AS WE EXITED the barn, Danny walked in front of us, probably to shield us if the druids started flinging red magic fireballs. Logan had my hand firmly grasped in his; I was slightly terrified, so my palms were dripping sweat, but he didn’t seem to care. I could see now that Keegan had the front door wide open and was leaning in the doorway, holding his shotgun while three druids in sleek black business suits stood on the porch.

“To what do we owe the pleasure, gentlemen?” Keegan’s voice dripped with sarcasm and it was clear the druids were not welcome here. A man stepped closer to Keegan, extending his hand. He was the largest of the three, and had a dark brownish-red ponytail, and tattoos that crept up his neck; that’s all I could see from my angle behind them. “Nice to meet you, alpha. I’m Steven of the North Ireland druids.” He had a thick Irish accent and I couldn’t believe it when Keegan looked at his hand and didn’t make a move to shake it, outright rejecting him.

“I know who your people are. What are you doing on my property?” Keegan asked curtly, his eyes going golden.

Danny shuffled his feet faster, stepping closer to the porch. “Now, darling, is that any way to treat our guests?” Danny called out to Keegan, turning on his charm and causing all three druids to turn around.

Holy shit. These mofos were scary. Like they drank steroids and ate children for breakfast scary. As they turned around, I could see they were bulked-up and had that danger vibe coming off of them in waves. I must have stopped walking, because Logan’s hand jerked me closer and I picked up my pace, coming to rest beside Danny. All three pairs of druid eyes locked on me and then my red hair. Each druid had some sort of intricate Celtic tattoo on their face or side of their neck, and all I could think about was how much they looked like they belonged in prison.

“Ah. This is who we wanted to meet. Sloane, am I right?” ponytail guy, Steven, said.

My tongue felt like sandpaper in my mouth and I couldn’t speak.

Finally, I found my voice. “Sloane Murphy.” I nodded.

They gave each other a look I couldn’t interpret. “You Irish?” Steven asked, his eyes tightening. His gaze raked over my hair to my face, then down my body.

I simply nodded.

“That’s right. And I’m her boyfriend, Logan.” Logan put the emphasis on the word boyfriend, causing the bigger druid to chuckle.

“Relax, Logan. We’re not here to take your girl. As I’m sure you have heard, we have interest in redheads after a new dragon shifter was spotted near the Grand Canyon.”

I paled, and Logan’s hand clamped down on mine like a vise.

Dom’s voice came out of nowhere then, and I hadn’t even realized that he’d snuck up around the side of the house until he was behind me.

“The dragons are all gone. Just leave us lowly half breeds alone,” Dom spat. I knew without looking back that he was probably holding half a dozen guns.

The druid’s face fell into a grimace. Gone was the friendly mask. He now wore a menacing face. “You’re lucky we don’t start hunting your kind,” the druid growled. “And you know damn well the dragons aren’t gone or humanity and all of their weakness would be extinct by now.” The air charged with some type of magical current, the wind beginning to swirl and pick up dust.

Keegan cocked his shotgun, and that’s when shit got crazy.

The big druid spun around at the sound of Keegan’s shotgun cocking. “How dare you threaten me!” He flung his hand out and red magic shot from it, slamming Keegan in the chest and throwing him backward into the house.

“Enough!” Danny yelled, and the door slammed shut at the same time the wind died down.

Steven looked curiously at Danny, and then Danny had that fake award-winning smile back on his face. “Let’s be frank, boys. My friends are all half human, and they know what you think about them, so your presence is barely tolerated here. Why don’t you ask your questions and then be on your way.”

Steven’s lip gave an irritated smirk. “Fair enough.” He nodded to one of his druid henchmen.

One of the two druids nearest me stepped closer to me and reached out his hand.

“Just gimme yer hand so we can get dis over wit’ and ya’ll can get on wit’ yer day,” the short druid said in an even thicker accent than the first. I could barely understand him, but I had heard enough to be scared.

I looked at Logan and he nodded. Logan’s hand tightened in mine as I extended my free left hand. I could hear commotion in the house, and hoped that Keegan was okay. The smaller Irish man took my hand in his and I saw his eyes flash a deep burnt orange. He brought my sweaty palm up to his nose … and sniffed. He smelled me. I don’t know what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t that.

He took another whiff, and this time a bright orange magic seeped from his hand and swirled up my arm.

Danny clapped loudly, breaking my silent awe, and I jumped.

