No.Fuck no. Red beard, brown bear … NO MOREtattoos.
“Pick him up!” I told Danny in the sternest voice I could muster. I pulled out my phone and called the good druid. Isaac picked up on the first ring. He never carried his cell phone with him. Ever. The universe was aligning for this. I could feelit.
“What’s wrong?” he asked,panicked.
“Keegan’s dying of a magical knife wound, and you’re going to help me save him,” I told him. This was not up for discussion and I didn’t want any negativity. It was happening and that was that. Keegan would behealed.
He was silent for a beat. “Okay. Find the strongest tree you can and tell me when you’rethere.”
I nodded, handing the phone to Eva, who took it and put it on speakerphone, no questions asked. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I wanted to be strong and handle my shit, but the thought of Keegan dying was threatening to overcome me. My stomach felt like it was on fire, my ankle was throbbing and completely busted, but nothing compared to the heavy feeling in my heart. Keegan was family and I wasn’t losing any morefamily.
Just …breathe.
Logan appeared at my side. “I saw you the night Isaac healed Dom. You were … inspired. You’re an earth druid, Sloane. This is your destiny.” The way he was looking at me with so much … faith, it filled me with something I needed. And just like that the weight and sadness fell from me as if Logan had ripped it off. I was hobbling into the forest, Danny behind me with Keegan in hisarms.
“You’re hurt,” Logan said, seeing me limping and holding mystomach.
“I’m fine,” I told him, and held my hand out, feeling the energy in the air, searching for Keegan’s healing tree. I passed a nice strong mesquite that was good but was too feminine for Keegan. He was an alpha. He needed the strength of a giant sequoia. Most people looked at the tall redwood trees of Northern California and thought they were that, all redwoods, but I’d learned from Isaac that there were redwoods and sequoias, and those were different in size and species, if only marginally. I heard Danny grunting behind me and felt the pressure to just pick any tree. But I knew the tree I picked would determine the healing Keeganreceived.
Finally, I felt it, the powerful pull of Nywfre. The energy of Mother Earth was concentrated in one tree to my right. I turned and stood before it, taking in her beauty. She was over two hundred feet tall. I had to crane my neck all the way back to see it fully. I inspected her cinnamon-colored bark, which was thick and healthy, and leaned forward to smell her woodsy aroma. She was theone.
“I’ve got the tree,” I told Isaac. Eva stood beside me with the phone out as Danny fell to his knees, placing Keegan right at the base. The alpha looked barely conscious, pale and breathing shallowly. We were on borrowedtime.
“Sloane,” Keegan rasped, and I kneeled before him, digging my toes into the cold earth to anchor my energy, oblivious to the pain in my ankle, my stomach, or anythingelse.
“If you can’t do it … it’s okay,” hewhispered.
Oh God. Even on his death bed he was trying to protectme.
I met his dusky eyes. “I’m healing you, Keegan,” I declared, and took a deep breath, placing my hands on the tree, being met with a zipping of energy along my palms. Keegan was trapped between my knees and the tree as I created an energetic cocoon with my body. Isaac had been teaching me the healing pose and how to channel the energy by trapping the wounded person, or animal, between my body and thetrunk.
“I’m ready,” I saidloudly.
Isaac’s voice was quiet for a moment. “Now you call up the power through me. Find your connection to me and pull, pull as hard as you can. I’m going to go into mediation and give you everything I’vegot.”
I nearly whimpered with fear. Isaac had said once that he and I were connected, that the Earth had initiated me and our powers were bound. I’d pulled some of his power before, like earlier when I made the earth move, but I hoped for Keegan’s sake I could pull a lot more. It was going to take some serious earth magic to heal him, not the fire magic that Ipossessed.
“Okay,” I said, and my voice shook alittle.
Keegan’s hand found its way to my knee and squeezed lightly. He was staring off into the sky. I knew that feeling. When I was injured by the hunters, bleeding out in Flagstaff, Logan and the pack came for me, they saved me. I’d felt that feeling of impending death but I’d come out of it. I’d survived. And Keegan would come out of it too. I wasdetermined.
I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have any more distractions. Taking a deep breath, I called to the energy of Mother Earth. I felt her everywhere, in the tree, beneath my feet, in the air that caressed my skin in the gentle breeze.Nywfre.Then I felt for Isaac, my mentor, my master, my teacher. Isaac was my strongest link to the Earth. When I felt for that connection with him, the Nywfre beneath my palms intensified and a buzzing started up my toes, through my painful ankle, and worked its way up my leg. The necklace at my throat started to pulse, and I could feel warm rivulets of power washing over me. It was like the tree and I were creating a healing circle with Keegan in the middle—up my toes, through my body, out my hands, into the tree, through the Earth and into my toesagain.
“It’s working,” Logan’s awed voice said from behindme.
I gently cracked one eye to see a blinding orangish-purple light encasing Keegan, and then promptly squeezed it shut so I wouldn’t lose focus. I felt for that connection to Isaac and then pulled. I pulled it through me with everything I had. The pain in my stomach eased then, as well as the throb in my ankle; I felt the bark beneath my fingers weaken and turn ashy. I popped open my eyes to see that the once-cinnamon colored bark was as black as charcoal about a third of the way up thetree.
I looked down at Keegan and saw his knife wound was no longer pouring blood freely; his coloring seemed a bit better. He was just staring up at me, open-mouthed. The orangish-purple glow continued to dance around us as we stared at each other. I didn’t dare move my hands from the tree or my feet from the ground. I gave my bad ankle a little wiggle, and when I felt no pain I burst into tears. The tree and Isaac had healed metoo.
“Thank you,” I whispered to her, while the colorful light display finallyfaded.
Keegan’s hand was still on my knee, as if I was his lifeline to the living world and he was afraid to letgo.
“I’ll never talk shit about druids for as long as I live,” he declared in a weak voice, and we alllaughed.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Isaac said over the phone, and Eva smiled, putting it to her ear and walking away, presumably to tell him everything. I’d have to thank him hugely when we gothome.
Danny crouched beside me and leaned over his love, placing a hand on Keegan’s chest and staring into hiseyes.
