand his favorite niece.”
I knew that Xaden was getting pressure from the Assembly to accept the latest terms offered by the viscount. Tecarus had put a marriage contract back on the table now that half of Navarre’s riders were now in Tyrrendor. And after our attempts at getting the wards up in Aretia didn’t work, I thought Xaden might actually go through with it.
“Tecarus also doesn't know about our mated pair connection, and I want to keep it that way," he continues. “If he thinks we’re romantically involved, it will explain why I’m so concerned about you without presenting my jugular to him for slaughter.”
I grit my teeth, trying to keep my power at bay as I seethe over the implication of his words. I hate being reduced to ‘Xaden’s weakness,’ and that’s exactly what he’s calling me. As if he hasn’t risked his life exponentially more often than I have in the year and a half we’ve been bonded together. As if I need a reminder that Liam died because I needed protection.
“It’s not a half bad idea, actually,” Brennan admits. He says it like the ten second explanation from Xaden had actually given him ample opportunity to weigh the pros and cons of Xaden’s plan. “If you two can manage not to kill each other before we get this deal done.”
“That’s a fucking tall order,” I mutter.
“Well, since you left me with no choice but to fly here without a better plan, this is what you get,” Xaden says through gritted teeth. “Now try not to set the place on fire.”
Mira clears her throat loudly as we move within earshot of the two guards in crimson uniforms near the door. “They really grow grass ornamentally here?” She says, changing the subject to something more mundane.
“You should see the butterfly garden,” Xaden says, nodding to the guard on the right as we pass through the open doorway.
I wonder briefly why we aren't being escorted by fliers, and it’s not lost on me that Xaden seems to know this palace very well. I suppose being betrothed to Cat would have required a few visits, but I realize now that Xaden’s matter of fact explanation of their relationship back when I met her may have been the abridged version.
“How long have you been here?” I ask Xaden as we enter the palace. And holy shit, what a palace. Every surface seems to shimmer, the white marble interior reflecting not only natural light but a soft glow of white mage lights far overhead. I’ve never been anywhere like it — and that’s saying something, given that I spent much of my childhood in the gleaming halls of the palace in Calldyr.
“We landed a few hours ago,” Xaden answers. “We changed direction as soon as Sgaeyl felt Tairn on the move.”
Tairn had told me when we landed that I wouldn’t be happy about the welcome we were about to receive. It hadn’t occurred to me that the welcome would be from Xaden.
“ You and I are going to have a discussion,” I tell him. “You promised me.”
“I promised not to tell, not that she couldn’t sense me.”
Fucking dragon semantics.
“Here we go.” Xaden’s voice lowered as he turns to face the group of people approaching us. “The viscount.”
Two crimson-uniformed guards station themselves at opposite ends of the bannister, and a tall, dark-haired man in a deep blue tunic with gold brocade walks forward in front of the group, looking over us with rapt fascination. His uniform is tight around the waist, his flushed cheeks soft and round.
“Viscount,” Xaden addresses him. “This is my fianceé, Cadet Violet Sorrengail, and her sister, Lieutenant Mira Sorrengail. And I believe you and Lieutenant Colonel Aisereigh are already acquainted.”
“We are.” He flashes impossibly white teeth as he smiles at me. “But it’s you I am most curious about, Violet.” He fixes his gaze on me in a way that makes my skin crawl, and I have to hold my breath to keep from physically squirming. “You’ve not only captured the attention of Riorson here, but do I understand correctly that you also call lightning from the sky?”
“I do.” I keep my focus on the viscount, but I feel the weight of his entourage staring behind him.
“How wonderful!” He clasps his hands in front of his chest, his rings twinkling with heavy gemstones.
“Shall we—” Brennan starts.
“It’s poor etiquette to discuss business until dinner. You know the rules, Riorson,” Tecarus says, glancing Xaden’s way. “They certainly can’t attend as they are. They’ll need to be dressed suitably, as will you,” Tecarus says. Xaden nods.
“Our uniforms aren’t suitable for dinner?” I ask.
“Don’t worry if you haven’t brought anything fit for the occasion,” Tecarus says as he brings his eyes back to meet mine. “I took the liberty of having a selection of clothing pulled from my best collection once Riorson told me you three were inbound. My niece will see that you are properly attired and attended to, won’t you, Cat?” he calls back over his shoulder.
My heart drops as Catriona steps down from the front row of the entourage, dressed in a purple gown that shows her elegant figure off in all the best ways.
Fuck, she’s here. Zihnal must hate me.
“Of course, Uncle. We’ll see you at dinner,” Cat says. She fixes her gaze on Xaden then, taking a few steps towards us to stand next to him. I’d thought she was beautiful when I saw her in Samara from a distance, but up close and out of her brown uniform, she’s absolutely gorgeous .
“Looking forward to it,” Tecarus says, nodding his head slightly as he and his entourage part ways with us.
“I didn’t expect you to be here,” Xaden says to Cat in a clipped tone as the two of them lead us down another hallway two stories above where we entered. Xaden shifts closer to me as we walk, making sure that I’m in step with him just behind Cat.
“Where did you think I’d be after dark wielders destroyed Zolya and took up residence at Cliffsbane?” Cat questions in a tone icy enough to match Xaden’s, pausing in front of one of the dozen doors in this wing.
Cat reaches for the golden handle and turns to look at Xaden. “We kept your room exactly how you left it, of course. I hope it’s up to your girlfriend’s standards.” She doesn’t even so much as glance at me when she says that, opening the door to reveal a sizable bedchamber with a large, four poster bed – gold, of course – and a matching gold settee beside it.
Xaden has a room here ? Yeah, he definitely gave me the abridged version of their relationship back in Samara.
“Fianceé,” Xaden corrects, placing a hand on the small of my back.
Mira shoots me a look from where she stands adjacent to Cat. “Later,” I mouth.
“I don’t see a ring on her finger,” Cat says, lifting her chin as her gaze flicks to my hand. It’s impressive, really— I’m not sure when she had the time to check my finger, considering she hasn’t figured out how to make eye contact with me since we got here.
“I’m right here,” I say to her through gritted teeth. She finally looks at me then, her eyes flaring as if I’m an unwelcome interruption to a private conversation. I’m seconds away from calling her out on her rudeness when Xaden’s fingers press a little more firmly into my back.
“That’s not a Tyrrish tradition,” he interjects before I can say anything else. “We exchange rings as equal partners on our wedding day.”
“I seem to remember wearing a ring when we were betrothed.” Cat keeps her eyes fixed on him, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow in an expression that seems to call his bluff.
“That’s because you picked it out and gave it to yourself,” Xaden says, his voice calm, though the sharp edge to it is impossible to miss. It takes everything in me not to laugh out loud at how quickly that smug look drops from her face. “Why don’t you take Aisereigh and Sorrengail to their rooms so we can wash up? I’ll get Violet oriented—”
Xaden starts to nudge me forward into the room, but my body reacts to being ushered around before my brain has a chance to catch up.
“I should go with Mira to get ready.” The words spill out of my mouth as I feel Xaden stiffen beside me ever so slightly.
“She’s the only one who can really do my hair properly,” I add quickly, but the damage is done. Cat looks at me with narrowed eyes, then raises a skeptical brow at Xaden.
Ever the smooth and controlled one, Xaden doesn’t skip a beat. He draws me into him and just barely kisses the top of my head. “Good idea. I’m sure it will look beautiful.”
I try my best not to let it show on my face how strange it is to have Xaden showing any display of affection — let alone kissing my fucking head. I assume I’ve failed miserably at hiding my shock, judging by the look on Cat’s face.
Xaden disappears into his room and we follow Cat further down the hallway.
“Keep your shields locked tight,” Xaden’s voice echoes through my head as I fall a step behind Mira and Brennan. “And don’t let her get under your skin.”
“Try to keep up back there,” Cat calls out to me. “I know it’s probably hard for someone so tiny .”
“Too late,” I grumble to Xaden, clenching and releasing my fists. Between Cat and Xaden, there’s so much anger flowing through me that I actively have to suppress my power from rising up and destroying this entire wing of the palace.
At this rate, Tecarus will be getting his lightning demonstration much sooner than expected.
***
“All right, fill me in,” Mira says to me the moment we hear the click of the door behind Zara, the Lady’s maid assigned to us for the evening. “What the hell is up with Xaden and Cat?”
We’re finally alone in her room, and we have a few minutes before Cat arrives to escort us to dinner. Which, judging by the incredible quality of the Deverelli silk dress I am wearing, will be quite the production. I sit at the vanity, looking skeptically in the mirror as I study the makeup Zara had applied for me as Mira finishes styling my hair. She’s laid two braids down around the crown of my head and let the rest of my hair flow in long waves down my bare back.
“After the weapons drop in Samara when I met her, I asked Xaden about why Cat seemed jealous and he told me they had been betrothed. Some negotiation his dad made before he was killed that kicked in when she turned twenty,” I explain, wiping off some of the rouge on my cheeks. “According to Xaden, it was mostly transactional and he broke it off after a few months when Tecarus made it clear that the luminary would have to stay in Cordyn.”
“And he thinks showing up here pretending he has a new fiancée is the best way to kick off friendly negotiations?” She lets out an incredulous laugh and shakes her head. “Fucking Xaden.”
“Well, some of the Assembly have been pushing Xaden to just make the marriage deal so we can get the luminary. And now, with the new wards not working properly—”
“They’re pushing even harder for him to marry her,” she finishes my thought.
“Exactly. Xaden just went from Tyrrish nobility lying in wait to now having half of Navarre's forces behind him when he dropped those Wyvern at the outposts. I’m sure Tecarus wants to attach himself as fast as he can.”
“Well, shit.” She raises her eyebrows and lets out a breath. “I don’t like the guy— but I can kind of see why he’d fake an engagement now.” She tucks a final pin in my hair before patting me on the shoulder.
“Yeah,” I grumble. “He can avoid marrying Cat and use it as an excuse to keep me in line without revealing to Tecarus that he has no choice but to protect me. And whether I have a say in this scheme is once again irrelevant.”
Xaden’s done plenty of worse things than lie about an engagement to get what he needs for the Revolution and Tyrrendor. And it’s not like he has any trouble with deception — I know that much first hand. I just hate that I have to be in the middle of it, with no choice in the matter but to play along.
“Well then,” Mira says as she grabs her dagger from the vanity and fastens it somewhere under the skirt of her dress. “I guess you better wield some lightning and get us the hell out of here.”
***
Notes:
Thank you for reading 🖤 I am going to try to stick to posting updates 2x a week, and probably a break for OS.
Oh yeah, and if you want to read my take on how Violet and Liam might have started during her first year, that bit of smut is here: Use Somebody
Chapter 3
Notes:
Posting a little sooner than planned (yay!) Trying to get some chapters to you before the inevitable OS black out.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The sun is just beginning to set as Cat and her sister Syrena lead us down an open corridor that connects two wings of the palace. It's not as hot as it was when the sun was directly overhead earlier, but the air is still oppressively humid and a mass of dark clouds sits low on the horizon.
“So that’s the hairstyle only your sister could do for you?” She remarks as we approach our destination, side eyeing the braid around my crown and loose waves that hang down around my shoulders. “I’m surprised Xaden likes it that way.”
Oh, I am so fucking done with this woman.
“Are you capable of talking about anything but my appearance?” I ask. She’s made no fewer than five comments on my appearance already— not that I’m counting. “This may be difficult for you to comprehend, but being attractive to the male gaze isn’t all I have to offer.”
Cat narrows her eyebrows at me, but she’s quick to school her face into a neutral expression.
“Of course. If it makes you more comfortable, we can discuss how your mother has perpetuated a lie that’s cost thousands of Poromish lives, some of which your own sister here is responsible for personally.”
“Cat!” Syrena scolds, glaring over at her sister.
My eyes snap to Mira, whose face is frozen in a mix of disbelief and pure anger.
“I was going to remind you that it’s bad manners to stab our hostess, but you know what?” Mira shrugs. “Fuck it. We don’t really need a luminary—”
“No need for any stabbing tonight,” Syrena interjects quickly as Cat’s eyes widen at Mira. “The banquet hall is just here.”
We arrive at a large double doorway flanked with a guard on each side. The doors frame the entrance to a huge banquet hall with tall arched glass doors at the back that are open to the outdoors. I do a quick scan of the room — Tecarus, Xaden and Brennan stand amongst a larger group by the head of a long table at the center of the hall. The row of candles spanning the length of it flicker from the light breeze, making shadows dance across the dozen or so gilded place settings that sit at the ready.
When Xaden told me back in Aretia that he wouldn’t bring me to Cordyn for negotiations, he’d said it was because it would be like serving me to Tecarus on a silver platter — something he was wholly unwilling to do. At the time I thought he was being unreasonable, but being served on a platter is exactly what it feels like now, with all eyes on me as we near the table.
Xaden approaches me with such an intense look in his eyes that it makes my breath catch for a moment. It’s not part of the usual variety of looks that I’ve become accustomed to receiving from him—generally ranging from slight irritation to full anger. But it’s not his typical neutral mask either. It’s something more — something that makes it hard to look away.
I swallow, forcing myself to pull my gaze away from his. I take in his neatly combed hair and perfectly tailored black tunic that accentuates his broad shoulders. He’s annoyingly beautiful as ever and looks every bit the part of someone with royal blood negotiating at a fancy state dinner — and for a moment, I feel completely inadequate.
“You look stunning,” he says as he places a hand at the back of my elbow and leans into me. I know the compliment is for show, but it’s almost as if he can hear my thoughts and knows that he needs to reassure me. I take a deep breath and ground, reminding myself that I’m supposed to be playing two parts tonight: deadly weapon and future wife.
Easy.
Xaden offers his arm for me to hold, and I reluctantly loop my hand through it at the elbow.
“Reinforce your shields,” he says to me through our bond. “Cat’s power is to amplify the emotions of the people around her, and she has you in her crosshairs.”
Well shit. That might explain why I’ve felt like a tinderbox waiting for a spark ever since she showed up.
“And whose fucking fault is that?” I mutter.
“Mine,” he says. I look up at him, my lips parting in shock for a moment at the sincerity of his response. Accountability? From Xaden? I didn’t think he had it in him. He shoots me a sideways glance. “Tolerate me for one night, please.”
And a ‘please’? But I have no time to unpack the oddness of our little exchange because we’ve now reached Tecarus’s side over by the table.
“Ah, our guest of honor.” Tecarus flashes a toothy smile at me, a sparkle of excitement and maybe something a bit sinister in his eyes. “You both look lovely,” he says, nodding to Mira who is just behind us.
He gestures to the chairs beside him before taking a seat at the head of the table. Xaden pulls out the chair closest to Tecarus’ for me. Great.
He takes the seat to my left, and Mira and Brennan take the two chairs across from us. It’s a small blessing from Zihnal that the seats next to both Xaden and Mira are soon occupied by high-ranking military officers and that Cat and Serena are seated further down. I don’t know what would have been worse — Cat next to Xaden or Cat next to Mira — but I’m glad that I don’t have to witness either scenario.
Tecarus plays the part of host with enthusiasm, introducing others at the table and making benign small talk. We get through the first course and my nerves have finally settled when the conversation turns to his true interests.
“I am so looking forward to learning about your signet,” Tecarus says to me as a small army of gloved servers place the second course in front of us in perfectly synchronized movements. “But I’ve also heard that you’ve bonded two dragons. Remarkable .”
“Yes, that’s right,” I tell him. “They truly are remarkable.”
“And tell me, Violet,” he begins. The way he overenunciates the ‘T’ in my name makes my skin crawl. “Does bonding two dragons mean you have two exceptional gifts?”
“Not that I know of,” I say, glancing at Brennan for a moment for reassurance that I can share more. Brennan nods ever so slightly back at me. “It’s just the lightning.”
“Just the lightning.” He lets out a chuckle. “It’s not such an insignificant thing, is it now? And do you travel with both dragons?”
“Only Tairn is here with me now, but Andarna often travels with us too.”
“Tairn, yes. By far the largest dragon I’ve ever seen.” There’s a desire in Tecarus’ eyes that darkens them as he fixates on me— something I’d seen from enough men before to recognize. Only this desire is for my power, and I can’t help but feel an icy chill travel down my spine.
“And might be the last dragon he ever sees if he makes one wrong move,” Tairn rumbles through our bond.
“We balance each other out in the size department,” I say, making a rare joke about height at my own expense and taking a sip of wine.
Tecarus laughs heartily — a loud, jarring laugh that comes from his belly.
“Quite captivating,” he says. He shifts his gaze to Xaden then. “I can see why you took down half of Basgiath for her, Riorson.”
Xaden forces a smile back in his direction. “What can I say? Love makes fools of us all.”
“That much is certainly true,” he says. “As you know, I was surprised to learn that a marriage clause was no longer on the table for our negotiations today. Your envoy made it seem as though it was still in play very recently.”
“We have enough to offer that there’s no need for that,” Brennan jumps in from across the table. “Which we are looking forward to discussing after this meal.”
“Yes,” Tecarus says, staring squarely at me. “And after we see Violet wield. It’s only prudent that I understand what you’re capable of before entering into negotiations, don’t you agree?”
“Of course,” I say. “I will wield as promised.” And hopefully I don’t destroy anything. Tecarus smiles at me and turns to Brennan then as the conversation shifts to discussing the location of recent wyvern sightings and attacks.
It’s almost imperceptible, but I notice that Xaden’s shoulders relax as Tecarus moves his attention towards Brennan and away from us.
I realize then that he’s uneasy around this man — and Xaden isn’t uneasy around anyone. What does he know about what Tecarus is capable of that I don’t? I try to suppress the feeling of dread creeping up inside me.
This is going to be a long night.
***
As it turns out, Xaden was right to be wary of the viscount. Tecarus is completely and verifiably insane.
There’s no way someone in their right mind would have unleashed a fucking venin to ambush a woman in an evening gown during a diplomatic negotiation. But that’s exactly what he just did after the dessert course — and I’m pissed.
Raindrops run down my face, plastering my loose locks of hair to my forehead and cheeks as Tairn flies past the curve of the arena where I had just incinerated the dark wielder I'd been ambushed with. We approach the patio where Tecarus, his entourage, Xaden and my siblings are standing. Marbh, Teine and Sgaeyl flank the arena now, a menacing trio, soon to be joined by Tairn.
Rage mixes with the adrenaline still coursing through my veins as Tairn lands right on the marble surface. Fearful screams ring out from the group of people assembled in the patio as the marble cracks beneath Tairn’s weight. I dismount and rush to Brennan, who is holding Mira up for support.
“You alright?” I ask them as we make our way through the crowd of aristocrats and fliers who have assembled in the arena.
“We’re not the ones you should be concerned for,” Brennan mutters under his breath.
I guess I’m not the only one with rage flowing through my veins. Xaden’s shadows hold the crowd back and he is gripping Tecarus by his neck with one hand. The viscount’s eyes are bulging out of his head and he’s clawing at Xaden’s hand— trying not to be choked out and failing.
Diplomacy at its finest.
“Please don’t,” Cat cries, “Xaden, let him go!”
I lower my shields and reach out to Xaden through our bond.
“We need him alive to negotiate,” I say to him in a voice that is a lot calmer than I actually feel. “And there’s no way I just faced down a venin only to leave here without that luminary.”
Xaden stops moving, and slowly his grip loosens. The viscount gasps for air, doubling over with his hands on his knees as he regains his breath.
Anger drains from Xaden’s face as he looks over at me, quickly replaced with a flood of relief.
“Violet,” he says, his dark eyes darting over me, taking stock of whether I’m visibly injured. He pulls me into a full embrace then, cradling my head against his chest.
It takes me a moment to register that Xaden is hugging me. Unless you count the handful of times he’s had me in a chokehold during sparring practice or the times he’s had to carry me because of an injury, this is definitely a first.
Still, his arms around me are comforting and even with both of us drenched in rain, I get a whiff of mint and leather and it steadies my racing heart.
“That’s the last time you take a punishment designed for me,” he says to me through our bond, his voice hardened with an intense resolve. I know he’s thinking of Varrish — how I was captured and tortured essentially as bait for him. But I’ve taken my own risks, and he knows that better than anyone.
“I’m not hurt,” I assure him out loud as I pull away from the embrace. He doesn’t let go fully as I turn towards Tecarus, who has only just stood back up to his full height. “But killing a dark wielder was not part of the requirements to enter into negotiations,” I tell Tecarus through gritted teeth.
“I had to see you go up against the real thing,” he says. There’s no shame or apology in his voice. The absolute nerve of this man.
“That could have killed her—“ Xaden growls, taking a step forward towards him, his shadows swirling menacingly in front of him. Tecarus flinches, but Brennan once again intercepts before Xaden can do any damage.
“Let’s all get out of the rain and regroup tomorrow,” Brennan says in an authoritative tone. “I think we all need to recover from that stunt you just pulled, Viscount.”
“Very well,” Tecarus says with a nod as he turns towards the patio doors, a group of his entourage shuffling around us to accompany him. “We negotiate in the morning.”
***
An hour later, I find myself face to face with something that is almost as scary as the venin I just electrocuted. Except unlike the venin, I can’t just incinerate the four-poster bed in Xaden’s room and move on. I have to sleep in it. With him.
This is going to be awkward.
And it certainly doesn’t help that I only brought a thin camisole and shorts to sleep in – knowing that it would be hot in Cordyn and assuming I’d be sleeping alone or with Mira. I silently thank the gods that this bed is huge and that there are an obscene number of decorative pillows on it that could probably be fashioned into some sort of barricade between us.
I crawl under the covers and pull them up to cover my chest as I hear the door to the private bathing chamber attached to our room open. Xaden comes out, shirtless and wearing a pair of loose sleeping pants, his dark, wet hair falling over his brow. My eyes are drawn to a silver scar on his chest he had received when he took responsibility for me in Aretia — a physical reminder of how our lives are bound together in yet another way.
There was a time during my first year when seeing Xaden shirtless would’ve left my heart racing and my breath catching in my throat. It’s almost embarrassing to think about now. Sure, he’s still unfairly attractive — but I’ve been around him long enough now that a half-naked Xaden barely earns a second glance.
I realize then that I’m still staring at his chest and quickly look away.
Okay, fine. Maybe a second glance. But none of those other embarrassing physiological reactions.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks me as he walks over to the desk directly across the foot of the bed, leaning back on it as he faces me.
“I’m fine,” I say to him curtly. While exhaustion is winning out over anger at the present moment, either way, I’m not exactly in the mood for a bedtime chat.
“I’m sure you can see now why I didn’t want you to come here,” he says. He can’t fucking help himself, can he? He just has to be right about everything.
I scowl. “I handled it just fine today without your help. Or did you miss the part of the evening where I faced off with a venin and won?”
“Of course I didn’t miss it,” Xaden snaps back at me, his tone clipped and brow furrowed. “But Tecarus is a lunatic, and he’s hellbent on punishing me for breaking our last alliance. I’ve been avoiding being in his clutches for years – and then you just walked right in–”
“Alright. Get it out then,” I interrupt him with a weary sigh. “You want to berate me for coming here without your blessing? Go the fuck ahead.”
“You just always insist on doing the exact opposite of what I ask you to—”
“When have you ever actually asked me to do anything, Xaden?” I snap, cutting him off. “You just demand things of me. Like how you dropped this whole engagement charade on me today without so much as a warning—”
“Because I didn’t have a choice!” he barks at me, his voice cracking slightly, though he quickly reins it in. “Do you think I’m enjoying having to go through all this?”
He gestures in a sweeping motion to the bed and the space between us.
“Well, whose bright idea was it for you to pretend to be engaged to someone you hate in the first place?” I snap back, the anger rising in my voice dangerously. I feel hot tears of frustration welling up in my eyes and I take a deep breath, willing them not to spill out.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Violet. I don’t hate you,” he says, as if the idea is completely preposterous. As if he hadn’t just spent the last year either ignoring my existence or scolding me for being reckless. “Why would I hate you?”
I swallow, pausing for a beat before taking a deep breath and saying what I hadn’t wanted to say out loud for the past year.
“Because it’s my fault Liam died,” I say quietly. There. I said it. There’s no turning back from this now.
Xaden lets out an exasperated breath, closing his eyes as he rubs the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
“Can we not have this conversation now? Here, of all places?” He asks. His voice is lowered to a somber tone, though it still carries an edge of irritation.
“Well when else do you want to have it? I’ve barely seen you for months. You avoid me every time we’re in the same vicinity.”
“Sorry if I’ve been too busy leading a fucking revolution and trying to keep you safe—“
“Then stop keeping me safe and just talk to me!” I can feel my power rising up within me again. I’m so damn frustrated that I can barely look at him. “You never would have pulled this bullshit at Basgiath. You never held me back, never caged me in the name of protecting me. You were the one telling me to find another way on the Gauntlet, watching me fight off other cadets at Threshing, pushing me harder during training—”
“That was before Resson,” he says through gritted teeth. “And well before I had to pull you out of a fucking torture chamber with half of your bones broken and covered in your own blood.”
