A/N: I'm taking a little liberty with this one. I know Xaden had the daggers made for Violet - so I assume every rune on those daggers is tuned to only work for Violet. Oh well! Angry Shadow Daddy has dagger needs.
Xaden
Cadets, Assembly members, and professors alike clear from my path, and I know I'm scaring the shit out of all the brand new little first years that never learned to be wary of me at Basgiath. My trajectory is the flier's wing, my path is laced with curling shadows, and my fuel is anger and lust.
Sure, my clarifying conversation with Violet and and a boring assembly meeting have done wonders to ensure that I'm no longer hard as fucking stone, but that sizzling heat still courses through every single vein like a scalding fire that makes me want to turn around, drag Violet to our room, and fuck until we both pass out.
Gods, how many times would that be? Back at Basgiath she'd nearly hit five. That fucking conduit would explode and all of Aretia would then burn to the ground. Again.
Probably still worth considering, I think honestly.
I come upon Cat's room, the door open, voices spilling into the hallway. Lack of invitation doesn't stop me.
Beyond the open door I see the two girls and the healer startle, fear in all three sets of eyes. I know that I look like some kind of avenging nightmare wrapped in wisps of nearly uncontrollable shadow, but the key word here is nearly.
"This will go well," Sgaeyl chides and mercifully doesn't finish her rebuke.
"This will go well because I won't allow her to speak."
Silence, but I feel sarcasm slide across our bond before locking every shield in place.
I point to Maren and the healer and growl, "get out." They scurry to obey.
I point to Cat and growl, "sit down."
Her backside hits the bed on the left side of the room, the one on the right I assume to be Maren's. I see fire in her eyes despite my presence and I know this will be more of an uphill battle than I think - I'm only hoping that it won't be. Behind that fire, however, is fear. She's scared of me.
"She should be," my dragon confirms again that she's not going to be far from my thoughts during this conversation, and I'm not sure if that's comforting. Catriona will be hard enough to focus on if she decides to use her mindwork to try and blast past my shields.
A tendril of shadow slams the door closed behind me before I close the path to Sgaeyl's power letting the shadows scatter on the floor. I then pin the flier with the hardest stare I've ever thrown someone's way.
She speaks before I do regardless all of that, because of course she fucking does.
"Have you come to your senses over whose bed you should be sharing?" The cloth she's still holding to her nose blocks some of her words, and through the swelling I see happening to her left cheekbone, she winks.
Gods, I want to throw her out an open window.
"It's not as if her gryphon could react fast enough," Sgaeyl encourages, cutting through my shields like butter.
Instead, I put my left hand on my hip as my right points down into her face, "leave Violet the fuck alone. She had nothing to do with my father's arrangement, or the fact that I'm the one who severed it."
She rolls her eyes as if she's won medals in that competition and tosses the cloth on a nightstand. I feel a wave of pride at the sight of her bloodied, slightly crooked, very swollen nose and the complement of purpling black eyes she'll have from Violet's fists.
Cat puts her hands on her hips, arms akimbo, ready to square off.
"Her mistake." I truly love the two most important females in my life.
"A fucking Sorrengail. Really, Xaden? How many nights did we spend lying side by side commiserating over that fucking family?"
"I'm not kidding Catriona. The only reason she didn't kill you today is because she's a better person than either of us. If it were me, you'd be on tomorrow's death roll."
The flier scoffs, her wide brown eyes looking me up and down. "You wouldn't let her kill me."
The step I take toward her is involuntary. "You don't fucking matter to me."
"You're not a very good liar, Xaden. I remember plenty of times you said the exact opposite when groaning my name in my bed."
I feel the push of her against my shields, and fuck is she powerful. Much stronger than the last time I'd gone toe to toe with her in Cordyn the night I broke off the betrothal. I'm not sure what emotion she's trying to intensify, and if she tries again, I'm only half sure I'll be able to hold her back.
