Hidden Gates

by D T Dyllin

  “His behavior is beginning to concern me,” Khol said softly, worry etching his sculpted face.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, even though I had a feeling I knew exactly what he was talking about. I absentmindedly brought my hand up to touch the wound on my neck from Bryn’s bite.

  “I think you know what I’m referring to,” Khol murmured as he brought his hand up to move mine off of my wound. “You should let me disinfect and bandage that. It could scar.”

  I frowned. “I think that’s what he wants—for it to scar.” I looked up to study Khol’s face as his eyebrows arched up to practically skim his hairline.

  “Did he say that? That he wants it to scar?”

  “Yeah, actually he did. He said something inside of him felt happy that he had marked me, and that the thought of me scarring from it made him feel almost ecstatic.”

  Understanding passed over Khol’s face before he schooled his features to appear neutral. “Mmm-hmm,” was all he responded with.

  “Oh, don’t give me that. I know that you know what’s going on now. I saw it in your face. You’re not the only one good at reading people, Khol.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared up at him as his lips quirked up slightly at the corners.

  “Very well. It seems that his Dragon side is struggling with the disappearance of your Anam Cara mark. He feels the need to mark you in some way—any way—to satisfy his Dragon half. We need to figure out a solution before his Dragon side loses control and he does something reckless.”

  A knot of worry twisted in my stomach. “Like what? What could he do?”

  “Come.” Khol motioned for me to follow him. “We will talk more as I dress your wound.”

  I brought my hand up instinctually to cover Bryn’s mark on me. “No!” I exclaimed. “Just leave it alone.” I couldn’t fight back the unexplained panic that rose up in me at the thought of losing Bryn’s mark.

  Khol stopped short to study me, and I backed up a few steps while trying to get my breathing under control. “It appears your Dragon side is having some issues as well.”

  “No, it’s not,” I snapped. I was angry that Bryn had bitten and marked me, wasn’t I? I mean, wasn’t that why I had stormed out of our room to go check on Jenna to begin with?

  Khol quirked one auburn eyebrow at me. “You could have fooled me.”

  I exhaled loudly and slumped in on myself. I supposed there was no point in trying to deny it. “Fine. Bryn and I are both having some . . . issues. So what do we do about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Khol stated flatly.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” My voice began to climb octaves. “You’re like this ancient Dragon, so you have to have run across something like this before, right?”

  “In actuality, I have never, in fact, run across a situation even remotely resembling your and Bryn’s.”

  “What?” I asked incredulously. “How is that even possible?”

  “Most half-blooded Dragons end up with full-blooded Dragons, and that pretty much solves the problem. With the two of you, only time will reveal the solution—if there is one.” Khol turned his face away from me when he said the last part, causing my pulse to speed up.

  “Explain,” I squeaked.

  “If you had remained bonded with . . . me for instance . . .” Khol paused long enough so I didn’t miss the longing in his eyes. “Then my magic would have been strong enough to sustain the Anam Cara marks for the both of us, until and if yours matured enough to be up for the task. As it is now with the two of you, neither one of you has fully matured into your powers, and it appears that outside of my realm, your human magic is more dominant than your Dragon. It could take some time for them to balance out. In the meantime, the Dragons inside of you are struggling to clarify the Anam Cara bond. Out here, it’s as if you haven’t been fully bonded yet. It’s why the marks didn’t appear the first time you were together sexually, but only appeared when in my realm.”

  My heart was pounding in my head. “So theoretically, out here, our Anam Cara bond is still in danger.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” I gulped. “That means that some other Dragon could still force me to be his Dragon mate.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” Khol stated firmly as he stepped forward and tipped my chin back so he could look me full in the eyes. “You have chosen, and I won’t let someone take that away from you.”

  “Take your hands off of her,” Bryn growled from behind me. “I’ve heard about enough. I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work. She has chosen—and she belongs to me.” Bryn seemed to take up more space than he normally did, and as I turned to face him, I swore that his eyes flashed a bright Dragon blue. It happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure if I had imagined it.

  “Bryn—Khol was just trying to help. He was—”

  Bryn bore down on me, and when he was close enough, he swept me up in his arms. “He was trying to help himself to you is what he was trying to do,” he snarled. “He was trying to take away my mark.”

  I looked up pleadingly into Bryn’s face as he moved swiftly back towards our room with me in his arms. “Bryn, please.” And that time when his eyes flashed bright Dragon blue, I was sure I wasn’t imagining things. I swiveled my head around to peer at Khol over Bryn’s shoulder, and when I turned my pleading eyes towards him, he took a step back and raised his hands as if to say he wasn’t getting involved. I scowled at him, letting him know it was a little too late for that, but he simply shrugged and disappeared. Typical. “Bryn, you acting like this is completely unacceptable. I feel like you’re dragging me back to your cave by my hair.” I ground my teeth in anger when he didn’t even dignify me with a response. I smacked at his chest. “Put me down. Now.”

