by Leia Stone
Ow.
She coiled the hair into the mortar and pestle, and the second it hit the powder, it puffed with a bright green light that flickered purple for a second.
“Ohh, I love the color of dragon magic,” Eva said, smiling.
I returned her smile; it was hard not to like her. She had an open and friendly personality.
“So, are you like … a lead Sorceress or something?” I asked stupidly. I didn’t know what they were called, but this woman was clearly the boss.
This time laughter spilled from her throat. “You could say that,” she answered coyly.
“Hah!” Logan barked and I looked over to see him casually leafing through a book like this was just another Friday night. “She is being modest. Which she never is, by the way.”
Eva scoffed and spit her tongue out at him.
“Ninety-nine percent of magic users are watered down with human DNA. Most don’t even know they have magic. They call themselves lucky or intuitive. They wish for things to happen and sometimes get their way. But Eva is one of the very few and very rare full-blooded magic wielders. Her Sorceress powers cannot be matched by many.” Logan informed me.
Whoa, that was comforting and nerve-racking at the same time.
Eva leaned into me. “My ego doesn’t need any boosting either. Remember that,” she joked.
I smiled. “Will do.”
Eva walked over to a jar on the wall and pulled it down. The fluid was a clear-ish yellow, and as she poured it into the bowl, I tried to convince myself it wasn’t more pee.
“What is that?” I squeaked.
She turned and made her way back over to me, swirling the bowl as she walked. Green sparks were shooting off of it. “Best not to ask those questions dear,” she answered.
Oh shit. It was totally pee. She leaned over and pulled a big jar of honey out. It was one of those bear squeeze ones from the market.
“That’s a special ingredient?” I mused aloud.
Eva squeezed a heaping spoonful in and stirred it with a spoon. “Makes it palatable, dear.”
Oh hell no. I was NOT drinking that.
“Bottoms up. This won’t change who you are one bit, but it will fool most of the magical idiots that roam this earth.” She handed me the bowl.
Ugh. I could see crap floating in it, and my hair! I couldn’t drink this! I was ninety-eight percent sure that she’d poured wolf pee into it.
I was about to object when, “I’ve done it,” Logan called from behind me, as if that would make me feel better. Well, a little I guess. But standing in a velvet purple bikini about to drink hair, pee, and God knows what else, made it hard to control my gag reflex.
“The faster you drink it, the faster I can find out who kept your dragon hidden for twenty years,” Eva mused.
My eyes widened. She could find that out? Okay, screw it. Without over-thinking it, I opened my mouth and threw the potion down the hatch. Besides, if this was some paranoid delusion, maybe this much repulsion would wake me up.
Oh gag! The bitter, lukewarm fluid hit my tongue and I gagged, but took the contents down in one gulp. I coughed, about to throw it up, when Eva shoved a water bottle in my face. Grabbing it, I chugged half the bottle until the taste finally lessened.
I’d just drank my own hair. The thought was more psychologically disturbing than I thought it would be. A warm soothing wave worked down my body from head to toe, leaving a slight tingle in its wake.
Finally, a popping noise emitted right behind me, or in me. I couldn’t tell. And Eva clapped her hands. “Perfect!”
I lifted up one arm and took a whiff, scrunching my face in disgust. “I smell mildly of dog.”
Logan gave a strangled laugh. “Don’t tell Keegan or Nadine that.”
Eva gave me a little smile. “It will wear off. It’s just extra strong for the next twenty-four hours until the spell settles. Now, as far as the supernatural community is concerned, you and Logan are immortal wolf shifters in Keegan’s pack. You’re low-ranking, you stay out of trouble, and you never shift.”
“Right.” It made sense now why Keegan was the one to get me in the door with the bouncer and Logan had stuck to the rear of the line. This entire time he had disguised himself as Keegan’s submissive packmate? Must have been hard with such a dominating personality.
“What if our pack is attacked or a fight breaks out? I’m just supposed to stay human?” Because I’m pretty sure my dragon would be all over that.
