Logan growled. “Shut up. Take Sloane and run or fly. Get the hell out of here, both ofyou.”
“Not a chance in hell,” I told my mate, widening my stance and preparing for thefight.
Logan glanced at Danny. “Take her by magical force if you have to. That’s an order!” heshouted.
Danny shook his head. “My fiancé would never forgive me for leaving his best friend to die, and neither would Sloane. We’re in thistogether.”
Logan finally turned to me. “Sloane, I’m begging you. Run … please,” hewhimpered.
Anger flushed through me fierce and hot. We were just trying to live our lives and be happy. We didn’t do shit to these druid scum and yet they had made it their mission to take out our entire race. A slow burn unfurled in my chest as the anger reached a boiling point and I no longer cared about anything. I had a moment of detachment. I didn’t care if I lived or died, I didn’t care that I was human or mated. I only cared that I wiped that smug grin off of Steven’s uglymug.
“So, this is where you’ve been hiding?” the druidpreened.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Raising my staff, I gave out a blood-curdling scream and let all of the heat and rage pour through me. I slammed the staff into the ground and a wave of fire left my body and shot out like a rising tide, covering the druids directly in front of me. Steven blinked out before the roaring blaze hit, while Logan and Danny were thrown backwards with the backlash. But they burned, those high and mighty druid bastards burnedalive.
Chaos rained down then, everything happened so fast. Logan was up, sinking bullets into the remaining druids that had been out of my range. Danny was setting up shields that blocked their balls of red fire. I spun, knowing that coward Steven would pop up behind me and try to take me again. I wouldn’t even give him a second to breathe before I took hislife.
Sure enough, right before me, Steven blinked intoview.
I didn’t think, didn’t wait for him to speak. I raised the golden, sharp tip of my staff and lunged. It pierced the flesh just below his collarbone and he stumbled backward in shock. My plan relied on hoping that if he was injured enough, he couldn’t do his teleporting thing. I moved forward with him, watching him stumble backward to the ground, my hand remained on my staff as I fed it magic. I saw his face contort inpain.
“You’re a racist piece of crap, and the world is better off without you,” I said, pulling my gun from behind myback.
His hand shot up; a gust of wind slammed into me but it was too late. I popped off three bullets right into his forehead, even as I was thrown backward up into the air. I kept shooting. I came down hard on my ass and scrambled quickly to get up. I wanted to make triple sure he was actually dead. Without a second thought I pulled my staff out of his collarbone and flipped it around, pointing the crystal end at him. I didn’t like killing, death, or any of this, but sometimes the old ways of thinking had to crash and burn for a new way to riseup.
Calling on my druid power, with one final push, I dosed his body in purple flames. His upper torso jerked as the fire consumed him, and I looked away, a little ashamed at what I’d done. Finally, I stopped the flames, the staff falling to my side. I was about to spin around and see if Logan and Danny needed any help when I saw the concentrated green mist rising up from his smoldering remains, and floating towardsme.
Dragon Magic. Murdered friends and families. He took that! Their souls for power. I no longer felt one ounce of regret. Stepping forward into the green haze, I took a deep breath, absorbing it all into my body. My dragon surged inside of me, pulling the mist down and wrapping it around her like a warm blanket. Power saturated my essence as the green magic weaved within me, finding itsplace.
“Well done,” Logan said, behindme.
I turned to see his shoulder was bleeding, but he looked otherwise intact. My eyes flicked to Danny, who was wiping his hands off in the grass, trying to rid them of blood. I’d taken out the dozen or so druids with my wall of fire and they’d finished off thehunters.
“Was that the homophobic a-hole that threw Keegan through the cabin door in Flagstaff?” Danny asked, looking at the charred remains ofSteven.
I nodded. “And his boss will have felt that loss of power, so let’s get the hell out ofhere.”
I wasn’t ready to meet Ardan yet. I felt drained after that display. Even absorbing the dragon magic wasn’t enough to make me ready to meet the evil druid master himself. My eyes roamed over the forest and I was pleased to see that my fire had not done harm. A few scorch marks on the grass but no trees were alight. It was almost as if the fire was conscious and knew its intendedtargets.
A caw from above brought my eyes to the skies, where I saw Gear circlingahead.
Logan seemed a bit lost in thought, or maybe in mental conversation with thehawk.
“Keegan’s at the road. Let’s jog,” Logansaid.
I think we all wanted to get the hell out of here. The Earth had started her job of disposing of the druids’ and hunters’ bodies, opening up to swallow their evilwhole.
Thank you, I sent a silent prayer to Mother Earth, and picked up my staff from thegrass.
I had killed Steven. I killed one of the big baddies. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It felt like for the first time in forever the scales were tipping in ourfavor.
As we ran, I held tightly to my staff and prayed that Ardan didn’t blink in front of me and make this day any worse. I was tired, felt sluggish, and needed a nap, not to mention tons and tons of therapy. I stabbed him, shot him, and burned him. I felt like a monster. The amount of anger I’d unleashed, that wall of fire, what did it say about me as aperson?
“You okay?” Logan asked as we reached theroad.
I just nodded. It needed to be done. He was evil and it needed to be done, but it didn’t make it anyeasier.
Keegan brought the car to a halt and the doors flew open. Nadine ushered us inside, Keegan nearly wept at the sight of us allalive.