  When we made it back to our room, Bryn deposited me gently on our bed and backed away from me slowly. His face was a mixture of anger and torment, making him appear much older than his eighteen years. “I’m sorry. Again.” He spun around and punched the wall with all his might, causing bits of rock to rain down on him. “You just have to stay away from him—at least for now—until we get this figured out.” His shoulders rose and fell as he tried to get his breathing under control. “It’s just everytime I see you with him, I can’t stop myself from losing it, Peej. I want to kill him. No joke—actually rip him limb from limb.”

  Much to my shame, I started to cry. Huge racking sobs tore at my body, and I curled into a ball and hugged myself in the middle of the bed. I was trying to be strong—really, I was—but everything was such a mess. Our families had been kidnapped by crazy aliens hellbent on taking over our world, we’d been forced to go into hiding and drop out of school, Bryn was acting like some sort of overly possessive caveman—I didn’t know who I was any more. I was not currently acting like the new tough me that I so desperately wanted to be—and, and I hated my new hair! Things couldn’t get much worse.

  Bryn came and scooped up the little ball that was me and held me in his arms as he stroked my hair. “Things will get better, I promise, Peej.” He chuckled dryly. “Because they can’t really get all that much worse.”

  “Bryn, we just don’t have time to figure out all of our Dragon bullshit right now, not with everything else that’s going on.” I sobbed into his shirt.

  “Yeah, I know,” Bryn said reassuringly. “It’ll work out. I swear it will.” And yet the old feeling that I used to get that just because Bryn promised me something, it would come true wasn’t there anymore. I knew he would do everything in his power to keep his promise to me, just like he always had, but somewhere along the line I had begun to doubt him. None of it was his fault—after all, he was human . . . mostly—I just wished I still believed anything was possible just because he said it was. I guess that meant I was growing up. Growing up sucks.

  “Please do not
tell me this weak sniveling child is the P.J. you chose over me.” A girl’s voice I didn’t recognize asked sharply from the open door of our room.

  “Nala?” Bryn said with surprise. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Why the hell do females keep referring to me as a child? I lifted my tearstained face from Bryn’s shoulder and blinked away the blur from my eyes. I inhaled sharply and wiped at my face self-consciously because in our doorway stood a friggin’ supermodel, or at least someone who looked like one. She was at least my height, if not taller, with the long, lean muscles of an athlete. She wore black leather pants that were molded to her body, and a matching black leather bustier. Her hair hung long, black, and silky halfway down her back, and her eyes were almost the same bright blue as Bryn’s—except they glowed. Dragon, I realized belatedly. She was absolutely gorgeous, and if I wasn’t mistaken, Bryn knew her. I turned my face questioningly towards his and saw that surprise was still the dominant emotion displayed on his, so I decided to take the lead, despite my current emotional breakdown.

  “And you are?” I sat up and arched my brows at the girl.

  She crossed her arms over her—yes, of course—more ample than my own bosom, and gave me a haughty sneer. “I don’t have to answer to you. Bryn knows me.”

  I fought back the urge to say something snarky, and I turned back to Bryn instead. “Well?” I said with annoyance. “Care to fill me in on the random Dragon girl who seems to know you and that I don’t know.” He had to have met her when he was away. There was no other explanation. My stomach knotted at the thought. And then her words from when she first appeared came back to me . . . “Bryn?” His name held all of my unspoken questions, and when I saw the look on his face I knew. I just knew. “Oh my God.” I stood, and my hand fluttered to my mouth. “I told you—but you didn’t tell me. How could you not tell me?”

  “Peej.” Bryn reached for me, anguish in his eyes—and guilt. There was definitely guilt there, too.

  “You let me babble on and on about how awful I felt about what happened with Khol and Jeremy while you were away and—” That’s when it fully dawned on me. With everything that had been going on, I had absolutely no idea what Bryn had been up to when he was away—hell, I didn’t even know where he’d been. “And you just kept saying not to worry about it, that none of it mattered because we’re together now.” Anger began to course through my system. “Oh God—how could I be so stupid. You just didn’t want to tell me what happened—or who happened while you were gone.”

  “Her hair isn’t even really black, is it? She’s not even a Black Dragon. What is she, Bryn?” The bitch Dragon’s scornful voice sliced into my head like a red-hot poker. I whirled around and faced down the bitch who thought she was going to steal Bryn from me. Sure, I was currently angrier than I ever had been with him, but who was I to call the kettle black? In the end, I didn’t want anyone but him, and no stupid bimbo Black Dragon was going to lay one finger on him.

  “I didn’t even know what I was before—or her, or you. I just—”

  “Shut up, Bryn,” I hissed. I was, for the first time, mentally reaching for my fire, and even though I was still weak, I could feel it bubbling up inside of me. I was going to fry this bitch until there was nothing left of her. I was going to make her pay with her life for what she tried to do.

  “Oh shit!” I heard the bitch exclaim just as I felt the flames burst to life in my palms.

  “Peej, no!” Bryn exclaimed as he rushed towards me.

  But before I could do any real damage, Khol appeared in front of me with a strange look on his face, and he grabbed my palms, essentially dousing all hopes of me killing the bitch Dragon. “What’s going on?” he asked, much too calmly for my taste.

