“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.