He Sneered 'She's Mine' At My Ex, And Now We're Both Being Hunted

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.

The mess hall was a cacophony of scraping chairs, clattering cutlery, and the loud, boisterous chatter of hundreds of cadets blowing off steam. It was a mundane, daily ritual that grated on my nerves on the best of days. Today, it was fucking torture. I sat with my wing, a slab of dry meat and some questionable stew on the plate in front of me, untouched. My body was here, at this table wedged between Garrick and Bodhi, but my entire being was focused across the cavernous room.

On her.

Violet was sitting with her own squad, Rhiannon Matthias chattering away at her side. But it wasn't her friends who held my attention. It was Dain Aetos, who had pulled a chair up to their table and angled himself so he was squarely in her space, his back to most of the room as if they were the only two people there. He was holding court, leaning forward on his elbows, his expression earnest and intense. He was talking at her, not with her. Even from fifty feet away, I could see the condescension in the set of his shoulders, in the way he gestured with his fork to emphasize a point.

I felt her emotions like a physical sting behind my own eyes. A frustrated, simmering anger she was holding tightly in check, but was dancing down the bond. On the surface, she looked attentive. She was nodding, her expression neutral, the perfect picture of a cadet listening to a superior. But I could see the subtle tells now. The slight stiffness in her neck. The way her fork was perfectly still beside her plate instead of moving. The way her gaze was fixed on his mouth, not with interest, but with the kind of focus one gives a venomous insect, waiting for it to strike.

She was tolerating him. Enduring him. And the fact that she had to was setting my teeth on edge.

Dain leaned in closer, his voice dropping, though his animated hand gestures didn't stop. He was lecturing her. I didn’t need to hear the words to know the tone. It was the same one he’d used on the training grounds—that infuriating, patronizing cadence that suggested he knew what was best for her, that her own thoughts and instincts were secondary to his superior judgment. He was treating her like a problem to be solved, a fragile piece of glass that needed his constant supervision to keep from shattering.

The memory of her in the parapet tower, her body arching into mine, was a stark, violent contrast. There was nothing fragile about the way her nails had scraped down my back. Nothing fragile about the strength in her thighs as she clamped them around my head, her hips bucking as she came on my tongue. That was the real Violet. A fucking storm of power and passion and intellect, all wrapped in a deceptively small package. And this fucking child, this boy who’d known her his whole life, couldn't see any of it. He only saw what he wanted to see: a girl he needed to protect, to mold, to keep safe.

He speaks to her as if she is a child who cannot wield her own power, Sgaeyl added, the thought sharp and laced with Tairn's disgust. Tairn is… displeased.

Displeased was a fucking understatement. The fury coming through the bond was a hot, agitated buzz, a direct reflection of Violet's own suffocated rage. It fed my own, stoking the embers that had been glowing since the training yard into a low, steady fire in my gut. My hand tightened around my knife, the handle digging into my palm. I wanted to get up, stride across the hall, and plant the point of this blade in the table right between his fucking fingers. I wanted to see the shock and fear on his face as I leaned in and told him that the next time he spoke to her with anything less than the respect she commanded, I’d cut his condescending tongue out of his mouth.

But I stayed seated, a mask of indifference plastered on my face. Exposing the truth of our connection here would be a death sentence. So I watched, my jaw clenched, feeling her irritation as if it were my own, a shared secret simmering between us across a crowded room. Dain kept talking, oblivious, poisoning the air around her with his concern. And with every word I couldn't hear but could feel the impact of, the fire in my gut burned a little hotter.

A lull in the surrounding roar of conversation, a brief, coincidental pocket of quiet, allowed a fragment of Dain’s voice to carry across the hall. It was sharp, clear, and laced with that infuriatingly patient tone he reserved for her.

“…far too reckless, Violet. That stunt on the mats today could have gotten you killed.”

My blood went from a simmer to a rolling boil. My hands, resting on my thighs under the table, clenched into fists so tight my knuckles turned white. The wood of the bench creaked under the strain as my leg muscles locked.

Reckless. He thought she was reckless instead of seeing the calculating force of nature she truly was.

The memory of her in the tower wasn't just a flash; it was a fucking brand on my soul. Her, on her knees, taking my cock down her throat with a ferocity that stole my breath. There was no hesitation, no fragility. Just a raw, demanding hunger. I remembered the slick heat of her mouth, the scrape of her teeth against the base of my shaft, the way her throat worked as she took me deeper than I thought possible. She wasn’t reckless; she was deliberate. She knew exactly what she wanted and she fucking took it.

Another snippet of Dain’s voice cut through the noise. “You need to rely on my judgment. I’ve been here longer. I know how to keep you safe.”

My judgment. The sheer fucking arrogance of it sent a wave of black rage through me. I imagined my shadows around his throat, not to kill him, but just to squeeze until that self-assured look on his face shattered into the terror he deserved to feel. He wanted her to rely on him? On his narrow, fearful, by-the-book view of the world? He would have her hiding in the Scribe Quadrant, buried under dusty scrolls, her power—her glorious, terrifying power—withering on the vine.

I knew her power. I’d tasted it. I’d felt it pulsing against my skin. After I’d gone down on her, when she was trembling and breathless, slick with her own release, she had pushed me onto my back. She’d climbed on top of me, her silver-tipped hair a wild halo in the moonlight, her eyes burning with an intensity that could level cities. She hadn’t hesitated. She’d mounted me, her wet cunt sliding against the head of my cock, teasing, controlling. She’d guided me inside her with a slow, deliberate slide, her inner muscles clenching around me in a hot, impossibly tight grip. She was the one who set the pace, her hips rocking, her body demanding everything I had to give. She wasn't some damsel needing to be kept safe. She was a fucking queen claiming her throne.

And Dain Aetos, with his condescending whispers and his suffocating concern, was trying to tell that queen she was a pawn.

He saw a girl to be protected. I saw a warrior who had fucked me with a strength and certainty that left me raw. He saw fragility. I saw the muscles in her thighs quivering, the sweat beading on her skin, the fierce, determined set of her jaw as she fucked herself onto my cock, chasing her own pleasure with a single-minded focus that was the most profoundly arousing thing I had ever witnessed. He saw a child to be coddled. I saw the woman whose guttural moans echoed off the stone battlements, whose orgasm had felt like a lightning strike, her cunt contracting around me in violent, exquisite spasms that left me dry.

My own cock was granite-hard, pressing painfully against the seam of my leathers. The rage was a physical thing, a sickness in my stomach and a pressure behind my eyes. Every instinct screamed at me to cross the room, to haul Dain out of his chair and show everyone—show her—what a man who truly saw her looked like. To show them the difference between possession and worship. Dain wanted to play house with a pretty, breakable doll. I wanted to kneel before a goddess of fucking war.

