The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (82 page)

“Khol, “I said brokenly. “I need you … please.”

Khol’s muscles tensed under my wandering hands and he stilled, his mouth pausing where it was at the base of my jawline. “We won’t bond if we have sex in this state, I can’t claim you this way.”

“I know.” I breathed, or at least I had hoped so and he had just confirmed it for me. Finally, I could have Khol completely without the consequences of becoming his
Anam Cara
.

“No.” Khol thundered as he pulled away from me. “Even after everything you still don’t want me?”

I reached for him feeling bereft without his touch. “I do want you, just not as—”

“Your
Anam Cara
.” He finished for me. I nodded meekly still hoping he would return to my embrace and give me what I wanted.

“No. You will have all of me, or none of me. I won’t allow you to treat me this way. No longer.”

His tone was so sharp it almost felt like a physical blow to my face. I blinked up at him with surprise. “But Khol—” I started but he didn’t let me finish.

“I’m tired of you pushing me away. You hold me at arm’s length and then give me scraps of attention to make me feel hopeful.” He reached forward and grabbed my shoulders and lifted me slightly off of the bed. “Should I stop hoping? I thought—Just tell me—should I stop?”

I didn’t know what to say to him. What could I say? It seemed that despite what Khol had previously said to me about being whatever I needed for however long I needed him to be that—well those terms had come to an end. What had changed?

When I didn’t answer him, Khol dropped me back on the bed and stepped away. “I’m not going to so much as put a finger on you until you beg me to.” Khol’s eyes sparked into flames.

“What?” I hadn’t been expected him to say that.

“I will claim you.” Khol’s face hardened. “But not until you’re on your hands and knees before me, begging me to, and not one second before that moment.”

Anger of my own flared in my system. “I’ll never beg you.” I lifted my head up defiantly. “I’m your Queen.” I clenched my jaw together, not trusting myself to say anything else. I hated when Khol got like this, all uber dominant Alpha male.

Before I could blink he was beside me, his mouth millimeters from my left ear, but he held true and didn’t touch me. “You will beg for my touch. You will plead on your hands and knees for me to claim you as my
Anam Cara
. And when I finally do … you will know I am your King, not just in name, but because I will have taken possession of your very soul.” I shuddered as his warm breath swept over my ear.

I didn’t have time to think of a coherent response before he disappeared and I found myself sitting up on a small bed in a cave, that was clearly Morag’s. But damn … I thought I hated when Khol went all mega Alpha male on me, but—but again … daaamn … what he had just said to me was beyond hot. If only he was really here now then maybe he’d actually have me right where he wanted me.

“P.J.?” Morag’s voice called out in the darkness.

“Yeah,” I croaked, my throat feeling raw and scratchy for some reason.

The room I was in slowly began to grow brighter until everything was illuminated in a soft glow. Just then Morag entered dragging a tall thin guy with floppy blonde hair behind her. “I brought you a present.” She said with a smile.

My eyes widened, my current interaction with Khol still clouded my thoughts. “Ummm … ?”

“He has a Rider in him, doesn’t he?” Morag scrunched up her face and looked back at the completely terrified boy that was cringing away from her.

There was no duel imagery shining out from within the guy. “Actually, no, there isn’t.”

“Oh, well, that would explain a lot. Just a moment then.” Morag and her prisoner disappeared and less than a minute later, barely time for me to process what had just happened, she reappeared with a completely different guy in tow. This one was shorter with dark brown hair. And yes, he most definitely had a Rider inside of him.

“Yep, we have a winner.” I confirmed before Morag could ask.

“Oh good.” Morag grinned. “That was kind of embarrassing.”

“Uh, okay.” Embarrassing? What about the poor kid who probably just wet himself? He was terrified, and now he probably thought he was insane. “So why—”

“Try to remove the Rider from him.” Morag said, cutting me off. My mouth opened and closed a few times but no words came out. She wanted me to try again … so soon? After I fried the last guy? “Come on, I don’t have all day. And we both know we don’t have all the time in the world for you to learn this.”

I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed and stood up to my full height and faced the Rider, who was turning paler by the moment. “Just let me go.” He mumbled. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” Was he really going to try and play the innocent victim?

“Joe needs me. I complete him. And we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Unbelievable. Are you actually trying to convince me that your host needs your help or something? Do continue.” I added with sarcasm, although the Rider didn’t seem to pick up on that part.

“Joe would have never talked to Marie, his girlfriend, I gave him the nerve, and he never would have gone after the promotion he wanted. I gave him the courage he lacked, and he appreciates me … he—”

“Doesn’t know he has a leech inside of him.” I growled.

“Please, not all of us are bad.” The Rider pleaded. “Some of us help.”

“Yeah, okay, this conversation is over.” I then reached for my fire power using my anger to focus it into my dragon pendant. Just like the first time, a red glow began to emanate from the necklace and the Rider was sucked out of its human host screaming in apparent agony. The Rider turned large pleading eyes at me before it disappeared like the first one. “Where do they go?” I wondered out loud.

“No!” The guy whose name was Joe cried out. “Bring him back! I need him!” He dropped to his knees and clutched at his head. “Just bring him back!”

“You don’t mean that. You don’t know what you’re saying.” I attempted to adopt a soothing tone for Joe, but it didn’t seem to be working. I was shocked Joe even knew about the Rider inside of him.

“How dare you just take him, how dare you—” Morag grabbed him by the shoulders and they both disappeared. She reappeared a moment later by herself.

“I took him home, he’ll be fine.” She stated calmly.

But I wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know what to think. I thought—I thought he’d be relieved.”

Morag waved her hand in dismissal. “You’re missing the most important part—you removed a Rider from its human host and the human is still alive.”

