# CHAPTER 30: The Storm Within
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review CHAPTER 30 of "Fourth Wing" — a chapter so charged with passion, power, and raw emotion that the very walls of Basgiath might still be smoldering. Buckle in, because this one is intense from the first heartbeat to the last whispered warning.
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The night had been brutal. War Games, death, betrayal, and the weight of a thousand unsaid things pressed down on Violet Sorrengail as she stood in her ruined room, her heart still pounding from the day’s horrors. And then Xaden Riorson was there. Not as a wingleader, not as a command, but as a man barely holding onto the edges of his legendary control.
“Fuck no,” he growled when she asked if he wanted her to go find someone else. Jealousy flashed in his eyes like a spark to dry tinder. The next heartbeat, his hips pinned hers to the door, and Violet felt that infamous control of his balancing on the edge of a knife. One little push, and she was ready to shamelessly shove.
“Good,” she whispered, tilting her head up and drawing his bottom lip between her teeth. “Because I only want you, Xaden.”
Those words breached something deep within him. He gave in. Finally.
Their mouths collided, hot and hard and completely out of control. Need streaked down her spine as he hauled her against him, her back scraping against the ridges of the door. She wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles, her dressing gown riding up with the motion. She didn’t care. The world narrowed to this kiss, this minute, this man. *Mine.*
Heat flooded her body in an addictive rush as his mouth slid down her neck. Wood scraped, crashed, and suddenly her ass hit the desk. His fingers speared through her hair, taking her mouth again with a hunger she’d only ever known with him. Her hands flew back to brace her weight, knocking everything in her path to the floor. The clock stopped ticking.
“You’ll hate me in the morning,” he said against her jaw, punctuating each word with a kiss. “You don’t really want this.”
“Stop telling me what I want,” she breathed, threading her fingers through his short hair, tilting her head to give him better access. He took it, working his way down her neck, lingering on a sensitive spot until she was gasping. Then he stilled.
A horrible thought crossed her mind. “Unless you don’t want me.”
He grabbed her hand and slid it between their bodies. Her fingers curled around the hard length of him through his leathers, and she whimpered at the sheer proof of his desire. “Does this feel like I don’t want you?” he groaned. “I always fucking want you. You walk into a room, and I can’t look away. I get anywhere near you, and this happens. Instantly hard. I can barely think when you’re around.”
“Then what is the problem?”
His jaw flexed. “I’m trying to do the honorable thing and not take advantage of you after you’ve had a shit day.”
She smiled and kissed the side of his mouth. “It’s always a shit day around here. And it’s not taking advantage when I’m asking — correction, *begging* you to make my day better.”
He said her name like a warning—*Violet*—and gods, she wanted to hear it again and again, just like that, only when the walls fell away. She released him, unravelled her braid, and ran her fingers through the mass of her hair. His eyes darkened. She had won.
He kissed her like she was the air he’d been missing, and she melted against him, matching every stroke of his tongue. The kiss was blatantly, deliciously carnal. He tasted like mint and Xaden and everything she couldn’t get enough of.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, his thumb skimming the hypersensitive skin of her inner thigh.
“Don’t stop.” She’d die if he did.
His hand slipped between her thighs, sliding the fabric of her underwear across her clit. Her back arched at the burst of pleasure that radiated through her body—so sweet she could almost taste it. He captured her mouth again, his fingers stroking her through the fabric with expert friction. She demanded more.
“If I get my hands on you,” he rasped, “really, honestly get my hands on you, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”
She knew he would. That was why she trusted him with her body. Her heart wasn’t playing into this decision. “Stop being so fucking honorable and fuck me, Xaden.”
His eyes flared. His fingers slid under her underwear and stroked her slickened core. Pleasure shuddered through her like a living, breathing fire beneath her skin. He worked one finger inside her, then a second, curling them against her inner walls as his thumb stroked her clit. She was pushed to the edge of mindless bliss, and when she cried out, he covered the sound with his mouth, kissing her with devious strokes of his tongue that matched the movement of his fingers.