Shadows seep out around my feet and I take a steadying breath as I feel the power rising across my shoulder toward my neck.
"Fucking someone doesn't require feelings," I growl. I see the flinch in her eyes but she schools it well. Too well. I forget she isn't just a flier, that she's actually more like Violet than I realized.
"Please note that as something to never tell the silver one." Solid advice.
Catriona was trained as the heir apparent of Poromiel - the classes and training for the first half of her life priming her for a sheltered life of politics and royalty, just like Violet's prepared her for the Scribe's Quadrant. That nearly full year we spent together is when she began her journey to become a flier on top of being set to become a queen.
"So what is it, Xaden. Tell me what it is about the child of our enemy that so intrigues you."
I can't help the narrowing of my eyes as Cat crosses her arms defensively over her chest, fully expecting me to answer. "I'm not talking with you about her. She's mine. My choice."
"You chose me once too," her growl is a bit strangled, and I see anger and hurt flash across her face.
"I never chose you, Catriona. My father chose Poromiel. You were just a convenient placeholder." I see the shock on her face when she hears her own words repeated with as much malice as she spewed at Violet.
Now she's ready to fight, and I feel her smash hard into my shields, cracks forming as her gift circumvents my channeling. I push back mentally, my shadows growing in the room and deepening around our legs. She doesn't seem to notice.
"It's Lilith Sorrengail's daughter, Xaden."
"I know exactly who she is, and that doesn't matter to me."
Her mindwork crashes into me again, and I know I'm set to break.
"Hold," Sgaeyl demands.
"Do you think of that fucking murderer every time you're inside her daughter? Every time she calls your name from her fucking back do you think of her mother? The Navarrian General that caught and killed your father? That burned Aretia to the ground? Does sweet little Violet look up at you with those eyes - her mother's eyes - as you fuck her while condemning the rest of the continent so you can get your cock wet?"
A blinding release of what I can only call wrath shoots pain behind my eyes, and I know she's broken through. The rage that flies outward makes my heart race and every trained muscle in my body tense for a fight. Shadows explode out from the puddle in the floor, both bunks taking direct hits as downy feathers fly, wood splinters, and the small desk between them cracks and falls.
My back sizzles as Sgaeyl's relic vibrates in time with my beating heart, and I suddenly feel every agonizing slice of that fucking knife against my skin from number one to number one-hundred-and-seven.
"Ground. Now." My dragon snarls into my haze, but I don't want to.
I want to live in the anger, so I think I shall.
"This is not advisable, my scarred one. This anger is not just hers. Be mindful of your choices." Leaving me to win or lose my own fight by whatever means necessary, Sgaeyl goes from my mind as clouds of fury flood in.
The confidence Cat attacked with a moment earlier leaves her quickly as I lift my hand and wrap her right wrist in a cold dark vice. The back of my eyes burn with the want to release every bit of unyielding energy against this spiteful woman, and the steps I take forward prompt her to retreat.
If only she was able, I think coldly.
I close my fist and know she feels the pain as the tendrils bite into her calves, then thighs, then up across her waist as they snake toward her throat.
I see cold sweat bead on her forehead and the pallid shade of her face as the color drains. Her mouth and nose are still splattered with her own blood, and standing at gross attention against her suddenly pale skin are the purpling raised welts, all made by Violet's fists.
Violet. I can hear her voice in my head, "I don't want to kill her. I need your help."
I stop just short of where my shadows pin Cat's boots to the floor. The rising tendril that had been going for her throat halts above her heaving chest. I feel a light, desperate, physical pressure, and look down to see her free hand pressing against my chest in a losing effort to hold me back.
"You promised," she whimpers. "You promised you'd never hurt me."
The hostile snake-like coil wrapped around my mind loosens ever so slightly and, though I can still feel her past my shields, I know she's shifted to try and amplify whatever emotion she thought she could rise with that pleading statement.
But it's not her that's staying my hands…my shadows.
It's her.
