Iron Flame: Part 1 – Chapter 27

By the time we land at Samara just before nightfall, I’m a jittery, frantic mess. I can’t bring myself to care about whatever retribution waits for me at Basgiath. I’ll handle whatever punishment Varrish wants to dish out.

I’ve spent every minute of the eight-hour flight trying to separate my feelings from Tairn’s, but I can’t, and he’s definitively in primal mode.

He has to be the reason there’s a hollow pit in my stomach threatening to devour all logical thought if I don’t set eyes on Xaden in the next minute. It’s Tairn’s desperation to see Sgaeyl unharmed making my heart pound, not my own concern for Xaden. After all, if he was at death’s door, Sgaeyl would have told us once we flew close enough for them to communicate. At least that’s what the barely functioning logical part of my brain is telling me.

This is all Tairn. But what if it isn’t? How seriously has Xaden been wounded?

Sgaeyl may have told Tairn that Xaden lives and I could see how bad it was for myself, but I’m still counting every second it takes the guards to raise the portcullis. The increased security is protocol and completely reasonable given yesterday’s attack, but every moment that ticks by grates on my last nerve.

Just because I logically know Tairn is still flooding my emotions doesn’t mean I can control them.

The second the portcullis is high enough for me to duck under, I do so. For once, my size works to my advantage. I’m inside the outpost before it’s even a quarter of the way open.

Organized chaos reigns within. Chunks of masonry ranging from half my size to double it lay scattered around the courtyard, and a quick glance upward is all it takes to see where they fell from. There are scorch marks on the northern wall, too. The fliers must have breached the perimeter.

The healers work a triage station on the southern end of the fortress, the area around them thick with wounded infantry. But there are no black uniforms among the blue. No cream, either.

“Violet?” Mira calls out, emerging from the northwestern staircase I know leads to their operations room. No limp, no slings, no blood that I can see. She’s all right. Just like Devera said, only one has been wounded, and it’s not Mira.

“Where is he?” I yank my flight goggles from the top of my head and shove them into my bag without breaking my stride.

“What are you doing here?” She grabs hold of my shoulders, looking me over with her customary inspection. “You’re not supposed to arrive until Saturday.”

“Are you unharmed?”

“Yes.” She nods. “I wasn’t here. I was out on patrol.”

“Good, then tell me where he is.” My tone sharpens as my gaze swings wildly, looking for him. Fuck, I can’t even sense him with Tairn overriding everything.

“You don’t have leave, do you? Gods, you’re going to be so fucked when you get back.” She sighs. Have to give it to Mira, she doesn’t fight battles she can’t win. “He’s in the sparring gym. From what I hear, your man is the reason we still have an outpost.”

He’s not mine. Not really.

“Thank you.” I turn away from her without another word and head for the sparring gym. I love her, I’m thankful she’s all right, but all of that is buried underneath the desperation clawing at my soul to lay eyes on Xaden.

The fortress is busy with recovery efforts, but the hall to the gym is deserted. Why would they have taken him to the gym for recovery? Is he unable to climb the steps to his room? That pit in my stomach deepens. How badly is he hurt?

The mage lights more than make up for the dying evening light outside the three oversize windows when I enter the gym. But there’s certainly no makeshift infirmary in here.

Wait. What? I blink.

Xaden is on the mat in his short-sleeved, muscle-hugging sparring uniform.

He has both his heavy swords out, metal clanging against metal as he spars with Garrick.

“You’re slow today,” Xaden lectures, advancing mercilessly. He moves like he always does, with lethal expertise and complete concentration. There’s zero chance he’s even to seriously wounded. The burst of relief lets me draw my first full breath since leaving Basgiath, but it quickly fades.

Hands on him. I need my hands on him.

“Not. Much. I can do. About. That!” Garrick argues, blocking Xaden’s advances.

“Get faster.” Xaden lands blow after deliberate blow, deftly avoiding taking any himself. Each swing of those swords shifts the worry, the abject terror that he’d been , into rage.

He’s unharmed, and I’m a fucking fool for letting my emotions run amok, for letting my love for him overrule my common sense. That’s on me, not Tairn.

But the wildness I can’t breathe through? That’s a hundred percent black morningstartail, and I can’t break free, can’t raise my shields enough to own myself.

