* * *
After we landed,I bought some flowers to put on my mother’sgrave.
The boys boughtshovels.
I knew she wasn’t in the grave we were about to defile. That was just bones, a body that once housed her soul. But still … disturbing her resting place was causing me anxiety, bringing back all the old memories of her. She would have wanted me to have her necklace. I just never imagined getting it this way. It was so important to her. I’d wanted her to be laid to rest with it, but the universe had otherplans.
We rented a big SUV and laid low, driving around town until nightfall. Outside the locked cemetery gates in Tempe, Arizona, I looked around, my tongue exploring the gaping hole in the back of my mouth where my tooth had once been, while Eva did some magic to the lock on the gate. Tempe was the town my mom and I had lived in, that she’d taught in. Even from where we stood I could see the lights of the ASU stadium. A game must be have beenplaying.
Isaac leaned in close to me from where I sat in the SUV. “You know, Sloane,” he whispered. “A proper burial for your mom, as an earth druid, would be to lay her directly onto Mother Earth and not in a box that keeps Gaia’s energy from accessing that departeddruid.”
I chuckled. “You know, that’s something my mom said in her final moments. Not to put her in a casket, just to lay her on the Earth.” I had totally forgotten until now. I’d brushed it off as crazy talk, along with the rest of the wild things she’d said about dragons and magic. I wish I could remember it all, but at the time I’d been numb. She had been doing better; the cancer treatments were working, and then she’d tanked overnight and died hourslater.
Tears welled in my eyes and I nodded to Isaac. I knew he was asking my permission to lay her to rest properly after we’d exhumed her and taken thenecklace.
He squeezed my hand and noddedback.
The gates opening brought my attention to the cemetery. Ghosts were my kryptonite. I couldn’t watch scary movies that featured hauntings or ghosts, because I believed in that shit. It scared me to my core. I only ever came here on Sundays in the daytime—my reasoning being that Sundays were church days and ghosts didn’t haunt people on those days. Weak logic, but it worked to keep my fear atbay.
Today was not Sunday. It was not daylightout.
“Are ghosts real?” I asked Danny in the front seat. I figured if anyone had the ability to see them, or knew about them, it would behim.
He winced. “Yes, girl. But not like you think. Regular people just die and go wherever, to the other place. But the ones who did really,reallybad stuff in life, like to little innocent kids, they don’t want to go. So they stayand—”
I put out a hand to stop him. My heart was pounding in my chest, my dragon threatening to break free. “Never mind. I don’t want toknow.”
Danny just grinned. “You’ll be fine. You’re withme.”
I nodded, but the gravity of the situation hit me then. We were sneaking into a cemetery and digging up my poor mother’s grave to steal her necklace. I feltsick.
“You okay? You want some help relaxing?” Danny asked, and a yellow magical symbol crawled from his palm and hovered above hishand.
I shrugged. Why not? He waved a hand in my direction and the yellow glowing symbol shot out of it and crashed into my forehead. The moment it impacted, a warmth and peacefulness spread throughout me, settling my nerves and my dragon. I gave a contented sigh and shrank into the seat cushion. “What was that?” I asked, feeling a bit loopy andbuzzed.
Danny just grinned. “A sort of magical valium if you will. It only lasts about ten minutes. Helps with panic attacks and that sort ofthing.”
Logan made a funny noise in his throat from the front seat but said nothing as he drove us through the fence. Isaac sat quietly staring out the window, while Eva and Keegan were on foot outside and followed us in at ajog.
“Go right,” I instructed as the road split. My mother was at the very edge of the cemetery. I’d been here so many times I could walk there blindfolded. Once Logan got to the end of the road he parked and I pointed in the direction of thegravestone.
“She’s there.” My throatpinched.
Logan nodded and then looked at Danny. The sorcerer reached out and touched myhand.
“Hey, love, let’s go for a drive. Be back when it’s allover.”
That was a great idea, because they were about to dig up my beautiful mother’s body and take her necklace from her bones and I couldn’t see any of that. I couldn’t even think about it. If it weren’t for this magical valium I would be a hot mess rightnow.
I justnodded.
Isaac reached across my lap and grabbed the flowers I held. “I’m going to do right by her,” he promised me. “Give her an earth druid’sburial.”
My throat pinched as tears leaked from my eyes. It’s what she would have wanted. My mother … the battle druid. I couldn’t express my gratitude without falling into a puddle of tears, so I justnodded.
My car door opened and Logan was standing there. Danny, who’d been in the front passenger seat, was out of the car and getting into the driver’s seat. I stood and fell into my mate’s arms. He was going to dig up a body for me. This man deserved an award for hisloyalty.
“I love you,” Iwhispered.
