by Leia Stone
For life. My dragon purred at those words, but I huffed. “Because I’m half dragon?” Was that the only reason he was so hell-bent on protecting me? On sticking together? Just to live out his mission or whatever? A large part of me hoped not, because I felt something for him too, and I wasn’t sure I could run from that anymore.
He ate up the distance between our bodies, pressing his hips into mine and causing me to inhale sharply. “Because you’re my mate.” His lips crashed onto mine then as pleasure and pure shock exploded inside of me. My dragon burst to life as magic thrummed through my veins and fireworks of warmth and desire erupted in my belly. Mate … yes. Logan was my mate and I should have known it all along. My dragon did. I realized that now, what she had been trying to tell me. Logan was my mate. Just as Nadine said, there was a knowing, a magical explosion, a rightness in my soul that he was mine and I was his. I wasn’t in some perpetual heat, I had been denying myself my mate. Logan’s tongue reached out softly, caressed mine, and I moaned. My fingers reached out and ran down the length of his torso, stroking the hard muscles there.
“Alright, get a room,” Sophie called from the end of the alley, and I grinned as Logan pulled away from my lips and met my eyes once more, this time with a huge smirk. Being like this with Logan, kissing him, it felt so right I wished I hadn’t waited so long.
I was about to speak when a glow below me caught my eye. Looking down, I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of my purple magic and Logan’s teal magic intertwined and dancing between our two bodies. It’s as if my body was a light bulb and my magic was hovering twelve inches off my body, reaching out for Logan.
The light display attracted our friends. They walked over, all gaping at what was happening. The magic swirled in arcs, flaring out bigger and bigger, tingling my abdomen as it moved.
“What is it?” Logan asked breathlessly to no one in particular.
Eva responded, stepping closer, eyes open in awe: “You’re mates … a magical bond stronger than any other, closer than even a mother and child. Your life force is now dependent on each other.”
The colors were dying down now and both Logan and I looked at each other with wide eyes. “What does that mean?” I asked Eva, craning my head to see the sorcerer.
Eva peered at me from behind her top hat and frowned. Then she looked at the ground as if she couldn’t meet our eyes. “If one of you dies, then the other goes with you.”
Keegan had shifted to his human form, wearing a pair of low-slung sweats and no t-shirt. At Eva’s words, he let a curse word fly. I let what Eva said sink in as pure shock saturated my being. Now it was back to being like they had only one dragon, because if one of us died we took all of humanity with us.
‘It will be okay.’ Logan stroked my cheek but I jumped back with a yelp, because his lips hadn’t moved and yet I’d heard him clear as day in my head.
‘What the hell!’ I thought back.
Logan’s brow furrowed, at first in confusion, and then surprise, which turned to delight and he grinned.
“What now?” Sophie groaned, watching our loved-up display.
Logan was grinning ear to ear. “We can speak into each other’s minds.”
Sophie made a gagging noise and Nadine reached out and smacked her arm hard, shutting her up.
“And this is funny how?” I asked him, because it was totally freaking me out. Talk about a privacy violation. Mate or not, I wanted to be able to control who was in my head!
He shrugged. “Because now I can bug you no matter how far away you are.”
I stepped in closer to him, all thoughts of freaky mate mind melding gone. “I won’t leave like that again,” I said it to him, but then I looked at everyone. My pack. I looked each one of them in the eyes, whether human or animal. “I’m sorry. I won’t ever do that again,” I told them all.
When my eyes finally rested on Keegan, he nodded and that was that. I was forgiven.
12
WHILE LOGAN AND I were in our lovable mate bubble, Danny had been looking at the yellow shimmering magic wall that Eva had built around us.
“Little FYI, we’re going to need an exit plan,” Danny said from the edge of the alley. I could see now that Jeanine was weaving her own magic into the wall, and beside her was Steven, the two other druids from Flagstaff, and a shitload of other scary looking people. They stood beyond Eva’s transparent yellow wall and glared at us as if sizing up their dinner.