“Look at you. You’re fucking beautiful, Violet. Let go for me.”
She did. Her orgasm crashed over her in waves, breaking her into a million scattered stars. Lightning struck outside her window, again and again, and his expertise kicked the first climax into a second. She was nothing but ragged breaths and raw hunger. She reached for his shirt and he ripped it off, and then they were kissing again, all swirling tongues and roaming hands. She traced the lines of his back, memorizing every dip and hollow, and then she reached for the buttons of his leathers.
“You know what you’re saying?” he asked.
“I’m asking you to fuck me.” She arched up and kissed him.
He worked her underwear down her legs, and she reminded him they both took the fertility suppressant—a necessary precaution in the quadrant. He gripped her hips, lifting her for a better angle, and the head of his cock rubbed against her clit. The hunger etched into every tense line of his body was her undoing.
Their first attempt to join was awkward—he was considerably taller than the desk, and the position was shit. She almost laughed, but she was too desperate. So he lifted her by the backs of her thighs, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, as her back hit the armoire. He pushed inside that first, tight inch, and she gasped at the fit, the stretch.
“More,” she demanded. “I need all of you.”
“You’re going to be the death of me, Violet.”
Whatever was left of his control slipped, and he took her completely with one hard thrust. Deep. He was so deep she felt him everywhere. Power blazed beneath her skin again, buzzing in wordless, frenzied demand. He set a brutal, steady pace, his mouth sliding down her neck, his hand cupping her breast. Her back pounded the armoire door with every thrust, filling the room with the sound of straining bodies and creaking wood.
The armoire door groaned—then splintered off its hinges. Xaden’s shadows whipped out, protecting her as the frame snapped and wood crashed around them. Her power flared in answer to his, sizzling beneath her skin. They couldn’t stop. Neither of them wanted to.
He turned them again, and her back hit the curtains by the window. Energy crackled as their mouths met, still driving, winding that knot of pleasure painfully tighter. The power was too much—burning her, heating her blood with the need for release.
“Xaden,” she cried out.
“I’ve got you, Violet,” he promised. “Let it out.”
Lightning whipped through her, flashing so bright her eyes slammed shut. Thunder cracked immediately, and she smelled smoke. The curtain fell in charred shreds, but they were already moving, Xaden’s power filling the room as he took her to the floor. Finally, she had all of his weight as he drove into her. The sight of him above her, his dark gaze locked on hers in intense concentration, was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
He kissed her with his whole body, rolling his hips in time with the thrust of his tongue, keeping her on the same edge he was riding. He reached between them and stroked her into another orgasm. Lightning flashed again, thunder rolled, and she came apart under him. Pleasure took her in waves until all she could do was clutch his shoulders and ride it out in blissful surrender.
The second she came down, his rhythm broke. He pressed her knee up toward her chest and took her even deeper. On the third thrust, he shouted, shuddering within her, and his power lashed out in streaks of shadows—splitting the wooden throwing target on the other side of the window. Pieces flew, and he threw out another wave of darkness to shield them from debris. Then the shadows retreated, and daggers clattered to the ground.
They lay there, staring at each other, chests heaving in the aftermath of complete and utter madness.
“I’ve never lost control like that,” he said, bracing his weight on one arm and brushing her hair back from her face with a gentleness that made her blink.
“Me neither.” She smiled. “Not that I’ve ever had power to lose control of before.”
He laughed and rolled to his side, keeping her close. They surveyed the wreckage together—the destroyed armoire, the shattered chair, the charred curtains. “Frighteningly perfect,” he murmured. They both knew her bed was the only thing they hadn’t wrecked.
As they sat up, Violet’s eyes caught the navy-blue relic Sgaeyl had transferred to his back. She reached out and traced the raised silver scars—dozens of them, thin and precise, never intersecting, too deliberate to be accidental. Her fingers lingered.
