by Leia Stone
He cleared his throat. “Did you find the sandwich?”
I nodded, motioning to the empty plate in the sink as he crossed the room over to the counter I was leaning on and pulled out a barstool.
“I will answer any questions you have to the best of my abilities, but first you need to answer a few of mine.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough.”
He nodded. “First. What’s your name?”
His question surprised me, it was so normal. I hadn’t realized until now that I had never told him my name.
“Sloane. Sloane Murphy.”
Something crossed his face, an emotion I couldn’t read, and then it was gone. He extended his left tattooed hand. “Logan Sharp.”
I took his hand in mine and immediately the heat coiled in my belly, throbbing. Yanking my hand back, I played with the texture of my jeans to distract myself.
Logan looked tense, muscles tight and features drawn. He looked … like he was in pain.
“Are you okay?” I asked tentatively. Maybe me pulling my hand back so abruptly offended him. I didn’t know what dragon shifter greeting protocol was.
Inhaling, he took a deep breath and looked more relaxed. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Just usually more in control of my dragon.”
I nodded, because I understood. I had zero control over mine.
“Speaking of dragons…” He pinned me with a stare. “How the hell are you one?”
I recoiled. “What? You’re supposed to tell me that!”
He opened his arms as if to say he was as in the dark as I was. Great. I groaned. This guy was supposed to have all of my answers.
“I have no idea,” I told him. “One second I’m a human hiking along the rim of the Grand Canyon, and the next I’m falling—my body rips in two and becomes a dragon freak show.” My dragon stirred at that and I got the sense she didn’t like me calling her a freak show. Were we separate? It felt like we were. Kind of. Wow. Sounded like a multiple personality disorder. Maybe this was all a part of a massive paranoid delusion? I thought I was a dragon and now I was having delusions that I met another hot male dragon. Yikes, I needed to be committed for sure.
Logan stood quickly and began pacing. “Hold on. You were a human for twenty-one years and only recently transformed for the first time?” His voice was coated in shock.
I threw my arms up. “Either that or I’m having paranoid delusions!”
He stopped pacing and gave me a look filled with pity. “You’re not crazy. I saw your dragon with my own two eyes … but it’s not possible. When dragons are born, they transform right after hatching. They flit between human and dragon a dozen times a day in their first year as a youngling. The hunters would have gotten to you then.”
At some point I must have grabbed my head, because I was massaging my temples.
“I was born in a hospital, as a baby. A human baby. I have pictures and all that. Like I told you, I just recently turned, or whatever you call it.”
He was pacing madly around the kitchen, chewing a fingernail and wafting his yummy scent at me as he passed. “Who’s your mother?” he asked suddenly.
A pang of sadness went through me at the random question. “She’s … dead. Died of breast cancer when I was sixteen.”
He stopped pacing and gave me a look that you would find at the pound right before an animal was euthanized. “I’m sorry to hear that. She was … your real mother?”
I snapped my head back, offended. “Yes! Red hair and all!” I tossed a lock of my crimson hair up in the air.
He put up his hands in defense. “Right. Sorry. And your dad?”
I chewed my bottom lip. This guy was getting awfully personal when he had yet to answer any of my questions, but I could see where he was going with this. “He died before I was born. But my mom never mentioned he was a dragon,” I added sarcastically.
Logan chewed on another nail. I wasn’t sure he would have any left by the time this conversation was over.
“Even if your father was a dragon, it wouldn’t explain why you never transformed for over twenty years. And it sure as hell wouldn’t be possible without a female dragon to mate with.”
I shrugged and stood as well. I didn’t like being looked down on. How was I expected to answer all of these questions? I knew nothing about this new and terrifying world.
“Now you answer some questions for me,” I ordered.
He seemed to snap out of whatever thoughts had him captivated, and looked at me with those deep emerald eyes.
“Okay. What do you want to know?” His body turned towards me and I tried not to remember what he looked like with his shirt off. I don’t care what he smelled, my dragon was still in heat, because these thoughts weren’t mine.
