Where Lightning Meets the Dark

From the deep shadows of a stone archway, I watched them. Watched her. The midday sun beat down on the packed dirt of the training grounds, kicking up dust that glittered in the oppressive heat. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and the rhythmic thud of wooden staves against practice dummies, punctuated by the grunts and curses of first-years. It was a symphony of violence I usually ignored, but today, every sound was an irritant scraping against my nerves. My focus was singular.

Violet.

She moved with a desperate, sharp intelligence that set her apart from the lumbering brutes she trained alongside. Every other cadet relied on raw strength, on predictable, clumsy lunges. She relied on her mind. I watched her duck under a wide swing from a cadet twice her size, her smaller frame an advantage she was finally learning to use. She didn't try to block the blow; she wasn't strong enough. Instead, she pivoted on the ball of her foot, using her opponent's momentum against him, and drove the butt of her short dagger into the back of his knee. He howled and buckled.

A vicious, dark pride swelled in my chest, so potent it was almost painful. She was magnificent. A fucking warrior forged in fire and defiance. Every day she survived in this shithole was a testament to the iron will hidden inside that deceptively fragile body.

My mind, a fucking traitor, replayed the memory that had been torturing me for weeks. Her, gasping my name in the dark. The slick heat of her when my fingers finally found her, the taste of her on my tongue. The memory alone was enough to make my cock stir, pressing thick and hard against the seam of my fighting leathers. This feeling—this raw, all-consuming desire—was a weakness. A vulnerability I couldn’t afford. Yet, I stood there, rooted to the spot, unable to look away. Watching her fight, watching her survive, had become my own private addiction, a self-inflicted torment that was equal parts heaven and hell. She was my obsession, and gods help anyone who got in my way.

A low, guttural growl echoed in my mind, a vibration that was not my own but was so familiar it might as well have been. It was Sgaeyl, her irritation a perfect mirror of mine.
Get a hold of your emotions, would you? This does nothing to serve you. Her thought was laced with the ancient disdain only a dragon could muster.

I started to reply but stopped short when I saw him, Dain Aetos. He strode across the grounds as if he owned them, his posture a perfect study in condescending concern. He stopped just short of the sparring circle, waiting for Violet’s opponent to be dismissed by the instructor before he moved in. He was a sorry excuse of a rider. One who cloaked his simpering possessiveness in the guise of protection. It was pathetic. And it made my blood boil.

He said something to her, his head tilted. From this distance, I couldn’t hear the words, but I knew their shape. I knew the patronizing tone he would use, the one that implied she was a delicate piece of glass one breath away from shattering. He saw her fragility, her physical limitations, and nothing else. He saw the daughter of a general, a childhood friend to be coddled and controlled. He didn’t see the fucking fire. He didn’t see the woman who had met my gaze across a mat, defiant and unbroken. He didn’t know the woman who had bucked against my hips in the dark, demanding more.

As Dain spoke, a sharp, jarring pulse of emotion shot through my bond with Sgaeyl. It wasn’t hers; it was a secondhand feed, a raw transmission from Tairn. And Tairn’s emotions were a direct reflection of his rider’s. It was a flash of pure, unadulterated annoyance. A deep, weary frustration that was so potent I felt it in my own chest. Violet was sick of his shit.

But on her face? Nothing. The mask was flawless, impenetrable to anyone who couldn’t feel the storm raging beneath the surface.

And I was the only one who could.

That knowledge was a drug. It fed the darkest, most proprietary parts of my soul. While Dain saw the mask, I felt the truth. While he saw a fragile girl, I remembered the slick, wet heat of her cunt gripping my fingers, the taste of her release on my tongue. I remembered the way her eyes, those incredible hazel eyes, had gone wide and dark with pure sensation as I brought her to a shuddering climax against the rough stone wall of the parapet tower. Dain was talking to a polite cadet. I knew the feral creature that lived inside her skin.

My jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped along my cheek. My shadows writhed at my feet, hungry and agitated. Dain was still talking, his expression earnest, his hand gesturing toward the fortress as if explaining something of grave importance. Probably telling her she should be in the Scribe Quadrant again. Telling her she wasn’t meant for this life. Every word I couldn’t hear was an insult I could feel. He was trying to smother her flame, to pack it back into the neat, safe little box he’d clung to.

What a useless fucking prick. I wanted to feel his nose break under my fist, the shock in his eyes as I tore him away from her and showed him, and everyone else, exactly who she belonged to. The thought was so vivid, so visceral, that my cock gave a hard throb against my thigh. Possessiveness and lust were a toxic, inseparable cocktail inside me, and I was drinking it down.

