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.
My breath catches at the memory. Has it really only been a few months since he said that? It feels simultaneously like forever…and yesterday.
“You warded my room for complete privacy for me and anyone I want to bring in?” I lift my eyebrows at him. “In case I feel like…”
“Doing whatever you want.” The heat in his gaze makes my breath catch. “No one will hear a thing. Even if you wreck an armoire.”
I fumble the brush and it falls into my lap, but I quickly recover. Kind of. “This particular one seems pretty solid. Nothing like the flimsy piece I had in my room last year.” The one we accidentally turned into firewood the first time we’d gotten our hands on each other.
“Is that a challenge?” He glances at the furniture. “Because I guarantee we can take it down once you’re healed.”
“No one’s ever fully healed around here.”
“Good point. Just say the words, Violet.” The way he looks at me is enough to raise my temperature a few degrees. “It only takes three.”
Three words?
Oh, like hell am I going to tell him that I want him. He already has too much power over me.
“Can and should are two different things,” I manage to say. My willpower when it comes to Xaden is pure shit. One touch, and I’ll be back in his arms, accepting whatever he deems as enough of the truth instead of the full access I deserve…no, need. “And we definitely shouldn’t.”
“Then tell me how your week was instead.” He changes topics smoothly.
“I couldn’t watch them all,” I admit. “At Parapet. I tried, but I…couldn’t.”
“You were on the tower?” His brow furrows.
“Yes.” I shift, tucking my sore knees to the side. “I promised Liam I’d help Sloane, and I couldn’t do that from the courtyard.” A sarcastic laugh escapes my lips. “And she fucking hates me.”
“It’s impossible to hate you.” He stands and walks to where his rucksack is leaned up against the wall. “Trust me. I tried.”
“Trust me. She does. She actually wanted to challenge me at assessment.” I lean back against my headboard. “She blames me for Liam’s death. Not that she’s wrong—”
“Liam’s death wasn’t your fault,” he interrupts, his body going rigid. “It was mine. If Sloane wants to hate anyone, she can aim it all right here.” He taps his chest as he turns, setting his rucksack on the desk.
“It wasn’t your fault.” It’s not the first time we’ve had the argument, and something tells me it won’t be the last. I guess there’s enough guilt for two to carry.
“It was.” He opens the top and rifles through the bag.
“Xaden—”
“How many candidates fell this year?” He pulls out a folded paper, then closes the bag.
“Too many.” Even now I can hear some of their screams.
“It’s always too many.” He sits on my bed again, this time close enough that my knees brush his thigh. “And it’s okay that you couldn’t watch the younger ones die. It means you’re still you.”
“As opposed to turning into someone else?” My stomach twists at the flat expression on his face, the wall mentioning Liam’s death put solidly between us. “Because I feel like I am. I don’t even want to know the first-years’ names. I don’t want to know them. I don’t want it to hurt when they die. What does that make me?”
“A second-year.” He says it matter-of-factly, the same way he’d declared that he couldn’t save every marked one last year, only the ones willing to help themselves.
Sometimes I forget how ruthless he is.
How ruthless he can be on my behalf.
“I’ve seen death before,” I respond. “I was practically surrounded by it last year.”
“It’s not the same. Seeing our friends—our equals—die on the Gauntlet, at Threshing, in challenges, or even in battle is one thing. Everyone in here is just fighting to survive, and it prepares us for what happens out there. But when it’s the younger candidates…” He shakes his head and leans forward.
I grip my brush to keep from reaching for him.
“The first year is when some of us lose our lives,” he says softly, tucking my damp hair behind my ear. “The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity. It’s all part of the process of turning us into effective weapons, and don’t forget for a second that’s the mission here.”
“Desensitizing us to death?”
He nods.
A knock sounds at the door, and I startle but can’t help but notice Xaden doesn’t. He sighs and stands, heading for the door.
“Already?” he asks after opening it, blocking me from view. Or blocking the view from me.
“Already.” I recognize Bodhi’s voice.
“Give me a minute.” Xaden shuts the door without waiting for a response.
“Let me come with you.” I swing my feet over the side of the bed.
“No.” He crouches in front of me, putting us at eye level, the parchment from his bag still clutched in his fist. “Sleep is the fastest way to heal unless you plan on seeking out Nolon, and from what I hear, he’s hard to come by these days.”
“You need sleep, too,” I protest around the dread filling my throat. We only have hours, and I’m not ready for him to go. “You flew for half a day.”
“I have a lot to get done before morning.”
“Let me help.” Shit, now I’m begging.
“Not yet.” He reaches out to cup my face, then drops his hand as if rethinking the move. “But I need you to pay close attention to what happens when you leave in seven days with Tairn.” He presses the paper into my hand. “Until then…here.”
“What is this?” I spare a glance downward, but it only looks like folded parchment.
“You told me once that I was scared you might not like me if you got to really know me.”
“I remember.”
“Every time we’re together, we’re training or fighting. There’s not a lot of time for long walks by the river or whatever passes for romance around here.” He squeezes my hand gently, but I can feel every callus he’s built from mastering his weaponry. “But I told you I’d find a way to let you in, and right now, this is all I have.”
My gaze jerks to his and my heart flies into my throat.
“I’ll see you at Samara.” He stands and grabs his rucksack and the two swords leaned up against the wall next to the door.
“How do I find you once I’m there?” My fingers clench the folded parchment. I’ve never even seen Samara. Mom has never been stationed there.
He turns at the door and looks back at me, holding my gaze. “Third floor, south wing, second door on the right. The wards will let you in.”
His barracks room.
“Let me guess—warded for sound and to let in you, me, and anyone you tug through?” The idea of him using that soundproofing for breaking armoires with someone else is enough to curdle the soup in my stomach.