Chapter Text
I was certain I was burning alive.
Sour acid scorched the back of my throat and settled deep into my lungs, like inhaling smoke. I thought I was screaming, but I could only hear the deafening crack of lightning over my head, then the sound of wyverns.
“Tairn?!” Silence. “Andarna?!” More silence.
This unbearable heat threatened to rip out from my chest in a mess of burned bones and a charred heart. Is this what dying from burnout feels like? Why couldn’t I hear them? I could use my signet, but I couldn’t hear them. Panic gripped me like a crushing wave, squeezing and dragging me under the depths of tight, suffocating darkness.
One. I tried to direct my strike at a wyvern, but it missed entirely. Fuck!
Two. Closer, but the darkness seemed to tunnel in on me like shadows blinding my vision. I lost any chance to aim remotely accurately as my vision clouded over. Shadows.
“Xaden!?”
Crack!
I was coated in a cold sweat when I bolted up, tangled in familiar sheets. Light grazed through the partially open curtains of Xaden’s bedroom in Riorson House. My eyes darted over beside me, and I let out an exhale of relief.
His dark eyelashes fluttered against his golden brown skin, and I reached out to gently trace the scar that ran through his left eyebrow down to his cheek. My heart was still racing and throwing extra beats in palpitations that nearly took my breath away, but it all began to ease when I rested my palm against his bicep. An overwhelming, reassuring warmth flooded my chest as I memorized, for the millionth time, the curve of his bottom lip and ran my thumb across the dark stubble on his jaw.
Xaden stirred. His warm hand wrapped around my wrist, and he tilted his head to press his lips gently to the underside. Goosebumps tickled up my forearm.
“Your heart is racing,” Xaden murmured as he kissed my pulse point, his voice thick from sleep. “Are you dizzy?”
“No,” I reassured him, using my free hand to run through the gentle curls of his black hair. I combed back the curls from his forehead. So beautiful. “Nightmare.”
Xaden hummed before his eyes fluttered open and gazed up at me. Those gold, no, amber-flecked onyx eyes would forever have a chokehold on me. His lips were neutral, but I could see the question in his gaze before he asked.
“What’s bothering you, Violence? ” Xaden’s shadowy presence caressed my mind through the bond.
“Nothing,” I lied, because why ruin such a perfect and calm moment when we rarely get them? My hand tugged his arm from his body, and I settled back under the sheets. With my chest pressed against his, only the thin satin fabric of my nightgown separated us, and that thought alone made me clench my thighs. I trailed my mouth across the underside of his jaw, and I felt that low groan vibrate under my lips.
“Trying to kill me this morning, I see,” Xaden purred, and I continued to press gentle kisses down the column of his neck. I could feel the warmth of his breath against my shoulder, and it made me shiver. His hand slid into my hair, and his fingers curled against my scalp, warranting a soft moan to slip between my lips. Yes, this. I needed this.
“If I were trying to kill you, this is not where my mouth would be,” I teased, punctuating the suggestion with a graze of my teeth over his pulse. Xaden quickly pulled me half on top of him, his free hand gripping my hip firmly. The scent of mint, leather, and something faintly citrus or floral filled my lungs as I inhaled deeply. Why couldn’t we stay like this forever?
“Fuck,” Xaden uttered, and within seconds my back was pressed to the mattress. His thighs were on either side of my hips, his fingers were laced between mine, and he held them on each side of my head. He angled his face down. That languid drift of his dark eyes down my body brought a wave of heat through my chest to my abdomen.
“That’s the plan.” I gave him my best innocent smile.
“You are anything but innocent, Violence.” His mouth was on mine, and my heart exploded.
As desperate as I was to get my hands on him, he held them down, devouring my mouth as if he was starving, as if I was his fresh gasp of oxygen after drowning. I kissed him back, and he moved his knee between my thighs, forcing them apart. A soft, desperate sound muffled against his mouth.
“Xaden."
“Yes?”
Xaden’s teeth grazed my bottom lip, and I melted into the sheets. Consuming heat blazed between us, destructive and needing. When his kiss trailed down my jaw and to my neck, my back arched off the mattress.
