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)
…
The wooden target in my room wobbles as one of my daggers sinks into the wood beside the last one I threw. I might be angry with the world, but at least my aim isn’t off. If I miss, there’s a good chance the blade is flying out the window, considering where I have the target propped up on the wall.
I throw three more, rapid-fire, and hit the throat of the person-shaped target every single time.
What’s the point of going for shoulders anymore if I’m already taking people out with bolts of lightning? What was my restraint for? With a flick of my wrist, I send the next dagger soaring, putting it straight through the figure’s forehead just as there’s a knock at my door.
It’s either Rhiannon asking for the tenth time if I want to talk about what happened today or it’s Liam—
I pause. It can’t be Liam, checking to see if I’m actually turned in for the night, because Liam is still in the infirmary, healing from the sword he took to the side.
“Come in.” Who cares if I’m in nothing but my dressing gown? It’s not like I can’t strike an intruder dead with a knife. Or lightning.
The door opens beside me, but I don’t bother looking as I throw another dagger. That height? That hint of dark hair I catch in my peripheral vision? That incredible scent? I don’t even need to look fully—my body tells me it’s Xaden.
Then my body reminds me exactly what it feels like to have his mouth on mine, and my stomach flutters. Shit, I’m too on edge to deal with him or the way he makes me feel tonight.
“Imagining that’s me?” he asks, shutting my door and leaning back against it, folding his arms across his chest. Then he does a double-take, his heated gaze roaming over my body.
Suddenly, the spring breeze coming through the open window isn’t enough to cool my skin, not when he’s looking at me like that.
My long braid swings across my back as I take another dagger off my dresser. “No. But it was you about twenty minutes ago.”
“Who is it now?” He raises a brow, crosses one ankle over the other.
“No one you know.” With a flick of my wrist, the next blade goes through the sternum. “Why are you here?” I glance his way just long enough to note that he’s bathed and wearing our standard uniform instead of flight leathers, and definitely not long enough to note how fucking good he looks. Just once, I’d love to see him disheveled or unnerved, anything outside that calm control he wears like armor. “Let me guess. Since Liam is out of commission, it’s your duty to lecture me about sleeping in plain cotton.”
“I didn’t come to lecture you,” he says softly, and I can feel the warmth of his gaze like a caress as it rakes over the thin black straps of my dressing gown. “But I can definitely see that you’re not wearing your armor.”
“No one is going to be ridiculous enough to attack me now.” I take another dagger from the dresser, my pile dwindling. “Not when I can kill them from fifty yards away.” Tapping the end of the razor-sharp weapon, I pivot slightly, just enough to face him. “Do you think it works inside? I mean, how does someone wield lightning if there’s no sky?” Keeping my eyes locked on his, I fling the dagger at the target. The satisfying sound of split wood tells me I hit true.
“Fuck, that’s hotter than it should be.” He pulls in a deep breath. “I think that’s something you’ll have to figure out.” His gaze drops to my mouth and his arms tense.
“You’re not going to step in and say you can train me? You can save me?” I click my tongue and have the absolutely ridiculous urge to run it up the lines of the relic on his neck, tracing the intricate pattern. “How very un-Xaden of you.”
“I have no clue how to train a lightning wielder, and from what I witnessed today, you don’t need saving.” There’s pure longing in his eyes as he scans the length of my body from my bare toes to the hemline that skirts my thighs, over my breasts to my neck, finally reaching my eyes.
“Only from myself,” I mutter. The things I think about doing to him when he looks at me like that would surely ruin me, and tonight I’m not sure I care. That’s a dangerous combination. “So then why are you here, Xaden?”
“Because I can’t seem to stay away.” He sounds anything but pleased by the admission, but my breath catches anyway.
“Shouldn’t you be out there celebrating?” Everyone else is.
“We won a battle, not a war.” He pushes off the door and takes a single step, closing the distance between us, and lifts my braid from over my shoulder, slowly rubbing his thumb along the strands. “And I figured you might still be upset.”