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A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.
“Stay the hell away from Xaden Riorson.” The air rushes from my lungs. That name… “That Xaden Riorson,” she confirms, fear lacing her gaze. “He’s a third-year, and he will kill you the second he finds out who you are.” “His father was the Great Betrayer. He led the rebellion,”
He’s risen to the rank of wingleader.”
“Stay. Away. From. Him.”
He’s tall, with windblown black hair and dark brows. The line of his jaw is strong and covered by warm tawny skin and dark stubble, and when he folds his arms across his torso, the muscles in his chest and arms ripple, moving in a way that makes me swallow. And his eyes… His eyes are the shade of gold-flecked onyx. The contrast is startling, jaw-dropping even—everything about him is. His features are so harsh that they look carved, and yet they’re astonishingly perfect, like an artist worked a
lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth. He’s the most exquisite man I’ve ever seen.
“Your mother captured my father and oversaw his execution.” Wait. Like he has the only right to hatred here? Rage races through my veins. “Your father killed my older brother. Seems like we’re even.”
His voice is like rough velvet along my skin,
you’re really a violent little thing, aren’t you?”
I hate how beautiful he is, how lethal his abilities make him as he strides toward me, shadows curling around his footsteps. He’s like one of those poisonous flowers I’ve read about from the Cygnis forests to the east. His allure is a warning not to get too close, and I am definitely too close.
His gaze locks onto the length of my braid where it falls over my shoulder, and I could swear he stops breathing for a heartbeat before he slides the remaining dagger into one of the sheaths at my ribs.
I let my gaze shift to meet Xaden’s. My heart does that damn stuttering thing again,
“Going for blood today, are we,
Violence?”
“My name is Violet,” I seethe. “I think my version fits you better.”
Beautiful. Fucking. Asshole. My breath catches and my body warms, the traitorous bitch. You are not attracted to toxic men, I remind myself, and yet, here I am, getting all attracted. I have been since the first second I saw him, if I feel like being honest.
Defenseless women have never been my type. We’re done for today.”
just need to know what my chances are here.” My hands curl into fists. The ass has the nerve to smile. “That’s the oddest way I’ve ever been hit on—”
His eyes flare, and I don’t miss the hint of a smirk on that infuriatingly decadent mouth of his. It should be against the Codex to look that good and be so ruthless.
my body jerks with whiplash as I’m yanked upward again. “You’re making us look bad. Stop it.”
“I know exactly who and what you are, Violet Sorrengail.”
“Violet, are you all right?” the redhead asks, and everyone around me, above me, leans in. “Tell her,” the golden insists. “Tairn. What am I supposed to—” I think at him. “Tell the roll-keeper her name,” Tairn echoes.
“And Andarnaurram,” I whisper. Her eyes fly wide. “Both dragons?” she squawks. I nod. And all hell breaks loose.
“They’re a mated pair, Tairn and Sgaeyl. The strongest bonded pair in centuries.”
Oh. Gods. I’m tethered to Xaden Riorson.
I belong to Tairn and Andarna…and, in some really fucked-up way…Xaden.
Suddenly, my vision isn’t mine. I’m looking at my own back through…Andarna’s eyes. A back that has a glistening black relic of a dragon mid-flight stretching from shoulder to shoulder and, in the center, the silhouette of a shimmering golden one.
“And you know how much that ass annoys me.” “Annoys you?” Tairn chuckles above me, the sound like a chuffing cat. “Is that what you call it when your heart rate—” “Don’t even start with me.”
“He’s almost there!” Tairn promises, panic lacing his tone. He who?
“You’re all fucking dead.”
I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. I repeat the mantra in my head as Xaden wipes the blood from my dagger on the back of Oren’s tunic. “Yes. You’re alive.”
“I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud.”
“Are you hurt?”
His fingers are warm under my chin as he tilts my head up so our gazes collide.
“I should have killed him slower.” “I’m fine.” I’m not. His focus snaps back to my eyes. “Never lie to me.” He says it with such ferocity, bit out through gritted teeth, that I can’t help but nod in promise. “It hurts,” I admit. “Let me see.” I open and shut my mouth twice. “Is that a request or a demand?” “Your pick as long as I get to see if that fucker broke your ribs.” His hands curl into fists.
holding the material above my breasts as it dips in the back to my waist. “You’ll have to—” “I know how to handle a corset.”
What the hell is wrong with me? There’s still blood on my floor and yet my breaths are tight for the entirely wrong reason as he makes quick work of the laces, starting at the bottom. He wasn’t lying. He absolutely knows his way around a corset.
I do, tugging my nightdress back over my shoulders, and he drops to his knees on the floor before me. My eyes widen. Xaden Riorson is kneeling before me, his black hair at the perfect level for me to run my fingers through the thickness.
Then he robs me of every logical thought by putting on my boots and lacing them one at a time. This is the same man who had no problems with my death just a few months ago, and my brain can’t seem to wrap itself around the different sides of him. “Let’s go.” He wraps my cloak around my shoulders and buttons it at my collar like I’m something precious. Now I know I’m in shock because I’m anything but precious to Xaden Riorson.
“Can’t you just hide us in shadows or something?” “Sure, because a giant black cloud moving down the hallway isn’t going to look more suspicious than a couple sneaking around.” He shoots me a look that keeps me from countering. Point taken. Not that we’re a couple. Not that I wouldn’t climb the man like a tree if presented with the right set of circumstances.
“None of your business what I choose or do not choose to channel toward my rider,” Tairn answers with a growl. This is going well. “He says—” I start. “I heard him,” Xaden counters, not sparing me a glance. “You what?”
Guess that means he can hear Tairn, but not Andarna.
Just like it always does, my stupid, hormone-driven heart stutters at the first sight of Xaden. Even the most effective poisons come in pretty packages, and Xaden’s exactly that—as beautiful as he is lethal.
“Stop objectifying our wingleader,” Liam teases.
“Damn it. Touching you was a bad idea.” “The worst,” I agree, but my tongue skims my lower lip. He groans and my core melts at the sound. “Kissing you would be a cataclysmic mistake.”
“Fuck it.”
I jolt at the simple knowledge that there’s nothing he could do that I wouldn’t welcome. I want him. Only him. Here. Now. Anywhere. Whenever.
Between Xaden’s meetings, stopping time, and Andarna’s age, I’m starting to keep too many secrets.
“You’re all worried about the integrity of the wing because Riorson might have to visit to keep his dragon happy but, Violet, he’s not the most powerful rider of our generation. You are.”
He looks from me to Ridoc. “Guard her like you’re me.”