He saw her as a weakness to be sheltered. I knew she was a weapon, and the most infuriating part was that I was forced to sit here, silent and seething, while this blind fool tried to dull her edge.

“Riorson.”

Garrick’s voice was a low rumble beside me, dragging me from the red haze of my thoughts. I blinked, the image of Violet’s flushed face and sweat-slicked body fading from my mind’s eye.

“Did you hear a word I said?” Garrick asked, his brow furrowed with mild annoyance. “The quartermaster is shorting us on whetstones again.”

I forced my gaze away from Violet’s table, turning my head just enough to meet Garrick’s eyes. My own felt hot, my jaw so tight it ached. “Tell him I’ll pay him a visit if he can’t count,” I said, my voice flat and cold, utterly detached from the furnace burning inside me. It was a piss-poor response, but it was all I could manage.

Garrick gave me a long look, but didn’t push. He knew my moods. He turned back to his meal, leaving me to my torment. My attention snapped back across the hall like a taut string, pulled by a force I couldn’t fight.

Dain was still talking, still gesturing. And Violet was still listening, her posture a masterpiece of polite tolerance. But it wasn’t the memory of her body that held me captive now. It was the memory of her mind.

A few nights after the parapet, I'd found her in the archives. She’d been researching Navarre’s eastern border skirmishes, and she’d found a discrepancy in the official histories. She’d laid out the scrolls, her small hands tracing the faded ink of maps that were centuries old. She hadn’t been flirting. She hadn’t been trying to impress me. She’d been consumed by a puzzle.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she’d whispered, her brow furrowed in concentration. “The supply lines they claim to have used are impossible. The terrain is too treacherous. They’d have lost half their men to attrition before they even saw the enemy.”

I’d stood there, ready to push her up against a bookshelf and lift her legs around my waist, but her intensity stopped me cold. I looked at the maps, at the histories I’d been forced to memorize my entire life. I’d never questioned them. No one had. But she, with her Scribe’s mind and a warrior’s burgeoning instinct, had seen the lie hidden in plain sight.

We’d spent the next hour hunched over those scrolls, not as enemies or lovers, but as equals. She’d dismantled a hundred years of accepted military doctrine with quiet, ruthless logic. Her intellect was a weapon, sharper than any dagger, more devastating than any siege engine. The entire time, all I could think about was how that same brilliant, analytical mind had been focused so completely on my cock just nights before. I remembered her looking up at me while she rode me, her eyes dark with pleasure but still so fucking sharp, as if she were committing every sensation, every shift of my hips, every groan I couldn't hold back, to memory. She wasn't just feeling it; she was learning me. Cataloging me. Conquering me.

That was the woman I wanted. The one who could strategize an impossible campaign and then turn that same ferocious intelligence to figuring out exactly how to ride my cock to make us both come so hard the world fell away.

And Dain Aetos was telling her to rely on his judgment.

The rage came back, colder this time, more potent. It wasn’t just that he was trying to possess her body. He was insulting her mind. He was trying to smother the brightest fire I had ever seen. He saw a girl who needed to be led by the hand through training exercises. I saw a woman who could rewrite our entire understanding of this war. He wanted to cage her, to keep her safe and small and reliant on him. I wanted to hand her an army and watch her burn our enemies to the fucking ground. I wanted to see her unleashed, to see that brilliant, vicious mind set loose upon a world that would never see her coming.

I wanted to be there when it happened. I wanted to be the one she came back to, covered in the blood of her enemies, her eyes blazing with triumph, and fuck her on a table full of battle maps.

My gaze locked on her across the room, a desperate, silent plea. See him for what he is. A cage. A fucking anchor. I longed to feel the spark of her thoughts, to tell her that I saw her, all of her, and that I would never, ever ask her to be less than the magnificent, terrifying force of nature she'd turned herself into.

My thoughts were a godsdamned storm, a chaotic whirl of rage and memory and a desperate, aching need. And then, through the haze, I saw it.

Dain moved. He leaned forward, his expression one of earnest, patronizing concern, and placed his hand over hers where it rested on the tabletop.

Just like that. A simple gesture. A comforting touch, anyone else would have called it. But I saw it for what it was. An anchor. A claim. The brand of ownership being pressed onto her skin in full view of the entire mess hall. He wasn’t comforting her; he was staking his territory, marking her as his to guide, his to protect, his to fucking manage.

My breath caught in my throat. I saw the muscles in her jaw flicker. Her shoulders, which had been relaxed in a posture of feigned interest, went rigid. It was a minute shift, one that ninety-nine percent of the people in this hall would miss. But I saw it. I felt it, like a sympathetic tremor through the stone floor. Her fingers, trapped under his palm, curled slightly, a reflexive attempt to pull away.

She didn't want his touch.

And he ignored it. He fucking ignored it. He kept his hand there, pressing down with a gentle finality that made my vision swim with red. He kept talking, his thumb stroking the back of her hand as if she were a nervous mare that needed calming.

That hand. I knew that hand. I knew the feel of her skin. I’d held that same hand in mine, lacing my fingers through hers as I drove my cock into her, our clasped hands a bond of trust against the cold stone of the parapet. I’d felt her nails, short and practical, dig into the muscles of my back as she shattered around my tongue, her cunt clenching and releasing, drenching my face in her slick, sweet come. I remembered the exact texture of her palm against my cheek, a touch so tender it almost broke me, right before she climbed on top of me and took my cock deep inside her.

Dain was touching something sacred. He was putting his filthy, condescending hands on something that belonged only to us.

The memory of her riding me came back, sharp and visceral. I remembered grabbing her hips, my thumbs pressing into the soft skin just above her ass, guiding her, urging her on. I’d felt the powerful flex of her thighs, the way she controlled every fucking inch of my shaft sliding in and out of her tight, wet heat. She had been in charge, a goddess of pleasure taking what she wanted. And when she’d been close, she’d braced her hands on my chest, her head thrown back, a raw, guttural moan tearing from her throat as she fucked herself into her orgasm. Her hands, flat against my pectorals, had been the only thing grounding her as her body convulsed around my cock.

That was touch. That was connection. A collision of power and pleasure, freely given and ravenously taken.

What Dain was doing… that was defilement. It was a violation. He was touching the hand of a queen and treating her like a child. He was touching the body of a warrior who had screamed my name into the night sky and acting like she was a piece of fragile glass.

My shadows deepened around my feet, writhing with an anger so profound it was almost a physical entity. I wanted to send them across the room, to wrap around Dain’s wrist and snap the bone. I wanted to feel the crunch, see the shock and pain on his face as his hand was ripped away from her.

