by D T Dyllin
“Yes, but—”
I didn’t let her finish; she didn’t even know what I was. She didn’t have the answers that I really needed, but I knew who did. “What was my father’s name?” I asked again, my voice going up another octave.
“Dragos. His name was Dragos.” My mother wore a defeated look on her face. “But he doesn’t matter, the only father you need to know about is the one that raised you.”
“I need to know what I am. Can’t you understand that? It changes so many things. What if—what if I can’t even have Seer children? Isn’t that the only reason why I supposedly can’t be with Bryn? Because of my duty? But what if that doesn’t even matter?”
“No, no that’s not how it works. That’s—”
“You’re in denial. That’s what all of this is. You don’t wanna face the facts that none of the rules may apply to me. Get out. Leave me alone,” I growled. A part of me hated seeing my mother cry, but a larger part felt even more betrayed than I had before. How could she have kept this from me?
She silently stood and made her way to my door, her face pale and her lips pressed together in a thin line. “I love you, my little peanut. None of this changes that. And your Daddy, none of that matters to him, you’re his daughter, and he loves you too.” I didn’t respond, and I didn’t look at her, I just waited until I heard my door click to signal me that she’d left.
“Khol,” I growled. “I know you can hear me, or sense me, or whatever. Get your ass here now.”
He appeared in my room like he always did, one minute he wasn’t there and the next he was. He green eyes glowed in the dark as he looked at me. “So you know.” He stated without any preamble.
“Yeah, I do. At least the part that I’m obviously part whatever you are. Care to share with me whatever that is now?” I glared at him, every muscle in my body tense as I waited for his answer.
“You are half Arach. Your father and I are both full blooded, what you might call Dragon.” Dragon? This isn’t real. Dragons don’t really exist. “And most people wouldn’t believe you exist, or the creatures you’ve been having visions of exist.” Khol smiled tightly as he studied my face for my reaction.
“Is that why my magic called to yours? Because of what I am?” I asked numbly. It was like a part of me was in complete shock and at the same time there were so many questions that seemed imperative to ask.
“Yes, and why you awakened not just me.”
“So you can like, turn into a dragon?”
Khol nodded once tightly. “Yes, a dragon is my other form.”
Other form? My head was spinning. “Can I? Or will I be able to…” My voice trailed off, not able to truly fathom the possibility.
“No. You were born with only one form. It’s very rare for a mixed blood to have a second form.”
I laughed tightly on the verge of hysteria. “Good to know. I—,” The room began to spin, but I pushed on with my questions. “What do you want with me? Really?”
Khol dropped to his knees in front of me, cupping my face with his hands, locking gazes with me. “With my kind… our kind… when the female is ready to find a mate, she sends out a call with her magic letting the male dragons know she is willing. The strongest and most powerful have rights to her first, the right to try to claim her… I want to be your mate, P.J.”
“Mate? What does that even mean?” I squeaked.
“Our kind, once we find our desired partner… we mate for life. We’d be bonded for the rest of our days.”
“And how long is that? How old are you exactly? How old am I going to live to be?” If I were a computer, I’d have been reading ‘Error, Error, does not compute’.
“A very, very long time.”
“Oh.” Bryn—what about Bryn? At first I thought my new found heritage might enable me to be with Bryn, but what if it meant that he would die centuries before I did. “When all others turn to dust, there will only be you and me.” I mumbled the words that Khol had said to me the last time I’d seen him. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it?” I looked at him sharply. “You don’t care that I’m in love with Bryn now because you think once he dies it’ll be just us, that I won’t have a choice.” Oh, no. The thought of me burying Bryn tore at my insides.
“Yes, you’ll come to me eventually, and I’ll claim what’s mine.” Kohl’s eyes blazed brighter. “I would prefer to have you now. To make you mine, but I can be patient when I need to be.”
