Logan’s eyes were a smoky greenish gray. “I think it’s obvious. She loved you more than she loved herself. Taking energy away from your concealment spell to heal herself would lead the druids to you. At fourteen years old, would you have been able to fight them off?”
I couldn’t even fight them off now. I shook my head. “But not telling me? Not giving me any warning? She had to know that would only lead to her certain death.”
Logan nodded in agreement. “She didn’t leave a note or a—?”
I gasped as the green leather book flashed into my mind. The things she’d said the night she died. Crazy things. The woman from the hospice told me it was normal. That most patients got a bit delirious before they crossed over. But holy shit. I needed that book. NOW.
“There’s a book. She said it was her life’s work. That I would need to continue it. I thought she was crazy because I figured it was just an address book. But what if it’s not?” I was sitting up now, my head nearly touching the top bunk.
“What else would it be?” Logan asked, confused.
I took a deep breath. “What if my mom wasn’t just hiding me? What if she knew where the other skyborn were?”
Logan’s breathing became ragged, and I knew his heart was beating madly. “Why would you think that?”
I wanted to cry happy tears, and tears of frustration that I hadn’t figured it out sooner.
“Because she told me. She said ‘this book is full of people who are like you. Go find them.’ I mean, who keeps an address book nowadays? Logan, my mom was protecting skyborn.”
Did I know that, or did I just want it to be true?
Logan’s face fell and a haunted look passed over it.
“What?” I thought this would be good news.
“I should have believed Marcus when he said he’d met someone different, that this druid wasn’t like the others.” He answered, his voice devoid of emotion. “I should have gone with him to meet her.”
If I was going to have to get over my past regrets, then so was he.
“I should have gone to the addresses in the book the day after she died. They probably would have told me what I was, and everything. We can’t worry about the past anymore.”
He nodded but still looked shaken. “Where is this book?”
I winced. “My car, back at Jeanine’s bar.”
He sighed. “I thought you might say that.”
We’d had to leave my car when the druid Steven attacked me. The whole pack had fled in Danny’s limo, and we still hadn’t had a chance to go back for it.
Logan seemed to be thinking, rubbing the scruff on his jaw. “It’s probably been impounded. I’ll have Gear take care of it.”
I was going to intervene that if it was impounded they would need to see my ID, which matched the title and registration, but I was guessing Gear had ways around that.
A thought came to me then. “We should leave a message for Eva. Have her come back. With the book … I mean, if it is what I think it is. It could lead us right to the others. We can go together.”
Logan nodded. “We have four days to train you to control your dragon and kill druids. Because I have a feeling once you have the staff, Isaac will need to be training you full-time.”
I went to interject that I hadn’t shifted at all since the night we were attacked in the alley of Jeanine’s bar, but that was no use. I nearly shifted last night at the underground fighting ring.
“Alright, you get four days, but on two conditions,” I told him.
A sly grin crept across his face and he leaned into me. “Oh? What’s that?”
I leaned closer too, feeling my dragon slither inside of me, sending waves of heat to my groin. When was my next heat? Now-ish?
“No running, and don’t kill me,” I said sternly. I hated running with a passion, so much so that I wouldn’t mind it engraved on my tombstone. Sloane Murphy, hated running more than druids.
He leaned in closer, reaching up to brush my bottom lip with his thumb. “I promise not to kill you,” he said as he leaned in and took hold of my bottom lip with his mouth, giving it a hard suck and letting go with a popping noise.
I moaned. There were many ways to kill me, and teasing was one of them. I was just about to tell him so when I sensed movement at the front of the bus, a member of the pack climbing on board. One guess who it was. Blond hair and boobs.
“Did you make any dragon babies while you were gone?” Sophie teased.
“I wish,” I told her, and Logan’s body physically stiffened. I could feel the heat coming off of him. He moaned but turned it into a cough.
Sucker.
“What do you want, Soph?” It gave me pleasure to hear the annoyance in Logan’s voice.
She put one hand on her hip. “Ruben and I set up an obstacle course while you were gone. Danny told me we only have four days to train Sloane, so let’s get to it, sunshine. I’m going to make a warrior out of you yet.”
I rolled my eyes and stepped off the bed, standing up next to Logan. “I did pretty good yesterday, considering I’m so out of shape.” I wanted Sophie to know I could hold my own, classically trained in ass kicking or not.
She shrugged. “All I see is that you brought home a stray that nearly took my hand off when I tried to pet him.”
Hemlock. I grinned. “Took me a few hours to teach him that trick.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on.” She turned and left the bus, shaking her hips as she walked.
“Why did you put her in charge of my training again?” I asked my mate, who was still eyeing me with a smoldering look. “She did say obstacle course, right? You promised not to get me killed.”
He grinned. “Sophie’s good at this stuff, and it helps her to keep her mind off of Cooper. They were close.”
I reached out and touched the red beard tattoo on Logan’s arm and nodded. “Fine, for Cooper. But if she breaks me, I blame you.”
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “If anyone breaks you, I’ll kill them,” he said seriously.
I was about to reply when an air horn blasted outside. “Let’s go, sunshine!” Sophie yelled through a bullhorn.
A bullhorn!
“I’m going to kill her,” I growled.
Two hours later, I wanted to die. Everything burned, my legs, my lungs … weird muscles in my shoulder I didn’t even know I had. Sophie and Ruben had set up an obstacle course with druid dummies made of clothes stuffed with leaves, akin to lopsided scarecrows. She stacked piles of wood I had to jump over, mud puddles I had to crawl through, and the worst … a ten-foot-high wall I had to climb over. It was slick cob over hay and had zero handholds. My elbows were torn to shit. The only good part was that Nadine had taped one of Sophie’s pictures over the dummy and I got to shoot it in the chest with a paintball gun.
I was just coming up to the wall when she used to the bullhorn. “Come on, princess. I’ve been through this course a dozen times already! It’s easy.”