FOURTH WING { JJK FF}

~Chapter 3.1~

If Jack wants to kill me, he needs to get in line. Besides, I have a feeling
Jeon Jungkook 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.