by Leia Stone
The gate creaked and I clamped down on Logan’s hand. It was dark, so I couldn’t see details, but when the gate opened wide, Isaac stepped forward.
“Hello, I’m Isaac. The earth druid.” Isaac was looking down at the ground, hand on his knees, and that was my first indication that my initial assessment might have been wrong.
“Ahh, the earth druid. Yes, Yalash spoke of you often. I’m Griddish. Come in,” the deep baritone voice said.
As Isaac stepped into the yard and moved out of the way, the moonlight fell on the elfin creature. All three feet of him.
“Oh my God,” I said, startled. He was so … cute. Little pointy ears, white silken hair that fell to his back, smooth pearlescent skin, and knobby little fingers. I wanted to hug him.
Isaac was making hand motions behind the elf’s head. But I couldn’t figure them out.
“Oh my God. What?” the elf said, that deep voice misplaced on his tiny body.
Isaac cleared his throat, and when I looked up he was shaking his head vigorously.
‘I think Isaac’s having a seizure,’ I told Logan.
‘He wants to make sure you don’t comment on the size of the creature,’ Logan responded.
Oh. Whoops. I bent down low and met the elf’s crystalline pearl eyes. “Oh my God, you’re real. I’m so honored to meet a real, live elfin creature from the land of Faery,” I improvised.
He looked down his nose at me for a moment but then nodded. “Yes. I am the last of my kind. It can be quite a shock.”
I’d heard that last of my kind stuff before. Turned out not to be true, but I simply nodded and followed Logan into the yard as the elf shut the gate. Isaac sighed in relief, and I wondered just how dangerous this cute thing could be. If I commented on his size, would he attack?
We walked along a path lit by glowing blue glass bulbs that I couldn’t see any wires going to. They merely hovered a few inches off the ground, illuminating our path with an indigo hue. I wanted to reach out and touch one, but with my luck, it would shoot purple magic and shatter everywhere while simultaneously castrating the elf.
As we walked deeper into the backyard, I couldn’t help but gawk at the beautiful craftsmanship apparent in every little thing. Something as simple as a candleholder was hand carved from wood, with scrollwork and flowers. Bright light bulbs hung from the trees, glowing various shades of blue and green. But the most jaw-dropping item in the yard was the lattice hammock made from thin, woven wooden fibers. It was suspended between two large trees, with a little pillow and woven blanket inside.
The elf walked to a workbench where he’d clearly been working with some wood. Shavings were scattered across the top of the table, along with some weird looking tools. The elf simply hopped up into his chair and then picked up a piece of wood and started carving.
“What do you want?” he said, hunched over his piece, not making eye contact.
Isaac looked dismayed for a moment, but then crouched to one knee. “I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting you on my visits out to your old farm. You were always hiding.”
He stopped whittling for a moment. “I don’t like people. Only Yalash.”
Isaac nodded, pulling his staff from inside of his coat. “I’ll never forget when Yalash made this for me.”
The creature stopped what he was doing and peered backwards at the staff. His face scrunched in pain as he reached out, stroking the wood. “Yalash loved this piece. Said it would do great things.”
Isaac nodded. “But you helped him, didn’t you? You can make the earth wands, can’t you?”
Earth wands.
Griddish pulled his hand away and went back to whittling. “Too dangerous. Bad druids are everywhere now. If I make it for you, they’ll kill me.”
Isaac growled. “Not if I kill them first.”
The elf threw his tools down and suddenly all of the lights in the backyard dimmed. When he turned back around in his seat, his face looked venomous.
“The last person to say that to me was the queen of Faery, and she died, so excuse me for not believing in you. Now go away and stop wasting my time!” The lights flickered and I took a step back. Homeboy was angry and I was starting to respect his three-foot stature. He might look small, but I had this sinking feeling he could dole out a can of whoop-ass, no problem. Logan’s hand clamped around mine, keeping me in place.
