“Don’t forget her brother was Brennan Sorrengail,” Xaden adds. “She has just as much reason to hate us as we do her.” He pointedly looks at Imogen and the first-year who raised the question. “And I’m not going to tell you again. She’s mine to handle. Anyone feel like arguing?”
Silence reigns.
“Good. Then get back to bed and go in threes.” He motions with his head, and they slowly disperse, walking away in groups of threes just like he ordered. Xaden is the last to leave.
I draw a slow breath. Holy shit, I just might live through this.
But I have to be sure they’re gone. I don’t move a muscle, even when my thighs cramp and my fingers lock as I count to five hundred in my head, breathing as evenly as possible to soften the beats of my galloping heart.
Only when I’m sure I’m alone, when the squirrels scurry past on the ground, do I finish climbing from the tree, jumping the last four feet to the grassy floor. Zihnal must have a soft spot for me, because I’m the luckiest woman on the Continent—
A shadow lunges behind me and I open my mouth to scream, but my air supply is cut off by an elbow around my neck as I’m yanked against a hard chest.
“Scream and you die,” he whispers, and my stomach plummets as the elbow is replaced by the sharp bite of a dagger at my throat.
I freeze. I’d recognize the rough pitch of Xaden’s voice anywhere.
“Fucking Sorrengail.” His hand yanks back the hood of my cloak.
“How did you know?” My tone is outright indignant, but whatever. If he’s going to kill me, I’m not going down as some simpering little beggar. “Let me guess, you could smell my perfume. Isn’t that what always gives the heroine away in books?”
He scoffs. “I command shadows, but sure, it was your perfume that gave you away.” He lowers the knife and steps away.
I gasp. “Your signet is a shadow wielder?” No wonder he’s risen so high in rank. Shadow wielders are incredibly rare and highly coveted in battle, able to disorient entire drifts of gryphons, if not take them down, depending upon the signet’s strength.
“What, Aetos hasn’t warned you not to get caught alone in the dark with me yet?”
His voice is like rough velvet along my skin, and I shiver, then draw my own blade from the sheath at my thigh and raise it as I spin toward him, ready to defend myself to the death. “Is this how you plan to handle me?”
“Eavesdropping, were we?” He arches a black brow and sheathes his dagger like I couldn’t possibly pose a threat to him, which only serves to piss me off even more. “Now I might actually have to kill you.” There’s an undertone of truth in those mocking eyes.
This is just…bullshit.
“Then go ahead and get it over with.” I unsheathe another dagger, this one from beneath my cloak where it was strapped in at my ribs, and back up a couple of feet to give me distance to throw them—if he doesn’t rush me.
He pointedly looks at one dagger, then the other, and sighs, folding his arms across his chest. “That stance is really the best defense you can muster? No wonder Imogen nearly ripped your arm off.”
“I’m more dangerous than you think,” I flat-out bluster.
“So I see. I’m quaking in my boots.” The corner of his mouth rises into a mocking smirk.
Fucking. Asshole.
I flip the daggers in my hand, pinching them at the tips, then flick my wrists and fire them past his head, one on each side. They land solidly in the trunk of the tree behind him.
“You missed.” He doesn’t even flinch.
“Did I?” I reach for my last two blades. “Why don’t you back up a couple of steps and test that theory?”
Curiosity flares in his eyes, but it’s gone in the next second, masked by cold, mocking indifference.
Every one of my senses is on high alert, but the shadows around me don’t slide in as he moves backward, his eyes locked with mine. His back hits the tree, and the hilts of my daggers brush his ears.
“Tell me again that I missed,” I threaten, taking the dagger in my right hand by the tip.
“Fascinating. You look all frail and breakable, but you’re really a violent little thing, aren’t you?” An appreciative smile curves his perfect lips as shadows dance up the trunk of the oak, taking the form of fingers. They pluck the daggers from the tree and bring them to Xaden’s waiting hands.
My breath abandons me with a sharp exhale. He has the kind of power that could end me without him having to so much as lift a finger —shadow wielding. The futility of even trying to defend myself against him is laughable.
I hate how beautiful he is, how lethal his abilities make him as he strides toward me, shadows curling around his footsteps. He’s like one of those poisonous flowers I’ve read about from the Cygnis forests to the east. His allure is a warning not to get too close, and I am definitely too close.
Switching my grip to the hilts of my daggers, I prepare for the attack.
“You should show that little trick to Jack Barlowe,” Xaden says, turning his palms upward and offering me my daggers.
“I’m sorry?” This is a trick. It has to be a trick.
He moves closer, and I lift my blade. My heart stumbles, the beat irregular as fear floods my system.
“The neck-snapping first-year who’s very publicly vowed to slaughter you,” Xaden clarifies as my blade presses against his cloak at the level of his abdomen. He reaches under my own cloak and slides one blade into the sheath at my thigh, then pulls back the side of my cloak and pauses. His gaze locks onto the length of my braid where it falls over my shoulder, and I could swear he stops breathing for a heartbeat before he slides the remaining dagger into one of the sheaths at my ribs. “He’d probably think twice about plotting your murder if you threw a few daggers at his head.”
This is…this is…bizarre. It has to be some kind of game meant to confuse me, right? And if so, he’s playing it really fucking well.
“Because the honor of my murder belongs to you?” I challenge. “You wanted me dead long before your little club chose my tree to meet under, so I imagine you’ve all but buried me in your mind by now.”
He glances at the dagger poised at his stomach. “Do you plan on telling anyone about my little club?” His eyes meet mine, and there’s nothing but cold, calculating death waiting there.
“No,” I answer truthfully, suppressing a shiver.
“Why not?” He tilts his head to the side, examining my face like I’m an oddity. “It’s illegal for the children of separatist officers to assemble in—”
“Groups larger than three. I’m well aware. I’ve lived at Basgiath longer than you.” I lift my chin.
“And you’re not going to run off to Mommy, or your precious little Dain, and tell them we’ve been assembling?” His gaze narrows on mine.
My stomach twists just like it did before I stepped out onto the parapet, like my body knows that whatever action I take next will determine my life-span. “You were helping them. I don’t see why that should be punished.” It wouldn’t be fair to him or the others. Was their little meeting illegal? Absolutely. Should they die for it? Absolutely not. And that’s exactly what will happen if I tell. Those first-years will be executed for nothing more than asking for tutoring, and the senior cadets will join them just because they helped. “I’m not going to tell.”
He looks at me like he’s trying to see through me, and ice prickles my scalp.
My hand is steady, but my nerves tremble at what the next thirty seconds might bring. He can kill me right here, toss my body into the river, and no one will know I’m gone until they find me downstream.
But I won’t let him end me without drawing his blood first, that’s for damn sure.
“Interesting,” he says softly. “We’ll see if you keep your word, and if you do, then unfortunately, it looks like I owe you a favor.” Then he steps away, turns, and walks off, heading back toward the staircase in the cliff that leads up to the citadel.
Wait. What?
“You’re not going to handle me?” I call after him, shock raising my brows.
“Not tonight!” he tosses over his shoulder.
I scoff. “What are you waiting for?”
“It’s no fun if you expect it,” he answers, striding into the darkness. “Now, get back to bed before your wingleader realizes you’re out after curfew.”
“What?” I gawk after him. “You’re my wingleader!”
But he’s already disappeared into the shadows, leaving me talking to myself like a fool.
He didn’t even ask what was in my satchel.
A slow smile spreads across my face as I tuck my arm back into my sling, sighing with relief as the weight is taken off my shoulder. A fool with fonilee berries.