Dragon's Gift - The Druid Complete series Box Set Page 36

  Was he counting and realizing I wasn’t out there?

  Kobolds weren’t the cleverest.

  Before he could figure it out, I leapt up and threw the potion bomb at him. The glass ball exploded against his chest, sending a bright red liquid splashing over him.

  Immediately, he began to shriek with laughter. The sound pierced my eardrums, sending an ice pick through my brain. Madame Mystical’s eyes squeezed shut and she twitched.

  I raised my blade, trying to focus on the task instead of the pain. I threw the dagger and pierced the Kobold through the chest. He hurtled backward, shrinking down to his original size. He continued to shrivel, disappearing into dust.

  Nailed it.

  I stood, hurrying toward Madame Mystical. Her eyes widened on something behind me. It was all the warning I got. Heart thudding, I spun in a circle, just in time to see a fourth Kobold hurl a blast of green magic at me.

  I lunged aside, but the blast nailed my legs.

  Pain streaked up my body as I slammed to the ground.

  “Blöde Kuh!” the Kobold screamed.

  What the heck did that mean?

  Something told me it was an insult.

  Ahead of me, another bowl of potion bombs sat on a low bookshelf. I dragged myself toward it, my legs currently immobilized by the Kobold’s explosive green magic.

  He thundered toward me, leaping over a chair and dodging a table. I reached for the bowl of potion bombs.

  “Get a blue one!” Madame Mystical screamed.

  I released the green one and grabbed a blue, rolling onto my back and hurling it at the Kobold. He was nearly to me, towering overhead in his unusually large form.

  The glass potion bomb exploded against his chest.

  He shrieked, his bulging eyes going wide in his wrinkled green face. He was not nearly as cute as Yoda.

  In a flash, he froze solid and fell over, then poofed into dust and disappeared.

  To my left, Angus climbed unsteadily to his feet. He’d ended up wrestling his Kobold. Thank fates, he’d won.

  Lavender strolled over, dusting her hands off and eyeing me. “Why are you on the ground?”

  “Uh, the view is better?” Aching, I dragged myself into a sitting position.

  “Could one of you come untie me?” Madame Mystical’s imperious voice echoed through the room.

  “Sorry, Madame Mystical.” Angus trotted over.

  “Madame Mystical was my grandmother.” She twitched an eyebrow, clearly displeased. “I am Melusine.” Angus untied her and she stood, towering over him in her five-inch heels. “Thank you for rescuing me. The Kobolds showed up yesterday, and they were intent on staying.”

  I tried dragging myself upward by using the bookshelf, but my legs just wouldn’t cooperate. Exhausted and aching, I slid back down against the shelf. I thumped my head back against it.

  Today was really not going my way.

  “Drink one of the green potions from that bowl,” Melusine said.

  “Thanks.” I reached behind me and found the potion on the second try. As I swigged it, Caro entered the shop, her platinum hair gleaming.

  “Well done, you three! A record.” She grinned widely.

  “No thanks to Ana,” Lavender muttered. “Her shield went out.”

  I thumped my head back against the bookshelf again. Of course.

  “She did take out two of the Kobolds.” Melusine’s gaze met mine. “You’re Ana, I assume.”

  “I am.” My legs tingled, and I winced.

  “You should be good to walk now,” Melusine said.

  I dragged myself upright, then took a few unsteady steps.

  Melusine was already stalking around the shop, her red catsuit gleaming under the light as she began to clean up.

  “Do you need any help?” Angus’s voice was hopeful, and I was pretty sure that he wasn’t thinking about cleaning.

  “No, I’ll use magic,” Melusine said. “Thank you again. You can go now.”

  I met Caro’s wry grin and shrugged. That was that.

  As a group, we left the shop, heading out into the dark night. I stuck near Caro, since she actually liked me. The feeling was mutual. The water mage was one of my favorite people at the Protectorate.

