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.
11