“What needed to be done,” Khol responded coldly.
Yeah, okay. I could tell by Khol’s face that there would be no arguing with him over this. If I had wanted it to go differently then maybe I shouldn’t have stayed in bed with Bryn and been there to protect Cliff’s body instead. “Did you get any useful information at least?”
“Nothing exceptionally useful.” Khol strode over to stand inches away from Cliff, who flinched away from him with fear. “The time for questioning is over.”
“Okaaay,” I drawled out. “So why am I here then?”
“We need to figure out how to remove a Rider from his host.” Khol waved his hand over Cliff’s head as if I should have known that. “Here is the perfect candidate for us to experiment on.”
“What?” I was so not using poor Cliff as a guinea pig.
“Would you rather use Jenna?” Khol asked as his mouth pushed into a thin line.
“No! Of course not . . . It’s just . . .” I shook my head with dismay. “. . . Poor Cliff.”
“Every war has collateral damage. You, as a queen, should get used to that fact.”
“And I guess Cliff is a better choice than Jenna for that,” I mumbled to myself. I lifted my head and met his steel gaze square on. “What do I need to do?”
“What else can we try?” I ground out with frustration. We had spent—Khol, Bryn, and myself—the last couple of hours trying to force the Rider out of Cliff’s body with everything we could think of. I just didn’t understand it. My birth mother said it was possible, and she said I was the one to do it . . . But how? When neither Bryn nor Khol responded to my question, I repeated it with more vehemence. “What else can we try?”
“I don’t know,” Khol replied with exhaustion as he scrubbed a hand down his face. “I just don’t know.” Bryn just remained silent as he stared at Cliff, his dragon blue eyes blazing brightly.
“Well, we can’t just give up!” My voice climbed a few octaves.
“No one’s giving up,” Khol grumbled. “Maybe we just need a break, to take some time to think about this.
“I want that thing out of Jenna now!” I would not cry again. I would not cry again. Right.
Bryn put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side. “I know,” he murmured as he brushed his soft lips against my temple. “I know.”
“Fine. We’ll take a break.” I stood, breaking all contact with Bryn and stalked toward the door. I was letting my anger take hold in me so I wouldn’t feel the anguish of not having the answer to save Jenna yet. But I would find it if it was the last thing I did.
“My lord!” Macon burst through the door nearly knocking me over. “We’re under attack!”
“The Riders?” Khol asked but it sounded more like a statement.
“Yes.”
“How did they breach our wards?” Khol swore under his breath. “Someone had to have led them here.”
I was supposed to be queen but I didn’t have the experience and scope of knowledge to deal with this kind of thing, so I looked to Khol for answers. “What should we do?” I tried to hide the panic in my voice and failed miserably.
Khol was already leaning down to untie an unconscious Cliff when he responded. “We retreat, and re-gather ourselves. We have something they obviously want very badly, but we’re not in a position to use it to our full advantage when we’re on the defensive.”
I had no idea what that meant exactly. “So we run away?”
Khol grimaced. “I would prefer a different choice of words, but yes.”
“We need to bring Jenna with us!” I ran from the room, not waiting for anyone anyone’s response.
“Peej!” Bryn was close at my heels. “I’ll help you!”
I nodded my head at him but didn’t turn to acknowledge him. I was on a mission. I had to get to Jenna before the skeevy Riders did. Just as I made it to the door of Jenna’s prison, Jeremy came barreling out with her slung over his shoulder, unconscious. “What’s the plan?” he blurted out as soon as he saw us.
“Well, you already have the first part covered. I guess the next step is to get the hell out of Dodge,” Bryn answered for me.
“We’ll use a Gate,” Jeremy said and he turned and led the way down the long corridor.
Anxiety built up in my mind. What if we didn’t make it? Pushing my worry down I sped along quickly behind Jeremy, hand in hand with Bryn. I only stumbled a few times trying to keep up before Bryn scooped me up in his arms. I didn’t bother to protest because I knew he was right. We’d move faster with him carrying me.
We finally made it out of one of the back exits and scurried toward the forest and to where Jeremy would open the Gate and escape route. Strange how we hadn’t seen one single Rider on the way out. In fact, we hadn’t run into anyone on the way out. I hardly had time to register my sudden feelings that something was wrong before we burst into the clearing . . . and came face to face with a horde of Riders.
We stopped short just as Khol appeared beside us with Macon, who was carrying a still unconscious Cliff. It was evident in that moment that our little crew had run straight into a trap.
“Give me my son,” Senator Bill Wexington snarled.
“Nala,” I felt Bryn growl. And sure enough she was standing a little bit behind our dear Senator.
“You set us up,” Macon chimed in angrily. “We were never under attack.”
Nala sneered at Macon. “No. But I convinced everyone that we were and all the rest of your allies high tailed it out of here. You’re all alone now.”
“Why?” Bryn demanded, his question obviously directed at Nala.
Her face softened when she shifted her gaze to his. “We belong together, can’t you see that? I knew it from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
“She’s our queen. You can’t kill her,” Khol snarled at Nala.
“Why not?” she screeched sounding like a child throwing a temper tantrum. “We’ve gone all these years without a queen, we can manage without one again. I would have been happy to let her live, but she couldn’t keep her hands off him.”
I tightened my arms around Bryn possessively, too shocked to feel the full strength of my anger at Nala for what she’d done.
“Enough!” the Rider that was Senator Bill Wexington interjected. “You can work all of that out after I get my son back.”
“Not going to happen,” Khol said, his voice burning with menace. “Not unless you agree to leave our world.”
The Senator’s lips curled up in what was supposed to be a smile, at least I thought. “We’ll see.” He waved his hand and my mouth dropped open when I saw who stepped forward from behind some of the Riders. It was a Gatekeeper, and it had a Rider inside of him. It was Evan Thompson, the star of my long ago fantasies back before all of this had begun with the Riders. Holy Shit! He began moving in a similar fashion that I’d seen Jeremy move before to open a Gate. Although in my opinion, Jeremy did it with much more grace. Yep . . . because that matters right now. When he finished and the Gate shimmered open to the right of us, more Riders stepped through. “As you were saying?” the Senator asked as he tilted his head at Khol. I felt Khol’s power snap through the air as he readied for attack. Bryn set me on my feet and he too tensed for what would happen next. I didn’t have to look at Macon and Jeremy to know that they were doing the same. We wouldn’t go down without a fight. “Just give us my son and we’ll leave you alone.” The Senator tried using a more placating tone. “We have no interest in the affairs of dragons. Just the humans.”
“I want Bryn,” Nala demanded. “You promised if I helped you that you would get rid of her.” She raised her index finger and pointed at me.