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The second we’re within the confines of the wall, he hauls me against him, my back to his front. “Don’t ever put your life at risk over something as trivial as talking to me again.”
“Did you know I can’t stand to hear his name on your lips while you’re leading the way to my room?”
“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?” His voice lowers. “If not, I’m a fool, because you are magnificently beautiful.”
His eyes fly open and gods, are they beautiful. I’ve memorized every gold fleck in those onyx depths, and it’s a good thing, since I don’t know where he’ll be sent after graduation.
I keep my eyes on his as I cup the unrelenting angles of his face, then trace the scar that bisects a brow. “Challenge?” “Sgaeyl.” He shrugs. “Threshing.”
“Most dragons scar their riders, but Tairn and Andarna have never hurt me,”
“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.”
“Xaden.” My heart thunders. “I fucking need you, Violet. Right now. And I don’t need anyone, so I’m not quite sure how to handle this feeling, but I’m giving it my best. And if you don’t want this tonight, that’s fine, but I’m going to need you to walk out that door right now, because if you don’t, I’m going to have you naked on your back in the next two minutes.”
“I think two minutes might be overestimating your skills with a corset.” I glance down at my armor.
“Which one are you calling out for?” he asks against my flesh. “Because it’s just you and me in this room, Vi, and I don’t share.”
I’m not going to survive this. I’m going to die right here in this bed. “Then I’m going to die with you,” he promises, kissing me.
“I think there’re a lot of people dead, which is why they’re calling the full quadrant to formation, jackass!” Garrick growls.
“If Garrick’s right and we’re under attack, then my guess is they’ll order the older years to staff the mid-guard posts, so you shouldn’t be out in formation too long. I can’t stand the thought of you being cold.”
“Violet Sorrengail,” she whispers, moving closer. “Are you wearing Riorson’s flight jacket?”
“Wear every single dagger you own,” Xaden demands, startling me.
“The wingleader had it made for me. See? It hooks to Tairn’s.”
“You want the truth? She’s a fuck of a lot safer with me beyond the wards than she is with you within them. We both know it.” The
“Keep looking at me like that and we’ll be stopped longer than a half hour,” he warns without looking at me. “Promise?”
“Worrying about you is ninety-nine percent of what I do.”
“Trust me, my motives aren’t altruistic, Violence. I’ll take any excuse I can get to put my hands on you.”
“You’re mine, Violet.” I lift my chin. “Only if you’re mine.” “I’ve been yours for longer than you could ever imagine.”
“You take a step toward that Sorrengail and you’ll be dead before you can even shift your weight,”
“There is only one other bond more sacred than that of a dragon and its rider.” A dragon and its mate.
“Dragons have riders, and gryphons have fliers.”
Folklore is passed from one generation to the next to teach us about our past.
“You’re saying people who can somehow tap into the source of magic without a dragon or gryphon to channel, corrupting their power beyond all salvation, actually exist.” I say the words slowly just so we’re crystal clear. “They’re not just part of the creation fable.”
“You love me, and—” “Loved,” I correct him, sidestepping so I can get some fucking space and then taking it. “Love!” he shouts, stopping me in my tracks and earning us a glance from every rider within hearing distance. “You love me.”
“Everything between us is real, Violence.”
I never lied when I said I can’t live without you, Violence.” He backs away slowly, his lips curving in a sad smile. “And defenseless women have never been my type, remember?”
“I would know if he read my memories.” Xaden’s face falls, and his hand slips downward, cradling the back of my neck. “No, Violence. Trust me, you wouldn’t.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Xaden says to me, then rips his gaze from mine and turns to his friends, who are running down the ramparts to join us. “We’ve been sent here to die.”
“As sure as I can be without having actually seen them before. Four of them. Purple robes. Distended red veins spidering all around bright red eyes. Creepy as shit.” “Sounds about right.” Xaden’s weight shifts. “I liked it better when we just delivered the weapons,” Bodhi mutters.
“Red veins?” Imogen asks. “Because magic corrupts their blood as they lose their souls,”
“Wyvern. Fables say venin created them to compete with dragons and, instead of channeling from them, channel power into them.”
As angry as I am, I can’t imagine a world without him in it. “I need you to survive this, even if I hate that I still love you.” “I can live with that.”
“Deigh’s gone,” I cry to Xaden, my voice a trembling mess. “Liam is dying.”
“Thank you, Liam. Thank you for being my shadow. Thank you for being my friend.” He blurs in my vision as the tears come faster. “It’s been. My honor.” Liam’s chest rattles as his lungs struggle.
Seconds later, his soundless, soul-rending scream fills my head with such force that my heart shatters like glass against a stone floor. I don’t need to ask. Liam is gone.
“There is no me without you,” he says against my skin.
can!” Every second matters, and these are bound to be my last—our last.
Because right now, standing near the dead body of my friend and his dragon—all I want is to show these assholes exactly how violent I can be.
You could command the sky to surrender all its power, and I bet you don’t know what to do with it, do you?
But apparently when a venin dies, so do the wyvern they created. All of them. That’s how we can save everyone on this battlefield.
“I will bet my life on you as I have from the first day,”
Damn, sometimes I forget just how beautifully lethal he is.
I think I might die today.
“You can hate me all you want when you wake up. You can scream, hit, throw your fucking daggers at me for all I care, but you have to live. You can’t make me fall for you and then die. None of this is worth it without you.”
Sleep is where I hear her heartbreaking scream, hear her cry that Liam died, hear her call me a fucking traitor over and over.
And when she smiled at me after mastering her shield in mere minutes, her face lighting up as the snow fell around us, I fucking fell. We hadn’t even kissed, and I fell.
“I’ll make it up to you,” I promise, holding her delicate hands between my rough ones. “I’m not saying we won’t fight or you won’t want to throw those daggers at me when I’m inevitably an ass, but I swear I will always strive to do better.”
