Page 46 of I Dream of Dragons

I was sent to kill the fae king. I made this mission mine because he killed my family, my people. The boy I loved. He took over my world and destroyed all that was mine.

But deep inside, what I want is to get my lost love back—and there he is. Alive and well. I can’t kill him. How could I? I can’t kill him any more than I’d kill myself.

And what about Jai? The way I feel about him is so damn confusing. Too damn deep for comfort or sanity.

Slowly I climb off the drak, slide down its side and stand. I don’t fall to the floor. I don’t pass out and lose time, suspended in a dreamless sleep. But…

A thump behind me has me turning around and I find out that this time it’s Jai who falls off the drak like a stone. He hits the floor and rolls on his back, unconscious.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

RAE

So much blood.

Too much. It’s splashed all over the white marble tiles where Jai has collapsed.

He bleeds red, I think randomly, as two guards surge forward and lift him between them. Like all of us. He may carry Phaethon in him but he’s still a man.

Then again, I bleed red, too, and I’m something different.

I hurry after the two guards and Jai, stumbling a little as my leg muscles burn and my feet sting with a thousand invisible needles, but the sight of the Jai-shaped puddle of blood on the floor stays with me. Pushes me to keep going.

What about the draks? The thought hits me as I put my foot on the first step of the grand staircase going down into the palace. Glancing over my shoulder, I barely have time to see them both take off with their great wings flapping, and more people scream and run away not to be trampled.

Thank you, Keres, I send the thought, and I get an undefined… feeling? In return. A sort of smugness but not quite. A sort of pleasure.

Interesting.

But no time to dwell on that. The guards carrying Jai are quick on their feet and I have to run to keep up. I suppose they will take him to the infirmary, the same place where I was taken after the first trial.

And he’ll be fine, of course. He’s Athdara. Even if he bleeds red, he’s a powerful magical creature. Those aren’t easy to kill, and… and Phaethon wouldn’t let him die.

Who knew that I’d be relying on an asshole Eosphor to keep Jai alive? A jagged laugh escapes me, hurting my throat.

“Are you all right?” one of the guards following us asks, and I nod. We enter the palace, move through its maze of corridors and parlors, and it belatedly occurs to me that I left the terrace without even acknowledging the king, without bowing or waiting on his pleasure.

Shit.

Too late now. I’ll face the consequences of that later. First, I need to see that Jai is breathing. That he’s alive. No other outcome would make sense.

He’s not the boy you loved, I tell myself.Don’t let yourself become attached to him.

What did I say earlier? Too late.

So what if he’s not the boy I once loved? I’ve clung to my sorrow of Mars’ passing, honed my despair into anger for revenge—but he’s alive! A fae, whereas a human would be long dead from old age by now.

While Jai was the one who helped me, held me, touched me, kissed me, pleasured me. How can I not feel anything for him? He saved my life, so it’s natural that I’m attracted to him. But it’s just attraction, nothing more. How can he ever compare to Mars?

He’s a man of flesh and blood, set against a faded memory. Doesn’t it count for more?

No, because that memory… Mars was bright like a falling star, lighting up my mind every time I think of him. He was my everything, my other half, the missing part of my soul.

The love of my life.

And he’s not a memory anymore.

Clamping down my teeth on a sound that wants to escape my throat, I gather my sodden skirt because it slows me down and hurry on faster.