Wrath of Wind

by Kat Adams

  “What?” I whimpered, scared for Stace, scared for him, and just plain scared.

  “Stay here, Katy. You’ll be safest behind the wards. Rob, go.”

  He glanced at me before barking, “Yes, sir.” And hurried out of the office. I followed.

  “You can’t leave me here.”

  “You heard Dean Carter. You’ll be safe at the academy.” He pushed through the double doors and outside, stepping out of my reach. “I love you.” I rushed him to hitch a ride on his teleport. He disappeared before I got to him.

  No. Nonono! I had to get to them, had to be there in case whatever caused the headmaster to call in the cavalry was too powerful for Rob and the rest of the patrol to battle. I’d lose him forever.

  Concentrating on the cabin, I closed my eyes and was about to teleport out when the call of one of my nicknames sounded out. “Montana! I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  I disregarded the sexual reference and ran into Clay’s arms, hugging him tight and so damn grateful to see him, I was close to tears, which was a big deal for me. I rarely cried. “You have to teleport us to the cabin.”

  “What cabin?”

  Shit. He’d never been there, so he had no idea where it was. I did, but didn’t trust my air call to get me there. I snagged his gaze. “Do you trust me?”

  “After last night, you can ask me that?” Those assaulting emerald eyes blazed as they searched mine.

  “I’m so sorry for what happened,” I hurried out, annoyed we were having this conversation right now instead of getting to Stace.

  “What exactly did happen?”

  “No time. We have to go.” We seriously didn’t have time for this. Did that make me a selfish bitch? Probably. Did I care? Absolutely not. Getting to Stace took precedence over everything else.

  “Make the time.” He moved out of my reach. Shit again. I needed his element and confidence to stick the landing. “I noticed your hand is healed.”

  I blurted out the Cliff’s Notes. “Dark magic. Layden countered. I’m all better. Earth is my primary. She’s missing. Now can we go?”

  “Wait, earth is your primary?”

  “That’s your takeaway?” I grabbed his arms. “Push your call to me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Clay!” I cried, cutting him off. “Please. Stace is in trouble. Push your fucking call to me. Now! I’ll explain everything later. Please, help me!”

  He transferred his power, boosting mine. I used it and teleported us to the cabin, too anxious to get caught up in the whole insides-turning-outside awesomeness. We stuck the landing—courtesy of Clay transferring his control to me, I was sure.

  “Come on!” I ran toward the woods while he ran toward the house. When he caught me heading in the opposite direction, he stumbled and turned.

  “What’s going on? Where are we going?”

  “Cressida.” I spoke into the air, desperate for her to hear me. “Take me to her. She needs me.” I didn’t know how I knew, only that I did. Stace was in pain, suffering from God only knew what injuries, and it was up to me to save her. I couldn’t let her die. I’d never recover losing another parental figure. She’d become a major part of my life.

  The overwhelming pull for me to shift right hit me so strong, I didn’t hesitate to follow it like a hound dog tracking a scent. Cressida led me deep into the woods. When I heard shouting, I picked up the pace, sprinting and wincing as the prickly underbrush tore at my bare legs and snagged on my shirt.

  “Get out of my way!” I screamed at them. Why would they be trying to slow me down? They were supposed to be on my side. The trees yielded to my call, bending and creating a path for me to sprint toward the sound of the shouts.

  “The signal is right here. Where is she?”

  I pushed as hard as I could to get to the source. “Rob!”

  “What the… Reed?” He blinked at me as I broke through the trees. When it registered that his girlfriend had crashed the party, he set his whiskered jaw and froze his expression. He was not happy to see me. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s the prophecy,” someone pointed out. More repeated the phrase. “We must protect her.” Several men and women began to surround me. I brought up my hand like a gun, causing them to hesitate and exchange glances.

  Rob stepped forward, his dark gaze on me in warning. “Stand down, Reed.”

  No way. My own boyfriend challenged me? This couldn’t be happening. “Rob?”

  “Stand down, Katy.” Him using my real name gave me pause. He rarely called me Katy. “We got this.” He then mouthed I’m sorry, and I understood. He had to make a name for himself at the new job and around the others.

  And I had to make a stand as the prophecy.

  “One more step, and I blast you.” I channeled every cop show I’d ever binged. I had no idea what I was doing, only that I’d seen it done so many times, it had to work. And it did. The members of the patrol all backed away, hands up. I glared at each one of them to really drive home my point. Embracing my role of tough-as-nails lead detective and making mental notes to add this to Amethyst’s personality, I asked, “What do we know?”

  “We can’t find her.” A tall blonde stepped forward, concern evident as she thinned her lips. “The signal is right here, but she’s not.”

  A man with huge arms covered in tattooed wards popped in and did a quick visual sweep with a steely gaze, surveying the situation. He set his hard jaw as he regarded all the members of the patrol who’d been summoned here. “Listen up. We’ve got a job to do, and that’s to hunt down the dark elementals that triggered the ECAD. The fact we’ve got one of our own out there does not change the situation. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” the elementals all replied.

