by Leia Stone
Eva smoothed her crisp black suit. “These druids weren’t like the others I’ve met passing through town. They were organized and brimming with power. I think they work directly for Ardan.”
Nadine physically flinched at the name of the evil master druid. Logan started pacing. “I’ve sent Keegan to add on two more shifters to our pack, and I also requested he hire a sorcerer.”
Eva nodded. “Smart. Danny would be perfect. He’s powerful.”
Logan made a gesture with his hands. “Yeah, well, I’m not sure Keegan is going to go for that.”
Eva made a tsk-tsk noise. “Love shouldn’t be so hard to figure out. If you love someone, you be with them. End of discussion.”
My eyes flicked to Nadine, whose eyes flicked to Gear, who was staring at his shoes.
“I’ll try to see if any of my other sorcerers would be a good fit for your pack. Meanwhile, I have evaded their truth witch’s questioning by saying I had an important appointment. But I fear if I don’t go back to answer his questions, it will raise suspicions.”
Logan nodded. “Did your bartender say anything?”
Eva flinched. “Logan, it was a truth witch. He had to. He’s untrained in the art of trickery. So he said that a new wolf in town, with red hair, had recently been to the bar.”
“Dammit!” Logan smacked his fist into his palm.
“But…” She held up a finger. “He also listed off half a dozen other redheads that he knew. Turns out he has a thing for them. Notices every redhead in the room. One of my dancers is new and has red hair, so they started questioning her first.”
Alright, I couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s a truth witch?”
Logan turned to face me, stress lining his features. “You know the bouncer at Eva’s club that was manning the front door last night?”
His eyes had glowed an eerie copper, like Eva’s. I would never forget it. I nodded.
“Well, he is a truth witch. Keegan had to use his words VERY carefully so Grub wouldn’t detect a lie. Keegan said you were one of his new shifters. Then Grub smelled the wolf pee on you and assumed you were a wolf.”
I cringed. So that’s what Keegan was talking about when he told me in the alley that the bouncer could tell truth from lie. He was a truth witch. “Can we never speak of the wolf pee again? Thanks.”
Keegan had also said some other things but I didn’t mention that.
Eva quirked her mouth into a half smile and strode over to me. “There are only a few dozen truth witches in existence. I pay Grub whatever he wants to stay with me.”
And yet we had to pour vodka and pee on me to get past him. “But you don’t trust him with who I am?” I asked Eva.
She shrugged. “No. I don’t fully trust anyone so motivated by money.”
Great.
“So when the druid’s truth witch asks you about me…?” I asked her nervously. She was close enough now that I could smell her delicate floral perfume.
Eva winked. “I’m advanced in trickery. He won’t get anything out of me. But it takes some mental preparation, which is why I wanted to come here first and tell you. Get my head straight before going before two such powerful druids.”
“Trickery?” I asked dumbly. Someone just give me a freaking supernatural dictionary already!
Nadine seemed to lean forward on the balls of her feet as if she too didn’t know what trickery was.
Eva straightened. “The art of trickery is to look a truth witch right in the eye and answer their question with a lie without their detection.”
My mouth popped open and I leaned forward slightly. “How?” I’d always been curious by nature. Hell, I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up again, alone, just because I was curious what was down there, and to see if my lazy ass could do it.
Eva looked at Logan and smiled as if they were sharing a personal joke. “Remember when I taught you this?” she asked him.
He chuckled. “I was nine years old and I thought it was a fun game.”
Eva smirked. “How many times has it saved your life?”
Logan grinned. “Countless.”
I was going to go mad if she didn’t tell me. Finally, she turned to me. “Ask me what color my suit is,” she stated.
What? Her suit was black, everyone could see that. But I indulged her. “What color is your suit, Eva?”
She paused a moment. “Purple,” she said calmly.
I frowned. “Okay, you lied.”
“Did I? A truth witch wouldn’t have thought so. The key is to reframe the question to yourself so that you are answering with the truth. You said, what color was my suit, and I quickly asked myself what my favorite color was. I answered purple, which my brain perceives as true and the sorcerer does too. But if you pause for too long or can’t reframe the question so that you believe your answer, you’re dead. They will know you are practicing trickery or lying.”
“Jesus.” I felt sweaty just thinking about it. Cooper again made the sign of the cross in front of his chest from where he stood in the corner, and I reminded myself to stop saying Jesus all the time. Bad habit.
“It’s a sign of the times if some sorcerers are aligning with the druids,” Logan muttered.
“Won’t the sorcerers suffer the most if the druids find the last dragon … or dragons I mean.” The sorcerers were the most populated in the supernatural realm, or so I had been told. So the majority of them would die or be enslaved, since they were part human. At least that’s what Logan had told me. I still didn’t understand that part.
Eva frowned. “A great many would, yes. But there are plenty of magical purists that would love to see all of the half breeds waste away, leaving only the purebred sorcerers behind … leaving them to mate with each other and grow the pure race. Truth witches are purebloods.”
My eyes must have been bugging out of my head, because Logan took a step forward, hands out in an effort to calm me. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. He said that a lot, when I knew he had no guarantee, but I guessed that was what kept him going, the assurance everything would be okay even if it wasn’t.
