Okay … there was a caveat to this, I just knewit.
“But…?”
Isaac sighed, looking more tired than I had ever seen him. “But from what I can sense, it’s snuffing out your dragon’s magic faster than anythingbefore.”
I sucked in a breath and reached up quickly, undoing the clasp and yanking it off. It fell to the grass and I skidded back on my butt so that I was a few feet away from it. My dragon was my link to Logan, to our matebond.
My mentor reached out and picked it up, holding it in his hands. “Sloane, you may need to prepare yourself for the fact that you might lose your dragon, and become a full fire druid, no longer able to shift into dragonform.”
It was like he’d stabbed me in the gut. Lose my dragon? Was he high?No.That wasn’t even an option. Lose my ability to shift, lose my mate bond toLogan…?
“No way,” I said through gritted teeth, and felt my dragon rise within me. I wanted to shift, to fly, to prove I was still very much askyborn.
He sighed. “There might be one last thing we can try. After I heard you’d been taken and your staff destroyed, I went to the scene and swept up the ashes from thestaff.”
I perked up; hope sprang in my chest. “Okay…”
“I brought it to Eva and she and Danny tried every spell imaginable to make it whole again. Nothingworked.”
I shrank into myself. “This is a shittystory.”
He chuckled. “I have one last friend from the land of Faery that may be able to help us fix yourstaff.”
Half of that sentence was great; the other half had me wary. “The last time one of your Faery friends helped me I lost atooth!”
My tongue went to the spot where my tooth had been ripped out. Instead of a gaping hole, there was a small rounded nub of bone. Whoa. I thought back to when Logan told the story of losing an arm while fighting Ardan and how it had grown back.Incredible.
Isaac shooed me with his hand, bringing me back to the present. “No, no, this will be nothing like that. He will take scales for payment. They are priceless to analchemist.”
I raised one eyebrow. “An alchemist? Well, let’s go meet him and ask.” If he could magic my staff into being whole again, and I could anchor my magic better with it, then I would have a chance at keeping mydragon.
Isaac blushed, if that was possible. “There’s a little problem,” he saidshyly.
Oh Lord I knew it. Someone needed my teeth or my pee or some other body bit I wasn’t willing to partwith.
“What?” I pressedhim.
The druid sighed. “He hates me. Will probably kill me on thespot.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline. “Why?”
He gazed at the trees as if they held some answer. “The last time he saw me I was in bed with hiswife.”
Oh snap! A sly grin crept across my mouth. “Isaac! That’s so unlikeyou.”
He nodded. “I know. It’s not what you think. And it’s a long story, but nevertheless, Rufus Emerson said if he ever saw my face again he’d turn my head to stone. He’s quite capable of thattoo.”
I winced. Damn. “Well, maybe he’s over it bynow?”
Isaac made a face like he wasn’t sure he believed that, but then he reached out and patted my knee. “We’ll go see him. I’m sure he’ll be distracted by the shiny dragon scales and less focused on making me astatue.”
My eyebrows knitted together. “You sure? I mean, if you’re really worried about him hurting you, we don’t haveto…”
Please say you’re sure. I need my staff back. I need to keep my dragonalive.
He smiled at me just as the goat gave a warm-up “Waaaaa” and I flinched in case she was getting ready to strike. “I’m sure. Your happiness is important to me,Sloane.”
My heart squeezed in that moment. Isaac was such a genuinely good person, that I wasn’t sure what I did in life to deservehim.
