by Leia Stone
Nadine shook her head, her black hair falling around her. She had fair skin, bright blue eyes, and her nose was sharp, giving her beauty uniqueness. But the tattoos covering her arms and legs made her look fierce. This was a woman you didn’t want to cross.
“No gargoyles. Just the earthbound, their hunters, animal shifters, sorcerers and skyborn. We’re all pretty much descended from the same magical soup.”
Right. Earthbound were druids and skyborn were dragons—I at least had that much. Had no idea about the magical soup comment, but thought I would leave it for later.
I nodded. “Okay, well, what powers do the hunters have? I mean, are they just regular humans?”
Nadine took a long swig from her beer. “No, they’re not. Hunters are druids in training. They fight in a pack, and that pack is tied to one druid. That druid, depending how powerful, can empower his hunters with certain gifts. Once a hunter advances to a certain level, the druid initiates them and they become an apprentice druid. The hunters we encountered going after you were a part of a pack that was linked to a pretty weak druid. You were lucky.”
I let out a breath. “So … all druids are bad?”
Nadine stopped chugging her beer and met my eyes. “They didn’t used to be, but the most powerful of their kind turned to darkness.” She lowered her voice. “His name is Ardan and he is a master druid. They are all connected, so each druid pulls power from his master, which leads all the way up to Ardan. Therefore…”
I nodded in understanding. “Spoil one and spoil them all?”
Nadine nodded. “Now the earthbound are power hungry and they will stop at nothing to have all of the skyborn magic left on this Earth.”
I frowned. “How? How do they get the magic?”
Nadine brought up her left index finger and ran it across her neck.
“Oh. So … they kill us and … siphon our magic?” I guessed. I hadn’t thought anyone was listening, until now. A warm, possessive hand landed on my shoulder.
“They try.” Logan’s voice tickled my ear, sending my dragon into a frenzy inside of me. Freaking hormonal dragon. Chill out. “But now there’s two of us and I won’t let that happen.”
His body heat pressed against my skin, making my dragon tighten within me, but his words had me on edge. “So, hypothetically, if the druids were to kill us both and drain our magic…?”
Now the entire room was quiet. Keegan, the alpha, slightly taller than Logan, stepped out from behind the pool table. His sandy-blond hair was cut in a short military style and his presence commanded attention. I had instinctively known he was the alpha earlier, before he had even introduced himself as such.
“Then humanity goes extinct as well,” he said, “and the druids and hunters rule the Earth, taking what’s left of the shifters and sorcerers as their slaves.”
“Jesus.” I involuntarily shuddered and I saw Cooper make the Catholic sign of the cross over his chest. Oops. “What do you mean ‘what’s left’ of the shifters and sorcerers?” I asked Keegan.
He looked solemn. “Shifters are half human. If humanity dies, then so does our humanity. We would be stuck in our animal forms.”
I gasped. That sounded awful. “And the sorcerers?”
Logan raked his hands through his hair. “We assume the ones who aren’t pure blooded would become … monsters.”
My eyes widened and I turned back to Nadine. “So, Logan has been keeping the entirety of humanity alive by himself?”
Nadine rolled her eyes. “Careful, sweetheart, his ego doesn’t need a boost.” She winked at Logan and he smiled sheepishly at her.
They had history together, I could tell. Or maybe they were dating. Last dragon on Earth, tatted-up hottie? He was definitely taken. My dragon shuddered within me at the thought; she didn’t like it one bit. These new feelings were weird; I didn’t know what to think of them. Were they my thoughts or hers? Were we one?
“Dragons have powerful magic. Even one can hold enough magic for all of humanity. We are bound to them,” Logan told me. “But with two…”
The alpha stepped closer to Logan. “Do you think she can?” Keegan asked him. He seemed doubtful.
Logan eyed me seriously. “Yes,” he said with conviction.
Keegan shrugged. “She’s smaller, untrained.”
I didn’t know what they were referring to, but at the comment of my small stature I scoffed and stood. I was 5’8, which was tall for a girl, and yes I was thin but had somewhat of an athletic build from years of soccer. Technically, I loathed regular exercise, and the Grand Canyon hike had nearly killed me, but I was strong ... on the inside.