He had no right. He hadn’t earned the right. He hadn’t seen her at her most vulnerable and her most powerful. He hadn’t tasted her, hadn’t been inside her, hadn’t felt the very essence of her power contract around his cock. He didn’t know the way her breath hitched right before she came, or the scent of her skin after she’d been thoroughly fucked. He knew nothing.

He saw a project. A cause. A girl to save so he could feel like a man.

I saw the woman who had knelt for me and then made me beg for her. I saw the strategist who could dismantle a century of lies. I saw the fire that could burn the world down. And I wanted to be the one to hand her the fucking torch.

His thumb stroked her hand again, a slow, possessive, utterly oblivious gesture.

That was it. That was the final fucking straw.

A low, guttural sound, halfway between a snarl and a groan, tore from my own throat. My muscles went rigid, my entire body locking up in a wave of pure, unadulterated fury. My knuckles were white where I gripped the edge of the table, the wood groaning under the pressure. The shadows around my boots churned, no longer just deepening but coiling like starving serpents, hungry for violence.

He had no fucking right.

Dain’s thumb stroked her skin again. I had worshipped that body, learned its language, submitted to its power. And this fucking child, this condescending, self-righteous prick, was touching it like it was his property to soothe. He was putting his bland, sterile touch on the same skin I had marked with my teeth, the same hand that had held me inside her while she came apart.

It was sacrilege.

A violent tremor shot through me, a quake of rage so profound it threatened to split me open. I was going to kill him. Right here. I was going to cross that hall, rip his fucking hand from hers, and smash his face into the table until there was nothing left but blood and splinters.

The scraping sound of my chair against the stone floor was like a thunderclap in the sudden silence of the mess hall.

Every head turned. Garrick’s. Bodhi’s. Imogen’s. Across the room, Violet’s head snapped up, her eyes wide, finally breaking contact with Dain. Dain himself looked up, his hand finally dropping from hers, a flicker of annoyance on his face that quickly morphed into outrage as he saw me.

I didn’t see any of them. Not really. My world had narrowed to a single, burning path out of this room. Every instinct screamed at me to walk toward their table, to finish what my body was demanding. But beneath the rage, a colder, more desperate thought took hold. Her.

Her eyes meet mine with an intensity I could feel not just physically, but deep within my soul; like she's standing on the hillside above Aretia alongside me, gently but fiercely moving me to ground myself. In a second I feel her even deeper—She’s lowered her shields.

“Im ok, Xaden, It’s ok” her voice softens my shoulders for approximately one and a half seconds, but a twitch takes my attention away.

Dain.

His dumbass blundering hands are too close to her magnificent mind. Our mind, in a way. Gnashing teeth and a low guttural growl vibrate through my veins as Sgaeyl and Tairn voice their displeasure. One look down to Garrick makes me think he could feel Tairn's anger through me.

“Violence, you know your voice drives me wild, but he’s too close. You need to raise your shields.”

Her eyes roll so dramatically that the movement takes her head with it. “What, you don’t think I know what he can do? what he can see?” She lowers her chin and looks up to me across the room, her gaze brushing through the lower curve of her perfect lashes. I blink hard before she lets a wicked smirk grace her lips in what is again the hottest fucking expression I’ve ever witnessed; she keeps out doing herself. “Don’t look so flustered, Riorson, you’ll give away our little secret.” Her mouth opens slightly and I see her tongue play between her teeth. Fuck.

“Is there a problem, Sir?!” The drip of mockery in Dain’s voice gives me every reason to kill him. His face drains of all color as I imagine he's reached the same conclusion. I think he’s had enough time among us mortals.

Half a step towards their table, the searing ball of fire in my chest is dampened to a soft flame and I unclench my jaw. What the fuck?

“What did you do? how did you do that?” My eyes dart to the hazel ones I can’t get enough of.

“Maybe I’ll show you later if you play nice.” Violet stands up and scans my body, quickly, but thoroughly, before she clears her area and leaves the mess hall. Dain starts to stand as well, but with my Violence gone, the full power of my rage descends again.

The adrenaline from her silent, searing exchange with Xaden still buzzed under her skin as she pushed through the doors of the mess hall. It was reckless, taunting him like that with Dain sitting right there, but gods, it was intoxicating. For a few seconds, connected by the raw power flowing between their dragons, she had felt completely in control. She’d silenced Xaden’s rage with a mental caress and a wicked promise, and the memory of his stunned shock was a heady triumph.

The relative quiet of the stone corridor was a relief. The air was cool against her flushed cheeks. She needed to put space between herself and that suffocating room, between Dain’s smothering concern and Xaden’s possessive fury. A part of her, the part that still remembered the sting of the mat and the burn of her screaming muscles, had wanted to see Xaden cross the hall and rip Dain’s hand away from hers. That thought was terrifying, and she shoved it down deep.

Heavy, furious footsteps echoed from behind her, closing the distance far too quickly. She didn’t have to turn around. She knew the self-righteous rhythm of that walk.

“Violet!”

Dain’s voice was sharp, cutting through the quiet. It was the voice he used on first-years who fumbled their drills, not the gentle, concerned tone he usually reserved for her. She ignored it, quickening her pace. She was not a cadet to be reprimanded.

A hand clamped down on her upper arm, fingers digging into muscle and sinew, yanking her to a halt. The force of it spun her around, and she stumbled, her boots scraping against the flagstones. He loomed over her, his face flushed a blotchy red, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped near his ear.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded, his voice a low, furious hiss. His grip was bruising, his thumb pressing into the soft flesh of her inner arm.

“Let go of me, Dain,” she said. Her voice was dangerously level, a stark contrast to the anger flaring in her chest. She tried to twist her arm out of his grasp, but his fingers only tightened, a cage of bone and flesh.

“You humiliated me,” he bit out, ignoring her command completely. “You made a scene. You sat there while he—while Riorson—looked at me like he was going to tear my throat out, and then you just get up and walk away? Do you have any idea how that made us look?”

Us. The word was a slap. There was no ‘us’. Not like this.

“It looked like I was done with the conversation,” she snapped, her control fraying. “And I’m done with this one, too. You don’t get to lecture me, and you sure as fuck don’t get to grab me.”

His blue eyes widened, a flash of genuine disbelief in them, as if her defiance was a personal betrayal. “I was trying to protect you! He’s a monster, Violet. A wingleader who has gotten half his wing killed. And you’re playing games with him, antagonizing him. You think I didn’t see it? The way you looked at him? You’re being reckless, and you’re going to end up dead.”

