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“And look at you! You didn't die!' Irrational, giddy laughter bubbles up. 'I didn't die! You're not an only child!' We both burst into laughter, and tears track down my cheeks. 'Sorrengails are weird,' I hear Imogen state. 'You have no idea,' Dain answers, but when I turn to look, his lips are curved into the first genuine smile I've seen from him in months.”

“Three days?' Dain fires back, leaning in. 'You couldn't make it three days?' 'It has nothing to do with him.' I interrupt, setting my dragon down with a little more force than necessary. 'That's up to Tairn and Sgaeyl.' 'You never considered that it was you I couldn't stay away from?' I crook my right arm and jab it into Xaden's biceps. He doesn't mean that. Not when he's still adamant that kissing me was a mistake. And if he does... I'm not going there... 'Now, now, you'll give our little communication secret away if you can't keep from being so... violent.' He barely restrains a smile, obviously loving that he gets the last word.”

“You ran,' I snarl, wishing I could lunge forward and beat the shit out of him, but forcing my feet to stay planted where they are. 'That day in the field, you fucking ran when it was three on one, and we both know when it comes down to it, you'll run again. That's what cowards do.' Jack flushes, his eyes nearly bugging out of his face. 'Oh, for fuck's sake, Violet,' Dain mutters. 'She's not wrong,' Xaden drawls.”

“You're all right?' he asks, brushing my hair back from my face. 'I'm great. You're great. That was...' 'Great?' he supplies. 'Exactly. 'I was going to use the word "explosive", but I think "great" covers it.' His fingers tangle in my hair. 'I fucking love your hair. If you ever want to bring me to my knees or win an argument, just let it down. I'll get the point.”

“Did I...' 'Ser the curtains on fire?' He lifts a brow. 'Yes.' 'Oh.' I can't find it in me to be embarrassed, so I brush the backs of my fingers across the stubble along his jaw. 'And you put it out.' 'Yes. Right before I destroyed your throwing target.' He grimaces. 'I'll get you a new one.' I glance over at the armoire. 'And we...' 'Yep.' He lifts his brows. 'and I'm pretty sure you need a new chair, too.' 'That was...' I didn't even get the man's pants entirely off, and my dressing gown is haphazardly hanging from one shoulder. 'Frighteningly perfect.' He cups the side of my face. ' We should get you cleaned up and to sleep. We can worry about... your room tomorrow. Ironically, your bed is the only thing we didn't wreck.”

“I reach out and trace the dragon relic on his back, my fingers lingering on the raised silver scars, and he stiffens. They're all short, thin lines, too precise to be a whip, no rhyme or reason to their pattern but never intersecting. 'What happened?' I whisper, holding my breath. 'You really don't want to know.' He's tense, but doesn't move away from my touch. 'I do.' They don't look accidental. Someone hurt him deliberately maliciously, and it makes me want to hunt the person down and do the same to them. His jaw flexes as he looks over his shoulder, and his eyes meet mine. I bite my lip, knowing this moment can go either way. He can shut me out like always or he can actually let me in. 'There's a lot of them,' I murmur, dragging my fingers down his spine. 'A hundred and seven.' He looks away. The number makes my stomach lurch, and then my hand pauses. A hundred and seven. That's the number Liam mentioned. 'That's how many kids under the age of majority carry the rebellion relic.' 'Yeah.' I shift so I can see his face. 'What happened, Xaden?' He brushes my hair back, and the look that passes is over his face is so close to tender that it makes my heart stutter. 'I saw the opportunity to make a deal,' he says softly. 'And I took it.' 'What kind of deal leaves you with scars like that?' Conflict rages in his eyes, but then he sighs. 'The kind where I take personal responsibility for the loyalty of the hundred and seven kids the rebellion's leaders left behind, and in return, we're allowed to fight for our lives in the Riders Quadrant instead of being put to death like our parents.' He averts his gaze. 'I chose the chance of death over the certainty.' The cruelty of the offer and the sacrifice he made to save the others hits like a physical blow. I cradle his cheek and guide his face back to mine. 'So if any of them betray Navarre...' I lift my brows. 'Then my life is forfeit. The scars are a reminder.' It's why Liam says he owes him everything. 'I'm so sorry that happened to you.' Especially when he wasn't the one who led the rebellion. He looks at me like he sees into the very depths of who I am. 'You have nothing to apologise for.”

“He might wield shadows, Violet, but give him his way, and you'll become one.' 'That won't happen,' I promise her. 'It will if he has anything to say about it.' Her gaze flickers behind me. 'Killing someone isn't the only way to destroy them. Keeping you from reaching your potential seems like a great path to the retribution he swore against our mother.”

“Are you calling me weak?' 'No.' Mira squeezes my hand. 'Just... fragile.' 'That's not any better.' Dragons don't bond fragile women. They incinerate them. 'So she's small.' Mom scans me up and down, taking in the generous fit of the cram belted tunic and pants I selected this morning for my potential execution. I snort. 'Are we just listing my faults now?' 'I never said it was a fault.' Mom turns to my sister. 'Mira, Violet deals with more pain before lunch than you do in an entire week. If any of my children is capable of surviving the Rider's Quadrant, it's her.”

