The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (20 page)

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. “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?” My face flushed. “Temperature-wise I mean? And I swear I saw flames in your eyes before. Is that—”

“No,” Khol growled again. “You belong with me. You will be my
Anam Cara
—
mo Anam Cara.
” He ignored my other questions and tugged me by my hair closer still. “I am the strongest of the Red Dragons, and you belong with your own kind.” His lips met mine with a brutality I’d never experienced before. His teeth scraped against mine, and his tongue dove into my mouth to claim and possess, 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 flames briefly as he studied 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 was my only answer, and I heaved a huge sigh. Lately, every time I thought my life couldn’t get more complicated, the universe proved me wrong.

High school is a joke. What’s the point of 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 wished the writing on the wall was just that. Maybe a couple of broken fingers would keep my tormentor from a repeat offense. Whoever 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, telling me I had, in fact, failed 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 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 me 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 I was. It just didn’t make sense to me. I figured 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 might still be in high school 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 as something occurred to me. Bryn was probably the hottest guy I’d ever laid eyes on, and he was mine. Now he had been shipped off, and 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, 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-hmm. 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 lineup, but I still get what you’re implying.” 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 expression intense. “You obviously need glasses.” He moved forward, crowding my space until I was pressed up against the wall. His arms came up to cage me in, and I glanced around to see the few people that were left in the hallway, stop to stare.
Great, this is all I need.
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. His power rose up sharply 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 stunning,” 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 was a little different each 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 my body crumpled to the ground, 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 stood in the middle of a high school, but it wasn’t mine. Kids passed by me, making their way to their classrooms. It appeared to be early morning the way everyone was making their way inside through the front doors. I focused 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-gauge shotgun. He just reached in as if it were 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. With that realization, I was yanked away from the scene, but not before I let my eyes drop to see a girl’s body lying bloody and lifeless on the floor. She was in a uniform, I realized, a cheerleader’s warmup 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.” Strong arms picked me up and began to walk with me; my head lolling against someone 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 snapped, 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 I had: 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, all right, I guess I should get going then.”

“It’s about time,” I grumbled, letting Jeremy know I was awake. I lifted my lids to meet his deep brown concerned eyes, the gold flecks in them seeming to dance in the light.

“You feeling better?”

“I feel fine. Just drained, like I need a nap or something.” Jeremy nodded, looking pensive as he continued to carry me. “You can put me down now, you know. I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own.”

Jeremy smiled down at me, his eyes sparkling. “I was kind of enjoying having you in my arms.”

I scrunched up my face at him. “Well, the fun is over. Put me down.” He reluctantly set me down, and I swayed ever so slightly and reached for his arm for support. Quicker than I had time to orient myself, Jeremy swooped me right back up into his arms. “Hey!” I protested.