Chapter 28 Rae
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
RAE
Abandoning my dagger on the ground, I fall to my knees, then crawl to where Jai is lying on his stomach.
The fear is back, closing a hard fist around my heart.
“Jai?” I whisper. Is he breathing? My own lungs have ceased working. I grab his shoulders and push. It takes a lot of work to roll him over and it’s only in the last moment that I think to cradle his head before it smacks into the cracked paved floor.
He’s breathing. Thank the sleeping Gods for that.
The rise and fall of his broad chest is shallow. Immediately, I search for an injury, and the only new injury I discover, apart from fresh blood on his thigh wound from the trial, is a bump on his head.
Relieved, enough to draw breath, I sit on the floor and settle his head in my lap, grabbing my dagger for good measure and pointing it at whatever new monster decides to come after us.
I have to believe he’ll wake up, and quickly. That nothing is fundamentally wrong with him. I’ve heard stories of people who hit their heads and never returned to life.
But he’s Athdara. Jai. I’m sure Phaethon wouldn’t let him die.
I press a hand to my chest. I felt my magic earlier, a flicker of it, but it was there. I didn’t imagine it, or else why would the mermaids have left us in peace? My dagger is hardly a fearsome weapon.
And I’m hardly a fearsome individual. Short and scrawny, with aching legs and feet and a distinct lack of muscles. Miraculously alive.
I let my hand drop to Jai’s hair as I wait for him to wake up. I’m obsessed with it. I love how it twines around my fingers like a living thing. Or maybe it is a living thing, I realize, gazing down. Shadows slither among the strands, over my fingers, faint whispers threading the air.
Bowing over him, I try to hear what they’re saying.
Makhair, they seem to say. The thorn, not the rose. The sweet pain. The fierce abandon.
I blink, my eyes stinging. Only Mars knows what he told me so long ago, on that river shore. Only Mars…
A soft moan breaks through my thoughts and stills my hand in that smoky, raven hair.
Jai’s dark lashes flutter and lift. His eyes are black eddies, inviting me to drown in them, in their stormy ink.
I’m lost in the soft shape of his mouth, the hard line of his jaw, the tendons in his long neck, the black spirals and swirls on his skin, the scars on his arms from where he’s been cutting himself to control Phaethon.
“You’re awake,” I whisper and have to swallow again past a lump of emotion stuck in my throat. “Jai…”
Something about this position feels familiar. Looking down at his handsome face, I think I hear the distant roar of a waterfall and the lowing of cows grazing. I think I hear voices.
And when he smiles, it’s familiar, too.
Painful. Bewildering. Marvelous.
My tears slide down my cheeks. I don’t try to stop them.
He slowly lifts a hand and wipes his thumb under my eyes, first one cheek, then the other. “I’m here,” he says, his familiar voice hoarser than ever. “Don’t cry, makhair. Everything will be all right.”
I help him sit up, propping his back against a low wall, and turn my face away, scrubbing at the last of the tears. He wasn’t supposed to see them, see me… see right through me.
Putting my defenses back up is a struggle I’m not sure I’m going to win.
He is rubbing at his brow, frowning, his long legs stretched in front of him, and I’m crouched beside him, resisting the urge to flee.
“Makhair,” he starts, and I lift a hand to stop him.
“The draks are gone,” I say in a rush, “and so are the mermaids. But we should get back inside, in case they return.”
“Where are the guards?” he finally asks, glancing around. “How did you drive back the sea draks?”
My blood chills. “How many of them were there?”
“Three.”
Three sea draks. The sea queen means business.
“You’re here alone,” he whispers, his gaze swinging back to me, dark and unfathomable. “You did this on your own. You saved me.”
“Don’t mention it,” I mutter.
One side of his mouth tilts up. “I told you, you like me.”
I can’t deny it.
“Did you use magic to push them back?”
“I… I don’t know,” I admit. “Perhaps. The king said I can break the spell on myself on my own. That I don’t need your help to do it.”
“I never thought you did. I don’t think I broke the spell of your voice. You did that.”
“But it happened when you kissed me, when you touched me.”
He reaches a hand out to me. “Come here.”
Hesitantly, I take his hand and scoot closer until I’m sitting beside him. “I was sure you did it.”
“I have no power over sea spells. My power is shadows and through Phaethon, an affinity with dragons. You are the sea maiden.”
“Don’t call me that.” I scrunch up my face. “It makes me sound like something… innocent. And glorious.”
“You are glorious,” he says quietly. “Always were.”
“Jai…”
“I told myself I’d let you discover the truth on your own, but the king is pushing you.”
I nod, my chest too tight.
“Makhair… I felt that you were my mate from the first moment I laid my eyes on you. And I knew it for sure when I kissed you. My fated mate. There’s only ever one in the world.”
My breath stutters. “I don’t believe that. I don’t believe love only comes once in a lifetime.”
“But I do. This kind of love can only strike you once, or you don’t survive it. I don’t want to live again through the agony of remaining on this earth when your other half was gone.”
He’d said that before.
“I feel you. Here.” He taps his chest. “And here.” Taps his temple. “I feel when you’re scared or in pain. So I will ask you again: have you felt it, too?”
I hesitate. This is a point of no return. This is where truths will be told, old wounds bloodied, and everything I’ve believed until now will be upended.
His jaw clenches. His gaze shutters. “No? You don’t feel it?”
He’s taking my silence as a denial.
“I’d never try to control you, fated mate or not, I hope you know that,” he says quietly. “Everything is your choice, makhair. Songbirds in cages are not for me. If you felt obliged to stay with me, I’d set you free.”
