“Stubborn asshole,” I mutter, turning just before the auditorium and heading to the sparring gym. Talking to Brennan has gotten me exactly nowhere over the last week, and his quick, effective dismissal of my genuine plea for him to reconsider the Assembly’s position on the Samara problem has my blood boiling.
I push the doors open a little harder than necessary and find the sparring gym to be as empty as I’d expect at ten at night in the middle of a weekend, and dimly lit by the cool glow of mage lights hovering above each individual mat.
Xaden stands on the mat in the very center of the gym, feet apart and arms folded across his chest, wearing sparring gear and that carefully constructed mask of indifference he’s known for.
“I thought you were kidding when I got your note.” I close the door behind me, then focus on the lock and turn my hand in midair, channeling just enough power to hear the bolt slide home with a satisfying click. “I haven’t seen you in a week, and this is where you want to meet?”
He’d been sent to monitor Draithus right after our return from Athebyne.
“Figured we’d be fighting. What better place for that than the sparring gym?” He stands completely still, waiting for me to come to him. His usual swords are missing, but he has two daggers strapped to his hip.
“You now have a warded bedroom,” I remind him, stepping onto the mat. Though I’m not sure how strong those wards are given that our method for raising Aretia’s wards was obviously flawed.
“We now have a warded bedroom,” he corrects me, his gaze sweeping over me hungrily as I walk forward, stopping only a couple of feet away from him.
I can’t blame him when I’m doing exactly the same, drinking in every detail of his appearance. Whether or not I’m still pissed about his latest reveal, I’ve missed him every minute he was gone, just like always. “What exactly are we fighting about? The Assembly voting to leave Navarre to fend for itself? Or the secret you kept from me again?”
His jaw flexes. “The majority voted once we returned, and though the details of that vote are classified, I’ll break regulation and tell you that I lost.”
“Oh.” The sharpest edge of my anger dulls. “And you’d rather discuss the second issue in here? Where anyone can walk in and hear us?”
“Unless there’s a full inntinnsic around, no one can hear us like this.” He gestures to the empty gym. Extending a hand, he crooks his fingers at me. “Come on. I know you’re pissed, and no, I don’t need the bond between us to catch on to that. It’s in every line of your face, the purse of your lips, the tension in your shoulders.”
I purposefully relax my posture. “You’re right, you don’t need the bond.”
“See? Still pissed.” He moves so quickly I barely have a chance to get my hands up before he sweeps my feet out from underneath me.
Shit.
He topples with me, bracing my fall with one hand and catching his weight with the other. The wind may not have been knocked out of me, but I’m breathless all the same. My hands brace on his chest, and his face is inches from mine, filling my vision and blocking out the world around us.
“I’m not sparring with you.”
“Why?” His brow knits in confusion. “You have a better teacher? I have heard that Emetterio is teaching you a variety of new techniques, since venin adapt to our fighting styles so quickly.”
“He is. But I’m not sparring with you because I really want to kick your ass.” I shake my head, my braid catching slightly on the mat beneath me.
“Oh, you think you can hurt me.” His slow grin makes me narrow my eyes.
I shift a hand and whip a dagger from a sheath at my ribs, putting it against the warm skin of his throat, right along the swirling lines of his relic. “I don’t need to dignify that comment with a response.” Fuck him. I make sure my shields are down so he hears it.
His eyes flare with something that looks like pride, and he leans into the blade.
I retreat just enough that it doesn’t draw blood.
Guess we both just proved our point.
“You’re capable of hurting me in ways I’m not sure you’ve even begun to fathom, Violet. I might be skilled enough to land a death blow, but you alone have the power to fucking destroy me.” His hand slides out from behind my back to help bolster his weight. “Now, we can talk here, or we can see if Sgaeyl and Tairn are done fighting and fly through this snowstorm to the nearest vacant peak, but make no mistake, we’re going to work this out.”
I slide the blade back into its sheath, then lift my hand to his chest again. “On a sparring mat?” His heart beats beneath my fingertips, strong and steady, unlike mine, which pounds like a drum. I’ve had a week to process, a week to wish he was around so I could yell at him, but also a week to ruminate on the logical reasons why he wouldn’t have told me.
The foremost of them being that he values his life.
“Sure as hell not in our bedroom.” His knee separates mine. “We don’t fight in there.”
“Since when?” That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. It’s the only private space we have in this entire house.
“Since right now. I just made that rule. No fighting in our bedroom.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“Sure it is.” He drops his gaze to my mouth. “We make the rules when they come to us. Go ahead, make one.”
“A rule?” I draw my leg up, bracing my foot on the ground so I’ll have leverage if I want it, but the movement also drags my inner thigh up the side of his hip, and damn if that doesn’t instantly summon an ache he’s in prime position to ease.
“Anything.”
“We don’t keep secrets. No more ask me. No more tests to see who’s in and who’s out of this relationship. It’s full disclosure between us…” I take a steadying breath and map out the golden flecks in his eyes just in case it’s the last time. “Or it’s nothing.”
“Done.”
“I’m serious.” My hand slips up his chest to the juncture of his shoulder and his neck. “Even though I know you were right. I wasn’t asking the right questions because I was afraid of the answers—and maybe I still am, given the fact that you’re never completely open with me. Almost everyone in my life has kept secrets from me because I didn’t ask the right questions, didn’t look further than face value, and I understand that there will be times you can’t tell me everything—that’s the nature of what we do as riders—but I need you to stop setting me up for failure by insisting I figure out what there is to ask.”
“Done.” He nods. “I just…” A muscle in his jaw flexes.
“You just?” My fingers slide up the warm column of his neck and into his hair.
“I need to know you’ll be here. That no matter what happens, you’ll come back so we can talk it out or fight it out.” His gaze drops to my mouth, then skims over my features.
My heart clenches, and I slide my hand along his chest, around his ribs, to his back, and then I hold on. “Done.”
The lines between his brows smooth. “I need you to know that no matter what information I hold, you trust me, love me enough to realize I’d never let it hurt you. I’m not the easiest person to know, but I’ve learned my lesson, believe me. Even if it’s classified, I won’t withhold any information that affects your agency.” He swallows, then balances his weight on one arm and runs the back of his hand down the side of my cheek. “I need to know you won’t run, that you know you’ll never have to.”
“I love you,” I whisper. “You could throw my entire world into upheaval, and I would still love you. You could keep secrets, run a revolution, frustrate the shit out of me, probably ruin me, and I would still love you. I can’t make it stop. I don’t want to. You’re my gravity. Nothing in my world works without you.”