Eva growled. “Of all the people you went to, it had to be her.”
I flinched. “Yeah … about that. I asked her to do a spell that would make it impossible for you guys to find me, but I think she did something else. I can’t … shift.”
Eva’s whole body froze and she spun to face me. “Tell me you did not give her your blood.”
Oh shit.
“She did,” Logan groaned, and I turned to face him with wide eyes.
“Hey! Get out of my head!” I scolded him.
‘Traitor,’ I pushed at him mentally.
He just gave me a look that said, ‘I told you to never give a sorcerer your blood.’
“Oh, Sloane! Honey, you have no idea what you’ve done.” Eva was softer now, approaching me like I was a rabid animal about to attack. Her hands were out and she walked slowly, using a calm voice. It scared the shit out of me.
“W-what did I do?” My voice stuttered as the fear took hold of me.
“A spell bound in blood is permanent,” she said with finality, and the walls of the alley started to spin. Permanent?
Logan stepped closer to Eva. “No. There has to be another way. If she can’t shift, she can’t fight, she can’t fly. She will die.”
The yellow spell wall cracked behind us and Eva looked resigned. “We will deal with this later. I’ll figure something out. There is one way I know of, but it’s dangerous.”
“Umm, Eva!” Danny yelled, his voice jumping up two octaves, and Eva spun with her hands out, throwing yellow magic like crazy, trying to repair the wall.
“Get us a way out of here!” she roared behind us.
Logan reached out and took my hand. “Does your purple magic still work?”
I thought of how I had blasted the druid into the wall and nodded. “I just can’t shift.”
Logan cursed. “Which makes it easier for the druids to catch you. Alright, let’s get out of here and we will figure this out. Don’t worry.”
‘Don’t worry? If I die, you die!’ I screamed into his head.
His eyes went green. “No one is dying. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
We scanned the alley and our eyes fell on a door at the far wall opposite the club. The door said “Bakery” in a pastel blue cursive font. Logan took two steps towards it and shot the lock out, kicking the door open. Eva had thrown some kind of smoke spell, making it impossible for the bad guys to see what we were doing. Sophie was right behind us, gun raised.
Logan went first into the dark room, before declaring, “All clear.” I followed, with Sophie behind me. We were in a bakery; the whole front wall was glass, and I could see one of the druids standing there outside, not looking in the shop, but it was too close for comfort.
“Get down,” Logan hissed, and Sophie and I dropped to the ground and went left, away from the druid and towards the display cases. My stomach growled as the smell of sugary icing hit my nose. Would it be bad karma to steal a donut? I thought to myself.
‘Yes,’ Logan replied.
My eyes widened. This was not going to work. I couldn’t live with someone inside of my every thought. And what the hell, I wasn’t getting any thoughts from him!
‘Eva can fix it. I’m linked to the pack, so I’m used to this,’ was all he told me.
He was? Since when? It hit me then how little we knew about each other.
‘That is something we can remedy with time,’ he said and I groaned. We army-crawled our way to the back and through the kitchen. When we realized we were out of sight, and no one was in the bakery
late at night working, we popped up. There was a huge tray of creamy, frosted, ice-pink cupcakes sitting on the table, and Sophie’s eyes met mine and we both smiled. She totally wanted one too. Hah!
Logan called us to the back, and upon further inspection we found a back door that led to another alley, this one deserted and leading to the open street, where we could escape.
“Sophie, get the pack. Have Eva do a blinding spell so they can’t see you guys coming through the door. Sloane and I will bring the car around.”
She nodded and re-holstered her weapon. “You got it.”
Logan took my hand in his, then we started running out the back, where I assumed Logan had a car waiting. As we reached the end of the alley, I saw some cars parked on the street, but didn’t recognize any of the pack’s. I was shocked when Logan pulled out keys and beeped them, lighting up a large stretch limousine. “What the...?” I stood there dumbfounded as Logan waved away my expression. “Don’t ask. We put Danny in charge of getting a car big enough for all of us.”
