by D T Dyllin
Drake smirked at Bryn. “Or what? What are you going to do about it, little Dragon? You’re too young and too weak to play this game with me.”
Bryn growled low in his throat, eyes blazing bright, as he stalked towards Drake, who didn’t seemed alarmed in the least. “I’ll make you regret that you said that.”
I clutched at Bryn, but he shirked me off as if I were nothing. “Bryn, please.”
“You should listen to your little Anam Cara. Maybe she’s not as stupid as she seems,” Drake said scornfully while still wearing his smirk.
“Hey,” I exclaimed, “I’m not stupid.”
“Then you would have stayed bonded with my Lord,” Drake spat, “and not have chosen this baby Dragon.”
A red haze seemed to drop down over my vision, and a growl erupted from my chest. How dare he insult Bryn again and again. He had no right. I charged at Drake, my hands stretched out towards him instinctually, and then before I had a chance to really process what was going on, Drake was engulfed in flames—flames that were coming from my palms. I stopped and stared as Drake dropped to his knees screaming out in pain, and yet I had no control over what was happening with my body, the flames kept on coming.
“No,” I heard Khol say as he stepped in front of the flames drawing the fire into his own palms. “Control your Anam Cara,” Khol snarled at Bryn.
“I don’t know what to do,” Bryn snapped with alarm. “Tell me what to do.”
“There’s no time for that.” Khol stepped forward, absorbing my flames into him as he moved closer and closer until finally he reached out and interlocked his hands with mine. It felt like he was drawing out my power, sucking it away, and I suddenly dropped to my knees, weak and dizzy. My eyes fluttered shut, and someone caught me before I hit the ground.
“What did you do to her?” I heard Bryn demand. “Give her to me.”
“I did what needed to be done to save Drake. She could have killed him,” Khol snarled. “Follow me inside. I’ll restore what I took, but not here.”
“Wait,” I heard Bryn say before I sensed we were inside. Khol must have just shifted us there.
“I don’t feel good,” I mumbled into Khol’s chest. “What did you do to me?”
“I’m sorry, my little Seer, so sorry I had to do that to you, but you’ll feel better soon, I promise.” Khol’s voice had lost all its harshness as he whispered tenderly to me.
“That’s her, isn’t it? I can tell by the way you’re looking at her. What is she doing here?” A female voice I didn’t recognize demanded with scorn.
“Leave. I don’t want you here anymore,” Khol responded, cold as ice.
“But—but—I at least thought—”
“You thought what? You’re Dragon, you should know better. Now leave before I throw you out.”
Even though I was physically weak, my mind was still reeling. Was the woman that Khol was currently speaking to the one that he’d been occupied with? I was almost one hundred percent sure from how they were talking that she was, and he was just going to kick her out like that? Wow, what an asshole.
“I’ll remember this, my Lord,” the woman hissed.
“See that you do, so next time you’ll remember your place.”
“She’s not even full-blooded, and she’s a child. How could you want her over me? In fact, how could you want her at all?” The women’s voice suddenly took on the tone of a petulant child.
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Khol muttered. “Now get out. I don’t owe you any explanations, Shannon.”
“You’re an asshole,” I managed to say in a normal tone, my eyelids still too heavy to lift. “You can’t just use someone and throw them away like that.” I felt outraged for Shannon. Women need to stick together instead of fighting like they usually do.
She laughed darkly. “Maybe I do like her after all, even if she is a naïve child.”
“I’m not either of those things,” I grunted with annoyance as another wave of dizziness slammed into me. “I just don’t feel good.”
“Well, I’m leaving,” Shannon said just before the door slammed. Couldn’t she shift, or was she just being dramatic? I’d probably never know.
Khol lay me down on the bed, which despite my current physical condition, got an instant reaction out of me. My eyes fluttered open even though I couldn’t quite focus as I clutched at him. “Ew! No! Don’t put me down on used sex sheets! Someone else’s used sex sheets!” I’d have to burn my skin off. Good thing I could now probably do that.
Khol pushed me back down because I was about as strong as a newborn baby. “We didn’t have sex in the bed, so don’t concern yourself.”
“Oh.” I let myself settle back down.
“Now, let me give you back what I took before Bryn comes storming in here.”
“Why didn’t you just—” My words were cut off as Khol’s lips pressed to mine as he exhaled into my mouth. His breath was warm and sweet with a tang of power that swam onto my tongue and down my throat, wrapping itself around my core. My eyes snapped open with the sudden energy boost, and I sat straight up in bed as Khol broke contact with me. I met his heated gaze with wonder. “Wow. What did you just do?”
“I gave you back the energy I took from you. You would have eventually regenerated it yourself, but it could have taken days.” He stood and backed away from me, flicking his gaze to the side. “I’m not an asshole.”
“What?” Was he going to try and defend himself now?
“Shannon is Dragon, and she knows what my situation means. She chose to be with me under no false pretenses.”
“Really? That still doesn’t mean you had to be so callus towards her. You were just plain mean.” I grimaced as Khol slumped into himself at my words. For some reason I felt sorry for him.
