My eyes bugged. “Darkness?”
Isaac shrugged. “Fire is a dark element. It’s fueled by passion yes, but also rage. Every fire druid has unknown obscurity and fury in their depths. A wrath that needs to be controlled.”
His lesson shocked me. Did I? Did I have rage just below my surface? Yes I was hot headed, but what he spoke of was something else. I did have an underlying anger. Injustice made me boil. From the first time I’d heard about the druids and their pureblood race plan, I’d been overcome with fury. Maybe that was my weapon.
Isaac put up a finger. “But a good fire druid knows balance. Knows not to become overwhelmed with the anger. Learns to toe the line.”
Okay. Slight warning label there, but I was sure I could handle it. “Sounds like you know exactly how to train a fire druid.” I winked.
He sighed, his face creasing with concern. “I would if you didn’t have that dragon inside of you, feeding your druid with unsanctioned magic.”
My palms went cold. “W-what?” One thing that was always stronger than anger was fear, and it had me in its grip now.
Isaac put a gentle hand on my shoulder and closed his eyes. “I can feel it. Just under your skin. Like a tornado. It grows every day and I don’t know how to stop it.”
The treetops spun as anxiety gripped me. “Stop what?”
Isaac pulled his hand off of me, and gave me the look I got from so many people after my mother died. “Your druid magic feeds from the Earth, but only in small amounts. The majority it takes from your dragon.”
My eyebrows creased. “How? What does that mean?”
My mentor looked at the tip of his staff as if it would give him some road map. “I need to be honest with you, Sloane.”
Oh fuck. Bomb drop in 3 … 2...
“I have a theory that your mother didn’t keep this life from you to keep you safe from druids. She would have been better to train you, make you strong.”
How was I still standing? How had I not passed out by now? This was the worst training session of my life.
“Why did she do it?” I breathed, fully entranced by his words.
He stepped closer to me and sighed. “To keep you from consuming your dragon completely. The one part of your father she had left.”
Consume. He said “consume.” Bile rose in my throat as I stumbled backward. No. He couldn’t mean…
“Sloane, I think that since the day you were born, your druid half has been … feeding off of your dragon half, and will continue to do so until there is nothing left. Your mother paused it, but there is no pausing it now.”
“No!” Fresh hot tears cascaded down my cheeks. Isaac set down his staffs and pulled me into a hug.
“I don’t think your mother knew how to stop it, so she stopped everything, made you human and bought us time,” he mumbled into my hair. He smelled like shea butter and vanilla, and his strong arms around me made me wonder if this was what it felt like to have a father.
He pulled back and I looked into those kind, honey-colored eyes.
“We’ll figure this out together. I didn’t want to tell you until I was relatively sure.”
I nodded and wiped the last tear from my eye.
“So, worst case…?” I asked. Because I needed to hear it. I needed to hear the worst-case scenario.
Isaac looked overcome with emotion then, misty-eyed. “Worst case, your druid consumes your dragon and she dies completely. Taking your mate bond with her.”
It hadn’t hit me until he’d said it, that this would affect my relationship with Logan. Losing my dragon was one thing. As much as I bitched about being skyborn in the beginning, it’s who I was and I loved my dragon. But Logan … that was a whole other level of desperation. If my druid power took my bond with Logan, I wasn’t sure I would survive it. Would we still feel the same for each other? How much of what we had was down to being mates? Would we just be boyfriend and girlfriend? Those words cheapened what we had, how I felt. My dragon slithered at that thought, rising up strong within me. I wouldn’t let that happen!
I tightened my grip on the staff. “What do we do?”
Isaac nodded. “We train. We teach your magic to take from the Earth, and if it doesn’t, you fight it. Fight with everything you have to keep your dragon strong.”
How the hell could I fight something I couldn’t feel!
“Can you see it?” I wondered, looking down at my body.
He shook his head. “No, but I sense it. I did the moment I saw you. Your mother would have too. From the day you were born.”
Oh, Mom. That’s why she never told me! Never taught me. She didn’t want me to lose my dragon. My father.
“Okay. I’m ready,” I told him. Whatever he asked of me I would do. I didn’t care if he told me to sleep under trees and give up deodorant, I would master being a druid, and it would not consume my dragon. Logan was the most important thing in my life, and he would not be taken from me.
Isaac raised his staff up and slammed it into the ground, causing the leaves on the trees to shake. “Lesson one, you are only as strong as you let yourself be.”
Let the confusing riddles begin. I was officially a druid in training.
13
One week later.
I was bruised, battered, and slightly badass. Slightly. Because Isaac and I were connected, I could do some of what he could do. Shake the earth a bit. Block magic with my staff. I could also focus my purple magic like a laser through the staff’s crystal—but I was having a hard time keeping a steady stream going.
After a few sleepless nights, I’d broken down and told Logan what Isaac’s theory was, about my druid consuming my dragon and our matebond with it. He’d been very quiet, then he’d just stood and said not to worry about it and left. After pressing him later he said he was “working on it” with Eva and Danny. I had enough to worry about. He needed to feel like he was a little in control, so I let it go. We’d also called every skyborn in my mom’s address book, but because five years had passed since she’d been alive to update it, only fifty percent of the numbers worked. Still, that was something. They were skeptical at first, but after showing them my face on video chat, telling them about my mom, each one of them said they would tie up their lives and move quietly from their town and onto Isaac’s land. They wanted to live in a skyborn community surrounded by shifter protectors, and that’s what Isaac was offering them.
Keegan and Sophie still weren’t back with reinforcements, although he did say he’d be arriving later today with new pack mates.
“I think you’re ready to tap into your fire magic today,” Isaac said.
I frowned at my mentor. “What? Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?” I laughed.