The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (37 page)

“Peej.” Bryn reached for me, anguish in his eyes—and guilt. There was definitely guilt there, too.

“You let me babble on and on about how awful I felt about what happened with Khol and Jeremy while you were away and—” That’s when it fully dawned on me. With everything that had been going on, I had absolutely no idea what Bryn had been up to when he was away—hell, I didn’t even know
where
he’d been. “And you just kept saying not to worry about it, that none of it mattered because we’re together now.” Anger began to course through my system. “Oh God—how could I be so stupid. You just didn’t want to tell me what happened—or
who
happened while you were gone.”

“Her hair isn’t even really black, is it? She’s not even a Black Dragon. What is she, Bryn?” The bitch dragon’s scornful voice sliced into my head like a red-hot poker. I whirled around and faced down the bitch who thought she was going to steal Bryn from me. Sure, I was currently angrier than I ever had been with him, but who was I to call the kettle black? In the end, I didn’t want anyone but him, and no stupid bimbo Black Dragon was going to lay one finger on him.

“I didn’t even know what I was before—or her, or you. I just—”

“Shut up, Bryn,” I hissed. I was, for the first time, mentally reaching for my fire, and even though I was still weak, I could feel it bubbling up inside of me. I was going to fry this bitch until there was nothing left of her. I was going to make her pay with her life for what she tried to do.

“Oh shit!” I heard the bitch exclaim just as I felt the flames burst to life in my palms.

“Peej, no!” Bryn exclaimed as he rushed towards me.

But before I could do any real damage, Khol appeared in front of me with a strange look on his face, and he grabbed my palms, essentially dousing all hopes of me killing the bitch dragon. “What’s going on?” he asked, much too calmly for my taste.

“Did you sleep with her?” I demanded of Bryn with a white-hot fury I’d never felt before. “
Did
you?” I belatedly realized I hadn’t passed out after Khol had taken my flames.
Go me.
But I had little time for patting myself on the back. I needed answers from Bryn, and I needed them
now.

“I would never—” Bryn started but was cut off by bitch dragon’s high-pitched voice.

“She’s
red?!
She’s a fucking
crazy
Red Dragon?”

“Are you actually standing there openly insulting me and my faction, when we both could strike you down with barely any effort at all?” Khol’s voice was calm, but I could feel the anger rolling off of him in waves. “What are you even doing here? I don’t recall issuing an invitation to any
Dubh Arachs
.”

“I came for Bryn,” bitch dragon said, with false bravado because I could see the fear in her eyes.

“I don’t want you here, Nala,” Bryn said. “What happened between us didn’t mean anything to me. I love P.J., and I always will.”

“You don’t love her. She’s a Red Dragon—you’re black.” She tapped her leather-clad leg impatiently as if it explained everything.

“He’s mine!” I screeched as I struggled to get to her, but Khol was a lot stronger than I ever hoped to be.

“Give her to me,” Bryn growled at Khol as he stepped in to take me from him. His eyes flashed dragon blue again, belying his true feelings.

“Don’t touch me!” I hissed at Bryn, and even though I was still within the confines of Khol’s arms, my flames were pushing to erupt from me again. I was that angry.

“It would be best if you left her to me for the time being,” Khol informed Bryn.

But he wasn’t having any of it. “I said to take your hands off of
my Anam Cara
and give her to
me.”

“
Anam Cara
?” Bitch dragon said with shock. “I don’t see any marks.”

“It’s complicated,” Khol stated dryly.

“Maybe I should go—for now.” Bitch dragon eyed Bryn with a longing that set my blood on fire, which caused actual flames to burst up from my palms again.

“If you come anywhere near him, I’ll burn you alive,” I seethed. And in that moment, I absolutely meant it. I had attempted to take my own life for Bryn—I wouldn’t hesitate to take another’s if they stood in our way.

Bryn didn’t seem to care about any of that anymore though. His only goal was to get me away from Khol. He crowded closer to me as Khol desperately attempted to get me under control.

“Give her to me,” Bryn repeated, this time with utter coldness. I could sense he was on the verge of snapping.
Fabulous.
That would make two of us.

I threw my head back and screamed in frustration and fury. Raw power like I’d never experienced before rushed through me, but only for a second, one painful second, before everything went completely black.

A familiar song being hummed by a familiar voice lilted into my ears as I struggled to wake up. “Mom?” I murmured as my eyes finally fluttered open.

“Hi, peanut,” my mom said, smiling as she leaned over to touch my face while I lay in bed—my bed, or rather, my old bed in my old room that I grew up in.

“I’m not really here, am I? This is a dream, isn’t it?” I asked my mom as I let the sadness that she wasn’t really here wash over me.

“No, I’m not really here, and neither are you. But I am communicating with you through your dreams. I’m asleep where I am now as well.”

I sat up and eyed my mom keenly. “Yeah, so we are kind of really here then.” I smiled at her before tears began to slide down my face, and she took me in her arms. “I’m so sorry. All of this is my fault. Are you okay? Is Daddy? You guys know I didn’t really mean all that stuff I said, right? I love you both so much.”

“Honey, we know, and we both love you very much, too. I hope you’ll always know that.”

There was a note of sadness in my mom’s voice that caught my attention. “Mom?” I sat back and looked into her face, which had suddenly grown very serious.

“You need to listen to me, peanut. I don’t know how much time I have here.”

“Okay,” I said with unease.

“They’re going to kill us. Exterminate all of us.”