The bedroom door suddenly flew open and a wild-eyed Bryn hurried through its frame. “Peej!” he exclaimed. I rose as quickly as I could and ran into his open arms. “You’re fine now?” He murmured into my hair as his grip tightened around my waist.
“Yes,” Khol answered for me. “I returned to her the energy I stole.” He began pacing. “This is why young Dragons such as yourself don’t usually find themselves with Anam Caras. It’s your job to keep her under control. If I hadn’t shown up when I did, Drake would be dead.”
I gasped, horrified that I’d almost forgotten what I’d done to Drake. “But he’s going to be okay now, right?”
“Yes. But no thanks to him,” Khol spat in Bryn’s direction.
“This isn’t his fault,” I hissed in Bryn’s defense. “It’s mine. I don’t even know how I did that.”
“You’re just coming into your powers, strong emotions are normal triggers. What happened was normal, but what happened after was not.” Khol continued pacing. He reminded me of a caged animal, like a tiger at a zoo.
“Tell me what I need to do, so it doesn’t happen again,” Bryn said softly. I looked up at him with surprise, not expecting him to accept the blame that Khol was trying to place on him.
“You’ll need to train to do it and even then . . .” Khol met my eyes with some unknown emotion. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take a Black Dragon to be able to do what I did.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, not really sure I wanted the answer.
“You’re a fire Dragon, all Red Dragons are, and it’s our element to control. All Dragons have some fire, but not like us, and you’re stronger than even I guessed.”
I glanced back at Bryn before I met Khol’s gaze again. “What does that mean exactly?” I swallowed to try and combat the dryness of my throat.
“It could take decades before he can do what I did today, if at all.”
“But why? If all Dragons have fire?”
“Black Dragons are water Dragons, and I’m
what you would call ancient. I have more power than most.”
“Can’t I just use water to douse her flame then?” Bryn asked with hope.
“No!” Khol exclaimed with alarm. “Promise me you’ll never try. With the both of you being so new to your powers and so out of control, you could kill her.”
“No. I’ll never try,” Bryn said as his arms slid around my waist again to pull me up against him.
“Where are all these Dragon powers coming from? I don’t understand why they’re just appearing all of a sudden. And I haven’t had any visions since I’ve been here. Something’s wrong; in fact, that’s why I called Drake to us, because we wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Yes. That is a problem,” Khol said, his voice growing pensive. “I will admit, I’ve been a little . . . distracted. There are some things I hadn’t taken into consideration when I brought you here.” Bryn squeezed me once as if to say I told you so. I glared at him briefly before focusing back on what Khol was saying. “—the gates for your power. It would explain why your Dragon natures are emerging so fully here.” I had a feeling both Bryn and I were wearing the same dumbfounded expression on our faces. Khol paused to study our reactions before continuing. “You might need to go back in order for your Seer gifts to work.”
“But why would being here make that much of a difference? There are gates all over the world. I’m sure there’s bound to be one close enough,” I said, still a bit confused.
“We exist in your world and yet . . . not. Dragon magic helps to keep us concealed here. You simply may not be strong enough to receive visions through the barrier yet.” Khol shrugged.
“So being cut off from our other sides has allowed the Dragon magic to be pushed to the forefront,” Bryn stated as the pieces began to click into place.
Khol nodded. “Exactly.”
“So what are we going to do?” Going back to all the problems I left behind seemed like a horrible idea, and yet I knew it was my responsibility to fight the alien creatures simply because I was the only one getting visions about them.
“We’re going to have to go back, aren’t we?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.
“I’m afraid so,” Khol responded through gritted teeth.
Fabulous.
20
After a lot of discussion—okay, argument—it was decided that our little band of misfits; made up of myself, Bryn, Khol, Jeremy, Jenna, and Macon, who seemed unwilling to leave Jenna’s side, were going to venture back to Pittsburgh. The primary goals were to see if I could get any helpful premonitions/visions and to see what had happened there since Khol had taken me on an involuntary vacation to Dragon Land. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that the fallout of my leaving was going to be more than I was going to be able to handle.
Khol and Macon shifted us into the quiet dark of my parents’ backyard—funny how I had already stopped thinking of it as my own backyard. It was early evening, and yet my parents’ house, along with all the neighboring houses, was silent and dark—uncharacteristically so. I swallowed the sudden rise of bile in my throat and slid my hand into Bryn’s large warm one. “Something’s not right,” I whispered into the night.
“I don’t sense anyone around,” Khol muttered in response.
“I don’t feel any weird energies though. That’s something,” Jeremy said with hope, although tension was still evident in his voice.
Dizziness swept through my head, and my vision blurred, just as pain abruptly tore through my skull, whisking me up and out of my body like every other time I’d had visions before. What I saw was like watching several different channels on T.V., but all at the same time. Most of it was too convoluted for me to make sense of except for one scene, one that threatened to rip my heart right out of my chest.