  “Pair up. No one patrols alone. Which one of you is the new guy?” He swung his attention to Rob as my fire elemental stepped forward. “What’s your primary?”

  “Fire. I can also control air and water.”

  “Presley,” the man barked. A pretty redhead broke from the crowd. “You’re with the new guy.”

  “Fire is her weakest element,” I offered, forcing my focus on finding Stace and not the fact my boyfriend had just been partnered up with an auburn-haired beauty. “Whoever attacked her may have used fire.”

  He acknowledged my statement with a curt nod but kept his attention on the members of the patrol. “Teleport around these woods. Status checks every ten. Go!”

  “What can I do?” Clay asked from behind me.

  “Are you a member of the patrol?”

  “Hell yeah, I am,” he lied. I fought the urge to protest, not wanting two of my boyfriends running around the woods hunting for the dark elementals who’d attacked Stace. “I’m air and can also control fire.”

  “Stick with us.”

  “Us?” I asked.

  “You’re the prophecy.” It didn’t come out as a question. He studied me, then Clay, then back to me. “Why are you here?”

  “Stace is my friend.”

  “She’s my friend too, but that’s not why I’m here. We all have a job to do. Yours is to stop the darkness from taking over our world. Mine was to lead this patrol, but now that you’re here, my job is to protect you.”

  “What?” I didn’t like that. At all. I could protect myself, thank you very much. My safety didn’t trump Stace’s. “What about finding her?”

  “The needs of one doesn’t outweigh the needs of many.”

  Brenda had said the same thing at my extraction. No way was I going to let Stace die because this patrol focused on hunting the dark elementals instead of saving the good one. I walked up to him, refusing to be intimidated by his size—which was huge and…intimidating. “Look, dude. Stace is out there. You can either help me find her or you can stay out of my way while I do it without you. Got it, Hulk?”

  He narrowed that steely glare and brought his hands to his large hips. “Then what are we waiting for?”

>   Whew. I didn’t know what I would have done had he fought me on this.

  “The name’s Brooks. It’s not Hulk. It’s definitely not dude.”

  “And I’m Katy, not prophecy.”

  “Clay Williams.” He inserted himself into the tense, growly introductions. “I like sunsets and long walks on the beach.”

  Brooks threw him a baffled yet hard glare. Everything about this enormous guy was hard.

  Wait. That came out wrong.

  We searched every inch of the woods for what seemed like hours, calling her name, looking for anything out of place. Brooks kept checking his ECAD, using it as a locator device, but just as we landed right on top of the blinking dot, it disappeared and reappeared somewhere else. It was like the battle teleported in and out, in and out.

  “Montana,” Clay said tensely when we hit another blinking dot, only for it to disappear. He held out his hand, palm down. “You feel that?”

  I didn’t even realize my neck hairs were tingling with the prickle of a call until I purposely focused on it. “Yeah. What is that?”

  “The echo of a battle.” Brooks turned in a circle, his arms out. “I feel it too. It’s one of the things we eliminate when we clean the scene after a battle. We can’t get to them all, unfortunately, so if Nelems pick up on the feeling, they write it off as a variety of things. Feeling someone watching them. Their instincts kicking in. Whatever. But it’s really the residuals of elements being forced to fight each other. There was definitely a battle here.”

  “We have to find her.” Even if it took us the rest of the night and calling in the elemental search and rescue. We had to. That was the only option.

  We searched for another hour and still didn’t see anything. Suddenly, my neck hairs went into a frenzy, and the smell of burnt human hair mixed with burnt rubber and maybe even a little rotten copper pipes was so strong, I coughed as it burned my throat. Thick tension settled around us and sent the alarms sounding inside my head. Clay and I exchanged looks and didn’t need to say anything, both knowing the other noticed the sudden change in the atmosphere.

  Brooks immediately skidded to a stop as he glanced behind me. “What is that?”

  Clay and I whipped around, responding in unison, “Fuck me.”

  Fog, dark and ominous, rolled in fast, turning day into night as it blocked out the light. My hand began to throb, and I didn’t have to look at it to know it had started to glow again. As the fog closed in around us, my skin burned, the source stemming from my palm.

  “He’s here,” I whispered and braced myself for the imminent attack. The wave of burnt hair mixed with death slammed into me, and I almost gagged as the fog swallowed us. Just as before, the mist made it impossible to see. It was so thick, it even muted the noise. “Clay?”

  “Right behind you,” he said and placed his back against mine before grabbing my hand.

  Brooks appeared and grabbed my other hand, then Clay’s. “We don’t let go. Got it?”

  No argument there.

  As I stood in absolute silence, my ears rang as I strained to listen for any little noise. The inky mist oozed closer to me, closing me in. Movement to my left caught my eye, and I whipped in that direction, staring into the darkness. Nothing stared back, no glowing eyes or frightening dark elemental glaring back at me. “Something is out there.”