I step into Xaden’s line of sight, my toes hitting the edge of the mat.

Xaden glances toward me, and his eyes widen for all of a heartbeat before he nails Garrick in the face with his elbow, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Garrick sprawls across the mat, his swords slipping from his hands. “Damn!”

“We’re done,” Xaden says without even looking back, already headed toward me, eating up the half dozen feet that separate us with those long, prowling strides of his. “I had my shields up. What are you doing here?” His eyes widen, like he can feel the chaos within me. “Violence, are you all right?”

“What am I doing here?” I bite out each word as my eyes rake over him, looking for the wounds Devera spoke of. Did I misinterpret her gesture? Did I really just fly here for ? My hands begin to shake. “I have no fucking clue!”

“This isn’t you.” His gaze sweeps over me.

“I know that!” I shout, torn between weeping with gratitude that he’s alive and seemingly unhurt and destroying this entire gym—this entire fortress— because he was ever put in danger. “I can’t get him out!”

“Hold on.” He shoves my pack off my shoulders, and it falls to the gym floor before he sweeps me up against his chest.

I wrap my arms around him and shove my face into his neck, breathing in deep. He smells like mint and leather and mine— For fuck’s sake, am I scenting him?

Xaden walks us straight into the gym’s bathing chamber, and I get a quick glimpse of polished stone walls; high, glazed windows partially cracked open; and a row of wide benches under the center of three lines of spouts, not dissimilar to the ones at Basgiath. With a flick of his fingers, the door slams shut, and then he works a lever on the wall. Water streams from the spout in the aqueduct overhead, soaking us both in what feels like I gasp, my body tensing with the shock of the bitter cold, and for that heartbeat, it’s all I’m capable of feeling.

“Put your shields up,” Xaden orders. “Now, Violet!”

I claw through the glacier of my mind and shove the bricks of my shields into place. Tairn’s emotions dull enough for me to claim some semblance of control. “Fucking. Cold,” I say, my teeth chattering.

“There we go.” Xaden flips another lever and the water warms. “What the hell happened that they gave you leave to come early?” Concern lines the area between his brows as he sets me on my feet, water spraying down on us.

My mind is mine again, though I can feel the intensity of Tairn’s emotions beating at my shields.

“They didn’t give me leave—”

“You didn’t get leave?” His voice lowers to that dangerous tone that terrifies everyone in the world besides me. “When you already know that Varrish is going to—” His words die abruptly as his focus drops to my shoulder. “Who the fuck’s flight jacket are you wearing?”

“Really?” I throw my arms out, happily letting the warmth soak into me. “It has third-year rank, Fourth Wing insignia, and a section leader designation. Who the hell’s jacket do you I’m wearing?”

His jaw ticks, water streaming down his face.

“It’s Bodhi’s, you territorial asshole!”

That answer doesn’t seem to help.

“Are you serious right now?” I unbutton the fucking jacket and tug at the sleeves, but leather is a bitch when wet, and it takes a moment to yank it free. “I ran out of Battle Brief the second Devera clued me in that you’d been . Yes, I left without leave. Then I flew eight hours at breakneck speed with an absolutely irrational Tairn, who thought if you’d been hurt, then Sgaeyl could have been, too. And now you pull some possessive, jealous, bullshit just because your cousin knew I was so panicked that I wouldn’t stop for my own flight leathers?” I flat-out glare at his nonsensical ass and drop the jacket to the floor. “You can fuck right off!”

A corner of his mouth turns up. “You were worried about me?”

“Not anymore, I’m not.” I see . How can he find this amusing?

“But you were.” A slow smile spreads across his face, and his eyes light up. “You were worried about me.” He reaches for me.

“Do you think this is funny?” I step back out of his reach only to find the water-slick wall at my back.

“No.” He cocks his head to the side, his smile slipping. “You seem a little angry that I’m not at Malek’s doorstep. Would you rather I be bleeding to death in the infirmary?”