“What happened?” she whispered.
He stiffened. “You really don’t want to know.”
“I do.”
His jaw flexed. “There’s a lot of them.” “A hundred and seven,” he said. That number made her stomach lurch. It was the number Liam had mentioned—the number of children who carried the rebellion relic.
“That’s how many kids under the age of majority carry the rebellion relic,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“What happened, Xaden?”
He looked at her with something so close to tenderness that her heart stuttered. “I saw the opportunity to make a deal,” he said softly. “And I took it.”
“The kind where I take personal responsibility for the loyalty of the hundred and seven kids the rebellion’s leaders left behind. In return, we’re allowed to fight for our lives in the Riders Quadrant instead of being put to death like our parents. I chose the chance of death over the certainty.”
The cruelty of that offer and the sacrifice he made to save the others hit her like a physical blow. “So if any of them betray Navarre...”
“Then my life is forfeit. The scars are a reminder.”
She cradled his cheek. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, looking at her like he saw into the very depths of who she was.
When he moved to stand, she grabbed his hand. “Stay.”
“I shouldn’t. People will talk.”
“When did I ever give you the impression that I give a fuck what people think?” She used his own words against him. “Stay with me, Xaden. Don’t make me beg.”
“We both know this is a bad idea.”
“Then it’s *our* bad idea.”
He stayed. They took turns sneaking out to clean up, and then he slid into bed behind her. “Only within these walls,” he said quietly.
“Only within these walls,” she agreed. They weren’t in a relationship—that would be disastrous with the chain of command. But for one night, she had him.
He nuzzled into her neck. “Don’t fall for me. Don’t mistake any part of me for soft or kind. That will only get you hurt.”
She stroked his marked arm and prayed that wasn’t exactly what she was doing. It had to be the aftereffects of coming three times, right? It couldn’t be more.
“Violence?” She looked out at the infinite black sky and changed the subject. “Why did you guess I could wield lightning?”
He stretched just enough to tuck her head under his chin. “I thought you did it the first night Tairn channeled power to you, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t say anything.”
“When?” she asked, her eyes drifting shut.
His arms tightened around her. “The first time you kissed me.”
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When Violet woke, Xaden was gone. But on her nightstand sat a jar filled with spring violets. Her heart swelled. She was in so much fucking trouble. He had even moved all the debris into a neat pile, using his shadows while she slept, no doubt.
She dressed, pinned up her hair, and laced her boots, resigned to a solo Archives trip with Liam still healing. But a knock at her door revealed not a bodyguard—but Professor Carr, his hair standing on end, his eyes appraising the wreckage behind her.
“We have work to do,” he said.
“I have Archives duty,” she argued.
He snorted. “You’re off Archives duty until we can be sure you’re not going to burn the place down. Lightning and paper don’t mix well. Trust me, Sorrengail, the scribes aren’t going to want you anywhere near their precious books. From the looks of it, you can’t even control your powers in your sleep.”
She followed him to the flight field, where—to her surprise—Tairn was already saddled. Tairn chuffed indignantly: “As if I’d let them design something I couldn’t figure out how to get on myself. Remember where you get your power from, Silver One.”
They flew deep into the mountain range, landing high above the tree line where there was nothing to burn and no witnesses. Carr handed her a satchel of breakfast and explained that this particular ability overheats the system. In his notebook, he was cataloguing her as an asset, a balance of nature—power found in one so fragile, as he put it.
She bristled. But she also remembered the day he killed Jeremiah, the inntinnsic cadet, snapping his neck like a twig. She didn’t trust him. Tairn’s growl backed her up.
Carr studied her with clinical curiosity. “Knowledge is power. Inntinnsics are a security risk to the entire kingdom. Now, you don’t have to trust me, but I hope you believe me when I say I have no plans on killing you. Losing an asset like you would be a tragedy for the war effort.”