Then he touched her.

Dain placed his hand on her arm, his fingers wrapping around her bicep with an easy familiarity that sent a slurry of acid through my veins. He was guiding her away from the sparring circle, steering her like a prized mare. My hands clenched into fists so tight the bones groaned. The shadows around me thickened, no longer passive but coiling like serpents at my feet, a physical manifestation of the venom flooding my system.

My mind refused to stay on the sun-baked training grounds. It plunged back into the cold, windswept darkness of the parapet tower just a few weeks ago. The memory wasn't soft or romantic; it was a brutal, desperate collision. I had her pinned against the rough-hewn stone, the drop to the ground hundreds of feet below us a thrilling, dangerous whisper in the wind. Her cadet leathers were coarse under my hands, but the skin I’d exposed at her throat was impossibly soft.

I remembered the exact moment her anxiety had turned to raw, unrestrained lust. Her scent had changed, the clean smell of soap and wind giving way to the musky, intoxicating aroma of her arousal. I’d ripped open the front of her leathers, the buttons scattering into the darkness, not giving a single fuck. My fingers had plunged straight into her, finding her already soaking wet for me. So fucking hot and slick, her cunt clenching around my fingers as if trying to pull me deeper inside. She’d gasped, a broken, needy sound, her head thrown back against the stone, her brow-to-silver hair a chaotic halo in the moonlight.

“Xaden,” she’d breathed, not a plea to stop but a demand for more.

The memory was so vivid I could almost taste her. I had pushed her thighs apart, dropping to my knees on the cold stone, ignoring the bite of the wind against my face. I buried my face between her legs, my tongue finding her swollen clit immediately. She tasted of salt and her own unique sweetness, a flavor that was branded into my senses. I’d lapped at her, sucking her into my mouth, my fingers thrusting deep into her slick channel while my tongue worked her mercilessly. She’d cried out, her hands fisting my hair, her hips bucking against my face with a frantic, untamed rhythm. Dain saw a fragile girl who needed protecting; I knew the wild creature who had screamed my name into the night as she came apart on my tongue, her orgasm flooding my mouth with her hot, sweet release.

Dain started leading her away from the mat. He was talking, his expression sincere, his thumb stroking her arm in what he probably thought was a comforting gesture. To me, it was a fucking brand. An act of ownership. And it was an insult to the woman I knew, the one who had gripped my shoulders and met my thrusts with a power that matched my own.

A raw, primal jealousy clawed its way up my throat, hot as bile. It wasn't just about sex. It was about knowledge. I knew the sounds she made when she was on the edge. I knew the way her inner muscles fluttered around my cock right before she came. I knew the exact spot behind her ear that made her shiver. Dain Aetos knew her favorite color. The comparison was so laughable it was infuriating. He was touching my Violence...
No, not mine. But certainly not fucking his.

Every instinct, every primal fiber of my being, screamed at me to cross the fifty yards of sun-scorched earth and rip Dain’s hand from her arm. To put my body between them and let the bastard see the promise of death in my eyes. But she wouldn't like that. Not here. Not now.

Revealing my claim on her, my obsession, wouldn't be a victory. It would be signing her death warrant. It would paint a target on her back so large that not even Tairn could protect her from it. Every enemy I had—and there were legions of them within these walls—would see her as a lever. A weakness. A pawn to be used against me. No, my public rage wouldn't save her. It would damn her. And that thought, more than anything, was a chain holding me in place. So I stood there, locked in the shadows, and I watched. I forced the blinding heat of my rage into a cold, analytical focus.

I watched Dain. I dissected his every move. It was a pathetic, transparent strategy. See how he positioned himself? His body was angled slightly, using his own bulk to shield her from the view of the other cadets milling about. It was a subtle act of isolation, disguised as creating a private space for them to talk. He was cutting her off from her quadrant, from her friends. He was making himself her entire world in that moment.

And his hand. That fucking hand on her arm. It wasn't a lover’s caress. It wasn't even the friendly touch of a childhood companion. It was an anchor. A coddling restraint. His thumb stroked her bicep, yes, but his fingers were curled just a little too tightly, a subtle pressure that said, Stay here. Listen to me. Don't walk away. He was physically reinforcing his verbal lecture, using his superior size and strength to pin her in place without ever raising his voice. It was manipulation at its finest, a textbook example of control masquerading as care.

He leaned his head down, forcing her to tilt her chin up to maintain eye contact. Another power play. It made him the authority, the one dispensing wisdom from on high, and it made her the supplicant, the student. He was reinforcing the very dynamic she was fighting so hard to escape: the idea that she was small, fragile, and in constant need of guidance. He didn't see a rider. He saw a liability, a problem to be managed back into the scribe quadrant.

