Skyborn (Dragons & Druids #1)(9)

I scratched my neck, trying hard to believe what he was saying. “Okay.” Maybe I was still asleep and dreaming, because this sounded loony.

“Until one day, the queen of Faery found a tear in the fabric between the two worlds. She came to Earth and fell in love with a human.”

I leaned forward, suddenly hanging on every word.

“She slowly began sending Fae to Earth and letting humans into Faery. Fae and humans started falling in love, having families. She wanted a world where we could all coexist.”

I shrugged. “Sounds nice.” Freaky but nice.

Logan’s face grew dark. “Some felt that she loved her precious humans more than her own people. When the earthbound found out, they created a yearlong winter in their anger with their queen. The druids were one of the highest born magical Fae creatures in the land. After learning what their queen had done, they set out to become more powerful … to wipe out the humans and any of the human-Fae mixed creatures that had been born. They were only interested in a pureblooded society.”

Bile crept up my throat. It sounded very similar to some history I had learned about in school. “What happened?”

Logan lowered his voice. “While the druids were off on their quest at becoming all-powerful, the queen’s human lover got sick and he died, while she remained young and lived on.”

My hand covered my mouth. I didn’t even know these people or if this story was even real, but it touched me. I felt for this queen and her human lover. “Then what?” I was entranced. I needed to know this story just as I needed to stay up all night getting to the ending of a good book.

“So, in an effort to protect her beloved humans from disease, she climbed to the highest mountain in Faery and found the commander of dragons. It was long known that the dragons were the healers of the realm. She ordered the commander to create her a protector for humanity, a race of dragons that would be bound to the humans and feed them with their magical healing energy, keeping them healthy and giving them long lives. Back then, humans only lived to be about thirty years old. Her lover had died at twenty-eight.”

I leaned closer, nearly falling off my stool, unable to keep my eyes off of him. If I’d had my sketch pad, I would have been drawing what he said. A Fae queen climbing the highest mountain to reach a dragon commander. Twenty-eight years old was young, far too young. That was like … seven years from now for me. I motioned for him to keep going.

“The commander didn’t want to deny his queen, so he asked for her blood, her magic, to bind with his strongest warriors.”

My mouth popped open and I involuntarily stood.

The corner of Logan’s lips curled. “And that’s how we got the skyborn. Us. The dragon shifters.”

Whoa. I was … part dragon … part Fae? Chills crept up my spine at the thought. But my face quickly fell in confusion. “My mother was human so … I’m half?” I had accepted at this point that my mom slept with my dragon shifter father and never knew what he was. Nothing else explained what I could do.

Logan’s eyes quickly fell to my lips and then back up to hold my gaze. “I’m sorry, Sloane, but the skyborn are a pure race. We cannot procreate with humans. It only results in miscarriage.”

Panic gripped me then. The thought that my own mother wasn’t my real mother, or worse, that she was never human, it chilled me to my core and ripped the rug right out from under me.

“But some of them can procreate with humans—you said so yourself—in your story.” I was grasping at straws trying to think of a way that my mother could be my mother.

Logan nodded. “The other animal shifters, like the ones that saved you, they can procreate with humans, although it’s mostly against the rules now. And sorcerers, their DNA and human DNA seem to have no problem mixing. But earthbound and skyborn cannot have children with humans. Our DNA is too strong.”

My mind was whirling. I couldn’t even fathom the story he had just told me, and I didn’t want to think on it further for fear I might lose my mind.

“You need a drink?” He slipped one hand into his pocket and gave me an appraising look.

“I need all the drinks in this house,” I muttered. I wasn’t even a drinker, but tonight I would drink all the wine. He still hadn’t moved back away from me after I had stood; we were mere inches from each other. His scent wrapped around me like a blanket, sending a pleasurable warmth to my belly. His green eyes mirrored my own and I found myself fantasizing about what his dragon looked like. Was it black like his hair? Or green like his eyes?

The doorbell rang then, snapping me out of my Logan transfixion. I stepped back and shook my head to clear my thoughts, and I saw a slight disappointment cross Logan’s face. But then it was gone.

“That will be Keegan and the pack,” he said, as he spun to exit the kitchen, taking the heat from my core with him. “They’re thrilled there is another charge to protect.”

“Charge to protect?” I called after him.

He glanced over his shoulder, running a hand through his wild hair in an attempt to smooth it. “Hunters protect the earthbound while the shifters protect the skyborn.”

My eyebrows hit my forehead. “Of course they do.” I was a skyborn and came with my own protection detail of various circus animal shifters.

Holy hell, I did need a drink.