Logan Read online

  That the redhead from my dreams was real.

  I shook off thoughts of Sophie and walked over to a flat rock, mercifully covered by trees and so snow free. There, I placed my focus right where it needed to be—the girl—those piercing green eyes, wide with terror, her pouty mouth and that unforgettable fire-red hair. She was real and I was going to find her. Protect her.

  Getting myself comfortable on the rock, I sat cross-legged and began the process of glimpsing. I arched my back and squared my shoulders, preparing my body for the onslaught of dragon magic. Magic was a wild thing. It reminded me of fire; if you let it get out of hand, it would burn all in its path. I’d had over a century to train my magic, so I felt for that deep humming in my gut, near where my dragon rested, coiled and content. I prodded it, making my dragon stir. He hated when I awoke the magic like this. The buzzing feeling intensified, making my skin tighten as I took a deep breath, forcing my dragon not to shift. Then I set the magic free. I tore at it like a wild beast and my dragon awoke fully within me, roaring in anger at what I was doing.

  I didn’t necessarily talk to my dragon. We were one; he knew what I knew, but I sent him thoughts now, of the girl, another dragon. She needed us, and if I was being honest, I needed her too. I needed to know I wasn’t alone, needed to help settle that terrified look I’d seen in her eyes. My dragon relaxed then, and I let the rush of magic consume me, the green fire erupting from my palms and out of my mouth with a scream.

  “Jesus Christ,” Keegan said.

  I ignored him, keeping my eyes closed, feeling my temperature rise, feeling the magic looking for that outlet, that place to unleash. Eva told me that when I did the glimpsing, it was like watching the aurora borealis consume a human being. That’s sure as hell what it felt like too.

  My dragon helped push the magic harder and faster; a wave of dizziness consumed me, magic searing along my every nerve and fiber. It was too hot—I was going to burn up if I didn’t stop.

  The green fire scalded my throat and singed my arms as it made its way out of my body. Come on, you bastard, take me, I told the magic. Eva also confessed once that magic was conscious, and I was banking on that now. It was my magic, and hopefully it would do as I pleased. I hadn’t glimpsed in forever, and I was afraid if I didn’t pass out soon, I would burn up and die.

  Killed by my own magic.

  “Logan!” Sophie’s emotional plea came just as the blackness took me. My back arched and weightlessness took over my body. In that one moment before losing consciousness, I honed my intention, put all of my focus on the girl.

  Sloane…

  Her name came to me as if it rode on the wind. I was in the otherworld now, the place where you go when you are no longer in your body.

  I was glimpsing, high in the sky above Flagstaff, looking around for that sign that there was another of my kind nearby. My body was still down below, lying awkwardly half on the flat rock and half on the snow. As I expanded my awareness and looked around, I could see humans as dark blobs of energy, witches barely a glow, shifters nearly nothing but, there … to the north … a red glowing ball of fiery dragon energy.

  My breath caught in my throat as I looked at the evidence of the end to my loneliness.

  She is real.

  I focused my awareness there, and within seconds I was hovering over a cabin on Ash Lane. I knew this area; it was near Gear’s motorcycle shop. Surrounding the cabin were three deadly hunters, armed with magical weapons and intent to kill. She didn’t know yet. I could see her glowing energy inside; she was upset, crying, trying to control her shift. She probably didn’t know that’s what brought them to us.

  But how could that be…?

  “Watch out!” I shouted, unsure if I could do anything from the place I was. Her energy inside of the home stiffened, and that’s when I felt the druid nearby hone in on my location. His dark energy washed over me, trying to pin me to the spot.

  Shit.

  I’d seen enough. Zooming back above my body only took seconds. I had to only think my intent and it was made manifest. Like I said, when I was here, I was God.

  Sophie was freaking out, pacing over my body, while Keegan sniffed the air, no doubt already on the trail of that druid.

  There was melted snow and scorch marks around my body where the magic had concentrated the most, but the majority of my body was unharmed. I focused my energy on my physical body and slammed back with the force of a bullet. It was weird, coming back from unconsciousness. It was my sense of smell that always came back first, and then the loud popping noise in my ears. I groaned, feeling every muscle in my body ache as I sat up and opened my eyes.

