Gods, I fucking want him. Just like this. Just us.
“Violet.” It’s a mental groan as his mouth thoroughly lays claim to mine. “Oh for fuck’s sake.” A familiar voice intrudes on my own little piece of heaven, and that’s when I remember.
This is supposed to be for show, and here I am, completely losing myself in him. In the middle of the courtyard. In front of gods only know who. And that weightless feeling? It’s because I’m anchored against his chest by one of his strong arms, my feet dangling off the ground.
“Good enough show for you?” I draw back slowly, dragging my teeth across his bottom lip before releasing him.
“Fuck the show.” His eyes flare with the same heat that has me ready to combust. At least I’m not the only one losing control. I know that look on his face. He’s just as turned on as I am.
He kisses me again, losing his polished finesse in favor of untamed demand, and I melt.
“Put my sister down, Riorson. You made your point.” That familiar voice— My head whips to the right, breaking the kiss. “Mira?”
She taps her fingers along her folded arms, but her stern expression—eerily close to our mother’s—doesn’t last more than a breath before her mouth curves into a smile. “Good to see you, Vi.”
“What are you doing here?” I grin as Xaden sets me down. Then I step over the discarded bag to hug my sister.
“As of yesterday, I’m stationed here.” She holds me tightly, just like she always does, then pushes me away by the shoulders to do her customary inspection for mortal wounds.
“I’m fine,” I promise her.
“Are you sure?” Her hands move to the sides of my head, and she rises up on her tiptoes to look down at me. “Because I’m thinking you must have taken a pretty serious blow to the head to be involved with this one.”
I blink. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?
“Play along, or you’ll be in her room tonight. Not mine,” Xaden tells me.
“She’s been more than adamant.”
“Right, well…” Shit, I really don’t want to lie to my sister any more than I have to.
“I’m going to take your bags to my room,” Xaden says, helping me out of the pack on my back, then picking up the two I dropped.
“Thank you,” I say mostly out of habit.
He leans in and brushes a kiss over my forehead. “I have duty today.”
“No,” I whisper, my stomach dropping in disappointment. That doesn’t exactly leave us time to talk—which is probably the point. “I guess we can’t fight if we don’t talk?”
“We’ll have time later,” he promises. “Have fun with your sister. I’ll see you tonight.” He brushes a flight-loosened strand of my hair behind my ear and grazes his knuckles gently down the side of my cheek.
“All right.” If it wasn’t all for show, I’d be a puddle. And the heat in his eyes when they meet mine for a second? I’m instantly warm despite the mountain air.
“Don’t let her set anything on fire,” he says over his shoulder to Mira as he walks away, heading for the corridor near the southwestern staircase.
I scoff, but that doesn’t stop me from watching him go.
“Keep your shields up.”
“It’s not like they help block you out.”
“Told you, I’m harder than most,” he replies. “Keep them up anyway. It’s not me you have to worry about.”
“He’s…carrying your bags up to his room for you,” Mira says slowly, moving to my side and glancing between Xaden’s retreating back and me.
“He is.” I nod. Or is he? The ache in my chest turns bitter. Maybe he’s actually taking two of those bags to a drop point and leaving me with Mira to distract me. I hate that I can’t trust him, that he can’t trust me, that we’re at this impasse.
“Oh shit,” Mira mutters.
“What?” I sigh as he disappears into the building.
“You’re not just fucking him, are you? You’re falling for him.” She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind.
My gaze swings to hers, and though I know I should, I can’t lie to her. Not about this. “Not exactly.”
“Who do you think you’re fooling? He basically swallowed you whole, and now you’re watching him with those big, soft eyes that are practically oozing with”—she gestures at my face, her nose crinkling like she smells something bad—“what even is that? Yearning? Infatuation?”
I roll my eyes.
“Love?” She says the word like it’s poisonous, and something on my face must give me away because the disgust on hers morphs into shock. “Oh, no. You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“You can’t possibly know that just by looking at me,” I counter, my spine stiffening.
“Ugh. Let’s go throw knives at shit.”
Brennan is alive. Brennan is alive. Brennan. Is. Alive. It’s all I can think as we empty our sheathes into the wooden targets that line the back of the outpost’s small sparring gym on the north side of the first floor. It’s a far cry from the pit on the south side of the fortress I first found Xaden fighting in.
Keeping secrets from Rhiannon is loathsome, but not telling Mira that Brennan is alive might just make me the worst person on the Continent.
“I’m the last person to judge who you sleep with—” Mira starts.
“Then don’t.” I flip my next-to-last dagger, catch it by the tip, and throw it, hitting the neck of the target.
“Regulations aside, because yes, what you’re doing is fraternizing”—she throws her next dagger without even looking and hits the target mid-chest— “with an officer, I’m just saying that if it goes badly, you’re stuck with each other for the rest of your careers.”
“But you’re not judging.” I throw my last dagger, hitting her target in the neck.
“Fine, maybe I’m judging.” She shrugs, and we walk to the targets. “But you’re my only sibling. I’m allowed to worry.”
I’m not, though. She and Brennan were inseparable as kids. If one of us should know that he’s alive and healthy, it’s her. “You don’t have to worry about me.” I yank my daggers out of the wood one by one and sheathe them along my thighs and at my ribs.
“You’re a second-year. Of course I’m going to worry.” She retrieves her own knives and looks over her shoulder at a pair of riders sparring on the mat behind us. “How is RSC going?” she asks, lowering her voice.
“We lost a rider in the first exercise. Two maps?”
“Yeah, it’s a mindfuck.” She presses her lips into a thin line. “But that’s not what I meant.”
“You’re worried about the interrogation portion,” I guess, sheathing the eleventh dagger at my ribs.
“They’re going to beat you black and blue just to see if you can take it.” She plucks my dagger from the throat of her target. “And the way you break—”
“I can handle pain.” I turn toward her. “I live in pain. I practically built a house there and set up a whole economy. I can take whatever they dish out.”