“You’re pure, aren’t you?” I directed my question at Eva. If Logan and I died, she would be just fine.
She looked sad. “I am.”
I frowned. “So Nadine, Keegan, the pack…”
Eva paused. “Would lose their humanity and be stuck in their beast form. Nothing more than animals. Slaves to the magical world.”
I felt sick. This was too much pressure. “Maybe I should run. I have a friend in California. Maybe Logan and I should split up. Make it harder for them to catch us…” When Jen got back from her vacation, I could stay at her parents’ place in Malibu.
Logan flinched, looking hurt, and Eva tsk-tsk’d. “That would get you killed. Logan is your only chance at survival. If you run every time a druid is in town, you will never come up for air. No. You must train to control your dragon magic and learn the art of trickery. Those two acts alone will serve you well enough to keep you all alive.”
My dragon magic. “I don’t have dragon magic,” I told her. “It’s some weird purple unexplained magic.”
Eva’s lips tightened into a line. “I know. Logan called me. No matter. You are a dragon shifter and that magic must be controlled along with your ability to shift.”
I nodded, and felt as if I was getting a scolding from my mother. God, I missed my mother. I would even take her yelling at me right now.
“I must go now. Sloane, walk me out?” She opened her arm and I linked mine through it, wondering why the pureblood sorcerer wanted me of all people to walk her out.
As we passed everyone in the kitchen and made our way to the front door, Logan went to follow us.
“Give us a minute, dear,” Eva told Logan, and he stopped following us and gave her a piercing look. Now my gut was churning with nerves. What would she want to talk to me about? Why couldn’t Logan come?
Once we were out on the porch, Eva dropped my arm an
d pulled out the keys to her black Mercedes. It gave a beep as she unlocked it and I stood there awkwardly wondering when she was going to say something.
She waved her hand and the passenger side door opened. “Step inside, dear. My car is spelled so that we may speak freely.”
I raised an eyebrow. How the hell had she opened the door? Magic was cool … and freaky. I hesitated a moment, but deep down I trusted Eva. She could have harmed me before if that was her intent and she didn’t.
I hugged my arms to my chest as I followed her to the car. Once I was inside I could smell the crisp leather, oil, and distinct scent of some flower. My nostrils must have been flaring, because Eva sat next to me and laughed. “Each sorcerer’s magic has a smell unique to them. Mine has a floral scent, don’t you think?”
I nodded, wondering if I would ever stop learning about this new world.
Eva reached out and took my hand and we both turned to face each other.
“Logan thinks you’re a hybrid. Half dragon shifter and half sorcerer.”
Her blunt proclamation shocked me a bit, but now that she had mentioned it, I was desperate to know her opinion. “Am I?” We had talked about it a little in her office, but she didn’t seem sure of what exactly I was, other than a dragon.
Eva gave a sad smile and shook her head. “No. I know my own kind. As a purebred sorceress, I can sense the potency of magical blood within my own people. It’s how I make my living, telling people how much magic they have, what their magical lineage is, etcetera. Everyone wants to be a powerful sorcerer. It’s like getting your genealogy chart done.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. I was kind of hoping I was part sorcerer. It would at least explain the weird purple magic I’d busted out earlier on Baldy.
Eva caressed my hand with her thumb. “You’re a sweet girl. I saw that the moment you stepped into my office.”
“Thank you.” My voice was weak; it felt like she was bracing me for something. Something bad.
“Honey. Dragon shifters can’t mate with other shifter animals.”
I swallowed hard. “I know.”
She nodded. “And you’re not part sorcerer.”
“Okay…” My heart was pounding so loud in my chest I was sure she heard.
“Sloane … I want you to prepare yourself for the possibility that you could be part druid.”
Complete and utter shock trickled down my body from my head to my toes, and numbness saturated everything that I was. “What?” I yanked my hand back and clutched it to my chest. “No, that’s not possible.”
Eva smoothed the pants of her suit. “It’s unheard of, not impossible.”
“But … that would mean…” I wasn’t thinking clearly. “Druids and dragons hate each other. How could two of them mate? This is crazy.”
Eva kept giving me that look of pity. “I have a friend. He’s been living under the radar for decades, but I think I can get in touch with him.”
Okay…
She went on: “I’ve sent a message to this friend to reach out to me. He will know more about this … situation, and possibly be able to help. I wanted to tell you all of this privately because I feel it is your story to tell once the time comes.”
“But ... you said I might be part druid.” I sounded like an arguing child.
Eva pursed her lips. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure. I smelled it on you before I capped your scent.”
Fuck. I put my head in my hands and tried not to cry.
“My friend will be able to tell me with one hundred percent accuracy, but I would need a sample of your blood.”
I froze. My blood.
Eva looked serious, her lips tightening into a thin line. “You should never, ever give a sorcerer your blood. Ever. Except this one time,” she said. “Unless you don’t want to know, and that’s okay too.”
I sighed. Of course I didn’t want to know. I wanted to go on thinking I was a dragon shifter, and that was enough crazy for one day. Logan had expressly told me to never give a sorcerer my blood, but he also told me I could trust Eva, and I did.