The accusation, the sheer, arrogant possessiveness in his tone, made her skin crawl. His fingers were still digging into her, branding her with his unwanted concern. She thought of Xaden’s hands on her skin, how they could be rough and demanding but also traced her scars with a reverence that felt like worship. Xaden’s touch was a question, an invitation to a shared power. Dain’s was a fucking manacle.

“My choices, and my risks, are my own,” she said, wrenching her arm again. His grip slipped for a fraction of a second before he clamped down even harder, his face darkening. “Who I choose to speak with is none of your godsdamned business. You are not my keeper, Dain. You are not my brother, and you are not my wingleader. You are my childhood friend, and you are about two seconds away from losing that title permanently.”

“Because of him?” Dain sneered, the sound ugly and foreign from his mouth. He took a menacing step forward, forcing her to take one back. The cold of the corridor wall seeped through the thin fabric of her uniform. “He has you twisted around his finger, and you’re too naive to even see it. He’s manipulating you, Violet. Using you. To get to your mother, to undermine the quadrant—who the fuck knows why? But you’re letting him.”

The hypocrisy was so thick she felt like she was choking on it. He, who constantly used their shared past as a leash. He, who was physically restraining her in a deserted hallway, daring to speak to her of manipulation. The simmering rage she’d banked down in the mess hall erupted.

“Let. Go. Of. Me.” She punctuated each word with a sharp tug, putting all of her weight into it.

He was stronger. He used her own momentum against her, shoving her backward. Her shoulders hit the unyielding stone wall with a hard, jarring thud that knocked the air from her lungs. For a second, spots danced in her vision. His face was inches from hers, his body caging her in, his grip on her arm unrelenting.

The impact sent a shockwave through her spine, and for a terrifying second, the world was nothing but the sharp scrape of stone against her shoulder blades and the suffocating scent of Dain’s self-righteous fury. He had her pinned. Utterly. The realization was a hot spike of panic, but it was immediately drowned by a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated rage.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” she snarled, the words torn from her throat. She brought her knee up, aiming for the juncture of his thighs, but he was expecting it, his body shifting just enough to block the blow with his own leg. The dull thud of impact did nothing. He didn't even flinch.

His breath was hot on her face, his eyes wild with an anger that was quickly curdling into something else. Something worse. He saw the murder in her eyes, the complete lack of fear, and a flicker of confusion crossed his face. He’d expected tears. He’d expected her to crumble. He’d expected the fragile Violet he’d constructed in his own mind, the one who needed his protection. He wasn't getting her.

The shift was instantaneous and sickening. The rage drained from his face, replaced by a look of profound, theatrical hurt. His jaw unclenched. His eyes softened, becoming wide and pleading. It was a performance, and it was the most repulsive thing she had ever seen.

He released her arm, and for a fraction of a second, she thought he was letting her go. But it was just a trade. His hands came up, landing on her shoulders, his thumbs pressing into her collarbones. The grip was different—not the bruising anger of before, but a heavy, proprietary weight. It was a cage disguised as an embrace.

“Vi,” he breathed, his voice dropping to a low, intimate murmur that made her stomach turn. He leaned in closer, invading her space, forcing her to either meet his gaze or stare at the column of his throat. “What has he done to you?”

She remained silent, her body rigid as a statue, every muscle screaming in protest. Her silence was a wall, and he started throwing himself against it.

“This isn't you,” he whispered, his thumbs stroking her collarbones in a gesture that was meant to be soothing but felt like an infestation. “The Violet I know, the one I grew up with… she would never let a separatist wingleader get in her head like this. She was smart. She was careful.”

He was using their history like a weapon, sharpening every shared memory into a blade to cut her with. She could feel the cold stone at her back, the unyielding pressure of his hands on her shoulders, the claustrophobia of his presence. He was trying to shrink her world until it contained only him and the past he controlled.

“I’ve known you your entire life, Violet. I held your hand at your father’s funeral. I promised him I would look out for you.”

The mention of her father was a vile, calculated blow. He knew exactly what he was doing, trying to pry open her oldest wound and pour his poison inside. She clenched her jaw so hard she felt a sharp pain radiate up to her temple. She would not give him the satisfaction of a reaction. She would not let him use her father’s memory to chain her.

“Don’t you remember?” he pressed on, his voice thick with false nostalgia. “Summers at your family’s estate? Reading in the library? Before all this… before Basgiath, before the rebellion… before him. We were us. What happened to us?”

You did, she thought, the words a silent scream in her mind. You happened. You saw me as something broken that only you could fix. You refused to see me as I am.

He was so close she could see the flecks of gold in his blue eyes, see the earnest, pleading look he’d perfected over years of getting his way. He was misreading her stillness, her rigid posture. He didn't see the coiled fury of a cornered dragon. He saw acquiescence. He saw a victory. He thought his pathetic, manipulative little speech was working. He thought he was winning her back from the big, bad monster. The irony was a bitter acid in her throat. Dain was the one treating her like a possession to be claimed, a prize to be won. Xaden, for all his shadows and secrets, saw her as a power to match his own.

“I just want to keep you safe,” Dain murmured, his voice now a tender caress. He dipped his head, his gaze falling from her eyes to her lips. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He dipped his head, and the world narrowed to the space between their faces. His lips parted. A wave of pure, visceral revulsion washed over her, so potent it was a physical force, churning in her gut. This was it. The final, arrogant claim. He thought he had won. He thought his pathetic recitation of their shared past had broken her, and now he was moving in to collect his prize. The sheer, unadulterated entitlement of it was a fire in her veins. Her hands, balled into fists at her sides, tightened until her nails bit deep into her palms, the sharp pain a welcome anchor in the sea of her rage. She was going to drive her thumb into his eye. She was going to knee him in the groin so hard he’d never stand straight again. She was going to scream.

His mouth was less than an inch from hers. She could smell the faint scent of wine on his breath, see the self-satisfied glint in his eyes. He was closing them, surrendering to the moment he believed he had created, the moment he thought he was owed.

But his lips never touched hers.

In the periphery of her vision, the gloom of the corridor shifted. It wasn't a trick of the light. A piece of the darkness pooled near the stone floor detached itself, rising like a serpent uncoiling. It was a ribbon of pure night, silent and impossibly fast, a solid void that seemed to drink the light around it.

Before Dain could even register its presence, the tendril of shadow lashed out. It wasn’t smoke; it had weight, a horrifying substance as it wrapped itself around the lower half of his face. It covered his mouth and nose, a gag of living darkness that clung to his skin. His eyes, which had been closing in smug anticipation, flew open, bulging with sudden, abject terror. A choked, wet sound of protest was ripped from his throat, but it was swallowed instantly by the shadow that held him captive. He tried to inhale, but there was no air, only the suffocating, cold pressure of solid night.

