Broken Gates (3 page)

At that I did raise my head to scan the room—not only were Jenna, Khol and Jeremy there, but also Macon, Drake, and a few dragons that I didn’t recognize. Two males with silver hair, and two males with gold hair . . . representatives of the Silver and Gold Dragon factions, I realized. Before I had fallen into the coma, we had received news of each of the factions wishing to enter into talks about the alien Riders, but to see them actually being here was . . . well, kind of shocking. I did note that the Black faction was not being represented, although I saw no real purpose for any of them being present for my so-called catching up meeting. Surprisingly, for the first time since I’d awakened from my coma, I wondered about the circumstances of my shooting. “Who attacked us exactly? I mean I assume it was the Riders but—how did they find us . . . me?”

I could almost hear Khol’s teeth grinding together from across the room. “We don’t know how they found us, or how they managed to get past our security to hunt you down so quickly, but I can assure you nothing like that will be happening again.”

“Someone ratted us out!” Jenna exclaimed in a manner that let me know this wasn’t the first time she was making this particular accusation.

“No, there must be some other explanation,” Khol stated flatly. “None of our kind, no matter their situation, wishes to see this world destroyed by those things.”

“My lord,” Macon chimed in. “I mean no disrespect in disagreeing with you, but I as well can’t seem to come up with any other explanation besides betrayal of the most egregious kind.”

“What a surprise that you seem to share the opinion of the tiny Speaker who you’re currently bedding,” Drake said with a wry smile. “Your opinion means nothing because it is not of your own making.”

“And you never have a thought that goes against our lord’s,” Macon growled. “He’d do better with a second who could think for himself.”

“Enough,” Khol bellowed. “There are many other issues to discuss besides things that we don’t have the answers to.”

I angled my gaze suspiciously around at the strange faces in the room, and some of the ones I did know. A shudder raced up my spine to think that maybe someone in this very room could have been responsible for me nearly dying and slipping into a coma. I shifted uneasily and pulled up the hood on Bryn’s sweatshirt feeling a little like a child who thought that hiding under the covers was some kind of protection from the boogey man. Silly but effective, because once cloaked in the shadow of the much too large hood, I heaved a sigh of relief as Bryn’s scent swirled around me in a comforting embrace.

“Fine. Let’s get on with it then,” one of the Silver Dragons said with annoyance.

“As Jenna was saying,” Khol started in while he searched for my eyes that were hiding in the protection of Bryn’s hoodie, “we’ve begun using the animals as our aids in order to track down the Riders. We haven’t figured out how to remove them from their hosts yet, at least not without killing them, but we’ll find the answer eventually.”

I inhaled sharply. “So, you’re just killing them?”

“What choice do we have?” Jeremy said from beside me.

“But they’re in so many people. Do you all even comprehend how many of those things came through the Gates?” I swung my head around to look at Khol, even though from the expression on his face I could tell he still couldn’t see mine in the hoodie. He frowned at me though, probably picking up on my tumultuous emotions. “We can’t just kill all of those people.” My stomach clenched at the thought and I doubled over to dry heave, luckily there was nothing left for me to throw up. Suddenly I was surrounded by Khol, Jeremy, and Jenna, all of them vying for my attention so they could help make me feel better. Yeah, that was going to work.

“P.J., you need to take care of yourself, girl. This all can wait,” Jenna said as she pushed back my hoodie and gathered up my hair like any dutiful friend would.

“I’ll help you back to your room,” Jeremy said at the same time as Jenna.

And Khol’s deep voice interwove amongst the chatter my friends were throwing my way. “I’ll take her to her room and make sure she gets what she needs . . . food, water, and maybe more healing.”

“Stop!” I said with annoyance. I was feeling too boxed in by my friends. They needed to back off and leave me alone. “I’m fine. Can we just get this damn meeting over with, please?” I sat back up as the wave of nausea passed and looked at each of my friends with a determined expression in turn.

“Very well.” Khol was the one who finally made the decision and everyone else slowly settled back into their seats for what would turn out to be a very long meeting indeed.

