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)
“Excellent.” He nods. “Now let’s get to work. The sooner you can contain the lightning, the sooner we can both stop freezing our asses off.”
“Good point.” I look out over the range. “You just want me to…” I gesture to the mountains around us.
“Preferably anywhere but right here, yes.”
I stare out at the mountains in the distance. “I’m not really sure what I did to call it before. It was an…emotional reaction.” And what happened last night definitely isn’t up for discussion.
“Interesting.” He jots something down in his notebook with a piece of charcoal. “You’ve wielded lightning besides yesterday’s display during the War Games?”
I debate keeping my answer to myself, but my silence isn’t going to help. “A few times.”
“And both times were the result of emotional reactions?”
Tairn snorts, and I smack his foreleg with the back of my hand. “Yes.”
“Well, then start there. Ground in your power and try to feel whatever it was you were feeling.” He goes back to his notebook.
“Should I get the wingleader?” Tairn flat-out laughs in my head.
“Shut up.” I ground both feet in my Archives and power flows around me, through me. Andarna’s golden light is there, too, but it’s softened from having been drained yesterday, and high above me swirl the inky-black shadows I know represent the connection to Xaden.
“Problems?” Xaden asks, as if he feels my inquiry. “And what are you doing so far away?”
“Training with Carr.” My cheeks heat at the sound of his low voice. “And how do you know how far away I am anyway?”
“Get stronger in wielding, and you’ll be able to do it, too. There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, Violence.” The promise should be a threat, but it’s not. It’s too damned comforting for that.
“Right now, I’d settle for wielding some lightning. Carr is staring at me, and it’s about to get really fucking awkward if I can’t figure out how—”
Images of…me flood my mind. It’s last night, except I’m somehow seeing it through Xaden’s eyes, feeling the unmistakable burn of insatiable desire. My control slips—no, it’s Xaden’s control slipping as I moan beneath him, my hips riding his hand, my nails biting into his skin with a pain that borders on pleasure as I writhe. Gods, I need—no—he needs me. His hunger walks the line of starvation to know my touch, my taste, the feel of—
Power floods my entire system, crackling along my skin, and light flashes behind my closed eyes.
The images stop, and my feelings are once again my own.
And fuck if I’m not so turned on that I have to shift my weight to ease the ache between my thighs.
“Good job!” Professor Carr nods, jotting something down.
“I can’t believe you just did that.”
“You’re welcome.”
My cheeks are flaming hot as I lift the backs of my hands to my skin.
“See, I told you.” Carr lifts the notebook. “The last lightning wielder said it made them overheat. Now do it again.”
Tairn chortles.
“Not a single fucking word out of you,” I warn.
This time, I focus on the feeling of the power rush and not what got it there, opening every sense and letting white-hot energy course through me, gathering to a breaking point. Then I release it, and lightning strikes more than a mile away. Well, look at that. I am a certified badass.
“Maybe you could work at aiming it this time?” Professor Carr peers over his notebook. “Just remember not to exhaust the physical strength with which you control the power. No one wants to see you burn out. A power like Tairn’s will eat you alive if you can’t contain it.”
Lightning strikes five more times before I’m exhausted, and none of it hits where I was aiming.
This is going to be harder than I thought.
July first, the anniversary of the Battle of Aretia, is hereby proclaimed Reunification Day and will be celebrated throughout Navarre on this date every year to honor the lives lost during the war to save our kingdom from separatists and those saved by the Treaty of Aretia.
—Royal Proclamation of King Tauri the Wise
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
There’s a knock at my door as I take an armful of clothes from the skeletal remains of what used to be my armoire.
“Come in,” I call out, dumping them on the bed.
The door opens and Xaden walks in, his hair windblown like he’s just come from the flight field, and my pulse jumps.
“I just wanted—” he starts, then pauses, surveying the wreckage of my room from last night. “Somehow I’d convinced myself today that we hadn’t done that much damage, but…”
“Yeah, it’s…”
He looks at me, and we both crack a smile.
“Look, this doesn’t have to be awkward or anything.” I shrug, trying to ease the tension. “We’re both adults.”
His scarred brow rises. “Good, because I wasn’t going to make it that way. But the least I can do is help you clean up.” His attention shifts to the armoire, and he winces. “I swear it didn’t look quite that ruined in the darkness when I left this morning. Turns out you set more than a few trees on fire last night, too. Took two water wielders to get them out.”