The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (75 page)

Khol studied me with fathomless illuminated green eyes. His features were drawn tightly in thought. “If you want me for yours, now and forever, you must take the final step. You must claim me, and not the other way around.”

“Khol, please.” I begged, for what I really wasn’t sure anymore.

Khol came to me, scooped me up in his arms and placed me tenderly back down on the soft over-stuffed couch. He knelt beside me, leaning over to kiss me briefly as his large warm hands ran lovingly over my body. He started to pull away but then seemed to think better of it and deepened our kiss instead. His hands slipped under my back, arching me up towards him and I wrapped my hands around his neck, my hands tangling in his hair. I moaned with pleasure as his scent and magic enveloped and excited me.

It was then that Khol did break away from me, for real this time. He rocked back on his heels and gazed at me with his fire backlit eyes. He stayed like that, perfectly still for a few moments as I held my breath waiting to see what he would do next. Finally he spoke. “I’m still waiting.”

“For what?” I asked with frustration. This was the second time he’d pulled that ‘waiting’ crap with me after he’d been kissing me. What the hell was he waiting for exactly?

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I guess I still have more waiting to do.” And just like the last time he shifted out of my presence.

As soon as he was gone I hit the couch as hard as I could. What the hell did he want from me? What was he
waiting
for? Was I being a complete idiot by not knowing what he was talking about?

Then it finally dawned on me and I groaned for being so clueless. He’d just told me what he wanted. He wanted me to claim him. In his mind he’d already laid his claim, and he wanted me to stake mine. He’d only take things so far with me. He stopped kissing me, and was
waiting
for me to continue. He was
waiting
for me to make my intentions clear. I punched the couch again. He was
waiting
for me to pursue him. Khol was trying to turn the tables on me, and I didn’t like it much … at all.

It felt like days since Khol had left me alone in that room after his proclamation of him
waiting
for me to make my intentions known. In reality I knew that it was no more than a few hours, but patience had never been one of my best virtues. In fact, sometimes I wondered if it’s one that I possessed at all. What was Khol doing? Was he making plans about things that I should be weighing in on as well? I mean, last time I checked
I
was the Queen, regardless of whether or not I wanted the title. And the fact that Khol seemed intent on excluding me from certain conversations wasn’t sitting well with me. He’d told me it was a family matter, but the way I saw it that should include me. He wanted me for his
Anam Cara
after all, it didn’t matter that I wasn’t. Maybe I was being irrational, something that wouldn’t be unusual for me, but I didn’t appreciate double standards … unless they worked for my benefit.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on Khol, focused on trying to transport myself to wherever he was. I stood in the middle of the room, my heartbeat thumping in my chest, my attention narrowed down to the task at hand … and I felt nothing. So far I’d only managed to shift myself less than a handful of times, and with each one I’d been frightened or panicked. And not panicked in the general sense like when Khol had the habit of cornering me, but panicked in the way of fearing for my life. I heaved a frustrated sigh. With all the powers I had running through my body, why couldn’t I seem to get a handle on even the simplest ones? I bet adolescent dragons could shift. I bet Khol, when he was ten, was shifting all over the place.

But I wasn’t going to give up that easily. Not this time anyways. I decided to try something different. I narrowed my focus back down, but concentrated on the magic I knew I had coursing through my system. I imagined my magic as white-hot light, rising to the surface of my skin, and then surrounding and carrying me to wherever Khol was. My mind then fully turned to Khol, and I imagined his spicy scent and heat surrounding me, his deep voice a low rumble as he spoke to me. The familiar feeling of light-headedness finally washed over me.

I opened my eyes with elation to a room that looked just like—I swore under my breath. Had they been in the same condo the entire time? Here I was angsting over shifting to Khol and all I had to do was search the damn condo.  I gritted my teeth with annoyance. It was then I realized that neither Khol nor Lorik had noticed my added presence because they were caught up in a heated conversation. I ducked behind an over stuffed chair and tried to make myself tiny.

“No, I’m not taking her. End of discussion.” Khol’s voice vibrated with anger.

“You can’t go alone. What would be the point? She’s the only one Morag might respond to.” Lorik said, sounding none too happy himself. “It’s too dangerous for you to go alone.”

“I won’t put her in that kind of danger. Things with Morag may well be different now that the Riders are here. She might listen to me.”

Lorik snorted. “Yeah, I’m thinking Morag cares less about what happens to the humans than I do.”

“I’ll go with him.” Zen’s voice chimed in. I slapped my hand over my mouth to smother my gasp.
Oh, she’s included in the discussion, but I’m not? I’m definitely more family than she’ll ever be.
Khol and I were going to have a little chat later. Had she been in the room the whole time, or did she just pop herself in like I did?

“I’m going alone.” Khol grated.

“You’re not all powerful, brother. As much as you’d like to think so. Take the Queen with you.”

A feminine snort reached my ears. “Yeah, okay, and what’s she going to do? I don’t think she has control over any of her powers yet. Plus, do you really think Khol is going to take her anywhere dangerous while she’s carrying his child? I’m surprised he lets her out of bed.”

“Excuse you.” I snapped, standing up from behind my hiding place. Which wasn’t a very good one. Seriously, how could no one notice me crunched up behind a chair? “I can do plenty.” I met Zen’s surprised face with a glare. “If you want I can give you a demonstration of my fire magic. How about that?”

Khol strode forward, coming to stand in front of me, his large frame blocking out my view of Zen. When I tilted my head up to meet his gaze, I noticed he was scowling at me. “I told you this was a family discussion—”

My hands reflexively went to my hips. “I told you I don’t care! Stop trying to run everything!” As Khol bent down towards me I raised my hands up as a barrier and took a step away from him. “And don’t you attempt that kissing thing again to try and get my hormones to distract me! It won’t work this time!”

