by Leia Stone
“Aww, I’m just kidding.” He took my face into his hands. “You want to know what drives me crazy about you and makes me proud at the same time?”
I nodded. I did want to know.
“That in the end it won’t be me to bring that asshole down. It’s all you and Isaac. You’ve got this.” He planted a kiss on my lips that had my toes curling.
Fine, forgiven.
I smacked his butt for good measure. “See you at Isaac’s.”
“Hey! If I smack your ass it’s sexist, but you can smack mine?” He raised one eyebrow.
I nodded. “Pretty much.” I gave him a wink and picked up my bag.
The last thing I heard before getting into the car was his distinct throaty chuckle.
God, I loved that man.
We pulled the car up to a secluded spot by the lake and turned it around, ready to make our getaway the second after I shifted.
“Alright…” Keegan called our small group to surround him. “Sloane’s going to shift. I’m going to time one minute and then she’s going to shift back to human and we are out of here.”
Dominic was perched on the roof of my car, holding a gun in each hand. Man, that dude had a compulsion with always being on higher ground. I started to undress, tossing Danny my clothes so they wouldn’t have to sit on the dirty forest floor. My staff lay at my feet and I slipped my necklace off too, handing that to Danny as well.
“You know, for a gay man I’ve seen far too many boobs this month,” Danny lamented.
I just chuckled. “Whose are nicer? Mine or Sophie’s?”
Nadine grinned, listening in on our conversation.
Danny seemed to consider this. “Well, seeing as though I don’t like boobs and yours are smaller, less to look at…”
I picked up a pinecone and chucked it at him. He just laughed.
“Enough games, children. We’re about to lure half a dozen druids here,” Keegan grumbled.
“Yes, daddy,” Danny said, batting his eyelashes.
I loved my dysfunctional family. Now that I stood there fully naked, I took a deep breath and called to my dragon, bringing on the shift. For a moment nothing happened. It was like my dragon was asleep—I panicked. Then I felt her rustle and come to the surface like she always did when I brought about the change. In the beginning I’d had no control over when I could shift to and back, but now I was proud to say I think I’d finally mastered my dragon.
Danny, Dom, and Nadine just stared at me in fascination as I transformed. Once I was fully formed Keegan wasted no time.
“Alright, one minute starting now,” he said, and cocked his gun, looking at his watch.
“Why one minute?” Nadine asked, scanning the area.
Keegan shrugged. “Logan and I thought a quick shift was too obvious that it was a lure. A full minute is more believable.” He didn’t sound sure, but it made sense to me. The druids would be extra wary now, so a full-minute in this form might look like one of us had slipped up and changed out of fear or heat.
After a few more moments, Keegan looked at his watch again and sighed in relief. “Okay that’s it. Dom, start the car. Sloane, shift back.”
I nodded my big dragon head and called on my human form…
Nothing happened.
My dragon pulsed with power as if … she was fighting me.
Change back, you dummy! You are putting us in danger! I said to myself.
“Sloane! Shift back!” Keegan yelled.
I backed up, frantically shaking my head.
Okay. Just breathe.
Nadine was staring at me oddly. “I think she’s stuck?” she said, as if it was a question. I bobbed my head up and down frantically.
“Fuck,” Keegan swore, and pulled out his cell phone.
‘Logan! I’m stuck in dragon form. She’s fighting me!’ I desperately called out to my mate.
There was a pause. Disbelief washed through the bond. ‘Tell her it’s safe. You’re safer as a human,’ he pleaded with me.
It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t afraid. But she was. It was like she feared that in my human form my druid would take over and consume her.
‘It’s not that. She’s … scared she’ll be eaten alive by my druid magic.’ I could feel the fear coming off of her. We were one, after all, and those fears were my fears too.
‘Shit,’ he said.
“Umm, what do we do? Druids will be inbound any minute!” Nadine shrieked.
“I don’t know,” Keegan said, sounding lost for the first time in forever.
Danny scooped up my necklace and staff, bundling them in his hand with my clothes and approached me.
“I can make you invisible for a bit. Can you fly with me on your back?”
“WHAT!” Keegan screamed.
I nodded. It wasn’t easy. I’d almost dropped Sophie when she tried to fly on me last time, but I could do it.
Danny looked at Keegan. “Get Gear to fly, and follow in your car so we can keep track of you and Logan. We’re going to head up. It’s the only way to keep her safe. Last time I checked, druids couldn’t fly.”
That was true, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him about the time Ardan sent a tornado after me.
Keegan looked torn. “Okay,” he said finally, and got on his phone again.
‘Danny is going to keep me invisible and we’re going to fly until I can figure out how to get my dragon to calm down,’ I told Logan.
‘Good plan,’ he responded. ‘I’m already halfway to you.’
I tilted my head in confusion. ‘What do you mean? You’re driving here?’
Don’t say it, Logan. Don’t you dare say—
‘I’m flying too.’
Shit. He said it.
Danny leapt on my back and I had to fight down a screech. Boy was heavy.
“Onward and upward!” Danny said giddily.
Oh my God. Druids were gunning for me, I was stuck as a dragon, and he was having fun?
