“Someone ratted us out!” Jenna exclaimed in a manner that let me know this wasn’t the first time she was making this particular accusation.
“No, there must be some other explanation,” Khol stated flatly. “None of our kind, no matter their situation, wishes to see this world destroyed by those things.”
“My lord,” Macon chimed in. “I mean no disrespect in disagreeing with you, but I as well can’t seem to come up with any other explanation besides betrayal of the most egregious kind.”
“What a surprise that you seem to share the opinion of the tiny Speaker who you’re currently bedding,” Drake said with a wry smile. “Your opinion means nothing because it is not of your own making.”
“And you never have a thought that goes against our lord’s,” Macon growled. “He’d do better with a second who could think for himself.”
“Enough,” Khol bellowed. “There are many other issues to discuss besides things that we don’t have the answers to.”
I angled my gaze suspiciously around at the strange faces in the room, and some of the ones I did know. A shudder raced up my spine to think that maybe someone in this very room could have been responsible for me nearly dying and slipping into a coma. I shifted uneasily and pulled up the hood on Bryn’s sweatshirt feeling a little like a child who thought that hiding under the covers was some kind of protection from the boogey man. Silly but effective, because once cloaked in the shadow of the much too large hood, I heaved a sigh of relief as Bryn’s scent swirled around me in a comforting embrace.
“Fine. Let’s get on with it then,” one of the Silver Dragons said with annoyance.
“As Jenna was saying,” Khol started in while he searched for my eyes that were hiding in the protection of Bryn’s hoodie, “we’ve begun using the animals as our aids in order to track down the Riders. We haven’t figured out how to remove them from their hosts yet, at least not without killing them, but we’ll find the answer eventually.”
I inhaled sharply. “So, you’re just killing them?”
“What choice do we have?” Jeremy said from beside me.
“But they’re in so many people. Do you all even comprehend how many of those things came through the Gates?” I swung my head around to look at Khol, even though from the expression on his face I could tell he still couldn’t see mine in the hoodie. He frowned at me though, probably picking up on my tumultuous emotions. “We can’t just kill all of those people.” My stomach clenched at the thought and I doubled over to dry heave, luckily there was nothing left for me to throw up. Suddenly I was surrounded by Khol, Jeremy, and Jenna, all of them vying for my attention so they could help make me feel better. Yeah, that was going to work.
“P.J., you need to take care of yourself, girl. This all can wait,” Jenna said as she pushed back my hoodie and gathered up my hair like any dutiful friend would.
“I’ll help you back to your room,” Jeremy said at the same time as Jenna.
And Khol’s deep voice interwove amongst the chatter my friends were throwing my way. “I’ll take her to her room and make sure she gets what she needs . . . food, water, and maybe more healing.”
“Stop!” I said with annoyance. I was feeling too boxed in by my friends. They needed to back off and leave me alone. “I’m fine. Can we just get this damn meeting over with, please?” I sat back up as the wave of nausea passed and looked at each of my friends with a determined expression in turn.
“Very well.” Khol was the one who finally made the decision and everyone else slowly settled back into their seats for what would turn out to be a very long meeting indeed.
3
I had missed a lot while I slumbered away a month of my life in a coma. Truthfully, it felt like I’d missed a much bigger chunk of time because the alien Riders had really been making good use of it. Maybe they knew somehow that I was temporarily out of commission and they were trying to take advantage of our side’s lack of my visions. Although, I bet they hadn’t counted on Jenna and her furry little squad of spies/assassins. I suppose humans, dragons, and aliens alike all underestimate the true threat a Speaker represents . . . especially a pissed off one with a taste for revenge.
Our little band of misfits—not so little anymore with the addition of the Silver, Black, and Gold factions of dragons to our cause—had really been putting a major hurting on the Riders. Of course, as far as the media was concerned, there was some kind of crazed cult out there committing political assassinations. The Riders were starting to become desperate from what it seemed, tightening their grip on the government and any other place of power they could manage. There was a threat of martial law in the United States, and the equivalent in Europe, along with radical new laws being pushed through that severely limited the rights of the world’s citizens. In a nutshell . . . things had reached DEFCON 1 at warp speed.
I stood leaning against the wall of the shower, letting the hot water beat down on my sore body. I was struggling to fully wrap my mind around everything I’d been told in the meeting, along with the fact that I would have to be facing all of it without Bryn. I mean it wasn’t like he wouldn’t be there fighting for our cause, but he wouldn’t be with me, and therefore it wouldn’t be the same. Nothing would be the same ever again.
With a heavy sigh I reached out and turned off the water to the shower and grabbed a towel to wrap around my middle. I wiped the steam away from the mirror and studied myself. The black dye that I had applied to my hair was completely washed away, along with any remnants of the henna I used to use, which left me with a shoulder length bob of bright strawberry blonde hair. Not only was it a horrendous shade of red, but it practically screamed baby dragon to anyone in the know. I wrapped a second towel around my offensive hair and left the bathroom, trudging slowly back to my room—the room Bryn and I used to share. He’d gathered up most of his things when I was in the meeting and moved to his own room across the compound. The better to avoid me with, apparently.
I was about two steps from my door when I felt the familiar tug of a vision overtake me, lifting me up and out of my body. I struggled to keep myself from collapsing in the hallway and attempted to make it to my room even as I felt the ground come up to meet me.
I stood in the same room I had when I was having my coma induced dream/vision, although this time around I knew with certainty that I was having a vision and not a dream. I still wasn’t sure whether it was from the past, present, or future though . . . Where were some ghosts to fill me in when I needed them? Maybe they only come out to play around Christmas time?
I focused in on the woman dragon with long shining white hair; she was sitting rigidly on the edge of the bed staring blankly into the fire burning nearby her. I got the sense she was waiting for someone, so I waited with her, so to speak. Not much time passed before directly in front of her appeared the same man as I had seen her talking with before in my last vision. I noted in the back of my mind that I still hadn’t actually seen his face.
He dropped down in front of her, his head bowed as if in shame, and his voice came out low and hoarse. “It is done. I have fulfilled the task you sent me to complete.” She remained rigid as if the man wasn’t even present in the room. He reached out to touch her, tilting his head up just enough so he could look up at her, but before he could make contact, she shirked away. The man made a strangled cry in the back of his throat. “Please . . . my love . . . Mori . . . don’t punish me for something you commanded me to do.”