The look in his dark eyes is heart-rending. My heart cracked in two when I thought he’d died, and it looks like his shattered just the same.
I can’t take it anymore. “Jai, yes, I feel—”
Suddenly he’s pushing to his feet and stepping out of my reach. He takes a deep breath and his mouth tilts in a shark smirk. “What is this? Do I smell salty tears?”
“What?” I scramble to my feet, too, and gaze up to meet his eyes. “I was only saying—”
“You were crying.” His eyes narrow, harden and fill with golden stars. He tilts his head to the side. “Emotions getting the better of you, Little Human?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “Phaethon?”
“In the flesh. So to speak.”
“Let Jai through. We were talking. It was an important conversation.”
“No, you were being emotional. Both of you.”
“Emotions aren’t a bad thing.”
“They impair your ability to think.”
“Why are you being like this? I thought you liked me! And him.”
“That is neither here nor there. An emotional attachment to you could make him stronger.”
“Could it? That’s not what I heard.”
“He can’t overthrow me. I won’t let him. I won’t lose sight of my goal. I won’t let you sidetrack me. Pretty and courageous as you may be, I can’t let you seduce him.”
I fist my hands at my sides. “Isn’t it too late for that? He cares for me. You said it yourself.”
“He does,” he admits.
“But you don’t care for him, do you? The king told me to deny him so he would go insane and let you take over permanently. Did you know about that?”
His face goes still. “The king said that?”
“Yes!”
His mouth twists. “You’re lying to me. The king knows that if Jai goes insane, then I won’t survive inside his head.”
“I’m not lying to you. I swear it. The king doesn’t care if either of you survives in the end. He only wants you to gain full power, even for a day, and open the gates for him. He isn’t your friend, Phaethon.”
He’s silent, obviously mulling over what I revealed to him, and I take advantage to push him more.
“Stop thinking of the king as your ally. Even if you survived Jai going insane…” I swallow hard, my heart hurting at the thought.
“Have you considered that opening a gate will aid him in his ambitious plans to invade your home world? Is that what you want? Aren’t your people safer with him trapped here, far away from them? ”
“We are a powerful people,” he says slowly. “We aren’t scared of the fae.”
“And yet you were imprisoned for a long time, if memory serves. You can be defeated, and seeing how he treated the occupants of this world, what do you think he’ll do once he gets there? Probably try to wipe you out.”
“He can’t do that,” Phaethon says, still in that slow, pensive tone. “He doesn’t have such power.”
“He wants wings. He wants your wings, your dragons. He wants you and your people to serve his interests. Look at what he’s doing already: he’s controlling you. Making decisions without consulting you. Placing your life and sanity at risk, alongside Jai’s. He won’t let you act freely, no.”
“A balance is necessary.”
“He is controlling that balance. Not you. He is deciding when to stop biting and aiding Jai, when to get me to push him beyond his limits, when to force you into doing his bidding.”
“That’s strategy.”
“That’s manipulation. That’s a king who doesn’t care about what you or Jai want, who doesn’t care if either of you survives, only interested in that gate you can open for him.”
“Says you. The woman who professes to love that king. That he is your long-lost love.”
“Gods, it’s so annoying that you only hear the parts I don’t want you to hear.”
“Vexing, isn’t it?” He smirks.
“Well, hear this. I don’t love the king. And he’s not my long-lost love, either.”
He’s gazing at me, a crease between his dark brows as if trying to figure me out. “You are drawing away from him.”
“He’s a monster.”
“We are all monsters here.”
“That’s not true. And for a monster, you seem to have a decent heart.”
“You don’t know me,” he hisses.
“You’re right. I don’t. But I know you’re powerful and I want you on our side. Help me, Phaethon. Help us. Help the human race.”
“You’re not even human. What are you? You’re not a mermaid.”
“I was human once.”
“Well, I don’t care for humanfolk or this world. I need to go back to mine. I just need…”
“What? What do you need to go back?”
He considers me. “You want to know? So you can try to stop me?”
“How could I stop you?” I ask bitterly. “I have to fight a king, you, and all the fae in the palace and the creatures in the sea. And I had decided not to kill the king, although after today, I just might.”
He scowls but is silent once more. Absently, he lifts a hand to his brow.
“Does it hurt? Are you injured elsewhere?”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t be stubborn. You said you’d look after this body.”
“And I am.” He shifts his weight. “This thigh is bothersome. And my head took a good hit when I fell from the drak’s back.”
I bite my lip. Exhale. “Let Jai talk to me.”
“No.”
“Please, Phaethon. What use is it, you being in Jai’s body right now? Let me talk to him.”
He turns away from me, dismissive. “I have to talk to the dragons.”
“Really.”
He lifts a hand, and power pulses inside him. Shit, he really is calling to the dragons. Overhead, the birds circle. Are they also affected by his power? Are all winged creatures his to command?
Fascinated in spite of myself, I watch as draks fly toward the palace from across the sky, darakins fluttering nearby.
As the wind tousles his black hair and teases at the hem of his long shirt, exposing an expanse of bruised skin, his dark marks, his hard stomach and the lines of muscle dipping into his black pants.
“My fated mate.”
“If talking to you won’t work…” I pull out the dagger he gave me earlier, lift it and stick it into his lower arm.
“Eos!” He staggers back as the dagger falls from my hand, clattering on the floor. “You stabbed me!”
I sigh. “Yes, I did. I tried to make it non-lethal. Jai, can you hear me?”
“Godsdammit,” he groans.
“Jai? Say something. Is it you?”
“That fucking hurt, makhair.”
A grin spreads over my face. “It worked!”
Jai is back.