The shadow didn't just gag him. It shoved.

It was not the force of a man. It was an application of brutal, inhuman power, as if an invisible wall had slammed into him. Dain was thrown backward, his hands flying from Violet’s shoulders as he was launched off his feet. He was airborne for a moment, a puppet with its strings cut, before he crashed to the flagstones ten feet away. The impact was a sickening crunch of bone and armor, followed by a choked gasp as the shadow released him just before he hit the ground.

He landed in a graceless, sprawling heap, his limbs askew. For a second he just lay there, stunned, before scrambling to prop himself up on his elbows, dragging in huge, ragged, panicked breaths. He stared at her, his face pale with shock, his mouth hanging open, the memory of that suffocating power still etched in the terror in his eyes. The shadow itself was gone, vanished back into the ambient gloom as if it had never been there at all.

Violet remained pressed against the wall, her body trembling with adrenaline. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, wild rhythm. The oppressive weight of Dain’s hands on her shoulders was gone, but a new pressure had descended upon the corridor. It was a heavy, coiling presence, a predatory stillness that crackled with the promise of breathtaking violence. It was a power she knew intimately. A power she craved.

She didn’t spare another glance for Dain’s pathetic, crumpled form on the floor. Her gaze snapped to the end of the corridor, to the deep shadows of the archway he’d just stalked out of.

And she saw him.

Xaden stepped out from the archway, and it was like watching a nightmare take solid form. The shadows of the corridor didn’t retreat from him; they clung to him, writhing around his black combat boots and coiling up his legs like living things. His leathers were immaculate, but his posture was that of a predator. Every line of his body was taut with a lethal rage that seemed to vibrate in the air, making the torchlight flicker and dance. The raw, unrestrained power coming off him was a physical force, pressing in on her, stealing the air from her lungs in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with a terrifying, exhilarating recognition.

He didn't look at Dain. His eyes, blacker than the shadows that served him, were locked on her. They swept over her from head to toe in a fraction of a second, a frantic, possessive inventory checking for damage. She saw the muscle in his jaw clench, a hard knot of fury. He took one step into the corridor, then another. His movements were slow, deliberate, each footfall on the flagstones a silent, deadly promise.

“Riorson,” Dain managed to gasp, pushing himself into a sitting position. He sounded winded, his voice thin and reedy with shock and outrage. “What the fuck was that? You assaulted me. That’s a court-martial offense.”

Xaden’s head turned, a slow, predatory pivot. The full, undiluted force of his murderous intent finally landed on the man sprawled on the floor. He didn’t just look at Dain; he looked through him, dismissing him as something utterly insignificant, something to be scraped off the bottom of a boot. A low sound, somewhere between a growl and a sneer, escaped Xaden’s lips.

“Get up,” Xaden commanded. His voice was quiet, dangerously so. It was the calm at the center of a hurricane, a low rumble that promised utter devastation.

Dain, ever the fool, seemed to mistake the quiet for a lack of conviction. He scrambled to his feet, trying to regain some semblance of dignity as he brushed dust from his uniform. He puffed out his chest, the picture of a pompous squad leader about to deliver a lecture. “You have no authority here, Riorson. You can’t just—"

“I said, get up,” Xaden repeated, his voice dropping even lower, colder. He took another step forward, closing half the distance between them. The shadows around his feet thickened, creeping across the stone floor toward Dain like an oil slick. “Because I’m not going to kill you while you’re on the ground.”

The threat was so blunt, so devoid of any posturing, that it silenced Dain completely. His mouth snapped shut. The color drained from his face, leaving him a pasty, sickly white. He took an involuntary step back, his bravado crumbling into naked fear.

Xaden kept advancing. “You put your hands on her,” he said, the words precise and clipped, each one a shard of ice. He gestured with his chin toward Violet, though his eyes never left Dain’s. “You put your fucking hands on her.” It wasn’t a question. It was a verdict.

“I was protecting her!” Dain squeaked, his voice cracking. He glanced wildly at Violet, as if expecting her to leap to his defense. “From you! She needs to be kept safe from you separatists. She’s fragile, she doesn’t understand—”

That was the word that did it. Fragile.

Xaden stopped. He was only a few feet from Dain now, close enough that his shadow fell over the other man. The air crackled. The power coiling inside him was no longer contained; it was leaking out, a palpable pressure that made the hairs on Violet’s arms stand on end. He looked at Dain, this boy who dared to speak her name, who dared to touch her, who dared to call her weak. A sneer, ugly and visceral, twisted Xaden’s lips. His eyes, burning with a black fire, flickered to Violet for a single, searing second, and in that look she saw it all—the possessiveness, the fury, the raw, unadulterated truth of his feelings that he’d kept locked away for so long.

He turned his head back to Dain, the sneer deepening. The words that came out were a low, venomous hiss, a declaration of ownership so absolute it felt like a brand being seared into the very stone of the corridor.

“Violence is mine.”

The three words hung in the air, heavy and absolute. The corridor fell into a dead silence, broken only by the crackle of the torches and Dain’s ragged breathing. He stared at Xaden, his face a mask of horrified confusion, as if he couldn’t process the statement, let alone the sheer possessiveness with which it had been delivered.

Violet’s breath caught in her throat. Her mind reeled. Violence is mine. Not ‘Violet’. He’d used her call sign. A claim staked not just on her, but on the deadliest part of her, the part that belonged to Tairn, to lightning, to the sky. It was the most arrogant, insane, and thrilling thing she had ever heard.

Xaden’s eyes were still locked on Dain, but a flicker of something—shock at his own words—crossed his face. The rigid control he always maintained had snapped, and the truth had come spilling out, raw and ugly and undeniable. He saw the incomprehension on Dain’s face, then his gaze shifted, finding Violet’s. He searched her expression, and whatever he found there—not fear, not revulsion, but a wild, stunned recognition that mirrored the chaos in his own chest—seemed to be his breaking point.

The mask of command, of control, of the untouchable Wingleader, shattered completely. A muscle feathered in his jaw. His black eyes burned with a reckless fire.

“Fuck it,” he bit out, the words a surrender to every impulse he’d been fighting for months.

He moved. It wasn’t a step, it was a lunge. He crossed the space between them in a heartbeat, ignoring Dain so completely it was as if the other man had ceased to exist. His left hand tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck, yanking her head back, while his right hand clamped around her waist, slamming her body forward to meet his. He didn't just trap her against the wall; he became the wall, a solid, unyielding force of muscle and leather and pure, undiluted want.

Then his mouth was on hers.