Logan strode across the room to stand before me. “Yes. You throw a punch, break a bottle over someone’s head, but you never shift. Only if your life depends on it, and a druid is about to kill you, do you reveal what you are.”
Great. Something Eva had said before was gnawing at me. “Can you really tell how I was human for so long?” Because this entire situation was beyond messed up and I wanted to know as much information as I could.
Eva stepped closer, a serious look crossing her face. “Now that we don’t need to worry about your scent, I can touch you. But I want you to be forewarned that when I do, I will know many facets of your most personal moments. The highest highs and lowest lows. Your soul will reveal itself to me, but I require your permission first.”
“Jesus.” I had to fight the urge to step back a little. My highest highs? Were there any? I guess when I got into college. Lowest lows—take your pick. But I was dying to know how I could be human my entire life and then one day, just … transform.
I swallowed hard. “You have my permission.” I extended my left hand. It was my dominant hand and I assumed she was going to read my palm or something. Instead she pushed my hand down lightly and placed a hand on each shoulder. Her eyes flared a burnt orange, hypnotizing me with their glow as she leaned forward and placed her forehead on mine. For a wild second, I thought she might kiss me, but the moment her head touched mine, a buzzing started to vibrate deep within my body. I’d been electrocuted once; it was mild but I never forgot it. This was similar to that but at only ten percent. It was tolerable, but weird. Mildly uncomfortable. I wanted to pull away, and my dragon didn’t like it either. She slithered around inside of me, assessing this feeling as a threat.
“Ohh, interesting,” Eva crooned. I was starting to feel lightheaded and my dragon was getting restless. When I was about to ask how much longer this was going to be, she abruptly let go of my shoulders. The buzzing stopped and I was grateful. Eva’s eyes were lined with unshed tears as she stroked the side of my face. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that with your mother, dear.”
Her statement caught me off guard and a lump formed in my throat. “It’s fine,” I mumbled. It wasn’t fine. It would never be fine. No one should have to bury their mother at sixteen years old.
Eva’s face changed then and she looked at Logan this time. “Someone very powerful bound her magic in infancy. I couldn’t see who, but it is a spell that would need to be reinforced every few years or it would start to slowly wear off.”
I reeled back in shock. “What are you saying?”
Eva shrugged. “Honey, your mother had to have known.”
“No way!” I shouted, stepping back.
“She wasn’t a dragon. She died of cancer,” Logan said in my defense, but I knew it was falling on deaf ears. The look in Eva’s face was one of certainty.
Eva nodded. “I know.”
“Dragons don’t get cancer,” I said, because I needed to hear it. My mom wouldn’t keep that from me.
Eva nodded again. “I know. Your mother wasn’t a dragon … but she wasn’t human either. She couldn’t have been.”
The world stopped spinning; time stopped, my breathing stopped, everything in the moment just stopped. I stood there, willing Eva not to say another word, but at the same time I needed to know.
“What was she?” I breathed.
“I don’t know,” she confessed.
All of the air whooshed out of me in a rush. “You don’t know. Then she could have been human.” Relief pou
red through me. My mother was an interesting person, with quirks like anyone else, but she would have told me if she was a freaking dragon!
Maybe she tried?
A memory came back to me then of things she said on her death bed. Crazy things. Maybe it wasn’t crazy. I pushed those memories down and hugged my arms to my chest, suddenly cold.
With one swoosh, Logan pulled off his shirt and handed it to me. “We can talk about this another time. I need to find us another house, make sure no one else knows about her. She needs to learn to control her dragon.” He spoke as if I wasn’t standing right there. He also spoke as if he thought it was all nonsense. I don’t think he thought my mother was my real mother and that scared the crap out of me.
I pulled his shirt on, forcing myself not to moan as his scent washed over me. Clearing my throat, I said, “I have one more question for Eva, but I would like to ask it in private.” I held my head high, hoping Logan wouldn’t be offended, and trying not to check out his abs now that he was shirtless.
Hurt crossed his face but was quickly masked. “Of course. I’ll wait outside.”