“I don’t want to know … but I need to know,” I told her, resigned, and extended my finger.
She gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry you’re going through this.” She grabbed a small vial and pricked my finger before quickly catching one drop and releasing my hand.
I pulled my finger to my mouth out of habit and sucked it clean, then I rested both hands in my lap and looked out the window at the house.
“What do I do?” I asked her, turning my head to face her. There was a reason she’d asked Logan to stay inside and I thought I knew what it was. If he knew I was half druid…
“Well, dear,” she said, “you’re living in a house full of diehard druid haters, so perhaps it’s best you make them all love you before revealing this little secret.”
My head whipped up and my mouth popped open. Oh God. It was exactly as I thought. They were going to kill me. Logan was going to kick me out.
Her face fell and she reached her hands out to me. “Oh shoot. That was a joke, dear. I’m sorry. I’m awful at sarcasm.”
I exhaled the breath I was holding; it may have been a joke but it was half true. I gave her a fake smile so she wouldn’t feel so bad.
She patted my hand. “Just hang tight until my friend can get in touch with me, okay?” I nodded.
After exiting the car, I stood there and watched her drive away. Once her car reached the end of the property line, I stood there a little longer, not yet ready to go inside. My brain had concluded that Eva thought I was half druid. Druids were evil. I was half evil. Shit. Somewhere in that conversation with myself I had started wondering about the science of it. One of my parents had to be a dragon … and one was a druid … so which one was my mother? And how and the hell did she die of cancer? I was only one hundred percent certain about one thing: my mother, Lilly Murphy, was my biological mother. We had the same hair, same face—hell, I even had this weird birthmark on my left hip that she had. She was my mother. Which meant she was a druid or a dragon, and either way she had lied to me.
That’s what hurt the most. She lied.
“Sloane?” Logan had come outside and I was too busy freaking out to even hear or smell him. I spun around, hugging my arms to my sides as a chilly breeze swept past me.
Logan was assessing me, lips pursed, eyes half lidded. If the man couldn’t read minds, he sure was trying.
“What did Eva want?” He tried to sound casual but his voice was cloaked with interest.
Don’t panic. I was honest to God the worst liar in the world. I hated doing it and it made me so nervous I usually just blurted the truth out. But this truth could get me killed or abandoned by my new “pack.”
So … I lied. I shrugged, acting nonchalant. “She was just checking in with me. Seeing how I was doing.”
He relaxed a little and then looked concerned. “How are you doing?” He stepped forward two steps and then stopped as if he didn’t want to spook me.
I shrugged again. “I’m teetering on the edge of insanity. Ya know, the usual.”
Thank God I was raised by a mother who had a healthy dose of sarcasm, because humor and sarcasm were nice shields to hide behind sometimes.
Logan frowned slightly. “It’s going to be okay.” The typical lie to make the scared female feel safe. I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit.
“Is it?” I countered.
He sighed and threw his hands in the air. “How the hell should I know? What I do know is that while I’m still breathing, you will be safe.” The moment he said it, he made a face as if he regretted it. His lips tightened into a thin line and his eyes widened a little. “I mean the whole pack. I’ll take care of all of you guys.”
God, he was sweet, sexy, and smelled good. I needed to find a flaw on this guy or I might be in trouble. Maybe he was a bad kisser, sloppy and teeth mashing. Yeah. That’s what I would tell myself to calm the fire that had ignited south of my navel.
Logan was just looking at me, waiting for a response, and I didn’t have one for him. I didn’t want to talk about him protecting me, because I didn’t know what I was.
Something occurred to me then. “So, shifters are part human?” I remembered he had explained this earlier, but it all took on a much more important meaning to me now. I shivered as another cold breeze rippled through the front yard.
Logan nodded and slipped off his jacket, walking it over to me and placing it around my shoulders. “Yes. The queen of Faery always said they made perfect protectors for her skyborn because they were strong and loyal, and being half human would have sympathy for the humans. But two shifters cannot have children unless they are of the same species. So, two wolf shifters could have kids, but not a wolf shifter and a coyote shifter. The animal magic competes for the fetus and it ends in miscarriage.”
Weird and sad. I posed my next question: “But dragons? They’re shifters too.”
Logan lowered his voice. “The dragon shifters, like you and I, were made, not born. At least originally. We are more magical Fae than human. We’ve never been human. We’re part beast, part blood of the queen of Faery herself.”
I don’t know why but that terrified me. I wanted to be human, at least in part. I swallowed hard and pulled Logan’s jacket tighter around me and tried not to focus on his scent.
“And sorcerers can have babies with humans…”
Logan nodded. “That’s correct.”
“But we can only have babies with another full-blooded magical supernatural?” I think I was getting it.
Logan nodded. “Exactly. Like if your biological mother was a full-blooded sorceress like Eva, and your father was a skyborn, that would explain our purple problem.” He smiled.
I smiled back but it didn’t reach my eyes. Biological. He didn’t think my mother was my real mother.
“And after the Faery queen created us…” I let the sentence hang open.