Book Review: Skyborn

Title: Skyborn
Author: Leia Stone
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Magic, Fiction

What It’s About: Sloane Murphy runs away from the hunters who have been trying to kill her since two weeks ago, when she fell to what she thought was her certain death during a hike to the Grand Canyon…only to transform into a dragon. She gets trapped by them, and sees herself being rescued by a man, a wolf, a lion, a fox and a bird, which she thought she must have been hallucinating as they worked in conjunction together.

Sloan wakes up later in a cage, after healing, with sporadic memories of fighting back against the guy, who ultimately introduces himself as Logan Sharp. He tells her that he is the last Skyborn–or thought he was the last one, until he saw her. Logan gives her a bit of a history lesson about their kind. 

Hunters find them at their warehouse, so they fight their way out, and Keegan, who shape shifts into a wolf, rips out a couple of black dragon scales from Logan and one red one from Sloane at the end of the fight in order to sell them to the magic community. Then they have Sloan dress differently and drench her in Vodka and wolf pee. Keegan gets her through the truth witch at the club and the pack makes their way towards a different room in the club where they encounter a sorceress named Eva.

Eva has Sloane wash and change into a pole dancer’s bikini set in order to do her magic of masking Sloane’s dragon scent as wolf-scent and hiding her from the druids that are after them. The pack then finds their way to the ranch they have as a back up safehouse. Nadine and Sloane take a walk the next morning and get nearly attacked by wolves from the neighboring pack. Sloane uses her magic and throws them back, but her magic is purple–not a color that is normally seen in the magic world, as every type of magic has a particular color. Clearly she is a hybrid, but Logan thinks that cannot be possible as sky born are usually pureblooded. Logan begins to train Sloane in Dragon Magic and on controlling her dragon magic–but they run into a problem–Sloane cannot hold dragon blades because they burn her. So they come up with a different plan on training her. She also begins to cook for everyone and teach them how to cook. 

Eva comes to warn them that there are druids at her club questioning people about a red-haired female dragon. They have a truth witch with them, and Eva managed to duck out of the club with an excuse for an appointment, but she does have to go back and answer questions using tricker. Eva momentarily asks Sloane to step into her own car and the two women talk. Eva offers to confirm for Sloan what she truly is aside from the part dragon, which they are certain of. Eva thinks that Sloane is a druid, but will need blood to confirm, and Sloane hesitates because Logan told her to never give blood to a sorcerer. Eva agrees with him, but states that she can give it to her once and no one else. Sloane does give it to her, and Eva drives off.

As a result, Logan tells Keegan to hire more people including a sorcerer–Danny, Keegan’s ex. Danny shows up with Keegan and they have a discussion about why Keegan would not trust him with the information that he is protecting the skyborn. They introduce themselves. The druids from Eva’s club show up sans the truth witch, because Eva had managed to use some magic to make him feel unwell. They question Logan and Sloane, with Keegan and the rest of the pack being on high alert…but ultimately they leave. Sloane has a feeling that Danny knows her secret, but he never says anything.

At night, Sloane dreams of a man meditating at the waterfall. She can tell that he is a druid but he does not scare her like the others. Instead, he seems to be one of the few good ones, and when she wakes up, she draws the man. Nadine shows up in her room, and they talk before agreeing to meet up in a few minutes for a few items. On her way down, Sloane overhears the guys–Keegan, Dom, and Logan–talking about killing druids and the pleasure they would take in doing that. It bugs her because she might be a part druid; however, she also overhears them talk about a particular druid, which gets her curious enough to ask about it. Logan compliments her artwork, which makes her want to have sex with him, and she thinks she is crazy. Logan reveals that he went after Ardan, the head druid, hoping that by killing him, he would scatter the other druids. Except, Ardan is exceptionally strong, resulting in Logan losing an arm and barely escaping with his life thanks to Keegan. He later regenerated the arm, as dragons are lizards. Afterwards, they make tacos and meet the two new shifters that Keegan hired–a twin brother and sister–who are bears. Sophie, one of the pack members, calls dibs on Rueben, the brother, and Sloane is fine with that as it takes her interest off of Logan. Throughout dinner, Sloane keeps being drawn to and attracted by Logan.

