Page 465 - Fourth Wing

dressing gown is haphazardly hanging from one shoulder.

“Frighteningly perfect.” He cups the side of my face. “We should get you
cleaned up and to sleep. We can worry about…your room tomorrow.

Ironically, your bed is the only thing we didn’t wreck.”

I sit up to confirm that the bed made it, and Xaden does the same next to
me, leaning forward. Immediately, I lose interest in everything but the

muscled lines of his back and the navy-blue relic Sgaeyl transferred to him.

I reach out and trace the dragon relic on his back, my fingers lingering on
the raised silver scars, and he stiffens. They’re all short, thin lines, too

precise to be a whip, no rhyme or reason to their pattern but never

intersecting. “What happened?” I whisper, holding my breath.
“You really don’t want to know.” He’s tense but doesn’t move away from

my touch.
“I do.” They don’t look accidental. Someone hurt him deliberately,

maliciously, and it makes me want to hunt the person down and do the same

to them.
His jaw flexes as he looks over his shoulder, and his eyes meet mine. I

bite my lip, knowing this moment can go either way. He can shut me out
like always or he can actually let me in.

“There’s a lot of them,” I murmur, dragging my fingers down his spine.

“A hundred and seven.” He looks away.
That number makes my stomach lurch, and then my hand pauses. A

hundred and seven. That’s the number Liam mentioned. “That’s how many

kids under the age of majority carry the rebellion relic.”
“Yeah.”

I shift so I can see his face. “What happened, Xaden?”

He brushes my hair back, and the look that passes over his face is so
close to tender that it makes my heart stutter. “I saw the opportunity to

make a deal,” he says softly. “And I took it.”
“What kind of deal leaves you with scars like that?”