I swallow, my stomach twisting with guilt over the expedited actions he, and now the revolution, had to take because of me. He never would have had to alter the timing of their plans if I hadn't been captured. They would have been better prepared — better organized to take on extra riders and reveal themselves to Navarre.
“Fine,” I say, blowing out a breath. “You want me to cooperate? Try actually telling me things so I don’t have to keep flailing in the dark operating on scraps of information. I need to know things. Understand them. I’m not just a weapon you can call upon when you need it.”
Xaden flinches for a split second at that last comment, but he looks away and says nothing. I see his throat bob up and down as he swallows. He’s uncomfortable – not surprisingly — but at least now he can’t storm off somewhere and ignore me for weeks this time. A loaded silence stretches between us and I fight the urge to yell at him, to demand he say something.
“I am exhausted,” I say finally. And sitting there, staring expectantly at a completely silent Xaden, I mean it in every sense of the world. There’s clearly no salvaging this conversation at this point. “Let’s just go to sleep.”
I gesture to flick the mage light on my side of the bed off, my movements taut with irritation.
“And don’t think that just because I’m smaller than you, you get more than half the bed.” I firmly plant a cylindrical pillow horizontally directly down the middle and flank it with two smaller rectangular ones.
Is it petty? Yes. Do I care? Absolutely not.
He’s already standing on the other side of the bed by the time I’ve settled in, shaking his head as he grumbles something under his breath about me acting like a child.
I ignore him, sliding in under the covers as I take a few grounding breaths and finally relax my aching joints.
Fuck, I hate to admit it, but this bed feels heavenly compared to the mattress in the makeshift cadet quarters at Riorson House. The relief in my aching joints and muscles is instant — so much so that I let out a relieved breath. I turn to my side, facing away from the middle of the bed and folding my hands under my cheek.
The faint light emanating from the other side of the bed flickers off, and I feel a dip in the mattress and a gentle tug at the covers as Xaden gets into the bed. We settle into the darkness, and my anger starts to settle as well — subsiding from hot rage to a simmering mix of guilt and sadness. I can hear Xaden’s breathing and the faint sound of the rain still falling outside.
“I miss Liam,” Xaden says quietly after a few minutes, his voice barely louder than the rain. “Every fucking day.”
“Me too,” I whisper, my throat tightening.
“He would have never let things get this out of hand.” He lets out a weary breath. “He would have told me to just bring you here and to trust that you could handle it.”
I let out a sad chuckle. It’s true that Liam had been my greatest advocate with Xaden, but he’d also been Xaden’s greatest advocate with me.
“No. He would have convinced me to listen to you and not come here in the first place,” I say. Xaden contemplates that for a moment.
“You’re right.”
I could keep this line of conversation going—ask him why we’d never talked about Liam like this before. Maybe push him toward an apology for putting me in this fucked up situation. But in this moment, bloodied and weary on a metaphorical battleground of our own making, I know that we need a win.
“Say that again?” I tease, smirking into the darkness. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say those words in that order before.”
He doesn’t respond, and for a moment, I worry that I’ve ruined a rare nice moment between us.
Out of nowhere, a beaded silk pillow comes flying at my head. I gasp at first, momentarily indignant before succumbing to laughter —suddenly feeling the invisible fist that had been squeezing my heart loosen its grip.
“You’re right,” he repeats. “You absolute menace.”
***
Notes:
Thanks to @overjoyedisland for the beta read, and for those of you who leave nice comments and kudos for me. I'm over on Tumblr (lovemedarkly29) and the RQ discord if you ever want to chat!
Chapter Text
Not this veiny asshole again.
I grit my teeth, forcing myself to slow my breath. I know that the red rimmed eyes and crepey skin of the venin holding me down aren’t real. I know the blade in his hand and that grotesque smile on his face aren’t real either— that this is some sort of twisted blend of a nightmare and an omen that I’ve been stuck in before. I try to relax as his poison-tipped blade draws closer to my skin.
Breathe, Violet. Breathe.
The blade is just about to pierce my flesh when I jolt awake, my heart slamming against my ribs as I allow my brain to catch up with my body.
I’m a sweaty mess, tangled in the soft satin sheets of Xaden’s bed in Cordyn. Sunlight pours in through the high window above me, and I can see the green tops of unfamiliar tropical trees. It’s warm in here, even with the cooling magic that’s imbued in the marble walls.
I blink my eyes again, taking in my surroundings. Pillows are strewn haphazardly across the bed, but I’m relieved to see that I’m still a solid distance away from Xaden, who is asleep on the other side of the bed. A thin blanket is pooled around his waist and he’s lying on his side, leaving his bronze skin and swirling relic on full view, his face half buried in a pillow and turned towards me.
It’s not the first time I’ve woken up to Xaden at my side. There was the time during my first year when I came to in the infirmary after Jack Barlowe tried to kill me on the mat. And there was the time I woke up in Aretia after the battle in Resson to my world gone sideways — to my Liam, gone.
But this is the first time I’ve awoken to him asleep like this — and it makes my heart ache. He looks at peace, for once. His brow unfurrowed, no tightness in his jaw. Almost younger , even with the dusting of dark stubble that shadows his face.
It’s been almost a year since that awful day when I woke up in Aretia for the first time. Since then, Xaden’s limited our contact to the interactions necessary for me to play my part in the revolution. Weapons drops during our trips to reunite our mated dragons. Plans to research wards, steal the journals.
It’s not that I had really expected him to comfort me while I grieved Liam. Or try to rebuild any trust with me after all the deception that had been uncovered. Despite him always looking out for me, Xaden had never been gentle or particularly kind to me, let alone the type to have a conversation about emotions.
But before Resson — before my mistake had cost us Liam — he’d warmed up to me. I’d become accustomed to his snarky comments through our bond during lectures, and he had begun to voice his approval of things I’d done well almost as often as he critiqued me. It stung to know that he could barely stand to look at me now.
I take a deep breath as I think about the negotiations ahead of us today. More Tecarus. More pretending Xaden and I are engaged. I sigh, running a hand over the tangled waves in my hair. I had fallen asleep with it wet and loose – and knew I’d need to do something to make it look presentable for an audience with that creepy asshole and his cronies. Nevermind that Cat will probably find a way to insult my hair, no matter what I do to it.
I’m grateful that Xaden is still asleep so I can slip over to the bathing chamber and change back into my uniform without him seeing my entire ass in these sleep shorts.
But of course, it’s just my luck that the bed creaks as I move to stand. Xaden begins to stir and I panic, tugging the sheet off the bed and trying to wrap it over me awkwardly as he blinks and sits up. A smile tugs at his lips when he sees me struggling to wrangle the enormous bedsheet around my body.
“Are you feeling shy, darling?” he asks with an infuriating smirk, his hair mussed up from sleep. “This doesn’t seem like a very wifely morning greeting, if you ask me.”
“Oh, shut up, Xaden!” I call to him as the tangled sheet and I shuffle over to the cover of the bathing chamber door.
I roll my eyes. He threw one pillow at my head last night and thinks he can joke about this now?
“And I’m not your wife yet, remember! I can still leave you at the altar!” I say as I slam the door.
“I’m counting on it, sweetheart,” he says playfully in my head.
A pang of nostalgia catches me off guard. Gods, when was the last time he joked with me like this through our bond?
“Don’t call me that!” I say back to him before slamming up my shields to block him out. But still — I can’t help but smile to myself as I hear his laughter echo through the wall.
***
Four hours of negotiation and one very awkward luncheon later, we’re back in Xaden’s room with Mira and Brennan debriefing the morning’s events.
“I can’t believe you agreed to bring the fliers back with us,” Mira says through gritted teeth at Brennan.
I’m sitting at the desk leafing through the enormous leather bound tome that Tecarus had given us with pages and pages of everything they know about venin. Which, it seems, is a fuck ton more than we do.
We’re walking away with the book, the luminary, and as much information as we can gather in the three days it will take for their fliers to coordinate a trek to Aretia. In exchange, we’ll provide weapons, a private army, and we’ll integrate a hundred fliers into our cadet pool to train to fight venin.
Brennan gives Mira a pointed look from his perch on the bed. “We needed that luminary. And anyway, we could use the numbers. If we can manage to somehow get along, this could be good for everyone—”
“If they don’t kill us for being Sorrengails first,” she mutters.
“We can enlist Syrena to help them all understand that we all need to be on the same side now,” Xaden says from where he stands, leaning against the edge of the desk next to me. “And anyway, they were at Zolya — they know better than anyone that we need to cooperate or we’re all dead.”
“Well, we have a few days here to plan out all the logistics and gather as much information as we can,” Brennan notes. “And I’ll send word to Aretia for the cadets to prepare for the trek up the Medaro Pass.”
As part of the negotiations today, we’d agreed to spend three more days in Cordyn to plan for the logistical aspects of the fliers’ ascent to Aretia and to gather what we thought might be useful as well. “We need to stay in pairs while we’re here — Mira and I can meet with the weaponry folks tomorrow while you two see what you can find in the library.”
“And what about this whole engagement thing?” I ask. “Can Xaden and I break up yet?”
Xaden glares down at me. But it’s Mira who chimes in first.
“I would wait. Who knows what they’ll do out of spite if you tell them now,” Mira says. “Tecarus is clearly deranged and Cat doesn’t seem like a very rational creature either.”
“He’s extremely vengeful and already hates Xaden,” Brennan adds, grimacing as he looks at me. “Plus, nothing is final until that luminary is in the forge in Aretia. We don’t want them to claim that we negotiated under false pretenses and somehow go back on the terms of our deal.”
“So we have to keep up this charade when we’re back in Tyrrendor?” I ask. “No fucking way.”
“Just until things are settled into a rhythm with the fliers. A few weeks.” Brennan says.
“Weeks?”
“Yeah, weeks. Until things are less tenuous between us and the Poromish. Then you can get into some lovers' spat and break things off,” Brennan says. “That part shouldn’t be a problem for you two,” he adds dryly.
“My quarters at Riorson House have an extra bedroom,” Xaden says to me. “So you can have your own private space. I’ll likely be gone a lot anyway between scouting and weapons drops.”
“Cat is very skeptical about us actually being a couple,” I say. “And for good reason, I might add. She’s bound to ask around about us once we’re in Tyrrendor.”
“We can tell our closest friends that it’s a farce so they are ready,” Xaden says. “And the others wouldn’t have known anything if we were actually involved these last few months. It’s a new engagement, as far as Cat knows, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to keep it a secret while you were a cadet.”
“You want to keep it a secret even from the Assembly?” Brennan asks.
“Especially from the Assembly,” Xaden mutters. “They can stay the fuck out of my personal business.”
“Everyone will think you broke off a second engagement. They’re going to assume you’re not serious about actually going through with any marriage that might be brokered in the future,” Brennan points out.
“I’m not serious about going through with any marriages. So that’s actually convenient.”
“Xaden,” Brennan says with a sigh.
“And what about me gives you the impression that I would give a shit about coming off as marriage material anyway?” Xaden growls. Brennan sighs, looking like he may want to argue the point further.
“Fair enough,” he says reluctantly, running a hand through his auburn hair. “So we’re settled? This engagement goes on for a few more weeks?” Brennan asks.
“Settled,” Xaden says.
“Vi?” He asks, looking at me.
I glare up at Xaden for a moment before bringing my gaze back to Brennan. I can’t believe that I’m agreeing to this.
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. “But you all owe me.”
***
“We’re going to need to know more about each other if we’re going to be convincing at this engagement thing,” I say to Xaden as we walk back from the library to the main palace to get ready for dinner later that afternoon.
“Why?” He asks, lifting an eyebrow at me.
“Because. Engaged people usually know a lot about their betrothed, especially if we were supposed to have fallen in love. And if we’re going to pull this off, I need to know more about you. Things Cat would know.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he says dryly. “She doesn’t know shit about me.”
“I'm sure she knows more than I do,” I countered, crossing my arms as we walked.
“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “Not in the ways that matter.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “So she doesn’t know what you like to eat? Or about your family? You just never talked to her while you were together—?”
“Fine,” he says with an irritated sigh. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, I know a lot about how you grew up from Liam. He told me a lot about Tyrrish traditions and your dad and how it was for you two at Tirvainne. But— what about your mother?” I ask after a pause.
His jaw tightens. “What about her?”
“I mean— what happened to her?” I ask.
He looks up at the sky for a moment, then fixes his gaze ahead as he answers. “She had an arranged marriage to my dad. She left when I was ten after the contract terms were met. Haven’t seen her since.”
I blink, caught off guard by both the story and the bitterness in his tone. “Is that why you’re so against having an arranged marriage?”
I can see his jaw clenching, and it’s almost as if he is debating whether to answer. When he finally does, his words are slow and deliberate. “If I ever were to get married and have kids, I’d want them to have a mother who actually wants to be there.”
I’d clearly hit a nerve. But now it makes even more sense why he is so reluctant to go through a situation like that again.
“When’s your birthday?” I ask him after a moment, changing the subject. “A fiancée would definitely know that.”
“March 21st,” he says.
The spring equinox — when light and darkness are perfectly balanced. It somehow fits Xaden perfectly. Most people probably only see the darkness in Xaden: the ruthless choices, the coldness of his actions. But I've always seen the balance in him. The dark deeds done for bright reasons, the shadows that serve the light. He’s not one more than the other. He’s both.
“That’ll be easy to remember. Mine’s in—” I start to say.
“July. I know,” Xaden cuts me off. “July 5th.” My eyebrows dart up, surprised.
“How’d you know that?”
“I made it my business to know a lot about you after you showed up on the Parapet,” he says. I swallow, thinking back to what my mother had told me about enlisting Xaden to watch over me during my first year. “Mostly got my information from your brother.”
“So it’s out of date,” I mutter, but I am slightly unnerved that he knows more about me than I do about him. “Well alright then, I’m behind on learning about you. Hmmm. Do you have a hidden talent?” I ask.
He thinks about it for a moment. “That’s a trick question,” he says, a smirk forming on his lips. “I’m good at everything and I don’t hide it,”
“Oh, please,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“What’s your hidden talent?” He asks me. “And you can’t say setting shit on fire,” he adds.
I stop to ponder that question. “I guess I’m really good at darts.”
He considers me for a moment. “That actually tracks,” he says. “Good aim is good aim.”
“Favorite food?”
A faint smile plays on his lips. “Chocolate cake.”
“Really!” I say, looking at him with raised eyebrows. “That’s surprising.”
“These are definitely things Cat would not know, Violence,” he says. “I think we’ll be fine.”
“Ok, then—what else would a fiancée know that Cat might actually bring up?”
Xaden’s smirk widens, a wicked look forming in his dark eyes. “I usually sleep naked and I have a larger than average—”
“Xaden!” I exclaim, cutting him before he can finish his comment. I feel my cheeks reddening. “That’s not what I meant!”
“You’re the one who wanted to know all the little details,” he says. His eyes sparkle with amusement, clearly enjoying my reaction. “Although there’s nothing little about—”
“Good gods, Xaden!” I interject, cutting him off again. He laughs out loud this time.
“Anything else you’d like to know, fiancée?” He asks with a shameless grin.
I roll my eyes and speed up to walk ahead of him, not dignifying him with a response.
***
“Are you going to sleep with that thing?” Xaden asks me late that same evening, glancing over to my side of the bed where I have the giant book about venin from Tecarus sitting open across my thighs.
I’ve had my nose in the book since I’d wrestled it away from Brennan that afternoon, paging through the notes and diagrams and absorbing as much as I can before having to give it back to him. I’d coerced him into letting me have it for a day to help me know what to look for in the libraries while we are here.
“I’ll put it down eventually,” I say looking up at him for a moment as he gets into the bed beside me and sits with his back against the headboard. I turn my attention back to the book, but can feel him staring at me from his side of the bed.
Thankfully tonight I’m wearing a pair of silky dark blue pajamas, courtesy of the staff who’ve brought a few extra clothes for all of us. They are too big for me, but I don’t think I’ve been so happy to see an item of clothing since Mira gifted me my dragon scale corset.
“About what you said yesterday—” he begins.
Ah. So that’s why he’s staring at me. Only took him a full twenty-four hours to pick the conversation up again.
“I told you the day you woke up after Resson and I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it: I only blame myself for what happened to Liam. None of that was your fault.”
I set the book in my lap, sliding my finger between the pages to mark my place. I swallow, emotion already rising up in my chest at the firmness of his statement.
“You just seemed so angry at me every time I came to Samara and when you were at Basgiath,” I say to him quietly. “Or you’d just avoided me completely. I just assumed that you were mad—“
“I know. I did avoid you.” He blew out a heavy breath. “But that wasn’t because of anything you did.” His jaw flexes, and he keeps his gaze locked on his fingers as they pick at a loose thread on the blanket spread over his lap. “I just—I couldn’t look at you. At first, it was because of the pain in your eyes— pain I knew I caused. If I had just let him tell you the truth like he had asked—” His voice falters and he stops for a moment, not able to finish his sentence.
“Hearing you cry was fucking unbearable,” he says finally.
My heart sinks as I think about Xaden’s agonizing cry of despair through our mental connection at Resson when Liam took his last breath. I’ll never tell him, but sometimes, I hear it in my nightmares.
Xaden is still rolling that thread between his thumb and forefinger. I hold back tears as I close the book fully and rest it beside me, taking a long, steadying breath as I wait for him to continue.
“And then you were so mad at me for keeping everything a secret,” he says. He pauses again and I can feel how difficult this is for him. I want to reach out and squeeze his hand to comfort him, but I hesitate, unsure whether he’d welcome my touch.
“Look, Violet. I know exactly what most people see when they look at me, believe me. A ruthless asshole. A monster,” he continues. He’s speaking slowly, choosing his words carefully. “And I’ve never regretted playing that part before, because I knew it’s what I had to do. But you—for some reason, you of all people expected something better of me.”
I blink at him as his words sink in. It all feels a little surreal to finally be talking about this.
“You used to see me as a decent person,” he says, finally looking at me. “And then you didn’t anymore.”
I take a deep breath, studying his face for a moment. I’m caught off guard by his raw honesty — it’s more truth than I ever thought I’d hear from him, and I don’t quite know what to say.
“Well, shit,” I say finally. “This was a lot simpler when I just thought you hated me for letting Dain read my memories.”
He huffs out a laugh, but it has a bitter edge.
“I was mad at you,” I admit after a moment, all traces of humor gone from my voice. “And I was inconsolable over Liam. But I never wanted to make things worse for you— I know you don’t deserve that. I mean, we both lost him that day.”
“Yeah,” Xaden says, tipping his head back against the headboard and letting his shoulders sag. “We did.”
“And you are a decent person,” I add. “I still think that.”
“I’m really not, Violet.”
“You are,” I insist.
Xaden swallows, his throat bobbing up and down as he closes his eyes for a moment. When he looks back at me, his lips part as though he wants to say something, but he thinks better of it, his gaze drifting down to his hands again.
The silence is fine with me this time, though. He’s said more than enough.
I lean back against the pillows, turning towards him as I muster a small smile. “I think one last round of diplomacy is in order,” I say, breaking the silence. “A truce?”
His eyes flick to mine, and the corners of his mouth curve upward.
“Truce,” he agrees, his voice resigned but a little lighter than before. “And I’ll take whatever terms you’re offering, Sorrengail. I think I’ve had my fill of negotiations for a while.”
***
Notes:
Trying to get you one more chapter before the OS blackout week(s)! Thank you for the nice comments and love on this fic - especially those of you who clapped back on the hate - I appreciate you all so much 🖤
And @overjoyedisland, thanks as always for your thoughtful beta read
Chapter 5
Notes:
Really wanted to get you all one last chapter before the OS hiatus! Hope you enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Warm. So very warm.
It’s the first thing that registers for me when I first wake up the next morning, tempting every ounce of my body to fall back into the comfort of sleep. The second thing I notice is the weight—a solid, heavy arm slung over my waist, holding me close. And then there’s the sound — the rhythmic rise and fall of soft, sleep-slowed breath.
For a few blissful seconds, I let myself sink into it, leaning back against a firm chest, comforted by the faint thrum of a steady heartbeat.
But a few blissful seconds is all I get before all of a sudden, the reality of where I am—and more importantly, who I’m with set in. My eyes snap open, catching the first rays of sunlight filtering through the window in our room in Cordyn. And all that warmth I’d been savoring is replaced by a cold feeling of dread.
No. No, no, no. This is not happening.
But it very much is happening. Xaden’s muscular arm is draped across my waist, effectively anchoring me to the mattress. And to my utter mortification, the entire length of my backside is pressed flush against him.
I wiggle ever so slightly, trying to slide out from under him without waking him up. But of course, his grip tightens around me, pulling me even closer to his stupid, very solid, too-perfect-for-its-own-good body.
I take a deep breath and pull away again, this time plucking his forearm from around my waist to lift it off of me. I feel him stir awake behind me, his arm now finally exhibiting a will of its own again as it removes itself from my body.
“I didn’t take you for the cuddly type,” I say as I sit up and turn to look at him. He’s all tousled black hair and still-sleepy eyes, blinking into the soft rays of morning light as he sits up and leans against the headboard. His lips curve into a faint, sleepy smile.
That feeling of icy dread thaws just a little at the sight.
“I’m not the cuddly type,” he says, brushing a hand over his eyes.
“Coulda fooled me,” I mutter as I slide out of the bed to stand to chase some much needed distance between us.
“Hmm. Didn’t like it?” He asks, fixing his gaze on me with an air of amusement as I move away from the bed. “Maybe you should dream a little quieter then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask with a frown.
He raises a brow. “You don’t remember clinging to me when you were having a nightmare, huh?”
I freeze. I vaguely remember it now — waking up from another horrible nightmare in a panic, Xaden’s low, gravelly voice comforting me in the dark.
“It’s fine, Violence. I didn’t mind,” he says, his tone surprisingly free of judgment or snark. But I catch the smirk start to form on his lips just as he adds, “But if you wanted to feel me up, you could’ve just asked.”
I roll my eyes. Of course he can’t just leave it at something nice. “Don’t be an ass, Xaden,” I mutter as I make my way over to the bathing chamber.
He chuckles. “I did think you were taking this whole ‘truce’ thing a little too far, but who am I to argue—”
“Gods. I think I liked it better when I thought you hated me,” I say dryly as I disappear into the bathing chamber to get ready for another day in Cordyn.
Another day of being fake engaged to a very real pain in the ass.
***
The hall where breakfast is served is mostly empty, but I still hear the low hum of voices and the occasional clatter of silverware against plates as I sit in a light-filled corner of the room. I'm right by a door that’s open to a patio covered with lush greenery and well-curated bursts of colorful flowers, and there’s still a touch of cool morning dew in the air.
I’d tried to wait for Xaden while he took an obscenely long shower, but — hungry, desperate for coffee, and maybe still a little horrified by the cuddling incident — I gave up and ventured down on my own.
As I sip my coffee and stare out the open door, an unusual flower catches my eye on the patio. It looks like a tiny sunburst — white and purple and yellow — and I recognize it as a tropical flower with properties that are supposed to cure insomnia and, in some cases, heighten sensory awareness. Passiflora incarnata — I’ve never seen one in person before.
I glance around. No one seems to be paying attention to me, so I step out onto the patio and walk out a few steps to observe the flower more closely. The flowers are on a vine that grows all the way to the side of the building, and I notice that there are a few blooms that I could probably reach. It would be interesting to try a tincture of this plant — and maybe Brennan would know more about it. I am gathering a few blooms that have fallen to the ground when I hear familiar voices from inside the door— carrying just enough for me to make out who is speaking.
Xaden. And Cat.
I duck to the side, both the greenery and the door concealing me from view. I should probably make myself known, but the caffeine hasn’t kicked in yet and the idea of interacting with Cat this early in the morning makes my stomach turn.
“Isn’t it rather convenient that you just announced your engagement shortly after my uncle put marrying me back on the table?” I hear Cat say, her tone seeped in bitterness.
“What exactly are you implying?” Xaden asks in an exasperated tone.
“This just doesn’t make sense to me. Why would you get engaged so quickly after you met her? You have no reason— I mean, you riders are all forced to be on fertility suppressants, so I know she’s not pregnant.”
I brush my fingers over the petals of the flowers in my hands purposefully as I try not to let my emotions escalate.
“Don’t be nasty, Cat,” Xaden says to her. “And as I told your uncle, we decided to get married once we left Navarre and didn’t have to abide by the rules anymore. And it may be easy to forget when you’re at a lavish ball every week, but we are at war. We may not all have the luxury of waiting years to get married—“
“Oh, spare me the judgment, Xaden,” she hisses back at him. “Or did you forget that Cliffsbane—my home, until very recently—is currently inhabited by venin? I think I know how bleak things are right now.”
