It had only been a handful of days since the battle, since we'd been back at Basgiath, but it felt longer than all the years I'd spent here before we'd left. Once again I'd tried to speak to Sgaeyl by going up to the flight field and making a nuisance of myself, and once again I'd been sent away by Tairn. The hillside in Tyrrandor where I centered myself looked less like my boyhood haven and more like an uninhabited wilderness without Sgaeyl's willing connection.
The relief on Violet's face when I returned now seemed even more noticeable than it was before, somehow. Like she was worried I wouldn't come back. Like she worried about worse things than my death.
I couldn't blame her, exactly, could I?
Barlow said there was no cure, and I believe that the venin don't think there is one. Like Jack, they don't want one. But I'm not one of them… or at least I don't wish to be one of them. I have to believe there's an answer. And I have the smartest woman in the world on my side, so we'll find it.
For months now I've thought of myself as needing to fuck Violet like a starved man, but as the hollow in my chest seems to get larger, that's become more true as well.
"Have you eaten?" Violet asked me once we'd gotten away from the busy central courtyard.
"How could I? I haven't had you in my bed all day," I felt a smile ghost across my face as her cheeks flushed. I love that I still have that effect on her.
"Have you eaten food?" she asked again, pretending she didn't hear me.
"No," I admitted. "It doesn't seem to matter if I do." Violet has made it clear that continued honesty is part of the solution, not just for our relationship but for resolving my problem. She's studying my symptoms like she's determined to conquer the healer's quadrant as well as those of riders and scribes. I'm not as certain as she is, but seeing her commitment to learning everything she can certainly inspires feelings in me.
She crossed her arms. "Protein first; it's important to make sure you maintain your nutrition."
First she watched me as I ate and then she took me up to her room. Under Violet's gentle supervision, I took care of all of the maintenance tasks that used to be simple ways to keep my body running. It's unnerving when I think about how easy it is to lose interest in the things that make me human.
Well, not everything .
Violet was waiting when I finished in the shower, lying naked in her bed reading a book. I was about to pounce on her when she held up one finger.
"Let me mark my place," she said, trailing that finger down my neck and then slowly reaching for a piece of paper from the table beside the bed. She smirked and watched me as she did it, perfectly aware of what she was doing to me.
"Oh, don't stop on my account, Violence," I settled on the bed behind her, pressing my chest against her back. "I'm sure I can amuse myself." My hand reached up to cup her breast and then pinch her nipple, gently twisting it in my hand.
"It would serve you right if I did decide to finish it," she answered, sliding the book onto the bedside table.
I did pounce on her then, pinning her down on the bed and claiming her mouth hungrily. She pushed up against me, her back arching off the mattress. While I kissed down her neck, biting and sucking a trail of bruises Brennan would glare at me for the next day, my other hand slid under her back.
Violet groaned my name as I sat up, pulling her with me, needing her. I could feel her body singing with lightning beneath me-
Oh gods.
In a moment of panic I all but dropped Violet on the bed. Her eyes were open and her face was serious in a moment.
"Xaden? Are you…" The question trailed off.
"I felt- I could feel the energy inside of you, Vi. I know I've said I'm hungry for you a hundred times, but this was… not that."
Her eyes widened and I waited for her to pull away in fear or disgust, but she didn't.
"Of course," she said instead, her hand on my cheek. "I should have realized."
"Realized that I'm a danger to you? Because I've been saying that for days."
She scoffed. "We've been through that. No, realized that you have options."
Now it was my turn to stare at her when her words sunk in. "No, I saw what Barlow did to Dain; I would never-"
"It wouldn't be like that," Violet insisted. "There's so much energy from Tairn. Dain's not an energy wielder. And you would never hurt me."
"You don't know that!" How many times were we going to have this argument?
"We've tried it your way, Xaden, and you're just exhausting yourself. If just ignoring it was enough , they'd have cured Jack." Violet laid her hand on my breastbone, her fingers tingling, and I could feel threads of lightning pushing into me, wrapping around my chest and sinking in.
"This wasn't what I had in mind when I wanted you to learn runeweaving."
"But you're not complaining."
No, far from it. The hole in my chest seemed to swallow up her sparks like I hadn't eaten in weeks, and when she did pull away, I heard myself whimper.
The sound lit something in Violet's eyes; her bearing seemed to shift.
"You spend all of your time with everyone depending on you, and now you have another reason that you have to be in complete control of yourself at all times. It's too much, so let's peel a little of that control away…" Violet wriggled out from under me. This time when she reached for the little table she pulled open the drawer and slipped out a small object that hummed with the barest hint of magic.
"Where did that come from?"
She blushed. "Rhiannon got it for me as a joke when you were posted to Samara. It's not exactly the right tool, but it should get the job done."
"You speak like you have experience in this area."
"Let's just say you're not the first man I've been with who needed help to give up control."
I started to say something about there being a story there, but she reached for me and lightning twisted inside of me again. Instead of burning, it settled right in my chest, enough now that the muscles I'd been holding tight for days relaxed. I sagged against the bed while Violet took a few short steps out of my line of sight.
The mattress shifted, telling me that she was behind me at the foot of the bed. One of her knees nudged my leg aside and one of her hands reached for my ass. Her every touch was sparking now and I double and then triple-checked the wards on Violet's room as I anticipated what was next.
One finger, slick and cool, pressed against my opening and then waited.
"Are you ready?" Lightning raced up my spine. Gods I was so hungry.
"Yes," I choked out, not caring what she did as long as she kept doing it.
The first finger slid in easily with another pulse of lightning. I must have groaned something encouraging, because a second finger joined it a minute later. The feeling of pressure was strange and foreign, but the sensation of fullness combined with the shocks of energy made me feel like I wasn't hollow for the first time since the battle.
"Vi-" was all I could choke out as the pressure disappeared. Within moments, the feeling returned. Instead of warm fingers it was Violet's little toy pressed inside me, and before I could complain that it lacked compared to her touch, the magic that powered it flared and was replaced by enough lightning to make my muscles tense and shake.
My brilliant Violence was using the sex toy as a magic conduit, hitting me with probably enough stormfire to kill if she hadn't guessed right, but I couldn't think clearly enough to care. I screamed, grabbing fistfulls of her sheets as my back arched, the shadows rushing in from the corners of the room to twist up along her legs and over her hips, touching her where I couldn't right now.
I couldn't pull away and I didn't want to. I would accept anything she did to me as long as she kept me here, in her bed, under her fingers, wrapped in the strength of her magic and her need to save me.
I groaned as I came, my shadows wrapping around Violet's waist and pulling her against me. My mind finally, finally emptied after days of anxiety and anger.
Violet pulled away, dropping the toy somewhere in the sheets before standing up. She tugged the soaked sheet out from below me and dropped it on the floor before crawling back into the bed next to me.
I laid there dozing for a minute or ten before I managed to find my words again. "Thank you, Violet."
"There's no need for thanks. I'd be happy to do that for you any time-"
"I meant, thank you for not giving up on me."
Violet laughed softly and kissed my cheek. "Of course. Get some rest."
She curled against me, once again reading her book, as I held her tightly and let sleep take me. For the first time in weeks I slept so soundly that there were no nightmares.