It wasn't a kiss. It was an invasion. A brutal, bruising claiming that stole the air from her lungs and sent a shockwave straight to her core. There was no tenderness, no seduction, only the raw, desperate force of his mouth crashing against hers. His lips were hard, demanding, his teeth scraping against her own as he forced her mouth open. He tasted of rage, of shadow, and of a hunger so profound it was terrifying.

For a second, she was just stunned, her body rigid against the onslaught. But the shock was instantly consumed by the fire that had been building in her all evening. The fury at Dain’s condescension, the humiliation of being cornered, the adrenaline of the fight—it all coalesced and found its outlet here, in this violent collision. Her anger didn’t just melt; it combusted, turning into a white-hot passion that met his with equal, savage force.

Her hands came up, fisting in the front of his uniform, and she yanked him impossibly closer, her nails digging into the thick material. She kissed him back with all the frustration and rage she felt, her body arching into his. This wasn't about love or affection. It was about possession. It was about power. It was a raw, primal scream without a sound.

His tongue plunged into her mouth, a hot, wet conquest. He tasted every inch of her, a rough, frantic exploration that was both punishment and reward. She met his tongue with her own, fighting back, tangling, a slick, desperate battle for dominance that neither of them wanted to win. A low groan was ripped from his throat, a sound of pure, agonized pleasure that vibrated through her chest. He shifted his weight, pressing her harder against the stone, his thigh pushing between hers, and the friction of their clothes was an exquisite torture. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection pressing against her stomach, a solid, undeniable proof of the truth he’d just spoken. He was hers just as much as she was his.

They were lost. The world had narrowed to this corridor, to the feel of his mouth on hers, the grip of his hand in her hair, the solid heat of his body against every inch of hers. The stone at her back was cold and rough, but all she could feel was the fire he had ignited inside her, a blaze consuming every rational thought.

“By the gods, are you serious?”

Dain’s voice, shrill and incredulous, sliced through the haze of their passion. “Right here? In the open? This is against every rule in the Codex! Riorson, you’re a wingleader! And you, Violet—have you lost your mind?”

The whining complaint was so utterly mundane, so pathetically out of place against the elemental force of what was happening, that it was like a bucket of ice water.

Violet dragged her mouth from Xaden’s, a gasp of air tearing from her lungs. They were both breathing heavily, their chests rising and falling in sync. His lips were swollen, his eyes black holes of pure lust. His hand was still tangled in her hair, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin behind her ear. He didn’t look at Dain. He didn’t look away from her. The entire world could have been burning down around them, and his focus would not have wavered. He was still pressed against her, his erection a hard, insistent pressure at her core, a promise of what was to come.

The fury that had been simmering beneath the surface, momentarily forgotten in the brutal bliss of Xaden’s mouth, came roaring back to life. It was a cold, sharp rage, and it was aimed entirely at the whining, self-righteous boy standing a few feet away.

Violet finally tore her eyes from Xaden’s, turning her head just enough to pin Dain with a look of pure loathing. Her breath was still coming in ragged pants, her lips swollen and raw from Xaden’s kiss, but her eyes were lethal.

“Did you say something, Dain?” she asked, her voice deceptively soft, a silken threat that was far more terrifying than a shout.

He actually recoiled, his face paling further. He opened his mouth, then closed it, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “The rules… Violet, you’re throwing everything away for… for him.” He gestured wildly at Xaden, who hadn’t moved a muscle, his entire being still focused on Violet, his body a tense spring of coiled power.

A humorless smile touched Violet’s lips. “The rules?” she repeated, the words dripping with contempt. “Let me tell you about the fucking rules, Dain.” She pushed herself off the wall, taking a single, deliberate step away from Xaden’s heat, a step toward Dain. He flinched. “The rules say a cadet doesn’t put his hands on another cadet to intimidate them. The rules say a squad leader doesn’t use his position to corner and threaten someone he supposedly cares about. But you seem to pick and choose which parts of the Codex you follow, don’t you?”

Her voice rose with every word, losing its softness and gaining a hard, furious edge. “You don’t give a shit about me. You care about controlling me. You want your fragile little Violet, the one you can protect and lecture and keep in a fucking box. But that girl doesn’t exist. She never did.”

She was right in his face now, close enough to see the flicker of fear in his eyes. “So here’s a new rule for you. You are going to shut your mouth. You’re going to turn around. And you are going to walk away. And if you ever, ever touch me again, or speak to me again with that condescending tone, I will personally find out just how much lightning your body can take before it fucking melts.”

The threat hung in the air, stark and ugly. Dain was speechless, his face a mottled mess of shock and humiliation. He looked from her to Xaden, as if expecting the wingleader to intervene, to restore some semblance of order.

But Xaden hadn’t moved. He was watching her, and the look on his face was one of pure, unrestrained awe. A dark, predatory pride burned in his eyes. He wasn’t looking at a girl who needed saving. He was looking at a queen defending her throne.

Violet didn’t give Dain another glance. She’d dismissed him as completely as if she’d incinerated him on the spot. He was nothing. Less than nothing.

She turned back to Xaden, her chest heaving. The fire was back, hotter than before, a conflagration of adrenaline, anger, and a desperate, clawing need that eclipsed everything else. The world narrowed again, shrinking until it contained only the two of them and the promises made in that bruising kiss. His eyes devoured her, black and endless.

“You,” she breathed, the word a command.

Her hand shot out, her fingers tangling in the thick, unforgiving leather of his uniform collar. She fisted the material, her knuckles pressing into the hard line of his throat, and yanked him forward.

He went willingly, a ghost of a smirk touching his lips. He stumbled a half-step, his balance thrown by the sheer force of her pull, but he recovered instantly. He was hers to command in that moment, and they both knew it. The power dynamic had shifted into something wild and exhilarating. He had claimed her with his words, and now she was claiming him with her actions. It was a perfect, terrifying balance.

She didn’t let go. Keeping her grip tight on his collar, she started moving, dragging him with her down the corridor, away from the torches and the pathetic, gaping figure of Dain Aetos. Her stride was pure purpose, her focus absolute. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she needed to be alone with him. Now. Before the fire inside her burned her to ash.

Her boots echoed on the stone flags, a sharp, angry rhythm that matched the frantic beat of her heart. Xaden’s steps were silent behind her, the steps of a predator, but she could feel the vibration of his movement through the grip she had on his collar. He wasn’t resisting. He was letting her lead, letting her drag him like a prize won in a battle she hadn’t even known she was fighting until tonight. The leather was stiff and unyielding under her knuckles, but the heat of his skin radiated through it, a constant, searing reminder of the man attached to the uniform.

The corridor stretched on, lined with flickering torches that cast their shadows long and dancing on the opposite wall. She needed darkness. She needed a place where no one could see them, where the prying eyes of Basgiath and the ghost of Dain Aetos couldn’t follow. Her eyes scanned the walls, desperate, searching.

