Skyborn(34)

At the end of the alley, I noticed another human form, Eva, doing some  wild spell work; a yellowish gauze was creeping up the two walls,  closing us in from the open street like a spider web. Closing us off  from whom? I wondered. Probably Jeanine. Danny stood at her side, adding  his own magic to strengthen hers.

I stood there stupidly, unsure of what to say or do, fighting the tears  that wanted to spill down my cheeks. I nearly got killed-nearly got them  killed. I was an idiot and I never should have left, but  …  If they  knew …

"Sloane Murphy!" Logan roared from his place halfway down the alley.

I paled, clenching my arms to my sides. Here it came. He knew. He knew I  was a monster, I could feel it. All of them peered at me then. Aside  from the anger and hurt on Logan's face, it was Nadine's wide, painful  wolf eyes that killed me the most. Betrayal. I had betrayed them all and  the feeling sank in my stomach like a stone. I stepped forward, ready  for whatever they threw at me.

Logan was stalking forward with all of the grace and speed of a large  cat and I was trying not to be terrified. What would he do? What would  he say?

"Don't. You. Ever. Leave me again," Logan said through gritted teeth.  His eyes were flaring green and my dragon was roaring inside of me.  Again, it was as if she was trying to tell me something but couldn't  speak.

I sighed, trying to keep the tears at bay. "You don't understand!" I  yelled at all of them, making sure that even Eva could hear me. "I'm one  of him, okay?" I gestured to the space in the wall where the Irish  asshat had teleported or whatever. "I'm half druid. Part monster."                       
       
           



       

It was Sophie who answered first. Logan was almost to me and didn't seem  to be able to find his words. He was just a raging ball of anger coming  at me full force.

"No shit. Eva told us. We don't care," Sophie said in her exceptionally bitchy tone.

Confusion and relief poured through me, and the tears I had been holding  leaked from my eyes. "But you talk about all the ways you want to kill  druids. Beheading them is your favorite, right, Logan?" My voice was  soft now, only meant for him. Logan had reached me and without  hesitation his hands came out and cupped the bottom of my face, forcing  me to look up at him.

"Was I shocked? Yes," he stated, letting his thumbs stroke my cheek in a  way that made my dragon melt. "Does it change the way I feel about you?  No way."

The way he felt about me? Suddenly I was an insecure little girl. "But … "  I didn't know what to say, what to do. I'd messed up. I never should  have left, never should have doubted them.

"But nothing. Sloane Murphy, you're stuck with me. For life." Logan's eyes flared green.

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."