by D T Dyllin
“I haven’t been sleeping very well,” Bryn replied as he ran the tips of his fingers down my naked back, eliciting a shudder from me. “But I have a feeling that’s all going to change soon.” I didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling.
I inhaled deeply, letting his delicious scent overwhelm my senses as I lay with my head on his chest, my hand making lazy circles across his skin. “I had a vision about you. I was worried.”
“I’m fine . . . now.”
“So sex is the cure-all for you then?” I asked with a giggle.
“With you it is.” His voice went all dark and seductive on me.
I tried to ignore the things his voice alone did to my insides, and persisted with my line of questioning. “Are you sure? It just feels like something else is going on.”
“Like what?” I could hear the exasperation in his voice. He knew I was like a bulldog when I got something in my head. I’d learned from the best . . . Jenna.
“I don’t know. I just feel . . .” Very conspiracy theory is what I wanted to say. But about what? I guess it went back to when the Riders broke into the compound and shot me. How did they find me so quickly and without any resistance? I just couldn’t shake the underlying feeling that there was a traitor amongst us. But who? “ . . . I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“Who could blame you for being paranoid? With everything that’s been going on lately . . . how the hell did a Rider get into Jenna anyways?” Bryn added one more thing to my list that had me thinking conspiracy theory again. There was something else going on right under my nose, I knew it. If only I could get my powers to work the way I wanted them to, then I’d be able to figure it out.
“Let’s go,” I said, pushing myself up and out of bed. “We have a Rider to question.”
As I bent to pick up what was left of my clothes, I felt Bryn’s body heat behind me as he lifted my hair up off of my neck and kissed where I knew his mate mark had finally sunk all the way into my skin. “Mine,” he murmured as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him.
“Bryn,” I chastised, even though I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in his embrace for just a little bit longer.
“Yes, my queen,” he said, and I could feel his smirk against my bare skin as his tongue darted out to lick the back of my neck this time.
“Bryn, I mean it. I—we have responsibilities. To our world.” My words sobered him up and he let go of me, leaving me to sigh over the loss of his warming touch.
Just as I finished pulling my shirt over my head, Bryn’s door slammed open to reveal, not Khol as I half expected, but his second in command . . . Drake. His face was contorted into a mask of rage as he looked back and forth between Bryn and me. “You just couldn’t stay away from him, could you?” he growled, his eyes flaring brighter. He then looked at me with bewilderment. “Why? Why would you choose him over my lord? You’re our queen, you deserve better than a baby dragon.” And before I had a chance to really process what he was saying, Drake was across the room, pinning Bryn against the wall. “My lord won’t kill you—but I will.”
“NO!” I screamed, moving with speed I didn’t even know I possessed. But before I could reach Bryn and Drake, Khol appeared.
“What the hell is going on?” he bellowed.
Drake immediately released Bryn and dropped to the ground in front of Khol. “I was protecting my lord’s interests,” Drake said, not sounding the least bit sorry. If anything he sounded proud of his actions.
Khol took in Bryn’s half-undressed state as he leaned against the wall gasping for air, and he met my wide eyes with question. “Tell me,” he whispered.
“I—I’ve chosen,” I stammered, my voice not sounding even half as confident as I wanted it to.
“I see,” he responded with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. A huge lump formed in my throat and my stomach knotted up as I waited to see what he would do. I wasn’t worried for Bryn’s safety, not with Khol anyways, because I knew Khol would never do that to me. He would never try to kill Bryn like he had once before, because ultimately it had resulted in my near death. “Drake,” Khol said between gritted teeth with menace, “Explain yourself.”
“I believe I already have,” Drake spoke with his head bowed and his eyes averted to face the ground. “I was protecting my lord’s interests.” His head then snapped up to meet Khol’s dark gaze head on. “Even when my lord wouldn’t do it himself.”
Khol took a step back as shock played across his features. “What have you done?”