“You’re a hybrid!” Danny squealed in excitement. Damn, this guy deserved an Oscar. He looked like a genuine fan of these asshats. But Danny’s exclamation made sense. The orange eyes, the smelling, this druid was half sorcerer—I was sure of it—something Logan said was impossible because of their creed. One race, one blood, or something like that.

The druid looked mildly annoyed by Danny’s interruption, but nodded. “My father’s a druid, my mother was a pureblood sorcerer.” He said the word pureblood with such pride, it made me sick.

Danny looked impressed. “A rarity. I didn’t think your … people allowed such crossing of the breeds.”

Steven chuckled deeply on the porch. “We don’t. That’s why his mother is dead, but he is of use to us, so we keep him around. Especially since our truth witch mysteriously fell ill when we started questioning about this missing redhead.”

His words made the bile rise up in my throat. They killed his mother just for sleeping with a druid? Why not kill the druid? Freaking double standards.

Steven took a step closer to Danny and pinned him with a half-lidded gaze. “What is a pureblooded sorcerer doing hanging out with a bunch of half breeds?”

Behind me, Dom gave a low growl in his throat, and it was a dead ringer for his lion.

Danny shrugged. “I’m sleeping with the alpha. The sex is too good for me to leave,” he confessed, and I found myself fighting a grin.

Super-big badass druid got really uncomfortable then. Like the fact that he was in the presence of not one, but two gay men was too much to handle. He backed up a step, looking at Danny with a disgusted look, and I decided right then and there that I would train to be a badass druid killing machine just so I could wipe people like this from the face of the earth.

The orange misty magic crept back down my arm and into the hybrid druid’s hand then and he let go, looking at the king of steroids.

“She ain’t a dragon. I dun know what she is, but she ain’t skyborn.” He concluded.

I released the breath I had been holding, but Steven was still eyeing me with speculation.

“She a mutt?” Steven asked, and I tried to suppress a growl.

The smaller man shrugged. “She ain’t pureblood. Les go.”

Keegan was back at the doorway with Gear, both holding guns. Keegan looked to be masking his pain, but I could see sweat beading his brow.

“Have a nice day,” Keegan called out as the men retreated into their black sedan and peeled out of the driveway.

We all sighed then, taking a moment to just breathe.

“Keegan, are you alright?” Logan asked.

Danny stepped up to the porch and Keegan waved everyone off. “He broke my collarbone. It will heal.”

Danny put on hand on his hip and glared Keegan down. Finally, Keegan walked out from the doorway and I noticed he had a slight limp. “I wouldn’t say no to some of that healing magic.”

Danny made a humph noise. “Well, I am your employee now.”

Keegan growled lightly. “It’s not like that,” he whispered to Danny, but Danny just ignored him and rubbed his palms together, making some yellow misty magic rise up, before laying it on Keegan’s chest.

The moment Danny’s palms touched Keegan’s chest, his face relaxed and he sighed in relief.

“Won’t he need to see Eva? To take a scale for healing like Nadine?” I whispered to Logan. I had remembered Logan telling me in Nadine’s loft that she would die without a healing.

Keegan had excellent hearing, because he was the one who answered: “He didn’t hit me with magic intended to kill. It was more of a shock, a slap in the face for cocking my gun. I’m not wasting a scale on this, and neither of you can shift to get a scale with druids in town. I’ll be fine. A bit of pain won’t kill me.”

“It might knock some sense into you,” Danny muttered.

Keegan just grinned. “So you’re staying with me for the sex? Guess we better start having sex.”

Danny smacked his collarbone lightly and Keegan winced. “Please. You know I just said that to get that big homo hater’s panties in a bunch.”

I laughed at “homo hater.” I liked Danny; he was a breath of fresh air.

Logan shook his head in disbelief. “They had a hybrid.”

Danny chuckled and left Keegan on the porch, waving a hand at Logan. “That old thing. Oh, honey, he wouldn’t know a donkey from his own ass. He didn’t even notice that when I clapped loudly I set off a counter spell. He’s harmless.”

I grinned and I looked over at Keegan to see that he was staring at his ex-lover longingly.

“Thank you for that,” Logan told him, and Danny simply nodded.

“Do you think they know anything?” I asked the group. Sophie and Nadine must have gone into town, because they were nowhere in sight.

Dom was the one to speak: “The big guy wasn’t completely sold, but he didn’t want to start a fight on a hunch. They make me sick. Every single last druid needs to be hunted and burned.”

