The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (96 page)

Bryn’s fingers slipped into mine and squeezed. “So I would go back to that time and save the world, but then I’d be completely alone? What about Khol—would he—and my son—what about my son?” A panic swept through me. What if I lost my son?

“No—no one will know you. You will begin a new.”

I took in a deep shuddering breath. “But everyone would be safe, and the future of the world would be safe as well?”

My grandfather nodded gravely. “Yes.”

“So there really isn’t a choice, is there?”

Bryn tugged me into his arms and I listened to him speak with my ear against his chest. “Peej, there is a choice. You could go back, live your life with Khol and your son. You know the human world can’t harm you—not really.”

“But you’d all be dead.” I sobbed. “And how could I live with that knowing I could save you? All of you?”

“Be selfish Peej. I’m already dead. We’re all already dead. Take the life you deserve. No one could blame you.”

“I would blame me. I would!” My chest was heaving as I sobbed, the weight of the world … literally was weighing on me. “Maybe in the past—maybe before all of this began I could have been selfish—I was that selfish—but now—now I’m different. I’m a Queen.” And wasn’t it a Queen’s duty to ensure the safety of her people? I could not only do that but more. As Stan Lee’s Spiderman comic books taught me, thanks to Bryn … with great power comes great responsibility. I had to do what was right for the good of many and not just myself. Khol would understand—but Liam—my son—how could I give him up when I’d just gotten him? I’d never felt such gut wrenching agony.

“Choose him Peej. Choose Khol and everything he brings with him.” Bryn said as he wrapped his arms around me tighter. “I need to know that you’ll be happy.”

I choked back another sob. “So that’s what you meant. That’s what you couldn’t tell me.” Bryn didn’t say anything because that was answer enough. “What if I need you to be happy?” I asked softly.

“I won’t be happy without you. I won’t—”

“You’ll never have known me! You can be happy then!” And ultimately that’s what made up my mind. I had chosen Khol, and I wished with more than anything in me that I could remain with him … but I loved Bryn … and Jenna and even Jeremy. And when you love someone, no matter what kind of love, you’ll do everything in your power to ensure their chance at happiness. It was in my power to give another chance to all of those I held dear to me. Except Khol. My mind whispered. But that was my ultimate sacrifice. I would sacrifice my happiness for those who I knew truly deserved a second chance. My grandmother had started this … it was my duty to end it. How ironic, that after everything, duty would cost me my heart’s greatest desires after all.

I tugged my body away from Bryn’s steel banded grip and walked away from him. “Which one? Which door do I need to go through?”

“Only you know.” My grandfather stated with no emotion.

I slid my gaze over the many doors in front of me, closed my eyes, and spun in a circle. When I stopped I just started walking with my hands stretched out in front of me. I opened them only when my fingertips brushed over the cool wood of one of the doors. “It’s purple.” I chuckled without humor. “Of course.” Purple had always been my favorite color but beyond that I’d always felt drawn to it somehow and now I knew why. With only the slightest bit of hesitation I turned the knob and stood on the precipice of the most important thing I’d ever done in my life.

“Peej, just think about what you’re really doing!” Bryn rushed towards me, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop me.

“I already have.” His eyes went wide with panic, and they lit up brighter than I’d ever seen them. His hands snatched empty air as I stepped through the door and free fell into nothing.

I immediately knew where I was … it was the scene of my very first vision.

But things were different seeing everything live and in the flesh, because at the time my vision had showed me the past—now I was really here. In front of me, it appeared as if a piece of sky had been ripped into the side of the forest, the jagged edges swaying in time with pulsating shades of purple and blue. The shape of it was irregular, moving as I imagine pure energy does, with a kind of pattern that no naked eye could pick up on. It was absolutely beautiful, more beautiful than I had realized the first time I had seen it in my vision. Maybe now it was because I was seeing it with my heightened powers. After all, a lot had changed since my first vision.

But I also knew what to expect this time.

As I stood there, shapes began to emerge from the Gate—Riders. I was feeling a little bit loopy, still in shock or maybe something more, but I laughed. I threw my head back and laughed because my mind had suddenly drudged up an image of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. I wasn’t the White Wizard but I was the White Queen and I was going to kick just as much ass. I pulled on all of my power, my fire magic ripped through me as I marched towards the Gate, and just for good measure I said. “You shall not pass!” Too bad I didn’t have a huge staff to bang on the ground for dramatic effect.

The Riders continued in their attempt to breach the Gate, their too large eyes and pinched features focusing in on me with anger. But why? Why wasn’t I stopping them? This was my friggin’ destiny. I’d given up everything for this chance. Failure was not an option. Or maybe I’d fallen victim to my personality’s biggest folly … impatience. Had I jumped back in time to do this before my grandfather had been able to give me some pertinent information?

“It’s in your blood.” My Grandfather’s voice whispered. Or maybe my Queenly powers were answering for me.

“Dragon blood—my dragon blood.” I murmured in understanding. I reached up my hand and ripped the dragon pendant from my neck. I pressed the sharp edge of the little gold dragon’s horn against my palm and pierced my flesh. Blood immediately swelled up from the small wound. But now what? What to do with the blood?

I instinctively rushed forward to the Gate and reached my hand into it while I fed more of my fire magic into it as well. Angry Rider faces peered at me, and some of them reached for me, but I didn’t feel any of them make contact. All I felt was an intense burning in my hand as a bright white light spread from my palm. The next thing I knew a sonic boom exploded into the air and I was thrown backwards. In that instant I couldn’t hear or see anything. I had no idea if what I had done worked, or simply made things worse.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity and finally I blinked the Gate back into focus as slowly sound returned to my ears.

