“You got this,” Sophie said firmly in my ear as her grip around my elbowstightened.
Eva moved the shape farther down my face towards my neck and the pain intensified. “No, stop!” I screamed, as the searing heat nearly brought me to my knees. A black smoke was coming off of my face, and I had a horrible thought:Was she burning me?I could hear commotion behind me as Logan struggled against Keegan’shold.
“Eva!” Logan growled, and I knew his dragon was close to thesurface.
Eva looked like she was in pain herself, her forehead covered in sweat, her hands shaking. “Danny, ground me,” she called out, and Danny rushed up behind her, placing a hand on each of her shoulders. The moment his hands touched her, hewinced.
Blackness was creeping at the edges of my vision as I swayed on myfeet.
“Keep her conscious or it doesn’t work!” Eva yelled toSophie.
Sophie shook me. Hard. “Stay awake, buttercup!” she said through grittedteeth.
My entire head felt like it was being squeezed in a vise, and at the same time like someone had thrown boiling hot water on it. My dragon flared to life then, lending me some of her strength as another wave of pain crash through me. Eva brought the yellow shape to my heart; black smoke was leaking out of my every pore. The burning was causing me to have a full-blown panic attack. Was I going to light onfire?
“What. The. Hell. Is. This?” I said between labored breaths as the black smoke left my skin and floated towards thesky.
Eva moved the geometrical shape down to my abdomen and I whimpered, sagging against Sophie’s chest, pain exploding in my belly. I couldn’t take any more. I couldn’t. This pain was as if every single cell in my body had been cut in half, electrocuted, and thenburned.
Eva’s face contorted in agony. “This,” she said with great effort, “is blackmagic.”
My stomach dropped. I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Jeanine. I had been scared and didn’t think thingsthrough.
Keegan’s growl from behind me pulled my attention away from the pain for a half a second. “They’re here!” heshouted.
Eva paled. “I’m sorry,Sloane.”
My eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “For wh—?” Pain like I could never imagine exploded in my legs as Eva rushed the geometric shape down the rest of my body, stopping at my feet. Black smoke puffed up so thick and strong that I couldn’t see … and that’s when I passedout.
* * *
When I came to,there was screaming. A lot ofit.
“Gear!” Nadine yelled as my eyes peeled open and the mother of all aches slammed into my body. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck and then given the flu for goodmeasure.
“Keegan!” Sophiescreamed.
So much screaming. I let my eyes adjust, and what I saw stole my breath. Chaos had descended on this small rest stop in California. I could hardly process everything at once. Logan was in dragon form, his outstretched wings pinned to the ground like a staked tent. At each wing was a druid holding the metal stake, Keegan crouched before Logan, like a sentinel ready to take on Steven—the Irish druid that I now very much wanted tokill.
Nadine was fighting a hunter with her left hand, using a dagger to jab and thrust at him, while keeping Gear’s falcon tucked tightly in her right. She was careful not to further injure his wing, but in the process was having a hard time with the bushy-hairedhunter.
My attention was thrown back to Logan when Steven, standing before him, thrust his hands out—Keegan’s wolf was tossed to the side by an unseen force, snarling and growling the entire way.Wind.Hadn’t Logan said he was a wind druid? Keegan landed before a pack of hunters and I could see now that Danny was holding at least a dozen hunters off, while Eva and Jeanine went head to head, throwing yellow magic spells like they were water balloons just off to hisside.
This was what it must be like for people in war zones, I thought sadly. So much going on, so many people getting hurt, that you froze and didn’t even know what to process first. I was frozen. It was too much, I didn’t even know where to look. I could hear Ruben’s bear and Dom’s cat growling but I couldn’t see them. It waspandemonium.
Sophie’s blond hair suddenly appeared before me, her face swimming into view. She reached out firmly and grabbed each of my arms, hauling me into a standing position. I hadn’t even realized I was sitting down. My body screamed in protest; the aches were bad but it wasn’t the searing pain from before. Aches I couldhandle.
Where was Cooper, Dom, Ruben, Roxy? My mind was frazzled and I didn’t know what to do. Apparently, neither did Sophie. “Do something,” she said, and her eyes glowed yellow with the force of her innercoyote.
As if those words alone spurred me into action, my dragon began to rip from my skin.Do something. Me. She wasn’t asking anyone else, because next to Logan I was the most powerful person on our team and I needed to pull my shit together and prove it. I would not let anyone die because of my mistakes—my need to run away from everything. Apparently, my need to breathe in dark magic aswell.
Jeanine’s spell had been broken. My dragon could come forth and come forth she did. Faster than ever before, those red pearlescent scales flared along my limbs, and Sophie stepped back with a grin. My bones cracked and my muscles bulked until I was standing on my hind legs, ready tofight.
Sophie approached me with her harpoon lowered. “I’m riding you,” she stated and I lost sight of her behind mywings.
What did she just—? A heavy weight crashed down on my back and I groaned. What the hell did she think I was, a circuselephant?
“They’re going to kill Logan. Fly!” she roared in my ear. Damn, this woman was annoying, but she was right. The Irish druid was throwing red ball after red ball at Logan, and I could feel my own chest searing just watching it. Logan was breathing fire right back at him, but the druid had a shield up and so it was bouncing off and scorching theground.