“Khol?” I said with uncertainty. I knew I was missing something. What did Drake do besides just try to choke Bryn to death? I had to know. I moved quickly to Drake’s side before anyone could protest and reached out to touch him. I silently willed my powers to cooperate with me. I needed them to show me what I was missing—what Drake had done. I gasped, as I was thrown head long into a vision as soon as my skin made contact with his.
There was so much information, and one revelation after another played out in front of me in quick secession. I only really grasped the major points: Drake arranging for the Riders to kill Bryn. I wasn’t their target at all; Bryn was the one they were aiming for. It seemed Drake was enraged when I had almost lost my life in the process. He knew how it would affect Khol. The herbs Nala was giving me for my morning sickness had a little something extra added in, courtesy of none other than Drake. Before I left he had been putting that little extra something into my food. It was meant to strengthen the bond between Khol and I—Nala knew, of course. She hadn’t given up on having Bryn for herself at all. And Bryn was being . . . poisoned. Slowly . . . very slowly by Drake as a back-up plan. Not only that, but Drake had been giving Bryn herbs in an effort to foster some kind of connection between him and Nala. He had planned to stop the poison as soon as Nala could manage to bed him and gain him as a mate. Nala was not privy to that part of the plan. She never would have gone along with Bryn being poisoned. Bottom line . . . Drake was determined that Khol would have me for his mate. But nowhere did I see that Khol had anything to do with it, or any knowledge even hinting of what Drake was up to.
As the vision faded away, I let go of Drake and dropped to my knees. “We trusted you.”
Khol slid his arms around me and lifted me up before I crumpled fully to the ground. He turned me to face him, his eyes beseeching mine. “What did you see?”
I closed my eyes before responding, knowing what I was about to tell him would only cause him more pain. “Drake is the traitor. He arranged for the Riders to kill Bryn. He’s been putting poison into his food, and he’s been giving me herbs to strengthen the bond between us—so I would choose you.” I thought back to the visions I’d had about Khol after my attempted suicide and when he had been with Shannon. How could I have been so stupid? Those visions were showing me Drake’s reaction to those events. They were a foreshadowing of events to come. “Nala helped.”
I opened my eyes to see Khol’s face constricted into hard lines with the force of his agony. I had just informed him that his most trusted dragon—his second in command—had betrayed him—and to top it all off—my feelings for him had been helped along—pushed by magic. That’s why when I had donned the bracelet from my birth mother cutting off my connection with Khol, my feelings for Bryn had pushed back to the forefront of my heart.
Khol let me go and I crumpled to the ground, my eyes tracking his every move as he stalked toward Drake with deadly intent. Drake raised his chin defiantly at Khol as he came to stand in front of him. “I did it all out of love,” Drake said softly, his voice the only indication of his true fear.
“I know,” Khol said as he reached out with lightening speed and snapped Drake’s neck. I screamed as I watched Drake’s lifeless body fall to the floor in what seemed to be slow motion. And before I could even blink, Khol had ignited his fire magic to burn the remains of Drake. “Macon,” Khol called out as he stood watching Drake burn. Almost instantly, Macon appeared beside Kho
l, his face showing shock of his own as he looked down to see Drake’s burning body. He dropped down on one knee and bowed deeply before Khol. “You are my second now, Macon. Don’t disappoint me as Drake did.” Khol then turned to me. “I’m sorry.” Pain played across his face briefly before he disappeared before my eyes.
As soon as he was gone, I started to sob. I hadn’t betrayed Bryn willingly; magic had been used on me. How could I have not known? And Bryn . . . he hadn’t so much as touched Nala despite the magic that had been used on him. He had been stronger than I’d been able to be with Khol. I had come close . . . very close to letting Khol have me before I was sent away on my mission in Tennessee. And then it would have been too late. I would have never have had another chance with Bryn again. I looked up to meet Bryn’s burning blue eyes and he came to me and swept me up in his comforting embrace. My Bryn . . . my mate . . . my home. “Bryn,” I murmured. “I’m—”
“Shhh . . .” He rumbled. “I know.” I wanted to ask him if all was forgiven. I knew we had finally mated but that wouldn’t change the fact that he might continue to be bitter about my seeming eagerness to hook up with Khol. And okay, I had definitely been eager, but as it turned out, it hadn’t been entirely my fault.