So many things that Khol had said to me were beginning to make sense. “And why do you think that I’m going to be yours? Even if I go along with the logic that my magic calls to yours and that I’m eventually going to crave more, I’m assuming that has to do with our shared blood, then why you? Why not some other dragon?”
A low animal like growl escaped from Khol, and his voice seemed to echo in my head as well as outside of it. “I am Lord Kholkikos, ruler of the Rua Arach, and you will be mine.”
“Lord, huh? Well aren’t you special, isn’t there a king or something? Why are you the ruler of, well of whatever you just said?”
Kohl studied me for a moment and I raised my chin defiantly at him as I met his gaze. His lips turned up slightly at the corners. “I do like the fact that’s you are so… feisty. I find that an extremely attractive and yet completely annoying character trait.” I scrunched my face up at him and he chuckled. Glad I could amuse. “Rua Arach means red dragon, and no, there are no kings, only Lords of each faction… the red, the black, the silver, and gold.”
My curiosity piqued again; I temporarily dismissed Khol’s display of testosterone-generated possessiveness. “Red dragon, is that what I am too?”
Khol’s hand snaked out to take some of my hair in his hand and he wrapped it around his knuckles pulling me closer to him. “You may deepen its shade, but you can always tell what faction a dragon is by the color of their hair. The older a dragon is, the deeper the shade of their hair becomes. One day you won’t need to darken your hair any longer, it will be this way naturally.”
“Really?” I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face and I immediately chastised myself. With everything else that was going on I was worried about my hair? Ugh. Vanity be thy name. “So still, that brings me back to my earlier question—why do you think I’m going to be yours? Who’s to say I wouldn’t choose another dragon Lord, like maybe a black, or silver, or—is that why you’re so hot all the time?” I felt my face flush. “Temperature wise I mean? And I swear before I saw flames in your eyes, is that—,”
“No,” Khol growled again. “You belong with me.” He ignored my other questions and tugged me by my hair closer still to him. “I am the strongest of the Red Dragons, and you belong with your own kind.” His lips met mine with a brutality that I’ve never experienced before. His teeth scraped against mine, and his tongue dove into my mouth to claim and possess mine, not merely explore. I cried out as he pressed himself into me, the heat of his body engulfing me and making me crave more.
It felt so right and yet—Bryn—I could never betray Bryn so completely. I shoved at Khol and he reluctantly relinquished possession of me. “You said not without my permission,” I growled at him barely recognizing my own voice. “And you don’t have it. Only Bryn does.”
Khol’s eyes crackled with flame briefly as he looked at me. “Have you lost your trust in me then?”
I remembered what he said before, if I lost trust in him then he’d claim what he felt was his—me. But if I trusted him because he wanted my trust he wouldn’t cross that line. “No… I trust you to back off now that I’ve warned you.”
Khol smiled ever so slightly and nodded with approval. “You learn the game quickly, my little Seer.” With that he decided to just up and poof away again.
“Hey,” I called. “I had more questions for you.” The marked silence seemed to be my answer, and I heaved a huge sigh. Lately, every time I thought my life couldn’t get more complicated, the universe proved me wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTE
EN
High school is a joke. What’s the point to it anyways? What have I ever learned there except how cruel other people can be? I thought about how much I hated my school, or more aptly, the people in it as I morosely studied the bright red scroll across my locker that declared me to be a slut. The culprit was probably somebody like Eddie who only wished the writing on the wall was just that. Maybe a couple of broken fingers would keep my tormentor from a repeat offense… who ever said violence isn’t the answer obviously didn’t attend public school. A half dragon descendant with a pesky alien invasion problem to worry about shouldn’t have to deal with such bullshit.
“Hey.” Jeremy’s voice pulled me from my inner musings of vigilante justice.
I quickly swiveled around and tried to block the words on my locker from his view. “Hey,” I muttered back, my face heating from the look on his face, telling me that I had in fact not succeeded in hiding anything from him.
