Page 125 of I Dream of Dragons

“Is there no way to take Phaethon out of him?” she asks quietly.

“Even if I were to entertain such a notion, which I am not… no,” the king says. “It’s a three-soul knot inside him. Impossible to unravel.”

“Three souls? What the fuck are you saying?” My chest tightens until I can’t breathe. “I don’t know anything about a fucking third soul?—”

“Why don’t we ask him?” At my blank look, he smirks.

“Ask Phaethon?”

The king spreads his hands. “He is the most ancient of the souls in you and the wisest.”

“He’s a mad creature who keeps talking inside my head and wants?—”

“To open gates. Which is the right thing to do.”

“Myassit is.”

The king shoots me a frosty look. “Then ask him yourself. I already know your riders.”

Riders.I’m seething and trying to work through the paralyzing new fear he just put in me, while he’s unruffled. Cool as water.

Leaving me to stew, he turns to Rae. “I will expect to see you tomorrow at the ball.”

He came here having planned what to say and disrupt us all along.

Three souls. What in the hells? Fuck, I wish I could remember who I was before.

“Tomorrow already?” She turns wide eyes to me. “The third trial is the day after that?”

She’s panicking. She had counted on her magic to take out the king and breeze through the trials but her magic hasn’t returned. She’s still blocking it somehow.

The king sighs. “Beloved?—”

“Stop calling me that,” she says.

“Yes,” I say, “stop.”

“You dare give me orders?” Mist wraps around him as his lips peel back. He grabs her wrist, and I explode.

I explode in rage and shadows, in pain and festering grief. “You don’t fucking touch her!” The shadows curl around him, twining like snakes, wrenching him away from her. “She doesn’t belong to you. She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself.”

But he lifts his hands, throwing shadows back at me. They crash into mine, mingle, and dissipate.

“What in the hells?” Thrown off balance, I stagger back and my injured thigh burns at the sudden movement. How much of my power has he gained by drinking my blood?

I can’t let him bite me again. But if I don’t, I’ll go crazy from the howling in my mind. It’s a wonder I’m still sane, but come to think of it… it is quieter when I am near her. When I touch her.

“The bond!” I whisper. It has to be getting stronger.

“You can’t bond with her,” he snarls, misunderstanding me. “I put my mark on her already. Phaethon will dominate you and obey me. He will call down the Great Dara and ride to the apex of the world to open the gates for me.”

“Dream on,” I mutter, all pretenses evaporating now he knows we are aware of the truth. “If he hasn’t done it yet, it’s because he can’t do it.”

“He has done it before.Youhave done it. It’s how I found you. Somewhere inside your mind is the answer. Every time I drink your blood, I search for that answer, to help you?—”

“Shut your fucking mouth. Stop pretending you care what happens to me.” My hands clench and I throw my shadows back, thrusting them against his power. “Or to her.”

His lips peel back, revealing sharp teeth. “You will regret your tone.”