by D T Dyllin
My draw dropped open. My eyes had glowed? Holy. Shit. “Why didn’t you say something before? Did Jeremy see too?” I gulped. What other freaky dragon things were starting to develop in me that I had no clue about?
“There really wasn’t a good time to bring it up before. And yeah, unless Jeremy is blind, I’m pretty sure he saw too.”
I clutched my books to my chest tightly and concentrated on remaining calm. The thought of having to stay in school for one more minute suddenly seemed stifling. “I’m ditching last period. I need to get out of here.” I swiveled on my heel and marched towards the front door.
Jenna scurried after me. “You just gonna walk out the front door?”
“That’s the plan.”
After a long pause Jenna responded, “I’ll come with you. We can go scoop up your stuff from your house and leave your parents a note that you’ll be at my place. We can start our girls night of fun early.” She smiled up at me but I couldn’t seem to reciprocate.
“Hey. Where you guys going?” Jeremy seemed to appear out of nowhere and fall into step with us. I didn’t say anything and kept focused on my main goal, to get the hell out of school.
“We’re ditching last period and going over to my house. Girls night tonight,” Jenna replied helpfully.
“Girls only, huh? I don’t suppose I can tag along?”
“I don’t know if P.J. is feeling up to it. She’s kind of on the verge of freaking out right now,” Jenna stated matter of factly.
“About what?” Concern seeped into Jeremy’s voice.
“The whole eyes glowing thing from the other day, you know?”
“Oh. It’s not that big a deal. Nothing to freak out about, neither one of us look at you any different because of it, P.J.” Jeremy said softly.
“I’m not freaking out,” I said between clenched teeth. “I’m a little bit upset is all.”
“About what?” Jeremy asked.
“Seriously?” I looked at him incredulously. “Finding out that I’m not even entirely human and that my eyes are now doing some kind of weird glowy thing like Khol’s. Yep. Nothing to be upset about at all.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jenna exclaimed. “What do you mean you’re not entirely human?”
Really? What did she think after both meeting Khol and seeing my eyes glow? “Nothing,” I muttered as I quickened my pace and practically flew down the front stairs of my school. I was almost free and clear. As soon as my feet hit the front walkway, I broke into a full out run, unable to resist any longer.
“Hey. P.J. Wait.” Jeremy called, his feet pounding on the pavement behind me.
“P.J., come on. I didn’t mean anything,” Jenna called from farther back. She couldn’t keep up with Jeremy and I with our much longer legs.
I ignored them both and ran all the way to the front door of my house where Jeremy snagged my arm and turned me to face him. “I don’t care if you’re not entirely human. It doesn’t change anything for me.”
I met his deep brown eyes briefly before looking away. “You don’t even know what I am.”
“So tell me.” He tipped my face up towards him with his fingertips, forcing me to meet his gaze again.
“Rua Arach,” I muttered while trying not to count the golden flecks in Jeremy’s eyes. He raised his eyebrows in question. “Red dragon, I’m half red dragon.”
His brows furrowed together. “So Khol is a—”
“Full blooded red dragon,” I finished for him. “And he wants me for his mate.”
Jeremy’s hands balled into fists and his jaw ground together. “No.” He said between clenched teeth.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop it.” I sagged with relief at finally being able to say my fears out loud. “Something about him calls to that part in me.”
Jeremy studied my face and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. “Do you want that? To be his mate?”
“No,” I whispered. “At least I don’t think so.” He leaned forward to kiss me and I turned to give him my cheek. “But that doesn’t mean I want to be with you either. I love Bryn. I still want him and only him.”
He pulled away and exhaled loudly. “I know. So you keep telling me; it’s just when I’m with you I feel this—I don’t know—connection. And I don’t see how something so strong can be one sided.”
“I feel a connection too. But it’s to your power, and to you as a friend. I know it’s not what you wanna hear, but it’s the truth.”
“Eh-em. Why do I feel like I’m invisible lately?” Jenna grumbled from a couple feet away.
“Isn’t that a good thing for spies?” I snarked.
She narrowed her eyes at me and flipped her rainbow hair. “I don’t do the spying, my friends do.”
“I know you feel something when I kiss you, more than a friend kind of thing,” Jeremy said as if Jenna was indeed invisible or not present at all.
I rolled my eyes at Jeremy. Guys and their egos are completely insufferable. “What do you want me to say Jeremy? You’re hot, and you’re good kisser. But I’m in love with Bryn. End of story.”
A smile spread across his face, the gold flecks in his eyes dancing. “So I’m still in the game.”
I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation. “This isn’t a game—it’s my life!” With that I unlocked the door and stalked into the house with Jenna and Jeremy close on my heels. Funny, I didn’t remember inviting either one of them to come in. Guess what I want didn’t matter anymore.
I internally bitched out my friends all the way up to my room where I stopped short. Someone had been here, and I wasn’t talking about my parents. It looked like everything I owned had been pulled out of place and strewn around my room. It was if someone had been looking for something and got angry when they didn’t find it. As it sunk in, I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth, stopping abruptly where I was so that Jenna slammed into my back knocking me forward. “What’s wrong?” she asked before her eyes took in what I’d already seen. “What—what happened?” she stammered.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Khol appeared suddenly in front of me, his eyes glowing intensely. “Get whatever you need together quickly, it’s not safe for you here anymore.”