There.

A few yards ahead, set back in a shallow alcove, was a thick, iron-banded oak door. It was old, forgotten, with no handle, just a simple iron ring. A supply closet. Perfect.

Without breaking stride, she veered toward it, her grip on Xaden’s collar tightening as she yanked him with her into the alcove. He came without a word, his body a looming shadow at her back. She let go of him for only a second to hook her fingers through the cold iron ring and pull. The door groaned in protest, its old hinges screaming, but it swung inward, releasing a puff of stale, dusty air that smelled of old parchment and forgotten things.

It was pitch black inside.

She didn’t hesitate. Grabbing his collar again, she shoved him forward, hard. He stumbled into the darkness, his big frame disappearing completely into the void. The sound of his boots scuffing against a wooden floor was the only proof he was still there. She followed him in, her body a hair's breadth from his, crowding him deeper into the cramped space.

The world outside, the torchlight, the corridor, Dain’s humiliated face—it all vanished as she swung the heavy door closed behind her. It slammed into the frame with a deafening boom that echoed in the tiny space, the sound vibrating through the floor and up her legs. Her other hand, free now, fumbled against the rough wood until her fingers found the bolt. It was thick and heavy, stiff with disuse. She put her shoulder into it, grunting with the effort, and shoved it sideways.

The bolt shot home with a deep, resonant thunk of iron sinking into its socket.

The sound was absolute. Final.

And then, silence.

And darkness.

A complete and total absence of light. It was suffocating, pressing in on them from all sides. The air was thick, heavy with the smell of dust, dry rot, and something else—the sharp, electric scent of him. Of ozone and shadows and pure, undiluted male. He was so close she could feel the heat rolling off his body in waves, could hear the soft sound of the leather of his uniform creaking as he breathed.

She was still breathing heavily, the adrenaline from her confrontation with Dain and the frantic search for this sanctuary leaving her panting. Her own breaths were loud in the oppressive quiet, mingling with the deeper, steadier sound of his. He hadn’t said a word. He was just standing there, a solid, breathing wall of heat and power in the blackness, waiting. The air crackled, thick with everything unsaid, with months of stolen glances, secret meetings, and a bone-deep, forbidden longing that had just been unleashed. The small, enclosed space seemed to magnify it all, stripping away everything but the raw, undeniable reality of their two bodies, inches apart, on the verge of breaking every rule that was left.

The silence stretched for three heartbeats, then shattered. A rustle of leather, a sharp intake of breath that was his, not hers, and then his hands were on her. They weren't gentle. One hand clamped around the back of her neck, fingers tangling brutally in her hair and yanking her head back. The other snaked around her waist, grabbing a fistful of her tunic and hauling her flush against him.

His body was a wall of solid muscle and blistering heat. The hard ridge of his erection pressed insistently against her stomach, a thick, demanding length of pure want trapped behind layers of leather and wool. He didn't give her time to think, to breathe. His mouth came down on hers, a savage claiming in the dark.

His lips were hard, unforgiving, grinding against hers. He bit her bottom lip, drawing a sharp gasp from her, and used the opening to plunge his tongue inside. He tasted of mint and something wilder, something that was purely Xaden. He fucked her mouth, his tongue stroking and demanding, stealing the air from her lungs.

Violet didn’t just meet his ferocity; she matched it. A low growl rumbled in her chest, and her hands, which had been limp at her sides, flew up to his chest. She shoved at him, not to get away, but to get closer, to somehow crawl inside his skin. Her fingers clawed at the thick leather of his uniform, searching for purchase, for a weakness in his armor. She found the edge of his collar and ripped at it, her nails scraping against the skin of his neck.

He groaned into her mouth, a raw, guttural sound of approval. His hand left her waist and joined hers in the frantic battle against his uniform. His fingers were more adept, finding the heavy buckles of his chest plate with a surety that spoke of long practice. Metal scraped against metal, loud and jarring in the small space. He cursed, a low, vicious "Fuck," when a strap refused to give.

Violet abandoned his chest and went for the laces of his trousers. Her fingers were clumsy, shaking with adrenaline and need, fumbling with the thick leather ties. She wanted him out of them. She needed to feel him, all of him, hot and hard against her. She could feel the thick, pulsing length of his cock through the fabric, and the barrier was maddening.

“Get it off,” she snarled against his mouth, her voice ragged.

His mouth broke from hers to trail a wet, open-mouthed path down her jaw, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of her throat. “Yours first,” he bit out, his voice thick with lust.

His hands were at her own uniform now, far less patient than she was being. He didn’t bother with the intricate clasps of her tunic. He simply hooked his fingers into the high collar and ripped. The sound of tearing fabric was shockingly loud, a violent declaration of intent. The air, cool and dusty, hit her chest, a stark contrast to the searing heat of his mouth as it returned to hers.

His fingers were rough against her skin, pushing the torn fabric aside, a few quick maneuvers and he'd lossened her corset. Violet arched into him, grinding her hips against his; he found her skin like he was magnitized.

Their bodies were a tangle of limbs and desperation. His mouth never left hers for long, returning again and again to plunder, to taste, to possess. Her hands finally gave up on his trousers and went back to his chest, finding the buckles he’d loosened. She pulled, and the chest plate came free with a clatter as it hit the floor. Now there was only a thin layer of his black undershirt between her palms and his skin. She could feel the heat of him, the frantic, heavy slam of his heart against her hands. It felt like a war drum, calling her to battle.

She tore at the thin cotton of the shirt, ripping it down the middle, needing to feel his skin. The sound of that second rip was his undoing. A deep, animalistic groan was torn from his throat. He forced the final laces of her corset open, and her breasts spilled free into the darkness, her nipples already hard and aching.

His palms covered her breasts instantly, his thumbs swiping roughly over her hardened nipples. A jolt, pure lightning, shot straight from her skin to her core. She cried out into his mouth, a muffled sound of pain and pleasure so intertwined she couldn’t separate them. His touch was greedy, squeezing and kneading her flesh as if he was trying to memorize her shape through his hands alone.

While his hands were busy learning her, hers were exploring him. She splayed her fingers across the hard planes of his chest, her touch frantic. She felt the raised, ropy scars of the rebellion relic under her palm, a map of his secrets now pressed against her skin. The feel of it, of him, was overwhelming. He was real, solid, and burning with a heat that threatened to consume them both.

They were still fighting with the rest of their clothes, a clumsy, four-handed battle in the suffocating dark. He broke their kiss long enough to growl, “Legs.” She understood instantly, hooking one leg around his thigh to give him better leverage as he tore at her riding leathers. He didn’t bother with the laces; he just hooked his fingers in the waistband and pulled, the tough material groaning in protest before giving way. He shoved them down her legs, not caring that they tangled around her ankles with her boots.