I grinned, forgetting for a moment the horrible situation we were in. He popped open my side of the door and I got in, shotgun. The second I closed my door, Logan put the car in drive and careened the huge vehicle down the alley, nearly scraping the sides at the tight turn. The limo was newer, with black leather and a divider glass window. As Logan drove us up the alley, I could see most of the pack outside of the back bakery door, and was flooded with relief. I thought back to Steven and something that had been bothering me, something I wanted to ask Logan.
“Logan, that druid. He was inside, and I barred the door with the dumpster, and then he was right behind me. Then when you and Keegan had him up against the wall … he just disappeared.”
Please let him have had a twin brother waiting in the alley or something explainable.
Logan nodded. “Ardan has the power to teleport. They’re wind druids. Steven must be his new right-hand man. Ardan’s power trickles down the druid line and gets more diluted as it goes. The second I saw him vanish like that, I knew we were dealing with a powerful one.”
He lost me at teleport. He’d freaking just said “teleport.” I didn’t know what was crazier, the fact that teleportation was real, or the sight of half a dozen naked shifters in the alley covering their junk with their hands. Logan pulled the limo up to the side door and everyone but Sophie was either fully or partially naked, save for Eva and Danny, who didn’t have the ability to shift. Which was funny considering Sophie was probably the only person who liked to be naked. Instead of watching the alley for threats, she was checking out Ruben’s impressive glutes.
“Get in!” Logan whisper screamed.
Everyone piled in the back and the car sank down a few inches with the weight. I was assuming there were clothes in the back; otherwise this was going to be a long and uncomfortable drive. The privacy panel had been pulled up so that Logan and I couldn’t see or hear anything from the back.
Mentally, I had calculated everyone, and finally figured out who was missing. “Wait! Gear,” I shouted, as Logan began driving the limo off down the alley and back onto the main street.
Logan pointed up to the sky. “He’s been looking out and reporting if anyone was coming near the back alley.”
“Reporting how?” I took a side glance at him.
Logan tapped his head. “I have a mental link to the pack. They can all talk into each others’ minds, but only when in animal form, and I can talk into their minds in my human form since shifting isn’t a great idea for me. Eva did it with magic,” he explained.
Wow. This whole time they had … what had they said about me that I didn’t know about?
Oh. Another thought struck me then. “My car!”
Logan sighed. “Gear will have to get it later and drive behind us.”
I scrambled to get my keys out of my clutch, but Logan laughed. “Gear doesn’t need that.”
Oh. Right.
With nothing left to say, I gave Logan a long look, staring at the strong features of his face. Mate. What a weird and freaky word, and yet … so right. From the moment I met him there had been this magnetic attraction that I kept trying to blame on the heat or every other thing but…
A thought struck me then. “Logan? Did you know that we were mates? I mean, before tonight?” The way he’d almost kissed me in my room that day … some of the things he’d said…
Logan gave me a sultry side glance, eyes half lidded. “From day one. Although I was in denial for a little bit. Might have been because you punched me in the face and nearly broke my ribs.” He winked, and then let his eyes shift back to the road. Oops. I didn’t even remember doing that.
Well, vaguely.
“You caged me,” I growled in defense.
His hand slipped into mine and a contented sigh escaped me. The adrenaline high of being on the run had worn me down and sleep was dragging at the corners of my mind. A soft sliding noise behind me forced my eyes to snap open, and a hand suddenly plopped a feisty mewing Mittens on my lap.
“She’s attacking Sophie,” Eva’s voice called out softly from behind me.
I rubbed Mittens between the ears. “Good girl.”
“I heard that,” Sophie growled, but I could hear her smile. We had reached some kind of bitchy mutual friendship that I was okay with. Besides, she had Ruben to obsess over now, so Logan was mine.
It was silent but I knew Eva was still looking at me. I could see her from my peripherals. The window was still down. I could barely look her in the eye. I felt too awful for betraying her and going to Jeanine.