Eva called out after Logan: “I will wire the money for the scales to your account. I can do fifty for the black and a hundred for the red.”
Logan looked impressed. “Think it will fetch double?”
She nodded. “For a century, there have only been black scales on the market. This will fetch triple.”
He nodded. “Alright, send the fifty-K to me and Sloane can have the hundred. It’s her scale.”
My eyes widened. Fifty-K? Did he say K … as in fifty thousand? I heard the door shut and knew that Eva and I were now alone.
Eva looked at me. “Do you have your bank details on you?”
I shook my head in shock. People didn’t wire transfer one hundred dollars.
“How much for the red scale?” I had to ask. I needed to hear it again.
“A hundred thousand sweetheart. Just give me your full legal name and I can have my guy find your bank account.” She winked. “He’s good with that stuff.”
When I could get my mouth to close, I nodded. “Right. Okay.” Holy shit of all shits. One hundred thousand dollars for a single dragon scale. Maybe there was a bright side to this life after all.
Eva reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. It was something my mother did and it caused a lump to form in my throat.
“I know what you want to ask, sweetheart, but I can’t make you human. Now that your dragon has come out, there’s no putting her back.”
Disappointment crashed through me, because it was what I wanted to ask. “But … you said there was a spell … that someone had hidden my powers. Can’t you do it again? I don’t want to be like this.”
Eva frowned. “Someone did hide your powers, honey, and when your mom died it slowly started to fall away. Now your dragon is out and your powers will be too and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
I don’t know why I felt like crying. It was stupid, really.
“You think my mom hid my powers, don’t you?” I needed to know.
Eva screwed the lid on a jar and looked up at me. “No. I think your mom paid a very powerful sorcerer to do it, and then she kept the spell alive with her own magic. Somehow. Then, when she died, the spell slowly died too.”
I shook my head. “My mom didn’t have magic.”
Eva shrugged. “Okay. It’s that or she wasn’t your real mother.”
Anger flared up inside of me. “You think my mother would lie to me? She wouldn’t! You didn’t know her.”
Eva set the jar down and placed her hands together in prayer pose. “Forgive me for saying hard things, but I was a mother once. I would have done anything, even lie, to protect my child.”
She shrugged as she made her point. I didn’t want to believe what Eva was saying, but I also knew that denial got me nowhere. Knowledge was power. “You think she was a sorcerer?”
Eva shook her head. “It would take a very powerful sorcerer to be able to mate with another dragon. A sorcerer that powerful wouldn’t have succumbed to cancer.”
My brows furrowed. “A shifter?”
Eva shook her head again. “Skyborn are purebloods, and shifters cannot produce offspring with them.”
“What, then?” My foot was tapping as the anxiety ran through my body.
“Sloane, sweetheart, I don’t know what she was. I’m just glad she kept you safe. Now, you need to stick with Logan and the pack to stay safe. Do you understand me?”
I nodded as I chewed my lip.
“I’m not kidding. Don’t run off. If you run, you’re dead,” she said ominously.
Great. That was confidence inspiring. “I won’t.” I didn’t have anywhere to go. Well, I guess I was about to be a hundred grand richer, but I knew nothing about being a dragon, and now that I knew my transformation signaled the hunters, I couldn’t afford to leave.
Logan wasn’t too bad on the eye either. Bonus for staying. My dragon purred inside of me at the thought and I just chuckled. She was totally still in heat. I didn’t care what anyone said.
“Thanks for everything. Sorry for getting upset,” I said lamely. I had always had a fiery temper, but I was also good at apologizing, so at least there was that.
Eva smiled and reached out to smooth my hair again. “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling. It’s a shock I’m sure.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, keep your head up, stick with Logan, and try to stay calm as your powers come in.”
My eyes widened. “So, there’s going to be more … weird stuff?”
Eva nodded. “Tons. Sorry, hun, but I’m always here if you need me. I’ve known Logan since he was a baby, and like I said, I’ve taken a magical oath to protect the skyborn. So whatever you need, if it’s in my power to do, I’ll do it.”
