The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (25 page)

“Aside from the fact you don’t look anything like your dad?” I scrunched my face up at her. Lots of people don’t look like their dads. Besides, I looked enough like my mom that it was obvious whose side of the family I took after. “But what really gave it away was when your eyes started to glow that day in your backyard. It wasn’t much, but enough to make me wonder if you weren’t part whatever Khol is, and you look a ton like your mom, so I don’t think they found you in a cabbage patch.”

My jaw 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 now. 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 manage to reciprocate.

“Hey. Where you guys going?” Jeremy appeared out of nowhere and fell 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 me 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
Anam Cara
—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 Anam—whatever—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.”

“Ahem. 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 wanted 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 searching 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 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 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
Anam Cara
? 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 isn’t it safe here anymore?” I asked hesitantly.

“The aliens 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 out anything.”

“And did you?” Jenna piped up.

“Yes, I did,” Khol said gruffly. “They somehow know who P.J. is, and they want to remove
her as a threat.”

“Remove me?” I staggered back into Jenna 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, 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, revved up from the excitement of what she probably perceived as an adventure. “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 as a guy, I’m sure I can figure out something there, right?” Jeremy looked at Khol, who tightly nodded once 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 else. 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 couldn’t quite bring myself to say the rest, that they wanted me dead. Pretty harsh, even for would-be world-stealing aliens.

“I was hoping 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 smoothing 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 had been 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 within 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 the hope 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 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?”