The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (69 page)

Jeremy wrapped his arms around me in a comforting hug. “Don’t say that … don’t even think it. It’s not hopeless … nothing is completely hopeless. Just don’t give up, okay? Don’t give up.”

“But what if I already have?” I whispered into the soft fabric of Jeremy’s t-shirt.

A large warm hand ran down the back of my hair, one that was decidedly not Jeremy’s since both of his arms were still wrapped tightly around me. “Leave her with me.” Khol said in a low cajoling tone. And as Jeremy relinquished possession of me I went from feeling like a small child to a baby being passed from one adult’s care to another’s.

When Khol’s embrace engulfed me instead of Jeremy’s my skin felt the sudden jolt of Khol’s powers, and my body reacted instantly, an acute awareness of him settling into every inch of my skin. For the second time in twenty-four hours I thought about how much I hated the part of me that could still react to Khol in the way any female dragon most certainly would. My body was a traitor completely unaligned with my heart.  My need to feel a man’s touch should have been vanquished with Bryn’s dying breath … and not just any man … but Khol.

“Khol,” I said his name with warning.

“Shhh … just let me hold you.”

“But it’s never just holding me with you, is it? It’s never
just
anything with us.”

Khol’s chest rose and fell as he inhaled deeply, and I sensed he was weighing what he would say to me next. “That in itself should tell you something.” He inhaled deeply a few more times signaling whatever he was about to say would probably be something I wouldn’t like. “I know you want it to be his, I’m not deluding myself on that subject, but what if the child you are carrying is mine? What will you do if it’s mine?”

I was right; I didn’t much like what he was saying … at all. “No—I can’t—I just can’t even think about any of that … not now.”

“Then when?” Khol’s voice wavered with emotion.

“I don’t know.” I croaked, trying dearly not to cry. “Would you really leave me?” I’m not sure where the words came from but they just slipped from my lips.
Hormonal much?

Khol pulled me away from his chest so he could meet my eyes; his were shining as bright as any bonfire. “I was angry before—upset. I would never …
could
never leave you. It’s not in my genetic makeup as a male dragon to leave the one I love, you should know that by now.”

I nodded numbly at him, unable to find any kind of response in words. Did the utter agony that the thought of him leaving me caused mean more than I was letting myself admit? Probably … but of course I wasn’t going to let myself admit that either. There had been a time when I had contemplated choosing Khol over Bryn, but then again, magical means had been used to strengthen my bond with Khol. A bond that had to exist to begin with to be strengthened, I hated to admit.

“I’m not Bryn.” Khol added, causing white-hot anger to race through my veins.

“I know that!” I screamed as I pulled away from him. “What the hell is that even supposed to mean? As if I could forget and confuse the two of you?”

Khol’s illuminated eyes met mine steadily. “Because he left you. I won’t.” He continued to stare into my eyes. “I’ll never leave you, no matter what I say. Bryn left you even though he said he never would.”

“Shut up!” I screeched. “You have no right to say such things!”

“You mean the truth? I’ve never spoken anything but the truth to you, regardless of whether or not you choose to believe it.”

My fire magic erupted from my hands and coursed up my arms. “Stay back!” I yelled instinctively.

Khol pulled me into his arms without fear, my flames causing no more harm to him than they did to me. “You can’t burn me. And even if you could, I would walk through the flames of hell just to hold you.”

His words doused my flames and the anger that went with them. “I hate you.” I said without any real emotion as I sagged into Khol, my head leaning on his chest.

“And even if that were true, I still wouldn’t leave you, my little Queen.”

The rollercoaster ride of my emotions, combined with the burst of fire magic left me feeling drained and dizzy. My eyes slid shut against their will. Khol lifted me up and placed me back on my bed, covering me with my comforter. His heated lips skimmed my forehead briefly just as sleep pulled me under.

“There has to be something else that we haven’t tried yet.” Jeremy said with desperation laced into every note of his voice.

“I don’t understand, my birth mother said that there was a way to save her—a way to evict the Riders from their human hosts. Why can’t we figure it out?” I ground my teeth together in frustration. “We need to figure it out.”

“Give it up.” The Rider inside of Jenna sneered. “I’m here to stay. The only way you’re getting rid of me is if you kill her, and I know that’s not going to happen.”

I bit my cheek and turned away from Jenna and the Rider inside of her. Lately the Rider seemed to have more and more control of Jenna’s body. I hoped and prayed it wasn’t a sign she was giving up.

“Where’s Khol?” Jeremy demanded. “Why isn’t he here helping us?”

“He’s searching through some ancient archives of some sort, hoping to find some information that might help us.”

“Yeah? Does he think he might know of something?” Jeremy asked, temporarily mollified that Khol might have an idea of where to find an answer.

“I hope so.” I muttered, moving towards the door on Jenna and her stowaway’s makeshift prison.

Jeremy didn’t follow me out of the room. He was more of a glutton for punishment than I was, apparently. I’d given up on trying to actually talk to the real Jenna, and my visits were now limited to attempting to remove the Rider from her body … so short torture sessions really. I was determined to not lose Jenna too, but a part of me felt like I already had.

“My Queen.”

Startled by Macon’s voice, I looked up to see him standing in the dim lighting of the narrow hallway, worry in his eyes. I raised my hand to my chest as it thrummed a faster rhythm. “Macon, I didn’t see you there.”

“How is she?”

I bit my lip and studied him for a moment before responding. Did Macon love Jenna? I knew he had deep feelings for her, and that he cared about her, but as a male dragon, if he loved her, really and truly loved her, he would never love anyone else. I hoped for Macon’s sake he didn’t. “She’s the same.”

