He sighed and shook his head, giving me an eye roll as if I was a child having a tantrum and he needed to talk me down. “That was my blood. I was trying to expedite your healing. Something is wrong with you. I don’t know why you don’t heal.”
He wasn’t the first guy to tell me something was wrong with me and probably wouldn’t be the last, but it still stung. I was starting to put things together, and it sent fear and hope through me. “And why would your blood help me?” This creep better not have STDs or anything strange that he just gave me.
He puffed out air and shook his head. “Where do I begin?”
I frowned. “How about with the girl who was a wolf but then…” I let my words trail off.
“Nadine … a wolf shifter,” he said as if it was no big deal.
My mouth dropped open. “Like a werewolf? But…” Okay. Fair enough. I was a dragon shifter, so I guess wolf shifters could be real. I was going to go with the flow, because anything more threatened to take my sanity completely.
“And that’s what you are?” I questioned him, assuming now that he was some big bad alpha wolf with magic healing blood or something, but he just shook his head.
“No. The other animals … work for me.”
“Work for you? What do you do?” Please don’t say you capture dragons and eat them. I took a step back in case that was his answer.
He stood there for forever, unmoving, unbreathing, those piercing green eyes just boring into me. I was about to ask him again when he finally spoke.
“I am a skyborn. A dragon shifter. The last of my kind … until you.”
Skyborn?
He stepped closer and his words slammed into me; heat flared to life like nothing I had ever experienced before. I tried so badly to push it down but I couldn’t. It consumed me and I fell to my knees, sweating, hair stuck to my forehead, leaving me panting for breath.
“What’s happening to me?” I whimpered as his hand came gently to rest on my shoulder. A throbbing hit my groin with the force of a bullet. I couldn’t help the moan that escaped me.
He cleared his throat and I looked up to meet his eyes. They were nearly glowing and the pupils were slits. Dragon eyes. He tried to hide it but I saw desire flare in his face. “It’s been a while but I think you’re … in heat.” His voice was so gruff it made my toes curl as embarrassment flushed through me.
“What?” I shrieked, as my body inched closer to him. Oh my God. My period was about two weeks ago, right around when I had the fall, so I could be ovulating, but since when did that do this?! Kill me now. My eyes fell on his lips, examining them. They were thick and glistening, just waiting to be kissed. I licked my lips then as the fire exploded inside of me and I felt the familiar tingle along my skin as scales began to tighten on my arms.
Logan’s eyes bugged.
“Your dragon has no control, and being near me in heat will make it worse.” He sounded panicked, like the thought of sleeping with me repulsed him. That should make me move away, back off—clearly, I was unwanted. But my body only tightened. I moved closer to him, my hips pressing against his side. I whimpered, unable to stop whatever was happening. I only wanted to put out this fire and I wanted to do it with him.
Logan brought his left arm up to hover over my face; I could see the tattoos more closely now. Were they different than before? “I can put you in a deep sleep until the heat is over,” he said. “It will keep your dragon from shifting and leading hunters to us. Then I will train you to control your dragon.”
A deep sleep? Where? What if the hunters came? I would have no way of fighting back. He must have read the anxiety in my face. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” His breath brushed across my face and I moaned, desperate to taste him. The thoughts I was having now— and what my body was doing—were epic levels of embarrassment. I had no control over this and it terrified me.
“Okay,” I breathed. Yesterday I had wished the hunters would just kill me, so I didn’t have much to lose now. Besides, if what he said was true, that he too was a dragon, then maybe he really could help me.
A deep green light emanated from his left palm and covered my face.
“Sleep,” he whispered in my ear, his lips brushing against my neck, and then I was out, taken by the darkness as it snuffed out my fire.
Logan’s magical sleep was not dreamless, it was filled with activity. My mind wouldn’t shut off and I could feel my dragon slithering inside of me, trying to fight the sleep. I dreamed of a man with a bald head who had red tattoos on the right side of his face. He wore clothes that looked like they were from another era, and he scared that crap out of me with his piercing black eyes.
I also dreamed of Logan in all kinds of embarrassing and sexy ways. After this endless dreaming, I finally felt my dragon settling; my sleep lightened until I awakened fully. I came to and opened my eyes to look around. I was in a soft bed with grey flannel sheets that smelled freshly laundered but had a hint of an earthy male scent. Logan. Sitting up, I noticed I was wearing a small thin white camisole and tiny black soccer shorts. Oh my God, did Logan change my clothes? My cheeks burned with embarrassment as my long red hair fell over my right shoulder; that’s when I realized my wounds were healed. Not a bone in my body hurt, and actually I felt amazing. The fire that had been trying to consume me before was next to nothing now.
Swinging my legs over the bed, I stepped out of the sheets and slipped my feet into a pair of grey slippers. I could see a silk robe draped over the chair next to the bed, and on the cushion was a note.
Dude,
Don’t worry. Logan didn’t dress you. The clothes are mine.
-Nadine (Wolf girl who saved you from hunters)
My lips quirked into a smile at the note. Well, at least I knew who had dressed me. I was relieved it was another girl. Not that it brought me too much comfort, seeing I didn’t know the girl. I was about to slip into the adjoining bathroom when a small orange fluffball leapt out from under my bed and meowed.
“Hey there. How long have you been under there?” I reached down and held out my hand. The kitten, an orange tabby, looked at my hand, back raised in an arc, and then pounced, coming down on it hard.
“Oww.” I laughed, shaking my hand to free it from her grasp. Had Logan sent a tiny kitten to keep me safe? I wasn’t sure what to think about that.
I gave the kitty a few more strokes before I slipped into the bathroom and took a quick shower. I brushed my teeth and tied my hair into a big topknot. After searching through the drawers in the room, I was surprised to find brand new underwear, bras, jeans, t-shirts and a new pair of sneakers, just my size. Someone had gone shopping for me.
I hadn’t been in my own clothes since the fall at the canyon. I’d left my car in town before going on my canyon hike, and had taken a tour bus. I didn’t want to risk going back to my car until I had figured this thing with the hunters out. If they got my license plate, my identity, I knew I would never be able to hide from them. But ever since my fall, I had been running for my life one day after another. I tried not to think about it, how quickly my life had changed.
Shaking it off, I dressed swiftly in some skinny jeans and a light sweater and went to find Logan. I needed answers. I grabbed the kitten and tucked her under my arm. “Where’s your owner?” I asked her, and she just mewed, licking my arm.