“You aren’t acting that way,” Xaden snaps back. “We all have bigger things to worry about than what title you end up marrying in to—”
“Do you really think marrying someone from a military family is a good idea? And a Navarrian?” Cat asks him.
“I don’t see why her family is relevant,” Xaden says, his voice tight.
“Because you should have someone who would make a good queen by your side. Not— her . But I guess having control over a lightning wielder would have its appeal to you for the time being.”
A queen? My stomach drops as the wheels start to turn in my head. I knew Xaden was Tyrrish nobility—and that Fen Riorson had been a Duke — but I never thought ahead to who would rule Tyrrendor by birth right if we made it through all of this. Xaden is a natural leader — but the thought of him as a King makes something in my gut twist — and not in a good way.
“What she wields is not relevant here,” Xaden says sharply.
Cat laughs. “You expect me to believe that? You’ve always only cared about what people can do for you, Xaden. You may need to make her think you are doing this for love, but you aren’t fooling me.”
“You know what? Believe what you want. I don’t owe you an explanation,” Xaden says at last, his voice cold and dismissive. “Either way, I’m marrying Violet.”
“We’ll see,” Cat says. Her high pitched tone makes it clear that she’s not conceding by a long shot. It’s silent for a moment before she speaks again. “Enjoy your breakfast, Xaden.”
He makes an annoyed clicking noise with his tongue, and the faint clacking of Cat’s heels on the floor and the silence that follows tell me that she’s left the vicinity.
“You can come back to the table now,” Xaden says to me through our bond. I close my eyes and shake my head. Of course he knows I’m here. He always seems to know where I am.
“What in Amari’s name were you doing out there?” He asks as I come into view in the doorway. His eyes drop to the flowers in my hand before narrowing them critically. “Don’t tell me you’re making poison again.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I say breezily, sliding back into my seat across from him and setting the flowers down beside my plate. Xaden leans back in his chair and studies me for a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Have I ever told you that you terrify me, Violence?” he says, his tone matter-of-fact, though there’s unmistakable laughter in his dark eyes.
“Not nearly often enough,” I say, biting back a smile as I take a sip of my coffee.
***
After breakfast, Xaden and I head to the library to get a few hours of review in before meeting up with Mira and Brennan. An unassuming beige color with very few windows, the palace library is a startling contrast to the pristine white walls and shiny glass of the rest of the grounds. Its entrance is hidden beneath a canopy of flowering vines and guarded by a single guard. Inside, there’s a scribe at a desk in the front — with a scribe stationed there who seems to come and go periodically. We essentially have the place to ourselves again today, and it seems that this would likely be the case most days here.
“Look at this,” I say quietly to Xaden as we sit at a table between the stacks of dusty tomes and texts. “See how this sentence is cut off in the middle— and the next page starts with a new paragraph?” I turn the page in the large book from Tecarus to show him the inconsistency in the writing. “There’s at least half a dozen examples of that in here so far.”
I’d noticed it the night before, but more and more inconsistencies kept popping up as I reviewed the text. Footnotes and indicated annotations missing — narrative observations about venin captives cut off mid-thought.
“I’m assuming it’s not exactly a finished or edited text,” Xaden says. “I mean, they put some of that together specifically for us, right?”
“True. But it looks like these pages were actually removed, not just incomplete shorthand or part of the loose pages,” I say.
Xaden pulls the book toward him and turns the page again, looking at the text with a frown. “Are they random, or are the missing pages about a specific topic?”
“I’m marking them and will come back to look for a pattern,” I whisper. “But they are all in the pages about captured venin — seems like they’ve had captives here in Cordyn that they’ve been observing and testing things on for years.”
Xaden’s eyebrows pop up. “I suppose that doesn’t surprise me,” he says.
“They’d better not be hiding anything from us,” he adds through our mental connection. “Though I wouldn’t put it past Tecarus. He probably assumed we’d be long gone with all their fliers before we read as much of the book as you have.”
“Yeah. I think he was counting on that — it would be easy to miss or ignore. But something is being covered up,” I tell him. “I’ll keep looking.”
Xaden nods and returns to his skimming of a few books on folklore that we determined might have some additional information on venin.
I keep reading through the pages of the giant brown tome, finding a mix of general information from fliers who’d battled venin and lived to tell the tale, and information cited as knowledge from observing captured venin.
By lunch time, I’ve nearly finished reviewing the book, finding a handful of other missing pages. I manage to piece together that the missing sections are all from when the book is referring to observations about specific venin captives.
Xaden interrupts me while I’m deep in thought, writing out numbers on a scrap piece of parchment.
“What are you calculating there?” He asks, standing up and towering over me from behind my chair to look over my shoulder.
His proximity catches me off guard, and I catch his masculine scent— distracting, warm. I swallow and set my pen down.
“See these numbers?” I tell him quietly, pointing to the page where I’ve written out the numbers from 2 to 47. “I wrote down every test subject that’s referenced in the notes— so there seems to have been 47 captured venin observed here, referenced in different places.”
“That’s a lot of venin,” Xaden notes. “All being held here in the palace?”
“It doesn’t say where, but I assume it’s Cordyn because there’s reference to the drained stone quarried from the Barrens.”
I turn to look up at him. “It’s 47 but, seems like maybe it’s been over the course of a decade. There’s mention of every one of them — except never a reference to Subject 1.”
“Interesting,” Xaden says. “And Subject 1 couldn’t just have died very quickly and not made it into the notes?”
“They could have,” I say with a shrug. “But see — all the missing pages are pages where there were probably references to test subjects. It seems as though most of these venin are long dead. But there are recent pages missing. What if—“
“You think Subject 1 is what — or who — they are trying to hide?” He asks in my head.
“Possibly,” I reply. “Either way, I think we should ask about the missing pages.”
Xaden nods. “I’ll ask to talk to Syrena first,” he says. “ Better to not have a confrontation with Tecarus just yet if we could get an answer from her.”
***
Two hours later, we’ve finished lunch and are back in the library when Syrena strides in. She’s dressed in her brown leathers, dark hair swept back from her angular face. The resemblance to Cat is striking, but her eyes are warmer—though, to be fair, anything would be warmer than Cat’s icy glare.
“Riorson. Sorrengail,” she calls as she approaches our table, her voice booming loudly through the quiet space. “You wanted to see me?”
“Thanks for coming,” Xaden says, motioning to the chair across from us. “Sit?”
She arches a brow. “Will this take long?”
“That depends on how much you know,” he replies, leaning back in his chair.
“About what?” Syrena’s gaze narrows.
Xaden nods toward the open book in front of me. “That book. It’s missing pages. Know anything about that?”
Her eyes flick to the book, her frown deepening. “What pages?”
“A dozen, at least. All from the sections about venin test subjects,” I chime in.
Syrena’s jaw tightens. “I don’t know anything about that,” she says. “Venin documentation isn’t my responsibility. That’s my cousin’s work when he’s not fighting out in Braevick—or the Chief Alchemist’s.”
“Come on, Syrena,” Xaden says, his voice sharper now. “You spend all this time in Cordyn with your uncle, and you’re telling me you don’t know anything about the venin living here?”
“I don’t,” she snaps, her gaze hardening.
“We were promised a full account of everything you know about venin,” Xaden presses, his tone edged with a warning. “We won’t leave here with a single flier if there’s even a chance you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not hiding shit, Xaden,” she shoots back. “I’m an open book, but I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
I lean forward, trying to soften the tension. “The venin they’ve captured—the ones mentioned in this book. They’re here at the palace, right?”
Syrena exhales and nods. “There’s a sanctum beneath the arena. Maybe twenty or so cells made from that stone east of the river.”
“Only twenty?”
“I don’t go down there, but that’s my guess,” she says. “No one’s allowed inside except a handful of alchemists, healers, and my uncle.”
“And he’s… heavily involved?” I ask carefully.
“Obsessively,” she admits. “Ever since his wife died, he’s thrown himself into the work. Guess it’s his way of coping with her being gone.”
I nod, recalling what Brennan told me before we came here. The Viscountess had died about ten years ago from an illness contracted on a trip they’d taken to Zolya. Tecarus had also fallen ill but managed to recover — but he never remarried.
“And you’ve never seen one of the venin here?”
“Not until I saw the one you killed two nights ago,” Syrena says, looking at me.
Xaden doesn’t miss a beat. “Then why would your uncle—or his scribes and alchemists—want to keep parts of this book from us?”
Syrena shrugs. “I can’t answer that. But as far as I’m concerned, the more you know, the better our weapons will be. I’ve got no reason to hold back, and I’ve told him he should do the same.”
I glance at Xaden, who wears that maddeningly blank expression he maintains when he’s considering a thousand possibilities at once.
“You believe her? ” I ask Xaden silently through our bond.
“I trust Syrena,” he replies simply.
Syrena’s gaze shifts between us. “My uncle’s ruthless when it comes to getting what he wants, sure. But who isn’t in this war? You’d do the same for Tyrrendor, Xaden. That doesn’t mean he’s hiding anything important — I think he’s negotiated with you in good faith.”
“So we should ignore the fact that something’s clearly being withheld?” Xaden counters.
“I think if whatever information is missing were key to defeating venin, you’d already have it,” Syrena says evenly. She pauses then glances down at the book, and narrows her eyes as she looks back to me. “You’ve read that whole thing since yesterday?”
I nod, and she whistles low. “That’s like eight hundred pages.”
“Easily,” Xaden says. Warmth flickers in my chest as I catch the corner of his mouth twitching upward in what I’m almost certain is a hint of pride.
“I trained to be a scribe before I became a rider,” I explain. “I’m used to reading quickly.”
“Impressive. Brains, beauty, and deadly power,” Syrena says with a smirk. “No wonder Riorson and my uncle are both trying to keep you.”
I can feel heat rising in my cheeks, but before I can respond, Syrena adds, “Don’t tell my sister I said that. I’m not trying to get stabbed today.”
***
Notes:
Thanks for reading. See you on the other side of Onyx Storm!
Thanks to @overjoyedisland for beta reading an earlier version of this! I changed most of it on a whim since you read (so I take responsibility for the inevitable typos and tense changes). And to @thoughtsaboutshows for being a springboard for ideas 🖤
Chapter 6
Notes:
We’re baaack!
Without getting into the effed up details, life has been a little rough on my end since the presidential change. But I’m hoping writing fanfic will continue to bring me a little joy in the stress and madness. I’m really trying to keep at it! Hope you enjoy some fake engagement fun in this longer chapter 💕
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Change of plans,” I tell Xaden as we walk back to our room after breakfast to get ready for the library the next morning.
“I hate it when you say that,” Xaden responds, narrowing his eyes at me disapprovingly. “And what exactly are we doing if not heading to the library?”
“I want to check out the sanctum,” I say. “Maybe we can figure out what Tecarus is hiding.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You haven’t even heard my plan,” I counter quickly. “Aren’t you even a little curious about what he’s hiding from us?”
“Curious?” He chuckles dryly. “Sure. I’m curious about a lot of things. Chief among them right now is how you could possibly think snooping around Tecarus’ secret dungeon full of venin is a good idea.” I cross my arms as we walk, trying not to roll my eyes at him. “Syrena hasn’t even been down there,” he adds.
“Well, Syrena doesn’t command shadows.”
“Neither do you, Violence,” he says pointedly.
Damn. He has a point.
“We won’t get caught,” I press. “All we have to do is get close enough for you to send your shadows in to see what’s down there.”
“I fail to see the ‘we’ part of this plan,” he says. “So far, it sounds like you just need me to go snoop around.”
“I want to be there so that if there’s a way I can get in and see things for myself, I can do it. We may be able to find the Chief Alchemist’s office or the missing notes.”
“This is unnecessary,” he says, his tone hardening. “Why not just confront Tecarus about the missing pages?”
“Because that’ll give him time to lie or reopen negotiations,” I explain. “We may need to talk to him eventually, but this could help us avoid it altogether.”
“We’ve got more than enough information and, more importantly, we are this close to leaving here with the luminary.” He holds his forefinger and thumb up with barely a centimeter of space between them.
“But—“
“Let it go,” he snaps. “Syrena thinks it’s unimportant, and if we get caught, it puts what he’s already agreed to at risk.” His tone makes it clear that there’s no room for further discussion.
Right. My mistake for thinking that maybe we could actually behave like a team with an equal say in what we did or didn’t do here.
I sigh, dropping the topic while mentally committing to stealing away from him to investigate on my own the first chance I get.
***
“For once I agree with the shadow wielder,” Tairn grumbles in my head. “ This is a terrible idea.”
“You have no faith in me,” I mutter back at him as I make my way down around the outside of the arena on the west side of the palace. It’s nearly sunset by the time I’ve snuck away from Xaden. The white stone of the arena walls is bathed in a warm golden hue by the setting sun and my shadow stretches long in the waning light.
“Need I remind you what happened last time you tried to orchestrate a heist?” He says.
I ignore Tairn’s dig at me, much in the same way I’m currently ignoring Xaden’s demands that I stay away from the sanctum and let Tecarus keep his secrets.
Luckily, the palace grounds are buzzing with preparations for the feast Tecarus is hosting tonight to celebrate Festum Ignis—the Poromish fire festival that marks the beginning of summer. And as reluctant as I am to attend yet another gaudy event with Tecarus and his court, I welcome the preparations as a distraction for the sake of my mission to investigate what he’s up to.
I'm relieved to find that there are no guards as far as I can see around the curve of the structure. And I thank the gods that even the backside of the arena is as perfectly landscaped as the rest of the palace grounds, because there are still ornamental trees around the foot of the arena that I can duck behind for cover.
From my vantage point, I can see three doors. I approach the first door, gently checking the handle and finding that it’s locked. I make my way over to the second door, hoping for better luck. I am about to reach for the door handle when I hear a scraping noise from inside and see the door handle start to move.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I backpedal as fast as I can — scrambling to tuck myself back against the wall behind the shrubs on the left side of the door. Before I make it to the cover of the shrubbery, I feel a cool, firm sensation wrap around my torso and arms, yanking me off the ground and backward. Just as the door opens fully in front of me, my entire backside makes contact with a hard, muscular body and a warm hand covers my mouth.
Xaden. If the fact that I’m now covered in dark shadows wasn’t a dead giveaway, I would have registered it was him from his delectable, mint-laced scent .
“Don’t move,” he whispers into my ear in a soft growl, his warm breath hitting the back of my neck just under my ear. He lowers his hand from my mouth as I kick my feet downward, trying to reach the ground and failing. If my whole body wasn’t so busy shamefully responding to the proximity of him against me, I’d be indignant about being held up off the ground like a child. But I’m too distracted by the way his breath against my neck is sending tingles down my spine to be indignant, and I find myself relaxing in the grip of his shadows.
I take a deep breath, trying to steady my beating heart as I try to focus on the shadowy figures who have now emerged from the door in front of us. One is tall and slender and the other stocky and broad.
“The viscount will be here any minute now,” the taller one says as they pass us. “He hasn’t visited since the dragon riders arrived, so he’ll want to hear anything about her from the last three days.”
“Noted,” the other man responds as they pass us and head towards the first door. “She just drained today, so he may not want to see her right away.”
“Let him decide that,” the other man responds. “And make sure everything looks up to his standards in her cell in case he does want to pay her a visit.”
Their voices fade as they reach the first door and disappear inside.
Xaden finally sets me down on the ground. “Is your curiosity adequately satisfied, Violence?” He whispers hotly.
I brush myself off, finally lowering my shields and speaking into his mind. “Not at all. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Obviously you’re glad I’m here. I just saved your ass from being caught.”
“I would have been fine,” I argue. “I saw them coming.”
“You almost stumbled face first into them,” he says dryly.
“You want to pretend you valiantly rescued me, go for it,” I say, irritated. “I’ve got better things to worry about.”
“Like what, single handedly ruining our carefully brokered diplomatic agreement by being careless?” He says sarcastically.
“Did you not just hear them say that they let one of their venin captives drain?” I spit back at him. “He’s clearly double crossing us, and you still think I’m just being careless?”
“Coming down here without a plan is careless,” he snaps.
“If you’d just come with me in the first place instead of following me around in secret, we’d have a plan,” I say. “What if he’s working with the venin? Don’t you want to know?”
“What I want is for the four of us to get out of Cordyn in one piece with that luminary.”
“Fine.” I say, glaring at him. “You can be mad at me later. But now that you’re here, can your shadows follow them and see what’s happening in there?”
He sighs audibly, and I see him fold his arms across his chest.
“Alright,” he says finally. “ There are guards right inside this door. One by the external door and one by another door inside.”
“Right,” I say. “Can you see inside the second door?”
“Hang on,” he says. “Alright. There’s a row of cells — all made of the same stone as outside.”
“Venin in each one?”
“Yes. The cells have numbers written next to them. There’s 32, 37, 38, 41, 42…”
“Is there a 1?”
Xaden is quiet for a few moments. “ There it is. It’s a larger cell. Here,” he pauses briefly before an image appears in my head, almost as if I’m dreaming.
“Am I seeing—?“
“Yes,” he says.
Holy shit. I’m seeing through his eyes—through his shadows. A female venin sits in a dark stone cell. Her red eyes gleam, and her pale skin is a sickly canvas against which her distended veins and long black hair stand out in stark contrast. She wears blue silk robes—far finer than anything the others are wearing.
There are fourteen cells with venin in them. All numbered in the 30s and 40s except for her.
“Do you see any signs of records or maybe an office where the alchemists keep their research?”
The image shifts towards a door at the far side of the row of cells.
“I don’t see any offices down here,” he says. He shows me an image through our bond of a room with supplies and a workbench, its grey walls darker than the stone in the cells and the arena. It looks as though it could be where they craft serums and other concoctions for experiments, but there are no desk drawers or cabinets for files or books.
The vision from Xaden disappears. “It’s just that room and the cells—and a passageway that I assume leads back into the palace,” he says.
Dammit. I was hoping we’d be able to find the pages without Tecarus being any the wiser.
“Let’s wait for Tecarus. ” I say. “Maybe they’ll share more about how they are letting the venin drain.”
Xaden says nothing but I can just make out that he is moving to lean against the wall, seemingly acquiescing to the idea of waiting. I back against the wall next to him and we settle into silence.
After a few minutes, my knees and ankles start to ache from standing in one place so long. I shift my weight from side to side to side to chase some semblance of relief.
“Sit down,” Xaden commands in my head. “Your fidgeting is distracting.”
“I’m fine. I want to be ready if we have to move or duck for cover,” I tell him. I freeze in place nonetheless, trying to force myself not to fidget to prove a point.
“I’ll cover us,” Xaden says. “No one will see us here as long as you don’t move.” I feel his shadows at the back of my thighs and lower back, cradling me into a seated position. I swallow my pride and relax against them. The relief on my joints is instant, and as reluctant as I am to accept the assistance, I can’t help but be silently grateful for the relief.
“How did you know you could send me images of what you are seeing like that?” I ask Xaden as I stretch my ankles in circles one by one.
“I didn’t. I just found your shimmering silver cloud in my head and sent what I was seeing down the bond towards you. I figured it might work.”
“Incredible,” I whisper. I wonder if it would work with the other senses—and it leaves me realizing we’ve barely scratched the surface of how powerful we could be if we actually worked together.
“There’s probably a lot more we could explore about our connection, Violence.” His voice is low and though I can’t see him in the darkness, something about his tone makes heat rise in my cheeks.
Is he – flirting with me?
Thankfully, my thoughts are interrupted before I can read too much into Xaden’s last statement.
“He’s here,” Xaden says to me. He sends an image down the bond again, and I close my eyes to focus. Tecarus stands with the other two men in the corridor outside the row of cells. He’s dressed in a formal outfit — a navy blue velvet jacket with curved yellow embroidery all across it and matching navy trousers.
“How is she today?” Tecarus asks the tall, thin man who I can now see has dark gray hair and very pale skin. I assume that he is the Chief Alchemist that Syrena referenced.
“She’s just drained the usual dose this morning,” the man says. “The prisoner from Braevick was on his last legs, so his body was sent to the crematorium just after.”
“Good,” Tecarus replies. “He was a treacherous snake of a man anyhow.”
I shiver involuntarily. He’s giving this venin other human prisoners to drain so that she can stay alive. Once again, I feel a little sheepish at underestimating what Tecarus is capable of doing to his enemies.
“Today’s dose should be enough to last her for the next two weeks,” the alchemist tells him. “Would you like to see her?”
“Just for a few minutes,” he says. “They are expecting me at the Festum celebration shortly.”
The alchemist nods as he steps forward to unlock the door to the corridor of cells. Tecarus moves inside and the vision in front of me shifts to a new vantage point on the floor of the corridor. I regain my bearings and can make out Tecarus approaching Subject 1’s cell.
“Happy Festum, Valeria,” I hear him say. He’s still at a safe distance from the bars of her cell, but places a small jar on a long stone tray that juts out more than an arm’s length from the side of her cell.
“How dare you bring me a symbol of your devotion and yet keep me in this cage?” She snarls at him. I can barely see either of their faces, but I can sense Tecarus withdraw. The venom in her voice would be enough to make anyone recoil.
Xaden drops his connection to me then, and I turn to peer at him through the darkness.
“What is it?” I ask him.
“Valeria,” he says somberly. “That was the name of the viscountess — his wife.”
***
“I haven’t had to dress up this much since we lived in Calldyr,” Mira grumbles as we make our way to the palace ballroom for the Festum Ignis celebration later that evening. “Can’t say that I miss it. Especially not the shoes.”
Despite her grumbling, Mira looks incredible in a fitted sapphire gown, the high neckline complemented by her short hair and long silver earrings.
“I was young enough to avoid most of that in Calldyr,” I say. “Although I can’t really complain now when the gowns are this gorgeous.”
While we had managed to avoid a lavish dinner the previous night, Tecarus insisted we attend the gathering he was hosting to celebrate the first day of summer. Since we were already running late to prepare for the celebration, Xaden and I had agreed to tell Mira and Brennan what we’d learned about Tecarus’ wife the next morning.
I’d been able to get dressed quickly, having thankfully already chosen a dark green gown tailored for my height for this exact occasion. It’s not something I would have thought I’d enjoy wearing, but the bodice hugs my waist perfectly and the high slit in the front makes it surprisingly comfortable to move in.
I had expected something over the top as everything here in Cordyn seems to be, but I’m still unprepared for the scene that greets us as Mira and I step into the ballroom.
A dozen towering columns of fire scattered across the room rise from floor to ceiling, casting an orange glow that flickers on every surface. Servers dressed in glittering yellow costumes weave through the crowd, holding trays of bite-sized delicacies and crystal flutes topped with crackling sparklers. A group of musicians plays in one corner, while the ballroom’s glass doors open onto an expansive terrace.
“Holy Zihnal,” Mira says, her gaze sweeping the room. “There must be at least three hundred people here.”
The sheer scale of the celebration feels almost obscene given everything else happening on the Continent — especially in Poromiel. But before I can be too critical of the celebration, a passing server offers me a flute of sparkling wine. I take it, reluctantly marveling as the sparkler goes out as I draw it to my lips and crackles back to life every time I lower the glass.
“Impressive,” Mira says, lifting the glass up to her lips and then down again to marvel at the enchanted sparkler.
“A waste of effort,” I mutter. “You’d think they had no idea that they are on the brink of total destruction.”
I glance around the room but see no sign of Brennan or Xaden.
“They’ve been at war with the venin for decades now, remember?” Mira says. She has a point. Still, the threat of venin has never come this close to Cordyn — or been this powerful.
I search my mental archives for Xaden, sensing the shadowy black cloud of his aura off in the distance directly in front of me.
“Xaden is outside,” I tell Mira as I lead her in the direction of the open doors at the back of the hall. “This way.”
“It’s still so strange to me that you can seek him out like that,” she says, shaking her head as she follows me out to the enormous patio.
Outside, there’s a pair of fire dancers on each end of the patio twirling flaming batons in mesmerizing patterns against the black sky. Magelights hang in the air above the guests who are gathered in small groups outside.
My mood sours when I see Xaden’s tall figure with his back to us as he chats with Cat. Thankfully, Brennan and Syrena are with them as well.
Brennan sees us first, breaking away from the conversation as he waves us over. Xaden turns then to greet us. His gaze meets mine — and I watch as it then drops down the length of my gown, lingering longer than it should on the high slit that reveals my thigh as I walk. An unmistakable heat flares in his eyes and it sparks something in my chest—a quick, sharp flutter of exhilaration that I’m not entirely prepared for.
Xaden steps forward to close the distance between us and wraps an arm loosely around my waist.
“That’s quite a gown, Violence,” he says into my ear, sending shivers reverberating down my spine despite the warm summer air. I swallow, trying to steady myself and ignore the way my body is reacting to his deep voice and breath against my neck.
“Cat is in rare form tonight,” Xaden says into my head. “ She seems pretty set on causing trouble for us.”
Right. That’s the reminder I needed that this is all just for show — that I need to be as convincing as Xaden is when he’s lying through his infuriatingly perfect teeth.
