Page 52 of I Dream of Dragons
Stupefied. Mystified. Exhilarated. Enraptured.
He doesn’t turn around. He walks to a cabinet and opens it to reveal bottles. “Of course.”
“How did you end up on my shore back then? Why did you let me think you were human? Why did you let me think you had died? What happened to you?”
“You’re asking too many questions.” He takes a heavy crystal bottle out of the cabinet.
“Am I? I thought you were dead!”
“Well, I am not, as you can see. But you…” Bowing over the low table, he pours golden liquid into two crystal goblets and turns toward me with a stern expression. “You have changed.”
“Of course I have! What did you expect? After everything that?—”
“Changed in ways I hadn’t anticipated.” He lifts a goblet in my direction. “Here, drink this. It will help with your nerves.”
My hands clench in my lap. “Mynerves?”
“Yes. You need to calm down. Like I said, we have things to discuss.”
I accept the goblet, struggling to rearrange my feelings, trying to define them. What I feel is… hurt. Disappointed. Sorrowful. Devastated, as if I’m losing a loved one all over again.
How can he be so detached? I know it’s been a long time, but doesn’t he feel anything for me anymore? And if he doesn’t… why put a betrothal mark on me? Why insist I am his?
I make myself get up, because I didn’t like how he loomed over me earlier. Standing, even on achy legs, makes me feel like I’m more in control. An illusion I find necessary.
My mind is whirling.
I don’t recall Mars interrupting my every sentence, dictating my every move and thought. I don’t recall him dismissing me like this. So lightly. So easily. Especially after finding out we’re both alive, after all the promises we made to each other, after I came here to kill the fae king and avenge him… only to find out Marsisthe king.
So I’m full of questions and emotions that need sorting, but he seems collected and focused. Focused on things that have nothing to do with…us.
Even if it was so long ago, even if I keep telling myself that everything has changed, it doesn’t matter. I’ve spent every waking hour thinking about him, about what could have been, and I suppose I need closure.
Or a new beginning.
Now I’m starting to wonder if he has never felt the same way about me. If it had all been in my head.
I want him to reach for me tenderly, touch me, kiss me. Reassure me. Talk to me of all the things we used to discuss, Remind me of what we used to have. How we felt for one another.
Take me back to the past.
Make this real.
The goblet clutched in one hand, I take a step toward the king. “Mars…”
He throws me a dark look. “You can’t keep calling me by that silly name. You will call me Your Majesty, Sire, or Anax.”
“But why…?” A tug inside my chest stops the words on my tongue. With a small gasp, I place a hand over my heart, and the goblet falls from my hand, crashing to the floor.
A hook of gold is tugging on strings that make me want to laugh and cry and dance and crawl… A bright, warm tug. Is he doing this to me? No, it can’t be, I’m sure I have felt this before…
A knock comes on the door and a voice says, “Your Majesty, Athdara is here.”
Jai!
The king turns his scowl from me to the door. “Stay here.”
“What? No, I need to?—”