I do as Sgaeyl demanded and ground, reconstructing my shields. I let the shadows drop but the bitter want to hurt Catriona hammers adrenaline through my veins, and I know I need to both distance myself and finish this conversation.
Those needs couldn't be farther apart.
I snatch her wrist, dragging her hand off my chest to push her back, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary. The back of her knees collide with the edge of the wrecked bed hard, and her ass hits the coverlet with a squeak.
"Mindwork? On me, Catriona?" I suck in a deep breath before backing up. "Sit and wait. So help me Gods if I come back and you aren't right where I left you I'll have Sgaeyl eat your fucking gryphon."
The tears that shine in the fear of her brown eyes bring a small amount of pleasure to the surface of my heart, and I realize that's not a normal feeling and that I should really do something about it. The only thing I can think over and over again is that Violet has the answer - she always does.
She's the center of my world - the conduit for my heart - my mind.
The door slams in my wake as my long strides, just as scary as before according to the scattering cadets, take me toward the shimmering bond of blue and purple lightning in my mind.
The farther I get through the halls of my home the claws of Catriona's mindwork lessen and I get a small amount of relief. I expected to feel better than I do, however, so I guess I'm angrier than I realized. Annoyance prompts me to rip my fingers through my hair.
"I warned that it was not all her," Sgaeyl butts in, but I ignore her and continue trailing the bond to Violet.
She and her squad are laughing outside of the library doors, and I only vaguely hear Imogen and Garrick's shared, "ut oh," as I pass them by. Without looking, I know they've fallen into step.
More than half a dozen pairs of eyes are suddenly on me and I feel…embarrassed? No, that's not it.
Sgaeyl assists. "Defensive."
"Go…be with Tairn."
"Xaden?" Her voice is a pealing bell of clarity through the foggy haze of my mind.
While everyone around her takes two steps back, their eyes and jaws wide, she takes a confident step forward. My shadows curl around her legs as I reach for the comfort I see on every line of her beautiful face, and though I'd never admit it to anyone but her that it's what I desperately need, I know she's already aware.
Gods, the fearless way she parts the swirling darkness of my power couldn't be different from Catriona. Violet's essence pulls my focus to her hazel eyes and Malek commend my soul, they hold me captive. The amber outshines the blue and blaze with concern, curiosity, worry, and an overwhelming amount of love. I can feel the woven claws of anger retreat further.
"I need something from you," my voice is still a growl, and I see everyone but her flinch as the muscles in my jaw tense and tighten.
"Let me in," she whispers, and I realize that I'm still holding my shields as hard and tight as I possibly can. I crack, just for her, and feel the velvet caress of our bond flood my…everything.
She's like a balm to a burn, and the sigh that rattles from my chest brings a soft smile to her lips and her palm to my chest. Unlike Cat's that landed from fear in an attempt to push me away, hers settles in an attempt to comfort and calm my racing heart.
"Much better," is all she says, but she's truly echoing how I feel at this exact moment. "You okay? An hour ago you…seemed fine."
"Can I borrow your dagger?"
She's immediately confused and I realize how silly that sounds seeing as I have four strapped to my chest at this very moment.
"Which one?" It's all she asks without hesitation, and I'm just a little more in love with her as she hovers a hand over her sheaths.
"I'm having a…conversation with Catriona."
"Your honesty is…surprising," Sgaeyl mumbles, and I imagine that both she and Violet wear the same surprised look at the moment.
The hand against my heart slides right as she pulls the dagger free from my shoulder sheath, her other slipping the runed blade from the right side of her ribs and swapping it with mine. The relief is instant and the shadows fall.
"Better?"
"She made me so angry."
"You don't have to explain - my fist hurts more than my cheek."
"Thank you," I lean down because I can and press my lips against her hair before turning back toward the flier wing.
"Good luck. I'm free later if we need to bury a body." Gods I love this woman.
"Pretty sure you're busy later."
…