I could see the muscles in Logan’s jaw tighten. The guard looked at me and recoiled. “Leave that stinky mutt outside. She won’t want it in the office.”
“What the hell did you just call me?” I stepped forward, but Logan yanked me back.
“Tell Eva I have a gold unicorn,” Logan said firmly.
The guard rolled his eyes. “Are you drunk, Logan?”
“Tell her! She’ll know what it means!” he ordered, and I felt some type of power in his voice. It pushed against my skin like a physical thing.
The guard sighed and left.
Not thirty seconds later the door flew open and a beautiful woman with long black hair who looked to be in her early forties was ushering her client out. “Come back tomorrow. I’m closed now.”
The client, an older man in his fifties, looked offended, but nodded.
The woman’s eyes then fell on me. Her nostrils flared but she didn’t recoil. Instead, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion, and then rose again in wonder.
“Nick, out!” she yelled behind her at the guard.
He looked hurt for a moment, but must have been used to the behavior, because he shuffled past us holding his nose.
“Logan, what have you brought me?” Her voice held disbelief.
Logan pulled me forward still clutching my arm and shook his head. “We’re in a shitload of trouble, Eva, and we need your help.”
She waved us in, concern pulling at her features. I saw that her eyes looked similar to the doorman’s, buttery yellow, but not glowing. She wore a crisp grey four-piece suit with a matching top hat. This woman was an alpha in her own right; I could sense that. The entire pack filed into what was a giant office. The walls were filled with floor-to-ceiling books and jars and other weird crap I didn’t even recognize.
Eva’s eyes were pinned on me. “Honey, take off the hood.”
Logan let my arm go finally and nodded to me. “Eva is the only sorcerer you will ever be able to trust.”
That sounded comforting. Not.
I pulled my hood back, letting my red hair fall out, and Eva looked straight into my eyes. Her eyes flashed yellow like a fire that had ignited, and then glowed a hot copper. “It can’t be,” she breathed.
“She’s skyborn. I don’t know how, but I need you to erase her scent like you did mine. And she doesn’t heal when injured so I think her mag—”
“Holy mother of magic,” Eva breathed, and I couldn’t look away from those copper eyes. She stepped closer to me and inhaled, but then frowned. “It was smart of you to cover her scent to get her in here, but I need her clean in order to do the spell.”
Nadine whimpered behind me and Eva shifted her attention to look at her shoulder. “Logan, show her to my private apartment. She needs to shower. In my top drawer, she needs to use the black bar of soap—not the purple one. I have extra dancer costumes she can wear home.” She indicated a pile of purple velvet folded bikinis in plastic bags in the corner of the room.
My eyebrows rose as I looked at the outfit. Sure, it was cute for summer on the beach in California … by myself. Not walking through a club in the middle of winter.
Logan didn’t look too pleased with the idea either. “We’ll make it work,” he mumbled to me, grabbing one of the plastic baggies.
“Nadine, my darling. What happened?” Eva’s voice held all the love of a concerned mother.
Keegan answered for her: “A druid chucked her across the room, and I think he hit her with magic. It’s not healing right and she’s in more pain than she should be.”
“Did you bring a scale?” she asked.
Keegan pulled a small vial from his pocket. “One for Nadine and two to sell you.”
She smiled and patted his hand. “You boys are good to me.” She must have just noticed the coloring of one of the scales, because she gasped. “Red?”
Keegan flicked his eyebrows my way and Eva nodded, impressed.
I wanted to stay and see how in the hell she was going to heal Nadine with a dragon scale. But Logan was pulling me to the back of the office, where a spiral staircase led to an upper floor.
“Why does Eva need a scale to heal Nadine?” I asked Logan as we made our way up the steps. She was some powerful Sorceress, right? Couldn’t she just magic the injury away?
Logan walked in front of me and I tried my hardest not to stare at his impressive butt.
“Druid magic is powerful. It will slowly eat away at Nadine and she’ll die. The only thing to counteract it is dragon healing. The scale.”
“Weird. You can’t just do the glowing green thing and heal her?” I asked as we reached the top of the staircase.
He chuckled patronizingly at me, as if I was some newbie. “No,” was all he offered.
Speaking of the druid reminded me of something. “Oh, Logan…” I stopped on the stairs and he turned to face me. “That druid … when you put me in the dragon sleep. I … dreamt about him. The bald head, the red tattoo…”
Logan didn’t look shocked, just firmly nodded. “Dragon magic. Sometimes we have prophetic dreams. Let me know if you dream about another one again, okay?”
I simply nodded, in shock that I had the ability to have prophetic dreams.
The top of the stairs opened into a swanky open loft. A kitchen lay against the far wall to the right, living area in the middle, and a large four-poster bed behind a shoji screen to the left.
As Logan led me to the bathroom, I wondered how he knew his way around this place so well. He was totally a player. I would be too if I looked that good naked. He turned to face me and I simply raised an eyebrow. “You sure know your way around here.”
He must have known what I was thinking, because he made a disgusted face. “Eww, no. For all intents and purposes, Eva is my mother. She’s known me since I was a youngling. Back when my parents were still alive.”
Oh. His parents were gone. Now I felt a little bad. “Okay. Cool.” I tried to act like I didn’t care, but then I thought it would be fun to mess with him. “Is Monica like your mom too?” I winked, taking the purple bikini from his outstretched hands.
He blew air through his teeth. “Monica was a really bad oversight. I blame Keegan and his heavy hand in mixing my drinks.”
I smiled and shook my head. Men. So predictable. Before I reached the door, his arm snaked out and grabbed mine, gently forcing me to face him.
“I’m not that kind of guy, just so you know.” His eyes were boring into mine, but all I could think about was the warm, light pressure on my wrist. My dragon sent a pulse of throbbing heat to my groin and I bit my tongue in an effort to distract myself.
“Okay,” I said.
He released my arm and shrugged. “Living forever gets lonely. You’ll see.”
My mouth popped open. “Excuse me, I think the club music is too loud. Did you say forever?”
Logan looked like he’d been caught. “Oh. I thought you knew. Or assumed. You’re immortal unless killed.”
“Fabulous,” was all I could say as I stumbled into the bathroom to wash liquor and wolf piss off of my body with magic black soap. Life was really taking me for a ride today.
5
AFTER SOAPING MYSELF head to toe in this weird black soap that had been shrink-wrapped in Eva’s top drawer, I dried off and put the purple bikini on. This was so not how I wanted to end this day—walking out in front of Logan and the bitchy Sophie in a freaking stripper bikini.
Logan’s voice came through the door. “Once Eva does the spell, I can give you my shirt. But you can’t have my scent on you for the spell.”