“Let go of my hands,” my voice came out embarrassingly breathless.
“Not a chance,” Xaden whispered hoarsely against the sensitive spot below my ear. “These hands stay right here. I’m worshipping you with my mouth this morning.”
My mind went blank.
“Fuck. Vi,” Xaden mumbled thickly with a press of his knee to my core. “You’re already soaked, aren’t you?”
“Do you even need to ask? ” My breath hissed between my lips at the friction. I need.. I need.. I need …
“Tell me what you need,” Xaden nipped at my throat, earning a low whine from me. I didn’t stop to consider that I hadn’t pushed that thought down the bond, maybe he felt it in me. This toe-curling desperation.
“Kiss me,” I pleaded. My nails pressed into the skin between his knuckles, and for a second, I worried I could have broken skin. “Please.”
“I do love when you beg, Violet,” Xaden murmured against my collarbone. His lips sucked little red marks into my flesh that had me aching for more. My heart skipped a beat as his hands traveled down to hold my forearms against the mattress, his lips trailing down my chest until he reached the fabric. “Do you have any idea-”
A knock echoed at the bedroom door. The only noise I could compare to the sound that came from Xaden’s throat was an impatient growl.
“We have a situation,” Bodhi called from the hallway, his tone bordering on nervous. “Are you both decent?”
“No,” Xaden snapped while moving off me. I laid on the bed with a sweeping sense of disappointment. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose, as if remembering his bedroom was warded and soundproof.
“So much for a moment of peace,” I mumbled and sat up. Ignoring the wave of dizziness, I pressed my hands to my cheeks. My skin still felt flushed.
Only Xaden could make putting on the Rider’s uniform just as hot as taking it off. His fingers were skilled at a lot of things; fighting with the toughness of the leather and buckling the fastenings were only two of those notable skills. Another was how fast he could get them off when he wanted to, and mine for that matter.
I joined him, dressing in my leathers and stowing my daggers. Xaden answered the door, stepping out to talk to Bodhi about whatever situation was going on.
“Seriously? This is your emergency situation?” I rubbed my forehead and stared between my bickering siblings.
Yet, as I stood in the middle of the library, it seemed both Mira and Brennan had gone silent. Their glares matched. Mira’s nostrils flared with her fists clenched at her sides, and Brennan’s brow ticked up. Brennan held a thick book in his hand, but I could tell from the way he shifted his hand over the cover when I entered that he didn’t want me to read the title.
“You’re the only one they’ll listen to,” Bodhi mumbled and crossed his arms beside me. Xaden stood on my other side.
“What is going on?” I raised my voice, and both my siblings turned their hard gazes to me. Only Mira’s eyes softened, but neither spoke. I raised both my brows and moved one of my hands to my hip. Ah. One of those fights. Probably over something stupid.
“Ah, the Sorrengail stubborn temper at it’s finest,” Xaden cocked an eyebrow my way. I rolled my eyes.
“Are you both done?” I asked with a tilted head, the lack of amusement on my face apparent.
“Yes,” Brennan said before excusing himself from the room. Mira watched him leave, and I relaxed my shoulders.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I stepped toward my sister.
“No. I have to go.” Mira stepped past me and out the doorway. Now my gaze trailed after her, leaving a pang in my chest.
“That went well .” My frustration leaked through the mental tone of my voice.
“One of them will tell you when they’re ready. ” Xaden’s voice felt like a soothing balm over my anxieties. I felt his hands run down my biceps from behind me, the heat of his chest like a warm blanket I wanted to wrap up in and never come out. Instinctively, I leaned back into the hard planes of his chest, and Xaden wrapped his arm around my waist.
“That’s it?” Bodhi said as he looked between us and the doorway.
“Did you want her to interrogate them?” Xaden rested his chin on the top of my head, his voice smooth. I didn’t need to see his face to know he was smirking. His fingers curled into the sliver between my top and my pants, sending treacherous coils of heat to my center.
Bodhi gave his cousin a particularly pointed stare, then turned on his feet and left us unsupervised without another word.