“Why didn’t you sleep with Nala? How did you resist?” Another topic probably best left for another time, but I had to know.
Bryn tilted my head back toward him with the aid of his long index finger. “Because I love you. Not her.” It was both the most perfect and worst thing he could have responded with. The most perfect because him telling me he loved me so unconditionally was something I was worried I’d never hear, and it was the worst because I hadn’t treated him the same in kind. I hadn’t loved him unconditionally at all.
I slipped my chin off of his finger and crushed the side of my face to his chest. “I don’t deserve you.” And in that moment I knew that I didn’t, that Bryn was more than I ever deserved to have.
“No, you don’t. But I guess we’re stuck with each other from now on.” I could hear the smile in his voice as he teased me like he used to. God, I’d missed him. I clutched him even harder and pushed my nose into his chest so the only thing I could smell was him, and not the lingering smell of burnt flesh. “Let’s get out of here,” Bryn murmured as he tightened his arms around me in response. “I don’t want a reminder of what just happened.” And with that, a familiar feeling of weightlessness surrounded me and I knew Bryn had transported us with his dragon powers out of his room. Not that he needed that room anymore, I thought smugly, because he was mine and he would be back in our room, with me . . . where he belonged.
“Peej,” Bryn rumbled, and I could feel his words more than hear them. “I’ll never leave you again—I swear—I’m here—always.” Tears began to freefall down my face. I couldn’t believe I’d almost lost him . . . again. And in some way, even though Drake had manipulated me, I’d willingly participated in the destruction of our relationship. “Hey,” Bryn tried to console me as he continued to hold me tightly to his chest and tenderly stroked my hair. “Don’t. Don’t think about what could have happened.”
I pulled away from Bryn reluctantly and looked up into the face of the man I loved, the face of a fallen angel—my fallen angel. “We thought everything had been settled before, both in the dragon realm and after. Who’s to say something won’t rip us apart again?” Another huge sob escaped from my constricted chest as I allowed myself to say my worst fears out loud. Who was to say if Bryn was really and truly mine? I’d dared to believe it before and look where that had gotten me. I had been shattered into a billion pieces.
“We’ll be more careful. Trust no one but each other. It’s the only way to survive this apparently.” He reached out and pulled me back into his arms. “I don’t care if that baby is mine or not, I’ll love it like it was.” I didn’t think it was possible but I started to cry harder. I’d wanted to hear those words from Bryn from the beginning, to hear him say he’d never really walk away from me, that it had all been one huge mistake—and it had been. Thanks to Drake. “I love you Peej.”
“I love you too,” I croaked. He then tilted my head back and claimed my lips with a tenderness that spoke of a forever kind of love . . . our kind of love . . . always.
19
I had Bryn back, that was something that only in my wildest dreams had I dared to hope for. And we had the answers to what had happened between us. Despite everything that had happened . . . me becoming the next Dragon Queen, Jenna getting possessed by a Rider, me going to Tennessee on a solo mission, me hooking up with Khol, me finding out I was pregnant . . . well, Bryn and my relationship felt stronger than ever. We had weathered the storm and come out on the other side. He was my true mate now, our marks wouldn’t be disappearing anytime soon, unless one of us died, and I was just too happy to allow myself to think about that grim reality. With Bryn by my side, I could make everything else right again. Because I had also learned that the person I needed to depend on the most was me. Bryn was my partner—my mate—but it wasn’t his job to take care of me, even though he certainly seemed to want to.
“Do you feel okay?” Bryn tried to hide the worry in his voice. “You still don’t have morning sickness, do you?”
I laughed into his chest, where I was currently splayed across. We decided to have just a little bit more alone time before facing the real world again. Both of us had been dealing with a little too much of that lately. “No, I’m fine.”