They were gone! They were friggin’ gone! Relief and shock like I’d never felt swelled through my system, and curled around me. The Riders were gone and the only thing that was in front of me was a completely open Gate with nothing in it. I’d done it! I’d saved the world! And yet … and yet I was alone.

I covered my face and wept. I was the only witness to the birth of the new world, so to speak. I’d saved my friends and family and they would never know. I’d sacrificed Khol, and my son and they wouldn’t even miss me because they would never know me either. In fact, Liam technically didn’t even exist anymore. I’d erased my son from the world.

And I still had so many questions … questions like …  How could I be Queen with all of this power when my birth mother would never be able to give it to me? How could there be two dragon Queens at the same time with the same power? Maybe I just wasn’t ready to understand like my grandfather had said. And time didn’t exist in a straight line. Maybe that’s what he meant when he said I would exist outside this bubble of time … being distinctly separate from it. It really was the only explanation that I had.

But what about Jenna and Jeremy? Would they still find each other in this version of reality? Would they still be happy? And Bryn—would he get the chance to truly be happy like I wished for him? I fought the urge to try and check on them with my powers because I knew in my heart I wouldn’t be able to see them without wanting to involve myself in their lives. I had to start over too, and to do that I had to let them all go. I’d given them all I could and I had nothing left.

And what about the humans? I now knew more than anyone else how irrevocably flawed they truly were. How long would it be before they destroyed themselves? As a whole they were striving to fill something in themselves, even if it was a long ago genetic memory, but something that could never be filled, and they would and could never know that. They were broken in ways that I could never truly understand … and for that part I was glad.

Maybe everything I’d done and sacrificed, in the end, would all of this be for nothing? I laid back down on the ground and stared up at the sky. “What do I do now?” I’d just saved the world and I had no friends, no family, and nowhere to go. I laughed then, thinking of the middle name my mom had given me … Joplin. And hadn’t Joplin said that freedom meant there was nothing left to lose? How ironic that those words held so true for me now. The possibilities of where I could go and what I could do were endless … because I was completely free for the first time in my life. Maybe I was exactly where I’d always been meant to be. How could I argue with a middle name like Joplin to guide me?

Just then a prickling of power ran over my skin and I gasped as I saw Khol appear in front of me. “How?” I exclaimed, a smile breaking across my face.

Khol tilted his head at me and smiled before dropping down on one knee. “We have a new Queen, I did not foresee that. I have been asleep for a very long time. Your power called to me, awakening me in an instant, I was helpless to resist—”

Understanding donned on me. This Khol had no memory of me, just like my grandfather had said, but it didn’t matter—he was still mine. He would always be mine. I didn’t let him finish his sentence as I stalked towards him and fisted his shirt in my hand, pulling him up to me. “Shut up and kiss me—because you’re mine.” I growled.

Khol’s eyes flashed with lust as he stole my breath and took control of my mouth without question. After all … wasn’t it the way of the dragon?

In that moment as Khol’s lips ignited my blood for him, just like his kisses always did, I saw my son—I would get him back—and I heard my own voice whisper in my mind … as if I was hearing another version of myself speaking … telling me what I would have with Khol … what I had truly chosen when I stepped through that purple door into the past.

With my powers … sometimes it’s like I exist in the past, present, and future all at the same time. I am only now—and not the now of this moment—but of every moment from the beginning of time until the end of eternity. I am eternal and yet I do not exist. It’s enough to drive me mad—and it probably would—if not for Khol. Lord Kholkikos, ruler of the Rua Arach … my love, my world, my Anam Cara. He taught me that sometimes it’s not who you want to love, but rather who you have no defenses against not loving. He never gave up on me … never let me go … and he would always find me no matter where I was. In any time, and in any place, his heart would seek out mine, and I would be defenseless not to love him with everything that I am. Khol just isn’t a part of my soul—he is my soul—and he always will be—even after all others turn to dust.

I had grown weary, and the kind of boredom that often inflicts my kind hit me sharply in both my heart and mind. After millenniums of living, life no longer held the same kind of appeal that it once did for me. Things seemed dull…lifeless… As if something had muted out the world from my perceptions. I yearned for an escape from my mundane existence, not death, I did not wish for that, but something simpler. So I took my people and wrapped my powers around all of us tightly. We would sleep…to perchance dream…and experience the kind of vibrancy that our lives no longer contained. Not all of us felt as I did, but as their leader I left them with little choice. We would slumber until I saw fit to return to the world, if at all.

I had many dreams over the years that I slept. Some merely held memories of things that had already come to pass, and others were much more…exciting. Yet, I still did not feel the kind of renewal for life that I had hoped for…until I caught a glimpse of
her
.

She was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Her dormant powers, unrealized and raw, began beating against my subconscious at first slowly, and then built a steady rhythm across my senses. Soon I turned my full attention towards her like a flower growing towards the sun. I reached out beyond my slumber to find her, and found not just a girl but also what I had been searching for… A reason for living.

She captivated me because she was more than just her appearance. Of course I couldn’t deny the attraction she held for me. She was beautiful with her long auburn hair that I imagined running my hands through as I pulled her face towards mine to capture her lips. Her tall lithe body called out to me, begging to be touched in ways that I knew she had yet to experience. She was young, naive, innocent—and yet she already held me completely in her thrall.