“Burger?” Nadine held one out for him.
Isaac smiled kindly but shook his head, holding up a bag of sunflower seeds. “No thank you. I don’t see the point in taking a life to fill my belly.”
Every person in the bus froze, their burger held halfway to their mouth. Shit. When he put it like that, I felt awful. The rest of the crew didn’t though. It was a spilt second of hesitation and then they were chewing again. Isaac had sunflower seeds in one hand and a potted plant in another. “We’re not leaving without that staff, Sloane. I’ll do whatever it takes.” His eyes peered into me and it made me think I needed that staff more then he let on. Like without it we couldn’t defeat Ardan, or something bad would happen.
I just nodded. “Okay.”
With a bob of his head he walked to the back and claimed a bunk. I peered around at the amazing bus. The lights were on due to the solar panels; we had a sink to wash up in; and more than enough room for all of us. What Isaac had built was pretty incredible. The bathroom situation was more of a camping style thing, but it was good enough.
“I’m gonna go take these to Gear,” Nadine told me, grabbing four burgers and leaving the rest with me.
Oh yeah. Gear! Geeze, I was really self-involved tonight. “Where is he?”
“Bird form. On the roof taking night watch,” she said, before wishing me goodnight and walking off.
Logan appeared then and sat next to me as I unenthusiastically ate my dead cow. I just wasn’t sure sunflower seeds were going to cut it tonight.
“How are you doing?” He spoke softly, with a tenderness that made the question much more serious than you would think.
How was I doing? If I were being honest, I was a little sad, overwhelmed, and feeling helpless. If this elf didn’t make my staff, then all hope was lost to take on Ardan. And something else had been nagging at me since spending all of this time with Isaac. Something Eva had said on the phone when she’d gotten my blood results reminded me of what I hadn’t dealt with. My mom lied to me. She was a druid, and my dad … she should have told me the truth about him. About what I was.
“Hey … so Eva said that your mentor, Marcus…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence, so I didn’t.
Logan sighed, emotion tightening his face. “Yeah she told me that too. I think she’s right. I think he was your father.” He leaned in closer to me, catching my gaze with those electric green eyes. “And it’s probably my fault he’s dead. If I would have stayed with him, if we’d stuck together, then—”
I put a finger over his lips. “Nope. If I’m not allowed to blame myself for Coop’s death, and our entire situation, really, then you can’t take that one.”
A small amount of relief showed on his face. “You would have loved Marcus. Although he did hate cats, so I’m not sure you have that in common.”
My heart pinched. Logan knew my father. He knew all about him and I didn’t know anything. “I never liked cats until Mittens started stalking me,” I said playfully.
Logan pulled out his phone. “Wanna see a picture of him?”
My heart knocked hard in my chest. My mother had shown me one picture of my father. If Logan showed me that same man, that would confirm it was him. I nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.
After a few moments of scrolling, Logan handed me the phone. “Nadine had all of my old pictures scanned and put on my phone.”
I peered down at the photo and had to bite down on a sob. It was him. Logan hadn’t changed at all—still looked about twenty-five years old—but the clothes they wore screamed the ‘90s: White wash jeans, flannel shirts over white t-shirts. They stood close to each other on a snowy mountain I didn’t recognize. Marcus had his arm around Logan’s shoulders. My father. He looked about forty years old, black hair with streaks of gray. Kind green eyes, and a genuine smile.
I handed him back the phone. “What happened?”
Logan stared at the picture a moment longer. “He taught me everything I know. How to run, how to fight, change states every five years. I mean, I’m alive because of him.”
I nodded. He seemed lost in the story and I didn’t want to interrupt. “But one day he came back from a trip. He was scouting a location for another possible dragon and … he’d changed. He was different. Saying things that were blasphemous to me at the time. I thought he was spelled or something.”
“What did he say?” I leaned forward.
Logan looked pained. “I didn’t know … otherwise, I never would have said what I said,” Logan assured me.
I nodded again, no clue what he was talking about.
“He was saying that not all druids were bad. That he met one that was different. That … he wanted to see her again and … God, Sloane, I said awful things to him. The same things I said to you about killing all the druids on Earth. He took it as a threat to his new love, I guess. I thought he was too old and had gone mad or had been spelled. He left. Like you left…and never came back.”
His whole body flinched and I felt awful. I hadn’t known my father had basically done the same thing. Left Logan after hearing about how much he liked to behead druids. He left to be with my mother. A good druid. I reached out and held his hand.
“It’s just that I’ve seen the druids slay thousands of my people. Even my parents. I couldn’t conceive of anyone like Isaac back then.” His voice was husky, his eyes dark.
I reached up and stroked the back of his neck. “I know. It’s okay. I know.” I leaned my forehead on his and we sat like that for a long time, breathing each other in, the warmth of my dragon sending pulses through my body and into his. It felt like our dragons were speaking to each other in their own way. After a few moments, I started feeling drowsy.
“I’m exhausted,” I breathed.
“So am I,” Logan said, and stood, pulling on my hand so that I would follow. I glanced down and saw that Hemlock was happily asleep, burger grease all over his mouth, bowl of water on the floor of his seat. Logan led me to one of the empty bottom bunks and let my hand go, before reaching for the top bunk to hoist himself up. I brought my arms up to the top of his shoulders and pulled him down.
‘Lay with me?’ I asked, using our bond.
His eyes smoldered as he pulled me down into the bed with him, wrapping me up and pulling me into his chest. His natural scent surrounded me, snow and trees and something so … Logan that I couldn’t place. As I lay my head on his chest, I decided that no matter what the elf said tomorrow, or if the druids killed me, I didn’t regret being a dragon—I couldn’t regret anything that brought me to him. With Logan stroking my hair, and a contented sigh, I fell asleep.
6
A shriek had me snapping my eyelids open and sitting bolt upright. I lost my balance for a second, wondering if I was having vertigo, until I noticed outside the bus windows there were clouds not trees. Logan was already jumping up and looking around.