3

I had missed a lot while I slumbered away a month of my life in a coma. Truthfully, it felt like I’d missed a much bigger chunk of time because the alien Riders had really been making good use of it. Maybe they knew somehow that I was temporarily out of commission and they were trying to take advantage of our side’s lack of my visions. Although, I bet they hadn’t counted on Jenna and her furry little squad of spies/assassins. I suppose humans, dragons, and aliens alike all underestimate the true threat a Speaker represents . . . especially a pissed off one with a taste for revenge.

Our little band of misfits—not so little anymore with the addition of the Silver, Black, and Gold factions of dragons to our cause—had really been putting a major hurting on the Riders. Of course, as far as the media was concerned, there was some kind of crazed cult out there committing political assassinations. The Riders were starting to become desperate from what it seemed, tightening their grip on the government and any other place of power they could manage. There was a threat of martial law in the United States, and the equivalent in Europe, along with radical new laws being pushed through that severely limited the rights of the world’s citizens. In a nutshell . . . things had reached DEFCON 1 at warp speed.

I stood leaning against the wall of the shower, letting the hot water beat down on my sore body. I was struggling to fully wrap my mind around everything I’d been told in the meeting, along with the fact that I would have to be facing all of it without Bryn. I mean it wasn’t like he wouldn’t be there fighting for our cause, but he wouldn’t be
with
me, and therefore it wouldn’t be the same. Nothing would be the same ever again.

With a heavy sigh I reached out and turned off the water to the shower and grabbed a towel to wrap around my middle. I wiped the steam away from the mirror and studied myself. The black dye that I had applied to my hair was completely washed away, along with any remnants of the henna I used to use, which left me with a shoulder length bob of bright strawberry blonde hair. Not only was it a horrendous shade of red, but it practically screamed baby dragon to anyone in the know. I wrapped a second towel around my offensive hair and left the bathroom, trudging slowly back to my room—the room Bryn and I used to share. He’d gathered up most of his things when I was in the meeting and moved to his own room across the compound. The better to avoid me with, apparently.

I was about two steps from my door when I felt the familiar tug of a vision overtake me, lifting me up and out of my body. I struggled to keep myself from collapsing in the hallway and attempted to make it to my room even as I felt the ground come up to meet me.

I stood in the same room I had when I was having my coma induced dream/vision, although this time around I knew with certainty that I was having a vision and not a dream. I still wasn’t sure whether it was from the past, present, or future though . . . Where were some ghosts to fill me in when I needed them? Maybe they only come out to play around Christmas time?

I focused in on the woman dragon with long shining white hair; she was sitting rigidly on the edge of the bed staring blankly into the fire burning nearby her. I got the sense she was waiting for someone, so I waited with her, so to speak. Not much time passed before directly in front of her appeared the same man as I had seen her talking with before in my last vision. I noted in the back of my mind that I still hadn’t actually seen his face.

He dropped down in front of her, his head bowed as if in shame, and his voice came out low and hoarse. “It is done. I have fulfilled the task you sent me to complete.” She remained rigid as if the man wasn’t even present in the room. He reached out to touch her, tilting his head up just enough so he could look up at her, but before he could make contact, she shirked away. The man made a strangled cry in the back of his throat. “Please . . . my love . . . Mori . . . don’t punish me for something you commanded me to do.”

Her face crumpled up briefly as if she would cry before smoothing out again completely. “My love,” she whispered while still staring into the flames of the fire, “I don’t wish to punish you, but”—a single tear slid down her cheek—“I seem to be unable to control the feelings that twist inside of me when I think of the two of you together in bed.”

“I begged for you to send another,” the man rasped as if in physical pain.

“And you know I could not,” she replied in a chilling tone. “My visions are never wrong, you know that.”

“So you will banish me from your touch, for doing something that you commanded . . .
My Queen?”
The man spat out the last part with complete and utter disgust. A second later his tone changed. “Please,” he begged, “don’t do this. I was never unfaithful to you in my heart. Thinking of being in your arms again was the only thing that got me through the task.”

“Did you whisper words of endearment to her? Did you tell her that you loved her?” Mori asked hollowly.