“You can't keep your seat?' 'No.' It's barely a whisper, and the heat of embarrassment scorches my skin.' 'How the hell can you not?' Her mouth hangs open. 'Because I'm not you"' I shout. She rears back like I've slapped her, our hands breaking apart. 'But you... you look so much stronger now.' 'My joints and muscles are stronger because Imogen makes me lift these horrible weights, but that doesn't... fix me.' Mira blanches. 'No. I didn't mean it like that, Vi. You're not anything that needs to be fixed. I just didn't know you couldn't hold your seat. Why didn't you tell me?' 'Because there's nothing you can do about it.' I force a wry smile. 'There's nothing anyone can do about the way I'm made.”

“Get your dagger,' he orders. 'What?' My eyes fly wide. He has me defenceless and in the kill position already. 'Get. Your. Dagger,' he repeats, taking my hand in his and retrieving the last blade I have. His fingers curl over mine, clasping the hilt. Fire races along my skin at the feel of his fingers lacing with mine. Toxic. Dangerous. Wants to kill you. Nope, doesn't matter. My pulse still skitters like a teenager. 'You're tiny.' He says it like an insult. 'Well aware.' My eyes narrow. 'So stop going for bigger moves that expose you.' He drags the tip of the dagger down his side. 'A rib shot would've worked just fine.' Then he guides our hands around his back, making himself vulnerable. 'Kidneys are a good fit from this angle, too.' I swallow, refusing to think of other things that are a good fit at this angle. He leads our hands to his waist, his gaze never leaving mine. 'Chances are, if your opponent is in armour, it's weak here. Those are three easy places you could have struck before your opponent would have had time to stop you.' They're also fatal wounds, and I've avoided them at all costs. 'Do you hear me?' I nod. 'Good. Because you can't poison every enemy you come across,' he whispers, and I blanche. 'You're not going to have time to offer tea to some Braevi gryphon rider when they come at you.' 'How did you know?' I finally ask. My muscles lock, including my thighs, which just happen to still be bracketing his hips. His eyes darken. 'Oh, Violence. You're good, but I've known better poison masters. The trick is to not make it quite so obvious.”

“I hold up my middle finger and keep my eyes forward. Not that I don't like Liam, but I'm still pissed at Xaden for assigning him. Liam snorts and grins, flashing his dimple. 'And now he's glaring. Tell me, is it fun pissing off the most powerful rider in the quadrant?' 'You could try it yourself and find out,' I suggest, opening my notebook to the next empty page. I can't turn around. I won't. Wanting Xaden is fine. It has to be. Indulging the impulses it gives me? That's asinine. 'That's going to be a no from me.”

“You're a shameless flirt.' 'Thank you.' He grins and goes back to carving. 'It wasn't a compliment.' 'Don't mind her, she's just sexually frustrated. Makes a girl crabby.' ... 'That has nothing to do with it.' Gods, could she have said that a little louder? 'And yet I don't hear you denying it.' She smiled sweetly at me. 'I'm sorry I don't make the cut,' Liam teases. 'But I'm sure Riorson would be fine with my reviewing a couple candidates, especially if it means you'll stop flipping him off in front of his entire wing.' 'And how exactly would you be reviewing candidates? What will you be scoring?' Rhiannon asks, one eyebrow raised above her wide grin. 'This I have to hear.' I manage a straight face for all of two seconds before laughing at how horrified he suddenly looks. 'Thanks for the offer, though. I'll make sure to run any potential liaisons by you.' 'I mean, you could watch,' Rhiannon continues, blinking innocently at him. 'Just to be sure she's fully covered. You know, so no one... sticks it to her.' 'Oh, are we telling dick jokes now?' Ridoc asks from Liam's side. 'Because my entire life has led up to this moment.' Even Sawyer laughs. 'Fuck me,' Liam mutters under his breath.”

“That is...' Rhiannon murmurs beside me. 'It sure is,' I agree. 'Stop objectifying your wingleader,' Liam teases. 'Is that what we're doing?' Rhiannon asks, not bothering to look away. My mouth waters at the muscled expanse of his back and that sculpted ass. 'Yeah, I think that's what we're doing.' Liam snorts. 'We could just be watching for technique.' 'Yeah. We absolutely could be.' But I'm not.”

“You're overstepping.' My nails bite into my palms. 'You haven't begun to see overstepping,' he warns, hid voice dropping low, sending a shiver down my spine. 'Any threat against you is a threat against me, and as we've already established, I have more important things to do than sleep on your floor.' Heat flushes up my neck and stains my cheeks. 'He is not sleeping in my room.' 'Of course not.' He freaking smirks, and my traitorous stomach dips. 'I had him moved into the one next to yours. Wouldn't want to overstep.”

“How does anyone think long-term around here?' 'Not everyone is in a quadrant where death is less of a chance and more of a foregone conclusion.' I breathe in the scent of the Archives and try to absorb a little of the peace it brings. 'So you're saying that some people still try to make cute little things like plans.”