“No!” I gasped. “We’re going to save you! We’re coming for you! We just need a plan!”

Defeat was etched into every plain on my mom’s face. “You mustn’t try. The only reason I’m able to come to you now is because I think they’re letting me. They expect you to come for us—it’s all a trap—and that’s why you can’t.”

“No,” I said with determination. “We’re going to save you. None of the rest matters.”

“Our world matters and protecting it still does. You and your friends will be the last hope this dimension has. If they kill you, then this world will die, too. You can’t let that happen. This is what we’re here for—this is what we’ve all trained for all these years—even though no one ever thought it’d really happen. I’m so sorry we’ve failed you, so sorry all of this falls on you.” My mom’s face crumpled as she fought to stave off tears of her own.

“Mom, no—”

She brought her index finger up to silence me. “Peanut, please, you need to let me finish. I need to say these things to you.” She was saying goodbye to me, I realized. My mom was saying goodbye to me before she would be taken away from me and murdered by the alien riders. Tears flowed more freely down my face, but I nodded so she could continue. “I’m proud of you, honey, so proud. And I know things aren’t turning out for you the way you had hoped. But you have good people surrounding you—people who love you—don’t forget that. And Bryn—I’m so sorry for everything your father and I did—you’re going to need him now more than ever. Do you love him? Truly love him?”

“Yes. More than anything, Mom,” I sobbed.

She smiled at me through her tears. “Then don’t let anything stand in your way. Our people have forgotten many things, forgotten that love is more important than anything sometimes, because life is short—too short.” She wrapped her arms around me again. “We’ll always be with you, peanut. We both love you more than I can say.” She sat up and looked off into space as if she were seeing something somewhere else, and who knows, maybe she was. “I have to go now. I love you.”

“Mom, no!” I reached for her, but she was fading away right before my eyes. “I need more time!” And then she was gone. “No!” I screamed. “No!”

I sat straight up in bed and blinked my eyes open to the dim light inside of my and Bryn’s room. Bryn opened his sleep-encrusted eyes and reached for me. “Peej,” he whispered, “What’s wrong? She’s gone. Don’t worry.”

“We have to save them now! Before it’s too late!” I stumbled out of bed in a panic.

Bryn slid out of bed and caught me by the elbow before I could do a face-plant. “Who? What are you talking about?”

“Our families of course! Who the hell else?”

“Did you have a vision? Tell me what happened.”

I stopped and turned to look into Bryn’s worried face and let everything that my mom had just told me fully wash over me. My lower lip trembled as I talked. “We’re not going to be able to save them, Bryn. It’s going to be too late. My mom—” I stammered. “My mom said they’re going to exterminate all of them—soon. It could be happening now.”

Bryn’s whole body went rigid, and then he slumped back onto the bed with a vacant gaze. “I just thought—maybe hoped—that they would try to ransom them or something, give us some time. Oh God
—all
of them?”

I nodded numbly.

Bryn abruptly stood, determination replacing the empty look of sorrow that had been in his eyes just moments ago. “I’m going to go gather everyone together for a meeting. Get dressed and I’ll see you in the common room in ten,” he said as he pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt and stalked from our room without another word.

I didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish with the meeting, but at least we’d have everyone in one place so I could tell them the horrific news I’d just received.

Everyone was already assembled in the common area by the time I got there about ten minutes later. Judging from the tension in the room, Bryn had already filled them in on what I had told him.

“What are we going to do?” Jenna blurted out before I could even settle down beside Bryn.

I bit my lip and tried not to let her expectant face tear my heart out. She really thought that I had a plan or an answer of some sort. “There’s nothing we can do.” I cringed at my own words.

“What? You’re just going to let them die? You can’t mean that!” Jenna stared at me in shock.

“This is about more than just us, Jenna. I wanna save them just as much as you do—God damn it!” I swore, letting my anguish and frustration take control of me for a moment before I calmed down. “My mom came to me in my dream. Told me what they were planning. I got the feeling”—I swallowed at the lump that had formed in my throat—“she was saying goodbye. They’re probably already dead.” The truth of it washed over me, and I started to shake. “They let my mom reach out to me when they haven’t before so we’d be in a hurry to get to them. But we won’t find them alive if we go.”

“We have to try!” Jenna cried out in anguish as she collapsed against Macon, who wrapped his arms around her.

“We have to save this world—our world—from the Riders. We really are this dimension’s first and last hope. Before, when we found out everyone but us had been captured, we knew everything fell on our shoulders, but there was still a chance for reinforcements—still a chance that we might get help.”

“Now we really are alone,” Bryn chimed in, his voice flat.

“You’re not alone. You have the support of the Red Dragons.” Khol’s voice echoed through the room loud and clear and plucked a note of hope deep inside of me. “We can’t let their deaths be in vain. We can beat the Riders. I know we can.” Khol placed his hand on my shoulder, and I looked up into his eyes. “We will succeed.”

I nodded once tightly in affirmation of his promise. “What about the other dragon factions? Do you think they’d be willing to help?”

“I can guarantee you the Black will,” Bitch dragon said as she strolled into the room as though we’d been expecting her.

I must have noticeably tensed, because Bryn slid his large warm hand over to cover mine, and I moved closer to him and out from under Khol’s touch. This was war, and sometimes you had to work with allies that in normal times—well, I don’t know—let’s say who you might want to burn to a crisp. I loved Bryn and I knew he loved me, and that’s what really mattered. We’d have our little talk about what happened while he was away later—and in private.