—COLONEL KAORI’S FIELD GUIDE TO DRAGONKIND

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

By the time we land at Samara just before nightfall, I’m a jittery, frantic mess. I can’t bring myself to care about whatever retribution waits for me at Basgiath. I’ll handle whatever punishment Varrish wants to dish out.

I’ve spent every minute of the eight-hour flight trying to separate my feelings from Tairn’s, but I can’t, and he’s definitively in primal mode.

He has to be the reason there’s a hollow pit in my stomach threatening to devour all logical thought if I don’t set eyes on Xaden in the next minute. It’s Tairn’s desperation to see Sgaeyl unharmed making my heart pound, not my own concern for Xaden. After all, if he was at death’s door, Sgaeyl would have told us once we flew close enough for them to communicate. At least that’s what the barely functioning logical part of my brain is telling me.

This is all Tairn. But what if it isn’t? How seriously has Xaden been wounded?

Sgaeyl may have told Tairn that Xaden lives and I could see how bad it was for myself, but I’m still counting every second it takes the guards to raise the portcullis. The increased security is protocol and completely reasonable given yesterday’s attack, but every moment that ticks by grates on my last nerve.

Just because I logically know Tairn is still flooding my emotions doesn’t mean I can control them.

The second the portcullis is high enough for me to duck under, I do so. For once, my size works to my advantage. I’m inside the outpost before it’s even a quarter of the way open.

Organized chaos reigns within. Chunks of masonry ranging from half my size to double it lay scattered around the courtyard, and a quick glance upward is all it takes to see where they fell from. There are scorch marks on the northern wall, too. The fliers must have breached the perimeter.

The healers work a triage station on the southern end of the fortress, the area around them thick with wounded infantry. But there are no black uniforms among the blue. No cream, either.

“Violet?” Mira calls out, emerging from the northwestern staircase I know leads to their operations room. No limp, no slings, no blood that I can see. She’s all right. Just like Devera said, only one has been wounded, and it’s not Mira.

“Where is he?” I yank my flight goggles from the top of my head and shove them into my bag without breaking my stride.

“What are you doing here?” She grabs hold of my shoulders, looking me over with her customary inspection. “You’re not supposed to arrive until Saturday.”

“Are you unharmed?”

“Yes.” She nods. “I wasn’t here. I was out on patrol.”

“Good, then tell me where he is.” My tone sharpens as my gaze swings wildly, looking for him. Fuck, I can’t even sense him with Tairn overriding everything.

“You don’t have leave, do you? Gods, you’re going to be so fucked when you get back.” She sighs. Have to give it to Mira, she doesn’t fight battles she can’t win. “He’s in the sparring gym. From what I hear, your man is the reason we still have an outpost.”

He’s not mine. Not really.

“Thank you.” I turn away from her without another word and head for the sparring gym. I love her, I’m thankful she’s all right, but all of that is buried underneath the desperation clawing at my soul to lay eyes on Xaden.

The fortress is busy with recovery efforts, but the hall to the gym is deserted. Why would they have taken him to the gym for recovery? Is he unable to climb the steps to his room? That pit in my stomach deepens. How badly is he hurt?

The mage lights more than make up for the dying evening light outside the three oversize windows when I enter the gym. But there’s certainly no makeshift infirmary in here.

Wait. What? I blink.

Xaden is on the mat in his short-sleeved, muscle-hugging sparring uniform.

He has both his heavy swords out, metal clanging against metal as he spars with Garrick.

“You’re slow today,” Xaden lectures, advancing mercilessly. He moves like he always does, with lethal expertise and complete concentration. There’s zero chance he’s even close to seriously wounded. The burst of relief lets me draw my first full breath since leaving Basgiath, but it quickly fades.

Hands on him. I need my hands on him.

“Not. Much. I can do. About. That!” Garrick argues, blocking Xaden’s advances.

“Get faster.” Xaden lands blow after deliberate blow, deftly avoiding taking any himself. Each swing of those swords shifts the worry, the abject terror that he’d been hurt, into rage.

He’s unharmed, and I’m a fucking fool for letting my emotions run amok, for letting my love for him overrule my common sense. That’s on me, not Tairn.

But the wildness I can’t breathe through? That’s a hundred percent black morningstartail, and I can’t break free, can’t raise my shields enough to own myself.

I step into Xaden’s line of sight, my toes hitting the edge of the mat.

Xaden glances toward me, and his eyes widen for all of a heartbeat before he nails Garrick in the face with his elbow, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Ouch.

Garrick sprawls across the mat, his swords slipping from his hands. “Damn!”

“We’re done,” Xaden says without even looking back, already headed toward me, eating up the half dozen feet that separate us with those long, prowling strides of his. “I had my shields up. What are you doing here?” His eyes widen, like he can feel the chaos within me. “Violence, are you all right?”

“What am I doing here?” I bite out each word as my eyes rake over him, looking for the wounds Devera spoke of. Did I misinterpret her gesture? Did I really just fly here for nothing? My hands begin to shake. “I have no fucking clue!”

“This isn’t you.” His gaze sweeps over me.

“I know that!” I shout, torn between weeping with gratitude that he’s alive and seemingly unhurt and destroying this entire gym—this entire fortress— because he was ever put in danger. “I can’t get him out!”

“Hold on.” He shoves my pack off my shoulders, and it falls to the gym floor before he sweeps me up against his chest.

I wrap my arms around him and shove my face into his neck, breathing in deep. He smells like mint and leather and mine— For fuck’s sake, am I scenting him?

Xaden walks us straight into the gym’s bathing chamber, and I get a quick glimpse of polished stone walls; high, glazed windows partially cracked open; and a row of wide benches under the center of three lines of spouts, not dissimilar to the ones at Basgiath. With a flick of his fingers, the door slams shut, and then he works a lever on the wall. Water streams from the spout in the aqueduct overhead, soaking us both in what feels like ice.

I gasp, my body tensing with the shock of the bitter cold, and for that heartbeat, it’s all I’m capable of feeling.

“Put your shields up,” Xaden orders. “Now, Violet!”

I claw through the glacier of my mind and shove the bricks of my shields into place. Tairn’s emotions dull enough for me to claim some semblance of control. “Fucking. Cold,” I say, my teeth chattering.

“There we go.” Xaden flips another lever and the water warms. “What the hell happened that they gave you leave to come early?” Concern lines the area between his brows as he sets me on my feet, water spraying down on us.

My mind is mine again, though I can feel the intensity of Tairn’s emotions beating at my shields.

“They didn’t give me leave—”

“You didn’t get leave?” His voice lowers to that dangerous tone that terrifies everyone in the world besides me. “When you already know that Varrish is going to—” His words die abruptly as his focus drops to my shoulder. “Who the fuck’s flight jacket are you wearing?”