“Too bad she doesn’t know that all she has to do is wait a few weeks,” I say back to him, forcing a smile as I lean into his arm and settle into the circle of conversation. Xaden says nothing, but tightens his hold on my waist.
“What a celebration,” I say to the group brightly.
“It really is incredible. But let’s go pay respects to our host now that you two are here,” Brennan says.
“He’s just inside the ballroom,” Syrena says helpfully, leading the way back inside. We all follow her back inside to where Tecarus is seated on a tufted velvet couch in the corner of the ballroom, flanked by chairs in which two of his advisors sit.
He’s in the same velvet brocade outfit as earlier, but I can see now that the embroidery on his jacket depicts a pattern of interwoven flames. I study his face, trying to reconcile this smiling man with the man who’d timidly brought a gift for his venin wife to wholly reject just hours earlier.
“Ah, our special guests. Please, come. Are you enjoying our festival?” Tecarus asks.
“It’s really something,” I say politely. “It’s one thing to read about these traditions, but to be here it is a different experience entirely.”
“And in all your research, did you read anything about the importance of Festum Ignis for lovers?” He asks.
“No,” I admit. my eyes dart to Xaden, then back to Tecarus. “What is the importance for lovers?”
“It’s a holiday celebrating fertility, vitality and new life — all things that require great passion and sweetness between lovers.” He stands, gesturing to someone behind me to come closer to us. I turn, seeing a server with a tray of miniature glasses filled with what looked to be a dark amber liquid. “One for the newly betrothed,” Tecarus says, taking one of the glasses off the tray.
“Honey?” I ask.
“Indeed. Lovers feed a little honey to each other with a finger — it represents a commitment to be sweet to one another in the coming year.” I almost scoff at the idea of committing to that with Xaden, but catch myself just in time.
Despite Xaden looking at him with a frown, Tecarus hands him the cup of honey and beams. “You know, I met my wife during Festum. That very evening we fed one another honey and were married just a few weeks later.”
The wistful look in Tecarus’ eyes is fleeting but hard to miss. I feel a pang of sadness for the man as I think about the pallid skin and red eyes of the woman I’d seen through Xaden’s shadows. “So, Riorson, exchange honey with your beloved and sweetness is sure to be yours this year.”
“If only it were that easy to get you to be nice to me,” Xaden jokes in my head.
He turns towards me, holding the miniature glass in one hand. I glance around at the expectant faces of the group around us before taking a deep breath and looking up at Xaden. Our eyes meet for a moment before he looks down at the honey in his hands, dipping his finger into the honey to coat the tip of it with the sticky liquid. He brings his gaze back up to mine again, but it quickly drops to my lips.
“Open,” he murmurs, his tone leaving no room for argument as he brings his honey-coated finger towards my lips.
I obey, my pulse thundering in my ears as his finger brushes against my lip. I get a whiff of the sweet smell laced with the scent of orange blossoms. His finger is warm and I taste the fragrant liquid on my tongue. It’s impossibly sweet, but it’s the way his touch lingers, the way his gaze darkens as my lips close around his fingers, that makes my entire body go up in flames.
The moment stretches, a heartbeat away from shattering, before he withdraws his hand. His thumb brushes against my bottom lip before it retreats entirely. He brings his finger to his own lips briefly, flicking the tip of his tongue against it quickly before lowering it to his side.
“Your turn,” I hear him say. I drag my eyes down to the glass in his hand. He passes it to me and I grip it nervously. I dip my pinky finger into the honey, taking a deep breath before looking up at his beautiful mouth and raising my hand towards it.
His lips part and he leans forward, catching my finger with his hand and holding it in place. He flattens his tongue against the pad of my finger, then swirls it over the top before closing his lips around the tip and drawing my finger deeper into his mouth. His tongue flicks against my skin, warm and slow, and my knees nearly give out. He doesn’t break eye contact, not even for a second. And I can’t look away—I’m so turned on that I would be embarrassed if I still had the ability to form a coherent thought.
The sound of clapping breaks through the daze of lust I’m trapped in, and I clear my throat and pull my hand back as I watch Xaden’s lips quirk into a faint smile.
I swallow nervously as I bring my eyes back to Tecarus, who is clapping and smiling even as he looks from me to Xaden and back curiously.
“Well, now you are sure to have a year full of love ahead,” he says, clapping Xaden on the shoulder. Xaden stiffens so quickly against his touch it’s almost comical, but to his credit, he maintains a neutral facial expression.
“Thank you,” I say to Tecarus with a polite smile. “What a nice tradition.”
“It is indeed,” Tecarus says, the wrinkles at the side of his eyes creasing as he smiles at me. He turns to Brennan and Mira. “Next year, perhaps you two will have sweethearts to bring to the festival, eh?”
Brennan smiles politely. “Perhaps,” he says, thankfully drawing attention away from Mira, who looks horrified by the idea of returning next year with a lover. “And thank you for including us in the festivities this year.”
“It was fortuitous timing, wasn’t it? Now go enjoy yourselves—the sparkling wine is excellent, and there are fire dancers all along the outside patio, have you seen them?”
We all assure him that we’ll enjoy the festival before Xaden leads me back outside with a hand resting gently on the back of my elbow. We make our way to stand at a cocktail table near the fire dancers and are joined once again by Cat, Syrena, Brennan and Mira.
“So many interesting rituals involved with welcoming the summer,” Brennan offers to the group as I take a canapé off the tray from a passing server. “I’d never heard of the honey feeding tradition.”
“Me neither,” Xaden says, giving me a pointed look as his lips quirk up at the corners with amusement. “That was a pleasant surprise.”
“Huh,” Cat says, taking a sip of her sparkling wine and glaring at Xaden. “It’s nice to see you finally showing interest in our traditions— just in time for you to marry a Navarrian.”
His eyes snap to meet hers. “It was never your traditions I found uninteresting, Cat,” he says coldly.
Thankfully, a tall, redheaded young man approaches our group and stops next to Cat, drawing attention away from the tense exchange. He looks familiar but I can’t quite place why.
“Pardon the interruption,” he says, looking at the group of us before turning back to Cat. “Maren said you were looking for me?”
“I was!” Cat says, smiling sweetly at the redhead and drawing him into the circle with her hands wrapped around his arm. “I need you to settle something for us, Lieutenant Russo.”
Lieutenant — oh shit . My stomach sinks as I realize that he’s the truthsayer from the first day we arrived. I hadn’t recognized him without his uniform and hat.
Fuck. We’re so fucked.
“I am not convinced that these two are actually planning to get married—“ Cat begins.
“Cat,” Syrena cuts in sharply. “This is unnecessary.”
“It just doesn’t add up,” she continues, eyes darting accusingly between me and Xaden. “And I haven’t seen you do so much as kiss the whole time you’ve been here.”
“We were trying to be respectful,” I snap at her. “But you clearly don’t deserve that courtesy.”
“I don’t deserve courtesy? Ha! You know he’s just using you because you wield lightning, right?”
She’s fucking right I wield lightning, and I’m angry enough that I’m about to wield it right into her stupid fucking forehead. I feel my power rising up in me, sparking across my skin, raging and ready.
“Calm down, Silver One,” Tairn warns me through our bond. “ Your anger is escalating too quickly.”
Shit. Cat must be using her powers on me. Tairn’s warning comes just in time—I take a deep breath and ground, feeling the power in my veins stabilize even as it continues to sizzle hot under my skin.
“Get the fuck out of my head and leave us alone.” I hiss at her. “It’s not my fault that you miss Xaden’s spectacular cock.”
Cat’s eyes go wide for a moment, staring at me in shock while I hear Syrena mutter something that sounds a lot like “ what the fuck ” under her breath. Mira looks curious—almost as if she’s wondering if my statement is actually due to first-hand experience—and the poor truthsayer has turned red as he coughs uncomfortably and looks at his shoes.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Violet,” Brennan mutters quietly, the redness on his cheeks evident even in the dim light.
And I don’t have to look at Xaden to know he’s probably not even trying to hide a cocky grin.
But Cat is only speechless for a moment. Evidently she’s done with picking at me and turns to Xaden. “All you have to do is tell the truth, Xaden. Say that you’re actually going to marry her, and I’ll drop this whole thing.”
“I already told you—” I start to say to her, but Xaden stops me.
“Violet, it’s fine,” he says coolly, placing a hand lightly on my arm. He steps up closer to Cat then. “Let me clear this up once and for all,” he says with so much bile in his tone as he stares her down that even I am caught off guard.
“I am very much in love with Violet,” he says, his voice unwavering. “I’ve loved her for a long time – longer than even she knows. She’s beautiful, and sharp, and braver than anyone I’ve ever met. I couldn’t care less that she wields lightning, because that’s, quite frankly, not even close to the most remarkable thing about her. So yes. To answer your question, I want to marry her and be by her side for as long as she’ll have me.”
He turns to me then, brushing a lock of hair away from my face as he looks at me like I’m the most precious thing he’s ever touched. My heart pounds against my ribcage. He’s suddenly dominating my plane of vision —the only thing I see—the faces and sounds around us fading into the background.
“If you don’t want me to kiss you, tell me now,” he says urgently in my head.
“Kiss me,” I reply without hesitation. How could there possibly be any other answer when he is looking at me like that? After a speech like that?
He slips his hand under my chin and tilts it up towards him, and before I can process the shift between us, my eyes are closed and his lips are on mine. They are soft and warm and all of my senses are suddenly flooded with him — his delicious scent, the firmness of his fingers sliding from under my chin back to bury themselves in my hair. Heat flares into what feels like every inch of my skin as I move my hands to his chest to steady myself while one of his hands grips my waist. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss and sliding his tongue between my parted lips — it’s somehow both demanding and gentle at the same time, and I can’t help but lose myself entirely.
When he finally pulls away, I need a moment to catch my breath. My eyes flutter open to meet his, and there are more gold flecks in them than I have ever seen before. Our surroundings come back to me slowly—the flames moving in my peripheral vision, the sound of idle chatter, the warm breeze and the dark night sky. Xaden slowly drops his grip on my waist, prompting me to let my hands fall to my sides.
Holy fuck. He’s unnervingly good at this.
Shit, I almost believed it all myself for a moment there—and my traitorous body had definitely believed it. Gods , a few days of friendliness and forced affection and suddenly I’m acting like a first year again—my heart racing and insides melting when Xaden is in close proximity.
“He’s telling the truth,” the truthsayer says, his voice breaking me out of my daze.
I take a deep breath in, my heart sinking just a bit as I think about how Xaden can just lie without a second thought – and on top of that, lie so well that he can even fool a truthsayer. But I knew that already, didn’t I? I only have myself to blame for forgetting what a good liar he is.
I push away the thought and fix my gaze on Cat, who looks like someone’s just punched her in the gut.
“Thank you, Russo,” Syrena says to the truthsayer, jumping in for her sister who for once doesn’t seem to have anything to say. He nods courteously at her. “I think that clears everything up sufficiently, don’t you think, Catriona?”
Cat schools her face into a slightly more pleasant neutral expression. “Yes,” she says, thinly veiled irritation in her voice. “I suppose congratulations on your pending union are in order, then.”
Xaden thanks her, but the words to respond to her congratulatory remarks don’t come to me. Somehow the satisfaction I should feel from finally shutting Cat up feels a little hollow.
I drain what’s left of the champagne in my glass, pulling away from Xaden and leaning towards Mira.
“I need another drink,” I say. She nods, taking my hand and leaning in to me so that only I can hear her.
“I think we all do.”
***
“Spectacular cock, huh?” Xaden says the moment we’re alone in our room later that night, the door clicking shut behind him.
A laugh escapes my lips, the light buzz of sparkling wine still humming in my veins. “Did I sound convincing?” I ask him as I kick off my shoes.
“Could’ve fooled me,” he smirks. “I mean, to be fair, it helps that there’s plenty of truth to the statement.”
“Oh gods,” I say, rolling my eyes as I cross the room to the full-length mirror near the bathing chamber in the back corner. “You’re lucky that shutting Cat up was slightly more important to me than keeping your ego in check.”
He lets out an amused laugh as he unbuttons the first few buttons at the top of his tunic.
“And I should have known you’d have something up your sleeve to trick a truthsayer,” I add as I study my reflection in the low light of the room. My makeup looks softened from the heat and a lot of the hair I had pinned up has fallen out of the twists I had secured at the start of the evening. “You’ll have to teach me how you did that,” I add.
He lets out a quiet huff. “Maybe one day,” he says, almost as if it’s an afterthought. “If you’re good.”
I reach back to try to unhook the clasps on my dress, but the angle is awkward and I can only get the top two free.
I notice Xaden’s reflection in the mirror, his eyes locked on me. I had caught his gaze on me frequently all evening—a heat simmering all night that I couldn’t entirely write off to good acting. And now, alone, the tension between us feels like it could ignite with the smallest spark.
“Need help?” he asks quietly.
I hesitate, my fingers still on the clasps, before lowering my arms to my sides. “Yes, please.”
He steps up behind me, sweeping my hair over one shoulder. He begins to unhook the tiny clasps at the back of my dress, his fingers moving deftly down the line. I’m hyper aware of every brush of his warm fingertips on my skin as he makes his way slowly through the row of clasps. Neither of us speaks and I wrack my brain, trying to think of something to say to cut through the loaded silence.
“This makes me think of the last time you helped me undo my corset,” I say finally. Nearly two years ago now, after he’d killed Oren and five other unbonded cadets in my dorm room without a second thought.
He exhales a quiet laugh. “I’m glad I’m not checking for broken ribs this time.”
“Feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?” I murmur.
“It practically was,” he says. His voice carries a contemplativeness I wasn’t expecting. “So much has changed since then.”
His fingers linger at the base of my spine when he finishes the last clasp — then slowly, deliberately, his touch trails up my back, leaving what feels like a line of sparks on my skin in its wake.
I savor the tingle that his touch sends over my body quietly — not daring to say anything more. Silently, his hands move to my hair, pulling out the pins that hold the twists in place. One by one, lock after lock falls loose.
I watch his face in the mirror, noticing the way his dark brows furrow slightly, his expression unreadable. His eyes are focused intently on his own fingers in my hair— but there’s something there, something that mirrors the longing stirring deep inside me. Something I’m not sure I’m ready to face.
When he removes the final pin, he meets my eyes in the mirror. His jaw tightens, and he swallows hard before stepping back.
“Here you go,” he says as he offers the pins to me with a long extended arm. I open my palm and he drops them into my hand, careful not to allow our hands to touch. He takes a step back and clears his throat.
“You should go ahead and get to bed,” he says, turning to get something out of the wardrobe behind him. “I’m going to go have a smoke.”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond before he heads to the door, a small, crinkled brown paper package of churam clasped in one of his hands. “Won’t be long,” he calls back to me as he closes the door behind him.
I let out a breath, slowly allowing the tension that had wound up so tightly in me to leave my body as I slip out of my dress and don a clean set of pajamas. As I scrub the makeup off my face, I run a finger over my lips — remembering the feeling of Xaden’s lips on mine. Suddenly, I’m grateful that we only have one day left in Cordyn, because this whole charade is starting to feel a little too real.
Notes:
Thanks to @overjoyedisland for always giving me such thoughtful and detailed feedback and @thoughtsaboutshows for help on various parts of this chapter!
and as always, leave a comment or come talk to me on the RQ discord or tumblr (lovemedarkly29) about this fic 🖤
Chapter 7
Summary:
Ready for a little simpy Xaden POV?
Notes:
Thank you for all the nice comments on the last chapter! I love how much you loved the honey feeding ritual — fun fact: that is part of the Persian wedding ceremony and was something we did at my wedding. I needed to be alone with my then-new husband immediately 🤣 anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
-Violet-
“There’s a good amount of information missing in here,” I say, cutting straight to the point as I drop into the chair across from Tecarus’ desk the next morning, placing the book on venin he’d given us on his golden desk.
It’s our last full day in Cordyn, and I had insisted on asking Tecarus for the additional information alone, hoping he might still want to negotiate with me in some way. Not to mention it was the only way to keep Xaden and Mira’s tempers in check.
Even so, Xaden had only agreed to let me talk to him alone if he could be just outside, shadows at the ready. I was fine with that — it was still a comfort knowing Xaden was there if something went terribly wrong.
Tecarus sits up in his chair across the desk from me and lifts a single brow at my statement. “And what makes you say that?”
“Because I read it. Cover to cover,” I tell him, now watching both of his brows lift toward his hairline in surprise. “There’s a pattern to what’s missing. And we need to know what you’ve learned so far—about a cure.”
For a long moment, he simply watches me, his expression unreadable. Then, finally, he says, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Cadet Sorrengail.”
“You promised us ‘everything you know about venin’ — that’s what we agreed on. And trust me when I say, we’ll leave your fliers here without a second thought if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain.”
He exhales dramatically. “The information you’re asking for is enough to fill an entire book of its own—but, unfortunately, it’s a rather unsatisfying ending. Not worth your time to review.”
“I disagree. We want to know everything. That includes any information on possible cures you’re exploring, things you’ve ruled out—”
“No,” he says abruptly, a certain finality clear in his voice.
I swallow, hiding my nerves as I lean forward. “There’s only one reason someone would invest so much into a cure for so long,” I say, hinting at what I know. It’s a gamble, but I hope if I can make my understanding of his exploration of a cure more personal, he’ll be more willing to cooperate.
“It’s a common sense avenue to explore,” he counters. “Along with developing weaponry to kill them.”
“Only if you don’t see all venin as inhuman monsters.” His eyes flicker with a hint of concern — it’s barely perceptible, but I catch it. “We won’t share the information beyond a core group of people. Just the four of us will know.”
Brennan had been particularly interested in researching the cure when Xaden and I had shared what we’d learned. And I really believe that with his mending skills and general knowledge of medicines and alchemy, that he might have a shot at developing something that could actually work if we had all of Tecarus’ information.
“And don’t you think we might have more luck than you’ve had?” I continue. “Between the circles close to me and Xaden, we have access to every type of dragon in Navarre and Tyrrendor. Surely that allows for more avenues for a cure.”
“And why should I trust that you will share any of that information with me once I give you what I know?”
“Because we have a common enemy,” I say. Silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken understanding.
“And because I too would do anything to bring the person I love back to me, if there was even the slightest bit of hope that I could,” I add quietly. I try my best not to show it on my face, but the thought of Liam’s dimpled smile flashes in my mind and a pang of sadness hits me right in the gut.
Tecarus stills. His dark eyes sharpen, the weight of them pressing against my mind. Instinctively, I reinforce my shields.
“Fine,” he says. His expression shifts slightly then. “But you know — I think I made a miscalculation earlier,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “I’d like to revisit my offer from the other night.”
“Say more,” I say, leaning back in my chair as well. I’m nervous as hell at this new line of conversation, but I try to remind myself how much power I have here.
“I think I underestimated just how important Riorson is to you. You want peace for him. You want peace with him.” I keep my face schooled in my best expressionless mask, but my heart starts to race.
“Spend two years with me,” he offers, his voice smooth and confident. “Then you can go through with your marriage, take him and your sister to the Islands, and wait all of this out.”
“No,” I say firmly.
His jaw flexes. “One year, then,” he says. He waits for me to respond, which I don’t do right away. “He’ll go with you, you know. He loves Tyrrendor, but he wants to be with you more.”
I swallow, looking at Tecarus for a moment. Not that any of this is real, but Xaden would never willingly leave Tyrrendor, even if I were to somehow want to abandon all of my loved ones and escape to the Isles. But I let Tecarus believe that I might believe his lie. It’s not like this negotiation is going anywhere anyway.
“We will stick to the terms negotiated earlier,” I counter after a few calculated seconds. “Get us the pages—and any other texts here or anywhere in Poromiel—and you and I will make a personal guarantee that we will share any advancements towards a cure with you.”
For a long moment, Tecarus just watches me. Then, slowly, he exhales, that knowing smile of his returning to his face.
“I’ll get you the additional pages by the time you leave tomorrow,” he says. “But my offer stands, lightning wielder. Don’t you forget it. You may find yourself really wanting an escape sooner than you think.”
***
“The rules are simple,” Mira tells me and Brennan as the three of us sit around the small table in Brennan’s room that night. “You ask the person next to you a question. Any crazy question — and they either answer it truthfully, or they take a shot.”
“I don’t think I want to play this game,” Brennan says with a skeptical look at Mira. “There are some things I just don’t need to know about my little sisters.”
Despite what he’s saying, he places three empty glasses on the table next to the bottle of whiskey he had somehow obtained from the palace staff. Xaden had declined the invitation to join us for a drink— not surprisingly, really. He’d been quiet all day, once the negotiations with Tecarus were over. Still, I found myself missing his company, especially with it being our last night here.
“Mira’s definitely going to win this game,” I say with a laugh. “She has no shame whatsoever.”
Mira smiles smugly, unscrewing the bottle of whiskey and pouring a little in each glass. “Oh come on,” she says. “This is your chance to get reacquainted with us after seven years,” she says, shooting Brennan a dirty look.
He sighs loudly and shakes his head, but there’s a smile on his lips. Brennan has only just been making progress with getting back on Mira’s good side, so while I’m sure he’ll be mortified shortly by something one of us says, he seems grateful that Mira wants to drink with him at all.
“Fine,” Brennan says. “I’ll go first.”
He looks at Mira. “Was it you who stole mom and dad’s churam that one time right before I joined the quadrant?”
Mira looks at him for just a moment before responding, “Absolutely,” she says without skipping a beat. “That was an easy one.”
“I knew it!” Brennan exclaimed, slamming a hand down, making the glasses on the table jump slightly. “You really convinced them you had no idea what churam even was!”
Mira lets the slightest of smiles creep up onto her lips.
“Wait, mom and dad smoked churam?” I ask, shocked by this new revelation. Brennan and Mira both look at me, then each other before peeling into laughter.
“Yeah,” Brennan says. “A lot . Dad kept it in his desk until Mira got a little too greedy.” He glares at her and she shrugs.
“Didn’t take long to find the new stash in his sock drawer,” she says. “Dad was not the most imaginative when it came to hiding his supply.”
Brennan chuckles.
“Alright,” Mira says. “Violet. Your turn. Who’s a better kisser — Dain or Xaden?”
My mouth drops open and I can feel my cheeks heat. “Mira! I am not answering that!” I exclaim, even though I don’t have to think for even a second about the answer to that question.
“So you have kissed both of them,” she says with a triumphant smirk on her face as I down my shot and try my best not to cough or spit it out. Brennan just looks on, a mildly grossed out expression on his face. “I’m sure it’s Xaden,” Mira continues. “I mean, that kiss yesterday—”
“Was just for show,” I interrupt quickly, though of course, Mira is not wrong. “And anyway, I took my shot. You can drop this line of questioning.”
Mira looks at me with raised eyebrows. I look away, hoping she’ll move on.
“Maybe on your part,” she says. “Riorson may be a sneaky fucker, but there is no way he was faking that. Don’t you think, Bren?”
“I don’t want to think about Riorson kissing Violet any more than I have to,” Brennan grumbles. Mira laughs.
I’m pretty sure my cheeks are bright red now, and I try my best not to let my thoughts wander too far down the path of thinking about how incredible that kiss really was.
“Ok, you drank so we reverse who asks the question. So Violet, ask me one,” she says.
I pour myself another shot as I think about what to ask her, just to be prepared for next time.
“Who was the last person you slept with?” I ask her. I’m not pulling any punches now, not after she asked me that uncomfortable question. I’m pretty sure she’s going to say it’s the captain she’d been sleeping with off and on in Samara for months, but she glances once warily at Brennan and then at me before answering.
“The truthsayer,” she says. “Last night.”
My eyes widen and Brennan slams his drink down on the table in shock. “Excuse me?” He says. “That’s why you didn’t want to walk back to our rooms together last night?”
She laughs. “Did you see him? That jawline was just made to be licked—“
Brennan makes a disgusted face. “What the hell, Mira! Do you know how many people hate you in Cordyn? He could have killed you—”
“I can take care of myself,” she snaps at him. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“Fair enough,” Brennan says, his cheeks slightly pink — whether from the whiskey or the topic of conversation was unclear. Mira smirks, clearly enjoying Brennan’s discomfort as she takes a sip of her whiskey.
“Besides, it’s not like I planned it or anything. One thing led to another, and—”
Brennan groans loudly, rubbing a hand over his face. “I swear to Malek, I should’ve just stayed dead.”
***
-Xaden-
Evenings in Cordyn have always had a magical quality to them, and tonight is no exception. The warm breeze carries a faint, salty scent and a row of dark clouds hangs low on the horizon. The palace grounds are eerily quiet as I return from my long walk on the beach—an attempt to clear my head as far away from the Sorrengail trio as I could manage.
Violet had invited me to have a drink with them earlier, but I was in no condition to join them — not the way I’d been feeling since I kissed her last night, and then after I heard her tell Tecarus how she’d do anything to bring Liam back. The fucked up thing is that I know that I’d do anything to bring him back too.