She did the same for him, her hands finally finding the ties of his trousers and ripping them open. She pushed the heavy wool down his hips, her fingers brushing against the thick, rigid length of his cock. He was impossibly hard, hot to the touch even through his undergarments. He kicked his own boots and trousers off with a series of muffled thuds, never letting her go, his body pressed tight against hers.

Finally, they were skin to skin.

The shock of it was absolute. His naked, heated flesh against hers was a brand. Every inch of him was hard muscle and raw power. The solid wall of his abdomen pressed against her stomach. His erection, thick and pulsing, was now trapped only by the thin barrier of her own underwear, pressing hot and wet against her slit. She could feel a slickness there, her body weeping for him.

He groaned, a low, desperate sound that vibrated through her entire body. He backed her up until her spine hit the unyielding oak of the door. The rough, splintery wood scraped against her bare back, but the discomfort was a distant thing, drowned out by the overwhelming proximity of him.

“Fuck, Violet,” he breathed, his forehead pressed to hers. His breath was hot and ragged against her lips.

His hands slid down her back, cupping her ass and lifting her as if she weighed nothing. Her immediate instinct was to wrap her legs around his waist, locking him to her. He grunted with the motion, his hips bucking forward, grinding his cock against her soaked cunt. The friction was exquisite torture. She whimpered, digging her nails into his shoulders.

“Xaden,” she breathed, a plea.

He didn’t need any more encouragement. His hand left her ass, sliding between their bodies. His fingers found the damp fabric of her underwear and ripped it aside without ceremony. Then his fingers were there, plunging inside her. She was so wet for him, slick and ready. He pushed two fingers deep inside her, stretching her, his thumb finding her clit and pressing down with unerring accuracy.

A scream tore from her throat, swallowed by the darkness. Her hips bucked against his hand, chasing the feeling.

“You’re so fucking wet,” he muttered, his voice a low, gravelly rasp near her ear. He withdrew his fingers, leaving her aching and empty for a fraction of a second.

Then he replaced them with his cock.

The thick, blunt head of it nudged at her entrance, slick with her own wetness. He positioned himself, his hands gripping her thighs, pulling her tighter against him. She could feel the full, heavy length of him pressing for entry, a promise of being filled, stretched, claimed.

“Look at me,” he commanded, but it was pitch black. It didn't matter. She tilted her head up towards his voice, her eyes wide and unseeing in the darkness. She could feel his gaze on her, a physical weight.

He didn’t ease in. He didn’t give her a moment to prepare. With one powerful, driving thrust, he slammed into her.

The impact stole her breath. He was huge, filling her completely, stretching her to her absolute limit. A sharp, searing pain mingled with an explosion of pure pleasure. Her head fell back against the rough wood of the door, her mouth opening in a silent scream as he buried himself to the hilt inside her cunt. He was a solid, living bolt of heat and power, pinning her to the door, claiming every inch of her in the dark. He held himself there, buried deep inside her, their bodies trembling together in the absolute, suffocating silence of the closet.

He stayed there, buried to the root inside her, his hips flush with hers. Every muscle in his body was corded tight, and she could feel the violent tremor that ran through him. Her own body was screaming, a chorus of pleasure so intense it was a single, piercing note. She felt stretched, split open, owned. The rough grain of the door bit into the skin of her back, a grounding sensation in the dizzying chaos of being so completely filled by him.

“Fuck,” he breathed again, the word a hot puff of air against her neck. It wasn't a curse; it was a prayer.

Then he pulled back.

The slow, deliberate withdrawal was a unique kind of torture, the thick ridge of his cockhead dragging along the sensitive walls of her cunt. She gasped, her hips trying to follow him, to keep him inside. But he was relentless, pulling back until only the very tip remained inside her before he slammed forward again, driving himself home with brutal force. The impact jarred her teeth, and a strangled cry escaped her lips. Her legs, locked around his waist, tightened instinctively, her heels digging into the flesh of his ass.

He didn't give her a moment to recover. He established a rhythm that was punishing, primal. It wasn’t gentle or loving; it was a frantic, desperate claiming. Each thrust was a hammer blow, driving him deeper, harder. His grunts were low and animalistic, mingling with her own ragged gasps for air.

He was all power and heat and friction, and she met his savagery with her own. She clawed at his back, her nails leaving bloody furrows in his skin, not caring. She wanted to mark him, to brand him as hers just as he was branding her from the inside out. His mouth found hers again, a bruising, open-mouthed kiss that was as punishing as the movement of his hips. He bit her lip, drawing a coppery taste of blood that mingled with their saliva, and she bit him back, a surge of wild energy coursing through her.

“Mine,” he growled against her mouth, the word vibrating through her skull. He drove into her again, his hips tilting at an angle that sent a bolt of pure electricity straight to her core. He was hitting her cervix, a deep, aching pleasure that made her vision swim. With every brutal thrust, her clit was being ground mercilessly against the hard bone of his pelvis.

She was losing control, the sensations building into an unbearable tidal wave. Her cunt clenched around his cock, milking him, drawing him deeper. She could feel the muscles in his thighs bunching, his pace becoming more frantic, more desperate. He was close. So was she.

“Xaden,” she shrieked, her voice breaking, the name torn from her throat.

His control shattered. A raw, guttural roar was ripped from his chest as he pumped into her, his thrusts short, sharp, and piston-like. He drove his fingers into the soft flesh of her thighs, his grip bruising. “Violet!” Her name was a guttural command as her own orgasm crashed over her.

Her world exploded into white-hot light behind her eyes. Her back arched violently off the door, her cunt convulsing around his thick, pulsing cock in a series of violent, unending spasms. She screamed his name into his mouth as she came, a raw, high-pitched sound of pure release. Her climax triggered his. With a final, impossibly deep thrust that felt like it touched her soul, he emptied himself inside her. She felt the hot, slick flood of him pumping into her, a searing brand deep within.

His body went rigid, every muscle locked tight as he rode out the last of his release. Then, he collapsed against her, his entire weight pressing her into the door. He was still buried deep inside her, his cock softening but still filling her. His face was buried in the curve of her neck, his breath coming in ragged, shuddering gasps that mirrored her own.

For a long moment, there was no sound but their harsh breathing and the frantic, heavy thud of their hearts beating against each other. The air was thick with the scent of sex, sweat, and dust. He didn't move. She couldn't. Pinned against the door, filled with him, their slick bodies fused together, they were left trembling in the dark, irrevocably and undeniably bound by the violence of their release.