  “Did you sleep with her?” I demanded of Bryn with a white-hot fury I’d never felt before. “Did you?” I belatedly realized I hadn’t passed out after Khol had taken my flames. Go me. But I had little time for patting myself on the back. I needed answers from Bryn, and I needed them now.

  “I would never—” Bryn started but was cut off by bitch Dragon’s high-pitched voice.

  “She’s red?! She’s a fucking crazy Red Dragon?”

  “Are you actually standing there openly insulting me and my faction, when we both could strike you down with barely any effort at all?” Khol’s voice was calm, but I could feel the anger rolling off of him in waves. “What are you even doing here? I don’t recall issuing an invitation to any Dubh Arachs.”

  “I came for Bryn,” bitch Dragon said, with false bravado because I could see the fear in her eyes.

  “I don’t want you here, Nala,” Bryn said. “What happened between us didn’t mean anything to me. I love P.J., and I always will.”

  “You don’t love her. She’s a Red Dragon—you’re black.” She tapped her leather-clad leg impatiently as if it explained everything.

  “He’s mine!” I screeched as I struggled to get to her, but Khol was a lot stronger than I ever hoped to be.

  “Give her to me,” Bryn growled at Khol as he stepped in to take me from him. His eyes flashed Dragon blue again, belying his true feelings.

  “Don’t touch me!” I hissed at Bryn, and even though I was still within the confines of Khol’s arms, my flames were pushing to erupt from me again. I was that angry.

  “It would be best if you left her to me for the time being,” Khol informed Bryn.

  But he wasn’t having any of it. “I said to take your hands off of my Anam Cara and give her to me.”

  “Anam Cara?” Bitch Dragon said with shock. “I don’t see any marks.”

  “It’s complicated,” Khol stated dryly.

  “Maybe I should go—for now.” Bitch Dragon eyed Bryn with a longing that set my blood on fire, which caused actual flames to burst up from my palms again.

  “If you come anywhere near him, I’ll burn you alive,” I seethed. And in that moment, I absolutely meant it. I had attempted to take my own life for Bryn—I wouldn’t hesitate to take another’s if they stood in our way.

  Bryn didn’t seem to care about any of that anymore though. His only goal was to get me away from Khol. He crowded closer to me as Khol desperately attempted to get me under control.

  “Give her to me,” Bryn repeated, this time with utter coldness. I could sense he was on the verge of snapping. Fabulous. That would make two of us.

  I threw my head back and screamed in frustration and fury. Raw power like I’d never experienced before rushed through me, but only for a second, one painful second, before everything went completely black.

  23

  A familiar song being hummed by a familiar voice lilted into my ears as I struggled to wake up. “Mom?” I murmured as my eyes finally fluttered open.

  “Hi, peanut,” my mom said, smiling as she leaned over to touch my face while I lay in bed—my bed, or rather, my old bed in my old room that I grew up in.

  “I’m not really here, am I? This is a dream, isn’t it?” I asked my mom as I let the sadness that she wasn’t really here wash over me.

  “No, I’m not really here, and neither are you. But I am communicating with you through your dreams. I’m asleep where I am now as well.”

  I sat up and eyed my mom keenly. “Yeah, so we are kind of really here then.” I smiled at her before tears began to slide down my face, and she took me in her arms. “I’m so sorry. All of this is my fault. Are you okay? Is Daddy? You guys know I didn’t really mean all that stuff I said, right? I love you both so much.”

  “Honey, we know, and we both love you very much, too. I hope you’ll always know that.”

  There was a note of sadness in my mom’s voice that caught my attention. “Mom?” I sat back and looked into her face, which had suddenly grown very serious.

  “You need to listen to me, peanut. I don’t know how much time I
have here.”

  “Okay,” I said with unease.

  “They’re going to kill us. Exterminate all of us.”

  “No!” I gasped. “We’re going to save you! We’re coming for you! We just need a plan!”

  Defeat was etched into every plain on my mom’s face. “You mustn’t try. The only reason I’m able to come to you now is because I think they’re letting me. They expect you to come for us—it’s all a trap—and that’s why you can’t.”

  “No,” I said with determination. “We’re going to save you. None of the rest matters.”

  “Our world matters and protecting it still does. You and your friends will be the last hope this dimension has. If they kill you, then this world will die, too. You can’t let that happen. This is what we’re here for—this is what we’ve all trained for all these years—even though no one ever thought it’d really happen. I’m so sorry we’ve failed you, so sorry all of this falls on you.” My mom’s face crumpled as she fought to stave off tears of her own.

  “Mom, no—”

  She brought her index finger up to silence me. “Peanut, please, you need to let me finish. I need to say these things to you.” She was saying goodbye to me, I realized. My mom was saying goodbye to me before she would be taken away from me and murdered by the alien riders. Tears flowed more freely down my face, but I nodded so she could continue. “I’m proud of you, honey, so proud. And I know things aren’t turning out for you the way you had hoped. But you have good people surrounding you—people who love you—don’t forget that. And Bryn—I’m so sorry for everything your father and I did—you’re going to need him now more than ever. Do you love him? Truly love him?”