If someone had told me just five days ago that I’d be feeling this kind of melancholy about it being our last night in Cordyn, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’d never felt at ease here—not even when I was betrothed to Cat before I’d broken off our alliance.
And yet here I am, feeling a strange ache at the thought of returning to Aretia. It’s Violet’s fault, of course, even if she has no idea the effect she’s had on me.
It’s almost laughable, really, how clueless she is. Last night when I confessed how I felt about her to the truthsayer, I had resigned myself to the fact that she would finally know the truth, for better or for worse. I kept looking at her, expecting her to say something or act uncomfortable, but she genuinely just thought I was lying.
Fuck. She could more easily believe that I tricked a fucking truthsayer than believe I actually loved her. What does that say about how she sees me?
But — I suppose I have done everything in my power to keep the truth from her. Letting her know how I feel has never been an option.
Not when she started to pique my interest at the beginning of her first year, when I was her wingleader and was keeping secrets upon secrets from her about venin and her mother and everything in between.
And definitely not when she became Liam’s — when I saw how much they cared for each other and I came to the sinking realization that he was good for her in ways I could never be. For her sake— and his—I stayed away.
And certainly not for the last year. I heard her thoughts, clear as day. The admiration she’d once held for me turned into feelings of hurt and mistrust overnight after Resson. I’d cost her Liam, the person she loved more than anyone in this world. The person she still loves — as she made clear this morning in her discussion with Tecarus. So I’ve kept my distance, even when everything in me wanted to fall into her orbit. I let her believe I only cared about her because I had to.
But these last few days in Cordyn turned all of that on its head. I can’t have her — I know that. But knowing how it feels to hold her in my arms and to feel her lips on mine — Fuck. Staying away from her now feels like defying gravity itself.
I near the entrance of the palace, finding it surprisingly free of guards for once this evening. It’s late and I imagine Violet’s already asleep. I can picture her curled up on her side with all that beautiful hair of hers fanned out on her pillow in a silvery halo.
I focus on our mental bond, expecting to see that shimmering silver cloud somewhere in front of me inside. Instead, I sense that she’s farther away and my gut instantly twists into a knot of concern. I brush against her shields, which she lowers in response.
“Where are you?” I ask her.
“Swimming,” she responds succinctly, as if that’s a completely normal thing for her to be doing after midnight in a palace full of people who want to kill her.
I know I should just let her be, but I can’t help myself — I pivot and follow the direction I feel her in. I take long steps quickly around the main palace building, with enough speed to satisfy my urgency to see that she’s safe but not enough that the guards along the side entrance of the palace would notice that anything is amiss.
I follow a winding path into the gardens, passing a series of pools lit up by clusters of mage lights floating above them, until I sense her just behind a row of tall, carefully pruned cypress trees.
I step through the trees and there she is, fully submerged in an oval-shaped pool that, like the others on the palace grounds, is illuminated with dozens of floating lights that twinkle and glow in the air above the surface of the water like fireflies.
I near the edge of the pool as Violet’s swims over towards me and the sound of the ripples caused by her moving in the water breaks through the silence. She looks up at me, her wet hair falling loose and dark and her pale skin reflecting a faint glow from the dim lights above her. Even in the darkness, from this distance, I can see the smile on her face. My breath catches at the sight of her.
Gods, this fucking woman will be the death of me.
“What are you doing, Violence?” I ask her quietly, careful to keep any traces of judgement or anger out of my voice. “And where are Mira and Brennan?”
“We were drinking whiskey in Brennan’s and then they took me back to our room,” she says, pushing back off the edge of the pool and running her outstretched arms over the surface of the water. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about having a swim before I leave here. These pools are so beautiful.”
Now that she mentions it, I can detect the effect of the whiskey in her voice.
“Have you come to scold me for being reckless?” She asks me playfully. There’s laughter in her voice, though it’s clear her question is a genuine one.
Is swimming alone in the middle of the night while tipsy completely reckless on her part? Yes. Should I be furious that she’s being so cavalier about her safety? Abso-fucking-lutely. But I don’t have it in me tonight to fight with her — not when it’s our last night here in this strange, beautiful place. Not when she looks so fucking angelic.
“No,” I say simply. It’s all I can manage.
“How very un-Xaden of you,” she teases.
“I’m evolving,” I say. She laughs and the sound is contagious. I can feel the corners of my mouth pulling upward.
“So, you’re here to swim with me, then?” She continues, spinning in a circle before swimming over to grip the edge of the pool by my feet.
“No, Violence,” I say to her.
“Oh come on,” she says. Her delicate fingers tighten around my ankle, just between the cuff of my pants and the top of my shoe. She tugs me forward gently, laughing.
I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t even be thinking about diving in with her. But the magnetism of wanting to be near her— to share in her laughter — is too strong. Fuck, when was the last time I did something just to feel joy with another person?
Fuck it. I take a step to the side, turn, and let myself fall.
It’s as though time slows down as I hold my breath and descend backwards into the pool — first there’s the smacking sound as my back hits the water, then the coldness of the water as I sink under the surface. The muffled roar in my ears from falling in doesn’t quite obscure the sound of Violet’s laughter. I savor a moment of weightlessness, taking in the twinkle of the mage lights floating high above me before lowering my feet to ground at the bottom of the pool and turning towards her. I send my shadows out around the edge of the pool, obscuring us from any unlikely passers by and keeping watch.
“Yes, I got you!” She says gleefully, looking far too pleased with herself for her own good.
“Violet,” I say, rolling my eyes even as I bite back a smile. “You know I wouldn’t be in this pool unless I wanted to be in here with you.”
“No, no,” she insists. “I caught the Xaden Riorson off guard and pulled him into the pool,” she teases.
“I’m sober. I'm twice your weight — and that’s with you being soaking wet right now. And I wield fucking shadows. How exactly do you think you managed to—“
“Shh!” She interrupts me, swimming up to me and wrapping her arms around my neck playfully. “Just let me have my moment, Xaden.”
Well, shit. She’s an affectionate drunk — as if I need her to be any more endearing.
I wrap an arm around her waist under the water. As much as my brain knows this is trouble, my body sings at the contact. It’s a sensory explosion being immersed in the cool water, seeing the contrast of the mage lights against the dark sky above us, and feeling Violet’s weight hanging off my side.
The water brings out the citrusy smell of her shampoo — or whatever the hell it is that always makes her smell like something I need to taste.
“I’ve missed swimming,” she says with a wistful sigh. “I used to swim all the time back when we lived in Calldyr. It’s easier on my joints— always made me feel stronger.”
She pulls away from me and glides gracefully across the pool on her back. It’s one of the few times she’s admitted to me that her joints are weak out loud, and I feel a pang of sadness that she's felt the need to hide it from me for so long. That she’d still think I might think of her as weak — even after everything I’ve seen her overcome.
I slip my shoes off, shaking the water out of them and laying them at the side of the pool next to hers. We float around each other in comfortable silence.
“So, whiskey, huh?” I ask her. “Cordyn isn’t exactly known for its whiskey.”
“Not sure why that’s what we were drinking,” she says. “Brennan managed to get a bottle from the staff here and we played a drinking game.” She practically giggles then. “Did you know Mira slept with the truthsayer last night?”
“I could see that,” I say with a chuckle. I had noticed that the truthsayer had been checking Mira out last night — when he wasn’t busy embarrassing the shit out of me, that is. I swallow, thinking back to my pathetic confession from the prior night.
It is not lost on me that the most truthful I've ever been with Violet about my feelings for her has been when I’m supposed to be lying.
She asks me about what liquors are popular in Cordyn and about what I used to drink at home. I regale her with stories of sneaking bottles away as a teenager with Garrick as we float around in the pool. I make her laugh more times than I can count — probably just because she’s been drinking and not because I’m particularly witty, but I don’t care. It still feels good to be the one to make her laugh.
“Time to call it a night?” I ask her after a while, noticing her resting her head on the side of the pool.
“Yeah,” she says, her voice soft. She takes her time hoisting herself up onto the edge of the pool. I follow, standing and wringing out my shirt and loose fitting trousers.
Though she’d stripped off her shoes before getting into the pool, she was otherwise fully dressed and her clothes are soaked through. She wrings out her thin white shirt, but her dark colored pants are too fitted for her to do anything but let them drip dry.
Even in the dim light, I can appreciate how her clothes cling to her curves and try my best not to just stare at her perfect body. Gods, why is this night so damn perfect and so miserable all at once?
We slowly make our way back to the palace entrance, and I hope the water is dripping off of us at a fast enough rate that we won’t track puddles across the marble floors inside. My soggy shoes squeak comically as I walk and I feel ridiculous, but at least it earns me another delighted laugh from Violet.
We pass a set of guards at the door, one of whom acknowledges me with a polite nod. It feels like we’re doing something forbidden, walking back to our room in the middle of the night, soaking wet and with smiles plastered on our faces. And when the door to our room closes behind Violet, her eyes linger on mine for a moment and it takes everything in me not to just press her up against the door and kiss her.
I clench my hands at my sides to keep from touching her and drag my gaze away, slipping off my shoes and peeling off my shirt.
“You take the shower first,” I tell her as I make my way to the bathing chamber to grab a towel before exiting back into the main room. Violet brushes past me and closes the door of the bathing chamber behind her.
By the time I emerge from my shower, she’s in her pajamas and curled up under the covers of the bed with her eyes closed. I hold my breath as I take her in, memorizing the way she looks in the glow of the bedside mage light. I climb into bed next to her for the very last time and flick off the light.
I feel Violet scoot up against me in the dark, resting her head against my shoulder. I’m inundated by the sweet smell of her, feeling the coolness of her wet hair press against my bare skin.
“I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I think I’m going to miss sharing a bed with you,” she says sleepily. “I fall asleep faster — and waking up from my nightmares isn’t as bad when you’re here.”
Fuck. I knew it was going to be hard for me going back to sleeping in separate quarters in Aretia, but now knowing that I won't be able to give her that little sliver of peace breaks my heart.
“I sleep better next to you too, Vi,” I tell her quietly. I want to say so much more — that it’s not just sleep that’s better with her. I want to tell her how much more alive I’ve felt spending time with her these last few days than I have in the last seven years.
I know it’s a little overindulgent on my part, but I wrap my arm around her and draw her in to me. She sighs, relaxing against me with a quiet hum.
I’ve felt so free these last few days, finally acting the way I’ve wanted to with her for so long — even if it’s all been under the guise of a fake engagement. And now, I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to lying about the only thing that I know for sure: that I don’t want this to end. That I will never find another person like her.
That I want her to be mine — for real. Forever.
***
Notes:
Thanks as always to @overjoyedisland and @thoughtsaboutshows for help with various drafts of this!
Chapter 8
Notes:
Thank you so much for your patience with me, darlings. I hit a little bout of being uninspired, but I’m excited to share this chapter with you!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
-Violet-
“Cat sure is hellbent on hating you,” Rhiannon says to me as we break out of morning formation back in the courtyard at Riorson House. It’s been three weeks since we’d survived the trek up the Medaro Pass to Aretia with the fliers and their gryphons.
“It was bad enough when she blamed me for keeping her from being with Xaden,” I say to Rhiannon in a low voice. “Now that she blames me for Luella’s death, she definitely wants to kill me.”
Cat had certainly made it her mission to make me miserable since we returned to Aretia, and she seemed to be enjoying every minute of it. But at least we have the luminary and the forge is in full swing— that’s what really matters. I could deal with a bitter, aristocratic little bitch for a bit longer, couldn’t I?
“Gods, and when can you and Xaden break up so she leaves you alone?” Rhiannon whispers.
I sigh. Back in Cordyn, we’d decided on a few weeks — just long enough to solidify some camaraderie with the fliers so that Cat wouldn’t cause some sort of diplomatic crisis. But Brennan’s idealistic hopes that the Medaro Pass would somehow trauma bond us to the fliers had backfired miserably, and there have been no shortage of incidents that had us riders and fliers at each other’s throats daily.
“Good question,” I whisper back. “But — for us to break up, he actually has to be around.”
Xaden’s been a ghost since we got back from Cordyn—between weapons runs and all the extra work of accommodating new recruits in Aretia, I barely see him even though we’re sharing his quarters.
And I shouldn’t care. I should be grateful for the space.
But I’m not.
I push the thought aside before it can settle, but Rhiannon’s sharp gaze is already locked on me knowingly. “You seem disappointed,” she says. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re actually missing your betrothed.”
“I’m not missing him,” I insist. “It’s just— it finally felt like we were on the same side again when we were in Cordyn, you know? No secrets, no acting like he doesn’t want me around. Just fighting for the same thing and working together. It was… nice.”
More than nice, if I’m honest. It felt like things were finally the way they were meant to be.
“And that’s all?” She asks skeptically. I bite my lip, regretting telling all the details about the fake engagement — the kiss, the truthsayer, the drunken swim. Because Rhiannon was always able to see through me—and this time is no exception.
“That’s all, really,” I say. But my throat tightens around the lie. I guess there’s really no point in denying to myself that I miss the way his body feels pressed against me at night, all hard muscle and restrained tension. That I often find myself thinking about that kiss — even if it had all been for show.
“Sure,” Rhiannon says, sounding entirely unconvinced. I sigh, glancing back over at Cat, who is busy talking to a tall, dark haired flier. Thankfully Ridoc comes up right in between us with Sawyer just behind, saving me from having to face any more of Rhi’s questions.
“What are you two whispering about over here?” he asks.
“Violet’s fiancé,” Rhiannon says, drawing out the word ‘fiancé’ with dramatic flair.
“Where is that beautiful brooding man of yours anyway?” Ridoc asks.
“Weapons drop. At the border,” I say. “And he’s not my man,” I add in a whisper.
“You know, you don’t actually have to be engaged to get a little action—“ he starts to say in a suggestive whisper.
“Not happening,” I snap, cutting him off.
“I’m just saying. You’re already sleeping in his quarters. If I were you, I’d be riding that good Tyrrish dick off into the sunset—”
My eyes widen and I elbow him in the ribs. “Good gods, Ridoc!” I snap at him in a whisper.
Sawyer and Rhi smother their laughter as Professor Trissa approaches the four of us. I take a deep breath and then exhale, trying to focus on the orders she’s giving us and not on the inconveniently hot visual of riding my fake fiancé that’s now imprinted in my brain thanks to Ridoc.
***
A few evenings later, Xaden emerges from the private bathing chamber in his room. He's just returned after a week-long trip to do a weapons drop by the Stonewater River where he’s dutifully filled Tecarus’ armory as promised. He’s been gone more than he’s been here, and despite what I told Rhiannon the other day, I’ve missed him.
I’ve missed him every time he’s left for days at a time during the last month. And I can no longer pretend it’s just that sense of partnership or the mutual respect that had been growing between us in Cordyn that I miss when he’s away.
No – it’s the way his eyes always seem to find mine when we’re in a room full of people and soften, just for a fleeting moment. It’s the way his presence now seems to settle a restlessness I often don’t even know is there until he alleviates it. It’s the delicious heat that hums between us when we’re alone. It’s the way he sometimes calls me ‘ Vi’ now – how his voice drops when he says it like it’s a forbidden secret – a word so intimate that he has to whisper low so that only I hear it.
“Runes?” he asks me as he approaches where I sit. His hair is damp, his sleeping pants hanging loose off his hips and his swirling relic on display across his glistening bronze skin.
I’m sitting at the desk in his bedroom — a desk he gave me free rein over so I’d have somewhere to do my studying and to keep my translations of Warrick’s journal. Neither the small, adjacent bedroom I’ve been sleeping in nor the sitting room between our rooms have a desk, so I’m grateful to have a huge space for my schoolwork, even if it is in Xaden’s bedroom.
“Yeah,” I reply, taking a deep breath in. “We’re the trial squad, paired with Cat’s. Professor Trissa has us learning runes together.”
He steps closer in behind me to look at my attempt at our assignment. I can feel the warmth radiating off of him against my back and I have to fight the urge to lean back into him. I force my gaze back to the round contraption in front of me.
“Hmm,” he murmurs, leaning in to inspect my handiwork. “Need any help?”
I want to say no, to tell him that I had the same natural aptitude for runes that I did for so many other subjects. That I was better at runes than Cat could ever hope to be. To see him look at me with pride or admiration again. But I just sigh and turn slightly to glance up at him.
“Probably,” I admit, resignation clear in my voice. “But not yet.”
“Just say the word,” he says before turning to the end of the desk where I’ve left a pile of old books stacked haphazardly.
“Thank you,” I tell him. He picks up Warwick’s journal and thumbs through it for a few moments.
I should go back to focusing on my assignment, but I watch him instead. His fingers thumb absently through the fragile pages of the old journal, and the firelight casts shadows that sharpen his already chiseled features.
“This is impossible to read,” Xaden mutters, closing the journal and setting it back on the desk. He leans back against the desk and faces me, gripping the edge of it with both hands.
“My father taught me. And Dain and I used it as a secret code when we were kids.” I shrug, turning my attention back to examining my rune for anything I may have missed. “It’s been helpful having him here to offer a second set of eyes. We’ve made good progress.”
“Hmm,” Xaden hums disapprovingly. “Never pictured Aetos sharing a secret code with anyone. Sounds a little too risqué for that codex-loving son of a—“
“Don’t be a dick,” I cut him off sharply.
“You haven’t seen me even start to be a dick,” he responds, the corners of his mouth dropping into a slight frown. “Especially not when Aetos is involved. He can stay the fuck away from you as far as I’m concerned.”
My heart gives an unexpected lurch at the raw protectiveness in his voice. It really shouldn’t feel so good, but it does.
“He’s trying,” I argue half-heartedly. I don’t quite know why I’m defending Dain when I am barely on the path to forgiveness myself, but something in me knows that Xaden needs to start walking that path too.
I watch as Xaden’s jaw tightens, his expression darkening. He’s holding back on voicing whatever expletive-laden commentary is going through his brain right now.
“I’d better let you get some rest,” I say, putting the wooden disc I’d been holding down on the desk and looking up at him. “I’ll finish this in the morning.”
“You sure?” He asks. “I don’t mind if you work a little longer.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say. I stack the four failed attempts at the runes assignment in an effort to tidy the space. “I’m exhausted anyway.”
He glances down at me, the crease between his brows deepening with a touch of concern. “Not sleeping well?”
He reaches out and brushes his fingers against a loose strand of my hair, sweeping away some errant wood shavings that must have flown up into my hair. It takes me a moment to respond to his question, distracted by his touch.
“Just the usual trouble,” I manage to say.
“Do you…” He hesitates for a moment. “Do you remember what you said to me that last night in Cordyn? About sleep?” I detect the slightest trace of amusement in his eyes, and heat rushes straight to my face. I cover my face with one hand, groaning miserably.
“Don’t remind me of that night. I honestly remember the hangover more than anything.” He lets out a quiet chuckle and I lower my hand, looking up at him again. “But yes,” I admit quietly. “I remember.”
My thoughts race and my heart instantly swells at the memories of those days together. But I also think of how sad I had felt that last night in Cordyn at the looming reality of no longer sleeping next to him.
Something unreadable flickers behind Xaden’s eyes before he looks away from me. “I’m glad,” he says. “That you got some rest. Even if it was only for a few days.”
He taps his fingers against the desk, fidgeting in a way that is so unlike him. He looks like he wants to say more—and gods , do I want him to. I want to push, to suggest that we could have a little piece of that here. But I hesitate too, knowing what it would mean if I did. We’d be crossing a line into an intimacy that wasn’t completely required by our charade as a couple – an intimacy that I have to admit, I want to be real.
And it seems as though he wants it too, but it’s hard to say with Xaden. I’m still learning all the many ways he buries what he wants for the sake of what duty deems necessary.
I clear my throat and push my chair away from the desk.
“Me too.” I say as I stand, stretching my arms behind my head and elongating my spine. I notice how Xaden’s eyes dart to the sliver of skin at my abdomen exposed by the gesture, darkening slightly before dragging back up my body to meet my gaze. “Good night, Xaden,” I say, looking away from him.
“Good night,” he replies. He pushes off from his perch against the desk and moves towards his bed. I rush out of the room before I lose my will to do so, already regretting letting the moment pass.
*
An hour later, staring up into the darkness as I lie in bed, willing my body to succumb to sleep, I hear wood creaking under Xaden’s footsteps on the other side of our shared wall. It lasts for just a minute before it’s silent again, and I assume he’s back in his bed after whatever task had drawn him out of it in the first place.
But it’s enough to fan the embers of our conversation earlier — enough to make me crave closeness to him so badly that I can’t help but act on it.
I move before I can talk myself out of it. My bare feet make barely any sound as I tiptoe over to Xaden’s room. He’s left his door open and I slip through it in the darkness, only just barely making out the shadows of his four poster bed in front of me.
I hear him shift slightly in his bed but he doesn’t make a sound as I feel around for the edge of the covers and slide into the bed next to him.
His sheets are cool against my skin and I settle in on my side, facing in the direction where I know he is lying. We aren’t touching, but I can feel his warmth and hear him breathing softly. Although I’m hyper aware of where my every limb rests in relation to his, a sense of comfort washes over me almost immediately.
I contemplate whether I should say something. Whether I should acknowledge that we’re both awake, or deflect any awkwardness with some kind of humor about my silent pilgrimage to his bed. But before I can say anything, I feel Xaden shift slightly towards me, the back of his hand now barely touching mine. I can’t help but smile into the darkness— embracing the silence, taking his touch as quiet encouragement.
I exhale, letting my body relax in tiny increments. Xaden shifts again, moving just a fraction closer.
The tension between us doesn’t break. It settles after a few moments, like the quiet groan of wood adjusting under weight, finding its balance.
And finally, I sleep.
***
I awake a few hours later to dim morning light filtering through the tall windows of Xaden’s bedroom. He’s still asleep, lying on his stomach, one arm tucked beneath his pillow, the other stretched toward the center of the bed in my direction.
I don’t have to get up just yet, and try my best not to move so as not to wake him. I savor the lighter feeling in my limbs after finally getting a few hours of sound, dreamless sleep, wondering if the move to his bed in the middle of the night would result in any awkwardness this morning.
I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.
I let my gaze drift over Xaden’s sleeping form, taking in the rise and fall of his perfectly crafted back and shoulders and the slight curl in his ink-black hair. I let my mind wander to how easy it would be to tuck myself under that outstretched arm and bury my face against his collarbone. To savor his warmth and the fresh, familiar scent of his skin.
I allow myself the thought for just a minute — because it’s too damn tempting — and then force my focus in the opposite direction of the bed and the beautiful man in it. I scan the room, over the desk that’s stacked high with my books, over the open journal with my scrawled translations next to his leather bound notebooks, and the sweater I tossed over the back of his chair next to one of his shirts.
My things, scattered across his space.
And gods, do I like it.
The quiet, irrational satisfaction that blooms in my chest at the sight of it is embarrassing. I’m here in his world, and he’s let me take up space.
I wonder briefly if having me in his quarters has prevented him from having other company he may have wanted here. It’s none of my business. None of this is real, after all, and there’s surely no shortage of people who want to share his bed. But before I can let the ugly traces of irrational jealousy sink in, I feel the bed shift.
I glance over just as he groans, rolling onto his back with one arm thrown over his face.
“Morning,” I murmur, turning onto my side to face him.
He drags a hand down his face and cracks one eye open at me. “Morning,” he says with a smile, his voice gravelly with sleep.
He sits up, scrubbing a hand through his already-messy hair before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The sheets pool at his waist, and my eyes can't help but trace over the hard lines of his back before he stands.
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. “I thought you slept naked.”
Xaden stills mid-stretch, muscles flexing as he raises an eyebrow. “What?”
Heat creeps up my neck, but I gesture vaguely at the loose sleep pants hanging low on his hips. “In Cordyn. You said you slept naked.”
He blinks once. Then realization hits, and he lets out a low, incredulous laugh.
“Why?” His grin turns absolutely lethal. “You feel like you’re missing out?”
I roll my eyes. “Just trying to keep my facts straight.”
“Sure.” He looks way too pleased with himself as he reaches for the shirt draped over his chair.
I sit up, stretching the stiffness from my back and dangling my bare legs over the edge of the bed.
Xaden pauses, gaze locking onto mine with that familiar, dark intensity. “Other than clearly wishing I was wearing fewer clothes,” he says, “how’d you sleep?”
“Great,” I say, taking a deep breath in and exhaling deeply. “Better than I have in ages. It almost makes me want to stay engaged to you so I can actually sleep properly,” I tease.
His smirk sharpens as he steps closer to me. “So what you’re saying is that being in my bed is addictive, huh?”
“Relax,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. “I said almost.”
My tone is playful, but I watch as his expression shifts. The teasing edge fades, replaced by something heavier — something hungrier. He takes another step towards me and my ass hits the edge of the bed as I back away from him.