“It was the only way that I could convince her to give me—
us
—what we wanted. It’s what you asked of me—”

“And yet I find myself hating you for doing what I asked of you.” Mori’s voice cracked. “I wish to welcome you back into my bed and my heart—but I fear the latter has been crushed by your actions—no matter that I set them into motion.”

“No.” The man inhaled sharply. “Please don’t turn away from me.” He rose up and went to her in a blur of speed, covering her with his large body. I heard her gasp in surprise as she accepted his embrace with fervor . . . but only for a moment before she pushed at his chest and broke off his demanding kiss. “Mori, please . . .” the man rumbled as he desperately tried to hold on to her.

“Oh, Dragos,” she murmured with tenderness even as she slid out from under him. “I fear that you will be the death of me . . .”

I didn’t hear the rest of what she said to him, nor did I hear what he said in turn, because a buzzing sound had begun in both of my ears. I stumbled back in shock . . . I knew that name . . . Red hair . . . Red Dragon . . .
Dragos
 . . . The man standing before me was none other than my biological father.
Holy shit!

The vision began to fade out and I felt myself being pulled back toward my body but not before I heard Mori’s voice as if it were in my head, “Paige Joplin Stone . . . you must come to me.”

“Why? Who are you? Where are you?” I asked the woman who apparently my biological father was in love with, but I got no answer as everything went dark.

“Wake up, my little Seer.” Khol’s voice pushed at my pounding head.

Still in utter shock from what my vision had shown me, I blinked open my eyes to meet Khol’s illuminated green ones. “My father . . .” I started, unsure of what else to say. I never really had a desire to meet or find out more about my biological father; he had abandoned my mom when she found out she was pregnant with me, and my dad, the only father I had ever known my entire life, had swooped in to take care of us. But then again, maybe I wouldn’t have to say all that much, since Khol had probably viewed my vision right along with me through our link. I hated that I didn’t mind the link when it was convenient for me. It made me feel very hypocritical—probably because I was.

Khol sat down beside me and pushed my damp hair out of my face that had obviously fallen out of my towel. “Yes, I did share the vision along with you.” He studied my face as if searching for something. “Are you over being angry with me? Or do you still incorrectly blame me for what happened with Bryn?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I stated as I raised my chin obstinantly at him.

Khol’s lips quirked up slightly at the corners, his eyes sparkling with amusement. I had forgotten how attractive he actually is since most of the time I only have eyes for Bryn. Or maybe since I was no longer even partially bonded to Bryn, I was right back to where I started with my body craving Khol’s again, just like when I had first met him. I found myself, much to my chagrin, suddenly very aware that I was wearing a towel . . . and nothing more. “Well until you do,” he said with a slight chuckle, “we will still need to work together on the task at hand.”

“Which one?” After all, there were so many with the Riders working overtime to take over our world.

“The task you have been charged with from your vision, of course,” he stated matter of factly.

“Oh, so what . . . I’m supposed to just find this Mori? Why is she so important?” Besides the fact that she seemed to have some kind of tumultuous relationship with my biological father. Hmmm . . . those must run in the family.

Khol’s face turned serious, his eyes blazing brighter. “This Mori is the queen to us all, and she has been lost to us for many years now. No one is exactly sure what happened to her. Some say she slumbers, some say she journeyed to another world . . . and some say she was killed by Dragos in a fit of jealous rage.”

“My father . . . I mean my biological father, could have killed the friggin’ Dragon Queen?” I felt all the color drain from my face. “But I thought there weren’t any dragon kings or queens? And if she’s dead, then how the hell am I supposed to find her?” I remembered asking Khol once why he thought I should be impressed that he was a Dragon Lord because a king would be better. He had then promptly informed me that there were no dragon kings. Didn’t it stand to reason that meant there weren’t any queens either?

Picking up on my emotions, or maybe my thoughts, because sometimes I still wondered if he could actually read my mind and he just wasn’t telling me, Khol answered, “There has ever only been one queen, and she ruled us all . . . the Red . . . the Black, the Gold, and the Silver. She was all seeing and all knowing, at least that’s what we all believed.” He turned away from me and bowed his head as if in mourning.

