by D T Dyllin
He handed me a glass of what appeared to be ice water, and I took it with shaky hands. I watched him with wide eyes over the rim of the glass as I greedily gulped down the best glass of water I’d ever had. When I’d finished, I lowered the empty glass to my lap and gripped it tightly. What would Khol’s reaction be now that I was back? Would he be angry I was gone? Or would he be ready to pull me back into his arms to pick up where we left off? I was hoping the former because he’d be easier to deal with in that mood when I told him I’d chosen Bryn.
He eyed me warily, his green eyes blazing with unreadable emotions. “I don’t know what you’re feeling,” he said as his mouth dipped into a frown.
“It’s the bracelet,” I said as I tapped the tiny intricately made bronze bracelet on my left wrist. “My birth mother gave it to me to wear so you couldn’t track me.”
Khol’s nostrils flared with anger. “I see. Will you be taking it off now that you’re back then?”
I bit my lip and looked at my hands still gripping the empty glass in my lap. “No. I’m not ready to take it off just yet.”
Deafening silence engulfed the room, and I didn’t need to be able to read Khol’s emotions to know that he was not happy. I decided to change the subject and quickly. “So how did you find me?”
“You used enough magic to announce your presence to all of dragon kind,” he responded flatly.
“Oh.” I hadn’t really thought about that. Of course, with all that dragon magic I had used, Khol probably zeroed in on me in seconds.
“What did you do with the Rider? The one I had at the house—the one—”
“We have him here,” Khol interjected. “He’s important then, like I thought?”
I did meet Khol’s electric green eyes then. “Oh yes,” I breathed. “Very important.”
Khol leaned forward, his face growing more intense, “Tell me.”
“His father is the lead Rider, and his host is none other than Senator Bill Wexington. He’s the son of both the lead Rider and the Senator.”
A tight smile turned Khol’s lips up slightly at the corners. “He is very important then.” He suddenly came to me in a burst of speed almost too fast to track with my eyes, and took me in his arms, inhaling sharply as if in pain as he crushed me to him. “I went out of my mind not knowing where you were, not being able to sense you.” He pushed his nose into my hair and inhaled. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Khol—I . . .” This was going to be harder than I had originally thought. I loved Khol, I really did. He just wasn’t Bryn. Despite that, my body responded to Khol’s, and a feeling of liquid heat bloomed inside of me. But the difference now was that I wouldn’t let myself get swept away in those feelings. I wouldn’t let the ease of our relationship rule my decisions. No one ever said love was easy.
I felt Khol’s body tense around me and he pulled back from our embrace enough to meet my eyes. His bore into mine, and after a moment’s time, but what seemed like forever to me, he backed away from me completely. “I see.” His voice cracked with emotion.
“Khol—I—please—I’m sorry. You know I love you—you do. And you’ve got to believe me. I never would have done . . .” My voice caught in my throat as my mind skidded over the memories of the intimate moments Khol and I had shared. “I never would have . . .” I tried again, but this time was stopped short by the look on Khol’s face. It was a mixture of hurt and anger. And my heart cracked just a little for him. Why did he ever have to fall for me? Why did things have to be so complicated?
“So, you’re back to wanting Bryn again,” he said without question. “And if he still doesn’t want you?”
“He wants me,” I whispered. “He’s just afraid that being with me will result in my death.”
Khol’s face had lost all emotion, and he looked at me with a mask of neutrality, which was worse because it told me how much he was hurting. “And if it does? Result in your death?”
“Then it’ll be my fault, and none of yours. I should be able to protect myself.” And that was the truth of the matter. No one was ever truly safe, not really. And relying on someone else for security would result in my suffering no matter which way I looked at it. I had to rely on myself for my own protection.
“So my little Seer has finally become our little queen.” Khol gave me a smile that didn’t touch the sadness in his eyes. “I told you that you’d find the strength in you one day.”
I stood and went to him, cupping my hand to the side of his face. “Thanks to you.”