His head dropped, and his vibrant red hair fell into his face. “There has to be a way—”

“We’ll find it. I promise.” A sense of determination and hope that I wasn’t really sure I actually felt anymore vibrated in my voice.

“Okay.” Macon croaked before he disappeared dragon style.

I heaved a huge sigh and continued my way down the corridor. I didn’t really know where I was going but I knew I wanted to put some distance between Jenna’s Rider and myself. I idly wondered how Khol’s search was going, and what he was doing.

I staggered and gasped as my vision blurred only to refocus on a completely different scene. My hand was touching the cool stonewall in the corridor where I knew my body still was … but my mind was trying to supply me with an answer to my question. Khol sat at a large wooden table covered with papers, scrolls and a ton of dust. As he finished with the parchment he was currently reading, he tossed it aside and ran his hands through his long loose hair in obvious frustration. It wasn’t often that Khol wore his hair down, in fact one of the only times I’d ever seen it free was …

“What are you doing?” My voice shook with nerves as he dipped his head to hover where his fingers had been minutes before. “You said touching and kissing only.”

His eyes, completely filled with flames now, met mine as they looked up the line of my body. “I didn’t say where I would kiss you.”

Understanding skittered through my mind, pushing past the shock his words caused. I hadn’t even considered … I just assumed he would continue to use his fingers. “Oh God!” I screamed as he kissed me long and deep in a way that I’d never experienced before. Bryn had wanted to do this for me, but I had been shy, despite everything else we’d done. And boy was that a mistake … I never knew what I was missing.

Khol’s dark auburn head moving between my legs was erotic in a way I never would have imagined. His shoulder length hair had fallen out of the gumband securing it at the nape of his neck, and the silky strands tickled my thighs while he focused on giving me pleasure. The man definitely knew what he was doing, of course he’d had plenty of time to perfect his technique on who knew how many partners, a fact I really didn’t want to contemplate at the moment. I clutched at the bed sheets, finding that not enough, I arched up and dug my nails into Khol’s shoulders, which caused him to practically purr like a cat, after all, he was treating me like a saucer of milk. I fell back onto the bed, my muscles coiling tight, my heels digging into his back, and then his power pushed its way into me to heighten everything I was feeling times twenty. It was too much, all just too much, and I erupted into a million pieces of pleasure all the while screaming Khol’s name until my voice gave out, followed by my body. I swear I didn’t see anything for a few seconds after my collapse.

“That was—” I started, after managing to find my voice.

“I’m not done yet.” Khol growled before starting back in on me.

“No!” I screamed in alarm, meaning it and yet not. Could somebody die from pleasure? I was pretty sure I was going to find out very soon.

I blinked away the erotic memory and mentally cursed myself for letting my mind even wander in that direction. All my new Queenly dragon powers needed was a hint of me wanting to see something like that, and because I still couldn’t control them, the next thing I know I’m getting whisked away to be shown whatever I was thinking about. And yet, no matter how hard I concentrated on wanting an answer to the Rider dilemma I got nothing.

My skin prickled in awareness signaling Khol’s eminent arrival. When he appeared in front of me, my face flushed at having to see him so soon after my current vision/memory of us together in such an intimate situation. When his fire backlit eyes met mine with heat, I knew that somehow he had felt my vision. “But how? Our connection was broken—”

“It appears things are changing … again.” He said gruffly as he stalked towards me.

“Khol, no.” I rasped breathily, my body yearning to betray my heart and mind again, although I was learning to expect that from it.

“I just want to touch you, hold you—you never complained when you allowed me before.” A knowing male smile tipped up the corners of Khol’s lips.

I was backed into a corner … literally … and I had nowhere else to go. If only I had control over my dragon shifting power I could just pop out of here, but just like the rest of my powers they didn’t seem to accept that I was the one in control and not them. “Khol—”

The rest of my words where swallowed up by Khol’s fierce kiss. His tongue breached the defense of my lips and teeth to deftly take control of my mouth, and I drank down the spicy unique flavor of him with an almost reverence. Every time I tasted him it was like he aged closer to perfection just a little bit more. I let out a small moan as his power completely enveloped me, seemingly pushing itself into every pore in my body, making me vibrate with sexual tension.

“That’s right my little Queen, give yourself over to me.” Khol rumbled as he broke the kiss to run his talented lips down my jaw and neck.

“You can’t claim me.” I muttered around a moan.

“Not until you want me to.” Khol grated in obvious irritation.

Did he really think it would be that easy? Well, the way that I was currently pressed against his hard body, I suppose I couldn’t really blame him for maybe thinking so. “Khol.” I said in an effort to chastise him.

The familiar weightlessness that accompanied shifting ran through me just before Khol dropped me onto his massive bed. Not giving me time to pause and question what was happening, Khol ripped first my clothes off and then his own.

“No!” I exclaimed with alarm and scurried back on the bed in an effort to escape him.

“I said I wouldn’t claim you—until you want me to—but short of that everything else is on the table.” The flames in his eyes seemed to burn hotter with his words.

“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “Just—no.”

Khol crawled up towards me from the foot of the bed and I found myself admiring the way his muscles rippled with every movement. My eyes dipped briefly between his legs, and when I saw how much he wanted me physically, my body became more pliant even though I wished for it to be otherwise. Khol reached out and grabbed my ankles, pulling me closer to him on the bed, and then he roughly pushed my thighs open, shoving his head between my legs. “This is what you were thinking about, and this is what I’ll give you.”

The past and the present seemed to mingle as Khol’s dark auburn head began moving between my thighs. I arched up and laced my fingers through his hair in an effort to push him away from me, but when he really set in I had no choice but to fall back onto the bed in rapture. And yet, in the recesses of my mind, I realized if I let Khol continue to lead me down this path, he would be inside me, claiming me as his
Anam Cara
before I left his bed.