Page 49 of Blood of Dragons

“I am mortal, and I will die by the blade.”

“Then how can you do this?”

He cocked his head slightly.

“How?”

His stare remained locked on my face as the silence continued.

I knew he would never tell me.

He asked a question I didn’t expect. “How are you?”

“I’m—I’m fine.” I almost told him about my uncle and the conversation we’d had, what I had learned about the god Riviana, details that would give away my position.

“I’m pleased to see thathe’snot here.”

I was careful not to give details of that either. “He’s been good to me. Kind…respectful.”

“Has he?” he asked sarcastically.

“Well, he hasn’t demanded I fuck him like you did.”

A ghost of a smile moved on to his lips. “Don’t pretend you don’t think about me when you’re alone.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I think about you every fucking night.”

I kept my gaze averted in the hope of hiding the heat that flushed up the back of my neck.

“When I said I missed you, I meant it.”

“You mean you miss fucking me.”

He stared, waiting until I met his look. “I miss all of you. That’s why I come to you like this, even though it hurts me.”

“You come to figure out where I am.”

“Because I miss you.”

I looked away. “I told you our interests no longer align.”

“Care to explain that?”

I didn’t know how to explain it, not without breaking my loyalty to good people. “What you’re trying to achieve…can’t be done.”

His features hardened like stone, and his eyes turned angry. “I can come to you from thousands of leagues away with just my mind. I can raise the dead and command their sworn fealty to defeat my enemies. I can claim kingdoms upon the back of a black dragon. Yes, it can be done—and it will be done.” He seethed, the rage bottled deep inside him seeping out through his pores.

“Then you’ll do it without me.”

“I want to do it—with you and Inferno.”

“Well, that’s not possible.”

“Why?”

I redirected my stare.