“Sloane,” she said finally, “if I would have known you were going to run … that you would take the news that badly, I never would have told you.” I could hear guilt in her voice.
I turned to face her, tears welling in my eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle knowing I was half monster. That I was living in a house full of people who hated what I was.” The car went eerily silent then and I was surprised at who chose to reply.
“You’re nothing like them,” Dom’s deep voice echoed throughout the car.
“Here, here!” Danny called out, and I heard the clinking of glasses.
I turned fully around, eyes wide, to see there was a disco light on in the limo and it was spinning, causing lights to dance across the faces of my clearly intoxicated friends. Each one had a shot glass in hand. “Are you guys getting drunk?” I asked, mystified.
“Operation: Save Sloane, was a success. We’re celebrating,” Keegan said. “Besides, with our metabolism, the buzz will be gone in less than an hour.”
I just laughed and Eva’s hand reached out and grasped my shoulder lightly. She leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “We’re going to see my friend now, honey. The druid I told you about. He’s the only one that can help you now.”
Logan didn’t seem to like that, because his grip on my hand tightened. I stared straight ahead as a lump of fear formed in my chest. Now that she mentioned it, I noticed we were driving away from Arizona and towards San Francisco. Holy shit, I was going to willingly meet and possibly train with a druid. Why else would they be bringing me to him if not to train with him?
‘Don’t worry. I’ll protect you,’ Logan spoke softly in my mind.
I whipped my head to the side and just stared at him. ‘We need to lay down some boundaries for the mind speak thing.’
He grinned. ‘Mind speak, I like that. Eva can make it so you don’t project so loudly. It happened with the whole pack at first. Dom is a closet Prince fan.’
I grinned. Good to know.
‘Just give me privacy until then, please,’ I told him.
He nodded. ‘Unless you try to run away again. Then I’m going to be all up in your mind.’
I smirked and leaned closer, laying my head on his shoulder. My dragon pulsed, sending warmth down my legs as I breathed in his scent.
‘I’m never leaving you again. I promise.’ My heart couldn’t take i
t if I did. It was the last thing I said to him before I fell asleep, with Mittens on my lap.
“Sloane!” Logan was shouting, shaking my shoulders. I jolted awake, looking around frantically. I had fallen asleep in the front seat of the limo, and now we were pulled over with the entire pack outside of the car. My side of the car’s door was open and Logan was leaning over me, shaking me.
“I’m awake! What’s wrong?” Then I saw it. Gear’s bird was lying in Nadine’s lap, his wing bent at an odd angle, nearly torn off.
“Should he shift?” Nadine was asking Eva.
“No way! His arm could sever. Stay in bird form, Gear.” Eva pointed a finger at the falcon and then crisped her suit, turning on me.
“You!” She pointed.
I shrank back as if I was being scolded by my mother. “What did I do?”
Eva’s face softened. “You need to tell me everything about that spell Jeanine did on you. I think it was a two-part spell. One part to keep you from transforming and one part tracker.”
At the word “tracker,” my insides dropped and I felt sick. “No,” I said, in denial.
“Quickly! Tell me.” Eva waved her hand and now Danny was standing next to her; he was all ears.
“She had a … a jar and she was putting stuff in it. Umm … a match—”
Eva cut me off. “Tell me it wasn’t a spell where you had to breathe in smoke?” Eva’s face and hands were frozen as she awaited my reply.
I just winced and Eva and Danny both let a curse word fly.
“She didn’t know! It’s our job to teach her these things,” Logan said in my defense, stepping closer to me.
I sighed. “What did I do?” Oh God. Was Gear going to be okay? The look in Nadine’s eyes gutted me.
Eva motioned for me to stand. “Get up, honey. The druid is tracking you and they will be here any moment. I need to remove the spell and it’s going to hurt like the fire of a thousand suns, but it’s the only way I know how.”
Logan stepped in front of me, blocking the car door. “No way! We’ll kill the druid and find another way.”
