Skyborn (Dragons & Druids #1)(61)

Logan fell forward and I heard him grunt. With a little effort, I rolled him over. He was still breathing, but shallowly and wet, rasping as if his lungs were filling with blood. Everything within me screamed in protest. I’d just found him, I’d barely gotten to know him, and now … we would both die.

Logan looked around at the forest beyond me, and then at my face, as if he was having trouble focusing. He reached up to touch a piece of my red hair and trailed it between his fingers. “I dreamed about you,” he rasped. “Before I met you, I dreamed of this hair.” He trailed his fingers over my eyelids as tears leaked from the edges. “These green eyes.” His thumb then skimmed my cheek and found its way to my lips. “These lips.”

I couldn’t bear it any longer. If we were going to die, we might as well die kissing. I’d only gotten to kiss him once, and all it did was make me want more. A lifetime of more. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his as his hand came up around my neck and pulled me closer with surprising strength.

I felt something pull inside of my chest and squeeze my heart. It was happening. He was dying and I was dying with him. I reached up to touch the scruff at his face as a numbness spread throughout my body.

He pulled back slightly, moving his lips to my ear and whispered, “You were worth the wait.” With those final words his hand slipped from my neck and his head crashed backward as the life left his eyes. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.

The tightness in my chest increased until I was sure I was having a heart attack, then with a pop the pressure eased and purple magic flared from my upper body and lurched into his. Some of his green dragon magic was hovering just above his body. Now it began to settle back down as if magnetically pulled by my purple essence. I was about to sit up and adjust my position when a deep voice above me spoke.

“Don’t. Move.” My eyes flicked up to see Isaac watching me cautiously with those golden eyes. I froze, looking down again to see my magic had encased Logan. His own green magic was leaking out and merging with mine to make the most beautiful oceanic teal color I had ever seen. Hope burst inside of my chest.

“Can I save him?” I asked Isaac. I didn’t know if he would know the answer, but I had to speak it out loud to someone.

Eva’s voice called out from behind me. “They’re mates,” she told Isaac.

I could see now that the entire pack was assembling around us. Nadine looked injured but alive, Gear still in his bird form and clutched to her chest. I continued to brace myself awkwardly over Logan as the purple and green magic danced and pulsed between us. Isaac bent down low and took a whiff of Logan’s hair. Okay. Weirdo. Then he stood.

Isaac addressed the pack: “His soul still remains. You know what they say about dragon mates, don’t you?”

I heard Sophie reply, and was grateful she wasn’t dead: “They’re bound to each other. If one dies, they both die.”

Isaac gave her a once over and shook his head. “Wrong. The legend says that in order to kill a dragon mated pair, you must kill both. For as long as one lives, the other will survive.”

Just then, Logan took in a huge gasping breath and I burst into shocked tears. The purple haze was thinning out now, and Logan’s shoulder seemed to have stopped bleeding.

“You’re alive,” I told him, smiling as the pain and numbness that had once claimed my body faded away.

He looked up, and Isaac peered down directly on top of him. “Welcome back.”

Logan frowned, confused. “Who are you?”

Keegan swam into view just as I sat up fully. When I registered the limp red fox in his arms a strangled sob left my throat. Keegan was limping, holding Cooper’s fox in his arms. The red fur was nearly all black with ash and soot. Like he’d been burned.

“Coop!” Sophie screamed throwing herself forward and crashing onto her knees.

Logan’s eyes were pinned on Keegan’s, his breathing coming in and out rapidly. Keegan simply shook his head as Danny walked up behind him.

“I couldn’t save him.” Danny said resigned.

Sophie was sobbing into the ground, pounding on the grass and Keegan’s jaw was clenched so hard I thought his teeth would snap in half.

Oh my God. Cooper was dead. The gentle giant with the twelve-inch beard… was gone.

The way his little fox form lay so limply in Keegan’s arms, the alpha’s fingers clenched in his fur. It tore me in two.

“Those druids will be back.” Was all Keegan said.

Logan groaned as he sat up fully, never taking his eyes from Keegan’s.

“Coop.” Logan finally said ignoring Keegan’s warning and tears sprung from my eyes at the misery in his tone. It was a goodbye.

“Alright. Everyone on the bus!” Isaac broke apart our mourning and pointed to the yellow school bus in the parking lot. That was his bus? Keegan looked at Eva, who nodded.

“This is my friend I told you about. He has land where we can go to heal and recover,” Eva told them.

How the hell did Eva know so much about this man? Who in the hell was this man? I didn’t care right now. I only cared that Logan was alive and that Cooper was dead. I couldn’t process it yet, that we had lost one of ours. Keegan started barking orders for everyone to get on the bus, and handed Coopers lifeless fox off to a grieving Sophie who took him to the bus. Then Keegan pulled the trusty tweezers out of his pocket and waved it before Logan. Logan sighed, and I helped him stand fully as he thrust out his hand to Keegan; black scales formed on his arms while the rest of him stayed human. Keegan plucked three scales and handed one to Eva. “Gear first,” he told her, and she nodded, running off to find Nadine and the injured falcon.