Page 280 - Fourth Wing

wipes the blood from my dagger on the back of Oren’s tunic.

“Yes. You’re alive.” Xaden steps over Oren’s body and two others,
retrieving my dagger from the fallen woman’s shoulder before reaching my

armoire. I don’t even recognize her, and yet she tried to kill me.

Garrick and Bodhi haul out the first bodies.
“I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud.” The trembling starts in my knees,

and then nausea overpowers me. Fuck, I thought I’d worked past this kind

of reaction to adrenaline, but here I am, shaking like a leaf as Xaden sorts
through my armoire like he hasn’t just taken out half a dozen people.

As if this kind of slaughter is commonplace.

“It’s the shock,” he says, whipping my cloak from its hook and retrieving
a pair of boots. “Are you hurt?” His words are clipped and break whatever

temporary block I had on the pain. It comes flooding back in a throbbing
wave that centers in my back. So much for the adrenaline rush.

Every breath feels like I’m shoving my lungs against broken glass, so I

keep them short and shallow. But I manage to stay on my feet, retreating
until I feel the stone wall against my uninjured side, letting it take my

weight.
“Come on, Violence.” His cajoling words are at odds with his terse tone

as he folds my cloak over his arm and brings my boots through the

remaining bodies he’s left on my floor. “Pull your shit together and tell me
where you’re hurt.” He’s killed six people without so much as a spot of

blood on his midnight-black leathers. My boots hit the ground next to my

feet and my cloak lands on the little armchair in the corner.
I can barely breathe, but can I risk admitting my current weakness to

him?

His fingers are warm under my chin as he tilts my head up so our gazes
collide. Wait…is that a hint of panic swirling in his? “You’re breathing like

crap, so I’m guessing it has to do with—”
“My ribs,” I finish before he can guess. Trying to mask the pain isn’t