Page 94 of Throne of Ice and Blood
My heart starts beating excitedly. What are the chances that one of those locations, that he no doubt needs to check to make sure that they haven’t been compromised, is actually the hidden door?
Draven straightens and spreads his wings.
A sense of panicked urgency pulses through me as I quickly try to memorize his exact location. Mabona’s tits, I wish I could have brought some paper so that I could draw the map out here. But there was no way for me to do that without tipping Draven off.
While he flies to another spot a short distance away from the first one, I whip my head from side to side, desperately trying tomark any specific rock formations or patterns of bushes that will help guide the humans to the right spot.
Relief flickers through me when I notice a cluster of strangely shaped boulders a short distance to my left. Using that as the deciding landmark, I try to estimate the distance between this location and both the city and the castle. Once I’m confident that I will be able to draw a fairly accurate map for the human resistance later, I shift my gaze back to Draven.
While I watch him check out another location a short distance from the first, my mind starts processing all the revelations that I have been hit with lately.
Now that I’ve had some time to adjust and I’m no longer drowning in the sea of lies that used to be my worldview, I can see it more clearly. Almost from a distance. And as much as I hate Bane and Jessina with all my heart and soul, I do understand how they have managed to keep this system running for so long.
They set it up perfectly.
They isolated us completely. Not only did they physically trap us in a city that we can’t leave, they also controlled the entire flow of information. They killed all the adults and burned all the history books. And then they taught us whattheywanted us to know.
They controlled our birthrates so that our population wouldn’t outgrow the city, and so that our magical bloodlines would be stronger and provide more magic for them to drain. And they taught us that only having one child was how our biology worked so that we wouldn’t riot. All the doctors are dragon shifters, so there was no way for us to know.
And all the teachers were shifters too. Those teachers taught us about our history and our culture and race in the way that they wanted us to learn it. Taught us that we are inherently evil. That we are backstabbing deceivers who broke a peace treatyand enslaved all the dragon shifters. That we need to spend the rest of our life atoning for that. And because we had no one else to ask about our history, what they told us became the truth.
They kept us weak and distracted by not allowing us enough food. And drunk and distracted by allowing us as much alcohol as we wanted. Who is going to worry about whether our schoolteachers are lying to us when our stomachs are constantly aching with hunger and our minds are fuzzy with alcohol?
Shaking my head, I let out something between a huff and a sigh. Goddess damn it, if I hadn’t suffered all of my life because of it, I would almost be a little impressed.
If you want to control people, isolating them is really the smartest move you can make. As long as you control their food supply, their healthcare, their education, and, most of all, their access to information and the outside world, it will be almost impossible for them to fight back.
And Jessina and Bane figured all of that out, which means one thing that I must never forget. They are incredibly intelligent. I need to be very careful not to underestimate them.
“Why have you never used your magic against me?”
I nearly leap out of my skin.
While I was busy contemplating Jessina and Bane’s strategic genius, Draven must have walked back from the final location he checked. When he flies, I can hear his wings booming through the air. But apparently, the infuriating dragon shifter can walk much more quietly than a man his size should be able to.
Turning to face him, I draw in a breath and try to get my heart rate to slow again.
“What?” I ask, my mind still trying to catch up.
Draven is standing only a step away, and there is a considering look on his handsome face as he watches me.
“It’s been weeks,” he begins, his voice as serious as his eyes as he holds my gaze. “And I’ve been taking off your collar everyevening when we get back to our rooms. But you have never, not even once, used your magic to try to manipulate my emotions so that you can escape.”
My heart suddenly starts pounding in my chest.
“Why?” Draven presses.
The answer to his question is twofold. The first reason is of course that I am not actually trying to escape. But I can’t tell him that. Obviously.
But the problem is that the second, much bigger, reason is also something that I would prefer not to tell him. Especially now. However, between the two, it’s the least incriminating one, so I have no other choice than to share that one.
My pulse thrums as I hold his gaze and lick my lips nervously. “Because…” I drag in a deep breath and then force out the sentence all at once. “Because you’re the only thing that’s real.”
He blinks, genuine shock pulsing across his face. Then his brows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean?”
After everything that has happened between us, I don’t know why admitting this is making me feel so nervous and vulnerable. I say it anyway. “All my life, I’ve been desperately trying to get people to accept me and trust me and like me. I have only ever spoken and behaved in a way that they would approve of. But not with you. With you, I have only ever been me. But if I start manipulating your emotions, our interactions won’t be real.” A small and bitter sigh escapes my lips as I shrug. “But I suppose that’s ruined now anyway.”
For a few seconds, he only watches me with confusion swirling in his eyes. Then realization dawns, and he actually flinches when he understands what I meant. The mate bond. The mate bond has already ruined everything.