“You’re an elf!” Logan growled. “Legend says that the elves were the queen’s mightiest warriors. Now here we come, ready to avenge your queen and kill the druid that ended her reign, and you won’t help?” Logan’s eyes went to lizard slits then and the elf’s gaze sharpened, all anger suddenly forgotten. He hopped off his stool, approaching Logan with wariness. He sniffed once. Then twice.
His small delicate mouth formed an “O” as he stared at my mate with shocked reverence. “Skyborn,” he breathed. “My queen’s most cherished children.” He reached out as if he wanted to stroke Logan’s arm, and then thought better of it.
“You shouldn’t be here. You should be in hiding. Please go!” he said quickly, and a sudden wind picked up, pushing us back. Holy mother. What was this little dude capable of?
Isaac suddenly slammed his staff down into the earth and all of the bulbs in the yard glowed a searing bluish-orange. “Your brother would be sickened with the way you cower! With the things you sell to the druids to make money.”
The elf looked shocked.
Isaac nodded. “Yes, I know what you’ve done.”
I wanted to know too. But now didn’t seem like the time to ask.
For a moment I thought Griddish might cry. His eyes became misty, but then his mouth turned upside down, eyebrows scrunched. “How dare you judge me? The world has gone to hell. I’m just trying to survive it!”
A sudden whirling sound pulled my attention to the ten sharpened wooden arrows whizzing through the sky, coming our way. What the hell? Floating midair by some unseen force, the arrows came right for us.
“Out! You’re no longer welcome here,” he roared, in his booming voice, and this time Logan allowed me to pull him away and turn around, walking quickly for the back gate. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw Isaac standing there just staring a wooden arrow down as it spun in front of his face. “If you want a chance to redeem yourself and carry on your brother’s legacy, we’re going to sleep tonight in the bus out front. At first light, we leave. The girl is my apprentice. She needs an earth wand to anchor her powers, and help me defeat Ardan. You can either be part of the problem or the solution. Your choice.” And with that, Isaac yanked his staff from the ground and turned to leave.
I made it to the gate in record time, pulling it open to find Keegan standing there with shotgun in hand. “Everything all right? Quite a light show going on back there.”
I just shook my head and blasted past him to get on the bus. I was feeling a hurricane of emotions. I hadn’t expected the elf to refuse to make the staff for me. What did this mean? Now we wouldn’t defeat Ardan? Isaac said my powers would rip me in two without an anchor, right? I didn’t know. And he might not have been a ten-foot-tall, razor-sharp-teethed monster, but he did have power. The flying arrows? The glowing and hovering glass orbs. I didn’t think we were going to be able to force him. I was screwed.
“It’s a lost cause. Let’s just go home. Everyone’s injured anyway,” I said the moment Isaac entered the bus with Logan.
The druid set down his staff and stretched out on the front seat. “Nothing is a lost cause. Mother Earth will convince him.”
I groaned. Yeah the Earth had power—I’d felt it—but acting like she was going to mow a message into the elf’s lawn felt bonkers. But I couldn’t deny what I’d felt, what I’d seen when Isaac healed Dom. The Earth was something I didn’t understand but I wanted to.
A low growl behind me had my muscles clenching. I froze and slowly tilted my head over my shoulder. The dog I had saved was awake … and pissed. His cuts were crudely stapled, but clean and no longer bleeding.
He was panting and looking at me with a mixture of fear and something else I couldn’t place.
“Shh, it’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you,” I told him, and reached a hand slowly towards him.
His growl deepened and his lips bared.
“Stop!” Nadine yelled, and I retracted my hand. Turning to look at the tattooed shifter, she gave me a dark look.
“You can’t earn his trust that way. Not at first. You need to do it with food,” she told me. Keegan and Logan shared a look and I wondered if there was a story there. Hadn’t Logan said he’d met Nadine when she was scrounging for food?
“Can you help me with him?” I asked her, and she nodded.
“Roxy took the scooter and went to grab burgers. She’ll be back any minute,” Nadine said.
I had been so preoccupied with that elf, I hadn’t even noticed Roxy was gone when we got on the bus. Isaac kept an electric scooter strapped to the back of the bus; she must have taken that.
