Iron Flame

You’re going to love Violet. She’s smart and stubborn.
Reminds me a lot of you, actually.
You just have to remember when you meet her:
she’s not her mother.
—RECOVERED CORRESPONDENCE OF CADET LIAM MAIRI TO SLOANE MAIRI

“If Solas comes near you again, he knows I will devour his human whole and let him rot within me while his heart still beats, and then I’ll take the eye I so graciously left him.”

“Touch me and I swear to the gods, I’ll cut your fucking hands off and let the quadrant sort you out in the next round of challenges, Dain Aetos.” My words earn more than a couple of gasps, but I don’t give a shit who hears me.

“Violence, indeed.”

Brennan?” Mom whispers, and the urge to cross the line and hold her upright is almost too strong to fight.

“For fuck’s sake, Brennan,” Mira whispers.

What’s your second signet?”

His eyes widen, and the blood drains from his face as his hand falls away. For the first time, I think I’ve actually managed to shock Xaden Riorson.

“Sure, before I knew you were leading a revolution, and before you declared you’d always keep secrets, and way before some beautiful aristocrat who you used to be betrothed to but conveniently was never mentioned appeared with her big brown doe eyes and sharp-ass claws at our bedroom door half naked—”

“She what?” His eyebrows rise.

“My house. My chair. My woman.”

Imagine a man actually shortening a girl’s estimate,”

“You aren’t where I left you, Violence.”

Mira, he was a brand-new lieutenant, and what’s done is done.” Pivoting toward Brennan, I shove the ice into his hand. “Brennan, put the fucking ice on your face before you stain the floors, you stubborn ass!”