…

I'm not sure how long I've been pretending to sleep with my back to Xaden, but it feels like an eternity. The shielding practice did not go the way I would have liked. Yes, I managed to keep him out eventually, but not before he delighted at putting nearly every intimate moment we've ever spent together from his point of view straight into my mind. Including when I pretty much begged him to kiss me earlier.

At least…that's how I'm remembering that moment.

Fucking. Asshole.

I'm the most uncomfortable I've ever been wearing my armor and cotton uniform pants under the thin sheet of his bed while he lies in nothing but a damn pair of sleep pants above the blanket right next to me.

How did I not foresee this as the biggest stumbling block to everything? I even said it earlier. Him. Me. Bed.

Bad.

And yet…here I am. Lying with my back to the intolerable, annoying, deceptive, delicious man, desperately trying to let my eyes close long enough for sleep to settle in.

I've learned my lesson. Next time? I'm bringing a sleeping drought.

I'm distracted as he shifts once, then twice, then sighs, followed by silence. He's probably fallen asleep, sound as a baby, and here I am, uncomfortably hot, incredibly turned on, and as wide awake as I think I've ever been.

Minutes feel like hours, and I'm thankful he doesn't have a clock in his room since the ticking would drive me nuts. He moves again, though I'm not exactly sure how or what he's moving, and I'm not willing to peek in order to see. All I can hope is that he's turned to face away from me as I've done to him so if I do roll in the middle of the night, I won't be face to face with sleeping, fully-relaxed, Xaden, Riorson.

He sighs again into the night.

Okay. Time to employ my secret weapon.

The Cygniesen Mining District is composed primarily of silver and gold mines organized within the southern end of the province in the highest peaks of the Esben Mountains. The Cygni's mastered the art of hard rock mining through…

I feel it. Finally. The pull of sleep.

Xaden shifts again and it yanks me right out - away from the comforting oblivion that would let me stop recalling the memories of his gravelly voice, the images of his bronze hands on my skin, the feel of his…

Another sigh from deep in his chest builds the frustration in mine, inflamed by the never-ending molten throb at my center. Gods damn this sheet. Why didn't I offer to sleep above the blanket? And not in my fucking uniform? Yes, the dressing gown would be many layers less than what I'm currently in, but in my defense, less layers are bad right now. Right?

I squeeze my eyes closed so tight I see the stars of the night sky. Whole fucking constellations.

I try again.

The hardwood trees of Deaconshire's central forests are made of a densely packed fibrous wood used for construction and…

He shifts his torso and the bed wobbles.

"Xaden. Go, to, sleep." I instantly regret opening my mouth.

"You first," he grumbles, and of course he knows I'm just lying here.

"Had you just let me go to bed when I wanted, I'd already be asleep."

I'm not sure exactly how I know that he's wearing a shit-eating cocky smirk, but I'm a thousand percent sure he is.

Cocky. Fucking. Asshole.

Well, two can play this game. Xaden Riorson's about to have a long fucking night.

For him, I'd pinned my hair up since he couldn't take his eyes off of it. For him, I'm lying here with little metal teeth pinching my scalp, and I'm done. Kicking at the sheet, I toss it off my legs and over his, moving to sit up. Diving my hands into where the roots are still damp from bathing earlier, I pull every single little pin out and ruffle it all loose.

My side of the bed doesn't have a nightstand. Why would it? It's a single-occupant room. Xaden's, however, does. I tip, setting my hand flat against his chest for leverage to lean across and over, reaching to drop the pins onto the wood surface. I don't miss the way his body stiffens beneath my palm, the deep breath he sucks through his nose, or the exhaling growl from his mouth that flutters the sudden two-toned curtain that's fallen in front of his face.

"You're cheating, Violence."

Coming back to my side of the bed I deliberately fake surprise, my hand covering my heart as if I have pearls to clutch. "Oh no, is turnabout not fair play?" I shove the sultry timbre of my heat-tempered voice into his head and toss in a playful eye roll before moving back to my side of the bed and flopping down onto the pillow.

My back is to him again and I close my eyes to focus on calming my breathing, all in the attempt to relax enough that I can let go of the day. Moments tick by, and despite my effort at mentally reciting boring fact after boring fact, I'm nowhere closer to oblivion than I was earlier.

"Know any scribe tricks for falling asleep?" His voice is a deep and soothing rumble in the quiet room.

I sigh the first part of my answer. "If any of the facts I've been reciting mentally for the last thirty minutes were actually working, you'd have no one to talk to right now."

"Try me."

"It isn't working."

"Well…then maybe I'll learn something. It has to be better than this."

It's only marginally better to know that he's suffering just like I am, but better is still better.