  “We really did it in record time?” I asked as we walked down the darkened street. It was a narrow cobblestone affair that wound down through the town, past dark little shops and crowded bars. Gas lamps flickered at doorways, and various faces peered out at us, suspicious.

  “You did,” Caro said. “Jude will be pleased.”

  “Good.” Top of my list was making Jude happy. As the leader of the PITs—the Paranormal Investigative Team—and hopefully my future boss, I wanted her to think I was good at this.

  But with my magic on the fritz…

  I shoved the thought away. I’d have to address it, and soon, but right now, I just wanted to get out of The Vaults. It was a creepy place, like the darker side of a fairy tale, and being underground just felt weird.

  Caro led us out of The Vaults and through the magical bookshop that acted as the secret entrance. A special golden stone was the ticket through the bookshop and into The Vaults, but it didn’t make the ornery bookshop actually like you.

  “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” a crotchety old voice said. It sounded like it belonged to a 102-year-old woman with a serious case of attitude, but it was actually the house itself speaking.

  “Love you, too!” Caro shouted. “Always a delight to visit.”

  “Stuff it up your nose!” The house harrumphed.

  I grinned as I stepped out onto the main street in the Grassmarket, the supernatural district of Edinburgh. Immediately, the air tasted fresher, and the morning sky was a welcome change from the fake one in The Vaults.

  It didn’t take us long to make our way down the street and through the special portal that would take us back to the Highlands, where the Protectorate castle sat on a lonely piece of land overlooking the sea. Once I stepped through the glowing portal, the ether sucked me in and spit me out in the Enchanted Forest. From there, the fairy lights led us between the twisted old trees, down a path toward the castle.

  When we appeared on the main lawn, the enormous stone structure beckoned. Towers reached toward the sky, and the windows glittered in the early morning sunlight.

  “I love it here,” Caro said. “It’s been five years, and I’m still not used to it.”

  It’d only been a couple months for me, and I couldn’t help but agree. I’d never get used to this place. In the distance, the Cats of Catastrophe chased the Pugs of Destruction across the lawn. Princess Snowflake III led the charge, her long white fur blowing in the wind. Muffin kept pace, but as usual, Bojangles was chasing his tail. The orange cat was the epitome of a sweet moron, but I loved him. And damn, could he fight.

  The Pugs of Destruction glowed blue, the little ghosts leading the cats on a lightning-fast chase. Mayhem, the pug with wings, kept flying back to bark at Snowflake, then turning around and darting away.

  “I don’t think the cats will ever catch them,” Caro said.

  “Not sure what they’d do with them if they did,” I said. “They’re ghosts.”

  Though Muffin, the Cat Sìth, was so magical he might be able to manage something, he had too good a heart to hurt the pugs.

  “Hey!” Bree’s voice sounded from across the lawn.

  I turned, spotting her coming out of the stable where we stored the buggy, our monster truck and my pride and joy. She had a black grease stain on her cheek and a big smile on her face.

  “Hey.” I grinned as she joined us. “How’s it going?”

  “Good. Just had a bit of time so I thought I’d give the buggy a tune-up. How are you?”

  She asked the question just as my gaze was drawn toward the stone circle that sat near the sea. The enormous stones jutted toward the morning sky, and magic glowed around them.

  The circle had always called to me before—and repelled me at the
same time, which was weird—but it had never glowed like that.

  “Ana?” Bree poked my arm.

  “Oh, sorry!” I turned to her. “Distracted.”

  “Yeah. I can tell. By what?”

  Caro had gone off to join Lavender and Angus, so it was just me and my sister. I rubbed my arm where the new tattoo had sunk into my skin and eyed the stone circle again.

  “Ana? You’re making me nervous. What’s up?”

  “Something’s wrong. Last night, I stepped into the stone circle.” I hadn’t seen Bree since then. “A super powerful godly voice told me that I’m The Druid.”

  Her eyes widened with excitement. “You’re the Celtic Dragon God?”

  “Looks like it.” It should be pretty cool. I didn’t know much about the Celts, though I’d managed to do a quick search in the library. Hadn’t pulled up much since the records were sparse, but I’d learned a bit. “But I also got two new tattoos.”