“No!” Of course he doesn’t get it. His life might depend on mine, but he doesn’t feel the way I do about him. He wants me, even said he fell for me, but he’s never said he loves me. “I’m not mad at you for not being hurt. I would want you hurt. I’m pissed at myself for being so reckless, so wrapped up in you, having such little control over my emotions that I just ran after you like… like…” Like a lovesick little fool. “And you, you’re calm, collected, and in control. You would have waited for all the information, and you sure as hell never, ever would have let Sgaeyl’s emotions take over—”

My words die as Xaden wrenches up the wet sleeve on his right arm, exposing a puckered, angry red line that stretches from the top of his shoulder to halfway down his biceps. It’s an inch thick at the top and triple that where it ends. He’s obviously been mended, and if the scar is still raised, he must have almost lost his arm.

“You really were wounded,” I whisper, all the anger falling out of my body. My chest clenches; it must have hurt like hell. “Are you all right?” The question tumbles out even though I’ve just seen him demolish an opponent.

“I’m fine. The scribe’s report must have gone out before the mender arrived from the Eastern Wing.” The scar disappears as he tugs the sleeve back down. “And you’re wrong about me. I wouldn’t have waited for all the information—or even proof—if I’d heard you’d been hurt.” This time, I don’t step away when he reaches for me. His arm winds around my waist, and his hand splays on the small of my back to guide us out of the water’s direct spray. The inches between us are both a gift and a curse as he leans in. “I’m not always calm or collected, and I’m in control when it comes to you.”

My heart leaps at his words, at the ever-present tension that rises between us, at the awareness that spreads through me from that single touch. It’s not just the water warming me.

“Even now, I’m not doing what I should.” His words come out clipped.

“Which is?”

“Hauling your ass to the mat until you’re a hot, sweaty, aching mess from a dozen rounds of sparring.” His jaw ticks. “Because I warned you never to put your life at risk over something as trivial as talking to me, and yet you did just that. Again.”

“I’m down with everything but the sparring.” Shit. That comes out breathless. “And it’s not up to you to punish me anymore. I’m no longer in your chain of command.”

“Oh, I know. And somehow it was a hell of a lot easier on us both when you were. You want full disclosure when it comes to me, right? How is this for open?” His gaze drops to my mouth. “I would have done the same thing you did because I’m just as reckless for you as you are for me.”

A sharp, sweet ache consumes my chest. Gods, I want to believe that. But I also want more. I want the same three words he demands from me. I run my tongue over my bottom lip, and his eyes flare as steam fills the room.

“You were worried for .” The first time he said it came out amused. The second sounded happy. But this time, his tone shifts as if it’s a revelation.

“Of course I was worried for you.”

He draws me forward slowly, giving me every chance to object before bringing our bodies flush. The heat of him soaks into every chilled part of me, and all the burning worry I’d felt on the flight here and the searing anger that followed transforms into an entirely different—and far more dangerous—form of heat.

Fuck, I want him. I want to touch every inch of his skin, feel his heartbeat against mine in assurance that he’s really all right. I want his body over me, inside me, as close as humanly possible. I want him to make me forget there’s anything beyond this room or the two of us.

“And you flew here without even stopping to get your leathers.” He lowers his head inch by torturously slow inch.

I nod.

“Because you still love me,” he whispers against my lips a heartbeat before he kisses me. Thank gods he doesn’t wait for my denial, because I’m not sure I have it in me to give one, not with the way he toys with my bottom lip, nipping it gently, then stroking his tongue over the curve. It feels too good, too right, too…everything.

It’s the first time since Aretia that he hasn’t waited for me to ask. The first time his infamous self-control has slipped. The first time he’s gambled with possible rejection, kissed me simply because he wanted to, and fuck, that’s exactly what I need—for him to need .

I part my lips in invitation not just because I want him, but because he’s acting on a confession I didn’t have to pry out of him or even ask for. He groans, his arms surrounding me, and the kiss becomes exactly what he called himself— reckless. The feel of his tongue flicking against mine, then claiming, stroking, is a flame to a tinderbox, and I catch fire.

Need, lust, desire—whatever it is—dances down my spine and gathers, becoming an insistent ache between my thighs. Rising on my toes to get closer, I loop my arms around his neck, but we’re still not close enough.

His hands work the buttons of my uniform, and I reluctantly relinquish my grip so he can slide it off. It smacks onto the floor somewhere to the left. I tug on his shirt, desperate for the feel of him, and he obliges, grabbing hold of it behind his neck and dragging it overhead, revealing miles and miles of warm, wet skin.

