Page 34 of I Dream of Dragons

Yellow. No idea about the gender.

“On it.”

“Easy,drakon,” Phaethon is saying. He has one foot near the saddle and he’s hanging between the dark leather and the drak’s yellow, scaly neck. “Easy now.”

The creature twists again and tries to bite his head off.

Ow.

Then screeching intrudes from outside. It sounds like… another drak? The sound is approaching us, and fast.

The Goldfinch drak screeches back, then retracts its triangular head and turns toward the end of the tunnel as if listening.

“Will this do?”Remi’s voice says in my mind, smug.

What did you do?

“I brought you another yellow drak. Draks pay attention to their own colors. They hear the similarity in their calls and are attracted to them.”

I had no idea.

“I know. Didn’t I say I’m useful? Indispensable.”I almost hear the wink in his voice.“What would you do without me, huh?”

Meanwhile, Phaethon loses no time in clambering onto the drak’s back, at last. He finds his feet and runs up as if scaling a dune, straddling the base of the neck and grabbing the reins as he slides into the saddle. Pulling the key from his belt, he rams it into place.

The drak jerks and squirms, then suddenly goes still, long forked tongue flickering between yellow, saber-like teeth.

My heart is banging wildly against my ribcage. Phaethon is sitting there, cutting a dark silhouette in his black clothes and hair. A dark shadow against the bright yellow of the drak.

Then he seems to shake himself out of whatever thoughts occupied his mind and reaches a hand down. “Come. It’s time to go.”

Unsteadily, I walk up to the drak. I fully expect it to turn around and snap me in half with those saber teeth, but its red eyes only blink slowly.

A thin rope of shadow snakes down from Phaethon’s hand and wraps around my waist. As I scramble to climb the slippery, scaly hide, it wavers, and he only has time to grab my hand before I fall.

“Still having trouble with the shadows?” I wheeze as he drags me up. “Maybe you should release your chokehold on Jai, let him use his powers.”

He doesn’t speak until I’m seated behind him, in the saddle, my arms wrapped around his hard middle once more. Then he says, “Jai and I want different things. When he awoke in this world… I didn’t. Not immediately. After a death, it takes the twinned soul some time to surface, to bore like a worm through to the other soul.”

I shudder.

“We are all here because an important desire drives us,” he says. “All three of us.”

The three of us. Including me.

Such a weird notion when it’s only two bodies present.

I can’t believe I’m having a civilized conversation with an Eosphor, the strange creature driving Jai crazy and willing to assist the fae king in conquering another world.

Even if it’s his own home world.

The king who is the boy I loved and who put his mark on me.

Could this be any more complicated?

As we launch out of the tunnel, my arms locked around Phaethon’s waist, my mind lost in thought, I sense him shift in the saddle.

He turns his head slightly as we fly into the sky. “I thank you.” His tone is so grudging, I smile in spite of myself. “For your aid in capturing this drak.”