She decides to retire early and Eva calls her telling her that she is indeed half-dragon and half druid, which was confirmed by Eva’s friend. Eva tells her that her mom may have had her powers stripped from her after having a child with a sky born–there were two sky born alive 21 years ago, Logan and his mentor, Marcus, who in turn is likely her father as he was a sucker for red heads. Eva tells her that she wants to introduce her to a druid–her friend, who is a good one and that she will be back the next day to help Sloane tell the pack. Sloane packs up and leaves–she has $100K in her account from the sale of her dragon scale and decides to drive to San Clemente. She naps at a rest stop and then asks two woof girls for a sorcerer to help her hide from her pack. Sloane goes to this sorceress and she charges Sloane $700 for the consultation and the spell. Jeanine, the sorceress, can tell that Eva was the one that put a spell on Sloane, who is calling herself Stacy. She has a spell done using Sloane’s blood and then making her inhale the smoke from it.

As Sloane leaves, Jeanine tells her that she knows what Sloane is. Sloane then runs into Steven, the druid that looked for her at the ranch, right outside the door. She tries to avoid him, but he catches her; however, before he can do anything else, Logan and the pack show up, fending him off. They tell her that Eva told them her heritage and that they don’t care that she is part druid. Logan tells her that he was surprised but that it does not change how he feels about her and that she is stuck with him for life, because she is his mate. He then kisses her, and it feels right to her–their magic entwines and their life force becomes dependent on the other. Danny interrupts telling them that they need an exit plan, and Sloan admits that she can’t shift. She also admits that she had given Jeanine her blood for a spell, and Eva stares in horror, stating that Sloane has no idea how much she screwed it up, though she will try to figure out how to get out of it. The group get out through the bakery next door, with Logan reading her mind, which he can now do as her mate. He also admits that he has known that they were mate from their first meeting, but didn’t want to act upon it due to her lack of knowledge of their world. The whole pack gets into the limousine and they drive away, with Sloane falling asleep as they drive.

She is shaken awake at a truck stop–apparently Jeanine has put a locater spell on her and Eva strips Sloane of all the magic that was placed on her by using a magic that essentially slices her cells. Sloane passes out from the pain once they are finished, and comes to in the middle of people fighting. Sophie comes into view and tells her to do something, so Sloane shifts and Sophie rides on top of her dragon form. They see a bus heading in fast to the truck stop and wonder why the hell someone would be driving at this hour in a school bus. Sloane tells Logan, through their link, that they are coming for him as he is in his dragon form and speared down. He tells her to stay away, but she helps protect him as Sophie jumps off and gets the spears out of his wings. Sloane sees the man from the waterfall that she had in her dream and also another, much scarier looking man show up with Steven. Scary man calls the waterfall man Isaac, who in turn calls the scary man Arden. The two druids start to fight, while Steven heads for them. Logan wants Sloane to fly off but she wants to stick together because if he dies, she dies.

Steven ends up stabbing Logan in the neck and Sloane realizes that Logan is dying. Purple magic explodes out of her, causing Logan, Steven, Ardan and Isaac to light up. Steven and Ardan disappear by teleporting out, and Isaac touches the earth while looking her way. Sloane runs towards Logan, who is now dying and when she reaches him, he tells her that he dreamt about her, and that she was worth the wait. Then he goes limp, dying. Sloane feels her magic doing something with Logan’s dragon magic and Isaac tells her not to move. Eva explains to him that they are mates, and Isaac smells Logan before saying that Logan’s soul remains. He then asks if they know what is said about dragon mates. Sophie responds that if one dies, so does the other because they are a bound pari. Isaac takes a look at her in amusement, and tells her that in order to kill a dragon mated pair, you have to kill them both, because as long as one lives, the other will survive.

Sure enough, Logan takes a deep breath and wakes. He is confused at what happened, when Keegan walks up with a red fox in his hands–Cooper had died in the battle and Danny couldn’t save him. Logan and Sloane share a moment before he goes in search of his cat, and Sloane is left talking to Isaac about his dream walking and her magic. He tells her that he needs to teach her to control it, and that he’s not like other druids. He explains to her that their powers are now bound together–he’s the master, and she’s his apprentice. He shows her his tattoo, and when she looks down, she also has a tattoo–initiation marks that the earth has chosen her. Sloane agrees to learn from him and Isaac says that together, they will make it safe for all the skyborn. Confused, Sloane asks if he means her and Logan, to which he replies that there are dozens of skyborn across the world–the earth shelters them from being found, and he only sees them when he does dream walking.

My Thoughts: Well this is an interesting and fun twist on Druids and magical beings. I get the sense that Sloane and Isaac hail directly from Ireland or something. Really enjoyed the story building, though I do have to say that there were a few gaps–I feel like I would have loved to see Logan’s perspective in this story, particularly to learn how he found out about her, and how he took the news that she is a druid. Still, I enjoy this story and I cannot wait for the next book in the series.