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)
“Are you going to follow the rules?” I ask Jack. My head is buzzing, and my arm feels so damned heavy, but I keep my knife on target.
“Guess I don’t have a choice.” A corner of his mouth tilts into a sneer, and his posture relaxes as he raises his hands, palms out.
I lower my dagger but keep it palmed and ready as I move sideways, toward the redhead keeping roll.
Jack steps down into the courtyard, his shoulder knocking mine as he walks by, pausing to lean in close. “You’re dead, Sorrengail, and I’m going to be the one to kill you.”
Blue dragons descend from the extraordinary Gormfaileas line. Known for their formidable size, they are the most ruthless, especially in the case of the rare Blue Daggertail, whose knifelike spikes at the tip of their tail can disembowel an enemy with one flick.
—Colonel Kaori’s Field Guide to Dragonkind
CHAPTER
THREE
If Jack wants to kill me, he needs to get in line. Besides, I have a feeling Xaden Riorson is going to beat him to it.
“Not today,” I respond to Jack, the hilt of my dagger solid in my hand, and I somehow manage to suppress a shudder as he leans over and breathes in. He’s scenting me like a fucking dog. Then he scoffs and walks off into the crowd of celebrating cadets and riders that’s gathered in the sizable courtyard of the citadel.
It’s still early, probably around nine, but already I see there aren’t as many cadets as there were candidates ahead of me in line. Based on the overwhelming presence of leather, both the second- and third-years are here as well, taking stock of the new cadets.
The rain eases into a drizzle, as if it had only come to make the hardest test of my life even harder…but I did it.
I’m alive.
I made it.
My body begins to tremble, and a throbbing pain erupts in my left knee—the one I slammed on the parapet. I take a step, and it threatens to give out on me. I need to bind it before anyone notices.
“I think you made an enemy there,” the redhead says, casually shifting the lethal crossbow she wears strapped along her shoulder. She glances at me over the scroll with a shrewd look in her hazel eyes as she looks me up and down. “I’d watch your back with that one if I were you.”
I nod. I’m going to have to watch my back and every other part of my body.
The next candidate approaches from the parapet as someone grips my shoulders from behind and spins me.
My dagger is halfway up when I realize it’s Rhiannon.
“We made it!” She grins, giving my shoulders a squeeze.
“We made it,” I repeat with a forced smile. My thighs are shaking now, but I manage to sheath my dagger at my ribs. Now that we’re here, both cadets, can I trust her?
“I can’t thank you enough. There were at least three times I would have fallen off if you hadn’t helped me. You were right—those soles were slick as shit. Have you seen the people around here? I swear I just saw a second-year with pink streaks in her hair, and one guy has dragon scales tattooed up his entire biceps.”
“Conformity is for the infantry,” I say as she loops her arm through mine and tugs me along toward the crowd. My knee screams, pain radiating up to my hip and down to my foot, and I limp, my weight falling into Rhiannon’s side.
Damn it.
Where did this nausea come from? Why can’t I stop shaking? I’m going to fall any second now—there’s no way my body can remain upright with this earthquake in my legs or the whirring in my head.
“Speaking of which,” she says, glancing down. “We need to trade boots. There’s a bench—”
A tall figure in a pristine black uniform steps out of the crowd, charging toward us, and though Rhiannon manages to dodge, I stumble smack into his chest.
“Violet?” Strong hands catch my elbows to steady me, and I look up into a pair of familiar, striking brown eyes, flared wide in obvious shock.
Relief sweeps through me, and I try to smile, but it probably comes out like a distorted grimace. He seems taller than he was last summer, the beard that cuts across his jaw is new, and he’s filled out in a way that makes me blink…or maybe that’s just my vision going hazy at the edges. The beautiful, easygoing smile that’s starred in way too many of my fantasies is far from the scowl that purses his mouth, and everything about him seems a little…harder, but it works for him. The line of his chin, the set of his brow, even the muscles of his biceps are rigid under my fingers as I try to find my balance. Sometime in the last year, Dain Aetos went from attractive and cute to gorgeous.