Page 29 of Stolen
For once, all three of us nod in agreement.
Even Thorne.
Even Dagan.
But as I glance back toward the library—where Jules is surely still flipping through ancient texts with those delicate, ink-hungry fingers—one thought crashes through me like a blade made of fire:
If they come for the crown, they’ll come here.
And worse—they’ll come through her to get it.
The SoulTakers won’t just sniff at the edges of the Eyrie.
They’ll scent the thread. The bond.
They’ll sense her brightness, her humanity, her fragile power, and they’ll twist it, corrupt it, use it against me.
The idea fills me with a feeling I haven’t allowed myself in centuries.
Not just rage.
But fear.
And beneath that?
Pure, unadulterated wrath.
It rises from the pit of me, dark and vast.
My Dragon stirs.
He’s been silent far too long, but now he rumbles, low and dangerous, beneath my skin.
Because he feels it too.
She is ours.
If they so much as touch her—SoulTakers, rebels, even one of my own brothers—destruction will follow.
Not strategy.
Not political precision.
No.
Destruction.
Plain and simple in its absolute devastation.
My hands tremble with the effort to contain it, my breath no longer smooth but shaking because the thought of losing her, of someone else laying claim to what is mine, ignites something primal in me.
The Dragon doesn’t care about thrones or legacy or balance.
He cares about the soft creature now roaming my inner sanctum.
The one who blushes when I look at her.
The one who licks her lips and says my name like she doesn’t yet understand the power she gives it.
