“Oh.” I can’t find it in me to be embarrassed, so I brush the backs of my fingers across the stubble along his jaw. “And you put it out.”
“Yes. Right before I destroyed your throwing target.” He grimaces. “I’ll get you a new one.”
I glance over at the armoire. “And we…”
“Yep.” He lifts his brows. “And I’m pretty sure you need a new chair, too.”
“That was…” I didn’t even get the man’s pants entirely off, and my dressing gown is haphazardly hanging from one shoulder.
“Frighteningly perfect.” He cups the side of my face. “We should get you cleaned up and to sleep. We can worry about…your room tomorrow. Ironically, your bed is the only thing we didn’t wreck.”
I sit up to confirm that the bed made it, and Xaden does the same next to me, leaning forward. Immediately, I lose interest in everything but the muscled lines of his back and the navy-blue relic Sgaeyl transferred to him.
I reach out and trace the dragon relic on his back, my fingers lingering on the raised silver scars, and he stiffens. They’re all short, thin lines, too precise to be a whip, no rhyme or reason to their pattern but never intersecting. “What happened?” I whisper, holding my breath.
“You really don’t want to know.” He’s tense but doesn’t move away from my touch.
“I do.” They don’t look accidental. Someone hurt him deliberately, maliciously, and it makes me want to hunt the person down and do the same to them.
His jaw flexes as he looks over his shoulder, and his eyes meet mine. I bite my lip, knowing this moment can go either way. He can shut me out like always or he can actually let me in.
“There’s a lot of them,” I murmur, dragging my fingers down his spine.
“A hundred and seven.” He looks away.
That number makes my stomach lurch, and then my hand pauses. A hundred and seven. That’s the number Liam mentioned. “That’s how many kids under the age of majority carry the rebellion relic.”
“Yeah.”
I shift so I can see his face. “What happened, Xaden?”
He brushes my hair back, and the look that passes over his face is so close to tender that it makes my heart stutter. “I saw the opportunity to make a deal,” he says softly. “And I took it.”
“What kind of deal leaves you with scars like that?”
Conflict rages in his eyes, but then he sighs. “The kind where I take personal responsibility for the loyalty of the hundred and seven kids the rebellion’s leaders left behind, and in return, we’re allowed to fight for our lives in the Riders Quadrant instead of being put to death like our parents.” He averts his gaze. “I chose the chance of death over the certainty.”
The cruelty of the offer and the sacrifice he made to save the others hits like a physical blow. I cradle his cheek and guide his face back to mine. “So if any of them betray Navarre…” I lift my brows.
“Then my life is forfeit. The scars are a reminder.”
It’s why Liam says he owes him everything. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.” Especially when he wasn’t the one who led the rebellion.
He looks at me like he sees into the very depths of who I am. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
I grab his hand as he moves to stand. “Stay.”
“I shouldn’t.” Two lines appear between his brows as he searches my eyes. “People will talk.”
“When did I ever give you the impression that I give a fuck what people think?” I use his earlier words against him and sit up, curling my hand around the section of his neck that bears his relic. “Stay with me, Xaden. Don’t make me beg.”
“We both know this is a bad idea.”
“Then it’s our bad idea.”
His shoulders dip, and I know I’ve won. He’s mine for the night. We take turns sneaking out long enough to clean up, and then he slides into bed behind me. “Only within these walls,” he says quietly, and I understand what he means.
“Only within these walls,” I agree. It’s not like we’re in a relationship or anything. That would be…disastrous given the chain of command. “We’re riders, after all.”
“I just don’t trust my temper if anyone says—”
I brush a kiss over his mouth, silencing him. “I know what you’re saying. It’s…sweet.”
He nips at my skin. “I’m not sweet. Please don’t mistake any part of me for soft or kind. That will only get you hurt, and whatever you do…” He buries his face in my neck, inhaling deeply. “Don’t fall for me.”
I stroke my hand over his marked arm and pray that’s not exactly what I’m doing. This overwhelming juxtaposition of longing and satisfaction in my chest has to be the aftereffects of coming not once but three times, right? It can’t be more.
“Violence?”
I look out my window at the infinite black sky and change the topic, my eyelids growing heavier by the second. “Why did you guess I could wield lightning?”
He stretches just enough to tuck my head under his chin. “I thought you did it the first night Tairn channeled power to you, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t say anything.”
“Really?” I blink, thinking back, but my brain is full of a pleasant, dull hum as sleep fights to pull me under. “When?” My eyes drift shut.
His arms tighten around me as he tucks me closer, the backs of my thighs pressed tight against his pants as I start to drift off.
“The first time you kissed me.”
