Skyborn (Dragons & Druids #1)(60)
“Isaac!” the big scary man spat, turning to face the oncoming druid, and a tiny thread of hope weaved its way into my heart. The way he said his name was the way I said Sophie’s the night she’d pushed me. They weren’t friends.
“Ardan,” Isaac acknowledged through gritted teeth. Ardan? As in the guy who’d ripped Logan’s arm off Ardan?
Holy mother. This Isaac guy must be the one that Eva was taking us to. The good druid. If there was such a thing.
In a blinding motion, Ardan threw out his arm and a red lightning bolt headed straight for Isaac. But just as quick, he threw up his staffs and the orange balls on top absorbed the lightning. Ardan didn’t let up; the lightning streak wasn’t one short burst, but a long stream of electricity flowing right into Isaac’s staff. Then Isaac brought the tip of the staff into the earth. I saw the red fire brought into the ground and absorbed by the earth. The lighting was reflecting in Isaac’s eyes and they glowed with a reddish hue. It was terrifying.
“Still using your old tricks. It will take more than that to kill me,” Isaac announced over the crackling of the building lightning.
With a sonic boom, Ardan clapped his hands together and the lightning broke off. The force of it threw me backward into Logan. He was human now, having been un-staked and wearing a torn pair of pants. When had he shifted? Sophie had torn the base of her t-shirt to create two strips to tie around Logan’s injured shoulder, while simultaneously giving us a view of her killer abs. Typical. Then I heard Nadine grunt off to the right, and Sophie ran to help her fight off more hunters. Jesus, how many were there and where was the rest of the pack? I tried not to think of anything too dark. That anyone was … dead.
I brought my gaze back to the fight before me. The blast didn’t seem to have ruffled Isaac. He was standing like a sentry with his two staffs outstretched, ready for whatever Ardan had to throw at him.
What caught my attention was Steven. He had slithered away from his boss and was now stalking towards us with a glowing red dagger in his hand.
‘Fly off with Sophie. She’ll keep you safe,’ Logan said, as he stepped in front of me holding a gun in one hand and his green glowing blade in the other.
I started my shift back to human. ‘No way. You die, I die, remember? We stick together.’
I knew that if he hopped on my back I could fly away and we would both survive, but there was no way we would leave the pack. I couldn’t live with that, and neither could he.
Logan looked back at me and growled. ‘Don’t make me cage you,’ he warned.
I was in too much pain to acknowledge that. My body was still recovering from Eva’s little torture session, and I still wasn’t used to shifting. By the time I looked up, Logan had popped off two bullets at Steven’s chest, but Steven dodged one and the other he took in the arm, but he just kept walking quickly at my mate, wearing a maniacal grin. My mate. That word was weird and comforting at the same time.
When I was finally fully shifted, I glanced up to see Ardan being wrapped in the roots of thick branches that had climbed up from the ground, Isaac standing over him, grinning. But then Ardan poofed away with his little parlor trick and reappeared right behind Isaac. The good druid was ready. He spun around, knocking the tip of his staff into Ardan’s chest, tossing him backward ten feet.
With a roar, Ardan produced a basketball-sized globe of red fire and chucked it at Isaac. It was traveling at an alarming rate, and Isaac barely dodged it. Part of the ball clipped his shoulder, the rest dissipating when it hit the ground leaving behind a scorched mark in the earth. I noticed one of the crystals on the staff in Isaac’s right hand dimmed as crimson blood seeped from the wound on his arm.
A grunting noise pulled my attention. Logan had Steven pinned, a green blade to his throat, just as Eva appeared beside me and handed me her long trench coat. “Wear this,” she told me. I numbly slid it on, covering my naked form and nodded to her. Then I reached down and picked up one of the old harpoons that had been in Logan’s wing. I had to let the pack fend for themselves, because Logan needed my help. Maybe together we could take out Steven.
It looked like Isaac was holding his own with Ardan, although just barely and if the good druid weren’t here we would be dead by now. I was going to stab Steven in the eyeball for what he had done to Logan. Stalking closer to the fight, my eyes on the prize, I cursed when the druid suddenly disappeared from underneath Logan and reappeared hovering right above him.
“Logan! Look o—” My warning came too late; the red glowing knife slammed into Logan’s shoulder, up near his neck.
Time went still then. I could hear my breath coming out slowly, louder than it should be, as if all of my senses were hyper aware. My legs went weak as I looked at Logan hunched forward with the red glowing dagger shoved into his back. A searing pain sliced through my heart then as I realized what this meant.
Logan’s green dragon magic began to lift upward from his body, and the burning pain in my chest increased, a pain so raw and unique it was akin to the same grief that had torn me open when my mother passed. My mate … was dying. Anger, fear, and desperation flooded every cell of my being as I ran forward with a cry on my lips.
“Nooo!” I shouted, lashing out with my magic, letting it go wherever it wanted, letting it be free.
A purple bomb exploded before me, saturating everything within a fifty-foot distance, including the trees. Logan, Steven, Ardan, Isaac, they all lit up like purple Christmas trees, then Ardan and Steven blinked out and they were gone. Isaac was brought to his knees, one hand on his staff, the other dug deep into the earth. He was staring at me with those golden eyes, but I cared nothing about any of that right now. The purple haze was fading as I ran, and when I reached Logan I ripped the dagger out of his back in one swift motion. Touching the blade burned my hand slightly but it was minor pain to the gaping hole that had opened in my heart.