“Trust me, Violence,” he murmurs, voice low and sinful, dripping with the kind of promise that sends heat dancing down my spine. His gaze flicks to my lips, then lower, lingering for just a beat on the bare skin exposed by my nightgown. He leans in to me, close enough that his breath is warm against my ear.
“If you were really mine, we wouldn’t be doing much sleeping.” he says, “I’d keep you up all night. Wouldn’t be able to help myself.”
Holy. Shit.
A rush of heat floods through me, pooling low in my stomach as I clench my thighs together. He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes again and holds my gaze for a moment — then another— and then mercifully, he takes a step backward and grins knowingly. The space lends me enough air to breathe again and I clear my throat.
“Are you here for a few days?” I ask him, changing the subject as fast as I can possibly manage. He pulls his shirt over his head as he crosses the room.
“Heading back for another drop at the border with Garrick tomorrow,” he calls back to me as he disappears into the bathing chamber.
I exhale slowly, pressing my fingers against the sheets on the bed behind me to steady myself. Thank the gods he showered last night and won’t be in there for long — because I’m definitely going to need a very cold shower before formation this morning.
***
I’m sitting at Xaden’s desk later that evening checking over my completed physics assignment one last time when a roll of thunder booms outside.
“Frustrated with your homework, or is that an actual storm out there?” Xaden asks me from his perch on his bed. I look over to where he’s sitting against his headboard with a notebook and a pile of papers across the tops of his outstretched legs. It’s nearly midnight, and he’s illuminated dramatically by a single mage light hanging next to his bed.
A pang of guilt washes over me for a moment at the knowledge that I’ve taken away his work space. But when he returned from the sparring gym about an hour ago, he insisted that I stay at the desk and finish my assignment — that it was more comfortable for him to spread out his weapons logs and sit on the bed anyway.
“That’s an actual storm,” I say, the corner of my mouth lifting in amusement. “I'd probably throw a few things and curse a bit before I got worked up enough to make lightning over my school work,” I add.
“I suppose you do always live up to your nickname, Violence,” he teases, glancing back down at his papers. The steady patter of rain against the stone walls muffles the silence between us. “Hopefully, the storm clears up before Sgaeyl and I have to fly in the morning.”
They usually get an early start on their weapons runs, leaving right at dawn to beat the heat at the border.
“That’s right, early wake up,” I murmur as I close my physics book and stack the pages of my assignment on top of it neatly. “I’m all done with this assignment anyway,” I say, turning back towards him. “Going to call it a night.”
My eyes drift to the empty expanse of soft bedding beside him before I can stop them. I swallow, heat rising in my cheeks as I look back at him quickly. He’s noticed, and his eyes are soft and warm as they hold mine.
“I’ve got a few more pages to review,” he says, tapping his pen against his papers absently. “But you can just sleep in here if you don’t mind a bit of light. I won’t be long.”
Warmth floods my insides at his invitation. There’s a flash of light in his window, followed by a loud clap of thunder.
“I don’t mind the light,” I say quietly, pushing back my chair and rising to my feet. I don’t think there’s anything he could do that I’d mind as long as I could stay in his bed another night.
“Good,” he says, his eyes fixed downward on his papers. I slip out of the room to change and wash up, grateful for the excuse to leave for a few minutes—because if I stay any longer, he’s going to notice the embarrassing smile I can’t seem to wipe off my face.
***
“You look tired,” Rhiannon says to me in a whisper as we stand in the sparring gym at Riorson House a little over a week later. “Don’t tell me you’re missing the cots in our cadet quarters,” she smirks. “Because I’ll gladly switch places with you,”
“Not missing those cots in the slightest,” I say, tilting my neck from side to side and rolling my shoulders to stretch out the stiffness. Nearly every cadet in Aretia is currently finding their way into the gym, including the fliers, and the volume of the chatter in the room starts to tick up. “And, I’ve been sleeping in Xaden’s bed this past week, so not sure you’d want to switch places with me after all.”
Granted, he’s been gone for the past four days, but I bite back a smile as her eyes widen in surprise. It feels good to tell her—to even just slightly broach the topic of my complicated feelings for Xaden and the complicated sleeping situation they’ve left me in.
“Violet Sorrengail!” she whispers excitedly at me, her lips spreading into a delighted smile. “Finally!”
I let out a laugh. “It’s literally just sleeping,” I tell her, but the way my stomach flutters at the thought of it is a reminder of how much more it really feels like. “We both agreed we sleep better together. And I mean, there’s a little flirtation, but I don’t think he’s interested in anything—“
Rhiannon snorts out a laugh.
“Oh gods, Violet,” she interrupts me. “Does Riorson really strike you as the type who just cuddles with his friends to help them sleep?”
I bite my lip, shaking my head. I want to laugh — because of course, she’s right. There’s no denying that things have intensified between us. Lust, for sure. But there’s more to it than that, at least for me, and I think there must be for him too. But it’s Xaden — and he’s nothing if not hard to read.
“Xaden’s not the type to hold back if he wants something, or has something to say,” I say to her. “This is the man who dropped wyvern carcasses at every Navarrian outpost he could get to. He’s not exactly one to hold his tongue.”
“No, not typically,” Rhiannon agrees. “But this is you we’re talking about. Don’t you think maybe he’s being extra careful with you after—“ she pauses, her eyes fixing on mine. “Well, you know, after what happened with Liam?”
I let out a sigh, an uneasy feeling sprouting in my gut. I think back to those days right after Liam died. Everyone tiptoed around me for months. Wouldn’t say his name in front of me. Wouldn’t voice what happened.
Fuck, Xaden even avoided me for a year out of guilt. And yet here I am, wondering why he won’t act on whatever has been brewing between us this past month — a month in which we’ve mostly been like ships passing in the night.
“I guess that’s true,” I admit. The voices of the crowd around us start to quiet down, and Rhiannon and I both turn our attention to the center of the gym where our professors stand.
“We’ve given you nearly four weeks to figure out how to integrate peacefully, and you have yet to do so, much to our disappointment,” Devera’s voice echoes around the room from where she stands at the side of the center mat. Emetterio and one of the flier professors are by her side, both looking seriously at the rows of cadets around them. “We’re implementing a number of measures to ensure greater integration amongst our squads, which we’ll share in more detail shortly,” she continues.
“But we acknowledge that we cannot move forward without addressing the hostility among you,” Emetterio chimes in, his gaze shifting between the groups. “At Basgiath, we had a method for addressing grievances between cadets. You may ask for a challenge—a sparring match that ends when one of you is unconscious or taps out.”
“Or dies,” Aaric adds dryly. The fliers collectively gasp, and the majority of us roll our eyes. They wouldn’t last a day at Basgiath.
“Without killing your opponent,” Emetterio continues, talking directly at Aaric before moving on, “for the next six hours, every request—between cadets of the same year—for challenge will be granted. You will address your grievances once on these mats, and then you will put them behind you. You may only challenge one opponent, and each cadet may only be challenged once,” he says, holding up his forefinger and lifting his thick brows. “So choose carefully, because tomorrow, the rider or flier you hold contempt for may be off-limits.”
They continue on to the long list of measures that will be taken to unify flier and rider cadets. “We’ll take your requests now,” Emetterio says finally, concluding the lecture portion of the morning’s plans. Cadets line up and a list is formed.
Rhiannon is called out first from our squad to face Traeger. That fight is followed by requests by two other members of Cat’s squad to fight members of mine.
The pattern is obvious. This is about me.
“Catriona Cordella and Violet Sorrengail,” Devera announces, as if on cue. “Disarm and take the mat.”
I step forward and grit my teeth, finding Cat’s determined gaze at the other side of the mats and shooting her a look of disdain. This is such a cliché. A strong, capable woman—albeit one who is annoying as fuck—embarrassing herself by picking a fight over a man.
Gods, she is so predictable.
One by one, I unsheathe all thirteen of my weapons and hand them to Rhiannon.
“She’s got at least five inches on you, so watch for her reach,” Rhiannon says quietly.
“From what I remember, she’s quick on the attack and won’t leave you much time to react, so commit to your moves. Don’t hesitate,” Imogen adds.
“All right.” I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, fighting like hell to steady the nerves that have my stomach doing somersaults.
“Violet?” Sloane says as she moves to Imogen’s side. “Do me a favor and kick her ass.” My mouth tugs into a real half smile, and I nod at her before stepping onto the mat.
Sloane warmed up to me months ago after reading all of Liam’s letters, but it warms my insides to finally have her support. When I step forward to the center of the mat, Cat greets me with a malevolent smirk.
“Begin.” Devera shouts as she steps off the mat, and I block out the noise around me, giving all my focus to Cat as she takes a familiar fighting stance. I do the same, keeping my body ready for movement.
“This is for Luella.” Cat growls as she comes at me with a combination of punches that I block with my forearms, shifting my body so the blows glance off without their full impact.
“Does it bother you?” she asks as she gets in my face, lowering her and raising her hands. “That I had him first?”
“It really doesn’t matter, Cat,” I growl back at her, hanging back for a moment. “Because you don’t have him now.”
She scoffs. “I just don’t get it. Why would Tyrrendor want you? Why would he want you? You’re not royal. You’re not even a Tyr.” She comes at me again, and I throw my forearm up in a block, but she shifts unexpectedly, and when I block for the cross, she nails me with a left hook.
“You’ll just dilute the blood line. You have weak bones and weak joints and you’ll give them a pathetic, weak heir.”
The anger in my veins flares hot and I’m ready when she charges forward this time, twisting as she jabs for my face. I manage to counter, landing my blow in the same location she’d hit me. Pain shoots up my wrist.
“You know what bothers me?” I ask as she bounces back on her toes, cursing when the back of her hand swipes at her cheek and comes away bloody. “That you’re obsessed with fighting over a man. Especially one who doesn’t love you.”
I’m in a haze of anger that’s slowing my reaction time. Cat lunges toward me, and I’m too focused on her hands to block her feet when they sweep mine out from under me. I’m airborne for a heartbeat, and then my back hits the mat, stealing my breath.
She follows me down, leaning her forearm against my throat and cutting off my air supply as she leans in. “A man?” Her laugh is low and cruel. “You think I’m so pathetic that I’d attack another woman over love ? Look at where we are. Riorson House .” She says it with reverence, like it’s the ultimate prize. “Who wouldn’t love all that power and the case it comes in? But I’m sure as hell not fighting you over a man’s affections. I’m going to war with you for a crown . That was the reason we were engaged. It was promised to me , and I’m not giving it to a damned Sorrengail who chose to drop the flier instead of her squadmate.”
Oh fuck no. Xaden isn’t a stepping stool for power. He’s caring and selfless and has given up everything for his people. He deserves someone who will give him everything in return.
I see red and throw every ounce of my rage into the punch I deliver to her side, and then I draw back and do it again, savoring the dull sound of the crack of her ribs.
She cries out, falling off me to her uninjured side, and I gasp, filling my lungs before hurtling my body after hers, rising onto my knees and slamming my fist into the side of her face with a satisfying thud.
“He isn’t just a tool to elevate your stupid social standing,” I spit at her. “He’s an incredible person, and he deserves someone who will actually love him the way he deserves to be loved. Not someone who just wants to use him.”
She frees an arm and counters with a jab to my ribs, knocking me off balance long enough to shove me fully to the ground and throw her weight on top of me. “And let me guess,” she says, her low voice full of hatred as she grabs a hold of one arm. “That’s you?”
She shoves me downward, controlling me by the arm she could easily break, the shoulder she’s an inch away from dislocating in this position. The side of my face smashes into the mat. She brings her mouth just inches from my ear, so close that I can hear her labored breathing.
“As if you’re not using him too. I heard you fucked Liam so he’d keep you safe your first year until you got him killed.” She presses down harder — so hard that my fingers tingle, and I know I’ll lose feeling in the entire limb soon. And as if she wants to press just as hard with her words, she continues. “And when he died, you moved on to fucking Xaden for protection. Took you what, a few weeks to move on?”
Pure anger and outrage pound through my veins with every heartbeat, strangling logic until I’m nothing but rage.
“Seems like maybe you don’t have the noblest of intentions either, you manipulative bitch,” she finishes with what sounds like a smirk on her face.
Fuck. Her.
I rear back with my head as hard as I can, cracking cartilage from the sound of it, and the pressure vanishes from my arm and shoulder, freeing me. She yelps, the sound slightly muffled, and I thrust my uninjured elbow backward, hitting the soft tissue of her stomach. Blocking out the pain, I burst up onto my knees, then twist, throwing my weight onto her. She topples backward, and I take advantage of the opening, driving my knee into her sternum, then reaching for her throat.
I’m going to fucking kill her. How dare she come after me, like I had a choice in Luella’s fall? Like I just used Liam and moved on — Liam, who I loved. Who I mourned.
And how dare she suggest I am just using Xaden now— like I couldn’t possibly just want to be with him just because he’s driven and deserving and surprisingly sweet.
Her face turns a mottled shade of red, and her eyes widen with panic. “Violet!” someone shouts.
Power sears my veins and lifts the hair on the back of my neck, rising with the force of a tornado. Her hands tear at mine, but I only squeeze harder.
“Damn it, Cat!” someone else yells from the opposite side. “Tap out!”
Tap out? I don’t want her to submit any more. I want her to cease existing.
“I honestly don’t care if you kill her, Violence.” Xaden’s voice filters through the rage that holds me with the same unbreakable grip I’m using to choke the life out of my opponent. “But you will.”
I blink as his words clear just enough of the fog for me to realize he’s here. It’s been days since I’ve seen him, and he’s here.
The comfort of knowing he’s here settles me for just long enough to realize that swirling, chaotic vortex of anger and jealousy I’m caught in is unnatural, even for me.
Shit, she’s using mindwork. “Get out of my head!” I scream so loudly my throat burns.
Cat glares up at me, and the anger burns even hotter as she tries to work her thumbs beneath my hands, wrath burning in her eyes.
“I don’t want to kill her, Xaden,” I say to him. “But I need your help to stop.” Heavy bootsteps approach from the left an instant later, and I release my grip on Cat.
Xaden’s arms surround me, lifting me to my feet as Cat wheezes on the floor.
“I didn’t tap out!” She croaks as she scurries backward, her neck bearing my handprints.
“Riorson!” Devera snaps. “Why would you interfere in a chall—”
“Because she cheated!” Imogen shouts from the sidelines. “She used mindwork!”
“She’s the one who’s unhinged!” Cat’s voice breaks multiple times, and she jabs her finger at me.
“I’m unhinged? I’ll show you unhinged when I kill you for fucking with my head!” I lunge against Xaden’s arms, but he holds tight.
“Let me know if you actually mean it.” He says to me as he lifts me off my feet.
“Catriona!” Professor Kiandra forces her way through the line of fliers. “Tell me you didn’t…” She glances from Cat to me and back again.
“Fuck her!” Pure hatred emanates from every line of Cat’s body and only fuels the fire beneath my skin. “And fuck her entire family. I hope you all die for what you’ve done to us!”
Surging against Xaden’s strength does no good. He has me locked down. But power whips through me and releases with a searing crack. Lightning strikes simultaneously with thunder, flashing white across my vision.
Cadets scream and the scent of smoke fills the air. Xaden flings a hand outward, and shadows stream toward the wooden bleachers, snuffing out the quickly growing flames.
“Bragen! Maren! Escort Catriona to her room,” Kiandra orders. “Her gift is limited by—”
“Distance. I know.” Xaden swings me up over his shoulder like I’m a sack of grain and strides for the exit.
***
-Xaden-
Someone remind me never to piss off Violet Sorrengail.
Because this pint-sized creature currently slung over my shoulder is pure fucking arsenic wrapped in deceptively soft skin—a force of nature I hope will always be on my side.
I can tell that she’s trying her best to stay still as I carry her out of the sparring gym and through the halls of Riorson House. I know she’s in a lot of pain. But I can’t help but feel a little bit of warm satisfaction in my chest — she stood up for me to Cat, said I deserved love.
She sounded like she meant it.
She twists uncomfortably, and I know that she’s fighting the urge to thrash and struggle against me.
“It will ease,” I promise her. I know far too well how Cat’s power can infiltrate and rile up your every nerve, and how it leaves you raw and reeling when it recedes.
I barely register where I’m taking her, but I find myself at the doors of the Assembly room, compelled somehow to make sure she knows — that she understands in every fiber of her being — that nothing about her is weak. That she could walk into this room, stare down the most powerful people on the Continent, and fucking win.
I stride into the room with Violet still on my shoulder, irritated to find Brennan and three other assembly members meeting around the table at the back of the room.
“What are you—” Brennan starts.
“Get out,” I bark at them, crossing the room and climbing the steps of a new dais where the chairs of the Assembly sit behind the long, formal table. “All of you. Right fucking now.”
They glance at one another, then grab a stack of parchment from the corner table and leave, shutting the door behind them on their way out.
I lower Violet off of my shoulder, her body sliding against mine as I bring her down to sit in my throne. I kneel in front of her, arching my brow as I meet her gaze.
“She got you good.” I say sympathetically, reaching for her chin and turning her head gently to examine her cheek. “But I think you got the last word,” I smirk.
“Fucking cunt,” Violet mutters angrily. I smother a laugh. I’ve never heard her say that word before, and it’s absolutely delightful to hear her use it in reference to Cat. “She — she just wants to use you for a crown.”
“I know,” I tell her, running my thumb softly over her cheek to try to calm her down.
Her heart rate is still elevated, a trace of panicked frenzy still in her voice. I can almost feel the sparks jumping off of her skin where my fingertips meet her cheek. “But — but you deserve someone who will love you, someone who sees you. I mean, what if you have to actually marry someone like her—“
Her eyes are wide with a mix of horror and disgust, and it looks like tears are forming in her eyes. I bury my fingers into the hair at the base of her neck, gripping gently as I continue to stroke her cheek.
“Violet, I won’t.” I assure her. “Someone like her will never sit in this throne.” Gods, I am absolutely desperate to kiss this woman — this perfect woman, who somehow thinks I’m worthy of this level of heated defense.
She lets out a hint of a sob, tears spilling over from her eyes as she looks up at me in a way that begs for reassurance.
“Shhh,” I tell her, bringing my other hand to brush loose strands away from her face and cup her other cheek.
I can’t help myself. Before I can think through what I’m doing, my fingers are buried deeper in the hair at the nape of her neck and my mouth is on hers. Her lips part eagerly against mine and I slide my tongue between them — kissing her with everything in me. Pouring every unspoken word of praise, every buried emotion from the past two years of wanting her into this moment. I give and she takes, and I take and she gives, and— gods, I never, ever want this to end.
A soft moan escapes her lips as I deepen the kiss and the sound sends flames of desire surging hot inside me. Her delicate hands wrap around the back of my neck, pulling me closer to her.
Closer.
Gods, yes. I want her closer — no, I need her closer. And she grips my neck like she needs me too. Like she’s burning, and I’m the only one who can extinguish the sparks flying across her skin.
Suddenly I remember why I brought her here. Why I touched her in the first place. It was to calm her down— to remind her of how strong and worthy she really is.
I pull away but keep my grip in her hair, my breath ragged. She blinks her eyes back open and looks at me. A smile lifts the corners of her mouth.
“Feel a little calmer?” I ask her, mirroring her smile with one of my own.
She laughs, her eyes dancing with emotion.
“Calm is definitely not the word I would use after that kiss,” she admits, still catching her breath. “But at least I don’t want to murder anyone anymore.”
I laugh, sliding both my thumbs across her cheeks affectionately. My heart is racing—what’s the grown up, not embarrassing version of feeling giddy? Because that’s how I feel right now, looking at her. Her lips red and swollen from being pressed against mine, her eyes lit up, full of something that looks a hell of a lot like…
No. I tell myself not to even think it. To not even go there. Just the idea of it feels too good to even entertain when there’s a strong chance I am misreading everything.
I force myself to ground in reality, trying to settle my racing pulse.
“All this over you not wanting me to marry someone who doesn’t actually love me?” I ask her with a soft grin.
Violet laughs, then sniffles, looking away with embarrassment. I lower my hands, resting one of them on her thighs and the other on the arm of the throne.
“Cat is just heinous,” she says, clearing her throat. “Gods, she knows how to get under your skin and make you feel like you’re going to combust from within, doesn’t she?”
“That is her gift,” I say. Violet’s jaw tightens and I watch her face as her expression sobers.
“She said I was so weak that I went from fucking Liam for protection to fucking you for protection.” She scoffs, like she’s trying to act like it’s so ridiculous that it’s not even worth mentioning. But it’s clear she’s affected, her brow furrowing ever so slightly in worry.
Fuck. That must have been what Cat whispered to her on the mat. The part of their exchange I couldn’t hear. No wonder she’s livid.
“I mean, is that what everyone thinks about me? Who is telling her these things? Because that’s not—” she trails off, her voice cracking with emotion, betraying her attempt at sounding dismissive of Cat’s hateful remarks.
Guilt consumes me. This is all my fault for bringing Violet into my web of lies. This engagement may be helping me but it's ruining her. So much for feeling fucking giddy. The sweetness of that kiss turns acidic at the thought of Cat hurting her like this.
“Where are your daggers?” I ask her, sitting back on my heels and dropping my hand from her lap. I can hear the angry edge to my voice, and it startles her.
“Rhi has them,” she says, stiffening defensively.
“Keep those daggers on you. One of them will shield you from Cat’s power.”
She looks at me and bites her bottom lip, clearly thinking something through.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I shouldn’t have put you through all this with her. No one thinks that about you — she’s just trying to get a rise.”
“People might think it,” Violet says dejectedly.
Fucking Cat. How dare she suggest anything so ugly about Violet, of all people. Violet, who’s been through so much — who is still grieving, still healing.
“This is not about you. Fuck!” I stand, clenching my fists and pacing the length of the dias. I look back at her — she hasn’t moved, but she looks at me with uncertainty plain on her face, like she’s trying to make sense of things. “Once again, you are taking a punishment meant for me.”
My heart sinks, all traces of the euphoria from just a few minutes ago gone.
“We need to put an end to this fake engagement. We should just come clean,” I say through gritted teeth. “Let Cat throw a fucking tantrum to her uncle. What can they even do now?”
“No,” Violet says firmly, without skipping a beat. “I can take it. I don't want to ruin everything now that we’ve come this far, just because I can’t get a grip on my emotions.”
My eyes linger on the bruise on her cheek. Gods, what was I thinking, putting her right in Cat’s path of destruction? And now, she’s hurt, in every way possible, and it’s all my fault.
“And Brennan—“ she continues.
“I’ll talk to Brennan,” I cut her off abruptly. “This whole thing ends today.”
***
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
@overjoyedisland thank you as always for your thoughtful comments on this draft! And @thoughtsaboutshows - the line you came up with “this engagement may be helping me but it's ruining her…” was perfect 😍
Chapter 9
Notes:
We are in the home stretch everyone. This is the penultimate chapter - mostly setting us up for the big finish! Posting this one in honor of reaching exactly 500 kudos and 100 bookmarks on this story - thank you for the love! What can I say - even numbers do it for me.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Tell me you want this,” Xaden murmurs against my lips, his voice rough with restraint as he presses me up against the wall of his room. He doesn’t back away even a fraction of an inch as he says it, though, and his hand slides up under the hem of my shirt, his warm fingers pressing into my skin just enough to send shivers down my spine.
I do. Gods, I do.
I want him with an ache so deep I can barely form thoughts—let alone the words to tell him that yes, I want this more than I want my next breath. The words sit at the edge of my tongue, and I’m willing them to slip free when I hear him whisper my name and feel his grip around my wrist.
“Violet,” he says again, a little louder this time.
My eyes snap open, heart racing as my eyes adjust to the dim dawn light, the familiar walls of Xaden’s bedroom slowly coming into focus.
It was just a dream.
But he’s here—he’s real. Sitting on the bed next to me, smelling like leather and mint and fully dressed for a flight.
“You’re leaving again?” I manage to ask as the realization hits me. I take a deep breath and sit up, trying to steady my heartbeat and ignore just how much my body had reacted to that dream.
“Seven venin and a horde of wyvern took down Pavis yesterday,” he says somberly, his deep voice still barely louder than a whisper. I feel my eyes widen and my stomach drop, all traces of sleep shaken out of me in an instant.
He doesn’t have to tell me what that means.
They’re coming for us.
“My squad is going to keep watch over Draithus,” he adds, releasing his light grip on my wrist and standing. My insides twist even further over the thought of him in danger.
No. I can’t lose him. Not when I am only just beginning to have him in the first place.
“Shit,” I murmur. I want to protest. Want to beg him to stay. To send someone else for once. He doesn’t look at me as he moves toward the door. “Xaden—“ I start to say before he cuts me off.
“We’ll break off the engagement when—” he hesitates, turning back towards me enough that I can see his throat bob as he swallows. “When I get back.”
He’s gone before I can tell him that when he gets back, breaking off our ruse will be the absolute last thing on my mind.