“Be safe. We’ll try to lure them away on the ground!” Keegan said.
It was a nice thing to say but it wasn’t true. They would be coming right for me. Me and Logan and our delicious dragon scent.
Without further fanfare I spread my wings. Keegan backed up and held tightly to his shotgun. Danny gripped more tightly.
Please don’t drop him, I told myself.
The liftoff was easy, my legs and wings had power. It was the balance part that was hard. Danny was holding my staff and I could feel the cold golden metal against my back.
“Whoa,” Danny said, in a scared yet thrilled tone. “This is awesome!”
We’re not here to party, I wanted to tell him, but I had zero way of communicating with the sorcerer. Suddenly, a yellow gauze fell over my eyes and I panicked.
“Just my invisibility spell,” Danny yelled over the sound of the wind.
I pumped my wings faster getting us higher and higher above the tree line.
‘I don’t see you!’ Logan said, panicked.
‘Well, Danny just made me invisible so you’re not going to. Where are you?’
‘To the west of Marlette Lake.’
‘West? I need left or right!’ I shrieked.
Logan groaned inside my head. ‘Look to the ocean!’
Ahh, now that was a language I spoke. I spun around facing the direction of Isaac’s land, towards the ocean, and spotted his black dragon flying low above the tree line.
‘I see you. We’re coming.’ I started to fly in that direction, getting us closer to my mate. When we were about five feet from him, Danny yelled:
“Boo!”
Logan’s dragon flinched and then looked up with eyes full of hatred.
I’m sure the sorcerer was grinning. “I would make you invisible but you’d need to fly closer together and I think your wings would touch.”
He was right. Logan’s dragon was massive, twenty feet tall with double the wingspan. Now that we were close I could see that in his talons he clutched a backpack. Full of
clothes and weapons no doubt.
‘Get on my back!’ Logan yelled through our mate bond.
Umm what? My mate must be trippin'. It sounded like he just said—
‘Get on my back. I can carry you both!’
He’d finally lost it. I thought for sure I would be the one to lose my mind first but no, it was him.
‘No thanks. I want to live,’ I told him.
‘Do you want druids to see us? I’m in plain sight. Either you get on my back, or we split up again.’
He was right. Covering just one of us wouldn’t help if Logan was flying in full sight, and I didn’t want to split up. Oh poor Danny, he had no clue what was about to happen. I just hoped he would get the point and hold on. I pumped my wings to bring me higher, and then when I was directly over Logan I began to bring my body over his shoulders. I was a small dragon, only about eight feet, like a really tall basketball player.
“Sloane! What are you doing?” Danny’s thighs clenched then, nearly snapping my ribcage. He’d gotten the point.
As I landed on Logan’s back I tried not to use the tips of my sharp talons. I sort of folded my arms and legs around him and held on with my dragon wrists and ankles.
“Oh joy. I always wanted to die by snapping my neck,” Danny yelled. But I saw him extend the yellow gauze to go over Logan’s form as well.
‘Alright, I’ll fly us about ten miles away since the druids will be coming to this spot. Then we land and I’ll try to get your dragon to shift back.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’ I was borderline panicking inside that my dragon would never shift back and we would be on the run, flying the skies forever, but I tried to keep all of that in my deep dark place that I didn’t go to often.
Logan’s flying was effortless. His wingspan made it so that he didn’t need to frantically pump like I did. He just sort of glided on the air and it was beautiful. Poor Danny was muttering the Holy Rosary above me, while nearly cracking my ribs as he held on for dear life.
Finally, we found an open clearing in a patch of trees and Logan started his descent. We were halfway between the points where he and I had shifted. Hopefully it was void of anyone, human or druid. Our landing was a bit rough. I managed to half-fly and half-fall off of him at the last moment. Danny grunted when I made a hard landing next to Logan’s right wing. A quick scan of the area told me that we were alone. Danny leapt off of me and threw my clothes and staff down.
“I survived!” He fell to his knees and proceeded to kiss the ground.
I wasn’t sure a dragon could laugh, but I did. It was a chuffing snort of some kind and it drew Danny’s attention.
“You think that’s funny? My life flashed before my eyes up there! Landing on Logan’s back? Are you crazy, woman?” he said dramatically.
I bobbed my large head, which just made him shake his.
“Alright, Sloane…” Logan was shifted, dressed, and had a gun tucked into his waistband. Damn, boy was fast. “I’m going to coax your dragon into a relaxed state so you can shift and we can get the hell out of here.”
I nodded.
Relax, girl, I told myself. You’re going to get us killed.
She reared up against me then, putting on a show of might, and my scales tightened. Home-girl didn’t want to relax, she wanted to prove she was stronger than my druid self.
Shit.
‘She’s really fighting me,’ I told Logan as I felt my throat tighten with unshed emotion. Now was not the time for this display of dragon power, but at the same time it made me proud. She was fighting for Logan and our mate bond.
Logan approached me slowly, hand out, with a mild green glow emitting from his palm. “Shh, you don’t need to do this. Nothing in this world could take my mate bond from you,” he said aloud, and I felt hot tears spill out of my wide slitted eyes. When his palm rested on my chest, my dragon sighed in contentment. “I won’t let anything happen to your dragon, Sloane,” he vowed, looking right into my eyes, and the trueness in his words would have made my hair stand on end … if I had any.
