Nude! Well, technically I would be disrobing, so whatever got us some alone time.
“Danny’s from Fresno?” I chuckled. Someone cool and hip like him? I thought for sure he was from New York City or LA.
Keegan nodded. “Yes, but he’d never admit it to you.”
“I like him,” I pressed, hoping we could start some kind of conversation about this pack rule.
“Let’s get out,” Keegan said, and unlocked the doors.
Conversation fail.
Eva, Danny and Dominic pulled in behind us, and got out as well.
“I’ll spell the barn as best I can,” Eva declared.
Keegan nodded, pulling his beloved shotgun from the car and motioning to the door.
Danny looked out onto the land with a small smile. I wondered if he had fond childhood memories here. Seemed like he did.
“I had my first kiss to Timothy Sanders in this barn,” Danny mused aloud.
Keegan growled but turned it into a cough, only forcing Danny to raise one eyebrow and smile.
These two needed to get back together, and get it over with.
“Let’s do this and get out of here,” Logan barked.
That thrust Keegan into action. Eva was walking around the barn throwing her hands up, coating the night sky with long wisps of yellow magic. Keegan unlatched the barn doors and motioned Dominic, Logan, and I inside as Danny and Eva announced they would watch the perimeter.
I took a deep breath. Why was I nervous? Because changing into my dragon basically texted the druids my location.
“Hey, how do the druids know whenever a dragon shifts? I mean, how is that possible? Magic?” Maybe they’d done some gnarly spell over our race long ago.
Logan looked tense as Keegan flipped on an old rusty light in the barn; it cast dark shadows across my mate’s face.
“When Ardan killed the first dragon and absorbed its power, it mixed with his own, and he manifested the gift,” Logan said tersely. “Because all druids take power from him, they all have the gift.”
Gross. It’s like they were all a little bit dragon because they walked around with deceased dragon magic inside of them. Bastards.
The barn door shut behind me and Dominic faced it, guns out and aimed at anyone who dared walk through.
“If anyone walks in, just start shooting,” Logan ordered and Dom nodded.
Yikes. I hoped Danny and Eva were aware of that rule.
Logan looked at me next, tweezers in hand.
Right.
I set my staff on the ground and quickly stripped my clothes, letting them pile onto my shoes. Didn’t want to get hay and dust in my undies if I could help it.
My dragon was excitedly slithering around inside of me. I hadn’t shifted in a long time; it felt unnatural to be human for too long, like I’d lost a part of myself. Letting her free now felt so … necessary.
The cracking of bones had Dominic looking over his shoulder for a slight second. Everyone was curious about skyborn, even those in our own inner circle. We weren’t allowed to shift for fear of signaling the hunters, so this was a rare sight for all of them. Especially Logan. He’d likely never stood in a mirror and watched himself shift.
“She’s fast,” Keegan surmised to my right. I’d forgotten he was there, watching me the whole time. If he wasn’t gay, I might care. Probably not though. I’d learned to not be so self-conscious in a pack full of shifters who were naked half the time.
“She is,” Logan mused.
I guessed I was a fast shifter compared to the rest. Must be my druid heritage.
The moment I was fully shifted, Logan walked towards me with the tweezers.
‘Take four,’ I told him.
He frowned. ‘No way. Too many.’
‘I’ll be fine. I’m half fire druid, remember?’
I’d forgotten how much it hurt to get one of these pulled until I felt the cold metal of the tweezers and the scale ripping away. It wasn’t like loose skin or even hair. It was as if someone was ripping out a fingernail. I tried to keep my dragon from whining, but a strangled noise came out anyway.
“Sorry, love,” Logan whispered, and then came rip number two.
Mother—!
“Two’s enough,” Logan told Keegan, but I chuffed.
‘One more. We need it,’ I told him.
He looked at me and sighed. ‘One more. That’s it.’
When he ripped the third one out, I stumbled away from him involuntarily. My dragon probably thought I was crazy for letting him cause us pain. Mate or not, we needed some space. Logan dropped the red pearlescent scales into a small jar.
“Alright, shift back and let’s get the hell out of here!” Logan called out to me. Didn’t need to tell me twice. The place on my neck where he had ripped the scales was burning like a mofo, and knowing druids now knew of our location, I was more than motivated to leave.
As I started my shift back, Logan transformed his arm and Keegan took four scales from it, mixing them in the jar with mine. Seven scales. Combined, that jar held five hundred grand. We were set for a good while. I didn’t even want to know how much it was going to cost to feed over forty hungry shifters three meals a day, but we had enough now.
“No noise outside. I think we’re good,” Dom said, just as I pulled my shirt over my head and slipped into my shoes. Grabbing my staff, I was ready to get out of here. The druids would be signaled now. We were on borrowed time.
Keegan pocketed the jar and nodded to Dom. “Lead the way.”
Dominic opened the barn doors, guns drawn. “Eva? Danny? We good?” He walked out a few steps and we followed.
Except Eva and Danny were gone…
“What do I smell?” a deep Russian-accented voice said from behind me.
We all spun, and without a thought Dominic just started shooting. There was a man in a black trench coat standing inside of a yellow bubble, Danny and Eva wrapped in magical yellow chains at his feet.
The bullets bounced off of his shield and he just laughed. I could see something glinting in his palm. The Eye.
I knew who this was. I stepped forward. “She paid you for that fair and square.”
The man’s eyes glowed yellow when they landed on me. “She sold me a burned-down bar,” he spat.
“The druids burned it. That’s not her fault,” I told him, clenching my staff and wishing I’d already mastered lighting people on fire with my mind. He’d done something to their voices so Eva and Danny couldn’t speak.
The man inhaled again, looking at the open barn. “And why would the druids hate her so much?”
We all stood silent. Finally, I lowered my wand and pointed it at him. “Let them go or I’ll pop your little yellow bubble and burn you alive,” I growled. We didn’t have time for this shit. Druids were coming and this asshat was mad over some business deal gone sour.
He looked amused at my threat. “Oh, I think I’ll make a little deal instead. I know that smell. That’s the smell of a newly-shifted skyborn. I’m assuming one of you is carrying dragon scales, because I smell those too.”