“Who are the hunters and why do they want to kill me?” I folded my arms and my red mane fell in a curtain around my face.
Logan seemed to be considering what to tell me. His eyes had narrowed and he wasn’t speaking, he was just … looking at me.
“And don’t lie!” I jabbed a finger in his direction and was rewarded with a devastatingly handsome smile.
“I wasn’t going to lie. I just want to bring you into this slowly. If you think you’re having paranoid delusions now, you won’t want to sleep at night if I tell you everything in one sitting.”
Yikes. I recoiled and sat back down. “Okay … just tell me what they want with me.”
He nodded. “Hunters work for the earthbound, the druids. The druids want dragons dead because we harness magic for humanity—magic the druids need to be powerful.”
“Huh?” My head was reeling. What the hell was a druid? “Humans don’t need magic. That doesn’t even make sense.” There was a throbbing at the base of my skull; I ran a hand over the area, trying to work a knot out of my neck.
Logan stepped closer, eating up the distance between us, so close now that I could reach out and touch him. “Listen to me, Sloane, because this is the greatest lesson I could ever teach you.” His voice was gruff, and the way his eyes pierced into me had me sitting erect, hanging on his every word.
“The humans need our magic to survive. Without it they get sick. Cancer, fibromyalgia, arthritis, plagues, it’s all from the loss of dragon magic.”
“What the…? Fibro what?” I was slack-jawed. This guy was officially loony. “You’re telling me I’m a dragon but my mom still died of cancer? Shouldn’t my magic have saved her?”
Logan clenched his jaw in anger as he sensed my doubt. “I know it’s hard to believe, but yes, the humans need dragon magic to survive. It’s our duty to keep them alive and healthy. We are their protectors. We’re bound to them. I have been holding magic for humanity, alone, for so long. Well, I was … now I have you.”
Those four words, Now I have you, made my dragon purr, and without warning I stepped up closer to him, the heat rising in my belly, my dragon coming forward. I thought it would freak him out but he didn’t move. His eyes went to slits; breathing in and out deeply, he was nearly panting.
I ached to touch him, to see how those rock-hard muscles would feel in my hands. What the hell was I doing? I barely knew this guy … and yet my eyes fell to his lips. What would it be like to kiss him? The throbbing heat in my belly reached critical mass and I knew there was only one thing that would make it ease. Logan was just standing there frozen, waiting for me to do something.
I cleared my throat, trying to stay on topic. If I could just keep talking I would be okay. “Alright, if our brand of magic is so healing and powerful, then why was I injured for so long?” I indicated my shoulder.
He looked at the spot where my shoulder had been hurt and reached out to touch it, but thought better of it, pulling his hand back.
“I don’t know.” He offered a slight grin. “You’re … broken.”
I rolled my eyes. “Gee, thanks.”
He chuckled and I nearly reached out to touch his beard, to see how the scruff would feel under my nails. Damn this guy and his intoxicating smi
le.
“I’m kidding,” he said. “Sort of. Your dragon magic is different. It took two blood infusions from me to get your shoulder to heal while you were sleeping. It’s like … your magic hasn’t awoken yet or something.”
Neither of us moved. We were still incredibly close to each other to be having a normal social conversation, so I stepped back a foot and sat down on the stool. It took a lot of restraint, and my dragon nearly roared at me for doing it.
He looked at me as if trying to figure me out. “A redheaded female skyborn. I’ll be damned. Marcus would roll over in his grave.”
I fingered my long hair. “Who’s Marcus?”
His voice grew solemn. “Marcus was my mentor. Had a thing for redheads. He and I were the last skyborn alive until…” His face sagged and I knew.
I knew a thing or two about death. People tried to relate and tell their own stories surrounding their experience with death, but nothing could soothe that ache. Nothing came close to your own personal story. “I’m sorry,” was all I offered, and he nodded.
