Chapter 32 Jai
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
JAI
“No. Not now. I want to talk more, I want to know what happened back then,” she protests. “Why is our time together always cut short?”
I gaze at her, at my beloved, my mate, my beautiful thorn. I look into those gray eyes, the same dark eyes I used to know, now washed out by the sea, her pale face, the small freckles on her nose and cheeks that have turned golden. They flash like fishscales, distracting me.
She’s right, we need to talk about everything.
I take her small hand in mine, its shape so familiar, so dear. “I was on the riverbank when the king’s draks flew down and dragged me away. Someone must have seen it happen and spread the rumors of my death. I didn’t know, and I was out of my mind for a long time after.”
“And then? Later? Why didn’t you come back to me and tell me what happened? Why did you let me grieve?”
“Makhair… It wasn’t long after that the king took me with him on a raid… of your town. I hadn’t known. Hadn’t realized.” I grit my teeth. “Listen, the king is about to interrupt us any moment now. Does he know you’ve figured it out?”
“I told him,” she says fiercely, “that I know he lied to me. He’s coming here to get between us, isn’t he? He feels me through the mark he put on me.”
“Feeling your heart pounding, your bewilderment, your denial.”
“And my joy,” she whispers. “Does that mean… Does it mean he knew when I was in the sea, in a panic, and later, when I fell?”
“Yes.”
“And he didn’t bother to come looking for me,” she says on a breath. “He didn’t care if I lived or died.”
I just keep gazing at her, waiting as she works through her anger. I understand. For a while, she’d convinced herself that he was the one she’d given her heart to. Shedding the last of her expectations, seeing him from yet another angle, isn’t easy.
She came here and entered the games to get close to him and kill him.
Then, by the time I kissed her and figured out who she was, he tricked her into thinking he was me.
And now she’s still putting together all the pieces.
“My only use to him,” she whispers, “was to influence you, to hurt you because your pain would make Phaethon stronger.”
“If I thought I lost you,” I say softly, “lost you again, then I’d give up and let Phaethon rule me. Let the gates open and the dead return, distort time and sequence. Allow the fucking fae to invade other worlds.”
“Jai,” she whispers, “love—”
The door opens. Two guards appear. They usher in King Rouen.
He sweeps inside, his ridiculous golden mantle trailing behind him. Rage sparks in his eyes at seeing me with her. Not because he loves her, but because he’s possessive of his toys.
“I have your back,” I whisper in her ear and her fingers spasm around mine. She trembles against me and I get up, hauling her up along with me. “Anax.”
He glares at us. “Bow.”
So we do. I bow. She curtsies. I’m still holding her hand. Her nails are digging into my skin.
“To what do we owe this honor?” I ask.
“How could I not come see how my betrothed is doing?” He flicks a hand at us. “Even though I was surprised to hear she was in your room.”
“Highness.” I pull her to my side. She gives me a faint smile.
The king’s gaze narrows on her. “We are grateful to Athdara for rescuing you from the sea.”
“But you sent nobody to help me,” she says, then bites her lip. “Your own betrothed, as you said.”
Those cold features remain impassive. “I sent Athdara.”
“You didn’t,” I snarl. “How can you lie about this? You didn’t tell me anything, I—”
“Hold your tongue,” he hisses, his face twisting into an ugly mask. “My patience is at an end. I’ll have you lashed if you interfere again.”
My jaw is clenched so hard it aches. “And risk pushing Phaethon even deeper? Giving me more control? You didn’t send me. I sensed her fear and went out to rescue her.”
“Pain doesn’t scare you, does it, Athdara?” His attention is now on me, as I’d hoped. “Have you pondered what your bond to her means? What your pain will do to her? You’re made of shadows. You’re an Eosphor in human flesh. And your bond means she will feel your pain.”
“My pain won’t cripple her,” I say, turning to her. The bond between us isn’t yet complete. It can’t be complete while he has his mark on her. So… I bare my teeth at the king. “So yeah, pain doesn’t scare me.”
“Don’t forget that you need me,” he goes on. “Do you really think you will last much longer without my bite? I bet it is already affecting you. Without my magic to bring quiet inside your head, you’ll go back to being a snarling animal curled up in a corner.”
I shrug, pretending not to care, not to have worried this fear at the back of my mind until it fills my head, drowning me. I’ll never tell him how the prospect of having Phaethon resume his howling terrifies me.
Do you know what it’s like to have someone yelling profanities and alien words inside your mind non-stop, day and night? I’d rather have fucking screws hammered into my skull.
“I’ve learned to live with it,” I lie. “With Phaethon inside my head.”
I haven’t had the bite since the first trial and Phaethon is getting louder.
He isn’t always in my head or I’d have long lost my mind, but whenever I lose even a sliver of control, he rises to the surface, demanding to be let out and at night…
I can’t sleep, and when I do, passing out, I wake up to his shouting.
“Is there no way to take Phaethon out of him?” she asks quietly.
“Even if I were to entertain such a notion, which I am not… no,” the king says. “It’s a three-soul knot inside him. Impossible to unravel.”
“Three souls? What the fuck are you saying?” My chest tightens until I can’t breathe. “I don’t know anything about a fucking third soul—”
“Why don’t we ask him?” At my blank look, he smirks.
“Ask Phaethon?”
The king spreads his hands. “He is the most ancient of the souls in you and the wisest.”
“He’s a mad creature who keeps talking inside my head and wants—”
“To open gates. Which is the right thing to do.”
