My jaw slackens, considering what we just did.
His head tilts as he watches me. “As I recall, you didn’t exactly like me the first time—”
“Do not finish that sentence.” I jab my finger in his direction.
“On the other hand, I was already in love with you.”
My posture softens. That right there is why I’m hopelessly in love with him. Because no one else gets to see him like this. Just me.
“Hardly seems fair, now that I think about it.” He drums his fingers on the table. “And I wanted you too badly to care that you didn’t feel the same way about me, not that I’d given you any reason to. Fuck, I wanted you to run in the opposite direction.”
“I remember.” Our gazes lock, and my fingers curl with the need to touch him. I reach for the conduit instead.
“Good. Maybe you’ll remember that the next time Cat goes digging around your head.”
“Digging? She made me jealous!” The word is bitter on my tongue.
“She didn’t make you anything.”
Felix won’t miss the conduit if I throw it at Xaden’s head, will he? “Oh really? You heard what she said. How would you feel if one of my previous lovers had you on the mat for a challenge, then told you that he knows how I taste?”
He tenses.
“How I feel on top of him?” I lower my tone, letting sex slide over every single word. “How he had me first and insinuates that he plans on having me last, too?”
His jaw flexes, and shadows curl around the legs of the table. “She wasn’t my first by a long shot.”
“Not the point. You want me to ask more questions? Then don’t avoid them.”
“Fine. None of your previous lovers are riders, unless there’s history I’m unaware of when it comes to Aetos, so they’d never have me on the mat. I’m guessing infantry, but again, I don’t want to know, so I don’t ask.”
“I didn’t sleep with Dain.” But he’s ridiculously on the mark with the infantry guess.
“I knew that the second he kissed you after Threshing. It looked awkward as fuck.” He shoves his hand through his still-mussed hair. “And to answer the question, I’d feel jealous, which is something you have a unique ability to bring out in me. And then I’d kick his ass, partially because that’s what I do when someone challenges me, and more importantly for implying there’s any other future besides the one where you and I are endgame.”
My breath abandons me in a rush I refuse to call a sigh. Gods, he ruins me when he says things like that.
“What else were you feeling on the mat?” he asks.
“Anger.” I glance up at the high, beamed ceiling in defeat. “Inferiority. Insecurity. She threw everything she had at me, and it worked.”
“Anger, I understand. She said a lot that pissed me off, too.” He shakes his head. “But inferiority is something you’ll have to explain, considering you’re more powerful than any other cadet.”
“It has nothing to do with signets.” I gesture to the giant chair I’m seated on. “She pointed out that you’re a Riorson.”
“You’ve known that since Parapet.” He taps the rebellion relic along his neck.
“That’s not what I mean. You just called this chair a throne.”
“Because it is. Or it was before the unification.” Another infuriatingly casual shrug.
I blink as realization smacks me straight in the face. “Wait. Are you…are you the king of Tyrrendor?”
“Fuck, no.” He shakes his head, then pauses. “I mean, yes, technically, I’m the Duke of Aretia by birth, but Lewellen’s on our side and doing just fine at governing the province. Even if Tyrrendor became independent, I’m more useful on the battlefield than on a throne. We’re off topic. I know damn well you don’t feel inferior to me, so who? Cat?”
I press my lips between my teeth. “I think I liked you better before you decided that feelings were something we need to discuss.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you, but this year the role of Violet Sorrengail”—he points to me—“will be played by Xaden Riorson”—he taps his chest—“who will drag her, kicking and screaming if he has to, into a real relationship with real discussions, because he refuses to lose her again. If I have to evolve, you do, too.” He folds his arms across his chest.
“Is he done talking in third person?” I pick at the metal band around the orb. “Cat was right in one regard. She is the better match. She’s noble by birth, brave for becoming a flier, driven, ruthless, and mean as hell, just like you.” Fuck, they’re pretty much the same person.
His eyes flare, then narrow. “Hold on. Do you somehow think that I find you inferior to her?”
My shrug isn’t exactly nonchalant.
He shifts like he’s about to move toward me, then stops himself, putting his hands firmly back on the table. “Violet, you were just in my thoughts. You know I think you’re perfect, even when you frustrate the shit out of me. Now tell me about the insecurity. I thought we handled that last year.”
“Sure, before I knew you were leading a revolution, and before you declared you’d always keep secrets, and way before some beautiful aristocrat who you used to be betrothed to but conveniently was never mentioned appeared with her big brown doe eyes and sharp-ass claws at our bedroom door half naked—”
“She what?” His eyebrows rise.
“—and then has the nerve to tell me I’m not special just because you like to fuck me.”
“I do like to fuck you.” A slow smile curves his mouth. “I love it, actually.”
“Don’t side with her!” My nails dig into the cushion beneath me. “Ugh!” The shout echoes off the rafters, and I cover my face with my hands. “Why does she turn me into such a fucking mess? And how do I make it stop?” I’ll end up killing her before solstice.
I hear his bootsteps, then feel his warm hands gently clasp my wrists.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, I lower my hands, and he holds them in his as I open my eyes. He’s right where we started this chat, on his knees in front of me.
“I don’t want to have this discussion again.” He uses the wingleader voice, then softens. “But I will. You’re about to get some hard truths, because I wasn’t clear enough in Cordyn.”
My shoulders straighten.
“You raged today because you were angry.” He strokes his thumbs over my pulse. “You got jealous because you were jealous. You grappled with inferiority because for some reason I can’t understand, you feel inferior. And you lashed out with insecurity because I think both of us are just figuring this out as we go. Own your feelings like you did last year and be honest with me. Cat can’t plant emotions, warp them, or even sway them unless you are already headed that way. Cat can only amplify what you’re already feeling.”
I swallow, but the lump forms in my throat anyway. It’s all…me.
“Yeah, it’s a shitty realization. I’ve been there.” He laces his fingers with mine. “She can take you from irritation to full-on rage in the span of a minute or two. And yes, she’s really fucking powerful, but so are you. But the only weapons she wields are the ones you hand her. You want to keep control of your emotions? You need to have control in the first place.”
“I can’t…” A pit forms in my stomach. “I haven’t been in control since Resson,” I admit in a whisper. “I let Tairn’s emotions take over. I’m carrying around a conduit so I don’t set your house on fire with my own damned power. I failed at the wards and now nearly failed tests, making shit decisions, fucking up left and right, and people’s lives are in the balance. I keep hoping I’ll find my feet, but…” I shake my head.