My cock was still hard, pressed painfully against the seam of my leathers. The rage and the lust were so intertwined they were indistinguishable. The thought of his hands on her, even in this chaste, public way, sent a possessive fury through me that was intensely, sickeningly arousing. I wanted to rip his hand off her and kiss her, showing him the ravenous heat that burns beneath her controlled mask.

I forced the image down, burying them under cold strategy. My stillness was her shield. My silence was her armor. Every second I remained here, unseen in the shadows, was a second she remained safe from the consequences of being mine. It was a bitter, fucking irony. To protect the woman I wanted to claim in front of the world, I had to pretend I didn't see her, that she meant nothing to me. I had to let this lesser man paw at her, lecture her, and try to shrink her back into the box she’d just begun to claw her way out of. Each condescending word I imagined him saying was a lash against my own back, a punishment for the one secret I had to keep. The secret of her, writhing beneath me, her body slick with sweat and her own wetness, completely and utterly mine.

And then Dain leaned in, his mouth hovering just beside her ear. From this distance, I couldn't hear what he whispered, but I could see it. I could see the way his lips moved, the puff of his breath stirring the fine, loose hairs at her temple. I could see the disgusting intimacy of the gesture, a secret shared between them in the open, and it was a thousand times worse than a public shout. It was a claim of a different kind—a claim to her thoughts, her secrets.

Violet’s face, which had been a carefully constructed mask of polite patience, broke. It was a minute fracture, a crack so fine that only someone who had spent weeks studying her every expression could have seen it. Her jaw tightened, a hard line forming along the delicate curve of it. Her eyes, for just a fraction of a second, lost their focus on him and went hard, cold steel.

The raw, undiluted wave of her fury slammed into me through the bond, so potent it was like a physical blow. She wanted to shove him away. She wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. But she didn't. She held it in, a testament to her own brutal control.

My control, however, evaporated.

A surge of rage, so pure and hot it felt like dragon fire in my veins, obliterated all my cold analysis. The shadows around my feet didn't just coil; they surged upwards, licking at my calves, hungry. My teeth ground together with a sound that was audible even to my own ears. He was whispering poison to her, and she was forced to stand there and take it. All my resolve to stay hidden, to protect her through inaction, turned to ash in my mouth.

I should have walked away. The smart move, the strategic move, was to turn my back, retreat deeper into the shadows, and find some other outlet for this violence simmering under my skin. I should have gone to the sparring rings and beaten someone senseless. I should have found Sgaeyl and flown until the rage was just a dull ache in my bones. Every rational part of my mind screamed at me to leave.

But I was rooted to the spot. My boots felt like they were forged to the fucking ground. The magnetic pull of our bond was a physical thing, a thick, unbreakable cable stretching across the training grounds, tethering my soul to hers. I could feel her fury as if it were my own, and leaving her to face it alone felt like tearing off a limb. It was more than the bond, though. It was my own dark, selfish desire. I wanted to watch. I needed to see. I was addicted to the sight of her, even like this. Even when it felt like I was flaying myself alive.

The memory of her on the parapet tower returned, not as a coherent scene, but as a series of explosive, explicit flashes. Her cunt, slick and swollen around my tongue. The taste of her release, hot and sweet in the back of my throat. The sight of her thighs, trembling in the moonlight. Her hands fisted in my hair, pulling me closer, demanding more. That was the real Violet. And this man, this boy, was trying to smother that fire with his wet-blanket concern.

My cock was stone hard now, a painful, throbbing weight in my leathers. The thought of striding over there, of grabbing Dain by the back of his neck and smashing his face into the dirt, was almost as aluring as the thought of throwing Violet over my shoulder and carrying her back to my room to fuck her until neither of us could walk. I wanted to punish him, and I wanted to claim her. The two urges were one and the same, a singular, overwhelming need to impose my will on the scene before me. To make it right. To make her mine again, not just in secret, but in the fucking daylight for everyone to see.

He pulled back, a self-satisfied little smile on his face, as if he’d just solved a complex problem for her. Violet gave him a tight, forced nod. She was a fortress, impenetrable and perfect, revealing nothing of the inferno I knew was raging inside her. And I remained her silent guardian, a predator leashed in the darkness. The torment of it was exquisite. I was her protector, and my protection was a cage of my own making, forcing me to stand by while the one person I wanted to shield from all harm was being slowly poisoned right before my eyes. The shadows around me writhed, a silent chorus to the violence in my heart, and I did not move. I just watched.