“My ass it is.”
The king shoots me a frosty look. “Then ask him yourself. I already know your riders.”
Riders. I’m seething and trying to work through the paralyzing new fear he just put in me, while he’s unruffled. Cool as water.
Leaving me to stew, he turns to Rae. “I will expect to see you tomorrow at the ball.”
He came here having planned what to say and disrupt us all along.
Three souls. What in the hells? Fuck, I wish I could remember who I was before.
“Tomorrow already?” She turns wide eyes to me. “The third trial is the day after that?”
She’s panicking. She had counted on her magic to take out the king and breeze through the trials but her magic hasn’t returned. She’s still blocking it somehow.
The king sighs. “Beloved—”
“Stop calling me that,” she says.
“Yes,” I say, “stop.”
“You dare give me orders?” Mist wraps around him as his lips peel back. He grabs her wrist, and I explode.
I explode in rage and shadows, in pain and festering grief. “You don’t fucking touch her!” The shadows curl around him, twining like snakes, wrenching him away from her. “She doesn’t belong to you. She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself.”
But he lifts his hands, throwing shadows back at me. They crash into mine, mingle, and dissipate.
“What in the hells?” Thrown off balance, I stagger back and my injured thigh burns at the sudden movement. How much of my power has he gained by drinking my blood?
I can’t let him bite me again. But if I don’t, I’ll go crazy from the howling in my mind. It’s a wonder I’m still sane, but come to think of it… it is quieter when I am near her. When I touch her.
“The bond!” I whisper. It has to be getting stronger.
“You can’t bond with her,” he snarls, misunderstanding me. “I put my mark on her already. Phaethon will dominate you and obey me. He will call down the Great Dara and ride to the apex of the world to open the gates for me.”
“Dream on,” I mutter, all pretenses evaporating now he knows we are aware of the truth. “If he hasn’t done it yet, it’s because he can’t do it.”
“He has done it before. You have done it. It’s how I found you. Somewhere inside your mind is the answer. Every time I drink your blood, I search for that answer, to help you—”
“Shut your fucking mouth. Stop pretending you care what happens to me.” My hands clench and I throw my shadows back, thrusting them against his power. “Or to her.”
His lips peel back, revealing sharp teeth. “You will regret your tone.”
“No,” Rae whispers, trying to step between us. “Please, stop.”
“You can’t stop me.” I pull her to the side, straining against his doubled power. “And you can’t stop me from entering the third trial. It’s sacred law.”
“Phaethon will stop you once he has the reins. I shall have you tortured to call him forth, and for my personal entertainment. Since you’re not afraid of pain. Since you don’t care if she feels it, too.”
I growl deep in my throat. “Don’t you dare harm her.”
“That makes no sense,” she whispers. “You only want to hurt Jai.”
“I have a theory,” he says, ignoring her, “that threatening you will make Phaethon stronger, give him the upper hand, just like her death made him stronger. That’s why I killed her, you see. I tried to explain this to her.”
“Killed her? You killed her?”
“Sudden pain shocks Phaethon, but prolonged pain, physical or mental, will force him to take over and save you. Let’s see if I’m right… Phaethon, are you there?”
My mind twists. A low rumble starts inside my head.
Words surface, seething and slithering.
Black snakes.
Dragon tongue.
And then they turn into a long scream. A howl.
I stagger back a step and bring a hand to my temple. I feel as if my head is slowly exploding.
“See? He’s close.”
“No.” I grab my head, hissing. “Fuck… I’ll fucking kill you.”
“You will regret this.”
“On your knees!” the king orders me, eyes flashing, fury transforming his handsome face into a mask. He lifts his hand and sends a shadow jabbing into the wound on my thigh. “And apologize. Apologize for defying me. On your knees, Athdara. Do it or I will find new ways to hurt her, I swear it.”
The pain makes me hiss and flinch, and she flinches, too, shock written all over her face.
Fuck! She felt that. She’s vulnerable because of her link to both of us.
So I fall to my knees. “You can’t hurt her. You fucking can’t. You’ll be hurting yourself through that mark you put on her.”
“Who said the pain goes both ways?” His mouth stretches into a slow grin.
“As you yourself said, I don’t care what happens to her.
I’ll kill two birds with one stone, how about that?
I will lash you until you let Phaethon out to play.
” He waves a hand. “Find him, cede your place to him. I’m being magnanimous. Let him take over.”
As if it’s that simple. As if I’d do something like that.
“If you so much as raise a shadow or a finger to attack me or my guards, I promise you, Athdara, then I will kill her again.”
“You bastard.” I clench my hands. “Do with me what you will, but don’t harm her.”
“You think you can give orders to me, the king of the fae? That you have the upper hand? I only need you alive. I don’t care if you’re broken.”
She drops to her knees beside me, lays a small hand on my arm. “No…”
“Do I need to spell it out?” the king sighs. “Didn’t you realize yet that should you attempt to kill me, she dies, too? She is my insurance. Nod if you understand.”
Her face is pale, eyes dark with anger and fear. I need her in my arms, but I know it’s an illusion. I can’t protect her like that.
The only way is to let the king have his way with me.
So I nod, my teeth gritting.
“Good. And now,” he says, and I realize I’ve misjudged his madness, that his restraint with me has been stretched too thin given how easily it snapped now, “it’s time I taught both you a lesson in obedience.
Pets should never be allowed free rein in one’s house.
Right, Phaethon?” He claps his hands. “Let the show begin.”