He pushed around me and scowled down at my locker. “Who the hell did this?” he asked through clenched teeth.
I shrugged, looking at the ground. “Could be any one of many. Who can keep track anymore of everyone who thinks I’m a slut at this school?”
Jeremy’s scowl deepened. “Yeah, they just wish you were from what I hear.”
“My thoughts exactly.” I started walking, hoping he would follow; I was tired of staring at my stupid locker.
“Well, at least it’s the end of the day, and with any luck the janitor will have it cleaned off by morning,” Jeremy added hopefully.
“Yeah, okay,” I mumbled, already too low to be cheered up. My day had sucked once again. It was beginning to follow a pretty routine schedule of being ostracized intermingled with being harassed. I might as well don a huge letter A on my chest to complete my transformation from relatively popular class senior to the most talked about and hated girl in my entire school. What really got me was that there were plenty of girls who actually did sleep around and none of them were being persecuted the way that I was, it just didn’t make sense to me. It was like if I actually were what everyone was accusing me of then no one would say anything, but because it was a lie everyone was torturing me for something I didn’t do. Ugh. I may still be a teenager myself, but even I could admit that most of us were absolute idiots.
“So when do I get my second date?” Jeremy asked as he slid my bag off of my shoulder to carry it for me.
I eyed him thoughtfully, something just now occurring to me. Bryn was probably the hottest guy I’d ever laid eyes on, and he was mine. Now that he had been shipped off, Jeremy, the new hot guy, was falling all over himself to date me. Having seen myself in the mirror one or two times in the past eighteen years, I could see why no one would believe either of them would be into me unless I was putting out. I groaned at the realization.
“What?” Jeremy said. “Too soon? Don’t forget though, you did agree. You can’t take it back now.”
I rolled my eyes at him. Glad to see that my reputation was of so little concern to him. All he was worried about was locking me down for his, same as Khol, too bad neither one of them seemed to want to acknowledge the memo that I was already taken by Bryn. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that a thought just occurred to me, and well, I think you wanting to date me isn’t exactly helping my cause at school lately.”
Jeremy frowned. “You’re not trying to find a way to wiggle out of our date, are you?”
“If I said no, would you believe me?” I batted my eyelashes at him and donned my best innocent face.
“Yeah, no, not even for a second.” Jeremy laughed.
“Well, even if I am trying to wiggle out of said date, the other part is still true. You’re not helping my reputation by wanting to date me.”
Jeremy’s face became all skepticism. “Mmm-hmmm. And I guess you’re now going to try and enlighten me as to how.”
“Of course. The explanation is simple, all you have to do is to look at me, and then look at both you and Bryn.” I waved my hand in the classic etcetera motion to let him know he should be able to continue with my line of thought on his own.
“I’ve never seen Bryn, and I couldn’t pick him out of a line-up, but I still get what you’re trying to imply.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. I know what I look like. Of course, everyone thinks I have to be putting out in order to get the two of you interested. There’s no other logical explanation in their minds.”
Jeremy stopped and pivoted on his heel to face me, his face intense. “You obviously need glasses.” He began walking forward crowding my space until I was pressed up against the wall. His arms came up to cage me in and I looked around to see the few people that were left in the hallway stop to stare. Great, this was all I needed. But all thoughts fled my mind when Jeremy’s lips met mine. When his tongue intertwined with mine, I had to concentrate not to curve myself around him as a small moan escaped from me. I felt his power rising up to coax mine out to play, but I fought against that too. He pulled away slowly, his face still much too close for comfort and I gazed into his deep brown eyes, which had flecks of gold in them I noticed. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, dipping his head to kiss me lightly on the lips. “Everyone’s just jealous.”