Logan and Keegan nodded their agreement, and I found myself shrinking back.

Dom’s declaration was like ice to my heart. I mean, I understood. Hell, I agreed. They were racist murdering assholes, but … I think I was one of them. What if I … turned dark and attacked Logan or something? At that thought, I realized we were still holding hands, so I pulled mine out of his grasp.

“I’m tired, I think I’m just going to shower and take a nap,” I told the group.

Keegan and Logan shared a look, and then Keegan nodded. “Of course. There’s pizza inside. Help yourself. Nadine and Sophie are shopping in town, but I want everyone back for dinner, because the two new packmates are coming to meet everyone. I think you’re going to like them.”

I nodded and started walking inside. As I passed, Danny’s arm snaked out and caught my wrist lightly, forcing me to turn and look at him. “It was really nice to meet you today, Sloane.”

My heart was beating like crazy because I was ninety-nine percent sure Danny knew my deep dark secret. But damn I had a good feeling about him, that he wouldn’t rat me out. “You too, Danny.”

He released my hand, and with one last look I walked inside, grabbing a slice of pizza on my way up the stairs. Those men were awful, the way they spoke about my friends as if they were less than them because of their magical lineage. It made me feel dirty. And to think I might be one of them … it made my skin crawl.

I didn’t really want to nap, I just needed to think, to wrap my head around everything that had happened the past few days. After closing the door to my room, I plopped on my bed, and at the same time Mittens shot out from underneath it and jumped on my lap. She coaxed a smile from me with her incessant purring as I rubbed the length of her back and got lost in my thoughts. The fingers of my free hand curled into a fist as I absent-mindedly rubbed my palm where the knife had singed it. Clearly, I wasn’t even dragon enough to touch the knife, wasn’t full of enough good. A horrifying thought came to me then—what if I touched a red druid’s knife? Would it not harm me? Would I be able to kill a dragon with it? Kill Logan with it? No—that thought was too much. I collapsed back into the pillows and raised both arms above my head to block out the stupid smiling unicorn that was looking down on me. Mittens was massaging my thigh as I started to feel the pull of sleep take me down.

Stuck between sleep and waking, I had a vivid dream that caused me to toss and turn. In my dream there was a man. He sat in a cave behind a waterfall, just sitting there calmly in quiet meditation. He looked to be about early forties, dark chocolate-colored skin, with a few grey hairs in his trimmed, well-kept scruff. His black hair was cut short, and although he seemed too old for me, I had to admit he was good looking. He sat erect in a cross-legged meditation pose, shirtless, eyes closed. And when I wondered why I would be dreaming of this man, his eyes snapped open and I felt a shock run through my sleeping body. His eyes were hauntingly beautiful. They were like a honey-colored sunset, like something I would paint.

Although his skin was dark, I could see the outlines of tattoos along his shoulder and neck, and my stomach sank. He was a druid. He was looking right through me as if I was there in the cave with him, but … he didn’t scare me. Not like the other druids I had met. At that thought, his lips quirked into a half smile, and I was snapped awake as Mittens pounced on my head and attacked my hair with her claws.

“Ow! You crazy cat.” I ripped her off and swatted her bottom before placing her on the ground. She took one supreme look at me and then retreated to her place under the bed.

My heart was still pumping with adrenaline as I recalled my dream. The dark-skinned man with the honey-colored eyes. I grabbed my sketchbook and colored pencils off of the chair beside my bed and started drawing. I had to. I couldn’t get him out of my head. Like he was important to me. It felt stupid, considering I was pretty sure he was a druid, but he didn’t feel evil. Not like the others. Evil didn’t meditate under waterfalls, right? The last druid I dreamt of had found me, so I was hoping this wasn’t another one of those prophetic dreams. Maybe I should tell Logan? But then he would probably wonder why I was dreaming of all of these druids.

Because I am a druid…

I sketched in a blind frenzy, reminding me of my early college days when I was filled more with inspiration and less with care for technique or pleasing the viewer. An hour passed and I had a detailed sketch of his face and torso in graphite. But those eyes … I colored them first and they were perfect. It took over ten colored pencils to get the color right. So many yellows, oranges, and browns. Who was this man? Why did I dream of him?

“Sloane?” Nadine knocked on the door and I slammed my sketchbook shut, clearing my throat.

“Come in,” I called out.

Nadine entered and gave me a shy smile. “I heard three druids came while Sophie and I were in town. Must have been scary.”

