Page 77 of I Dream of Dragons

“You can’t be with him.” He turns around and starts toward me. “Don’t think I don’t know about your little tryst. He isn’t a good person.”

Neither are you, I want to shout at him.Neither. Are. You.

“And his potential?” I ask instead. “How am I to push him into it if I deny him?”

“Denying him is exactly what you need to do. The trigger of his power, indeed the trigger of all great power, is pain.”

Pain.

Pain controls Phaethon. Pain is the regulator. Phaethon can’t deal with the pain, abhors any injury coming to his host’s body. But emotional pain… is different, isn’t it?

“All this…” I whisper. “… it would require Jai to care for me.”

“Oh yes.”

“He told me he can only love once, and that the love of his life is dead.”

“She is.”

I swallow hard.Right.

“Denying him will weaken him. Make him more vulnerable to Phaethon, allowing the Eosphor to take over.”

“Permanently?” Horror fills me. “No.”

He grabs my wrist, lifting it and pushing me until I crash into the rolling ladder. The rungs dig into my spine. I cry out but he only snarls, baring too-long canines. His eyes are flat lakes. Nothing seems to live in their depths.

“You will deny him, my lovely human. Don’t forget, I know that you care for him, and that I can easily hurt him.”

“Don’t…”

“I can withdraw my help from him. I’ve already stopped taking his blood. He was suppressing Phaethon too much. We need a balance.”

“It’s not in your interests to withdraw your aid,” I grind out. “You need him.”

“He’s hard to kill, if you hadn’t noticed. Maybe impossible to do. If he goes out of his mind again, well, it’s a risk I’ll have to take.”

I snarl. “You?—”

“Even if Jai goes insane, there will be sufficient time for me to get what I need.” A shrug. “I need Phaethon to open the gates. Time is running out.”

“And I’m an accelerator,” I whisper.

“A catalyst,” he agrees.

My jaw is clenched so hard it hurts. “I won’t manipulate him. Won’t lead him to insanity and death. I don’t care about your gates and your little mind games.”

His hand is crushing the fine bones in my wrist. “I’ve been more than patient. He’s been a puzzle to solve, a knot to undo. It’s taken me so long to bring him back from the brink of madness, to find a balance that won’t have him screaming and slamming himself against the dungeon walls, a balance that won’t have him curled up in a corner moaning in pain. But patience has its limits.”

“You make it sound so…” The image of Jai in such a state is a knife to my chest. “He’s a person! He deserves help.”

“Not to me. He’s an idle weapon, a drain on my time and resources, yet I can’t have him thrown into the sea because I need him. He’s been a good general, a good death bringer, but that’s not what I brought him here for. So damn annoying…”

My eyes burn. “Mars… Mars, what happened to you?”

His expression shifts, eyes narrowing. “I have told you before, call me Majesty. Or Anax, if you must.”

My stomach is a knot. “I can’t. Can’t stand this. I’m not doing any of it. I’m not playing your games.”