Completely flustered I ducked under his arm and dashed for the main doors to make my escape. As I hurriedly made my way down the front steps of my school, I heard a male voice call out to me. “After you’re done with your latest victim, you should gimme a call, P.J.” I whipped my head around to see that the voice emanated from Evan Thompson. Well, what do you know; he’d finally noticed me. I responded by waving my middle finger at him. He laughed. “Yep, you guessed right. That’s exactly what I had in mind.” Deciding I didn’t have the energy to deal with Evan and his sophomoric attempts to be clever, I picked up my pace and turned in the direction of my house.
It happened quickly, it seemed to be different every time, except for the part where I felt like I was being lifted out of my body, but I knew a vision was about to hit me, and I tried everything I could to stave it off so that I wouldn’t hit the pavement. I clutched blindly at something to hold me up, but I felt my body crumple under me, my awareness quickly shifting elsewhere.
It was like standing in the middle of a 3D movie, it was if I could reach out and touch everything and yet I knew it wasn’t real. I was standing in the middle of a high school, but it wasn’t mine. Kids passed by me making their way to their classrooms; it seemed to be early morning the way everyone was making their way inside from the front doors. I focused in on a boy standing near me, he pretty much had the market cornered on the whole Emo look, and he topped it off with a long black trench coat. Something about him really drew my attention, and as I moved my gaze up to study his face, I instantly knew why. I gasped as I realized he had one of those alien creatures riding along inside of him. It was just like with Senator Bill Wexington, I could see the alien shining through from the inside and yet the features of the boy weren’t any different on the outside. The dual imagery freaked me out as usual and I was unable to look away. That’s when Emo boy reached into his trench coat and pulled out a twelve gage shot gun. He just reached in as if it was the most natural thing in the world and began shooting. I heard screams of shock, pain and utter surprise as shot after shot rang out in the small hallway, but I didn’t look at the carnage that I was sure was all around us, no—I was riveted by the small ghost of a smile that turned the corners of Emo boy’s lips upward, even as I saw the creature within him beaming. I tried to spring forward and tackle them as he stopped to reload, but I found myself unable to move, and I remembered I wasn’t really there, that this was all a vision. And with that realization, I felt myself being pulled away but not before I let my eyes drop to see a girl’s body laying bloody and lifeless on the floor. She was in a uniform I realized, a cheerleader’s warm-up uniform, red and gold with what looked like an Indian decal emblazed on the front of her jacket. I was
trying to commit the images to memory because I knew it was important somehow, when everything went black.
Voices began to filter into my subconscious as I began to wake up. “Don’t move her. She could be injured from the fall.” A guy’s voice, older, probably a faculty member commanded.
“Why’d she pass out? She was just walking and then boom.” A girl’s voice chimed in.
“She’ll be fine. I’ll take care of her,” Jeremy’s familiar voice stated calmly. “I’ve seen this happen before, low blood sugar. I’ll take her home and make sure she sees her doctor.” I felt strong arms pick me up and begin to walk with me; my head lolling against who I assumed was Jeremy. Surprisingly, no one put up any protest, not even the faculty member.
“Hey, wait up,” another male voice called, but Jeremy didn’t break his stride. “I said to wait up.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Jeremy said, although I felt us suddenly come to a halt.
“She had a vision, didn’t she? I usually don’t sense that kind of thing, but I could almost feel the energy around her, it’s the only thing it could have been but I thought she hadn’t come into her powers yet.”
“Get out of my way,” Jeremy’s voice vibrated with anger. We started moving again and I thought whoever it was had gone away, but I was wrong.
“Do you think it was important? The vision she had? She must be pretty strong for me to sense it.”
Jeremy sighed, obviously realizing the same thing that I had, that this guy wasn’t going away until he got some answers. “Yeah, she’s stronger than even I thought, and I can sense a ton more stuff than most Gatekeepers.”
“Yeah? Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well alright, I guess I should get going then.”
“It’s about time,” I grumbled, letting Jeremy know I was awake. I opened my eyes to meet his deep brown concerned eyes, the gold flecks in them seeming to dance in the light.
“You feeling better?”