I bring my fingers up to my lips – wishing he’d kissed me goodbye, still feeling traces of how hot and urgent his lips felt on mine as I sat on his throne yesterday. I remember how he looked at me with a lightness I had never seen in him when he pulled away – at least for a few precious moments.
I swallow, regretting telling him about the hateful words Cat had said to me in a whisper. I should have known Xaden would shut down and blame himself. That he’d do what he always does—try to protect me, even if it’s at his own expense.
Xaden had stormed out of the Assembly room before I could even process what was happening, and I didn’t see or hear from him until well after midnight— when I was already half asleep in his bed. He didn’t say a word when he slid beneath the covers beside me, and I had just let him stew, resolved to address it in the morning.
And now he’s gone again.
The anxious feeling clawing at my insides only intensifies the more I try to get back to sleep. I give up and force myself out of bed, washing up and re-braiding my hair. I check the bruise on my face — still purple — before heading out the door, resolved to find my brother and to get some answers.
Brennan doesn’t answer when I knock on his bedroom door, so I head down to his office.
The halls of Riorson House are strangely busy given the early hour, cadets and riders moving through the fortress with purpose as the first light of morning spills through the narrow windows.
Brennan’s office door is open when I reach it. He’s at his desk, scribbling in a small notebook.
“Morning, Bren. What are you working on?”
He glances up, his furrowed brow relaxing when he sees me. “That venin cure,” he says. “But I’m glad you’re here. I was planning to hunt you down at breakfast.”
“Need something?” I ask him as I approach his desk, resting a hand on the back of an empty chair. I make note of the fact that I need to ask him about progress on the cure — but there are more pressing matters this morning.
“Wanted to check on you,” he replies. His eyes dart to the bruise on my cheek and he frowns. “Xaden had said Cat hurt you yesterday — I asked if you needed a mending, he said no. That you weren’t hurt like that.”
“I’m fine,” I reply with a dismissive wave, looking down at what he’s writing. “A little bruised up from sparring, but she just got to me with her mindwork. It was nothing.”
Brennan snorts. “Xaden was in rare form yesterday over nothing then. I tried talking him down from telling Cat about the engagement, but he was adamant that he needed to fess up.”
I can only imagine just how adamant, given how livid he’d seemed yesterday.
“If we weren’t interrupted by Garrick and the news about Pavis,” Brennan continues, “he’d have told her already.”
“I know. He blames himself for her coming after me.”
“I mean, he’s not wrong about that , Violet,” Brennan reminds me, irritation plainly evident in his tone. “It is his fault. But he’s started us all down this path, so he can see it through without causing more chaos.”
He looks up at me then, a trace of concern on his brow. “I mean, as long as you are truly fine with it,” he adds.
“I am. I just fell right into step with her strategy of trying to rile me up yesterday.”
“ Trying to rile you up?” He asks skeptically. “Xaden said you almost killed her.”
“Yeah, well,” I mutter, my cheeks heating, “she accused me of using Liam for my protection and of moving on to Xaden as soon as Liam was killed. But her language was a little more crude.”
“Fuck, that’s a low blow,” Brennan winces. “No wonder Xaden felt guilty,”
“He shouldn’t. It’s not a big deal.” I say sullenly, dropping my gaze to the floor.
“Vi,” he says, his voice softer now. “You know it doesn’t matter what people think. You know you loved him — he knew you loved him. And trust me, that love will always be there.”
I nod, swallowing hard. “I know. And this engagement ruse is so unimportant — the last thing we need is to stir the pot with the fliers when a horde of wyvern could show up any day now.”
“That’s what I told Xaden.” Brennan looks at me, his gaze sharp. “But—if even a small part of you wants to end the engagement plan sooner, you have my full support, Vi.”
“No. I don’t want to call it off.” I can hear how the words leave my mouth a bit too quickly — too decisively. I don’t know what I mean by that. If I mean that I don’t want to call it off too soon — if I don’t want to call it off at all. All I know is that my whole body seizes up at the idea of never waking up next to Xaden again. That my heart withers at the idea of us going back to the way things were just a few months ago.
Brennan tilts his head, studying my face for a moment.
“And here I thought staging a fight and breaking up would be the easiest part of this charade for you two,” he remarks, shaking his head as he turns back to his notebook.
I don’t bother asking him what he means by that. Because he’s right—in fact, ending this may just be the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do.
***
“Where’s Xaden?” I hear Cat’s grating voice before I see her slip into my infirmary room behind the petite, white-haired healer who’s currently shining a light into my left eye. “I’m surprised he’s not in here hovering over you like a mother hen.”
Over a week has passed since Xaden left for the front lines, and I’d worked myself to exhaustion in an attempt to keep the gnawing anxiety stemming from his absence at bay. And that was before I was forced to go on a rune hunt and kill a dragon to save Cat and Sloane’s lives today.
Needless to say, I am not in the mood for whatever fresh vitriol she is about to throw at me.
“Please spare me, Cat.” My voice is dry, my patience nonexistent.
“I’m sorry,” she says. My jaw would have dropped in surprise at the apology if it wasn’t currently being held by the healer as she examines my eyes. I blink, not sure I heard Cat right. Not sure if she’s being sincere. “And thank you for—well, what you did,” she continues.
“I would have done it for anyone in our squad,” I say in an even tone, forcing myself to stay still as the healer moves her examination light to my right eye.
“I know,” she murmurs quietly. She’s silent for a moment, and out of the corner of my eye, I see her shift as if she’s going to make a move to leave. But then she stops, turning to face me again.
“I didn’t see it at first,” she continues. “How Xaden could possibly think you’d make a good queen. But I can see it now. You’re smart, and your instincts to protect people are–” she pauses and swallows uncomfortably, “admirable.”
I almost want to ask the healer if my injuries from the day could cause hallucinations – because there’s no way that this is actually Catriona Cordella speaking to me right now. But the healer excuses herself for a moment to go get some arnica salve for my bruises before I can question her.
“Trust me,” I say, dismissing her unusual civility to the intensity of the day. “He didn’t choose me because he thinks I’d be a good queen.”
“No?” She huffs a laugh and shakes her head. “I suppose he just actually fell in love with you, then?” I force down my irritation with her– but gods , even when she’s trying to make amends, she sounds like a stuck up bitch.
“Apparently,” I say dryly. The truth is, I don’t feel confident in knowing how Xaden feels – or how things will turn out between us. And I’m too tired and confused to put on a convincing show for Cat right now.
“I think I did you a favor, getting that truthsayer to verify it,” Cat adds, her voice laced with amusement. “At least you know he’s not using you. With someone like Xaden, you’d never really know if he loved you otherwise.”
It takes every ounce of discipline and civility in me not to roll my eyes right in her face.
“Oh yes, thanks, Cat,” I say, my voice dripping with mock sweetness. “It was so generous of you to do me that favor. I know making me feel secure in my relationship has really been a top priority for you.” She laughs—a real laugh—one without the usual mocking, sinister edge. “But I’m sure even your truthsayer can be wrong sometimes, so I wouldn’t give yourself too much credit.” I mutter.
“I wish he was,” she admits dryly, crossing her arms. “But there hasn’t been a truthsayer as powerful as Russo in ages. Maybe ever. There’s no way Xaden could have shielded against him.”
My breath catches. Xaden had told everyone that he loved me in front of that truthsayer, and that he had felt that way for a long time. I’d dismissed it as a trick at the time — but, had he actually just been telling the truth? I thought perhaps whatever this was between us had evolved since Cordyn for him too — but had he harbored feelings for me all this time? Even when I was with Liam? Even when he spent a year ignoring me and pushing me away at every turn?
My mind starts to race through all the times when I’d dismissed his actions to help me as self serving. The saddle he made me. The runed daggers. Sitting at my bedside for three days after Resson. Rescuing me from Varrish. Were they really actions of necessity because of our bond — or could they have been more than that?
“Like I said,” Cat smirks knowingly, interrupting my spiraling thoughts. “I did you a favor.” I blush, realizing that my epiphany about Xaden’s feelings for me is probably evident from my face. She sounds pleased with herself, and doesn’t wait for acknowledgement as she turns to walk out the door.
The healer returns just as Cat is leaving, holding a small glass jar of yellow salve and a roll of bandages for my hand. “Later, Sorrengail,” Cat calls back behind her as she disappears behind the healer.
“You’re good to go,” the healer says, handing me the jar. I thank her and hop off the table, picking up my pack off a chair in the corner and tossing the jar of arnica and the bandages in it.
“Sgaeyl and her rider approach,” Tairn’s voice echoes in my mind. The tension that had built up in every one of my muscles whooshes out of me, replaced by relief from knowing Xaden is within a safe distance. I pack up my things with renewed haste.
I had asked Tairn to tell me the minute they were close — for practical reasons, because I need to tell Xaden that we’ve figured out what was wrong with our translation and that we can raise the wards. And now I just want to be in his arms again, to feel the comfort of him next to me when I close my eyes at night and again when I open them at the start of every new day.
When I turn to leave the room, Sloane’s waiting at the door, presumably just cleared to leave the infirmary herself.
“What was that about a truthsayer?” Sloane asks me as we make our way down the corridor.
“It’s complicated,” I tell her, brushing off the question with a sigh. The last thing I need when I’m both exhausted and anxious to see Xaden is another conversation about his true-or-false feelings. Instead, I glance at her, taking in the faint tension in her shoulders and tired look in her eyes. “How are you feeling after today?”
She exhales, twisting a lock of her golden hair between her fingers as we walk. “Still trying to process that I’m a siphon. I—I—” Her voice falters, and she looks a little lost.
“It’s new,” I say gently. “It’ll take time to get used to. But are you at least a little relieved to be channeling?”
“I guess. Better than being killed,” she smirks.
A dry laugh escapes me before I can stop it, thinking of the complicated feelings I’d had when my signet finally showed up several years ago. A wave of sadness follows as I remember it — how my lightning had been all but forced out of me in a desperate need to save her brother during War Games.
And I did save him, for a time.
The pang of loss threatens to steal my breath, but I push it down, focusing my attention on her again. “Maybe Brennan can work with you,” I say. “He was paired with a siphon before the apostasy.”
“That’d be nice,” she says. The barracks come into view, where we’ll need to part so I can return to Xaden’s quarters. “Well, back to my beloved fiancé’s arms, I suppose.” I say dryly, feeling a little uneasy at how I just automatically try to downplay my feelings for Xaden with her. “Tairn said they just landed.”
Sloane was the first person I made sure to tell the truth about our engagement to when we returned from Cordyn—before the rumors could reach her. Before she could think I’d moved on too fast. I’d barely earned her trust after our rocky start last year, and I wasn’t about to risk our friendship again.
Sloane lets out a quiet chuckle, but when I glance at her, her expression fades into something more serious.
“You know, no one would care if you and Xaden wanted to be together for real,” she says. My heart stumbles over itself, my pulse picking up like I’ve been caught doing something wrong. “Liam would have wanted you both to be happy.”
I swallow, not knowing what to say in response to Sloane. Because I really can’t deny that I’ve fallen in love with Xaden —and it’s obvious now that he’s loved me for a while now. But I also don’t know where we stand, what any of it means yet. And until I do, there’s nothing else to say.
So I simply reach out and squeeze her hand. “I know. He really was the best of us.”
***
I'm in a fresh set of clothes and braiding my damp hair in our private bathing chamber when I hear Xaden enter his quarters. My stomach flutters — all raw nerves and longing — as I hastily finish the braid and tie off the end.
By the time I step into his bedroom, he’s already perched on the bench at the foot of his bed, unlacing his boots. His hair is even more unruly than usual, windswept and tangled, and all I want is to close the unbearable distance between us and run my fingers through it. But something in the way his brow is set makes me pause, lingering in the doorway with my hand resting on the frame.
“You’re back,” I say quietly. He looks up, his brow softening for just a moment as his gaze passes over my face before dropping back to his boots.
“I am,” he says. I take in the scruff on his jaw, thick after a week of growth, and the dark circles under his eyes. I’ve never seen him look so drained, so defeated — and it makes my heart ache.
“What happened?” I ask.
He lets out a heavy breath, running a hand through his hair. “A horde of wyvern was spotted flying from Pavis toward the cliffs.”
I swallow, my already unsettled gut twisting once again. Gods, that means we only have a few hours. I push aside the desire to finally talk to him about us — we need to get those wards up before nightfall.
He looks up at me then, but this time he notices my hand. His eyes lock on it intensely.
“You’re hurt?” He frowns, his eyes darkening as they narrow on the bandage on my hand.
“I’m fine. Look, Xaden. I think I—“
“Sgaeyl said you weren’t injured,” he interrupts me, and I can see his eyes rapidly scanning the rest of me for more evidence.
“I’m really not,” I assure him. “It’s just a few stitches in my hand and a bump on my head. But Xaden, I—”
“She told me about Solas,” he interrupts again, his voice hard now, his jaw clenched. “What were you thinking, saving Cat? I don’t—“
“Xaden!” I snap finally. “I figured out how to raise the wards.” I force the words out before he can interrupt me again.
I’m not sure if it’s because he’s exhausted or if I’ve just actually managed to stun him, but he just looks at me with an expression of pure shock. I know the whole situation is impossibly dire, but I can’t help but feel a little bit triumphant.
“Now,” I say, pushing off the doorframe to take a step towards him. “Do you want to help me get them up or would you like to wait until that horde is actually at our gates?”
Notes:
One chapter to go - and I promise they will actually talk to each other! It is almost done, and assuming I can actually LET GO and accept that it's the end, I should be posting within a week.
Thank you so much to overjoyedisland for the quick beta read and idea about having her talk to Sloane!
And to infinitelymint getting all up in Tumblr DMs with me about how to get these two over the emotional finish line in these last two chapters. I can't thank you both enough.
As always, you can come find me on Tumblr (@lovemedarkly29) or on the RQ Discord!
Chapter 10
Notes:
Deep breaths. Okay, we’re here at the bittersweet end!
Mind the rating change to explicit! Who was I kidding when I said this one wouldn’t be smutty 😏
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Climbing exactly one hundred and twenty-eight steps up a spiral staircase while balancing a plate of dessert— with a fork, I might add —is just as tricky as one would expect.
But I’m a woman on a mission. And this mission might just be the hardest I’ve faced yet—and I’ve just killed a dragon and then raised the wards over Tyrrendor in the last two days, so that’s really saying something.
Yes, getting Xaden Riorson to willingly talk about his feelings might just be the one mission I fail. Which is why I’ve come armed with the most powerful weapon in my arsenal.
Chocolate cake.
I open the door at the top of the staircase with lesser magic and step out onto the narrow walkway that runs the roofline and close it behind me. Xaden sits on the edge of the small turret a few yards away.
It seems fitting that he’s perched on a defensive turret looking as though he’s in the most natural place on earth to enjoy a view — it’s almost a metaphor for Xaden’s entire existence. Watchful, always playing defense, seeking the big picture from a bird’s eye view so he can stay one step ahead.
I steady myself before taking the first step down the ledge that spans the distance between us, planting my feet firmly and clutching the plate so that it doesn’t get ripped out of my hand by the wind.
“How’d you know I was up here?” he asks when I’m a few feet from where he sits.
I set the plate down before climbing up to sit beside him. Amari’s tits, we’re high up. No wonder Xaden’s so damn good at parapet.
“Other than the fact that I can sense you through our bond?” I glance at him with a wry smile. “You told me in Cordyn you used to wait up here for your father to come home.” I reach for the plate and hold it out to him. “That was shortly after you mentioned that your favorite food is chocolate cake. So I figured I’d bring the celebration to you.”
The rest of Riorson House’s many inhabitants were busy drinking and celebrating the fact that they'd just narrowly escaped guaranteed death when we raised the wards over Tyrrendor. Certainly Xaden could stop brooding in solitude for a few minutes to celebrate with me too.
His gaze flicks to the cake, then up to me, and for a fraction of a second, warmth softens his angular features before he takes the plate.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, turning back to the view of Aretia’s green rooftops bathed in golden afternoon light. A layer of clouds sits low over the mountains, darkening as it fades into the horizon. He wordlessly takes a bite of the cake before offering the plate back to me. The silence hangs between us for a few minutes.
So much for a pause on the brooding.
Once we’d raised the wards with our dragons yesterday evening, we took turns getting a few hours of sleep last night while we anxiously waited for our attackers to put them to the test. I knew the weight on Xaden’s shoulders from the venin looming— but it was clear he was avoiding looking at me while we all kept watch over the valley.
And he disappeared the minute he could once it was clear we’d been successful at keeping the wyvern at bay. I don’t know quite what to make of the distance he’s put between us— whether it’s because he thinks I don’t return his affections, or because he thinks denying them will be better for me. But I know one thing for certain—that whatever reasons he’s come up with to push me away aren’t good enough to keep us apart. And I am resolved to make him see that.
“Looks like we might get some rain tonight,” he murmurs finally as I pass the plate back to him.
I let out an incredulous laugh before I can stop myself. “Are we really talking about the weather right now?”
“What’s wrong with talking about the weather?” He says defensively, keeping his gaze fixed on the view in front of him.
“Nothing,” I say, tilting my head towards him and narrowing my eyes. “It’s just that we have more important things to talk about, and you’re very obviously avoiding them.”
His jaw clenches. Then unclenches. But he says nothing.
Fine. If he won’t willingly talk, I’ll have to drag the words out of him.
“So we’re just never going to talk about that kiss?” I ask through our bond, almost as if asking the words in my silence will keep him from shutting down or bolting.
“Not if I can help it,” he says, still not looking at me.
“So you’re just going to what—pretend it never happened? Blame it on getting carried away with this fake engagement bullshit?”
“Actually, yeah. That’s a great idea,” he says dismissively through the bond.
“Oh, fuck you, Xaden.” The words burst out of me out loud before I can stop them. He lets out a dry laugh. “I never pegged you for a coward,” I add, knowing what a rise it will get out of him.
“A coward?” He exhales sharply, something dark flashing in his eyes as he finally looks at me. He sighs before dragging a hand down his face and groaning in frustration.
“Fine. You want to talk about it? Here’s what I should have said days ago.” He inhales deeply and then exhales, as if he’s trying to muster the courage to continue. “I shouldn’t have kissed you like that. That’s on me. I should never have crossed that line with you.”
My heart splinters. Even after everything we’ve been through this last month and a half — the talks in Cordyn, sharing a bed, that kiss— he’s back to pushing me away again, just like he’s done for the last year.
“Why not?” I challenge him, pushing down the frustrated tears that threaten to rise behind my eyes. “You know it’s what we both want.”
He shakes his head, pinching his eyes shut. “Because I’ll just keep dragging you into my messes – and trust me, there are a lot of them. And because you deserve a fuck ton more than I can give you.”
I lean forward toward him slightly. “I think I know what I deserve. And you are it.”
“No, Violet. That’s the thing. You might think you want me, but you don’t really want this. You don’t know what you’re getting with me. My reality—it’s not pretty.”
His jaw tightens as if forcing the next words out physically hurts.
“You’ve always deserved better than someone who would only put you in danger. Who could only ever give you half-truths. You deserved…” his voice catches, and he stops, taking a deep breath and looking away. He’s comparing himself to Liam—I can see it in his face, how he thinks he’ll never measure up.
“Liam’s gone, Xaden.” I say softly, putting voice to the words he refuses to say himself. “I miss him every fucking day, but he’s gone. But I’m not sitting here comparing you to a ghost—and neither should you.”
Xaden presses his lips together in thought, still not looking back at me.
“And you’ve already put me first more times than I can count,” I continue. “You always have.”
“Because I had to. To survive,” he insists, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. “That doesn’t make me a good person.” I can only see his profile as he looks off into the distance, but his expression is set in hard, unmoving lines.
“No,” I counter firmly. “You do it because you love me.”
He doesn’t hesitate this time. “I do it because I have no choice but to protect you.”
I bristle at the notion that he’s reducing all of this to needing to protect me, and suddenly I feel like we’re back to the day we landed in Cordyn, with anger flowing through me at the idea that I’m a liability. That I’m his weakness.
But these last few weeks have shown me that what draws him to protect me is more than that. It’s something so much deeper.
“Because you love me, Xaden.” I insist again. “Verified by a truthsayer and everything.”
“And even with that, you assumed I tricked him,” he says bitterly. “The thought that I was capable of actually loving you didn’t even cross your mind. Because that’s the kind of person I am—“
“You’re not. I just didn’t see it yet. But I —I see it now. The daggers, the saddle. Coming to Basgiath to rescue me when it could have cost you everything. That is who you are to me—how you love me.”
He doesn’t deny it this time.
But when he finally speaks, his voice is bitter, meeting my eyes for only a moment before looking away again. “I’m not sure what difference it makes.”
“It makes a fucking difference,” I snap, raising my voice louder. “Because I love you too, and I don’t want to waste any more time not being with you. I’m done letting you live with this misguided belief that you should push me away for my own good.”
His eyes finally lock into mine, emotion flickering so fiercely it almost makes me dizzy. He swallows hard, and for a moment I think he just might succumb to it — that he just might let me in.
“I can still try,” he says finally.
That flicker of hope inside me flares before it turns to pure, flaming hot frustration. If this is how he wants to be, then fine. I stand abruptly, my boots scraping against the stone.
“Violet, just sit. It’s not safe—”
I turn to face him, fixing him with an angry glare. “Xaden, I know you somehow think I’m better off without you, but I’m telling you, I’m not. And one thing I know for sure after these last few weeks is that my life is infinitely better with you in it. So you can either let me in and be the man you think I deserve, or you can leave me the fuck alone.”
He blinks at me for a moment, but I don’t give him the chance to argue before I turn and march across the ledge. There is no smooth way to storm off dramatically when you have to cross a narrow beam on a rooftop first, but I slam the stairwell door behind me when I do reach it, hoping my exit conveys just how hurt I am.
Because gods —how can he not see it? That we deserve the little bit of happiness that just being with each other can bring. Being with him doesn’t feel like a choice to me — it feels like a need as basic as breathing at this point. And if he’s really loved me all this time, how can it possibly still be a choice for him?
Fuck. I think I need to hug a dragon.
***
Two hours later, I’ve just landed from a flight that I’d hoped would clear my head when the first few drops of rain begin to fall from the sky. I dismount from Tairn’s saddle and stride over to Andarna.
“Thanks for flying with us,” I tell her, patting her foreleg affectionately, the familiar feeling of her scales beneath my fingers grounding me. “I needed that.”
“I’d happily roast and eat him for you,” she says. “He doesn’t have a lot of fat on him, but it should still be satisfying–”
Tairn’s deep voice rumbles in my head, interrupting Andarna’s generous offer to eat Xaden for me. “But I think the Shadowed One is done feeling sorry for himself and wants to talk to you.”
“Xaden wants to talk to me?” I mutter to Tairn, “That would be a first.”
I give Andarna one last pat before turning to face the entrance to the flight field. There, in the not so far off distance, is Xaden. His tall, dark figure stands out against the fading twilight, and before I can fully process his presence, he’s closing the distance between us with a few long strides.
He doesn’t stop until there’s not even an inch of space left between us. My breath catches in my throat for a moment before his hand tangles in my hair, tilting my face up to his. The other grips my waist, pulling me flush against him, and then his lips are on mine.
Xaden’s tongue slips between my lips and he deepens the kiss, each stroke drawing out more and more heat from every inch of my body. His shadows swirl into a canopy above us, sheltering us from the intensifying rain.
Gods – this is bliss. My knees threaten to buckle from the intensity of it, but he holds me so tightly, so possessively, that I feel weightless in his arms.
When he finally pulls away, his hand still gripping my waist, he brushes his thumb softly over my cheek as his gold-flecked eyes search mine.
“I can’t leave you the fuck alone, Violet, that’s the fucking problem,” he murmurs quietly.
I let out a shaky laugh, tears welling up in my eyes at the overwhelming relief that he’s come to his senses.
“I love you,” he says, his words low, vulnerable in a way that makes my heart stutter. “I may not know how to do it right — but you’re right. I do love you.”
I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face as I look up at him. With a laugh that feels almost like a sob, I pull him down by the front of his shirt for a brief, desperate kiss.
“I’m right?” I ask him when I pull away.
His lips lift into a smirk, and I see the corner of his eyes crinkle with a hint of amusement. “That’s the part you’re focused on?”
I offer him a lopsided smile and shrug before fixing my eyes on his, searching them for any clues that this might not be real. “You really want to do this?”
“Yes.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “I— I’ve put so much energy into pushing you away that I didn’t realize how much I was hurting us both in the process. But I’m done with that now. If you say you love me, then who am I to argue?”
I wrap my arms around his torso, burying my face in his chest and inhaling the familiar scent of him. His arms encircle me gently as he presses a soft kiss to the top of my head.
“Come inside, Violence,” he murmurs into my hair before pulling back and taking my hand in his. “If we’re doing this, there are things I need to tell you.”
