The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (80 page)

“I thought my mother was a Red Dragon,
Rua Arach
.” I knew my mother’s hair was white, but I had just assumed that before the power had changed it like mine, that it had been red.

“The father in a dragon pairing is dominant in the offspring. Your mother was a Brown Dragon like me.”

“So what kind of dragon is a Brown Dragon then? I mean a Red Dragon is a Fire Dragon and a Black a Water Dragon so … ” I looked at her expectantly.

“The Brown Dragons hold dominion over time. We are Time Dragons.”

My first thoughts reflexively went to one of Bryn’s favorite Sci-fi shows that he used to force me to watch with him …
Doctor Who?
Laughter bubbled up within my chest and escaped in a weird sputtering sound. “So the Lord of the Brown Dragon faction would have been what … a Time Lord?” I fanned myself as tears of amusement ran down my cheeks, but then suddenly I thought of something else. “Wait—can Brown Dragons travel through time? Can
you
travel through time?”

Morag frowned at me. “It’s not that simple. I said we hold dominion over time, but our gifts vary differently from each of us. For instance your mother had the ability to see through time … all time … but not physically travel through it.”

“So none of the Brown Dragons could travel through time?” I had held a brief moment of hope that all my problems would be solved if I had a time traveler in the family.

“I didn’t say that either, child. There were some that could, but as some magic strengthens over time others weaken still.” She tilted her head and looked at me expectantly as if she was waiting for me to connect the dots.

“So you could travel through time? Oh my God—” I began to bounce up and down with excitement. “Can you still, at all?”

“No, the days of me shifting through the very fabric of time are long gone, child, and I’m sorry for that. There is much I could have done to help you and the humans you care for if I still had that gift.”

Disappointment washed through me. “Yeah, okay.” I had nothing else to say. I now held the gift of being able to see into any moment of time, the past or the future, and even if I could control it fully, it wouldn’t solve the problems I was looking to solve. Disappointment quickly morphed to feelings of hopelessness. “How will I stop the Riders? What good is all this power I have if I can’t even do that?” I slumped over and rubbed my belly in an attempt to comfort myself.

“Why the Rua Artaire necklace you wear of course. Is that not why you sought me out to begin with, to learn how to wield its magic?” Morag’s voice had taken on a motherly tone again. One that she seemed to fall into rather easily. It made me wonder if she was the older sister to my birth mother, after all my mother had been the Queen and she never held the title of “the Ancient”. Or maybe she had children of her own? I would ask her soon, but now didn’t seem like the right moment.

“Yes, but even if I learn how to control this necklace—” I reached up to play with the warm metal resting against my throat. “—there are so many of them—Riders—how will I be able to remove them all? And how will I not kill Jenna when I remove hers like in my other vision?” So many different questions and battling emotions were swimming through my brain. But one pushed to the forefront. “Why didn’t you come to me, why did you wait for me to seek you out?”

Morag threw her head back and laughed. “I’m surprised you haven’t guessed, my sister and your mother of course. She told me to wait, she said it was the only way, and I’ve learned to trust her powers over the years. She also told me exactly what I would need to do when you finally did arrive. Although like I mentioned before … somehow you weren’t what I expected when she told me about you.”

I nodded my head. “I guess I kind of suspected. She kind of had her hand in every part of my life so far hasn’t she?” It was all beyond creepy if you asked me, but I didn’t say that out loud. And I wasn’t really sure how to take her repeated comment of me not being what she expected. My birth mother had informed her of what to expect in a way so that didn’t even make sense. Was I living up to the expectations or being a huge disappointment? And she made the necklace that I was wearing, for me, and yet she didn’t know me at all. The precursors of an eminent headache began to throb in my head.

“Her gift was a burden, one that you now bear, like I’ve said.” She stood and reached her hand out to me. “Now, it’s time for me to journey off of my land for the first time in a very long time.”

I clasped my hands in my lap tightly and eyed her warily. “Where are we going, and why?” God, she hadn’t even been off her lands … how did she not go completely insane? Then again, maybe she was and I was putting my fate in the hands of a deranged psychopath. A twisted knot formed in my stomach at the thought.

A fierce expression settled over Morag’s face. “I want to see these Riders for myself. I want you to show me what’s become of my beloved world while I was forced to hide here all of these years.”

“Oookay.” I said shakily. It was kind of hard to believe that anyone would hide themselves away like she had just because her sister said that it was necessary, but then again so many things in my life were hard to believe. Could I trust her? I steeled myself with the knowledge that my birth mother hadn’t led me astray so far … although the key word being so far. But faith was taking a leap and trusting something or someone would be there to catch me. Time to take that leap, what other choice did I really have? I either risked trusting Morag, and maybe she could help me to eventually defeat the Riders or I didn’t trust her and the Riders would definitely win. I had nothing left to lose. I reached my hand out to let her take mine and the familiar weightlessness of shifting rushed through my system.

A deep thumping base beat against my senses as strobe lights bounced off of my face making it hard for me to focus in on my surroundings as first. As my eyes and ears adjusted I realized that Morag had shifted us to some kind of dance club. I wasn’t that familiar with them myself, being that I wasn’t twenty-one yet, and all of my past drinking experiences had been on the DL at friends’ house parties mostly. I had totally planned on getting a fake I.D. when I went to college, but college along with all of my other plans for my future had been flushed down the toilet with the arrival of the Riders.

I glanced over at Morag who was bouncing with the beat and seeming a little too comfortable with the club for someone who hadn’t been out in the real world for as long as she claimed. She leaned over and yelled in my ear. “This is amazing! Is this the kind of thing I’ve been missing?”

“This is not amazing!” I yelled back, rolling my eyes at her. Who was the ancient dragon out of the two of us anyways? It suddenly felt like it was me and she was the teenager.