I nodded. “One of them chucked Keegan across the house like it was no big deal.”

Nadine shrugged. “Druids and shifters hate each other. There are always fights when we get together. Normally they only hang out at pureblood bars, so we don’t see them on the social scene.”

My mouth dropped at the mention of pureblood bars. The fact that there was segregation like that, it was horrid. “That’s awful. Why do they hate humans so much?”

Nadine sat down on the edge of my bed, her straight black hair falling around her shoulders. “Humans are weak. Druids despise weakness. Magic is strong and Faery used to be filled with strong magical creatures, so I guess they’re trying to get back to that place so they can rule the world and all of her magical minions or whatever.”

Sounded delusional. “So, you’re half human…”

Nadine nodded. “Yep. I regenerate if hurt, and I age slower. We age normally until puberty, then it’s about one year for every five human years, but I will get old and die one day just like them. Our DNA stops regenerating injuries at about age eighty. So yeah, I guess I’m weak too.”

I scoffed. “You’re not weak, you’re part human. It’s just natural and comforting. Getting old and dying is normal.”

I wanted so badly to be normal again. Logan had said we would never die unless we were killed, and it scared the shit out of me. In my mind, it made me a monster.

Nadine slapped my thigh. “Cheer up! We’ll have plenty of time to stick it to the druids over the next few decades together. Come on, Keegan wants us all downstairs to meet the two new recruits. They’ve been sworn in and bound to you and Logan, so it’s not possible for them to spill your secret.”

“My secret?” I paled, and Mittens took that moment to swat at my dangling feet.

Nadine looked confused. “That you’re a dragon shifter?”

I sighed in relief. “Right.” Man, I was getting paranoid. I really needed to hear back from Eva already.

I told Nadine I would change and meet her downstairs and she left. I had promised to help cook for this bunch, so I needed to pull through. If I thought we might stay here a while, I would plant a garden. I hadn’t had a back yard since my mom passed, and it would be nice to garden again. It reminded me of her.

After cleaning up, I put on my favorite pair of tight cargo pants and a black t-shirt with one of my drawings screen-printed on it. It was an iridescent hummingbird drinking soda from a straw. I grabbed my new phone and tucked it into my back pocket as I made my way down the stairs. As I was rounding the corner, I overheard Dom and Logan talking.

“It took every ounce of willpower I had not to gut them all,” Dom seethed, and I knew right away who he was talking about. Druids.

Logan chuckled. “You know, beheading them is my favorite.”

My stomach churned.

Dom spoke next, his voice was full of rage: “We should hunt him down. Kill him.”

Logan sighed. “I know and you know that I want nothing more than to have a world where druids don’t exist, but … I tried, and he’s too powerful.”

Now that had my attention. “Who?” I asked, and Logan spun around, took one glance at my t-shirt, and then a half smile tugged at his lips.

“Did you draw that?” he asked, indicating my shirt.

Shock ripped threw me. How the hell would he know that? “Yeah…” I said.

He nodded. “It has your style.”

Logan Sharp knew my drawing style? My dragon coiled tightly inside of me and a pulse of warmth shot down my legs, making a slow burn start between my thighs. Okay, it was official. I needed a hysterectomy or something. My dragon lady parts were malfunctioning and I was stuck in heat.

I changed the subject. “You were saying you tried but he was too powerful. Tried what?”

Logan shared a look with Dom and brought his left arm up to rub his right shoulder. “About five years ago I tried to kill Ardan. We hunted him down and I tried to take him out. I thought if I could kill the evil master, the minions would … go away.”

Holy shit. “What happened?”

The room had quieted. Sophie, who was cooking in the kitchen, had stopped, and Gear and Cooper, who were playing video games, dropped their controllers; Nadine stopped sharpening some knives. They all looked at Logan.

“I nearly died. He tore my arm right off. Keegan got me out. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made it.”

My mouth dropped open. “The master of all evil druids tore your arm off?”

He nodded, rubbing that spot again. “Yes. It took about nine months to grow back.”

My eyes widened. “GROW BACK?”

Logan chuckled. “Dragons are descended from lizards. So yeah, it grows back as long as you don’t bleed out.”

Holy freaking crap! I’ll admit I had the same thought. Take out this Ardan character and save the world, but clearly that wasn’t on the agenda. Unless you wanted to lose an arm.

“Didn’t he see you? I mean, now he knows what you look like…” I mused.

Logan shook his head. “I wore a ski mask. We all did.”

