Page 161 of The Bond That Burns

The fire within me surged and I let it, roaring so loudly the Black Keep seemed to tremble.

“Stop!” Viktor shouted. He looked so small standing down below me. How had I ever been afraid of him? “Blake, listen to me!”

I turned slowly, my massive frame towering over him. The heat of my breath steaming the air between us.

“Think about what you’re doing! Remember who you are!” Viktor’s voice was weak, cracked with panic. I’d never seen him like this before. And yet I’d always known this was who he really was. “Control yourself. Control your fears. You don’t have to do this. I can give you anything. Anything you want. Riches, power, women. Anyone you desire. The rider? You want her? She’s yours. Forever.”

She was already mine. Forever. Nothing would take her from me. Even through the haze of flames and blood, I knew that.

Our blood was bound.

But once she saw what her blood had done to me? What would she do then?

I shuddered, roaring again. I watched my uncle back up against the wall.

“Blake, you’re better than this. You’re the better man. I’ve always known it. I’ll make you my heir,” my uncle babbled. “All that I’ve built will be yours someday. Marcus–your brother will bow at your feet. Just think of it!”

All I could think of was how much he looked like prey. And of how his bones would crunch and shatter as his blood filled my mouth.

But something in me held back. I didn’t want the taste of Viktor Drakharrow in my throat. Sticking to my tongue like poison.

My vision was tinted red. Was this how my uncle saw the world? Through rims of blood? He looked so fragile now. He was just a man. A man who had controlled my life. Destroyed me, bent me, broken me in ways I hadn’t even realized until now.

Now? There was nothing left but what he’d made.

The fire in my blood demanded release.

A strange sensation was welling up in my chest. Coiling and burning. A living inferno. My throat ached. I gagged as the heat spiraled upward.

I thought of Nyxaris. Of the devastating beauty his flames unleashed.

My mouth opened. Viktor’s face changed. His calm veneer cracked, giving way to sheer panic.

He shielded his face with his arms, his voice desperate now and thick with thrallweave. But thrallweave didn’t work on dragons. “Blake! Stop! You need me. Think about what you’re doing. You’re better than this. Don’t let the beast control you.”

But I wasn’t better. Not anymore. Wasn’t this exactly what he’d wanted me to be?

I advanced, embers spewing from my maw with every exhale.

For once, Viktor Drakharrow looked exactly as he should have all along: small, weak, and utterly terrified.

He had ruled me through fear. Now that fear was gone.

The fire rose. And I let it.

CHAPTER 41 - MEDRA

I stepped into the Dragon Court, tugging my cloak around my shoulders, its edges brushing up against the hem of the black-and-gold gown beneath. Blake’s pendant rested against my collarbone. I touched it gently with one finger. It suddenly felt heavier.

All he wanted was to talk to Nyxaris. So why did I have such a bad feeling about this?

The ground was icy underfoot. Frost glittered across the stones, shining like a field of stars.

I had avoided the courtyard since Nyxaris’s awakening last year. Most of the rubble from his dramatic rebirth had been cleared away. Nothing had been erected to take the place where he had once stood for more than a century as a statue of stone.

Instead, his brethren remained without him. Three massive stone dragons, frozen in time.

I’d once looked at them as beautiful works of art, in awe of the craftsmanship that had gone into creating them. Now I knew the truth. Not art but some kind of dark magic had worked to defile the dragons, keeping them in a horrible captivity that seeped away at their memories, if not their very souls.

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