  I didn’t hesitate for a moment. Gear, she’s real. She’s in a cabin on Ash Lane, by your bike shop.

  I’m on it! he called back through our bond, and I knew he would get there in time. He had to.

  I stood with a wince, waiting for my dragon healing to kick in as Keegan tossed me a gun. “Smell that?” he asked.

  I nodded. “The druid that’s after her saw me. He’s coming here now, but he left his hunters with her. We need to finish him off, and then save her from those hunters. He’s going to try and get both of us today.”

  Sophie looked absolutely aghast at the proclamation that there was really another dragon, but she snapped out of it quickly, tightening her grip on her harpoon gun. Keegan stood there for a second, thinking.

  “I fear it could be too late,” he said. “I don’t think the girl has any training. She wouldn’t be on the run like this. Leading them to her so easily.”

  He was right. She was doing some rookie stuff, but that didn’t make sense. There couldn’t be any new dragons, and if she was twenty-something years old, like she looked in my dream, then she had been shifting for twenty years and should know better how to control her dragon. Something didn’t add up.

  “We need to lead that druid away from her,” I told Keegan. He would be here any minute, I could smell him. He’d left his hunters to take her and now he was after me.

  He cocked his gun. “Leave that to me. Let’s save this girl.”

  It was decided. Keegan gave the order for Sophie to shift and for everyone else to haul ass to the cabin on Ash Lane. I just hoped my dream girl could hang on until we got there.

  Chapter Three: Logan

  SOPHIE TOSSED HER harpoon gun in the truck with her clothes, lingering for a moment to see if I would glance at her naked form, and then when I didn’t, she shifted into her coyote shape. I needed to do something about her advances, but now wasn’t the time.

  The second I jumped into the truck, Keegan peeled out, leaving the pack in animal form behind. They would travel on foot and meet us at the girl’s cabin. Hopefully the druid wouldn’t find us until we killed his hunters and saved the girl. Either way, splitting up was a good plan. Keegan and I could take care of the druid; the pack could take care of the girl.

  Keegan kept a detachable police siren for moments just like these. He pulled it out now and stuck it on the roof of the truck as we hauled ass onto the I-17.

  I see her! She’s in human form, but the hunters are chasing her, Gear reported to the pack.

  Help her! I commanded, as if I needed too. I knew Gear would do everything in his power to help the girl, but I couldn’t just sit there and say nothing. Gear was a good guy, and his falcon was useful, but not usually in the sense that it could take out hunters. He was our tracker, but not one of our best fighters. Keegan pushed the truck harder, tapping her out at the max speed. If we blew a tire at this speed, we would be ground meat.

  My hope was that the druid was going to my glimpsing location. That would give us time to get to Sloane. Her name … it did something I couldn’t explain to my insides.

  Our exit came then and Keegan took it, barely slowing to make a left at the light, tires screeching as he careened onto the main road. We were minutes from her, but if the hunters were good and she was as rookie as it seemed, she could already be dead. Keegan flipped the siren off
and weaved in and out of traffic—no use in letting the hunters know we were coming.

  What’s happening? I shouted to Gear.

  His reply was delayed; no doubt he was trying to fight and help her. She shifted to her dragon form. They’ve harpooned her wing.

  My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. She’d shifted in broad daylight!

  We’re here! Nadine told me just as Keegan pulled the truck down Ash Lane. I saw the tail end of Sophie’s coyote disappear into a walking trail between two houses, and Keegan pulled over.

  Without waiting for the car to fully stop, I grabbed Keegan’s sawed-off shotgun and leapt from the car, crossing into the woods at a full-on sprint.

  I’m going to shift, Keegan yelled behind me. I could smell the druid nearby, so it was probably best that Keegan did. Then we would be at our strongest. Keegan’s wolf was nearly as large as Dom’s lion.

  It was still early in the morning, and I needed to try my best to keep the humans from seeing this. As I burst deeper into the walking path and through the thick trees that led to the community park, I skidded to a stop. Sophie, Cooper, Nadine and Dom were stalking towards the hunters. The hunters were surrounding a beautiful red dragon—the dragon from my dreams.