Geez. I couldn’t imagine getting your arm ripped off. If I thought Steven and those other meatheads were scary, then I didn’t even want to meet this Ardan character.

“Alright, enough storytime, I need help in the kitchen,” Sophie announced, pulling my thoughts away from Logan’s story.

“Right,” I muttered, and threw myself into the task at hand—making forty chicken soft tacos for ten hungry shifters.

“So, do we know anything about the new recruits?” I asked Sophie as I diced fresh tomatoes.

Sophie and I had thawed a little; she had seemed friendly when I was helping her in the kitchen, so I thought I would take advantage of it.

Sophie shrugged. “Just that they are twin brother and sister. Both bear shifters.”

I dropped the knife I had been holding and it clattered onto the granite counter. “Bear shifters!” I whisper screamed.

Sophie tipped her head back and laughed. “You’re a dragon.”

True. Enough said.

By the time we were done frying forty taco shells, my wrist was sore. And I wasn’t sure we’d have enough food. Bear shifters … they must eat more in one meal than I did in the entire day. Come to think of it, my appetite had increased a little since I started shifting, but not as much as the others. I wondered if it was because I was only half dragon. In the end, Sophie and I decided to take the leftover ground-up chicken and make a quick chicken enchilada soup to dip the tacos in. Sophie would never say it, but she liked watching me cook; she was learning. I’d already taught her how to make an avocado aioli and she’d actually written the recipe down. I decided not to pull the boys in for their cooking lessons until tomorrow.

We were just setting the pot of chili on the dinner table when the front door opened. Sophie and I turned at the same time as the two giant shifters walked in, dwarfing the alpha. The guy was nearly seven feet tall and packed with more muscle than a professional wrestler. He wasn’t my type but he was good looking, I would give him that. Caramel skin, brown hair, and hazel eyes. His sister was nearly six-feet-tall, her hair long and curly, hanging low about halfway down her back.

Sophie leaned in closely and whispered into my ear. “Dibs.”

I just smiled, secretly glad that her sexual attention was pointed away from Logan.

“Everyone!” Keegan announced. “This is Roxy and Ruben. They are bred from a long line of skyborn protectors and are very excited to be joining the team.”

Gear and Cooper rushed in to introduce themselves first, while I hung back with Sophie. “So there are people still training their kids to protect the skyborn, even though there is only one left?” I asked her. I had remembered her saying she was trained to protect since the age of three.

Sophie looked over at me with only mild annoyance, which meant I might be growing on her. “First of all, there’s two now. You keep forgetting that. Secondly, yes. My family and dozens of others train their young to protect in the hopes that the remaining skyborn will find them and hire them. The money isn’t great. I could make more doing something else, but protecting Logan … and you … it’s a great honor.”

Wow. That was almost a compliment. “So, if you had kids one day…?” I let the question hang in the air.

Sophie nodded. “They will learn to protect. Just as I did.”

Wow. I imagined there was some secret list out there that Keegan had of shifters who were secret skyborn protectors, and when one died or he needed to add to his pack, he just picked off of his list. Crazy.

“Sloane?” Logan was calling me to the door with his hand outstretched. I stepped forward, taking his hand, and ignored the pulse of heat it caused to creep into my stomach, where my dragon lay resting.

“This is Sloane Murphy, the other skyborn,” he told the twins, and I dropped his hand and waved sheepishly.

Ruben and Roxy both bowed. “It’s an honor to be a part of this team,” Ruben said with a very slight Russian accent.

Roxy looked a bit star-struck. She wasn’t your typical beauty like Sophie, but there was something unique in her features, exotic, that gave her a beauty that was rare. “A female dragon…” she breathed, staring at my hair. The hair shock was common; my hair was redder than a tomato, and I added an apple-red shampoo wash that kept it away from the orange and more into the cherry-red variety. But the dragon awe was new and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. Luckily, Logan was.

“We are honored to have your service. Sloane is … unique, and we’ve just had a run-in with some druids looking for her, so we’re going to need more help. It’s great to have you. Come on in.”

He ushered them inside, but I was still hanging on the way he had said “unique”—like it was a disease, like there was something wrong with me. There was. I knew it and I was just waiting for Eva to confirm it.

I shuffled to the table, just as Danny walked through the front door wearing an adorable red plaid scarf and holding a steaming to-go Starbucks cup. “So, this is one of the perks of being let into the inner circle—taco Tuesday,” he stated, looking at the table full of food.

