The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (90 page)

I gasped in shock and turned towards Tye. “That can’t be. The Riders are from another world. They can’t be from humans.” I turned back towards the image and watched in horror as it flickered quickly from one random human to another, each of them producing a Rider. The image shimmered and changed once again. This time it showed my grandmother with a stone, a red stone much like what President Bill Wexington had, and the one in my pendant. I watched as my grandmother pulled all of the Riders into the stone and cast them into what looked like a Gate.

Tye waved his arm again and the image disappeared completely. “Your grandmother meddled where she should not have.” I stared at him unable to find any words. My mind was still trying to take in what it was just shown and hadn’t even begun to process what it all meant. “The reason why no other Seer saw the Riders breach the Gates, is because they were originally of this world. Only you, with your blood, can see the Riders for what they truly are. The animals can see them as different, but not the way you do. The Riders are unnatural, and yet not. They are the worst parts of a human’s nature, and they have been destroying other worlds for centuries, until finally they found their way home.”

“But humans still fight and they aren’t all good and perfect. They aren’t—”

“No.” Tye smiled sadly. “No creature is. But they were worse before, much worse, or at least their potential to be worse existed. Although, when your grandmother meddled with her magic she created an imbalance. All magic users come to learn that once there is an imbalance, things will find a way to right themselves in the end.” He shook his head. “She was young and egotistical but her heart was in the right place.”

“So why didn’t she have one of the Brown Dragons go back in time and fix it? Have her stop the whole thing before it started? Have her—”

“Then she never would have met her
Anam Cara
—me.” I gulped as I realized what his words revealed. Tye was my grandfather. “I am the only one besides her who knows what she did, and now you of course.”

“So why are you telling me all of this?”

“There will come a time soon, when you will be faced with a choice, not the choice your mother saw, but one completely different. You mother thought the way to solve things was to have you entrap the Riders and send them away again, but too many things will go wrong with that path. Your grandmother was stronger with her gift, more in tune with it; she was still young when she created the Riders, unfocused—things changed as she matured. There is only one option left, and it is your destiny to find it. It is destined for things to end with you; it is destined for things to be resolved by your actions, your decision and yours alone.”

“Ummm … but that’s not true. If everyone is meddling with my life and everything around it then it’s not my decision alone that will decide the outcome.” Why did it always have to come down to me? Well I guess it was just bad genetics.

“That is not true. You will decide.” He reached behind his back and produced a thin small metal bracelet with a purple stone charm on it. He offered it to me in his palm. “This is for you.”

I shook my head no vigorously. “Oh—huh-uh—no way! I’ve had enough with spelled or charmed or whatever kind of jewelry that is. Things never seem to go well for me.”

“When you place this on your wrist, you will forget what I have just shown you, you will forget me.” I wasn’t liking the choice of the word
when
instead of
if
.

“Why would I wanna do that?” I asked incredulously.

“So you can continue on the path you were on … until it’s time to have this knowledge. Now isn’t the time for the knowledge, now was simply the time I could give it to you.”

“Yeah, okay, now it all makes total sense.” I hoped he was picking up on my sarcasm.

“When it is time for you to remember, simply break the stone, and all that you have just learned will return to you.” He took a step closer to me and offered the bracelet again.

“I’m so confused. How will I know when it’s the time to remember … if I don’t remember any of this? It seems like you, my birth mother, and my grandmother are making things way more complicated than they need to be. Why would not creating the Riders result in you and my grandmother not being
Anam Caras
? I mean if that’s the case I guess I understand—” I thought of Khol and frowned. “Okay, I can totally understand but if my grandmother could see that couldn’t she simply—”

“One day you will understand, but not now.” He came to stand by me and pinched the ends of the bracelet in his fingertips. “I’m going to secure the bracelet to your wrist but before I do, I wanted to tell you that I’m proud of you, Granddaughter … very proud.” He smiled at me warmly as he reached down to put the bracelet on my wrist. As soon as it touched my skin I was surrounded by purple light that quickly turned to red and I blinked rapidly, a fog settled around me—and realization hit me. The fog in my vision that was preventing me from seeing these events was this fog. It meant I had already accepted the bracelet. Yep … this whole time controlling thing really was confusing; I wasn’t exactly sure I’d ever understand it like everyone kept telling me that I one day would. As the fog settled more thickly around me everything faded to black … again. Boy was that getting old.

I opened my eyes to take in Khol’s worried face, but instead of taking the time to question what happened I pulled myself out of his arms and stood to face President Bill Wexington, who for some reason was blinking at me with confusion of his own. He glanced down at the red stone in his hand and frowned. “What happened?” He muttered to himself but loud enough so that I could hear.

The last thing I remembered was Wexington saying that he was going to show me something and being surrounded by red and purple lights. What happened was a very good question, but not one that I was going to wait to receive an answer. “Nice try.” I grated. “But your stall tactics aren’t going to work anymore.” Without waiting for him to react I began funneling my fire magic into my pendant, the red light encompassed the entire room. I then let my fury fuel more and more power and I sensed that soon, the whole White House was saturated with my red light and therefore every Rider within the perimeter was about to be ripped from his or her host. With great satisfaction I watched as the Rider, the head Rider, the Rider indirectly responsible for Bryn’s death was torn from Wexington’s body. A bloodcurdling scream echoed in the room before it disappeared. A moment later the red light went out signaling that all the Riders present were now being held inside the red stone in my dragon pendant.