He brought his large hand up to cover mine and leaned into my touch, meeting my eyes with intensity. A familiar feeling of electricity shot through my system. I always felt sparks when Khol touched me. “I can’t lose you . . . again.” His voice was hoarse from raw emotion. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
I tried to pull away from him then, but he held me to his face with his strong fingers. “I don’t care what you think,” I said as anger began to build in me. “I can’t help that I’ve loved him practically all of my life. I need him almost as much as the oxygen I breathe! I loved him before I even met you!”
I could feel the muscles in Khol’s jaw spasm as he ground his teeth together. “And yet you came to my bed. And you trembled so sweetly under my fingers and tongue.” His words were soft but there was no mistaking the underlying cruelty that they meant to inflict on me. “You had no need of him to help you breathe when I let you do the same to me. And you happily made love to me with your mouth.”
My lower lip began to tremble as tears gathered in my eyes. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but I hadn’t expected Khol to be cruel, to use all of my fears against me. He knew I felt slutty for doing what I did with him, and for still being involved with Bryn. There was no way he didn’t know with his close emotional connection to me. He was just trying to hurt me like I was hurting him . . . and it was working. “Don’t,” I squeaked. “Please don’t say those things to me.”
“You mean the truth?”
I opened and closed my mouth not knowing what to say. He was right; of course, nothing he was saying to me was a lie . . . not really. It was then he captured my lips with his, and as I gasped in surprise, he swallowed down all the breath in my lungs. I struggled against him, even as his body made mine hum with excitement. I was attracted to him, still . . . and just because I loved Bryn more didn’t change the fact that I loved Khol too.
He pushed me back onto the bed and pushed my arms up over my head, holding me in place as he continued his assault on my senses. I couldn’t help but moan when he ground himself into me. Even when he had essentially blackmailed his way into my pants by threatening Bryn’s life, Khol had always brought me pleasure. Why would now be any different?
“Khol—stop—please,” I begged when he freed my mouth only to begin kissing a trail of fire down my neck and other more sensitive areas.
“I won’t lose you again,” he growled.
It was with those words I knew how truly desperate he had become to have me for keeps. He was about to do what he swore he would never do to me again. He was going to take from me without asking—he was going to claim me against my will. As in the past with Khol . . . it wouldn’t be rape . . . not really . . . but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted either. At least not mentally. Or maybe this is what it means when someone says another person seduced them? Was Khol seducing me? As my body arched up into his touch, I was pretty sure I had the answer, and I was not happy.
“Don’t do this to me, Khol,” I hissed. “You promised.”
“And you promised to wait—to wait until the child was born. We all agreed.” He freed me from my shirt and bra, and while he still held my arms over my head with one hand, his callused palms skimmed roughly over my naked flesh, eliciting a moan from me. And I hated him for it.
“You were going to cheat. You admitted it—and I changed my mind,” I grated as I felt my dragon fire magic push up through me as my anger began to heighten. How dare he pull this crap with me ag
ain? Maybe he hadn’t changed as much as I thought he had. “Khol, stop, before I make you.” My voice had changed, dropped to a low animalistic growl. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
Paying no mind to my words, Khol tugged at my pants, tearing them from my body. I lay before him now, with only a tiny lace thong keeping me from being completely naked—something in the past that would have been sexy, but now—I was pissed.
An inhuman scream erupted from my chest as I pulled the strength from somewhere to push Khol off of me. In fact, not only did I manage to push him off of me, but I threw him clear across the room to where he landed in a heap on his ass with a dazed expression on his face. I pulled myself up to my full height and let my fire magic explode from my palms.
Khol, with almost no effort at all, captured my magic in his own palm and smiled at me. “This little display of power—it only makes me want you more,” Khol rumbled as his eyes raked over my nearly naked self, causing goosebumps to erupt all over my flesh. “You’re acting more and more dragon with every passing moment, and that means I’m the one you belong with.”
“I belong with Bryn.”