Keegan pointed to the bear shifters. “Ruben and Roxy, this is Danny, our pack sorcerer and coffee addict.”

Danny’s eyes danced at Keegan’s mention of coffee addiction. It must be an inside joke between them.

“Hello.” Danny waved a hand in their direction and then gave me a wink.

He crossed the room to stand near me. “I know Sophie didn’t cook this amazingness up by herself. She’s not that talented.” He pointed to the table and Sophie stuck her tongue out at him.

I smiled. “I helped.”

Danny squeezed my upper arm. “I love that shirt. You’re my spirit animal,” he whispered, and I just laughed. His quirky unpredictable personality had grown on me.

Danny and I took a seat with everyone and silently started to eat while the others dug in. Sophie had taken it upon herself to sit next to Ruben and shove her cleavage in his face, peppering him with a thousand compliments. Meanwhile, I was quite shocked to hear Dom actually speak when he said about ten words to Roxy, asking her about her favorite model gun. Poor Nadine kept stealing glances at Gear and I eyed her tattooed arms finding a new one each time.

“Hey. You’re quiet tonight. You okay?” Logan had sat next to me and was now whispering in my ear, which brought that unique woodsy Logan smell with him.

I shrugged. “Just the run-in with the druids I guess. I’m fine though. I’m actually tired. I wasn’t able to nap much earlier with Mittens attacking my head.”

Logan smiled. “You know she’s your cat now, right?”

God … he’s sweet and funny and good looking. How much longer was I going to be able to fight this undeniable attraction I had to him?

I returned his smile. “Can’t help it if she loves me more.”

Logan’s hand reached under the table and squeezed my thigh. As he leaned in close, I felt the heat of his breath on my neck. “Don’t worry about the druids. I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he whispered.

I barely registered his words.

Hand on thigh…

My dragon shook herself; I was flushed with adrenaline. His promise. His hand. It was all possessive, but … in an intimate, caring way I couldn’t explain. My dragon was slithering around inside of me like a two-year-old hopped up on sugar. It’s like she was trying to tell me something but couldn’t speak. Yeah, screw what Logan said, I was stuck in heat; I was sure of it. I wonder if I needed to see a veterinarian about that or something.

Logan pulled his hand back and went back to finishing his taco, but it was too late. I was flushed and … well, hot and bothered. I needed some space to think.

I set my spoon down into my empty chili bowl and stood. “I’m tired, everyone. I’m just going to head up to bed early. It was so nice to meet you guys,” I told Roxy and Ruben.

Roxy and Ruben nodded. Logan looked at me a little concerned but nodded too. “Goodnight.”

As I made my way up the stairs, their chatter started up again, and I was relieved to have some quiet time. The moment I stepped into my room, my butt pocket started to vibrate.

I pulled the phone out hastily, closing the door shut. The only people who had this number were the pack and Eva. Pulling the screen up to my face, I saw that Eva was calling. Finally. Did I want to answer? Did I really want to know what my blood was—what I was? Yes. I had to.

I pressed the green circle and held the phone to my ear. “Hey, Eva.”

Her voice was warm and polite but there was an underlying tone I couldn’t read. “Hi, honey. Are you alone?”

Oh shit. “Yes. I’m up in my room.”

She was silent for a moment and I knew then without a doubt—I was half monster. Then she confirmed it. “Sweetheart, I took your blood to my friend and he confirmed that you are in fact half druid.”

Tears pricked my eyes; my throat tightened with emotion. “How?”

Eva sighed. “Well, If I had to guess, I think it was your mother, sweetheart. She was a druid and fell in love with your father, who would have had to have been a dragon. She probably left the druid clan and they magically stripped her of her power, making her essentially human.”

I gasped. “They can do that?”

Eva gave a sarcastic chuckle. “They can do almost anything, dear.”

Frick. I was in shock. “My dad … a dragon. How?”

“You’re twenty-one years old. Twenty-one years ago, there were two dragons alive, Logan and Marcus.”

I gasped. “Logan … could be my father?” I couldn’t breathe.

Eva rushed her words. “Of course not!”

I exhaled all of my breath in one rush, unable to handle the kind of mental torment that would have held. “Who is Marcus?” Where did I know that name? It hit me then. Logan had mentioned a Marcus. He’d said he was a sucker for redheads … like my mom.

