Page 103 of I Dream of Dragons

“Everything I told you was the truth. Not a single lie.”

I swallow a sob. “I don’t owe you anything. You aren’t the boy I once loved. I don’t know you. You played me for a fool.”

His brows go up, and then he laughs. It’s a terrible, flat sound. “I am going back to my home world. You and him, you will give me what I want in the end. I only need to be patient. Meanwhile…” He claps his hands and servants enter, carrying familiar covered trays. “Food.”

I close my eyes, trying to stop my shivering. “We’re going to eat while the people out there fight the sea dragons?”

“You haven’t eaten dinner or breakfast. You need to regain your strength.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You will eat when I say so and go when I say so. Don’t you see? I am looking out for you, my champion. I always look out for my interests.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

RAE

After choking down a piece of pie drizzled with honey, as well as two quail eggs cooked with herbs, I’m finally allowed to leave the royal apartments.

I feel sick. My stomach roils. I feel like I’m about to throw up all this lovely breakfast.

I hate him. I hate this handsome, heartless king who pretended to be Mars. If I hadn’t realized already that I was lied to, the impossibility of his behavior would have broken my mind.

But no time to ponder this now. Finally allowed to go, I need to find out what happened with the sea draks and the attack.

The king waved me out without setting any guards on me, so I distance myself from his apartments as fast as I can.

Fae nobles are standing in clusters, whispering among themselves. Servants hurry back and forth, a look of panic on their faces.

“Is the attack over?” I ask a fae male who is standing apart from the others, at a window. “Is it over? Can you see?”

He shakes his head, glances at his companions who are gathered around a high, round table, drinking wine from flutedglasses as if asking what the protocol is when a wild-eyed human approaches you.

“Not yet,” he finally says when nobody pays him any attention. “They are still fighting. The sea draks are persistent.”

“What about Athdara?”

“He called a drak down and was riding the beast, using its claws to pull the sea draks away, but I can’t see him anymore. I think?—”

Damn.

I’m already running toward the stairs, needing to get to the lower levels of the palace. I don’t know how I can help but I need to be there.

Fuck sitting to have breakfast with the king.

How could I have been so wrong about him?

He knew things he shouldn’t. Caught you unawares. Put that mark on you. You knew that this is the fae who destroyed your world. You came here to kill him. It was only thinking he’s Mars that threw you off. He isn’t a good person and you knew it all along.

You know more than you admit to yourself. Because deep inside you’d guessed the truth already, hadn’t you?

Jai…

Tears blur my eyes as I climb lower and lower. They run down my face in cool rivers. That’s the only release I allow for my anger and sorrow, now that nobody is looking.

I quickly dry my cheeks as I step off the stairs and run down the corridor, looking for a door to the terrace.

I hear shouting and I turn that way.