Wow. I hadn’t expected this woman to be so sincere and loving. I thought she would be some two-faced sorcerer that was just in it for the money.
“Alright, thanks,” I said awkwardly, pulling the hem of Logan’s shirt down to try and cover my ass. Eva gave me a light side hug and walked me to the door.
“Stay safe.” With those last words, she opened the door and Logan was there waiting for me—low slung jeans and no t-shirt. Heaven help me. I had enough drama in my life. The last thing I needed was to shack up with a dragon and with my luck lay a half dozen dragon eggs a month later.
“All set?” Logan asked. His demeanor had changed; his jaw was clenched and he looked annoyed.
“You okay?” I stepped closer to him.
He was breathing heavily through his nostrils, glaring at me with those mossy green eyes.
“Jesus, what?” I shouted. Had something happened in the few minutes I was alone with Eva.
Logan leaned in close, bringing his body heat with him, and whispered in my ear, “I’ve waited years for you. For another … so that I wouldn’t feel … alone. And now you’re here and you don’t even want it.”
Shame and anger poured through me in equal measure. He had been listening outside the door! “You heard,” was all I could say. Part of me wanted to apologize, and part of me wanted to smack him.
“I have sensitive hearing,” he said, before spinning on his heel and turning away.
Shit. The one guy I had just been told could keep me alive was pissed at me. Recipe for disaster. Why did I piss on everything that loved me? It was like this self-sabotage mechanism I had. Every boyfriend that got too close or too serious, I messed it up. Well, at least now I had a hundred grand to blow on the therapy I so desperately needed.
I followed Logan’s chiseled naked back out of the VIP lounge, squeezing my way through the packed crowed, trying not to ogle at the way his muscles moved when he walked. The music changed to something more upbeat and the crowd suddenly tightened in on me, blocking my view of Logan.
“Excuse me.” I lightly nudged the people nearest me to no avail. I wasn’t an overly social person, so a crowd like
this had my heart racing out of my chest. They pushed closer in on me, causing me to nearly trip over.
“Ow!” I screamed as someone stepped on my toe. I started to panic. Right as I was about to really throw an elbow, a strong firm hand grabbed my ass. Hard.
“How about a lap-dance, sweet thang?” a deep husky voice murmured in my ear. The smell of alcohol and something more sinister wrapped around me and I froze, unsure of what to do. Eva said to lay low, but my inner feminist was three seconds away from treating this crowd to a live castration. My dragon was uncoiling inside of me, and I knew if I shifted here I was dead. But I’d just been sexually assaulted and it felt awful. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I just walked away and acted like it didn’t happen.
Before I could work out my dilemma, Logan suddenly burst through the crowd like a bowling ball. People went flying and I was given a glimpse of Logan’s face. Sheer and utter terror was painted on his features as he scanned the area looking for me. When his gaze met mine, I saw relief flood through him. Everyone had moved back except the man I had yet to look at behind me. He was so close I could feel his body heat.
“I said I wanted a lap dance, mutt!” I barely registered movement behind me when Logan burst into action. He was a blur, charging through the now-open space where the crowd had parted. His body slammed into the person behind me and only then did I turn around.
A tall man with a solid build was lying face-down on the floor. Logan had his right arm pinned behind him in what looked like a herculean grip.
“She doesn’t work here. Apologize. Now.” Logan’s voice was so deep and throaty I could tell he was barely hanging on to his humanity.
“Screw you, mutt!” the man spat. With one jerk, Logan snapped the man’s arm up, breaking it at the shoulder, and a bloodcurdling yell erupted from the man’s lips.
“That didn’t sound like an apology,” Logan told the man writhing on the ground.
“Hey, get the hell off my friend!” A young heavily intoxicated man charged towards Logan. I was just figuring out whether I should somehow intervene when Keegan blasted past me and intercepted the drunken friend. “Once my packmate gets his apology, we will be on our way,” Keegan calmly informed the friend. “And if anyone says the word mutt again, we’ll be breaking both arms.” Keegan glared at the man on the ground who had accosted me.