“Point one of them out to me!” She yelled in response, ignoring my obvious distain for the club.

Okay. So she brought me here so I could point one of the Riders out to her. Did Riders like to dance? Not really sure what her plan was I decided to just go with it. “Yeah, hold on.” I mumbled, pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to hear me over the music. I scanned the clubbers who were writhing around on the dance floor and hissed in a breath. Yep … apparently Riders did like to dance … a lot. Almost every single human on the dance floor had one of them inside of their bodies.

Morag’s hand touched my arm. “Well?” She yelled.

“Take your pick!” I said motioning to the throng of enthusiastic dancers in front of us.

She quirked an eyebrow at me in surprise and then nodded in understanding. “We need to isolate one of them. Get him or her away from the crowd and alone.” I scrunched my face at her and widened my eyes. What did she expect me to do? She was the dragon lady with a plan. Obviously noting my snarky facial expression Morag decided to take matters into her own hands. She moved forward on the dance floor and began moving to the music again. Before I barely had time to blink she was sandwiched in between too hot guys, who had Riders inside of them … of course.

“Hey,” A male voice shouted too close to my ear. “What are you doing?” I turned towards the source of the voice, a tall thin Goth looking guy, and delivered him a questioning look. What did he think I was doing? “You’re pregnant.” I then delivered the guy and his sanctimonious Rider a look of “duh”. “So why are you here, in a club?”

I snorted with annoyance. “Like I can’t go anywhere once I’m pregnant or something?”

“I hope you’re not drinking? How old are you? Where’s the father, or do you even know who he is?” The guy began peppering me with questions, which in order for me to hear he had moved a little too close for comfort.

I raised my hand up and shoved at him. “Look,” I growled. “What I do is none of your business.”

“Is this a wig?” The guy grabbed a handful of my hair and tugged.

“Ow!” I hissed.

His grip tightened in my hair and the Rider inside of him began to shine brighter from within. “You’re her, aren’t you?”

Panic clawed its way through my chest. Where was Morag? My eyes flicked around to search for her with fear. I should have known better than to come somewhere out in the open without some kind of disguise. “Who? I don’t know you.” I ground out in desperation. Sure I could burn him, but then I’d probably have to burn him and all of his Rider friends, which was practically the whole club. It would be a massacre.

The guy was joined by a friend who looked at the Goth guy with curiosity. “What are you doing, man?”

The Goth guy smiled down at me which made my skin crawl. “This is her. The Queen.”

The second guy, who was tall and blonde, and not at all Goth stared at me with disbelief. “No shit?”

“I’m just as surprised as—” Morag appeared beside our little group and both the Goth guy and blonde guy stopped short.

Morag looked at me and smiled. “Good choice!” She yelled as she touched my arm and shifted the three of us out of the club.

“Hey!” I exclaimed as we reappeared back in Morag’s cave, the Goth guy still clutching at my hair. “What the hell?” Surprise working on my side I managed to slip out of Goth guy’s grip, but I swore he took a clump of my hair with him. What was with Riders pulling on my hair anyways? A brief memory flash of a party in Spring Hill, Tennessee with some gropy Riders rose in my mind.

“So this … boy … has one of the Riders in him?” Morag was circling him like a shark that just found her next meal.

“Yes,” I said as I rubbed my scalp and checked for a bald spot. Luckily I found none.
Phew
.

Goth guy cringed away from Morag as she poked at him with her index finger. “Strange how he feels like a regular human to me. But if you say so … ” She then turned to look at me expectantly. “Well I’ve brought you your first test subject, go ahead and try to use the Rua Artaire necklace to remove the abomination from him.”

Goth guy’s eyes widened and the Rider within him appeared to panic as well, he turned and attempted to run, and yet the only thing he succeeded in doing is getting himself knocked out when he ran into the corner of the wall … literally. “Do they lack depth perception or something?” Morag mused as she poked at him with her leather clad booted foot.

“Maybe he’s drunk?” I guess since the Rider was in a human host then it seemed possible that they could still get drunk, it was the only feasible explanation I had to offer at the time.

Morag shrugged her shoulders, no longer concerned with the current topic at hand. “Maybe it’s better if he’s unconscious so his screaming doesn’t ruin your concentration.”

“Why would he be screaming?” I asked nervously.

“Oh child, they always scream.” She motioned for me to come closer to her and the passed out Goth on the floor, but when I hesitated she reached for my wrist and tugged me forward. “Go ahead, try to use the power in the necklace to remove the Rider from its host body.”

“But I don’t know how!” I exclaimed, completely flabbergasted. Just like that, she expected me to know how to do something that was the whole reason that we had sought her out? Maybe she had gone a little batty being separated from society and other dragons for as long as she had. Which brought up a very good question—

“Exactly how long have you been here … by yourself?” I tried to keep my tone light, simply curious in nature, and not filled with assumed implications of her lack of sanity.

Regardless Morag seemed to pick up exactly what I didn’t want her to. “I’m not insane. And I haven’t been here all by myself. I’ve had … visitors.” The way a small smile played across her lips I bet I could guess precisely what kind of visitors she’d had.

My face flushed with discomfort. “Yeah, I don’t wanna hear anymore, you’re my aunt.”
Ewww
, I silently tacked on.

“You asked.” Morag responded with annoyance. “Now quit stalling and use the necklace.”

I ground my teeth together. Just because she hadn’t been in solitary confinement didn’t guarantee her sanity. “I don’t know how.” I said again as I glared at her.

“Alright, maybe you need a little direction first.”

“You think?” I huffed. “And I thought you weren’t going to help me with this until I went through your little emotional building maze or whatever you were talking about before.”