"Fine. Uh," I pause as I think for a moment. "The Morraine Province was named as such for the glacial deposits that flank the northern and southern boundaries. The mineral-rich sediment is known for the easy growing of abundant and variable crops in the eastern plains."

Silence.

"Huh. That…would have been a big glacier."

"Yeah. That's why it's called the Morraine province - because of the glacial moraines. I'm sure some scribe is rolling in their grave since they spelled it with two Rs around the third century, despite the term only having one."

"Hmmm," he mumbles, not sounding any closer to sleep than before I had tossed out the dry fact. I'm not sure why geology and geography are the two mental databases that help me sleep the quickest, but I assume it's because I find history too fascinating.

"See? Isn't working."

"Try again," he demands, though it's really an ask from the quiet tone of his voice, and I can hear a smile on his lips.

Now I'm the one sighing constantly. "Okay. The Healer's Quadrant at Basgiath, our very humble death factory, takes up the southern end of the college. Healer uniforms are a pale blue to help distinguish them from the infantry and scribe uniforms during ground combat. Through necessity, a covered stone bridge was built between the Rider's Quadrant to the Healer Quadrant's Infirmary. Because the lot of us special little assholes dressed in black can't stop stabbing or breaking one another to just make it through training."

Xaden's chuckle echoes into the room and I roll to my back so that we're both grinning up at the ceiling. "Violence, if information was written like that, maybe I'd have paid attention in three years worth of classes."

I laugh and fold my hands over my stomach just above the armor. If anyone were to walk in, I guarantee that both of us lying on our backs with as many inches between us as possible isn't what they would have expected to see.

"Any closer to sleep?"

I hear his head shake against the pillow. "No. Worse. At least half of the reason I'm attracted to you is your intelligence, so this has backfired on me pretty literally hard."

Gods if he doesn't fill my stomach with butterflies when he says things like that. Again I'm left to wonder why I'm denying us anything ever, and again my brain comes to my heart's rescue before I can roll over and claim him as my own until the damn sun rises over Amari's good green earth.

"What else you got?" His challenge widens my grin.

"I'll torture you if you want," I offer. "First-year cadets often faint when spending any amount of time in the Archives during the early part of their studies. As part of the fire mitigation system, there is less air within those walls. It only poses a detriment if the cadet is traversing any of the twenty-foot high ladders to navigate the shelves that run the length of the cavernous structure."

"Wait. There's less air in the Archives? Do…has anyone ever gotten killed from that?"

"Not that I know of, but I did dislocate my shoulder ad split my head open when passing out on one of those damn rolling multi-story ladders and falling when I was studying down there with my dad."

I feel his gaze as he turns to look at the side of my face.

"After I woke up in the infirmary Dad still looked terrified. I'm not sure if it was because I had been lying like a corpse bleeding all over the Archive's marble floors when he found me or if it was because Mom was going to kill him. I wasn't exactly supposed to be down there, so the fact that he snuck me in to help with his research was kind of our little secret."

"How old were you?"

I sigh as I think. Sure, it feels like it was a million years ago after everything that has happened, after everything I've learned. "It was right after Brennan died. Well…you know. Moved to Aretia. I was fourteen."

He scoffs. "And you were doing Archives research? At fourteen?"

I turn to face him. "I was helping my dad with research from the moment I could read. By fourteen I already knew Old Lucerish and Tyrrish."

"You and I did fourteen very differently. I'm pretty sure that was the summer I discovered that girls were pretty."

I laugh and roll my eyes and look back up at the ceiling instead of letting them linger on the distracting lines of his jaw.

"Gods, three languages by fourteen. I was lucky to remember which fork I needed to use at a state dinner."

That pulls a smile to my face. "The salad one was the easiest to screw up."

"Right?" he confirms, and I shake my head.

"The number of times Mira and Brennan got yelled at for getting things wrong at the King's table when we were kids."

"Not you?"

"Nah. I was the cute one, all tiny and frail. I'm pretty sure King Tauri still thinks I'm a porcelain doll of some sort."

A yawn takes over my whole body, and sleep tugs at me as if I haven't been begging it to show up all night.

"One more fact," he says quietly.

I chuckle as I roll back to my side and give him my back. "The library of Aretia was second only to the Archives of Basgiath, with hundreds of tomes reaching as far back as only a dozen years after the Unification. The stone pillars that marked the recognizable outer structure were similar in fashion to those outside of the Temple of Amari. Both were destroyed in the fall of the former capital of Tyrrendor, and the knowledge lost in those flames is a tragedy amongst the greatest of any war."

I let the silence linger a moment. "After all of this is over, I'll have our library rivaling the Archives again, mark my words."

…