I sagged into Khol’s waiting arms as I let go of my magic. “I can’t believe it.” I numbly said. “I did it.”

Khol pulled me into a tight embrace, and he buried his face in my hair. “I knew you could.”

“But—but—that can’t be it. I mean—it was all so—anticlimactic.” I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that basically just like that, I’d finally rid the world of the head Rider. I don’t know, maybe I’d watched too many movies and I’d been expecting some kind of epic last stand while the music swelled to heighten the dramatics—I wasn’t quite sure but it didn’t feel over yet.

“Of course it’s not over yet. We still have an entire world to rid of Riders, although it should be very easy now if we move swiftly.” Khol rumbled against my hair, his hot breath causing me to shiver.

“But I don’t know—it feels—wrong somehow.” I persisted.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” I heard President Bill Wexington demand with alarm. I wondered why he seemed to have no recollection of his Rider. But I had no time to continue with that line of thinking because just then the door of the Oval Office burst in and Secret Service men swarmed us. There was no need to worry though because we all merely just shifted away—back to what I’d come to think of as headquarters.

Before I barely had a chance to blink, as soon as we appeared Jenna rushed me with excitement. “Well? What happened? Did the plan work? Did you get the head Rider, or what?”

“Yeah, we did.” I responded flatly. Jenna began to jump up and down before she turned and launched herself at me. As she wrapped her arms around me with excitement I hugged her back.
Why aren’t I more excited
? I felt nothing except numbness.

Jenna pulled away clearly noting my lack of excitement. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you—I don’t know—jumping for joy like me? Is it because you’re pregnant? Maybe Khol could lift you?”

I stared at her while I tried to find an answer. “It hasn’t sunk in yet.” Khol supplied for me. “She’s in shock.”

“Oh.” Jenna said and instead of pushing it like she normally would she instead turned and launched herself at Jeremy next who was grinning from ear to ear. “P.J. did it!” She exclaimed. “P.J. saved the world, and she’s my best friend!”

Jeremy grinned at her indulgently. “Yeah she did. Wanna go celebrate?”

Jenna took his hand in hers and tugged him from the room. “Like you need to ask. Later everyone! P.J. we’ll talk in a bit—after—well you know.” And with that Jenna and Jeremy left to go ‘celebrate’.

“Time to get started on finishing them all off.” Morag said with a grin. “I’m so proud of you P.J. I’m proud to call you my niece.”

When I didn’t say anything Khol tipped my chin up towards him so he could look into my eyes. “Are you okay, my little Queen? Are you ready to take on the rest of the Riders?”

I pursed my lips and stared into Khol’s beautifully chiseled face. “Yeah, I’m ready. I guess I’m just still surprised how easy that all was.” After all this time the power struggle between us and the Riders was essentially over. I should be jumping for joy, celebrating … something. So why did it all feel like one big lie?

Months had passed, equaling hundreds of thousands of Riders coming to find their new home inside of the red stone, or Rua Artaire, in my dragon pendant. There had been so many, many more than I had even begun to perceive. And with the removal of them … all of them … we again had Gatekeepers, and Guardians in the world. Unfortunately, there were no more Seers, or Speakers. The joy of having defeated the Riders was overshadowed slightly by what that fact could mean for future generations. Who would watch the Gates in all the future generations to come? Myself and Jenna wouldn’t live forever, and when we did die, then what?

And there was one other little problem that no one but me seemed to be willing to entirely acknowledge … nothing had really changed. Sure, with the Riders being gone, their human hosts had lost all knowledge of us and we were no longer hunted, but that was the extent of things. President Bill Wexington was moving ahead with all of his agendas, and well … the rest of the world hadn’t suddenly gone back to the way it was before the Riders either. I don’t know what I really expected, maybe again I’d watched too many movies, and read too many books that once the big bad was defeated things went back to the way they were before magically somehow. Had I been so wrong to expect that since my world was surrounded by gifted humans, and magic wielding dragons?

Khol and I had settled comfortably on his land, and set up house in his castle, which I guess was now technically ours, since I was the Queen and we were
Anam Caras
. Jenna and Jeremy had taken up residence in their own wing of the castle, and since Jeremy had proposed to her, even though we were technically all roomies, I hardly saw them. Of course I was so huge with my baby … and most definitely cranky because of it … it seemed like Khol was the only one brave enough to engage me because when my temper flared he was the only one that also couldn’t get burnt … literally.

Morag had gone back to her realm, but she stopped by to check up on her favorite and only niece very regularly. Although I wasn’t deluded into thinking I was the only reason why she visited so often. I knew she had a thing going on with Macon. I tried not to think about it too much because it kind of skeeved me out. I was relieved that Macon had turned out to not be in love with Jenna after all and therefore doomed to misery because of her relationship with Jeremy.