“I’m not small,” I growled at the alpha, and that earned me a smile from Nadine and a few of the other packmates.
The alpha seemed to look at me with amusement. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I was talking about your dragon. She is small and untrained, wild and reckless.”
It felt like an insult, but since I knew nothing about dragons or their size, I decided just to pin him with a glare. As I did, a low rumble emanated from his throat and his jaw clenched. Logan leaned into my ear, bringing with him the scent of the forest. “Staring an alpha in the eyes isn’t a great idea unless you plan on challenging him.”
Oh. Shit. I looked down at the alpha’s neck and cleared my throat.
Keegan laughed suddenly, full of warmth and amusement. “She’s got spunk, Logan. You might be right.”
“What are you talking about?” I couldn’t stand being in the dark when they were talking about me.
Logan peered at me behind his ruffled dark locks. “I think once I train you, you will be strong enough to harness the magic—take a bit back from the druids and even the scales. I can only hold so much, which is why the humans are sick.”
That sounded intriguing but … I wasn’t interested. “Actually, I was wondering if you could make it go away. Make me normal again?”
The entire room froze. One of the guys even dropped a beer and it shattered to the ground, sending glass everywhere. Even silent Dom leaned forward from his dark perch in the corner of the room.
Logan’s mouth was frozen open, gaping like a fish out of water.
“What?” I defended my position. “I want my life back! I wasn’t born into this like you were. Some freak thing happened to me a few weeks ago and now you want me to start stealing magic from druids and start training? I just want to see the world. Paris, Ireland—I have plans.”
I knew I was pouting and probably seemed petty, but come on, they couldn’t really expect me to … what, live here forever harnessing dragon magic? It was all ridiculous. I had accepted that magic was real—fine, someone put a curse on me or something. But there had to be a way to remove it.
I didn’t realize how much my question must have hurt them until I noticed the tears swimming in Nadine’s eyes. She had those blunt cut bangs and wore a red bandana so she was perfectly channeling a rockabilly chick. And now that I had her in tears, I felt like shit.
“She doesn’t know any better,” Logan told the group.
Sophie, the other female, who had been shooting eye daggers at me all night, stepped forward now, her body clenched, and it was clear she was seething with anger. She was one of those tall athletic blondes that commanded the attention of every pecker in the room.
“We’ve spent eternity guarding Logan so the humans can have a fighting chance! Every night before we go to bed, we pray, we beg—do you know what we ask for?” Her voice shook and I felt like crap for getting everyone all emotional.
“What?” I croaked.
She thrust her hands my way. “More dragons! And here you are and you don’t even want it! Unbelievable.”
Keegan growled suddenly and the blonde quickly lowered her head in submission.
“I understand where you’re all coming from, but you need to understand where I’m coming from.” I directed my next question at the blond girl. “Sophie, right?” She nodded, still giving me her best resting bitch f
ace. “You were raised your entire life knowing you were a … shifter, right? That your life would involve protecting Logan or whatever. Right?”
She nodded, a proud look on her face, making her upturned nose even more annoying. “My mother trained me to protect the skyborn from the age of three.”
“Yeah, well, what if tomorrow morning you woke up completely human, in a new apartment with new roommates and a bunch of other crazy stuff? What is the one thing you would want?”
She grit her jaw, silent. After a few beats, she answered, “To be a shifter again.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
Logan placed a hand on my shoulder. “Alright. I think that’s enough for toni—”
He was cut off by a shrill hissing sound. It was like a massive tea kettle had gone off and I could actually feel pressure building around my body. My ears hurt and my chest was constricting, making it hard to breathe.
“DOWN!” Nadine wrapped both arms around Logan and I, yanking us to the ground just as a sonic boom blasted every piece of glass in the room, shattering it to bits. Nadine was surprisingly strong, and I fell to the ground hard, sending a shooting pain up my elbow. I grabbed my ears, sure that they were bleeding. Shaking my head, I tried to clear the ringing that now whined there. Nadine’s clothes tore; the faint sound of cracking bones filled the room, and she changed into her wolf form. I looked up, slightly dazed, to see Logan crouched before me, fighting his own change. Black scales were crawling down his face, his neck, his left arm.
