“Is someone going to clean up that mess and fight, or what?” I ask, ignoring the drip of thick liquid down the back of my neck. Standing here covered in his blood is better than lying there soaked in mine.
“And you wanted to take her on, Mairi.” One of the first-years scoffs from across the mat. He has deep-set brown eyes under angular brows and a wide square jaw, but I don’t know his name. I don’t fucking want to know his name.
I already know Sloane’s and Aaric’s, and that’s too much.
I knew Nadine’s.
We stand shoulder to shoulder as the first-years mop up the blood then finish their assessment, and I focus on cataloging every single thing that’s wrong with Sloane’s fighting style, which is…a lot. In fact, she looks like she’s spent nearly no time training for the quadrant.
That can’t be right. Liam was the best fighter in our year, and every marked one knows they have to report to the Riders Quadrant when they’re of age. Surely she’s trained.
“You sure she’s Liam’s sister?” Ridoc asks.
“Yep,” Imogen answers with a long sigh. “But she sure wasn’t fostered with fighters, and it shows.”
Aaric puts her on her ass six times with little to no effort.
Well, shit. This complicates some things. Like keeping her alive.
An hour later, I make it through physics under Rhi’s watchful gaze, more than aware of the first-year’s blood drying on my skin and holding my head high when other cadets stare. It’s easier once the ringing in my ears lessens, but I’m still nauseated as hell after class.
I beg off from dinner and turn down Rhi’s offer of help to get to my room, slowly but surely taking the steps up to the second-years’ floor. Every bone, every muscle, every fiber of my being aches.
A heartbeat before I reach for my door handle, I feel it, the familiar midnight-tinted shadow wrapping around my mind.
Relief courses through me as I push open the door and see Xaden leaning against the wall between my desk and my bed, looking ready to kill someone as usual, his arms folded over his chest.
“It’s been eight days,” I croak, wincing.
“I know,” he counters, pushing off the wall and crossing the room in a few steps. “And from what Tairn showed Sgaeyl, I should have told my commander to fuck off and gotten here sooner.” He takes my face in his hands in a way that feels completely different from the way Emetterio had earlier, and the rage shining in his eyes is at odds with the gentleness of his touch as he takes stock of my injuries.
“The blood is his.” My throat feels like I swallowed fire.
“Good.” His jaw flexes as his gaze drops to the bruises I know are around my neck.
“I don’t even know what his name was.”
“I know.” His hands fall away, and I immediately mourn their loss.
“Colonel Aetos sent him.”
He nods, the motion curt. “I’m sorry I couldn’t kill him first.”
“The first-year? Or Aetos?”
“Both.” He doesn’t smile at my attempt at a joke. “Let’s get you clean and wrapped up.”
“You can’t go around killing cadets. You’re an officer now.”
“Watch me.”
“What’s it like at Samara?” I ask him hours later as I sit cross-legged on my bed, bathed and choking down the bowl of soup he brought up for me from the mess in the main campus. Every swallow hurts, but he’s right—I can’t afford to weaken myself by not eating.
“Look at you, asking questions.” A corner of Xaden’s mouth rises as he leans back, taking over the armchair in the corner of my room, sharpening his daggers on a strap of leather. He ditched the flight leathers while I was in the bath, but he somehow looks even better in his new uniform. I can’t help but notice he didn’t add patches to this one, either. He’d only ever worn his wingleader insignia and wing designation while he was in the quadrant.
“I’m not fighting with you about your question game tonight.” I shoot a glare his way, spotting the two tomes Jesinia loaned me on the bookshelf next to him. But any thought of telling him about my research disappeared at his reminder that I’m not granted the full truth when it comes to him.
“Wanting you to ask what you want to know isn’t a game. You and me? Not a game.” He drags his blade over the leather again and again. “And Samara is… different.”
“The one-word answers aren’t going to cut it.”
He looks up from his work. “I have to prove myself all over again at what’s arguably the cruelest outpost we have. It’s…annoying.”
I crack a smile. Leave it to Xaden to be annoyed. “Do they treat you differently?”
“You mean because of this?” He taps the side of his neck with the flat of his blade, touching the relic.
“Yes.”
He shrugs. “I think the last name does it more than the relic. The older riders are easier on Garrick, which I’m thankful for.”
I set the spoon down in the bowl. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing worse than what I expected, and my signet’s enough to give most of them pause.” He puts the leather strap into his rucksack, then sheaths his last blade as he stands. “You know what it’s like. People judge you by your last name all the time.”
“I think it’s safe to say you have it worse.”
“Only within the borders.” He flips my armor over where it’s drying on the back of my desk chair, then crosses the room to sit on the end of my bed. It’s not as big as his was last year, but there’s room for both of us if I ask him to stay. Which I won’t. It’s hard enough to be this close and not kiss him. Sleeping next to him? I’d break for sure.
“Fair point.” I put the bowl on my nightstand and pick up my brush, my gaze drifting to the door when I hear Rhiannon’s voice in the hallway a second before she shuts her door. Which reminds me… “Did you ward my room from visitors before you left?”
He nods. “It’s warded against sound, too.” He crosses his ankle over his knee, keeping his boots off my bed. “One-way, of course. You can hear what’s going on out there, but they can’t hear what’s going on in here. Figured you might like your privacy.”
“For all the people I can’t bring in?”
“You can bring in whomever you want,” he counters.
“Really?” Sarcasm drips from my voice as I drag the brush through my damp hair. “Because Rhiannon tried to walk in and ended up on the other side of the hallway.”
The corners of his mouth lift into a glimpse of a smile. “Tell her to hold your hand next time. The only way in here is by touching you.”
“Wait.” I pause, then finish pulling the brush through my snagged ends. “So you didn’t ward it for only you and me?”
“It’s your room, Violet.” His eyes track the movement of the brush through my hair, and the way his fingers curl in his lap makes me swallow. Hard. “The room is warded to let in whomever you pull through.” He clears his throat and shifts his weight as I finish another pass with the brush. “And selfishly, me.”