Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Anger storms through my veins, heating my skin from the scalp down in a flood of smelted rage. “Your ignorance is staggering.”
Gods bless my flexibility, I swing my left arm behind my back and stab deep into her arm.
She shouts, jerking upright, and I shove the heel of my hand against the table and throw every ounce of my energy into jolting backward, slamming my head into her face. Bone crunches, and her weight disappears.
I turn, only to meet the stunning blow of an elbow against my cheekbone. Skin splits, my ears ring, and I fall back against the table, blinking the stars out of my eyes as a hand grabs hold of my throat and squeezes.
“Violet!” Xaden yells, and I slash my blade across the offending arm and thrust my knee in a move even Mira would be proud of. The man falls and I cough for my first breath as the dais shudders.
I lift my blade toward the giant on my right, but the pommel of a sword reaches his temple first. The man collapses, and Xaden shoves him off the platform with his foot.
“That is enough,” Tairn declares.
“She holds her own,” Andarna argues. “Oh. Perhaps there are now too many.”
“Stop playing and end this! It’s the only way to kill their mounts!” Courtlyn shouts from behind us.
Xaden reaches for my face with his empty hand, cupping my chin and turning my cheek toward the blue light as a dozen more guards pour in from behind Courtlyn. I take a precious second to make sure Halden’s still alive. He’s on the ground, chest moving, eyes closed—I think he might be unconscious, but I don’t see any blood.
“Xaden, behind us,” I warn as he studies the wound that has begun to throb. When he doesn’t answer, my gaze jumps to his, and my breath falters.
I’ve seen him in battle before, seen the icy rage that comes over him, even the killing calm. I’ve witnessed the transformation from man to weapon, watched strategy overtake compassion—just like we’re trained for.
But this…whatever’s swirling in those onyx eyes is a tempest I’ve never beheld. It’s one step past fury, as though Dunne herself has stepped into his eyes and now peers back at me. He’s Xaden, but he’s…not.
“Xaden?” I whisper. “It’s nothing. Really. I’ve had worse on a sparring mat.”
“They’re all fucking dead.” His vow lifts the hair at the back of my neck, and the guards rush the table simultaneously with their weapons drawn, obviously having learned from the last failed assault.
Two on…twelve. Shit.
I startle and pull back to fight, but Xaden whips his arm around my waist and yanks me against his chest. His sword hits the table, and to my complete and utter surprise, he presses a soft kiss to the top of my forehead as an axe—
Metal hits the ground.
Screams sound around us, and I jerk my head left, finding Xaden’s outstretched hand mid-twist. The unmistakable sound of cracking bone follows, and every guard surrounding us drops to the floor, their heads twisted at unnatural angles.
Wisps of barely there shadow dissipate, and the band around my waist falls away with a familiar caress.
No, no, no.
Silence falls, thicker than the cloying, humid air, and my heart cries, demanding some other answer than the one my brain already knows because there’s only one logical explanation for what just happened—but even that can’t be possible because there’s no magic here.
Tairn bristles along the bond, and Andarna shudders. I can feel them both, closer than they should be, but there’s still no bond to Xaden.
“Y-y-you…” Courtlyn stammers. “What have you done?”
I drag my gaze along the wall of rustling palms to the left, over the scattered dead Deverelli guards and the panthers that happily investigate them, and across Xaden’s chest, finding nothing but the same on the other side of the table.
He’s killed all dozen of them.
It’s only muscle memory that sheathes my daggers.
Something falls from his hand, hitting his abandoned sword with a metallic clink. I grab the small object on impulse and close my fingers around the pebble-size piece of alloy from my conduit. Agony cracks my soul clean open, as if I can give Xaden some of what he’s just lost as I register the alloy’s chill, its complete and total lack of energy before shoving it in my front pocket.
“They hurt you,” he whispers without apology. “They were going to kill you.”
The why of it doesn’t matter. Not right now. Not when we’re surrounded on an enemy isle, escorted by riders who don’t know what Xaden’s become, and facing down Navarrian royalty who would gladly see him dead.
Why is a matter for later.
“Violet.” The plea in his whisper pulls me together faster than anything else could, and I jerk my head up. His eyes are tightly closed as he rubs the bridge of his nose.