  I let the shotgun hang loosely at my side and tried to mask my shock. She was real. I wasn’t alone. And the goddamn bastards had harpooned her wing! I cocked the shotgun and stalked forward.

  The hunter with the harpoon faced Nadine. “We don’t want trouble with your kind. Get out of here!”

  Not on a cold day in hell. The girl’s dragon was covered in blood—too much blood. Why wasn’t she healing? As I thought it, I could see her shifting back to human form. Bad idea, I wanted to tell her. She had to be new at this—but that wasn’t possible—she looked to be in her early twenties. Dragon younglings started shifting right after birth...

  The girl collapsed into a heap of blood and my dragon coiled inside of me, rattling my skin like a cage, dying to get out and pick her up and fly her to safety. Seeing her delicate naked form, vulnerable and bleeding … it tore me in two.

  “Keep the shifters out of my way while I finish her off!” one of the hunters yelled to his buddy, who looked to have been burned. She could breathe fire? That was an impressive skill that took practice.

  Or a life or death situation would do it also.

  Kill them, I commanded, just as Keegan’s gray wolf walked up behind me to join the hunt.

  Dom leapt for one of the hunters, knocking him down quickly so Nadine could go for the kill. I could see that the burned hunter just beyond the girl had collapsed; no doubt the dragon fire had finished him off. With one hunter left, Sophie and Keegan took him down quickly.

  The girl … Sloane … was panting and looking around with wide, terrified eyes. I didn’t want to spook her walking at her with my shotgun, so I told Nadine to shift and approach her.

  Nadine left the hunter’s dead body and walked slowly to where Sloane lay. She was dying, dammit! Why isn’t she healing? As Nadine got closer, Sloane grabbed the arrow that was once in her shoulder and held it up, thinking Nadine was a threat.

  “Stay back.” Her voice warbled. She was fighter; even in death she held that harpoon arrow with an iron grip.

  Nadine quickly shifted, shedding her wolf form for her lithe human body. Sloane’s mouth popped open and she dropped the arrow. “What the fu—?”

  She didn’t finish; she passed out into Nadine’s open arms. Her head lying limp to the side, her crimson hair matched the pool of blood at her feet. She had looked at Nadine shifting like she was surprised … like she’d never seen a shifter before. What the hell was going on?

  “I need help! She’s lost a ton of blood!” Nadine shouted behind her, and I spurred into action.

  I was stalking towards Nadine, to help her with Sloane, when I sensed the druid almost a second too late. I spun quickly, bringing my shotgun up just as the druid skidded to a halt before me. Without question I pulled the trigger, blowing a hole in his chest and dropping him to the ground like a bag of bricks. By the look of his three hunters and how simple his fighting tactic was, he wasn’t a powerful druid. Maybe a novice, one level up from an apprentice hunter, barely into his entry-level training. He should have thrown a shield over himself before approaching me.

  “We got lucky,” Keegan said over my shoulder, observing the dead druid on the ground. The earth had already begun her job of disposing of his carcass. All earthbound were exactly that, bound to the earth, and when they died she took their burden. It was a good thing too, because with how loud that shotgun blast was, cops would be here any minute. I didn’t need a body to explain.

  I handed Keegan the gun and ran to help Nadine and Dom, who were now both stark naked and carrying a pale and bleeding woman through the woods. If the humans saw this, we were screwed.

  “Give her to me.” I hadn’t meant to sound so growly, but my dragon had taken over. Nadine and Dom obliged, setting a limp Sloane into my arms. The moment my skin touched hers, a bolt of magic ran through her and right into my gut, shaking my dragon awake. It saturated every fiber of my being, making my body hum with ecstasy. I stood there trembling, staring at her pale lips, her limp head flopped over my arm. The magic climbed from my gut into my chest and a tingling spread throughout my limbs. My dragon was roaring now, desperate to shed my human form to better protect her. Recognizing the burst of magic for what it was rocked me to my core.

  Holy Shit.

  Sloane was my mate.