Whoa.
The entire outer wall of the entertainment room had been blown out and a troop of hunters now stood behind a man with a bald head and red tattoos—the same man from my dragon sleep-induced dream. How was that possible?
“Druid,” Logan spat as the pack assembled before him. Four had shifted to their animal form while the other two stayed human. The humans, Gear and Cooper, were pulling crazy weapons out from behind their backs and from inside of their boots. Cooper had what looked like some small throwing knives in his hands, the tips glowing a fiery yellow, while Gear was holding a sleek black gun in each hand.
I went to move and Logan’s tattooed hand reached backward suddenly, grasping my right ankle tightly.
“Hey! Owww!” I told him, as I instinctively tried to jerk back, but his strong hand pinned me and a green light poured from his palm, crawling up my leg and wrapping around my pelvis. It moved up around my entire upper body until I was encased in a bubble of greenish-blue light. It tickled my skin, encompassing all of me in a magical haze. I was both fascinated and terrified. I tried to move but was cemented to the spot. Logan let go and I realized he had once again caged me.
“Logan!” I tried to scream, pushing against the green light. My dragon scales were already pouring across my skin but I couldn’t move. I just sat there helplessly on the ground as the hunters advanced with weapons drawn. I tried one final time to stand, but the heavy green magic blanketing my body pushed against my efforts and kept me frozen in place. What the hell had he done to me?
Logan ripped off his shirt quickly and stood, pants and underwear dropping to the floor, which left him completely and gloriously naked, with his back to me. Don’t look, I told myself, but I couldn’t look away and my eyes landed right on his impressively toned glutes.
Good Lord, he must do squats in his sleep.
Black scales began to pop up on his feet, working their way up his calf and then along his shoulder blades, meeting at his lower back. His muscles changed, bulking out, as the pack leapt out onto the snowy forest floor, pushing the hunters back and away from the house. The druid had his hands sunk deep into the earth; his eyes glowed red, and a crimson mist of what I assumed was magic poured off of him.
Logan moved towards the outside, his figure hulking larger and larger with each step. When he was fully transformed, all I could do was gawk at the massive size of his dragon. I could see now why the alpha had called me small. Logan was a menacing twenty feet tall. The tip of his black tail had serrated spikes on it, and he lashed out at the hunters with it, sending them flying to the ground with every stroke—the various pack members pounced on their bodies and ripped their throats out. It seemed blood loss was the best way to kill them.
The druid was encased in his red glowing magic, and I thought there was no way in hell he stood a chance against Logan and his huge dragon. Until the druid started working the red magic with his hands, shaping it into a ball. Okay, that didn’t look so good. He pulled his arm back, and with one quick movement threw the magic fireball straight at Logan’s chest. The black dragon was otherwise engaged and didn’t see it coming. I tried to cry out, but it was too late. The ball of red energy slammed into Logan’s back and knocked him forward a few feet. He opened his dragon snout and roared in fury; the walls of the house shook with the sound.
I felt the tingling along my arms and heard the crisp popping as my red pearl scales came to the surface fully. My dragon could be caged no longer. But one of the hunters had slipped out of the protective line of wolves and was heading right for me. He had an arrow nocked in his bow, the tip glowing bright red. Why had Logan stuck me here in this green blob? I was about to become skewered dragon meat!
My dragon finished the last of her transformation, and although I couldn’t stand, still pinned to the ground, the green magical cage Logan had stuck me in had grown to accommodate my new dragon size. Cool party trick, but I was still pissed.
The hunter loosed the arrow. I raised my left dragon arm to try and intercept it, bracing myself for the pain. But as the arrow crashed against the green light dome, it shattered to pieces, leaving me unharmed. Whoa. I looked up to see that Logan was breathing fire onto the druid, but when he stopped to take a breath, the druid was hovering in a protective red magic dome similar to mine, unharmed. I pushed against my green cage and reminded myself to have a talk with Logan later about his obsession with caging me.