A smug smile tugged up the corners of Khol’s full succulent lips. “I beg to differ.” He dipped his head to ensnare my lips but when they came in contact with mine, I bit his lower lip … hard. He made an agitated sound in the back of his throat before he crushed my body to his, his mouth slamming down on mine almost painfully. Khol’s power snapped around me, demanding for me to submit to him … but I refused. Things between Khol and I would be on my terms from this moment on. Yes, Khol had stuck beside me through thick and thin since I’d met him, but he’d also been overbearing, and too pushy. It was one thing to feel safe and protected, and a whole different story to be controlled.

Even as I fought Khol, my hands pushing on the unmovable mountain of his chest, his tongue swept into my mouth bringing with it the coppery tang of his blood. The flavor of it hitting my taste buds seemed to release something primal in me, and a growl of my own erupted from my throat. Instead of continuing to fight Khol, I pulled him to me. I wanted more of him … all of him … and I needed him now. And it didn’t really matter to me about our little audience either.

It was then I realized that I had somehow ended up pushed up against something hard, a wall I was guessing, with my legs wrapped around Khol’s waist while we made out like two over sexed teenagers. Of course I actually was still technically an over sexed teenager, having not actually turned twenty yet. So what was Khol’s excuse exactly? It all reminded me of Bryn too much … our tree … the way we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other when we had first been bonded. As I began to spiral down into dark thoughts of Bryn and how things with Khol all seemed to parallel our relationship lately, I pushed at Khol’s chest again. This time he broke away from me. His fire backlit eyes met mine with heat, and he smiled a very masculine grin as he swept his thumb over the arch above my left eye. “Your eyes, they’re like mine.”

I didn’t need for him to clarify what he meant, I knew he was pointing out that my eyes were filled with flames, just like his were currently. I wasn’t exactly sure what it represented to dragons but I did know that with Khol it usually was a sign of how much he wanted me. I closed my eyes and turned my head away from him. “Put me down.” I whispered, not liking how rough my voice sounded.

Khol dropped his hands from me and I slid down his body, not missing another sign of how much he wanted me. When I was standing again on my own two feet, he leaned back into me. “Don’t deny me the sight of things I’ve long been wanting to see in you. Open your eyes for me, my little Queen.” He murmured low with an edge of anger in his voice that mixed with his lingering desire.

I squeezed my eyes together more tightly and shook my head. “No. I can’t just replace him with you. It’s not fair to his memory, or to you.” God … was I really that awful of a person? How could I just seemingly replace Bryn so easily with Khol? How could I treat Khol almost exactly how I had treated Bryn when we were together? None of it was right, and yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

The implications of my words hung in the air between us and effectively cooled off any lingering ardor for both of us. Khol eyed me warily, his eyes transforming back to their illuminated green. “You don’t have to keep torturing yourself for wanting me.”

“I chose him.” My voice was barely more than a squeak, but I knew that he heard me.

Khol’s jaw ticked with tension and his large hands gripped into fists. “I let you have him. In the end, you would have been mine.”

Confusion washed over me. “No,” I shook my head. “My magic was strong enough to hold the
Anam Cara
bond after I received my new powers. There would have been no other second chances for us.” A feeling of dread raced up my spine. “Unless you meant to kill him.”

“I wouldn’t have taken his life, you know that. But you would have ended up mine in the end regardless.” I noticed Khol’s knuckles turning white. “Just like you will now.”

“You’re talking like there were two paths, and in either one … ” My voice trailed off, realization dawning on me. “My birth mother … ” I let my voice trail off again unable to finish my sentence around the sudden lump in my throat. Had my birth mother told Khol that either way I would end up his? Is that where all his confidence about the matter was coming from?

Khol winced, obviously not wanting to divulge the information he just had let slip. But it was too late; the cat was out of the bag. “Yes. She let me know in that letter that you would come back changed, and that I needed to give you space. She said that even when things seemed final for us, that I must be patient.”

“But you were so angry when I came back, you were—”

“Of course. You came back and decided you wanted
him
again. It was a hard pill to swallow. But after I reread your mother’s message, I realized she was preparing me for exactly what happened. You would choose him, and he would die.”

My lower lip began to tremble. “You could have stopped it—you could have—”

“And I’m guessing that’s why she didn’t give me any specific details, because I would have stopped it, my little Queen. I would do anything for you; no matter the pain it causes me. I love what you love, and I protect those things at any cost.”

My mind flashed to the vision of Khol as a child and what his father had told him. “..
if you love a woman … you will love what she loves … no matter the pain it might cause you.”
Khol really would do anything for me, wouldn’t he? I kept being faced with that fact over and over again, but it was still so hard for me to wrap my mind around it. Maybe someone as selfish as myself didn’t have the ability to comprehend the sentiment. “Khol I—” Khol what? What could I say to all the information he just dropped on me? Was I just fighting the inevitable by not letting Khol claim me? Were Bryn and I doomed from the beginning no matter what we did?

Khol and I just stood there, staring at each other, both warring with our emotions and what to say next. I was torn apart, raw, ripped wide open. I wanted to seek comfort in the very arms that were tormenting me.

A throat clearing drew my attention sharply over Khol’s shoulder. “This is better than any soap opera on T.V.” Lorik said with amusement. “But I have a feeling that it could drag on just as long, so maybe we should—”

“Get back to what we were discussing before we were … interrupted.” Khol said flatly while still staring at me.