What the fuck is happening?
“Aetos!” Varrish snarls, falling back against the wall, then sliding down the stone. He leaves behind a fresh trail of red.
“Violet!” Dain shouts, forcing something into my hand. “You have to move or we’re dead!”
I wrap the fingers of my unbroken hand around the familiar hilt as Dain draws the sword at his side, holding it at Nora’s throat when she lunges into the cell. “Let us pass, and you’ll live.”
He holds the blade steady and hooks his other arm behind my back as I try to stand, holding me upright when my legs try to fail. They’re not newly broken since Nolon’s last visit, that I can remember, but I whimper at the pressure against my cracked ribs and the nausea as the room seems to spin.
“I make no such promises.” The low, menacing threat weakens my knees a second before a hand with a dagger reaches around Nora’s throat, slicing without hesitation.
She falls, a torrent of blood flowing from the gaping wound in her neck.
I look up into the wrath of Dunne in the form of gold-flecked onyx eyes.
The only crime worse than murdering a cadet is the unfathomable act of attacking leadership.
—MAJOR AFENDRA’S GUIDE TO THE RIDERS QUADRANT (UNAUTHORIZED EDITION)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Rage shines in his eyes as Xaden holds his sword in his right hand and a dagger in his left, both dripping blood, both aimed to strike Dain.
Oh gods.
“No!” I shout, lurching to put myself in front of Dain, but my feet don’t cooperate and the ground rushes up to meet me.
“Shit!” Steel rattles against the floor as Dain catches me with both hands.
The edges of my vision turn black as pain threatens to pull me under. Every inch of my body screams in protest as I find my feet. But it’s not just Dain’s arms holding me—there are soft bands of shadows at my hips and beneath my arms. Two Xadens appear, then merge into one as I fight to stay conscious. “He saved me,” I whisper. “Don’t kill him.”
Stabbing Varrish earns Dain a chance...right?
Xaden’s gaze flickers to mine, and then he does a double take.
“Gods, Violet.” Shadows explode around us, cracking stone and decimating the wooden slab of a bed marked with my blood.
Guess my face is just as beaten as the rest of me.
“You came.” I stumble forward, and Dain is smart enough to let me go.
Xaden catches me, shadows grasping his sword as he splays his hand over my back and cradles me against his chest with a light touch, like he’s afraid I might break. “There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, remember?” He drops his lips to the dirty, frayed, blood-spattered remains of my braid and kisses the top of my head.
Leather and mint overpower the iron-and-moss scent of the cell and, for the first time since Nolon drugged me, I feel safe. Tears soak his chest—his or mine, I’m unsure.
“Godsdamn,” Garrick says from behind Xaden. “You took off running and then couldn’t save a single one for me? Took me forever to clear the barricade of bodies in the staircase.”
My smile splits my lip all over again as I turn my face to rest my cheek above Xaden’s strong, steady heartbeat. “Hi, Garrick.”
He blanches, dropping his swords to his sides, but covers it with a quick smile. “You’ve looked better, Violet, but I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Me too.”
“It’s chaos up there,” Garrick tells Xaden, sparing a questioning glance for Dain. “Leadership is launching all over the place to get to the border.”
“Then it worked,” Xaden states.
Varrish groans and our heads all whip in his direction. “You’re turning traitor?” he accuses Dain as he struggles to his feet, still holding the wound in his side.
“Oh, is that what’s happening?” Garrick asks, looking between Dain and Varrish.
“Your father will be so disappointed,” Varrish hisses through bloody, clenched teeth. Coughing up blood means he doesn’t have long.
“If he already knows what Violet showed me, then I’m the one disappointed
in him,” Dain counters, picking up his sword and raising it at Varrish.
“No,” Xaden snarls. “Not you.” His hand flexes at my back, and shadows wrap around Varrish a second before they drag him across the floor. Horror widens his eyes as the strands of black dump him into the chair, then bind his wrists and ankles in place of the shackles. “That honor belongs to Violet, if she wants it.”
“She does,” I reply instantly.
Xaden shifts his grip, wrapping his arm around my waist and watching my reactions. “I don’t know where I can touch you.”
“That’s fine,” I promise, gripping the alloy-hilted dagger in my right hand as my left lies uselessly at my side.
Dain steps back, lowering his sword as Xaden helps me walk, my feet shuffling over dried patches of my own blood on the stone floor.
Varrish’s eyes narrow despite the pallor of his skin, and Xaden holds me steady as I lift the dagger to his chest with a trembling, weak grip, resting the point above his heart, right between his ribs.
“I promised you’d die in this room,” I whisper, but I’m shaking too hard to push the blade home. It’s taking everything I have just to stay standing.
Xaden’s hand wraps around mine, and he jabs forward, driving the blade into Varrish’s heart. I memorize the look on Varrish’s face as the life fades out of him, just so I can reassure myself that he’s really dead when the nightmares inevitably come.
I stare, and stare, and stare as the weight of everything that’s happened closes in on me, threatening to steal my air. My throat squeezes shut and my eyes burn with prickling heat as my thoughts spiral. I just killed the vice commandant of the quadrant.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Go back to class?
And Xaden...Xaden risked everything by coming here.
“Give us a second, and keep Aetos breathing for now,” Xaden orders, and I hear the room clear before he carefully pivots to face me, turning us away from Varrish’s body. “You’re alive. No matter what happened in this room, what was said, you’re alive and that’s all that matters.”
“I didn’t break,” I whisper. “Dain... He saw right before he stabbed Varrish, but I didn’t break, I promise.” I shake my head, and my vision blurs then clears as water trickles from my eyes.
“I trust you.” He cradles the back of my head, his beautiful gaze boring into mine, swallowing me whole. “But it wouldn’t matter to me if you had. We’re leaving. I’m getting you the fuck out of here.”
I blink. “We can’t go now. They’ll follow us, and Brennan’s not ready.” My face crumples. “You’ll forfeit access to Basgiath’s weapons—”
“I don’t give a fuck. We’ll figure it out once we’re there.”
“You’ll lose everything you’ve worked for.” My voice breaks. “Because of me.”
“Then I’ll have everything I need.” He lowers his face, leaning in so he’s all I see, all I feel. “I will happily watch Aretia burn to the fucking ground again if it means you live.”
“You don’t mean that.” He loves his home. He’s done everything to protect his home.
“I do. I’m sorry if you expect me to do the noble thing. I warned you. I’m not sweet or soft or kind, and you fell anyway. This is what you get, Violet—me. The good, the bad, the unforgivable. All of it. I am yours.” His arm wraps around the small of my back, holding me steady and close. “You want to know something true? Something real? I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side. It’s a damned good thing that you love me, too, because you’re stuck with me in this life and every other that could possibly follow.”