  “What!?”

  “Not at a tattoo parlor or anything.” I liked to switch up my style choices too much to get tattoos that were permanent. I showed her the tattoos. “I got them while I was in the circle. Glowing, golden Celtic knots. They wrap around my upper arms.”

  “That sounds badass.”

  “They look cool, yeah. But I just tried to use my magic for the first time, and they stopped it. Like, the magic couldn’t flow from my chest and out of my hands.”

  Bree glanced up. “Oh crap.”

  “Exactly. Something is really wrong, and I have no idea what.”

  She squeezed my arm. “We’ll figure it out.”

  We’d finally arrived at the courtyard that led up to the castle, so I zipped my lips, not wanting to talk about my now-faltering magic since Jude might be nearby. I’d just gotten a bit of control, thanks to Lachlan’s help. The fact that it was on the fritz was no good.

  Together, we climbed the wide steps. The massive wooden doors swung open, revealing the huge entry hall with a soaring ceiling.

  Normally, it was a quiet part of the castle, with people passing through on their way to other destinations. This time, however, there were three figures standing in the middle. Two wore long white robes, while the third was dressed in old-fashioned leather armor.

  Scratch that.

  It wasn’t old-fashioned looking. It was positively ancient. Her red hair was tied on her head in a variety of crazy knots, and the sword at her side had a beautiful twisted iron hilt.

  The two who wore the robes were talking a mile a minute at Jude, whose brows were halfway to her hairline.

  Bree grabbed my arm, and we stopped stock-still, not wanting to disturb them.

  And who were we kidding? We also wanted to eavesdrop.

  We tucked ourselves against the door, in plain sight—I wasn’t about to go sneaking around and get myself in trouble—but we were out of the way enough that we wouldn’t disturb them.

  “I recognize her,” Bree whispered. “The one with the red hair.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Maira. She’s a Celt.”

  “Whoa.” Could that be a coincidence?

  “I met her when I was in the Celtic god Cocidius’s realm. She was a captive.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “No, I helped free them all.”

  I grinned. “’Course you did.” It was just the kind of thing that Bree would do.

  I strained my ears to hear what they were saying. Both of the figures in robes were men, and the tallest one was speaking. “I’m telling you, the dark magic is unlike any we’ve ever seen. It’s unrivaled in its devastating nature.”

  “And you say that it broke into the Otherworld?”

  Otherworld. That was the Celtic afterlife, the realm of the gods and the dead.

  “Just yesterday,” the tall figure said. “It broke right through the circle at Caernavon. I don’t know how it managed—it should have been impossible. But it made it through. Now it’s cutting through our realm, leaving a terrible trail of destruction in its wake. It’s destroying Otherworld.”

  “And you say you need help tracking it?” Jude asked.

  “Yes, precisely. This is where the druidic seers said that we would find the help we need.”

  “You’ve come to the right place. We have just the team for the job.”

  As if they sensed me, the two robed figures turned and looked right at me. Then they pointed.

  “We want her,” they said in unison.

  Oh fates.

  “Bree?” Jude asked. “She’s new to the Paranormal Investigative Team, but she’s very talented.”

  “Not her,” Maira, the warrior, said. “Though she is very talented and I owe her my life. The elders are speaking of The Druid. There’s no doubt that she’s the one meant to help us.”

  “Yes,” the tall figure said. “We want The Druid Dragon God.”

  Welp—they knew what I was.

  I’d been keeping that pretty close to the vest. Only trusted members of the Protectorate knew that I was a Dragon God. They were the only ones who had any reason to know. But Bree was the only one aware that I was The Druid.

  Now these random strangers knew?

  It had to be because they were Celtic and had some extra insight, but I still didn’t like it.

  Jude’s brows jumped all the way to her hairline this time. If they could have, they’d have jumped right off her head. Her starry blue eyes met mine. “The Druid?”