My gut twisted. “Did—did you love her?” Because he could have—if she had died, that would have freed him to love another one day—me.

“We all did in a sense, we all worshipped her,” Khol murmured. He turned back to face me and ran one of his long heated fingers down the side of my neck, eliciting a shiver from me. “But I’ve never loved another like I love you.” Flames erupted in the depths of his irises. “I never knew it was even possible to love someone the way that I do you.”

“Oh,” I whispered as his hand pushed up under my head to support my neck. A feeling of liquid desire ignited in my middle, and I found myself wondering what if would be like if I let him kiss me again after all this time. So much had happened since the last time his lips had touched mine—and we’d already slept together once. It could be nice . . .
more than nice
 . . . to give myself over to Khol and the feelings of lust he was currently igniting inside me. I didn’t resist him when he brought his lips down to mine and swept his tongue in to take full possession of my mouth. I even wound my hands around the back of his neck to helpfully pull him closer to me.

Wait
—what was I thinking? Or maybe that was the problem . . . I wasn’t thinking. The one time I had slept with him . . . or, more aptly, let him have sex with me to save Bryn’s life, I had felt like my heart had frozen inside of my chest. Even though my body seemed to be all right with being a free agent again, my heart would always belong to Bryn.
But what if he never wants you again?
my mind whispered.
Khol would never walk away from you the way Bryn did.
No . . . I couldn’t let Bryn’s temporary rejection spur me on to do something stupid and rash. Because when Bryn changed his mind—emphasis on the
when
and not
if
—I couldn’t have done something irreparable . . . like have sex with Khol and end up mated with him.
Damn these dragon hormones!
Now that I had fully tasted all the intimacies of being part of a mated dragon pair, the craving to have that again was almost irresistible. My body craved . . . and I wanted . . . but I couldn’t let myself give into it.

“No, stop,” I gasped into Khol’s mouth as I struggled to push him away.

He pulled away from me but only briefly so that he shifted and wrapped his arms around me, pressing his face into my hair. “But you’re right, my little Seer,” his breath tickled my neck and I yearned to tangle my hands in his hair to pull him closer, but I remained perfectly still instead. “A dragon’s love is eternal, and I would never—
could
never walk away from you—because I already would have by now. Maybe Bryn is too human to love you the way you desire . . . the way you deserve.”

“But what if I am dragon enough to love Bryn forever?” I hadn’t thought about that before. What if Bryn wasn’t dragon enough to love me forever? And what if I am? Was I doomed to love Bryn for the rest of my life and to maybe have him move on to love someone else? Maybe more than one someone else?

“I’ve explained this before,” Khol massaged my back slowly, which felt much more sensual than relaxing, but maybe that’s what he was going for. “It’s different for female dragons, that part of you isn’t triggered until you’ve mated.”

“But I
was
mated!” I exclaimed.

“To both myself
and
Bryn. Even if some part of your prior matings linger . . . it still . . .” His voice trailed off as he pulled away far enough to look into my eyes again from mere inches away. I gulped nervously at the intensity in his green depths. “It still means
I
have a chance with you too. And I’m not going to miss any opportunity I might be presented by Bryn’s stupidity.” He brought his lips back down to mine and kissed away any retort I may have had at the time. I moaned into his mouth as he pressed himself down into me on the bed. I felt him tugging at the towel that offered me little protection from his roving hands. I had absolutely no idea what to do. Thoughts of doubt about Bryn kept circling in my head, and yet they looped back around to the fact that I couldn’t give myself to Khol for fear of losing Bryn forever . . . But what if I already had?

A sharp intake of breath acted as a small dose of sanity for me and I pushed Khol away—only to meet the dark blue eyes of none other than Bryn. It was as if my thoughts alone had conjured him up to witness my betrayal of him.
You can’t betray someone if they left you at the curb like yesterday’s trash,
my mind offered in my defense. A split second before Bryn’s face clouded over into an unreadable mask, I saw the hurt that my actions had placed in his eyes. “Bryn!” I gasped. Khol stood and walked out of the room without another word, but I didn’t miss the smug look on his face, and I’m sure Bryn didn’t either.