My scales started to retreat as my human form took over. My dragon was satisfied … for now. Once I was fully human, I gave Logan a quick hug.
“Thank you,” I told him, still touched by what he’d said, and by the faith he had in our relationship. Danny threw me my clothes and I started to dress while the sorcerer got on his phone.
“Yep, she’s human. Can Gear find us? I’m not sure where we landed,” Danny said, presumably to Keegan.
“I saw a road about two hundred feet ahead. Tell him we’ll walk and call him from there,” Logan said.
Danny relayed the instructions and hung up just as I secured the clasp on my necklace and picked up my staff. I was barefoot, deciding to keep my shoes off until we were safely back on Isaac’s land.
Logan put a protective arm around my shoulders. “Alright let’s walk to the—” The snap of a twig had Logan’s arm wrenching away from my shoulders; his gun was out in seconds.
We both spun in unison and muttered the same curse word.
Standing before us were over a dozen full-blown druids and about five or six hunters.
They began to fan out, and I took some small relief in the fact that Ardan was not among them. But that slimy bastard Steven was. I knew he could blink out of existence at any moment and be at my back. Jumpy didn’t even begin to describe how I felt. How the hell were there over a dozen druids here? I was trying not to panic.
“It’s been a pleasure to know you guys,” Danny said seriously, to Logan and I.
Logan growled. “Shut up. Take Sloane and run or fly. Get the hell out of here, both of you.”
“Not a chance in hell,” I told my mate, widening my stance and preparing for the fight.
Logan glanced at Danny. “Take her by magical force if you have to. That’s an order!” he shouted.
Danny shook his head. “My fiancé would never forgive me for leaving his best friend to die, and neither would Sloane. We’re in this together.”
Logan finally turned to me. “Sloane, I’m begging you. Run … please,” he whimpered.
Anger flushed through me fierce and hot. We were just trying to live our lives and be happy. We didn’t do shit to these druid scum and yet they had made it their mission to take out our entire race. A slow burn unfurled in my chest as the anger reached a boiling point and I no longer cared about anything. I had a moment of detachment. I didn’t care if I lived or died, I didn’t care that I was human or mated. I only cared that I wiped that smug grin off of Steven’s ugly mug.
“So, this is where you’ve been hiding?” the druid preened.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Raising my staff, I gave out a blood-curdling scream and let all of the heat and rage pour through me. I slammed the staff into the ground and a wave of fire left my body and shot out like a rising tide, covering the druids directly in front of me. Steven blinked out before the roaring blaze hit, while Logan and Danny were thrown backwards with the backlash. But they burned, those high and mighty druid bastards burned alive.
Chaos rained down then, everything happened so fast. Logan was up, sinking bullets into the remaining druids that had been out of my range. Danny was setting up shields that blocked their balls of red fire. I spun, knowing that coward Steven would pop up behind me and try to take me again. I wouldn’t even give him a second to breathe before I took his life.
Sure enough, right before me, Steven blinked into view.
I didn’t think, didn’t wait for him to speak. I raised the golden, sharp tip of my staff and lunged. It pierced the flesh just below his collarbone and he stumbled backward in shock. My plan relied on hoping that if he was injured enough, he couldn’t do his teleporting thing. I moved forward with him, watching him stumble backward to the ground, my hand remained on my staff as I fed it magic. I saw his face contort in pain.
“You’re a racist piece of crap, and the world is better off without you,” I said, pulling my gun from behind my back.
Calling on my druid power, with one final push, I dosed his body in purple flames. His upper torso jerked as the fire consumed him, and I looked away, a little ashamed at what I’d done. Finally, I stopped the flames, the staff falling to my side. I was about to spin around and see if Logan and Danny needed any help when I saw the concentrated green mist rising up from his smoldering remains, and floating towards me.
Dragon Magic. Murdered friends and families. He took that! Their souls for power. I no longer felt one ounce of regret. Stepping forward into the green haze, I took a deep breath, absorbing it all into my body. My dragon surged inside of me, pulling the mist down and wrapping it around her like a warm blanket. Power saturated my essence as the green magic weaved within me, finding its place.
“Well done,” Logan said, behind me.
I turned to see his shoulder was bleeding, but he looked otherwise intact. My eyes flicked to Danny, who was wiping his hands off in the grass, trying to rid them of blood. I’d taken out the dozen or so druids with my wall of fire and they’d finished off the hunters.
“Was that the homophobic a-hole that threw Keegan through the cabin door in Flagstaff?” Danny asked, looking at the charred remains of Steven.
I nodded. “And his boss will have felt that loss of power, so let’s get the hell out of here.”
I wasn’t ready to meet Ardan yet. I felt drained after that display. Even absorbing the dragon magic wasn’t enough to make me ready to meet the evil druid master himself. My eyes roamed over the forest and I was pleased to see that my fire had not done harm. A few scorch marks on the grass but no trees were alight. It was almost as if the fire was conscious and knew its intended targets.