  I hadn’t had a chance to tell Jude about my visit to the stone circle. Between sleep and class and popping into the library to do a bit of reading about it, I’d been busy.

  This was not how I’d anticipated this going down.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Last night I learned that I’m The Druid.”

  Bree was The Valkyrie. I was the Druid. And I was all kinds of confused.

  “That’s new,” Jude said.

  I nodded. ”Very.”

  “Did you know that some distressed Celts would show up on our doorstep begging for your help?” she asked.

  “Nope.” I looked at the Celts. There was reverence in their eyes, or something like it. Well, the two robed ones, at least. Maira just grinned at me and Bree.

  To say that I was more comfortable with the grin than I was with the reverence was an understatement.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Lachlan’s voice sounded from behind me.

  My heart went wild and my brain went on the fritz.

  I turned. He met my gaze, and something passed between us. Heat, definitely. I felt like a wire connected us, and someone had just plucked it like a guitar string. The tension vibrated in the air. Our kiss played through my mind, and I probably looked totally zoned out.

  I shook myself. He shot me a small half smile, then looked at Jude.

  I sucked in a slow breath, trying not to be a totally awkward dork, and turned from him.

  Seriously?

  This was his timing?

  I was confused as hell and overwhelmed, and the object of my affection/lust chose this moment to show up and add a bit of sexual tension and mild panic to the mix? Last night, we’d just agreed to not ignore our feelings. Apparently, I hadn’t had enough time to chill out about it and become a normal person.

  “I think we need to go to the round room,” Jude said. “This qualifies as round-room big-deal discussion material.”

  No kidding.

  2

  I trusted Lachlan, I didn’t object to him coming with us to the Protectorate’s version of a war room. The Celts seemed pleased to be upgraded to the medieval-style room where we discussed the most important issues at hand. They settled in at the big round table as if they visited every day for tea.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have too much else to say about being The Druid and the possible savior that these people were looking for. I’d have liked to have more information about my situation, but I just….didn’t.

  The one thing I didn’t mention was that my magic was on the fritz because of
the tattoos. I didn’t want to give Jude any reason to think I wasn’t capable of being at the Academy and passing with flying colors. Quickly.

  “You insist that Ana is the only one who can help?” Jude said.

  The three of them nodded.

  “She’s the reason we came here,” Maira said.

  “Isn’t the timing a bit weird?” I asked. “I just discovered that I’m The Druid, and now you’re here, needing my help.”

  “You were fated for this,” the shorter man said. “I am Owyn, and I am an elder druid. Not The Druid, like you. But I have visions and prophecy. I can see this.”

  Vision and prophecy.

  Just like I had.

  I’d wondered where that new magic had come from, but apparently it was a druid thing.

  “What are druids, exactly?” I asked. I’d gotten a definition in the library, but it’d been vague.

  “We perform a number of functions, but primarily we are the knowledge holders of the Celts. We can act as lore-keepers, seers, religious leaders, healers, and legal authorities. We also protect the magic of the Celts,” Owyn said.

  Healers. The white light that had helped heal me.

  That new power was starting to make sense, too.

  These guys definitely had answers for me. I knew almost nothing about the Celts, and I certainly knew almost nothing about my new magic. Info in the library had been sparse on this subject, primarily because the Celts had utilized an oral method for passing down history and information.

  If you wanted knowledge about them, you had to go to the source.

  And these guys were the source.

  “I want to help.” I looked straight at Jude. “I can do this.”

  Her gaze moved between the druids and me. A thousand thoughts flashed in her mind, clearly.

  “You aren’t fully trained,” she said.

  “Neither was Bree when she set off to the Norse realm to learn about her magic,” I said.

  Bree nodded. “True story.”

  “I know,” Jude said. “That was dangerous, but necessary. So is this. The other division heads have been chafing at the idea of new recruits being given so much freedom—it’s one of the reasons I’ve been harder on you, Ana. Our rules have kept us safe and alive for hundreds of years. But I agree that this is important. And it’s a double standard to let Bree go but deny you.”