***
The light rain we’d left outside is now a full on downpour as we enter his room, droplets thrumming in a steady rhythm against the exterior stone walls.
We stop barely long enough to strip off our wet boots by the door before heading straight to the bathing chamber, Xaden trailing just a step behind me. As soon as we’re inside, his lips find mine, urgent and hungry. His hands are all over me, pulling me closer, as though he can’t bear even the tiny bit of space left between us.
He hoists me up effortlessly onto the edge of the sink, our mouths never breaking apart. My hands move to grip his shoulders and I moan into his mouth as it moves expertly against mine. His breath is ragged against my lips when he pulls away.
I reach for the hem of his shirt, desperate for more of his bare skin under my fingertips, but he stops me with a hand around my wrist. It takes a moment for his expression to come into focus again, but when it does, I realize then that he’s nervous. His throat bobs as he swallows.
“There’s no easy way to say this Violet,” he begins, his voice low. “But there’s something I need to tell you. If we're going to really do this, I need you to know everything,” he says, brushing at a strand of my hair at my temple with his fingertips as he looks at me with a solemnity that makes my stomach drop. “Because I don’t think I’ll survive losing your love once I truly have it.”
“You already truly have it,” I reassure him. I honestly don’t think anything he could say would make me stop loving him, but I can’t help but worry that he’s about to push me away again.
He shakes his head, his dark eyes clouded with uncertainty. “It’s not real yet, Vi. Not until you know the darkest parts of me.”
“I know you—” I start to say.
“I have a second signet,” he blurts out through our bond.
My brow furrows in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“A second signet,” he repeats. “From being bonded to the same dragon as my grandfather.” The pieces start to fall into place in my mind, recalling what Sloane had told me about what happens when relatives bond the same dragon. “No one else knows about it.”
The realization that this is real—that it’s something big— hits me. My mind ticks through options of signets I might have never noticed him use before. “Why is it a secret? Shouldn’t you be using it in battle—?”
“Because they’d kill me if they knew,” he says, and even though we’re talking in our heads, his voice is barely a whisper. What signet could he have kept to himself all this time that is a power so dangerous it merits execution? His eyes search my face and I feel my stomach twist as I finally understand the gravity of his words.
“You’re inntinnsic,” I say, and it's not a question. I am barely able to breathe as the truth sinks in; Xaden is far more powerful and dangerous than I could have ever imagined.
“I’m a type of inntinnsic,” he replies slowly, like it’s the first time he’s ever said the words. I wince as I realize it probably is. “I can read intentions. Maybe I would know what to call it if they didn’t kill everyone with even a hint of the signet.”
His eyes are fixed on me with a wary vigilance that’s so intense, I almost feel dizzy. It’s as if he thinks that if he looks away from me for even an instant, I’ll bolt for the door.
“Xaden—” I begin, but he cuts me off, his voice almost desperate.
“Let me explain—”
The burning question at hand is already spilling out before I can stop myself. “Have you read my thoughts?”
His entire body stiffens. “Not in a very long time. Violet— ” I can tell by his expression that he’s panicking, already putting up a wall to protect himself from my rejection.
I reach for his hand, my fingers gently lacing between his. “Don’t,” I say out loud, my voice low but firm. “Don’t put up that wall, Xaden. I just have questions.”
He inhales deeply, his jaw tightening. “I haven’t read your thoughts in years. I never read my friends’ thoughts—just people I don’t trust. Which, admittedly, is a lot of people,” he winces before continuing.
“But I haven’t intentionally read yours since Aetos stole your memories,” he says. “That day after you were attacked by the unbonded in your sleep. I saw how hurt you were—and by that point, I trusted you enough. I knew you.”
“You barely did,” I breathe.
“I’d seen enough of who you were,” he replies, his fingers tightening around mine. “And Violet… you may not trust me again now because of it. But I don’t regret it. Because it helped me see how different you are. How your mind works. How your fierce moral compass guides you—regardless of what the people around you tell you to believe.” He fixes his gaze on our interlaced hands, running his thumb back and forth over my wrist. “I think I’ve been falling since I read your thoughts when I found you in that tree, back at the beginning of your first year.”
“That long?” I ask. He had said to the truthsayer that he loved me a long time, but that really was from the very beginning.
“Yeah.” His eyes soften as he looks up at me. “I needed to know if you’d tell your mother or Aetos about us, but instead… you just saw me as another cadet trying to help the Tyrrish kids. That’s all I’ve ever wanted—to give them a fighting chance in a world that’s stacked everything against them. And you saw that better part of me, without the whole ruthless wingleader image obscuring it. Even though you, of all people, had no reason to see me as anything but a monster.”
I feel my chest tighten. He’s laying bare parts of himself I’ve never even glimpsed before, laying a choice out before me.
“Please say something,” he pleads, his eyes searching for any sign that I might accept him —signets and dark deeds and all.
I take a steadying breath, and I know that, right at this moment, I trust him. He’s telling me his secret—something only he and his dragon know.
“You never said anything,” I manage to whisper, my voice a little shaky with emotion.
“About the mind reading? How could I—”
“No,” I interrupt him. “About loving me.”
That night in the tree was well before I had even met Liam. Through the Gauntlet, through Threshing, when he killed Oren and my other attackers. He never said a thing.
“I always knew it was a dangerous thing to love you. But believe me, I wanted you. I was insanely jealous of Aetos for just being able to kiss you at Threshing.”
I stiffen. “You saw that? It meant nothing—”
“I know,” he interrupts gently. “I know you didn’t feel the same way as he did. But then… well, I hesitated—because of Aetos, because of your mother. And then before I knew it, I could see how Liam had fallen for you. Completely. Head over heels.”
My stomach churns at the mention of Liam, and I can feel my face fall. The truth is, I’m not uncomfortable with my feelings about Liam. I’ll always love him and nothing will change that —and there isn’t an ounce of guilt in me over finding love with someone else. But, I am hesitant to talk about Liam with Xaden. Afraid it will scare him back into his own insecurity and away from this .
Thankfully, Xaden presses on.
“Liam adored you,” he says evenly. “And even a selfish asshole like me couldn’t keep trying to get in the way of him being happy. Or in the way of you getting the type of straightforward love he could give you. But I wanted to, Violence. Trust me. I still don’t understand how I could be so envious of someone and so happy for them at the same time.”
“But after Resson, you pushed me away…” I trail off, the memories flooding back.
“I heard your thoughts when you woke up after Resson.” He admits, a trace of guilt creeping into his expression. “I didn’t read them on purpose, but sometimes when your emotions are heightened, they come through our bond anyway. You were so mad at me—you couldn’t trust me anymore. You blamed me. I could literally hear your thoughts as the way you felt about me completely changed.”
“I did blame you,” I say quietly, lowering my gaze. “But only for keeping me in the dark. Everything happened so fast—the venin, losing Liam, all the secrets. I didn’t know who to trust. But once I had a little time to process, I understood why you kept so much from me—how much was at stake.”
I take a deep breath, then look back into his eyes. “So I tried with you. I tried to talk to you but you’d avoid me. You’d shut down any semblance of a real conversation. Every time I came to Samara, you wouldn’t even look at me except to pick up weapons. How could I have come to any other conclusion but that you resented me?”
He nods. “I know.” He swallows as his thumb continues to sweep over mine, back and forth as he speaks. “And a few months after graduation, when you showed up at Samara, all frantic and worried that I’d been injured—I couldn’t help but feel some kind of hope that you cared about me enough to rush out of Basgiath without leave.”
“I was terrified,” I whisper. “And it wasn’t just because Tairn was afraid of losing Sgaeyl. I always cared about you.”
I can see the understanding in his eyes as he inhales. “I think I knew that. But I just couldn’t forgive myself for not letting Liam tell you about the venin—for dragging you and him —to Athebyne. Let alone accept that you could forgive me for what I had done. And then, when I noticed you were in Bodhi’s jacket that day, I damn near lost my mind–”
“You were jealous of Bodhi?” I ask, disbelief clear in my voice.
He laughs, and it’s warm and soft and a little embarrassed— a delightful sound I’ve never heard from him before.
“Violet, you will soon learn—I’m a jealous asshole when it comes to you,” he says. “I can’t help it.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, biting back a smile despite the seriousness of our conversation.
“I figured out pretty quickly that nothing was going on with him,” he continues. “But at the time? I was fucked up over it. You were at Basgiath with him, and I just thought… well, anyway. That was just another reason not to fix things with you at that moment.”
I inhale deeply, thinking about how he must have felt. Gods, he would have been crushed at the thought that I was once again choosing someone else—and not just anyone else, but yet another person akin to a brother to him.
“I —“ I start to say. But the words don’t take shape. All this time. When I was barely anything to him but Lilith Sorrengail’s daughter. When I was with Liam. Even when he was pushing me away for the last year, he still wanted me. He loved me.
“Do you get it now, Vi?” Xaden asks me. His gaze is intense, searching mine as though he’s bracing for me to shatter his world. “That I always loved you? That you were always the one I wanted?”
“Xaden—“ My lips part to say more, but the words evade me as I look up at him, my heart a tangled mess of emotions. So I lean forward and pull him to me for a kiss. Our lips meet and I send a feeling of reassurance and love down our bond as emphatically as possible.
I hope the kiss says the words that I can’t manage to form — I’m still here. I’m not scared of you. I know all of you and I still want you.
His hands move to my face, cupping it with tenderness that makes my heart ache. He traces gentle circles on my skin before he pulls back just enough to look into my eyes.
“You’re my dream girl,” he whispers.
I draw him into me and kiss him again, shuttling my fingers through his damp hair. If the last kiss was a message of acceptance, this one sends a message of pure desire.
“I want you,” I manage to say through our bond, in case the kiss hasn’t done an adequate job of conveying just how much every inch of me craves his touch. That activates something in him, and he groans into my mouth, his tongue urgently sweeping against mine. One of his hands tunnels into my hair while the other pulls my hips forward on the sink into him.
“I always want you,” he says in return. “You have no idea, Violence. You walk in a room and I’m instantly turned on.”
Hearing how much he wants me sends delicious sparks of desire down my spine. His hands find their way to my waist, sliding under my flight jacket to tug it off with a frantic urgency. I bring my arms back to pull it off and let it drop into the sink behind me with a thud, returning my hands to grip his shirt as soon as the task is complete.
We’re a tangle of lips and hands as we alternate between the competing priorities of kissing each other and removing all this damn clothing between us. He strips off his shirt — exposing expanses of smooth bronze skin and taut muscle. My shirt comes off next, and Xaden’s eyes fall hungrily to the skin left exposed now that I’m in just my corset.
He drops his lips to the base of my neck as he tugs my leathers off, crouching just long enough to pull them off my legs. I wind my fingers into his hair as he runs his hands up my now bare legs, sliding up between my thighs. I feel like I’m on fire—like I’m going to explode if I can’t have him inside me.
“Shower —need a shower after that flight,” I manage to say between gasping breaths. He hums affirmatively as he kisses my neck, making quick work of the laces at the back of my corset and discarding it as well.
“Then I guess I’ll have to make you come in the shower,” he says, his voice low and gravelly against my ear, making me shiver with anticipation.
I nudge him backward and slide off the sink to stand, turning toward the shower as I slip off my underwear. I can see he’s taking his pants off as I grasp the shower knob to turn the water on.
He’s pressed up against me from behind and I can feel his arousal, warm and rock hard against my back. I step into the shower and Xaden follows behind me. The streaming water hits my back as I turn to face him. I lean my head back for a moment, pulling the tie out of my hair and letting the spray of warm water cascade over me.
When I open my eyes, Xaden is looking at me with unadulterated appreciation, and I blink away the water in my eyes to scan his naked body for the first time. He’s absolutely perfect — all tan and muscular, his wet skin glistening in the low light. My eyes linger on his erection and my thighs clench involuntarily.
I take a step towards him, placing a hand on his abs as my eyes meet his. “You weren’t lying about your cock,” I say, a shy smile lifting the corner of my mouth.
He grins down at me cockily. “I believe the word you used was spectacular?”
“I’m glad to report I was right, yet again,” I say with a laugh, blushing as I reach for the bar of mint scented soap, passing it over my wet hands a few times until I’ve worked up a lather.
He leans down to kiss me, taking the soap from me and covering his own hands with suds before setting it down. His hands slide over my wet skin — my breasts, my stomach, hips —and I lean into his touch at every turn, savoring the slippery warmth.
Finally, his hands make their way between my thighs. The noise he makes as his fingers delve into me is one of pure, carnal desire and I don’t think I’ve ever been so aroused. He sweeps up to thumb over my clit and I arch into him with a moan.
“Yes,” I gasp, barely able to stay standing as his fingers sweep up and down.
“Fuck, you feel so good,” he groans. I reach for his neck, pulling him down to capture his lips with mine as he strokes the length of me with a single finger.
Our lips barely meet before I’m lifted off the ground. I feel my back hit the cold shower wall with a muffled thud and his forearms hook under my thighs as he kisses my neck.
He spins us, setting me down on the bench at the back of the shower. The water hits his back as he drops to his knees in front of me, spreading my thighs apart.
“You don’t have to—“ I want to tell him that I am already so wet, so ready for him and am desperate to feel his hard length buried inside me. To feel him as close to me as humanly possible.
But I can’t get the rest of the words out — not when his stubble scraping against the inside of my thighs is already making my mind go blank. Not when I can feel the heat of his breath against my skin. My hips are already lifting off the bench in anticipation.
“I’m doing exactly what I’ve dreamed about doing for years,” he murmurs before he spreads my thighs apart wider and brings his tongue to my clit. My eyes close on their own and I tip my head back against the shower wall.
Gods, he’s so good at this—so assured in his movements that I can let go completely. He slides his fingers inside me as his tongue sweeps in circles against my clit and the tension at my core flares up so fast that I feel like I am going to come already.
“Oh fuck, Xaden!” I cry out as the tension winds up so tightly and swiftly it breaks, sending waves of pleasure shooting out into the very ends of every one of my limbs. My breath comes back to me as I open my eyes and look at him.
“Fuck, the sounds you make,” he groans, shaking his head as if he’s clearing a fog from it. “I’m so fucking hard I’m dizzy.”
I let out an exhilarated laugh between breaths as he stands. Leaning forward, I run my hands over his abs and down, tightening as they pass over his impossibly hard length. His body jerks against my touch, his hands are over mine in an instant, pulling them away. He lets out a shaky breath, as if he’s fighting to regain his control and losing.
“Violet,” he groans — the sound of my name on his lips is needy and desperate, and I’m instantly aroused again. My walls clench around nothing, aching to feel him inside me.
Xaden drops my hands and winds an arm around my waist, lifting me off the bench so that our faces are level. His other hand grips my ass.
“Taking you to bed,” he murmurs as I wrap my arms around his neck. He turns off the water with one hand, and his muscles flex beneath me as he carries me out of the shower, grabbing a towel on the way to the bedroom. He drapes it across my back, returning his arm to its spot around my waist.
My back hits the mattress with a thud, and Xaden hastily passes the towel over our wet bodies before tossing it aside. He stands at the edge of the bed between my knees, and his eyes drink me in with so much appreciation it makes my heart flutter.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” he murmurs before he leans over me, sliding his tongue over a nipple and then nipping at it with his teeth. I let out a yelp as the pinch of it sends a jolt of pure electricity straight between my legs. He kisses down between my sternum and then my stomach before straightening back up to his full height.
He hooks his hands under my thighs to yank me forward towards him until my ass sits at the edge of the mattress. The sudden forcefulness of the movement shocks me in the best way possible, and I can barely breathe as I feel him line himself up between my thighs. “I’m on the fertility suppressant,” I say hastily.
“Me too,” he says with a muffled groan. He slides in a few inches—but he’s so large that I know he’s not even halfway inside me yet. He looks at me, searching my face for a sign that I’m uncomfortable.
“I want all of you,” I murmur as I reach for his arms and draw him toward me greedily. I don’t care if I’m sore tomorrow —don’t care if he wrecks me completely. I need him. He lets out a breath and mercifully slides the rest of the way in, and I can’t help but gasp at the sheer size of him.
“Okay?” He asks. I nod reassuringly, and he slowly begins to move. The friction, the pressure, the delicious stretch— gods , it’s better than I could have imagined. He thrusts harder, his hands running over my breasts, then gripping my ass. I can hear the moans escaping my lips— desperate, needy moans, that intermingle with the raw, unrestrained sounds he makes.
“Fuck, you feel good,” he groans, his jaw clenching with intense focus, as if he’s trying his best not to explode on the spot. I clench harder around him and dig my fingers into his arms, willing him to lose control.
“Yes!” I cry out. “Don’t stop, please!”
He continues to thrust, his movements become increasingly unrestrained and erratic, and I can tell he’s close. And gods —as he presses against that perfect spot deep inside me again and again, building that delicious friction with every stroke—so am I. My head lifts off the bed and my back arches as my core contracts and another orgasm courses through me.
I open my eyes as lightning flashes in the window behind him, and Xaden comes with a loud groan a moment later. His shadows fly around the room like a pile of loose fireworks set off by mistake, spiraling in every direction.
Xaden collapses beside me, pulling me up next to him so we’re both lying fully flat on the bed. “Gods, that was incredible,” he says, wrapping one arm around me as we both fight to catch our breath. I crane my neck up towards him to kiss his perfect mouth.
“I love you,” I tell him. It’s all I can manage — my mind and body sated in every way by this impossibly beautiful man. I close my eyes, savoring his warmth and his scent and the feeling of being enveloped in him.
His fingers are tracing lazily over my stomach when I open my eyes again. “I’ve wanted to do that for way too long,” he murmurs.
“I still can’t believe how long,” I say. “You really did everything in your power to keep me away.”
He inhales deeply, his nose buried in my hair.
“I’m still not convinced I deserve you, Violet,” he says, and I can hear in his voice that he means it. “But I’m going to keep you all the same.”
I shift closer to him, nuzzling into his chest. It might take time, but I’m determined to make him see just how wrong he is about himself.
“I know you had good reasons for doing the things you’ve done, even if everyone else thought you were a monster,” I tell him. “But I am trying to figure out when you started believing it too.”
He exhales slowly, his breath warm against my temple. “I guess having an inside look at everyone’s thoughts will do that to you.”
I think about how people sometimes say, ‘ I wish you could see yourself the way I see you ’ and I realize that for Xaden, having that ability has been more of a curse than a blessing.
“Because you never read the thoughts of your friends,” I tell him. “Of course you’d hate yourself if all you heard were the intentions of people you didn’t trust.”
He just shrugs again.
“If you read my thoughts right now, maybe you’d understand what I mean.” It’s an invitation. Look inside my head. See how much I adore you. Stay with me.
“What would I learn?” He asks. There’s a lightness that creeps into his voice, and I catch a smirk forming on his lips out of the corner of my eye. “That you find me incredibly attractive and completely irresistible?” He teases.
I let out a flustered breath, heat creeping up my neck. “You probably already knew that from my thoughts when I first saw you on the damn parapet.”
“Parapet?” He looks as if he’s working through the memory in his head. “You were attracted to me back then? All I picked up was that you were afraid I was going to kill you.”
“I thought you were the most exquisite man I had ever laid eyes on,” I confess, feeling the redness deepen on my cheeks. “I definitely harbored an unhealthy attraction to you during my first year, but – I don’t know. I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Liam made it easier to keep my distance,” he says with a sigh. “Even if it was the last thing I wanted—it was better for everyone that way. He didn’t have a target on his back like I did.”
That is Xaden. Putting everyone else’s needs before his own, and then somehow still thinking everything bad that happens is his fault. Nevermind that Liam didn’t have a target on his back because Xaden took it off him.
“But I plan to make up for it now,” he murmurs, shifting his weight to lean over me, his arm braced beside my head and his knee sliding between mine. “I intend to be incredibly greedy,” he adds, brushing his lips over my nipple, “and selfish when it comes to you.”
He takes my nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue slowly before nipping lightly with his teeth. I yelp, squirming beneath him as he gives the same attention to the other side, then trails kisses down my abdomen, leaving sparks dancing across my skin.
I can feel that he’s hard, and I don’t have to even question whether I’m ready for him again. He squeezes my ass firmly with one hand and then rises up to kneel between my legs.
“Get on your knees,” he orders in a low growl, and my whole body shivers at the command in his tone.
Before I know it, his hand is wound in my hair, pulling it back towards him as he pounds into me from behind. It’s hard and demanding and I can’t help but love how he takes what he wants without hesitation this time. How he claims what’s his—what I’ve given him.
I come quickly this time, and he follows with a muffled shout, both of us collapsing back into the bed with heaving breaths. I lie there in a blissed out daze, closing my eyes as I catch my breath.
“So what do you want to do about this whole engagement thing?” he asks me once I’ve steadied my breathing and settled back into the crook of his arm.
“Is it too soon to say ‘not a damn thing?’” I ask in response, fighting a yawn as I curl into him.
“Fuck, nothing could be too soon for me at this point,” he says. I can’t see his mouth from this angle, but I can tell he’s smiling. “But I’ll ask you again when you’re not fresh off three orgasms.”
“My answer won’t change,” I reply sleepily, and I don't think I’ve ever been more sure of anything in my life.
***
I’m on the verge of dozing off, my cheek pressed against Xaden’s warm, bare chest and his arm curled around my shoulders, when he starts to shift. I groan involuntarily, making it known that I have no interest in removing my body from his — but he just chuckles and kisses me just below my ear.
“I just need a minute,” he says softly, dragging his fingertips over my bare skin in a slow path from my hip up to my shoulder. “Believe me,” he says, his breath warm against my ear. “I’d never stop touching you if I could help it.”
I reach my arms around his neck, drawing him to me for a deep, slow kiss. “Me neither,” I say. It’s almost obscene how quickly my body responds to him— how I already so desperately want him again.
Gods. This man might just ruin me, and I think I’d enjoy every minute of it.
He stands at the side of the bed now, not fully extracted from my arms yet, and leans over to kiss me again. He lets out a soft groan against my lips as he pulls away.
“Don’t move,” he orders in a deep voice, his eyes fixed on my lips with a look that can only be described as predatory . Goosebumps break out across my skin at his commanding tone. He makes his way to the door and I inhale deeply, closing my eyes and stretching into the space he’s abandoned.
I hear the faint sound of the water pipes creaking into action in Xaden’s bathing chamber— and barely a moment later, it’s drowned out by the much louder sound of the whistling and cracking of explosions outside.
I sit up and swing my bare legs over the side of the bed and stand, wrapping a light blanket around myself as I move toward the window.
Another whistle sounds loudly, and I watch a spark fly in an arc through the air out in front of me ending with an explosion and bursts of crackling golden light.
Fireworks.
I watch as another few go off, setting my elbow on the windowsill and savoring the way the popping of the explosions mingles with the joyous shouts of drunk cadets and revelers below. They’re celebrating our impossible victory today, and while we all know the war is far from over, the elation around me almost feels infinite.
Another firework explodes, illuminating the night sky, and it reminds me of the last time I saw fireworks— at Basgiath, on Reunification Day.
I remember watching the fireworks through a window, waiting for Liam to return from the parapet—waiting for him to come back from checking on Xaden, who had been sitting out there alone. I press my fingers to my lips, exhaling as I think of how much has changed since that night.
Liam is gone, and that love and loss is carved into me, as much a part of who I am as the raw power in my veins.
And now I know love in a different way altogether. Loving Xaden is something I don’t yet have adequate words for. It’s something I feel in my bones, in my blood, in every breath I take when he’s near. It’s not just lust, not just wanting him—it’s a pull as inescapable as gravity, as if the universe conspired to bring us together before we ever had a choice in it.
And I wonder now if maybe we never did.
I feel Xaden come up behind me, his arms sliding around my waist as he pulls me flush against him. The bridge of his nose grazes my ear, sending a shiver down my spine as I melt into the warmth of his embrace.
His breath skims hot against the back of my neck, his lips hovering above my ear.
And then he speaks the very same words that started us down the path to this moment, his voice rough and intimate this time.
“You’re not where I left you, my love.”
***
the end.
Notes:
Ahh! I’m not crying, you’re crying! Thank you all so much for reading to the end.
This fic was a special one for me. I knew this idea of having Violet be with Liam first, to have him still die, and to have her find love again with Xaden was not going to be for everyone. So I am just delighted that a few of you stuck with it and encouraged me along the way!
Thanks to overjoyedisland for being my faithful beta. To thoughtsaboutshows for helping me from the beginning to with just getting the story vibes right and always being willing to read chapters for me too! And I have also loved getting to chat with infinitelymint and having her review these last chapters and give incredible feedback that really helped me so so much. And to serahadmoni for talking to me on discord about this second signet reveal and generally making me laugh with her smut writing playlist ideas. 😂
Come talk to me on the RQ discord or follow me on tumblr LoveMeDarkly29 if you wanna chat or follow what I do next. Thanks again and as always, a comment would mean the world to me after all that I poured into this fic 🫶🏽🖤
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