“It’s about damned time,” Tairn rumbles.
Xaden’s gaze snaps to mine, his onyx eyes flaring in shock for no longer than a millisecond before he strides forward, his shadows streaming before him as he stands at my side. He snaps his fingers and the room illuminates, mage lights hovering above us.
“You’re all fucking dead.” His voice is eerily calm and all the scarier for it.
Every head in the room turns.
“Riorson!” Oren’s dagger clatters to the floor.
“You think surrendering will save you?” Xaden’s lethally soft tone sends goose bumps up my arms. “It is against our code to attack another rider in their sleep.”
“But you know he never should have bonded her!” Oren puts his hands up, his palms facing us. “You of all people have reason enough to want the weakling dead. We’re just correcting a mistake.”
“Dragons don’t make mistakes.” Xaden’s shadows grab every assailant but Oren by the throat, then constrict. They struggle, but it doesn’t matter. Their faces turn purple, the shadows holding tight as they sag to their knees, falling in an arc in front of me like lifeless puppets.
I can’t find it in my heart to pity them.
Xaden prowls forward as though he has all the time in the world and holds out his palm as yet another tendril of darkness lifts my discarded dagger from the floor.
“Let me explain.” Oren eyes the dagger, and his hands tremble.
“I’ve heard everything I need to hear.” Xaden’s fingers curl around the hilt. “She should have killed you in the field, but she’s merciful. That’s not a flaw I possess.” He slashes forward so quickly that I barely catch the move, and Oren’s throat opens in a horizontal line, blood streaming down his neck and chest in a torrent.
He grabs for his throat, but it’s useless. He bleeds out in seconds, crumpling to the floor. A crimson puddle grows around him.
“Damn, Xaden.” Garrick walks in, sheathing his sword as his gaze rakes over the room. “No time for questioning?” His glance sweeps to me as if cataloging injuries, catching on my throat.
“No need for it,” Xaden counters as Bodhi enters, doing the same quick assessment Garrick had. The similarity between the cousins still gives me pause. Bodhi has the same bronzed skin and strong brow line, but his features aren’t as angular as Xaden’s, and his eyes are a lighter shade of brown. He looks like a softer, more approachable version of his older cousin, but my body doesn’t heat at the sight of him the way it does around Xaden. Or maybe Oren just strangled the common sense out of me.
An illogical laugh bubbles up through my lips, and all three men look at me like I’ve hit my head.
“Let me guess,” Bodhi says, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’re on cleanup?”
“Call in help if you need it,” Xaden answers with a nod.
Bodies.
I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. I repeat the mantra in my head as Xaden wipes the blood from my dagger on the back of Oren’s tunic.
“Yes. You’re alive.” Xaden steps over Oren’s body and two others, retrieving my dagger from the fallen woman’s shoulder before reaching my armoire. I don’t even recognize her, and yet she tried to kill me.
Garrick and Bodhi haul out the first bodies.
“I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud.” The trembling starts in my knees, and then nausea overpowers me. Fuck, I thought I’d worked past this kind of reaction to adrenaline, but here I am, shaking like a leaf as Xaden sorts through my armoire like he hasn’t just taken out half a dozen people.
As if this kind of slaughter is commonplace.
“It’s the shock,” he says, whipping my cloak from its hook and retrieving a pair of boots. “Are you hurt?” His words are clipped and break whatever temporary block I had on the pain. It comes flooding back in a throbbing wave that centers in my back. So much for the adrenaline rush.
Every breath feels like I’m shoving my lungs against broken glass, so I keep them short and shallow. But I manage to stay on my feet, retreating until I feel the stone wall against my uninjured side, letting it take my weight.
“Come on, Violence.” His cajoling words are at odds with his terse tone as he folds my cloak over his arm and brings my boots through the remaining bodies he’s left on my floor. “Pull your shit together and tell me where you’re hurt.” He’s killed six people without so much as a spot of blood on his midnight-black leathers. My boots hit the ground next to my feet and my cloak lands on the little armchair in the corner.
I can barely breathe, but can I risk admitting my current weakness to him?
His fingers are warm under my chin as he tilts my head up so our gazes collide. Wait…is that a hint of panic swirling in his? “You’re breathing like crap, so I’m guessing it has to do with—”
“My ribs,” I finish before he can guess. Trying to mask the pain isn’t going to work with him. “The one by the bed hit the side of my ribs with the sword, but I think they’re just bruised.” There hadn’t been that telltale snap that comes with broken bones.
“Must have been a dull sword.” He cocks a dark eyebrow. “Unless it has something to do with why you sleep in your leather vest.”
“Trust him,” Tairn demands.
“It’s not that easy.”
“It has to be for now.”
“It’s dragon-scale.” I lift my right arm and pivot slightly so he can see the gaping hole in my nightdress. “Mira made it for me. It’s why I’ve lived this long.”
He glances between our bodies, his mouth tensing before he nods once. “Ingenious, though I’d say there are multiple reasons for why you’ve made it this far.” Before I can argue that point, his gaze shifts to my throat and narrows at what I imagine has to be the purple imprint of a hand. “I should have killed him slower.”
“I’m fine.” I’m not.
His focus snaps back to my eyes. “Never lie to me.” He says it with such ferocity, bit out through gritted teeth, that I can’t help but nod in promise.
“It hurts,” I admit.
“Let me see.”