Eva exhaled and I could tell this story hit her personally. “He was Logan’s mentor. They had a falling out. Marcus started talking crazy, talking about having sympathy for some of the druids. How not all of them were bad. Things like that. They had a disagreement and Marcus left. Logan looked for him for a few years, but finally only found him when he died. Killed by druids when you were probably a baby.”

“Shit.” I couldn’t take any more; I couldn’t breathe and it felt like a five-hundred-pound rock was sitting on my chest. Maybe I was having a heart attack. My mother … my sweet mother, who gardened and dedicated her life to teaching children … a druid. A dragon killer.

“You’re sure? You’re sure that your sorcerer friend is one hundred percent certain I am half…?” I couldn’t finish.

Eva’s reply shocked me. “Oh, honey, my friend isn’t a sorcerer. He’s a druid, and yes he’s one hundred percent sure.”

What did she just say? “You’re friends with a druid?” Maybe it was wrong of me to trust Eva. She could be working for the other side. How stupid and naïve I was to give a sorcerer my blood!

“He’s not like the others. He’s the last of his kind. He takes magic from the earth, not from dragons, and he wants to meet you, honey. I can come over in the morning and we can tell the pack together. Then I can take you to meet my friend.”

Oh. Hell. No. I was not meeting any more druids, even if they claimed not to be the dragon killing kind. “Sure,” I lied.

Eva paused. “It’s going to be okay, Sloane. I’ll make the pack see that you’re nothing like those monsters.”

But I was. I was like them because my freaking blood said so. “Okay … thanks, Eva.”

She was silent for a moment before saying goodbye and hanging up.

I sat there in a numb silence for a minute. My mother was a druid … either that or she wasn’t my biological mother, and I couldn’t take the latter. I knew nothing about druids, but my mother did have a special affinity for gardening and that sort of thing. Maybe that was her druid heritage. Some kind of earth power. Still … I couldn’t see my mother associating with those people from today. I couldn’t see her killing Logan—or any other being. She was gentle and kind—fierce when she needed to be, but kind at heart. Had she given me hints along the way? She’d always said my father was one of a kind and died protecting us. I figured he was a cop or something by the way she spoke about him. Maybe he was this Marcus person. She’d shown me a picture once—tall, with light brown hair, and a chiseled jaw. And … he had fierce green eyes, like me, like Logan. What Eva said had to be true. Either way, the most important part was that I was a druid with freaky purple magic and I needed to get the hell out of here.

I crossed the room and started shoving things into my duffle bag. I couldn’t stay here anymore. Not now, not after this. There were a room full of angry druid-hating hunters downstairs, and I’d seen the way Dom had looked at those men today. When the pack found out I was half druid and not half sorcerer, they would never look at me the same, and I couldn’t bear it. Dom would be the first one to put a bullet between my eyes.

I had a hundred grand in the bank. I could start over, lay low. I’d been with Logan and the pack for a few days now and my dragon hadn’t shifted—I was getting more in control of it. I was going to be fine.

I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and I slowly crossed the room on my tiptoes to turn out the light. Shadows danced under the door and I heard a soft knock. “Sloane? You awake?” It was Logan. It was 9:09pm and I was twenty-one years old—who would believe I was asleep? But I didn’t answer, and after a moment the footsteps retreated back downstairs. The thought of leaving the pack … It made me sick. They had become my friends, especially Nadine and Danny and … Logan. Logan was literally the only other person in this world that I could relate to. But still, I couldn’t stay. What if my purple magic started lashing out and hurt Logan? What if I started turning bad and tried to kill him or something awful?

I peeked out the window and saw Keegan was walking Roxy and Ruben outside. Okay, I needed to be smart about this. Keegan would see my car and that would be good. The night shift started with Gear at 11pm. That meant if I left now and Gear noticed my car gone at 11, it gave me about a ninety-minute head-start if they came looking for me. I had a nearly full tank of gas and enough crap in my car to live out of it for a week. I wouldn’t use my bank account until I could transfer the money into a different one that Eva couldn’t trace. I was going to be fine. They were better off without me.

I pulled a sheet of paper from my sketchpad and scribbled a quick note so they didn’t think I was kidnapped or anything crazy.

I don’t belong here. Don’t come after me.

I’m sorry.

Sloane

I took one last look at the note, then shouldered my pillow case pack that was stuffed with my laptop, sketchpad, and clothes, and gave Mittens a good rub down.

“Sorry, kid. I would take you with me if I could,” I whispered, although I’m not sure that was true. Something told me I would be sleeping a lot better without her constantly trying to eat my hair or make a bed on my face. But dammit she was cute.