“He’s too human. And beyond that, he’s a Black Dragon. Your powers clash. Your flames would consume him and leave nothing behind. Even weaker Red Dragons are no match for you.” Khol paused and offered three words to me in a hushed voice, “Think of Drake.”
I knew what he was referring to—when I had first discovered my dragon fire magic I’d nearly killed Drake—a Red Dragon. “I would never hurt Bryn. I love him too much.”
Khol raised one of his eyebrows at me in question. “Like Jenna.”
“That was different. That was—”
“Over me.” Khol’s voice held a note of triumph, like making that point alone would win me over. All it did was make me angrier.
“Maybe you’re too dragon for me. Maybe I need someone with more human-like emotions,” I retorted, knowing it would bother Khol deep down. He’d never loved anyone the way that he loved me before, and there was a vulnerability he wasn’t used to inside of him because of it. He wasn’t sure he knew how to treat me, not really.
“Enough,” he seethed. He locked his fire backlit eyes with me briefly before he leapt suddenly through the air with lightening speed, pinning me against the wall with his rock solid body. He dipped his head to whisper in my ear as I turned mine away from him. “He doesn’t have a second form. You do.” My whole body began to shake with fear. Khol knew how much I was afraid of being able to shift into a dragon. He’d been very careful to not show me his other form, or to let anyone else for that matter, as to not freak me out now that I knew I was fully dragon. I guess this meant we were playing for keeps, pushing an entire elevator’s worth of each other’s buttons.
“No. It doesn’t mean I have to change, not ever. Not if I don’t want to.” Yep, that’s right, I fully intended to rely on complete denial when it came to shifting into a dragon. I refused to lose that part of the illusion of my humanity.
Khol chuckled low and dark in response. “You won’t have a choice. It will happen. It’s just a matter of when.”
His words sunk in slowly and when they finally hit home, I cried out as if I was in physical pain. “No! Why didn’t you tell me that before? Why should I believe you now?”
“Because I didn’t want to scare you. But now it’s obvious you need more than just a simple dose of reality. Things won’t work with him. I don’t understand why you insist on trying.” Khol’s voice had dropped down to a barely audible level, and I could hear the pain that had been hiding under his anger. I had hurt him deeper than I ever had before, because this time he had dared to hope for it all.
My anger slipped away, causing a dull ache in my chest. “I can’t help the way that I feel,” I croaked. “I’m sorry.”
“What changed? What changed while you were away?” Khol’s voice sounded so small, and so brittle.
I closed my eyes tightly and let the fresh tears that had been gathering in the corners of my eyes spill down my over heated cheeks. “I don’t know. Things just seemed to become clearer to me somehow.”
“It’s that damn bracelet. It keeps me from you, and you from me. Your birth mother has clearly been meddling in our lives. I should have known from that letter. I should have known from . . . everything.” He reached up with one hand and started to bend the bracelet off.
A chill ran down my spine. He was right; my birth mother had been meddling in everything since before I was even born. What if the bracelet did more than just make me untraceable and unreadable to Khol? What if it was messing with my head somehow? “What did the letter say?” I asked on a shaky exhalation. But Khol ignored me and focused on removing the bracelet. “Khol, tell me please. I deserve to know.”
“She wanted me to be prepared for a change in you when you returned. She wanted me to give you some space,” he growled while he still struggled with the piece of jewelry. “I thought she meant—I don’t know—not that you would come back and suddenly not want me any longer.” He abruptly released me and turned away from me. “It’s welded on. We’re going to need a special tool to get it off,” he said with frustration oozing through his entire body as he stood perfectly still.
“What? What the hell?” How did it become—wait—it was my fire magic—I distinctly remembered the bracelet growing really, really hot back at the creepy Murder House. “I reached up and clutched at the dragon pendant Khol had gifted to me. It was perfectly fine. “Why didn’t the pendant—”
“It’s been charmed to be fire magic proof. It was made for our kind specifically,” Khol answered before I could finish my question.
“Oh.”