I peered to the back of the bus, where the four sets of bunk beds had been fashioned. One sleeping lump I recognized as Dominic.
“How’s he doing?” I asked, no one in particular.
Danny walked up from where he’d been having a conversation with Logan and peered at me. “Alive. Which is a miracle even I couldn’t have pulled off.”
It was a miracle. He’d been so weak, so much blood lost … and then a tree freaking … what? Gave its life for him. I had so many questions.
“Your magic is back?” I asked him.
He sidled in next to me, peering at the dog, who stared back at us with apprehension.
“Eighty percent. Should be full power by morning.”
We’d found the elf and we’d gotten Dominic’s long-held revenge. I guess it was a productive day.
The door swung open and the smell of meat wafted into the bus. The dog whined, and Dominic stirred in his bed with a growl. Meat would wake a hungry shifter. Always.
“Sorry for the delay. Apparently making forty burgers takes a lot of time.” Roxy held up four heavy, greasy paper bags, and my mouth salivated.
“Thanks, girl.” Nadine snatched one and pulled two burgers out, tossing the bread back in the bag. “Alright, Sloane, rub this meat all over your palm. Get your scent on it and then slowly toss it to him.”
“Do what now?” I raised an eyebrow, unsure if I’d heard her right. I loved a good burger just as much as the next guy, but rubbing meat on myself wasn’t my idea of a good time. Nadine smiled. “Just do it. He needs to know you’re the master. That you feed him.”
I groaned and grabbed the two patties from her. With a grimace I rubbed the meat up and down my palms. The dog was whining, a puddle of saliva on the green leather seat bench.
“You hungry, buddy?” I asked him.
He whined again and I slowly reached close to him with the meat. When I got a few inches from him, he growled.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, baby,” I told him.
“Throw it. Don’t push him,” Nadine coached me, and I did as she said. The second the meat landed before him he gobbled it up ferociously.
“He needs a name,” Nadine told me.
I nodded. She was right. Roxy was perched at the edge of Dom’s bed, tossing him burgers, and I thought of the tree that had saved him; it was incredible. What was its name again? Mountain hemlock? I was going to be a tree to this dog. I was going to save him from the darkness and fear that currently saturated his mind.
“Hemlock. His name is Hemlock,” I stated.
I hadn’t realized that Isaac was standing right behind me until he spoke. “It’s a great name.”
I turned and faced those startling eyes.
“Burger?” Nadine held one out for him.
Isaac smiled kindly but shook his head, holding up a bag of sunflower seeds. “No thank you. I don’t see the point in taking a life to fill my belly.”
Every person in the bus froze, their burger held halfway to their mouth. Shit. When he put it like that, I felt awful. The rest of the crew didn’t though. It was a spilt second of hesitation and then they were chewing again. Isaac had sunflower seeds in one hand and a potted plant in another. “We’re not leaving without that staff, Sloane. I’ll do whatever it takes.” His eyes peered into me and it made me think I needed that staff more then he let on. Like without it we couldn’t defeat Ardan, or something bad would happen.
I just nodded. “Okay.”
With a bob of his head he walked to the back and claimed a bunk. I peered around at the amazing bus. The lights were on due to the solar panels; we had a sink to wash up in; and more than enough room for all of us. What Isaac had built was pretty incredible. The bathroom situation was more of a camping style thing, but it was good enough.
“I’m gonna go take these to Gear,” Nadine told me, grabbing four burgers and leaving the rest with me.
Oh yeah. Gear! Geeze, I was really self-involved tonight. “Where is he?”
“Bird form. On the roof taking night watch,” she said, before wishing me goodnight and walking off.
Logan appeared then and sat next to me as I unenthusiastically ate my dead cow. I just wasn’t sure sunflower seeds were going to cut it tonight.
“How are you doing?” He spoke softly, with a tenderness that made the question much more serious than you would think.
How was I doing? If I were being honest, I was a little sad, overwhelmed, and feeling helpless. If this elf didn’t make my staff, then all hope was lost to take on Ardan. And something else had been nagging at me since spending all of this time with Isaac. Something Eva had said on the phone when she’d gotten my blood results reminded me of what I hadn’t dealt with. My mom lied to me. She was a druid, and my dad … she should have told me the truth about him. About what I was.