“God, Peej, you have no idea how much it was tearing me up to knowing you were pregnant and me not being there for you. At least not in the way that I wanted to be.”
It was almost weird how easily I was moving on from everything now that I had Bryn back. He made me feel anchored to reality in a way that no one else probably ever could. Sometimes it felt like if I didn’t share things with Bryn, they really didn’t happen, or didn’t mean anything. I guess that’s because he’d been the most important person in my life since I was five years old. “I don’t wanna think about any of it, Bryn. Let’s just pretend none of it happened.”
“Peej—that’s just not realistic.”
“Fine. If you can’t pretend, then lets at least not talk about it.” I frowned into his chest. Why rehash all the unpleasant things that had happened between us lately when we could simply be enjoying what was between us now?
Bryn didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and I knew he was thinking about if he should just go along or argue with me. He heaved a huge sigh, causing my head to move up and down with his chest. “Alright. You might have a point.”
“I always have a point.” I sat up and grinned at him.
“Yeah, but I didn’t say it was a good one.” Bryn gave me his patented lop sided grin complete with dimples, his eyes glinting at me with mischief.
My insides melted for him. I’d dreamt about that smile, combined with that gleam in his eyes . . . quite literally. I was suddenly hit with an overwhelming desire to have my unborn child wear that exact same smile. “I want the baby to be yours. So badly, Bryn,” I said around the huge lump that had formed in my throat.
Bryn’s face clouded over. “Yeah, me too.” He then guffawed. “Us parents . . . at nineteen . . . who would have thunk it?”
“Certainly not me. I always thought if anyone, Jenna would be the one to get pregnant this young.”
“Yeah, you and me both, Peej.”
Not wanting to let our conversation turn anywhere darker, I knew it was time for us to get back to reality. I always hated this part. “We have a Rider to question.” I pulled myself up and out of his embrace with reluctance and began getting dressed.
“You mean you do,” Bryn grumbled as he too started pulling his clothes on. I stopped and stared at his chiseled body. Even though Drake had been poisoning him, Bryn still looked mighty fine . . . mighty fine indeed.
I bit my lip with worry. “Are you sure you feel okay? I mean Drake was poisoning you. I think that maybe we should have Khol use his heal
ing powers on you or something.” Would Khol have to touch Bryn, kiss him? That would be veeerry interesting, I smirked to myself.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bryn growled low. “Khol’s done enough. I’ll be fine. The poison will pass out of my system. Besides”—and he grinned at me mischievously—“I can think of plenty of ways to work it out of my body and none of them require anyone but you.”
I chose to ignore his remark about Khol and laughed. “That doesn’t even make sense, Bryn. I’m going to label that innuendo as failed.”
“It’s not failed because you got what I was going for,” Bryn protested with false indignance.
“Yeah, okay, whatever.” I rolled my eyes at him as I turned to leave the room. It felt so good—beyond good—to be able to talk to Bryn like this again. I’d missed him so much. He might be more, but he was still my best friend—my best friend with tons of extra benefits. “By the way”—I stopped and met Bryn’s gaze with narrowed eyes—“if you ever try to leave me again.” I paused for dramatic effect. “I’ll more than just slap you.” I don’t know why I felt the need to tell him that at that moment, but I did. Maybe on some level I felt most things we could move on and not talk about . . . bury our heads in the sand . . . but not that.
Bryn gave me a tight-lipped smile. “We’re mated now. Nothing to worry about.”
I bared my teeth at him, feeling every bit the full-blooded dragon that I was. “If something happens—like before—if you walk away from me—you’ll regret it.”
Bryn’s brows furrowed together as he studied me. “Are you threatening me, Peej?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
Bryn’s full lips turned up slightly at the corners showcasing his dimples. “I wonder if it’s the whole being mated thing, but I kind of think it’s hot, how you’re reacting to the thought of me leaving.”
I quirked one bemused eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”