Kinky bastard.
A wolf howl rose up in warning and I saw that Keegan was protecting Logan’s back, but one of the hunters had broken free and was about to shoot a crossbow bolt into Logan’s side. I knew how bad those damn things hurt.
“Logan, behind you!” I screamed, but it just came out as a dragon’s roar.
Logan spun towards the threat, giving the druid his back, and doused the hunter in fire before he could loose the arrow. The hunter screamed in agony as the auburn flames engulfed his body. I could see the druid just beyond Logan; he had taken the opening to break free from his red dome. He was running in stealth mode right at me, slipping between the two fights going on. As he ran, he was building up a red energy ball in his hands. Shit. My stomach clenched in fear. Something told me this green cage wouldn’t hold against that dark magic or whatever it was. My dragon kicked against the green cage as that warmth uncoiled in my belly. The cage shook but held strong.
The druid reached me in three quick strides across the room, and cold hard fear trickled down my dragon’s back. He wore clothes from another time: suede breeches, with pelts of animal fur sewn on the shoulders of his leather jacket. Something told me this wasn’t a “weak” druid like the one who had attacked earlier. As he came closer, I realized those pelts were wolf, and bile churned in my belly.
Holding the red fire ball in his hands, he sniffed the air. “Interesting,” he said.
As he raised his arm to throw the fire ball, Nadine’s wolf—I recognized her by her markings—launched herself at his outstretched arm. Her teeth clamped down hard and the druid groaned in pain, the red ball of energy in his hands weakening with his discomfort. Shaking his arm hard, he yanked Nadine loose and then wrapped his hands around her wolf’s neck and squeezed. Red magic seeped from his hands and saturated her collarbone, before he tossed her across the room, slamming her into the wall. I heard the hard snapping of bone before she sank unconscious to the floor.
I roared again, hoping to get someone from the pack’s attention and let them know Nadine was hurt, but it was no use. T
he druid had turned and had set his sights on me. With no time to waste, he threw the ball right at me, and I was helpless to do anything but sit there and brace for the impact.
The red ball slammed into my green shield, dissipating it with ease, shattering the magic that protected me. Now, fully free, I stood quickly to my dragon’s full height. I wasn’t as big as Logan but I still towered over the druid as he began to chant something. The earth beneath me shook a little. My head was skimming the ceiling as I felt for that heat inside of my belly.
“Dragon’s power, dragon’s might, magic be mine on this night…” the druid chanted in an ominous tone that rose the hairs on my arms. A glint of metal drew my eye to the weapon in his hands. It was similar to the blade from before. The hunter I had burned to ash was holding one; it must be same ceremonious artifact.
The heat in my belly was overwhelming, and when the druid flung his arm out at me, ready to cut me with that knife, I opened my mouth and roared. Fire coated my throat, ripping out of me in one long stream, covering the druid. I didn’t let up. I pushed all of me at the druid, knowing that when I stopped to take a breath, I would have no more fight left in me. I wasn’t trained, I didn’t even know how a dragon could fight. I was uncomfortable in this body; it was wonky and unstable, like all of those T-rex jokes on the internet—I had no idea how to use my arms. Once I felt like I would pass out from the heat and being out of breath, I stopped the fire. The druid was covered in black soot, sweat rolling down his face, but he was unharmed, as if his skin had a protective coating. Shit. Nadine’s words about the other hunters we encountered being tied to a weak druid came back to me. She had said we’d gotten lucky. Now I knew why.
The druid raised his knife to come at me again when a streak of black flashed behind him. Logan tore across the lawn and into the room, his head smashing into the ceiling, ripping into the top floor. The commotion caused the druid to turn around, but it was too late. Logan’s open jaws came right down upon the druid’s head. I flinched as Logan’s jaws clamped shut, and nearly gagged at the sound they made when piercing the druid’s flesh. In one swift move, Logan yanked upward, pulling the druid’s head clean off.