“Hey … so Eva said that your mentor, Marcus…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence, so I didn’t.
Logan sighed, emotion tightening his face. “Yeah she told me that too. I think she’s right. I think he was your father.” He leaned in closer to me, catching my gaze with those electric green eyes. “And it’s probably my fault he’s dead. If I would have stayed with him, if we’d stuck together, then—”
I put a finger over his lips. “Nope. If I’m not allowed to blame myself for Coop’s death, and our entire situation, really, then you can’t take that one.”
A small amount of relief showed on his face. “You would have loved Marcus. Although he did hate cats, so I’m not sure you have that in common.”
My heart pinched. Logan knew my father. He knew all about him and I didn’t know anything. “I never liked cats until Mittens started stalking me,” I said playfully.
Logan pulled out his phone. “Wanna see a picture of him?”
My heart knocked hard in my chest. My mother had shown me one picture of my father. If Logan showed me that same man, that would confirm it was him. I nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.
After a few moments of scrolling, Logan handed me the phone. “Nadine had all of my old pictures scanned and put on my phone.”
I peered down at the photo and had to bite down on a sob. It was him. Logan hadn’t changed at all—still looked about twenty-five years old—but the clothes they wore screamed the ‘90s: White wash jeans, flannel shirts over white t-shirts. They stood close to each other on a snowy mountain I didn’t recognize. Marcus had his arm around Logan’s shoulders. My father. He looked about forty years old, black hair with streaks of gray. Kind green eyes, and a genuine smile.
I handed him back the phone. “What happened?”
Logan stared at the picture a moment longer. “He taught me everything I know. How to run, how to fight, change states every five years. I mean, I’m alive because of him.”
I nodded. He seemed lost in the story and I didn’t want to interrupt. “But one day he came back from a trip. He was scouting a location for another possible dragon and … he’d changed. He was different. Saying things that were blasphemous to me at the t
ime. I thought he was spelled or something.”
“What did he say?” I leaned forward.
Logan looked pained. “I didn’t know … otherwise, I never would have said what I said,” Logan assured me.
I nodded again, no clue what he was talking about.
“He was saying that not all druids were bad. That he met one that was different. That … he wanted to see her again and … God, Sloane, I said awful things to him. The same things I said to you about killing all the druids on Earth. He took it as a threat to his new love, I guess. I thought he was too old and had gone mad or had been spelled. He left. Like you left…and never came back.”
His whole body flinched and I felt awful. I hadn’t known my father had basically done the same thing. Left Logan after hearing about how much he liked to behead druids. He left to be with my mother. A good druid. I reached out and held his hand.
“It’s just that I’ve seen the druids slay thousands of my people. Even my parents. I couldn’t conceive of anyone like Isaac back then.” His voice was husky, his eyes dark.
I reached up and stroked the back of his neck. “I know. It’s okay. I know.” I leaned my forehead on his and we sat like that for a long time, breathing each other in, the warmth of my dragon sending pulses through my body and into his. It felt like our dragons were speaking to each other in their own way. After a few moments, I started feeling drowsy.
“I’m exhausted,” I breathed.
“So am I,” Logan said, and stood, pulling on my hand so that I would follow. I glanced down and saw that Hemlock was happily asleep, burger grease all over his mouth, bowl of water on the floor of his seat. Logan led me to one of the empty bottom bunks and let my hand go, before reaching for the top bunk to hoist himself up. I brought my arms up to the top of his shoulders and pulled him down.
‘Lay with me?’ I asked, using our bond.
His eyes smoldered as he pulled me down into the bed with him, wrapping me up and pulling me into his chest. His natural scent surrounded me, snow and trees and something so … Logan that I couldn’t place. As I lay my head on his chest, I decided that no matter what the elf said tomorrow, or if the druids killed me, I didn’t regret being a dragon—I couldn’t regret anything that brought me to him. With Logan stroking my hair, and a contented sigh, I fell asleep.