Jeremy pushed his way in front of Jenna and me to square off with Khol. “And how do we know you’re not the one who did all of this—,” he motioned to the mess that used to be my room. “—so that you had an excuse to take her out of here?”
Khol barely spared Jeremy a glance and instead looked to me. “We don’t have time to deal with any mistrust that your friends may have for me. I need to get you out of here.”
Did I trust Khol with my safety? Yes. Did I think that he’d use any excuse to get me alone so he could try to coax me into being his mate? Yes. So the question was—which one was his motivator for the current situation? I couldn’t afford to make mistakes anymore; they could cost me Bryn or my life, or both. “What happened? Why aren’t I safe here anymore?” I asked hesitantly.
“The creatures somehow know who you are. They came looking for you.” He ground his teeth together as if it was taking everything in him not to just grab me and disappear.
I shifted nervously, still not quite sure what to think. “How do you even know that?”
“I saw the one that shot at you leaving your house—,”
“Why didn’t you stop him from doing this? Why didn’t you—I don’t know—get him or something?” I asked incredulously as I waved my hands frantically at my trashed room. “And what were you doing lurking around my house?”
“I was in the area, let’s leave it at that.” Khol sniffed as if indignant. “And instead of getting him, as you put it, I decided to follow him to see if I could find anything out.”
“And did you?” Jenna piped up.
“Yes. I did,” Khol said gruffly. “That they somehow know who P.J. is and that they want to remove her as a threat.”
“Remove me?” I staggered back into J
enna who stepped out of the way for Jeremy to steady me. “You mean—?” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
“How do we know we can trust anything he’s saying?” Jeremy asked while glaring at Khol.
“I trust him,” I said without hesitation. Jeremy made a sound almost like a growl in the back of his throat and his grip on my arm tightened. “So where are you going to take me?”
“To my lair,” Khol said. “I wish I could keep you away—at least until—,” He stopped short and shook his head as if dislodging some thought from his mind. “But your life will be protected there, even if it isn’t the safest place for you right now.”
“I don’t understand. How isn’t it safe for me there, but my life is protected?” Khol crossed his arms over his chest and made a face that somehow I understood. Dragons—other dragons would be at his lair and he was afraid they’d try to lay claim to me. “How will you keep that from happening?” I croaked.
“What?” Jenna asked with her head swiveling back and forth between the two of us. “Did I miss something?”
“Nothing that you need to worry about,” Khol stated with finality. Lucky for me, Jenna liked to ignore such things.
“It kind of is, since I’m going with her.”
“You are?” I asked with surprise.
“Yep.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jeremy practically growled. “She’s obviously going to need protection from whatever danger you’re dragging her into.”
My face flushed from my friends’ reactions. I really hadn’t expected them to want to go with me, and it kind of made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even if I could never let them go in good conscious. “Guys, I can’t let you do that.”
Jenna raised her chin and met me with a steel gaze that I would have recognized if I looked in the mirror. “You’re not letting me do anything. It’s happening whether you like it or not. You’re my best friend and we have to stick together.”
“No,” Khol said. “I won’t permit it.”
Jenna narrowed her eyes and stalked towards Khol. “You’re not the boss of me.”
“Or me,” Jeremy chimed in. “Regardless of how you feel about us, you know we’ll come in handy in helping to keep her safe. And you want her safe, don’t you?”
Khol ground his teeth together. “Of course.” He brought his gaze back to study me for another moment before speaking again. “If I bring you with us, you must listen to what I have to say. There will be many things you won’t understand and I don’t have time to stop and explain everything all the time.” I saw acceptance, although reluctant, wash over his face. “Fine,” He said. “I will bring all three of you to my lair.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “You can’t mean that.”
“Jeremy’s right. I must do whatever necessary, however unpleasant for me, to keep you safe.”
“Who’s going to tell our parents? Who’s—”
Jenna cut off what was about to be a stream of reasons why they shouldn’t go, none of them would have stopped me if the shoe was on the other foot I knew, but I had to try. “I’ll have one of my friends tell my parents, and in the message I’ll tell my parents that they need to fill in both of your parents.”
“Well, Khol said we had to leave now. You guys won’t have time to go and get your stuff,” I said grasping at straws.
“That’s okay,” Jenna chirped, excitement from what she probably perceived as an adventure revving her up. “I can borrow some of your stuff.”
“But we’re not the same size!”
“We’ve made it work before. We can make it work now.” Jenna beamed at me, very pleased with herself.
“And I’m a guy. I’m sure I can figure out something there?” he asked looking at Khol, who nodded once tightly at him in affirmation.
Jenna began bouncing up and down. “Yay! It’s settled! Now hurry up and pack so we can get going, P.J. I’m going to find a friend to deliver the message to our parents for us.”