“Get dressed. We have more important things to worry about right now.” I didn’t know how to react. One minute Khol had been ready to force himself on me, and the next he’s acting like I was the one who was focusing on our little love triangle to the detriment of everything else. “I’ll be outside when you’re ready.” He stalked out of the room without so much as a backward glance at me.
“Okaaaay,” I mumbled to myself. Not that I wasn’t ecstatic for the reprieve from Khol, but I wasn’t sure exactly what had just happened. Had Khol accepted that I wanted Bryn and not him? I highly doubted it, and yet he had walked away . . . literally. Maybe he’d just realized we did have more important things to worry about at the moment and the rest could wait.
I harrumphed to myself as I located my discarded clothes and pulled them back on. I for one was ready to get back to dealing with the Rider inside of Cliff instead of focusing on my messed up love life. Because screwed wasn’t even a good enough word to describe my situation at all . . . not by a long shot.
16
Terrance blinked his human host’s eyes in complete disbelief as he settled back into the familiar body. When he was ripped from it, he had thought it would be the last time he would exist outside the red stone that imprisoned him. He knew many others that had been placed there by his master to never return. He looked up questioningly at his master and immediately averted his eyes in submission.
“They have my son,” his master growled with fury. “Consider this your last and second chance at this life.” There was a long pause before he spoke again and Terrance didn’t dare so much as to twitch a single muscle. “Get him back no matter the cost.”
Terrance rose and left the room without a single word. He didn’t need to say anything. His master knew that he understood what was truly at stake. And he had no intention of losing his freedom again.
I knew I needed to focus on the Rider inside of Cliff and getting any kind of information we could out of him. The opportunity we had was priceless, and yet all I really wanted to do was to go to Bryn. I needed to tell him how much had changed in the short time I’d been away. Well . . . at least from my perspective. I was still pregnant and didn’t know whether he or Khol was the father, but none of that seemed to matter in regards to wanting to be with Bryn anymore. But what could I say to h
im this time around that I hadn’t already said before? He’d told me that love wasn’t an issue, and that love, in fact, was what was motivating him to give me up . . . for my own protection. I just had to make him understand somehow . . . make him see that it wasn’t his job to protect me.
What I really needed was to talk to Jenna—the real Jenna anyways. I hadn’t allowed myself to think in much detail about her being possessed by a Rider while I was away. I had too many other things to deal with and it was just easier to pretend what had happened with her was all a really, really bad dream. Yep . . . I was not only the new Dragon Queen but the queen of denial as well. I was suddenly overcome with the irresistible urge to visit her. I missed her more than I ever thought possible. Sure, she’s completely self-absorbed at times, sex obsessed, and utterly annoying but—she was Jenna and I loved her. I knew if I asked well—anyone—to take me to see her that they would disagree with that line of thought and prevent me from doing so. The only way I was going to get to see her, I knew, was if I found her on my own. Now . . . where would I stash her if I were Khol?
About fifteen minutes later, a very annoyed me still hadn’t figured out where Jenna was. Maybe if I could find Jeremy, I could force it out of him. I wondered if having a Rider in Jenna had dampened his newfound devotion to her? He had to know it wasn’t really her that had sent him to deliver her cookies of death to me. I heaved a huge sigh and was just about to give up when I spied Jeremy, speak of the devil, coming down the hallway. Isn’t that the way it always is . . . you only luck into something just when you’re ready to give up?
“Jeremy!” I called out, hurrying toward him with excitement.
He looked up at me, and a smile spread across his face slowly. “I’m so glad you’re back.” He came to me and wrapped me in a bear hug, swinging me around, causing me to giggle despite myself. Yep . . . I’d missed Jeremy too. Even though he had started out as just another guy trying to play tonsil hockey with me, since his feelings for Jenna had developed, we’d been able to relax into a real friendship, at least I felt that way. “Have you figured out a way to fix Jenna?” he asked with hope filling his caramel colored eyes as he set me back down on my feet.