Page 72 of I Dream of Dragons

“So this is how you did it,” Jai seethes, his teeth flashing, fists rising. “You made me doubt everything, you…” He shakes his head, turns to me. “I need you to answer me one question. Were you born finnfolk?”

I gulp. “I…”

“Answer me this,” he says quietly and there’s a catch in his grave voice. “Were you?”

“No,” I breathe.

“I failed you.” Sparks glint in his eyes. “Fuck.”

My heart is thudding in my ears. What just happened?

The king says, “Beloved, come to me, come?—”

“You don’t speak to her,” Jai growls, his hands curling into fists, his gaze still locked on me. “You don’t steal my words and you don’t steal her. You’ve taken enough already.”

A deadly silence falls over the room, broken only by more guards approaching the dais and the strange contest taking place in front of me. The guards lift their spears, some even draw their swords, waiting for the king’s command to attack.

“She has my mark,” the king says.

“You can’t have her.” Jai’s voice drips pain and blood. “You can’t fucking have her.”

I stare at him.

The king’s hand, still lifted, is now wreathed in white mist. “I said, stand down, Athdara. This doesn’t concern you.”

“The hell it doesn’t. Nothing concerns me more than this. Thanher. I said, you can’t have her!”

“And why is that?”

“Because.” Jai’s dark gaze finds me. “She belongs with me.”

His voice rings deep and true, and the conviction in it shakes me to my core.

My throat closes. What is he doing? Why does it affect me so much? Stupid. I’m so stupid to let it grip my throat like that, grip my heart like a fist.

And he’s stupid to say things like that to the king—but the warmth in my chest is almost as if he’s touching me, cradling me in his arms.

The shock that ripples through the fae is a wave splashing from one side of the room to the other. For the first time, their true nature shows. Their magic unfurls just as branches unfurl from their heads and shoulders, leaves and berries sprouting, blossoms unfolding. Creatures of the earth and air, they transform into weird shapes.

Their base form. Not human. And yet the king had said they had been once like us…

“You don’t have a say in this, Athdara Dikerotes!” the king booms, his eyes flashing like pale flames. “Even if you succeed in controlling Phaethon, I have marked her, and so your plans fail. You can’t touch me without touching her.”

What?

“She comes with me tonight,” the king continues and unfurls a regal hand toward me. “Come, beloved. We retire to my rooms now.”

In the middle of the banquet? Confused, I glance around at the shocked faces of the fae nobility and find Mera’s still amused smirk and Amaryll’s outraged look both trained on me.

“Rae. No.” Jai lifts a hand toward me. The shadows still clothe him in night. “Don’t go with him. Come with me.”

How does he suppose I can choose? This is the fae king. I can’t refuse. Though I still find it odd that he’d ask to talk now.

“Rae,” Jai says more softly, and my throat closes. “Makhair. I know the truth now. It’s me you need to talk to, not him.”

I open my mouth to reply, my instinct telling me to follow Jai, to say yes…

“She is coming with me,” the king says. An imperious gesture directed at me. “Rae. Now.”