Realization of that part finally sunk in and I smiled. “You’re right, I did.” My first thoughts were of Khol and then Jenna. “Does that mean I can see Khol now?” If he wasn’t still angry with me that is.

“No, child, Khol is going to just have to wait. You removed one Rider from its host successfully. You need to practice more, and you have more to learn.” My face fell, and apparently that was funny to Morag. “Just like a Red Dragon … all passion and emotion. The world could be falling apart around you completely, and it almost is, and you’re more concerned about your love life.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her. “That’s not true, it’s just that I need Khol.”

She raised her eyebrows and gave me a challenging look. “For what exactly?”

“Well for—for—well I need him for—”

“That’s what I thought.  You don’t need him. You want him.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Like I said, typical Red Dragon. And Khol, despite his age, is no better.”

“That’s not true!” I protested.

Morag snorted. “Are you going to look me in the eye child and try to deny that you aren’t completely driven by your emotions?”

“Everyone’s driven by their emotions. People are emotional beings.”

“For one, you aren’t a people, at least not a human people. And for two, no, not all of us are driven by our emotions. The fact you think that to be true only reinforces my point.”

“I don’t understand. What else would anyone be driven by?” I couldn’t wrap my mind around being driven by anything besides my emotions. What else was there?

“You won’t understand. It’s not in your nature to understand being motivated by anything beyond your emotions. Red Dragons have a reputation for being crazy for a reason; even other dragon factions give the lot of you wide berths.

I remembered when I’d first met Nala, she had referred to me as a crazy Red Dragon. “But Black Dragons are just as passionate, I would know.” Not only because of Bryn, but because Nala had betrayed us to the Riders, all for a chance to have Bryn for herself. Too bad her actions ended up getting both of them killed.

“No one, not even other dragons experience the world quite like the Red Dragon. You burn more brightly, just like the element of fire you control.”

“Okay, whatever, but I don’t get why I can’t see Khol.” I couldn’t help the pout that formed on my face.

“Stop pouting, you remind me so much of my sister—your mother when you do—and I miss her.” A sadness settled over Morag, but only for the briefest of moments. “We have much work to do. I won’t let all of the work and planning of my sister go to waste. We will honor her memory by making sure her death wasn’t in vane.” And with that Morag disappeared again.

I was left to wonder if she was going to collect another human with a Rider in it for me to practice using my new extraction toy, or if she had something else entirely in mind. But as the minutes passed by, my mind crept back towards thoughts of Khol. Hmmm … maybe Morag had a point about the whole Red Dragon thing.

I spent almost every waking moment, when I wasn’t eating or other such trivial things, practicing the removal of Riders from their human hosts. A very surprising thing that I kept coming across though, was that a lot of the humans weren’t very happy with me when I’d rip their ‘friend’ out of them. In fact, a lot of them were royally pissed. I just couldn’t understand why. Were the humans who hosted the Riders better off than the rest of the un-hosting humans?

The Riders, led by President Bill Wexington had successfully done what they had set out to do … enslave the humans. The sad part was that most of them welcomed the chains that bound them. Under the guise of protection and help, the Riders had used the governments of the world to slip their chokehold on the human population. Everything from where they could receive medical help to how much heat they could use was controlled by the Riders. But the humans willingly went along with it so that they and their children would be safe. They couldn’t see that all of them had never been in more danger. How was I supposed to help the humans, when they didn’t seem to want the kind of help I could give them? I felt hopeless, trapped … like even if I reached my goal of cleansing my world of the Riders, nothing would ever go back to the way it was. Maybe some of the dragons like Lorik had a point about not getting involved with humans. Maybe I would be better off letting Khol claim me and turning a blind eye to the humans, because as time passed I thought as myself as less and less human and more dragon. I just didn’t understand how the humans let themselves be controlled. Didn’t they see how screwed up the world had become?

But I did still care about a few humans in particular. “Maybe I’m ready to try it on Jenna?” I mused out loud, and tried to not focus in on the brief image of the vision I had of killing her in the process. Would I ever be emotionally ready to try it, was the real question.

“I think it’s time.” Morag answered despite the fact that I hadn’t really been asking her.

I chewed on my bottom lip and dropped my eyes to the floor. “What if I kill her, like in my vision?”

“What if you don’t?” Morag countered.

I heaved a huge sigh dispelling none of my anxiety. “Maybe I could try removing a few more Riders from other people first.”

“I understand your anxiety, Jenna is very important to you, as you keep telling me, but sooner or later you’re just going to have to face your fears. Either that or forget about trying to remove the Rider from her altogether, at least that way you can guarantee she stays alive. Is that what you want?”

“No.” I whispered. “I don’t want her to have to live with one of those things in her. She’s miserable. The animals won’t even talk to her anymore and I know how much that means to her.”

“No time like the present then.” Morag touched my arm and just like that, I found myself standing outside the familiar room that housed Jenna’s makeshift prison.

A moment later my skin prickled with awareness as Khol appeared before me. A rush of anxiety combined with excitement rushed through me, leaving me feeling almost lightheaded. As I stared up into Khol’s illuminated green eyes they turned to flames. Apparently his emotions were running on high as well. It was the first time I’d seen him in the flesh since I’d run from him after I caught him and Zen in a lip lock.

He raised his hand up to cup my face but let it drop before he made contact with my skin. I hid my disappointment. I craved his touch, and was hoping he would already be over what had happened between the two of us when he came to me in my mind. Was he really not going to even lay a finger on me unless I begged? I gritted my teeth and tried to hide my emotions from him, as little good I knew that would do. “Khol,” I said with surprising evenness to my voice.