I shrugged. “Sounds nice.” Freaky butnice.
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 purebloodedsociety.”
Bile crept up my throat. It sounded very similar to some history I had learned about in school. “Whathappened?”
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 livedon.”
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 goodbook.
“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 keepgoing.
“The commander didn’t want to deny his queen, so he asked for her blood, her magic, to bind with his strongestwarriors.”
My mouth popped open and I involuntarilystood.
The corner of Logan’s lips curled. “And that’s how we got the skyborn.Us. The dragonshifters.”
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 coulddo.
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 inmiscarriage.”
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 underme.
“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 mymother.
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 toostrong.”
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 mymind.
“You need a drink?” He slipped one hand into his pocket and gave me an appraisinglook.
“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 hiseyes?
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 wasgone.
“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 toprotect.”
“Charge to protect?” I called afterhim.
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 theskyborn.”
My eyebrows hit my forehead. “Of course they do.” I was a skyborn and came with my own protection detail of various circus animalshifters.
Holy hell, I did need adrink.
Make thattwo.
3
WE WERE ALL sittingaround the pool table in Logan’s game room, scattered on barstools. Some of “the pack” were playing pool and others were talking to me. I had learned that Logan’s security detail was comprised of six animalshifters.
Cooper, a short, stocky redhead with a beard at least twelve inches long, was a fox shifter. He was playing pool with Gear, the punk-rock one of the pack. Gear fixed motorcycles, was a falcon shifter and had a lime-green mohawk to rival Cooper’s funky red beard. Between his nose was a septum piercing, and on his knuckles was tattooed “StayTrue.”
Then there was Keegan, the tall, impossibly-handsome alpha. He was a wolf shifter like Nadine. I still wasn’t sure about the creeper standing in the corner. His name was Dom; he barely spoke and wore a hoodie pulled up over his hair, which looked like it might be blond. I couldn’t tell. He wore all black and was silently watching all of us with his ice-blue gaze. He hadn’t told me what his animal was, but I knew from taking away what the others were. He was the lion, the huge, menacing, freaky-ass lion shifter. When I had introduced myself to him he had simply nodded, keeping a hand on the black gun at his hip. He was closed off and mysterious, so naturally I wanted to know everything about him. Logan had put Mittens in the basement when everyone arrived and now I knew why. Dom must have seriously unsettled the poorkitty.
Lastly, there were two females in the pack, Sophie and Nadine. Sophie was a blond coyote shifter with huge breasts spilling out of her top. She had been shooting me eye daggers from across the room all night. Nadine was the dark-haired, tattooed-up wolf who’d saved me from the hunters. She and I had gotten along immediately and she was the one answering all of my questions as we huddled in the corner of the gameroom.