Cops wearing black S.W.A.T. gear battered in the front door of my parents’ house, taking mine and Bryn’s families by surprise. I was guessing they had been there discussing both of our disappearances. Bryn’s father was the first to react with his superior Guardian reflexes and abilities, and then everything happened so fast, or maybe I just couldn’t focus on it properly. In the end, both of our families were led out of the house in handcuffs. Bryn’s father was bleeding from a bullet wound in his arm, but at least he was still alive. I then watched as every family in the neighborhood that had any Seers, Gatekeepers, Guardians, or Speakers in it, was taken away in much the same fashion. And I knew why there were targeted, why they were taken to who knows where: because of me. It was obvious the alien . . . riders felt threatened by the fact that I could see them and have visions about them, so they were trying to remove all of us. Until I had tried to interfere with the school shooting, my kind hadn’t even registered on the Riders’ radar, but now things had changed.
I slammed back into my body and found myself in Bryn’s arms. He looked down at me, his face pinched with concern, and his eyes churned with dark emotion. “What did you see?”
“Nothing good,” Khol answered for me. “Her visions were jumbled and more confusing than normal, but I was able to understand the gist of what she saw.”
I fought the impulse to demand how Khol was still able to share my visions with me since I was bonded with Bryn, especially because a small part of me was glad for his deciphering help. I’d be damned if I had to figure it all out myself.
But Bryn wasn’t above demanding answers from Khol. “How did you share her vision? If anyone should be sharing her visions, shouldn’t it be her Anam Cara? Which is me.”
Khol gave Bryn a feral smile. “Yes, well, it seems your Anam Cara bond doesn’t translate out here where your Guardian and Seer sides take dominance.”
“Hey, yeah,” Jenna piped up. “Those tattoos are gone from your necks. Weird.”
“What?” I exclaimed, twisting to try and see the back of Bryn’s neck, which was now completely unmarked. I reached my right index finger up to trace the spot where it should have been. A sadness seeped into me despite everything else that was going on.
Bryn caught my hand and tipped my face back so he could look into my eyes. His voice went low and gruff as he spoke. “I told you before, the marks don’t matter, and we don’t need them to know we belong to each other.” It was just with the marks, it somehow seemed to guarantee that we would be together. Without them, it felt like we were right back where we started.
I fought back tears that were welling in my eyes. Bryn was right, and besides, how shallow was I that I was worried about the lack of some stupid marks on the back of our necks when our families had essentially been kidnapped? I bit my lip and turned towards Khol. “Why were they taken? I mean, what reason was given for S.W.A.T. to take them? Obviously, it’s the aliens that wanted them, but they came in using the police and government under the guise of something else—what was it?”
“Suspicion of plotting terrorist acts. They have fake intel, of course, that I’m sure also implies all the families here were part of a cult.”
I felt Bryn tense, and for the second time since I’d known Jenna, she was temporarily rendered speechless. Jeremy spoke first. “Explain,” he said.
“They took our families—those things, those alien riders—by using the government and law enforcement as their tools. And who would stop and question them? Once all of our kind are out of the way, there won’t be anyone to stop them. They’ll take over—they’ll rule this world just like they did all the others before this one. Oh God—what do we do now?” I covered my face with my hands and slumped against Bryn. What could we do? Who was going to believe us? It was probably all over the news about the cult that was planning major terrorist activities. In fact, the whole situation could serve as a double whammy—they’d probably “find” all kinds of weapons that this cult had in their possession so the gun control legislation had a firmer platform to stand on. “Oh no, you can’t trust
anyone, gun control is for your own safety, fellow Americans.” And then there would be nothing left to use to protect ourselves from our “protectors.” “What do we do?” I mumbled into my hands.
“First things first.” Khol took on an authoritative tone. “We need to get all of you out of here. Just because no one is here now, or spotted us yet, doesn’t mean it’s safe to be out in the open like this.”
Macon strode forward, as if by silent command. “Where should we take them? P.J. needs to be able to get her visions but also be somewhere safe.”
“Don’t state the obvious,” Khol snapped.
Macon bowed apologetically and averted his eyes. “I’m merely thinking out loud, my Lord.”
Khol spoke as if Macon hadn’t said anything. “We’ll set up temporary quarters in the caves just outside the boundary line of the spells covering my land. My—” Khol stopped and eyed me warily. “P.J. will be able to get her visions, and you’ll be safe there until we can figure out something better.”
“We have to save them!” I exclaimed. “I’m not going back into hiding and leave them to fend for themselves. I’m the reason they were taken to begin with.”
Bryn tightened his grip around me. “They’re obviously being kept alive because of you—us. They’ll probably offer them in some kind of exchange for you.”
My eyes pricked with tears again. “Because of my visions.” Yep, and to think just a short time ago, when I hadn’t yet come into my Seer abilities, I had prayed and wished for visions to come to me. Now look at the trouble they had caused. “Be careful what you wish for” was really hitting home for me. “I wish I’d never started getting visions. I wish we could go back to the way it was before.” I turned my head and buried my face in Bryn’s chest, not wanting to deal with any of this.
“But then who would protect our world? Who would know the truth?” Bryn said gently before kissing the top of my head. “Ignorance isn’t always bliss, Peej.”