Then he offered a piece of advice: “Keep your loyalties clear. You and Riorson both have exceptional, lethal power. Together, you would be a formidable enemy that command could simply not afford to let exist.”
“Navarre is my home,” she said. “I will give my life to defend it.”
“Excellent. Now let’s get to work. The sooner you can contain the lightning, the sooner we can both stop freezing our asses off.”
She tried to summon the lightning, grounding herself in her power. She could feel Andarna’s golden light, still drained from yesterday, and above it, the inky black shadows that represented her bond to Xaden.
*Problems?* His voice came through, low and intimate. *And what are you doing so far away?*
*Training with Carr.* Her cheeks heated.
*Get stronger in wielding, and you’ll be able to do it, too. There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, Violence.*
Before she could respond, images flooded her mind—memories of last night, but through his eyes. She felt the unmistakable burn of insatiable desire, his control slipping as she moaned beneath him, her hips riding his hand, her nails biting into his skin. Gods, he *needed* her.
Power flooded her entire system, crackling along her skin. Lightning flashed behind her closed eyes. The images stopped, and her feelings were once again her own. She was so turned on she had to shift her weight to ease the ache.
“Good job!” Carr called out, jotting something down.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she muttered to Xaden.
“You’re welcome.”
She focused on the rush of power itself, not what caused it, and released it—lightning struck more than a mile away. Five more strikes followed before she was exhausted, and none of them hit where she was aiming. This would be harder than she thought.
“Just remember not to exhaust the physical strength with which you control the power,” Carr warned. “A power like Tairn’s will eat you alive if you can’t contain it.”
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A few days later, Violet was sorting through the skeletal remains of her armoire when a knock came at her door. Xaden walked in, his hair windblown from the flight field, and surveyed the wreckage with a wry smile.
“Somehow I’d convinced myself today that we hadn’t done that much damage, but...”
“Yeah, it’s...” She looked at the destroyed furniture and the scorch marks. They both cracked a smile.
“Look, this doesn’t have to be awkward or anything,” she said, trying to ease the tension. “We’re both adults.”
His scarred brow rose. “Good, because I wasn’t going to make it that way. But the least I can do is help you clean up. Turns out you set more than a few trees on fire last night, too. Took two water wielders to get them out.”
Her cheeks heated. They worked side by side, picking up books and broken pieces of her life. The air was thick with everything unsaid between them—the passion, the scars, the warning not to fall for him. And yet, as she bent down to gather scattered tomes from the floor, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was already falling.
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## Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
What a breathtaking chapter! The raw, unfiltered intensity of Violet and Xaden's relationship explodes off the page—physically, emotionally, and *literally* with lightning and splintered wood. This isn't just a love scene; it's a convergence of two powerful souls losing control together, and the aftermath is just as devastatingly tender. Learning about the hundred and seven scars was heartbreaking, and the insight into Xaden's deal to save the rebellion children adds layers to his character that make your heart ache for him. The training scene with Carr adds world-building and danger, and that little glimpse through Xaden's eyes? Absolutely scorching. The prose is electric (pun intended), the pacing perfect, and the balance of passion and plot is masterful.
**⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rating: 5 / 5 Stars**
## Next Chapter Prediction
With Violet and Xaden now bound by more than just dragon relics, and Professor Carr pushing her to master a power that even she doesn't fully understand, the stakes are rising toward something monumental. I predict the next chapter will force Violet to confront the dangerous implications of her and Xaden's combined power—perhaps with Command starting to view them as a threat, or with secret meetings and whispered warnings about loyalty. And given that Xaden's memories flashed through her mind during training, their bond is deepening in unexpected ways. Will Violet learn more about the rebellion from Xaden's point of view? Will the political pressure tear them apart just as they're getting closer? I sense an ominous storm brewing on the horizon—one that might make last night's lightning look like a spark.
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