“I just—I don’t—what’s happening?” I mumbled more to myself than anyone. Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly spin more out of control, they had. I rubbed at my temples, positive I was about to be hit with a massive headache. And then something occurred to me. “What happened when you followed Emo boy? I mean besides you getting that information?” I still quite couldn’t bring myself to say the rest, that they wanted me dead. Pretty harsh, even for would be world stealing aliens.
“I was hoping that he would lead me to others—like him, but I was only able to pick up the information because of a phone call he made.” Khol’s jaw rippled with tension before smooting out. “He would have harmed you if he found you here.”
“And?” I prodded.
“And, I took care of him after he ended the call.” A dark smile spread across his face that sent a chill up my spine.
“What exactly does that mean?” Although I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
“Just gather your things and rest assured that Emo boy, as you referred to him, will no longer be an issue for you.”
Referred, past tense. Did Khol kill him? The boy that the alien was in was just a host, wasn’t he? So what happened to the parasite inside him once the host was killed? Would he die along with the host, or would he simply try to move on? Maybe once the alien climbed into a host they were joined, becoming one. Maybe I should stop thinking of them as two separate entities and think of them as one.
“Think of them as one. The creature takes control of the body, absorbing the person inside, at least as far as I can tell, and he won’t be bothering you anymore,” Khol said as if he’d read my mind. And again I found myself wondering if he actually could and just wasn’t telling me.
Annoyance flared in me. I didn’t want Khol or anyone poking around in my brain. “Stop doing that,” I snapped. He shrugged as if to say he couldn’t help it and I fought the urge to smack him before I began scanning my room for clothes and such to take with me. Because I was so annoyed with the whole situation, I just started shoving stuff into my bag with hopes that I was bringing with me what I would want later. Oh well, it wasn’t as if I couldn’t send Khol back to get something if I forgot it. I snickered to myself at the thought of turning him into an errand dragon. I wondered if he would actually do it if I asked. After a second’s deliberation, I decided that he would in fact fetch things for me because he was trying to get into my pants. I felt certain that males, of any species, were the same and predictable when it came to that issue. “Ready,” I proclaimed after I swept my face wash and other necessary beauty products into my already overstuffed bag. “So how are we going to do this?”
Khol raised his eyebrows at my comment. “I’ll simply shift the three of you over to my lair.”
I scrunched my face up at him, again wondering why he hadn’t done that with us when we needed to get to the school from my premonition fast. “Why didn’t you just do that before when we needed to get to the school?”
“Because my powers are not back up to their full strength yet, having been in hibernation for many years. I will get very tired after I do this, and that wasn’t an option before.”
I guess that made sense. “Oh.”
“So it’ll be mostly up to me to protect her until you fully recover?” Jeremy asked. Then his tone shifted angrily. “How were you planning to do that before when you were just going to take her to your lair.”
“I would have only been taking her and that’s not as taxing,” Khol said with annoyance at Jeremy’s question. “Do not doubt again that I can keep her safe.”
“You didn’t do a very good job before.” I could practically feel the tension in the air radiating from both Khol and Jeremy.
“That was different that was—,”
“Boys, boys, boys.” Jenna stepped into the space between the two of them. “There will be plenty of time to fight over P.J. after we get her somewhere safe.” Neither Khol nor Jeremy said anything, but they kept glaring at each other over Jenna’s head.
I sighed. “Can we just go, already?” There was enough testosterone in the room to smother me and it was nothing short of exasperating.
“You must all be touching me,” Khol said without looking away from Jeremy. For Christ’s sake . . . men. I walked over to him and took his hand. Jenna did the same but slid her hands around his arm, sighing with enjoyment. I had to bite my cheek to keep from telling her to get her hands off of him, and I didn’t like that I felt that way. Not one little bit at all. Khol finally looked away from Jeremy so he could smile at me, obviously enjoying my little twinge of jealousy.
Jeremy finally came over to stand by Khol, and I started to get nervous about what he would do when he reached up and touched Khol’s arm with his fingertips on the same side that Khol was holding my hand. He locked eyes with me and then we were gone.
* * *
For some reason, when Khol had said lair, my mind had conjured up thoughts of something set inside a cave, or in the side of a mountain. What I had definitely not expected was a friggin’ gi-normous house, or castle really, set on lush green lands that went on for as far as the eye could see. And let me tell you, that’s pretty far because I have 20/20 vision.
“Wow,” I heard Jenna say under her breath.
“My sentiments exactly,” I muttered.
Khol smiled at me with amusement. “What did you expect, a cave or something?”
“No,” I grumbled even though by the twinkle in his eyes I knew he’d picked up on the fact that was exactly what I had been expecting.
“My Lord.” A guy about six foot, with flame red hair, and illuminated green eyes, although not as bright as Khol’s, was suddenly kneeling in front of us, or more Khol really. Even if I hadn’t known to expect more dragons, I would have immediately known this guy was one, I could feel it down to my bones. I studied him with curiosity as he rose from his crouch only to lock gazes with me. He took an awkward step towards me that caused me to clutch Khol’s hand tighter, which until that instant I hadn’t even realized I’d still been holding. I watched as a fine tremor rolled over the new dragon’s body and his nostrils flared. “She’s—,”