I stood slowly and moved to the window of my unicorn bedroom. The window faced the front of the house and my room was just over the porch. That porch roof was going to be my savior tonight. But my thoughts were frantic, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way that mountain lion shifter had leapt for me and my purple magic just … spit out of me like wild fire, knocking him unconscious. I was dangerous, but most importantly, I was a part of everything that this pack hated. I felt dirty.

I gingerly stepped forward and ever so softly flipped the latch open to unlock the window. I went through a rebellious stage when my mom’s cancer was first diagnosed. I would sneak out every night and meet Jen at the park. We would sit under the play structure and stare up at the sky and talk about how messed up and unfair the world was. It kept me sane, and it also made me a master of sneaking out. Dragon hearing or not, I was a ninja and would not be caught.

I hoped.

It took me about five minutes to open the window and pop off the screen. This house was old and the screen was rusted in the corners. I had to completely distort the frame to pull it into the room. I stood before an open window, the fresh breeze blowing cold air into my face. Here we go. I slipped off my shoes—too noisy—and tied them around my pack which consisted of a pillowcase fashioned with shoelaces. Sock-footed would be the best way to go. After using all of my ninja moves to get out the window, I was about to close it again so that that the house didn’t get too cold, when I heard Keegan’s voice.

Shit! He hadn’t gone inside yet after walking Ruben and Roxy out.

“They’re all diseased,” Keegan said in an agreeable tone.

Dom must have been outside too, because it was his voice that answered. “I’m telling you, we should start hunting them. Take them out one by one and weaken Ardan’s power.”

Bile rose in my throat as I realized who he was talking about. Druids. Me.

Keegan blew out a puff of air. “Look, nothing I would love more than to have a world with less druids in it, but we aren’t hunters. We’re protectors, and now more than ever we have something special to protect. Two skyborn.”

Dom growled. “But if we could—”

“But nothing,” Keegan said harshly. “Hunting druids could bring them right to our doorstep and get Logan and Sloane killed. Drop it.”

Dom huffed. “Fine. You owe me a beer.”

Keegan must have been smiling, I could hear it in his voice. “Let’s get inside.”

The front door opened and then closed again; I released the breath I had been holding. Wow. The druid hate with the pack was legit. Dammit, Mom, why couldn’t you have been a sorcerer?

After closing the window, I padded quietly to the roof and peeked slowly over, relieved to find no one on the porch and the curtains pulled shut.

The next maneuver was going to hurt like hell. I needed to hang off the roof as much as I could and jump the rest of the way onto the crushed rocks while wearing only socks. I was betting on my regenerative healing thing still working, because my feet were going to bruise and be cut to shit. I gradually lowered myself down, increasingly aware of how inadequate my upper arm strength was. And as I was hanging from the roof’s edge with only about four feet left to the ground, I looked up at Logan’s room.

I had to admit that leaving him felt wrong. My dragon was restless inside of me, probably because she knew Logan was safe. But when he found out what I actually was … I couldn’t bear to see the look on his face.

I took one last deep breath and let go. I fell for longer than I thought, then my feet hit the hard-crushed gravel below and I had to bite down the whimper that wanted to leave my throat as pain shot up the pads of my feet and into my shins. Mother fricker, crap on fire! I bit my knuckle to release some of the tension that was making its way out of me, and just stood there for a minute letting the adrenaline pulse through me.

When I finally felt calm enough, I began walking. It was the most painful walk I had ever taken, but with shifter hearing I didn’t dare put on my shoes. Shoes crunched. Bare sock feet were much easier to control noise. By the time I got to my car, I was sweating lightly from the pain. I was far enough from the house now that I put my shoes on. They hurt and I saw little droplets of blood through my socks, but I had to ignore it and just keep going. Luckily, my car had been parked farthest from the house, because I never went anywhere. Everyone else did the shopping, so I was able to throw it in neutral and push it back down the long driveway. Normally, pushing my car over forty feet might have me winded, but I felt fine. Supernatural perk I guessed.

When I had pushed the car off into the road enough that I was sure the headlights wouldn’t light up the house, I jumped in and turned it on. The engine roared to life and I flinched, but the house stayed dark. I hit the road then, heading fast down the lane, thoughts racing through my head. I was a half dragon, half druid on the run from the only people who had ever promised to protect me.

Shit, it was a recipe for disaster, but so had been much of life.