“You doing all right with whatever is going on there?' Liam asks, startling me. 'And if I tell you I'm not sure?' I give him the same answer, my lips curving. 'I'd think you got yourself in over your head.' The look on his face is anything but teasing now. 'For someone who said he owns Xaden everything, that's not a glowing recommendation.' I drop my pack to the ground and roll the tense muscles of my shoulders. 'Don't turn into Dain on me.”

“Come on, let's get you to bed.' I lean in and kiss the scar on his eyebrow. 'It will be tomorrow when you wake up.' 'I don't deserve you.' His arm curls around my hips and he tugs me closer. 'But I'm going to keep you all the same.' 'Good.' I lean in and brush my lips over his. 'Because I think I'm in love with you.' My heart beats erratically, and panic claws up my rib cage. I shouldn't have said it. His eyes flare wide and his arms tighten around me. 'You think? Or you know?' Be brave. Even if he doesn't feel the same, at least I will have spoken my truth. 'I know. I'm so wildly in love with you that I can't imagine what my life would even look like without you in it. And I probably shouldn't have said that, but if we're doing this, then we're starting from a place of complete honesty.' He crushes his mouth to mine and pulls me fully into his lap so I'm straddling him. He kisses me so deep that I lose myself in it, in him.”

“Maybe if you stopped sulking in your self-pity, you'd see that you have everything you need to scale the Gauntlet,' he calls after me, his voice echoing down the hallway. 'My self-what?' I turn around, my jaw dropping. 'People die,' he says slowly, his jaw ticking before he drags in a deep breath. 'It's going to happen over and over again. It's the nature of what happens here. What makes you a rider is what you do after people die. You want to know why you're still alive? Because you're the scale I currently judge myself against every night. Every day I let you live, I get to convince myself that there's still a part of me that's a decent person. So if you want to quit, then please, spare me the temptation and fucking quit. But if you want to do something, then do it.' 'I'm too short to span the distance!' I hiss, uncaring that anyone could hear us. 'The right way isn't the only way. Figure it out.' Then he turns and walks away. Fuck. Him.”

“You're all fucking dead.' His voice is eerily calm and all the scarier for it. Every head in the room turns. 'Riorson!' Orsen's dagger clatters to the floor. 'You think surrendering will save you?' Xaden's lethally soft tone sends goose bumps up my arms. 'It is against our code to attack another rider in their sleep.' 'But you know he never should have bonded her!' Orsen puts his hands up, his palms facing us. 'You of all people have reason enough to want the weakling dead. We're just correcting a mistake.' 'Dragons don't make mistakes.' Xaden's shadows grab every assailant but Orsen by the throat, then constrict. They struggle, but it doesn't matter. Their faces turn people, the shadows holding tight as they sag to their knees, falling in an arc in front of me like lifeless puppets. I can't find it in my head to pity them. Xaden prowls forward as though he has all the time in the world and holds out his palm as yet another tendril of darkness lifts my discarded dagger from the floor. 'Let me explain.' Orsen eyes the dagger, and his hands tremble. 'I've heard everything I need to hear.' Xaden's fingers curl around the hilt. 'She should have killed you in the field, but she's merciful. That's not a flaw I possess.' He slashes forward so quickly that I barely catch the move, and Oren's throat opens in a horizontal line, blood streaming down his neck and chest in a torrent. He grabs for his throat, but it's useless. He bleeds out in seconds, crumpling to the floor. A crimson puddle grows around him. 'Damn, Xaden,' Garrick walks in, sheathing his sword as his gazes rakes over the room. 'No time for questioning?' His glance sweeps to me as if cataloguing injuries, catching on my throat. 'No need for it,' Xaden counters...”

“I'm not going to tell.' ... 'Interesting,' he says softly. 'We'll see if you keep your word, and if you do, then unfortunately, it looks like I owe you a favour.' Then he steps away, turns, and walks off, heading back toward the staircase in the cliff that leads up to the citadel. Wait. What? 'You're not going to handle me?' I call after him, shock raising my brows. 'Not tonight!' he tosses over his shoulder. I scoff. 'What are you waiting for?' 'It's no fun if you expect it,' he answers, striding into the darkness. 'Now get back to bed before your wingleader realises you're out after curfew.' 'What?' I gawk after him. 'You're my wingleader!”

“Tell me what you're thinking.' I wind my arms around his neck. 'I was thinking you are exactly as I predicted the first time you took me in my room.' 'Oh yeah?' He draws back, curiosity sparking in his eyes. 'And what exactly was that?' 'A very dangerous addiction.' My gaze skims over the silver line of his scar, the thick lashes so many women would kill for, and over the bump in his nose to that perfectly sculped mouth. I've already told him that I love him, so it's not like I'm keeping secrets over here. Hell, compared to him, I'm an open book. 'Impossible to sate.' His eyes darken. 'I'm going to keep you,' he promises, just like he did last night. Or was it this morning? 'You're mine, Violet.' I lift my chin. 'Only if you're mine.' 'I've been yours for longer than you could ever imagine.”