Skyborn(31)

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.





11





I KNEW I wouldn't be able to use my credit cards once on the road or Eva  could track me. Her guy had found my bank accounts with just my first  and last legal name, so that was out. Instead, I went to the ATM in town  and withdrew a thousand bucks, which was all it would let me. I could  live off a grand for a long time. Long enough to get a fake ID with a  new name and transfer the money into a new account. Worst case, I could  take another one of my scales and try to sell it where I was going, but  that was too risky, and a last-case scenario. I settled into the drive,  putting on loud music to keep myself awake, and kept a bag of chips  handy for snacking.



I was six and a half hours into my drive to San Clemente, California,  and had only about an hour left. But I was dozing off. It was like 4 AM  and I was dead tired. Still, I kept thinking that the pack could be  right behind me, assuming they could smell my trail or something crazy.  Would it be so bad if they caught up to me?

I shook my head of those thoughts. Yes, it would, because I was  everything they hated. No one wanted to swear their allegiance to a  monster. I hit the pedal and kept driving. About five minutes passed and  I started going over the bumps that were meant to wake up sleeping  truckers. It was time to pull off and sleep a few hours. I was no good  in this condition.

I pulled off the next exit and was pleased to see it was a well-lit and  popular truck stop. As a seasoned car sleeper, I knew these places were a  goldmine. They had food, hot showers, and security guards. I pulled my  little SUV to the far back parking space and turned it off, slipping the  keys into the cup holder. Making sure all of the doors were locked, I  crawled into the back seat, where my sleeping bag and pillow were still  spread out from the last time I'd slept in there. God, it felt like a  lifetime ago I had been sleeping in the car. Before the fall  …  before  …   Logan …

Those green eyes seemed to look right through me. They were the last thing I thought of before I drifted off to sleep.



I was awoken to the bright sunshine beating on my face and I bolted  upright, heart in my throat, and stared at the clock: 9 A.M. I'd gotten  five hours of sleep, but Logan and the pack could also be right on top  of me. There were more of them, so they could sleep in shifts. If I was  being honest with myself, I felt awful for leaving them like this; no  doubt they were freaking out. But once Eva told them what I was and I  changed my bank account, I knew they would settle back into their old  ways, forget about me. I shouldered my backpack and then got out of the  car, stretching my legs and neck. Car sleeping wasn't the best for my  back but it was safe, warm, and free.                       
       
           



       

After having a quick shower and putting on fresh clothes, I stocked up  on coffee and breakfast pastries. I needed to figure out a way to find a  powerful sorcerer like Eva that could keep Eva and Danny from searching  for me. Some kind of hidden spell. But that would require me knowing  even one supernatural in San Clemente, and I didn't.

I opened the door to leave the gas station when I got a whiff of  …  dog  …   to my left. There were two young girls, maybe eighteen years old,  smoking cigarettes, leaning up against the wall. It was hard to tell  with the cigarette smoke, but they smelled like shifters. Wolf shifters.  Like me. Or at least what I smelled like to them. As I passed, they  locked eyes on me, nostrils flaring, and gave me a respectful nod. I  nodded back but stopped. Maybe these girls would have my sorcerer  contact. Or they were human and would think I was crazy.

I stepped closer and lowered my voice. "Hey, girls. I'm from out of town  and I need … " I paused, not able to bring myself to say it. What if my  nose was wrong and they were human?

One of the girls, who had an obscene amount of glitter eye shadow and a  nose ring, smiled wide. "You need a hook up? Sorcerer, shifter, or  druid?"

I must have looked shocked, because the girls both smiled at each other.

"Sorcerer," I told them. NO druids please.

The girl shrugged. "I don't give information out for free ya know."

I tried to suppress a growl as I pulled out twenty bucks. Little  hustlers. I didn't want to contribute to their lung cancer foundation,  but there was no sense in running from the pack if Eva could find me.

The girl snatched the twenty. "There's a bar called Moon Dust. Ask for  Jeanine. She'll hook you up with whatever you need. She's a pureblood."

Pureblood. That name made me sick, but I knew it meant that Jeanine was a powerful sorcerer and that's what I needed.

"Thanks," I told the girls, and headed to my car.

Now I just needed to stay out of trouble until nightfall, find this  sorcerer, and then I was home free. Back to my old life where no one  would get hurt.



It had been a long day. I was so paranoid of either being found by Logan  and the pack, or being attacked by druids, that I barely left my car. I  had gotten lunch and dinner from a drive-through restaurant, and I was  already plotting how to buy a remote cabin in the woods somewhere and  live out my life in solitude. As soon as this sorcerer hid my trail, I  was going to head for the mountains, maybe Colorado, find a tiny town,  and buy a small place for cash. For all I knew, Logan and the pack  weren't even looking for me. I had turned off my phone when I left  Arizona and now I was tempted to turn it back on and see if I had any  messages. Eva said she would be over to Logan's house this morning.  Maybe she told them I was half druid and they decided to cut their  losses and not come looking for me. That was the best case scenario.

Parking a few blocks from Moon Dust, my hands shook as I tried to rein  in my fear about walking into a supernatural bar completely alone and  unprepared. Just ask for Jeanine. In and out, I told myself.

I tightened the hold on my studded clutch purse. Last month I was a  human living out of my car and searching for my purpose in life, now I  was some freak dragon-druid hybrid standing in line to a foreign  supernatural bar so that I could get help escaping a sorcerer and a  bunch of shifters. It was crazy how quickly your life could change. I  was surprised I was doing so well.

I slipped into the line, and was two people from the front of the door  when a thought struck me: what if they had a truth witch at the door?  Eva's did  …  but they were super rare, so maybe not. I was still deciding  whether or not to jump out of line when the person in front of me  walked into the double doors, letting a short blip of blasting music  reach me before they closed again. I was looking a very large man in the  eyes, and luckily they weren't glowing. I was hoping that meant no  truth witch.

He seemed to be waiting for me to speak, so I did. "I'm here to see Jeanine," I told him as confidently as I could.

He glared at me, his already small eyes looking even smaller on his large face.

"And you are?" He looked impatient, and I wasn't sure if there was some  code or something. Dammit. I pulled forty dollars from my clutch and  handed it to him.

"I'm a shifter who got into some trouble and needs help out." There,  honest but not completely a lie, in case he was in fact a truth witch.

He grabbed the forty dollars and waved me past as if I was a fly  bothering him with my presence. It took a moment for the realization to  register through my shock, then I ran inside before he could change his  mind. He hadn't said where to find Jeanine, so I was going to have to  figure that out on my own. I was also burning through my cash a lot  quicker than I had intended.