Why would he ask me that?That was like asking me to choose between my mate bond with him and my connection to my father, and then my ability to defeat Ardan and my connection to my mother. I could neverchoose.
“I … I couldn’t choose,” I finally told him. He had stopped undressing me and was just looking at me with sad greeneyes.
He gave me a small smile. “That’s what Ithought.”
I was going to ask more, probe him on why he would even mention such a thing, but he took his shirt off and need clenched within me. You hadn’t seen beauty until you’d seen Logan Sharpnaked.
* * *
Iwas awokenthe next morning by Sophie on her bullhorn, I decided that I could kill her and somehow make it look like an accident in training. I was not a morning person. Add a bullhorn greeting on top of that before I’d had my coffee and someone was gonnadie.
After scarfing a breakfast muffin and getting ready quickly, I made it down to the training course she had designed with Ruben. Substantial improvements had been made since I last saw it. There were now fire extinguishers at the base of the trees—every ten feet—and paper plates were stuck to the top of sticks that were wedged in the ground—scattered sporadically throughout thecourse.
“What is all this?” I asked Sophie, figuring for her sake I wouldn’t mention the bullhorn wakeup call at thewaterfall.
She smiled. “I’m so glad you asked. This is your new dual training center. You will train your fire druid here as well as yourdragon.”
My dragon was getting zero training time since she was locked inside my body, but I didn’t think mentioning that would be helpful. I knew what shemeant.
A snapping twig alerted me to Isaac’s approach. He held both staffs, the tips glowing a fiery orange. “And I will train with you. This is the only way we will defeat Ardan.Together.”
Ardan. The man could freaking teleport! How were we ever going to beat him? But I didn’t say that, I just wanted to focus on the possibility that killing Ardan could beachieved.
“Alright, let’s do it!” I told them both. Faking my way through this, with an overly positive attitude might help,right?
Sophie looked pleased with my enthusiasm. “Alright, let’s start easy. Sloane, I’ve been told you can shoot fire from your handsnow?”
Hah! I did that one time. “I guess?” I wasn’t even sure how it happened that night at the cemetery; it was all sooverwhelming.
Sophie rolled her eyes, seemingly annoyed. “Well, let’s start out with you jogging and setting the paper plates on fire from about five feetaway.”
My eyes bugged out. “That’s the easy start? I don’t want to know what the hard oneis.”
The packs had come out of their living spaces, and were making their way to the trainingcourse.
Oh God. The last thing I needed was acrowd.
Isaac was grinning. The man loved seeing me uncomfortable. No wonder he adored that demonic goat. They were two peas in apod.
“Fine,” I said. I wasn’t going to get any better by standing aroundwhining.
I kicked off my shoes and connected with the Earth. That buzz zipped up my legs and connected with the necklace on my chest, creating a force of power that knocked my dragon back. I felt her retreat deep inside of me and it scared the shit out of me. All of a sudden I was reminded of Isaac’s warning that my druid magic was feeding off of my dragon magic and eventually it would consume it if I couldn’t somehow stop it. But how did I dothat?
I couldn’t deal with it now, in front of all these people, but I would need to put it at the top of my priority list, because now that I was aware of it, I felt like I could feel my dragon less than I first did the day I fell off the Grand Canyon. She was … far away. And not being able to shift didn’thelp.
“Ready when you are,” Sophie screamed through thebullhorn.
I glared at the coyote shifter and felt my fire magic rise up within me. Sophie was toeing the friends and enemy line today—crossing more and more over into the enemyterritory.
Logan, Gear, Nadine, Casey and a bunch of the new people were standing around watching. Dom, the new alpha Dee, and Keegan slunk into the woods, picking up the fire extinguishers. They were no doubt ready to spray down whatever I lit on fire. My only worry was what if I lit one ofthemonfire.
Isaac set down his staffs and approached me. He must have sensed my nerves and was no doubt coming to have some sort of peptalk.
“I’ve only done this once,” I whispered tohim.
He stopped before me, bringing the scents of nature and earth with him, standing strong and tall, he gazed wisely at me with those honey-colored eyes. Placing both hands on myshoulders.
“Sloane. You are your mother’s daughter. Conjuring fire as a fire druid is akin to breathing. Once you’ve done it one time, it’s just a matter of flexing that power again and learning to honeit.”