  ***

  “Why isn’t she healing?” Nadine asked as she held gauze over the wound in Sloane’s shoulder. We didn’t have a pack doctor, but Keegan had some EMT training, and Nadine usually assisted as his nurse. She did some community college classes to get her nursing certificate, before dropping out and declaring her desire to become a tattoo artist.

  “Something’s wrong with her magic,” I stated, rubbing the scruff on my beard. On the exterior, I was relatively calm and in control; no one in the pack knew what was going on. Internally, I was freaking out. Sloane was my mate. How was that possible? How was she even here? I didn’t understand it and I wasn’t sure I fully believed it. I couldn’t tell the pack, and if she survived—which she needed to; I wasn’t sure I could live the rest of my life knowing I had met and lost my mate in the same day—then I couldn’t tell her either. Dragon mates were rare—hell, dragons were rare—and telling anyone would just freak them out and make everything too weird.

  She’d be no one’s mate if I couldn’t keep her alive.

  Keegan looked at the blood pressure cuff on her arm. “We’re losing her!” he growled.

  Everything within me jacked up a notch. “No, we’re not! Do something. Take my blood.” I offered my arm, blurting out the first thing that came to my mind. Sloane’s body was draped limply over the bed in my guestroom, sweat beading her brow, her breathing shallow. Keegan had hooked her up to an IV of fluids, hoping to wait out her healing, but it wasn’t coming. Something was broken.

  Nadine and Keegan shared a look.

  “It might work,” Keegan said. “Dragon blood, in a dragon that isn’t healing, might jumpstart her powers or something.”

  “Well, hurry up, then!” I stepped closer, shoving my arm in his face. The worst possible thing I could think of in the world would be to meet my mate, after so long of being the only dragon left, and then have her die.

  Keegan fumbled with a blood-draw kit, and then asked me to sit down. Taking the chair next to the bed, I let him take my blood as I kept an eye on the slow rise and fall of her chest. Once he was done, I stood and we both approached the bed. This had to work. It would be beyond painful to watch the first dragon I had met in decades die of a shoulder wound.

  My mate.

  I let that last thought slide away. I still wasn’t sure what I thought of that, or if it was real. Maybe it was some weird connection I felt because she was dying or whatever, not because she was my mate. I had been feeling pretty desper
ate lately, so I had probably imagined it.

  Keegan loaded her IV line with my blood, and I leaned closer, watching for any reaction. Nadine was at the foot of the bed, fiddling with some monitor that measured her oxygen.

  “Here goes…” Keegan said, hanging the bag.

  I watched as the blood slowly flooded the IV line. It made its way into her arm and I held my breath. Dragon scales were one of the most healing things on earth, but dragon blood … nothing rivaled it. This would work.

  Almost a full minute after the blood had reached her arm, I had to remind myself to breathe. Finally she stirred, moaning, and then moving her legs.

  “Calm down. You’re okay, you don’t need to be afraid,” Keegan said in a soothing voice.

  Her eyes snapped open and she bolted into a sitting position, before I reached an arm out to gently push her back.

  “Hey, hey, relax. You’re injured,” I told her, careful not to press on her too hard.

  She looked at me panicked, then pain exploded in my face as in one blurring motion her left fist came up and clocked me in the jaw. She fell backward into an unconscious heap.

  Ow! Jesus. My hand came up to rub my jaw. Keegan and Nadine were both looking at me wide-eyed, biting their lips to keep from laughing. She’d punched me in the freaking face! Unbelievable.

  “Oh shit! She’s shifting,” Keegan muttered. Sure enough, she was moaning and her skin was breaking out in red scales.

  “No! Stop that! You’ll lead the druids right to us,” I told her. But she was too out of it. Clearly unaware. She was turning out to be a major pain in the ass that was going to get us all killed.

  “What do I do?” Nadine asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  “Tell Gear to take to the skies. The spells around my house should hold so long as she doesn’t do a full shift.” I didn’t know if that was true. It had been years since Eva had put protection spells on the house. I forgot what they were all for. I knew they kept hunters and human eyes away from the house, but I was so in control of my dragon that accidentally shifting wasn’t even a possibility for me.