I ticked off all of the supernatural freaks on my fingers, “Okay, so we have skyborn, AKA Dragons. Earthborn…”
He smiled. “Earthbound.”
“Whatever. The earthbound are the druids. And then you have animal shifters? Anything else?” Three supernatural races were enough for me.
He reached out and pulled a fourth finger from my curled fist. “Sorcerers. The most populated of all the races, although most are extremely watered down with human DNA.”
I dropped my hand and exhaled the breath I had been holding. “Sorcerers? Like witches? Damn.”
He nodded. “The animal shifters are the second most rare of the supernatural species. Second to us of course.”
I swallowed hard, trying to absorb this information. “Of course.”
“There used to be over a thousand shapeshifter species, but they were a part of the Fae-line, which has now died out. Now there’s only a couple dozen species and they are all animals from this world.”
This world. And Fae. He said Fae.
“This world?” I cleared my throat because my voice cracked.
He looked me up and down, seemingly sizing up what I could handle. I grit my jaw and was sure to give him my best big girl look before he spoke. “A long time ago, magical creatures only existed in the land of Faery … a world that contained all of the magic you have read about in fairy tales.”
I scratched my neck, trying hard to believe what he was saying. “Okay.” Maybe I was still asleep and dreaming, because this sounded loony.
“Until one day, the queen of Faery found a tear in the fabric between the two worlds. She came to Earth and fell in love with a human.”
I leaned forward, suddenly hanging on every word.
“She slowly began sending Fae to Earth and letting humans into Faery. Fae and humans started falling in love, having families. She wanted a world where we could all coexist.”
I shrugged. “Sounds nice.” Freaky but nice.
Logan’s face grew dark. “Some felt that she loved her precious humans more than her own people. When the earthbound found out, they created a yearlong winter in their anger with their queen. The druids were one of the highest born magical Fae creatures in the land. After learning what their queen had done, they set out to become more powerful … to wipe out the humans and any of the human-Fae mixed creatures that had been born. They were only interested in a pureblooded society.”
Bile crept up my throat. It sounded very similar to some history I had learned about in school. “What happened?”
Logan lowered his voice. “While the druids were off on their quest at becoming all-powerful, the queen’s human lover got sick and he died, while she remained young and lived on.”
My hand covered my mouth. I didn’t even know these people or if this story was even real, but it touched me. I felt for this queen and her human lover. “Then what?” I was entranced. I needed to know this story just as I needed to stay up all night getting to the ending of a good book.
“So, in an effort to protect her beloved humans from disease, she climbed to the highest mountain in Faery and found the commander of dragons. It was long known that the dragons were the healers of the realm. She ordered the commander to create her a protector for humanity, a race of dragons that would be bound to the humans and feed them with their magical healing energy, keeping them healthy and giving them long lives. Back then, humans only lived to be about thirty years old. Her lover had died at twenty-eight.”
I leaned closer, nearly falling off my stool, unable to keep my eyes off of him. If I’d had my sketch pad, I would have been drawing what he said. A Fae queen climbing the highest mountain to reach a dragon commander. Twenty-eight years old was young, far too young. That was like … seven years from now for me. I motioned for him to keep going.
“The commander didn’t want to deny his queen, so he asked for her blood, her magic, to bind with his strongest warriors.”
My mouth popped open and I involuntarily stood.
The corner of Logan’s lips curled. “And that’s how we got the skyborn. Us. The dragon shifters.”
Whoa. I was … part dragon … part Fae? Chills crept up my spine at the thought. But my face quickly fell in confusion. “My mother was human so … I’m half?” I had accepted at this point that my mom slept with my dragon shifter father and never knew what he was. Nothing else explained what I could do.
Logan’s eyes quickly fell to my lips and then back up to hold my gaze. “I’m sorry, Sloane, but the skyborn are a pure race. We cannot procreate with humans. It only results in miscarriage.”