I kiss the scar right above his heart and stroke my hands down his sides, my fingers tracing the hard dips and grooves along his stomach. There is nothing in this world that compares to him. He is complete, utter perfection, his body carved from years of sparring and flight.

“Violet.” He tilts my head and kisses me hard and deep, then slow and soft, changing the pace, keeping me straining for more.

My hands trace the lines of his back as he spears his fingers through the wet, loosened strands of my braid, then tugs, arching my neck before setting his mouth to it.

He knows exactly where I’m sensitive and does he use every bit of that knowledge, sucking and laving that spot at the side of my throat that melts my knees and makes my fingers curl against his skin.

“Xaden,” I whimper, my hands sliding over the curve of his ass. Mine. This man is mine—at least for right now. Even if it’s just these next few minutes.

He nips at the delicate skin of my ear, sending a shudder of sensation down my spine, and then his mouth is on mine again, stealing my sanity and replacing it with pure need. This kiss isn’t as patient, as controlled as the others. There’s a wild, carnal edge to it that makes my mouth curve against his, makes me bolder. I sweep my hand between us, then sigh.

He’s hard for me, the length of him straining against his waistband as I squeeze.

“Fuck,” he growls, ripping his mouth from mine, his breaths as ragged as mine as I stroke him through the fabric. “If you keep doing that…” He slams his eyes shut and lets his head fall back.

“I’ll actually get you?” My core clenches.

His gaze snaps to mine, and the conflict I see in those dark depths makes me pause.

“Don’t make me fight for this. Not again.” I retreat from the warmth of his arms, and every nerve in my body screams in protest. “I can’t always be the one fighting for this while you invent new ways to hesitate or tell me no, Xaden. You either want me or you don’t.”

“You just had your hand wrapped around my cock, Violet. I’m pretty sure you felt how fucking badly I want you.” He rips his hand through his wet hair. “Gods, I the one fighting for this!” he argues, gesturing between us. “I told you, I’m not using sex as a weapon to get you back.”

“You’ll just weaponize it with your little rule to make me say the three words I’m not ready to give you.” And that edge of maddening need he has me riding is just sharp enough that I might cave, I crave him that fucking much.

“Weaponize it against you?” He shakes his head. “You told me that you can’t separate emotion from sex. Remember?”

I open, then shut my mouth. He’s right. I did say that.

“Maybe I’m learning how.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to.” He takes a step forward and cups the back of my neck. “I want you exactly how you are, emotions and all. I want the woman I fell for. It kills me every time I have to keep my hands off you, every night I lie awake next to you, both blessed and damned with the memory of how hot, how wet, how fucking you feel when I’m losing myself in you.”

My lips part and heat flushes my skin as if his words are an actual caress.

“When I do sleep, I dream of the sounds you make right before you come and the way the blue in your eyes outshines the amber right after, all sated and hazy. I wake up starving for you—only you—even on the mornings you’re halfway across the kingdom. This isn’t me denying you or manipulating you. This is me fighting for you.” He palms my hip, and his thumb strokes the bare strip of skin between my pants and my armor.

“You want to fight for me?” I reach up into my hair and pull the pins loose one by one, letting them fall to the stone floor. “Then take a chance knowing how I feel. You want my heart back? Risk yours first this time.”

“If I tell you how I feel right now, you’d never trust that I’m not just desperate for your body.” His brow furrows.

“Exactly my point.” The last pin falls from my hair. “Choose, Xaden. You can let me walk out that door, or you can be the one who takes what I’m willing to give this time.” I shake my hair loose and run my fingers through the wet mass to unravel the braid.

“Are you trying to bring me to my knees? Or win the argument?” His hand flexes at my hip as his heated gaze sweeps over me.

“Yes,” I answer, reaching for the ties at the small of my back that secure my armor. “I just spent eight hours terrified of what condition I’d find you in, and I’m telling you that I don’t just want you. I you. There are your three words.” I tug the wet string, and it gives. “That’s all you get. Take me or leave me.”

The fight within him is palpable, the tension between us sharp enough to pierce dragon scale. And for a second, I think he might just be stubborn enough to walk away and keep us at this impasse.

