Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
“Tap. Out.”
“Fuck off!” He throws his dagger.
I throw up my hands to block, but it lodges in my left fucking forearm. Blood streams and pain sears the nerves along my arm, erupting with alarming poignancy, but I know better than to remove it. Right now, it’s holding that wound as shut as it can.
“No throwing!” Emetterio shouts from the sidelines, but Jack is already moving, barreling toward me with a series of kicks and punches that I’m not ready for. His fist slams into my cheek, and I feel the skin split.
His knee forces the air from my body when he rams it into my stomach.
But I stay on my feet until his hands clasp my face. Agony fills every cell in my body as violent, vibrating energy rips through me with an intensity that makes it feel like he’s cleaving ligament from bone, muscle from tendon.
I scream as I’m shaken by an internal force I don’t understand, as though he’s forcing his own power into my body, shocking me with a thousand stings of vibrating energy.
Now. If I don’t do it now, he’ll kill me. My vision is already darkening at the edges.
I reach a trembling hand into the pocket of my leathers and thumb open the stopper on the vial.
His sadistic grin and a red rim around his eyes are all I can see as he forces more and more power into my body, but his hands are occupied and he’s too obsessed with his victory to hear that I’ve stopped screaming, to see that I’m moving.
“He’s using his powers!” Ridoc roars, and from the corner of my decreasing vision, I see movement on both sides.
I shove the vial against Jack’s smile so hard, I feel one of his teeth break.
Hands reach for us both, and I hear Ridoc and Emetterio cry out, jerking their hands away after contact. Whatever Jack is doing is transferring from me to them by touch.
My teeth rattle as the pain consumes me, my body fighting to pass out, to escape the unbearable torture, but I refuse to succumb to the darkness until Jack wheezes.
His eyes fly impossibly wide, and he drops his hands, clutching his own neck as his airway closes.
My knees give way, my body still shuddering as I hit the mat, but so does Jack, heaving and clawing at his neck as his face turns purple.
Ridoc’s face is in mine within seconds. “Breathe, Sorrengail. Just breathe.”
“What the hell is wrong with him?” someone asks as Jack writhes.
“Oranges,” I whisper to Ridoc as my body finally gives out. “He’s allergic to oranges.” I fall into nothingness.
When I wake, I’m not on the mat, and I can tell by the windows of the Healer Quadrant infirmary that night has fallen. I’ve been out for hours.
And that’s not Ridoc lounged in the chair next to my bed, glaring at me like he’d like to kill me himself.
It’s Xaden. His hair is tousled, like he’s been tugging at it, and he’s flipping a dagger end over end, catching it by the tip without so much as looking at it before sheathing it at his side. “Oranges?”
I know you don’t want to hear this, but sometimes you have to know when to take the death blow, Mira. It’s why you have to be sure that Violet enters the Scribe Quadrant. She’ll never be able to take a life.
—Page seventy, the Book of Brennan
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
I move to scoot up the bed so I can sit, but the pain in my arm reminds me that there was a dagger in it a couple of hours ago. Now it’s bandaged. “How many stitches?”
“Eleven on one side and nineteen on the other.” He arches a dark brow and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “You turned oranges into a weapon, Violence?”
I wiggle to a sitting position and shrug. “I worked with what I had.”
“Seeing as it kept you alive—kept us alive—I can’t really argue, and I’m not going to ask how it is you always know who you’ll end up challenging.” There’s definite anger in that gaze but a touch of relief, too. “Telling Ridoc allowed Emetterio to get him here in time. Unfortunately, he’s five beds down from you, and he’ll live, unlike the second-year a row over. You could have killed him and saved us all a lot of drama.”
“I didn’t want to kill him.” I roll my shoulder, testing it. Sore, but not dislocated. My face is tender, too. “I just wanted him to stop killing me.”
“You should have told me.” The accusation rips from his lips in a snarl.
“And you could have done nothing about it besides make me look weak.” I narrow my eyes at him. “And you haven’t exactly been around to talk about anything in weeks. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that kiss scared you.” Shit. I didn’t mean to say that.