Panic gripped me then. The thought that my own mother wasn’t my real mother, or worse, that she was never human, it chilled me to my core and ripped the rug right out from under me.
“But some of them can procreate with humans—you said so yourself—in your story.” I was grasping at straws trying to think of a way that my mother could be my mother.
Logan nodded. “The other animal shifters, like the ones that saved you, they can procreate with humans, although it’s mostly against the rules now. And sorcerers, their DNA and human DNA seem to have no problem mixing. But earthbound and skyborn cannot have children with humans. Our DNA is too strong.”
My mind was whirling. I couldn’t even fathom the story he had just told me, and I didn’t want to think on it further for fear I might lose my mind.
“You need a drink?” He slipped one hand into his pocket and gave me an appraising look.
“I need all the drinks in this house,” I muttered. I wasn’t even a drinker, but tonight I would drink all the wine. He still hadn’t moved back away from me after I had stood; we were mere inches from each other. His scent wrapped around me like a blanket, sending a pleasurable warmth to my belly. His green eyes mirrored my own and I found myself fantasizing about what his dragon looked like. Was it black like his hair? Or green like his eyes?
The doorbell rang then, snapping me out of my Logan transfixion. I stepped back and shook my head to clear my thoughts, and I saw a slight disappointment cross Logan’s face. But then it was gone.
“That will be Keegan and the pack,” he said, as he spun to exit the kitchen, taking the heat from my core with him. “They’re thrilled there is another charge to protect.”
“Charge to protect?” I called after him.
He glanced over his shoulder, running a hand through his wild hair in an attempt to smooth it. “Hunters protect the earthbound while the shifters protect the skyborn.”
My eyebrows hit my forehead. “Of course they do.” I was a skyborn and came with my own protection detail of various circus animal shifters.
Holy hell, I did need a drink.
Make that two.
3
WE WERE ALL sitting around the pool table in Logan’s game room, scattered on barstools. Some of “the pack” were playing pool and others were talking to me. I had learned that Logan’s security detail
was comprised of six animal shifters.
Cooper, a short, stocky redhead with a beard at least twelve inches long, was a fox shifter. He was playing pool with Gear, the punk-rock one of the pack. Gear fixed motorcycles, was a falcon shifter and had a lime-green mohawk to rival Cooper’s funky red beard. Between his nose was a septum piercing, and on his knuckles was tattooed “Stay True.”
Then there was Keegan, the tall, impossibly-handsome alpha. He was a wolf shifter like Nadine. I still wasn’t sure about the creeper standing in the corner. His name was Dom; he barely spoke and wore a hoodie pulled up over his hair, which looked like it might be blond. I couldn’t tell. He wore all black and was silently watching all of us with his ice-blue gaze. He hadn’t told me what his animal was, but I knew from taking away what the others were. He was the lion, the huge, menacing, freaky-ass lion shifter. When I had introduced myself to him he had simply nodded, keeping a hand on the black gun at his hip. He was closed off and mysterious, so naturally I wanted to know everything about him. Logan had put Mittens in the basement when everyone arrived and now I knew why. Dom must have seriously unsettled the poor kitty.
Lastly, there were two females in the pack, Sophie and Nadine. Sophie was a blond coyote shifter with huge breasts spilling out of her top. She had been shooting me eye daggers from across the room all night. Nadine was the dark-haired, tattooed-up wolf who’d saved me from the hunters. She and I had gotten along immediately and she was the one answering all of my questions as we huddled in the corner of the game room.
“Vampires?” I tipped my glass of red wine in her direction.
She snorted. “Nope.”
“Gargoyles?”
Nadine’s body was convulsing slightly in an effort to contain her laughter. “Gargoyles?”
I shrugged. “They could be a thing.”
Logan had simply told me that a land of Fae creatures used to exist, so my imagination was the limit. And as an artist, I had a wild imagination. I used to illustrate fairies in high school. I drew them with big wide eyes and gossamer wings.