But then—thank gods—he breaks, fusing his mouth to mine, and the fire that had banked during our argument flares back to life even hotter than before. He kisses me like I’m the answer to every question. Like everything we’ve been and will be hinges on this moment. And maybe it does.

His hands work the laces at my back while I undo the buttons of his pants. I win the race, sliding my hand beneath the fabric to stroke him from root to tip.

The guttural groan he gives me feels like a reward and hits straight between my thighs, the ache intensifying to a throb.

“Let go so I can get you naked.” He punctuates that last word with a nip of my lower lip.

I free him, and he pulls my armor loose enough to tug it over my head. It smacks the ground, and a second later the sensitive peak of my breast is surrounded by his mouth, flicked by his tongue. I moan, my fingers tunneling through his hair to hold him right there. “That feels so damned good.”

Wrapping an arm around my back and the other behind my knees, he lifts, then lays me onto a water-warmed stone bench in one smooth motion. “You sure you want this here, ?” he asks, rising above me, blocking the spray of water from my breasts, his eyes hooded and his hair mussed from my hands. “In five minutes, I can have you comfortable in my bed.”

He’s so beautiful that my heart actually hurts from just looking at him.

“Now.” My hands stroke his wide shoulders and down the relic that winds from his jaw to his forearm.

“Now,” he agrees. There’s nothing practiced or polished about the next kiss— it’s all need sweetened with a desperation that matches my own, and all the hotter for it. This is exactly what I need, to be pressed between his hard body and stone, devoured with the same urgency I feel for him.

His hand skims down my curves, following the dip of my waist before skimming my waistband and undoing the buttons of my pants one by one. There’s no hesitation in his touch when his fingers delve and stroke from my entrance to my clit.

My back arches and I gasp with white-hot pleasure.

“Even hotter than I remember.” His mouth moves down my neck, overwhelming me with sensation as his fingers tease with featherlight touches. “Fuck, you feel like silk. Hot, slick silk.” His voice has that rough rasp to it that I’ve missed.

He moves lower to worship my breasts with his mouth, his teeth raking lightly over my nipple with the perfect amount of friction to build the pleasure coiling tight within me. Of course he knows what I like. This isn’t our first time. It’s not going to be our last, either.

Power swells under my skin and builds as he circles my swollen clit, denying me the pressure I need.

“Xaden,” I beg, my nails biting into the tops of his shoulders, but I’m careful not to brush his new scar. Every stroke of his fingers and flick of his tongue feels like a jolt of lightning through my system, electrifying every nerve until I’m a hypersensitive bowstring drawn too tight but not tight enough.

“I know exactly what you want”—he skims my clit—“and what you need.” Two fingers slide inside me.

Deeper. Closer. More. That’s what I need.

“Then give it to me,” I demand, my hips rolling.

“I’ve waited forever to touch you.”

My breaths come in ragged pants and moans, and my skin flushes, heat prickling as he builds the aching pressure with tighter, faster strokes.

His voice curls around my mind until he’s all I see, all I hear, all I feel and think. He’s everything, watching me like he thinks the same about me.

“I need you.” Maybe need isn’t the right word, but there’s no other term that captures how essential he is to my existence. I shove my thumbs into the waistband of my pants and push. I need them off, .

“Same.” We’re a frenzy of questing hands and mouths as we struggle out of the rest of our wet clothes. I have a whole new reason to curse these boots, but Xaden makes quick work of them, stripping me bare.

I ghost my lips over the new scar on his arm, more than aware of how close I came to losing him, and then he’s over me again, bracing his weight on his forearms, his eyes studying mine with an intensity that makes me shiver with anticipation as he settles between my thighs.

Reaching between our bodies, I wrap my fingers around him, bringing the head of his cock to my entrance. I’ll die if he makes me wait any longer. I won’t survive another breath without him inside me.

“I need you more, Violet.” He cradles the side of my face and rolls his hips, pushing inside, stretching me as he consumes those first sensitive inches. “However much you think you need this, need me—I need you ” He thrusts, filling me with one long drive, until he’s so deep that my eyes flutter closed, and I moan with the sublime pleasure.

There’s nothing like this in the world. I’m sure of it.

