normal, but then again we hadn’t been together in quite some time and our current need was completely primal. Even still, the familiar feeling of ecstasy began in my center and pushed its way out through my body before I fell to pieces in his arms shouting his name to the world. I heard Bryn call out my name with his own release just before I slipped into darkness.
18
“You don’t look well,” I said, knowing there was no way to tell Bryn that tactfully. “Were you sick or something?” I thought back to the vision that had me so worried about him when he woke up as if from a nightmare covered in a sickly sweat.
“I haven’t been sleeping very well,” Bryn replied as he ran the tips of his fingers down my naked back, eliciting a shudder from me. “But I have a feeling that’s all going to change soon.” I didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling.
I inhaled deeply, letting his delicious scent overwhelm my senses as I lay with my head on his chest, my hand making lazy circles across his skin. “I had a vision about you. I was worried.”
“I’m fine . . . now.”
“So sex is the cure-all for you then?” I asked with a giggle.
“With you it is.” His voice went all dark and seductive on me.
I tried to ignore the things his voice alone did to my insides, and persisted with my line of questioning. “Are you sure? It just feels like something else is going on.”
“Like what?” I could hear the exasperation in his voice. He knew I was like a bulldog when I got something in my head. I’d learned from the best . . . Jenna.
“I don’t know. I just feel . . .” Very conspiracy theory is what I wanted to say. But about what? I guess it went back to when the Riders broke into the compound and shot me. How did they find me so quickly and without any resistance? I just couldn’t shake the underlying feeling that there was a traitor amongst us. But who? “ . . . I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“Who could blame you for being paranoid? With everything that’s been going on lately . . . how the hell did a Rider get into Jenna anyways?” Bryn added one more thing to my list that had me thinking conspiracy theory again. There was something else going on right under my nose, I knew it. If only I could get my powers to work the way I wanted them to, then I’d be able to figure it out.
“Let’s go,” I said, pushing myself up and out of bed. “We have a Rider to question.”
As I bent to pick up what was left of my clothes, I felt Bryn’s body heat behind me as he lifted my hair up off of my neck and kissed where I knew his mate mark had finally sunk all the way into my skin. “Mine,” he murmured as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him.
“Bryn,” I chastised, even though I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in his embrace for just a little bit longer.
“Yes, my queen,” he said, and I could feel his smirk against my bare skin as his tongue darted out to lick the back of my neck this time.
“Bryn, I mean it. I—we have responsibilities. To our world.” My words sobered him up and he let go of me, leaving me to sigh over the loss of his warming touch.
Just as I finished pulling my shirt over my head, Bryn’s door slammed open to reveal, not Khol as I half expected, but his second in command . . . Drake. His face was contorted into a mask of rage as he looked back and forth between Bryn and me. “You just couldn’t stay away from him, could you?” he growled, his eyes flaring brighter. He then looked at me with bewilderment. “Why? Why would you choose him over my lord? You’re our queen, you deserve better than a baby dragon.” And before I had a chance to really process what he was saying, Drake was across the room, pinning Bryn against the wall. “My lord won’t kill you—but I will.”
“NO!” I screamed, moving with speed I didn’t even know I possessed. But before I could reach Bryn and Drake, Khol appeared.
“What the hell is going on?” he bellowed.
Drake immediately released Bryn and dropped to the ground in front of Khol. “I was protecting my lord’s interests,” Drake said, not sounding the least bit sorry. If anything he sounded proud of his actions.
Khol took in Bryn’s half-undressed state as he leaned against the wall gasping for air, and he met my wide eyes with question. “Tell me,” he whispered.
“I—I’ve chosen,” I stammered, my voice not sounding even half as confident as I wanted it to.
“I see,” he responded with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. A huge lump formed in my throat and my stomach knotted up as I waited to see what he would do. I wasn’t worried for Bryn’s safety, not with Khol anyways, because I knew Khol would never do that to me. He would never try to kill Bryn like he had once before, because ultimately it had resulted in my near death. “Drake,” Khol said between gritted teeth with menace, “Explain yourself.”
“I believe I already have,” Drake spoke with his head bowed and his eyes averted to face the ground. “I was protecting my lord’s interests.” His head then snapped up to meet Khol’s dark gaze head on. “Even when my lord wouldn’t do it himself.”
Khol took a step back as shock played across his features. “What have you done?”
“Khol?” I said with uncertainty. I knew I was missing something. What did Drake do besides just try to choke Bryn to death? I had to know. I moved quickly to Drake’s side before anyone could protest and reached out to touch him. I silently willed my powers to cooperate with me. I needed them to show me what I was missing—what Drake had done. I gasped, as I was thrown head long into a vision as soon as my skin made contact with his.
There was so much information, and one revelation after another played out in front of me in quick secession. I only really grasped the major points: Drake arranging for the Riders to kill Bryn. I wasn’t their target at all; Bryn was the one they were aiming for. It seemed Drake was enraged when I had almost lost my life in the process. He knew how it would affect Khol. The herbs Nala was giving me for my morning sickness had a little something extra added in, courtesy of none other than Drake. Before I left he had been putting that little extra something into my food. It was meant to strengthen the bond between Khol and I—Nala knew, of course. She hadn’t given up on having Bryn for herself at all. And Bryn was being . . . poisoned. Slowly . . . very slowly by Drake as a back-up plan. Not only that, but Drake had been giving Bryn herbs in an effort to foster some kind of connection between him and Nala. He had planned to stop the poison as soon as Nala could manage to bed him and gain him as a mate. Nala was not privy to that part of the plan. She never would have gone along with Bryn being poisoned. Bottom line . . . Drake was determined that Khol would have me for his mate. But nowhere did I see that Khol had anything to do with it, or any knowledge even hinting of what Drake was up to.
As the vision faded away, I let go of Drake and dropped to my knees. “We trusted you.”
Khol slid his arms around me and lifted me up before I crumpled fully to the ground. He turned me to face him, his eyes beseeching mine. “What did you see?”
I closed my eyes before responding, knowing what I was about to tell him would only cause him more pain. “Drake is the traitor. He arranged for the Riders to kill Bryn. He’s been putting poison into his food, and he’s been giving me herbs to strengthen the bond between us—so I would choose you.” I thought back to the visions I’d had about Khol after my attempted suicide and when he had been with Shannon. How could I have been so stupid? Those visions were showing me Drake’s reaction to those events. They were a foreshadowing of events to come. “Nala helped.”
I opened my eyes to see Khol’s face constricted into hard lines with the force of his agony. I had just informed him that his most trusted dragon—his second in command—had betrayed him—and to top it all off—my feelings for him had been helped along—pushed by magic. That’s why when I had donned the bracelet from my birth mother cutting off my connection with Khol, my feelings for Bryn had pushed back to the forefront of my heart.
Khol let me go and I crumpled to the ground, my eyes tracking his every move as he stalked toward Drake with deadly intent. Drake raised his chin defiantly at Khol as he came to stand in front of him. “I did it all out of love,” Drake said softly, his voice the only indication of his true fear.
“I know,” Khol said as he reached out with lightening speed and snapped Drake’s neck. I screamed as I