He echoes my thoughts with a groan, and then he’s moving, withdrawing only to slam home again and again, stealing my stuttered breaths with kiss after kiss. The stone at my back gives me the leverage to arch into his thrusts, taking him deeper. It’s too much, too good, and not enough all at the same time.

Each powerful stroke has me greedy for more. This is where I want to exist, with him above me, moving inside me, his focus totally, completely mine.

I’m breathing too hard to speak.

He slides his hands under me, then holds me to his chest as he rises, pivoting to sit on the edge of the bench.

My cry echoes in the chamber as I sink onto him, my knees anchoring on either side of his hips, and he hits that sweeter, deeper angle that steals my breath.

His hands shift to my ass.

I wind my arms around his neck and smile against his mouth. No one is coming through those doors to interrupt us this time. There’s only the sound of water hitting the bench beside us and our bodies coming together again and again, our hearts pounding, breaths strained between long, drugging kisses.

Reality narrows to sensation, the exquisite feel of his chest against my breasts, his mouth worshipping mine, his cock filling every inch I have, stretching me for more. The pressure coiling in my core is so tight, the pleasure so sweet I can taste it. It vibrates through me as my power rises, transforming me into pure, rapturous energy, until I’m the very lightning I wield, crackling in anticipation of the strike.

“More,” he growls. “I want everything, Violet.”

“You have it.” His stubble scrapes my palms as I cup his face and kiss him. Lightning courses through me, building to a dangerous peak, and I don’t need to ask. I know he has me.

It releases with a snap, flaring bright outside the windows for a heartbeat before it’s swallowed by shadows that stream out to smother it. Nothing shatters. Nothing catches fire. He knows how my body reacts, knows exactly how to push me to the breaking point, and he has me covered when I explode.

. I’m not ready to give him the words, the power that comes with them, but I can keep them for myself, chant them like my own personal Codex, the only truth I’m certain of.

His body tightens beneath mine, his thrusts coming harder as he curls an arm around me, hooking my shoulder and pulling me into every thrust.

That spiraling pressure arcs to a breaking point, and I fight, holding it at bay. Not yet. I want more. Fuck, I want to feel like this every minute of every day for the rest of my life.

“Let go.” He shifts his angle, rubbing against my clit with the next thrust.

“I don’t want it to end.” I can hear the note of panic in my voice, the sharp note of fear that this will be the only time I feel like this, the only time he’s mine. But the waves are coming closer with every roll of our hips, and my muscles tighten to the point of locking.

“Violet.” His hand slides from my shoulder to the back of my neck, fisting in the long strands of my hair as he looks into my eyes like he can see straight to my soul. “I can’t give this up. I give you up. Now let go.”

My thighs tremble, and at the next thrust, I fracture with a cry. Lightning flashes, power tearing through me with instant thunder as the waves crest over me again and again. All I can do is hold on to Xaden and ride them out, bliss flooding my body until I’m too limp to rock back against him.

His restraint vanishes in an instant. Gone are the measured, precise thrusts. He growls into my neck and drives wildly with his hips, consuming me with abandon, and I realize that this is what I craved beyond anything else, even beyond his secrets—his loss of control.

I want to be the only person he unravels for.

Holding on to his shoulders, I push back into every thrust, swiveling my hips and savoring the shout he lets loose when he finally shudders beneath me, his shadows blasting through the room. Rock cracks and water bursts from the aqueducts.

My heart races as I grin.

“Fuck.” His forehead rests against mine, our chests heaving as we fight to catch our breath. “Just when I think I can handle you, I completely fucking lose it.”

“That’s my favorite part.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” He brushes his lips over mine, and he locks his arms around me, keeping me from melting off his lap. “Death of me, I swear.”

“What do we do now?” The question slips out before I can stop it. After all, I’m the one who’s been fighting this—whatever this is.

“We have options.” He caresses the side of my face and studies my eyes. “First, we can stay right here and go again. Second, we can clean up, get dressed, and sneak up to my room, where we can go again. Or third…” He pauses. “We can clean up, find a water wielder to dry our clothes, get you into one of my flight jackets, and fly to the rendezvous to drop the daggers—”

I’m up and running, grabbing for my clothes before he can even finish. Of course I’m going with him.

“I’m guessing that’s a no to options one and two?” he says with a disappointed sigh.