  “Is this the same kind of fog that attacked you at the Point?” Brooks asked.

  I didn’t ask how he knew about the attack. “Yep.” It was also the first time I swore I spotted Alec lurking in the shadows, but I left that part out. “Same smell too.”

  “It’s dark magic.”

  Clay spoke up. “God, I hate these guys. Why can’t they use their power for good?”

  A twig snapped to my right, and we all stiffened. When another snapped to my left, we faced that direction. Then a noise behind us sent us whipping around again.

  Son of a blowfish. We were surrounded. How many other members of the patrol were being surrounded at this very moment? How many had already been surrounded? How many were still left after the inevitable—and outnumbered—attack?

  “You know,” I called out into the gray air. “It’s rude to sneak up on a person. Why don’t you all be nice elementals and introduce yourselves?”

  A low, guttural growl echoed in the darkness. I was oddly calm as I looked off into the shadows of the darkness.

  The blast of air came out of nowhere. I didn’t have a chance to warn the others before it hit us, sending us flying in opposite directions.

  “Montana!”

  “Find Stace! I got this.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Clay, I got this. Go!” I sent air in the direction the blast had come from and heard a grunt as it hit someone. I created a ring of fire around me like Spencer had done during one of our lessons. The flames changed from orange to red to purple as I increased my call, growing the ring. If the fire stole all the oxygen, the fog wouldn’t have any way to travel and would, hopefully, die.

  I concentrated on the heat burning through every inch of my skin. My clothes smoldered as my body grew hotter and hotter. I called air to me, trapping it inside the ring and using it to create a tornado of fire. It spun fast, faster, sucking in the fog and shooting it straight up into the sky. It worked and cleared the air.

  That’s when I saw them. Four dark elementals, each standing around me like points on a compass, all dressed in head-to-toe black. Clearly, there was a dress code to be a dark elemental. I didn’t recognize any of them. Not that it mattered. I smelled their stench. That was good enough for me.

  Using my innate ability to feel an elemental’s primary, I pegged each one with their primary element and, in one swift move, hit them with their opposites.

  Earth slammed into the tree behind him, the force of the air attack too great for the barrel-chested guy to fight. He bounced when he landed and stayed down. Water charged, her long dark hair flowing behind her, but when I hit her with a fireball, she fell to the ground and rolled. Fire didn’t fare any better, not with a thick layer of ice covering his thin frame.

  Air, however, brought up her hand, halting the roots snaking around her. What the hell? An opposites caller? I didn’t know the dark side had any of those. She fluffed her dirty blonde hair like stealing my call made her the more powerful elemental.

  I couldn’t wait to prove her wrong.

  When I felt her stealing my air element, I narrowed my glare. Why were dark elementals so predictable? This chick looked like she’s been around awhile, with deep lines on her forehead that made her look like she had a permafrown. The crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes weren’t from smiling, I was pretty sure. She should know how to at least shake things up a bit.

  Instead, she done exactly what I’d expected. I looked at her. “Dark magic? Really?”

  “Really really.” She waved her hand, sending me flying. I landed on my wrist wrong and heard a pop. A rush of pain shot up my arm.

  Great. I really hoped I didn’t just rebreak my wrist. Whether or not a new cast was in my future, this bitch was going down. I spun in a crouched position and threw icy water at her. It hit her square in the middle of her chest. She flew back and slammed into a tree. I nodded at the tree, and it reached down to trap her in its large branches. This time, she couldn’t slow their movement.

  “What the hell?” She thrashed but couldn’t break free of the tree’s hold. The lines on her face deepened as she realized her predicament.

  I smiled, impressed at not only my ability, but the tree’s grip. “Thank you.”

  She shrieked in rage when she realized she couldn’t move.

  “Jesus, lady. What’s with the banshee impression?” I wiggled my finger in my ear as it rang.

  “How are you doing this!”

  I ignored her and checked the rest of the dark elementals. I didn’t kill any of them, but I did knock them out. I’d take the win. Glancing behind me, I spotted Brooks and Clay battling—and win
ning—against a dark elemental and let them have their fun. I figured I’d get what I needed out of the one still conscious, and approached.

  She snarled and narrowed beady black eyes at me. “You’d better kill me, quint. Because as soon as I’m free, I’ll kill you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I shook my head and tightened my ponytail to keep my hair out of my eyes. “Don’t any of you have better names for me than quint? I mean, that’s like me calling you trio. Not really an insult, you know?”

  “How about I call you dilute?” She grinned coolly.

  Again with that dumb insult. Maybe if I’d grown up in this world, it’d hit me harder. Now, it just sounded stupid. “Aww, are we close enough for pet names now? I’ve always wanted a sister. Tell me where she is.”

  “You’ll have to kill me.”

  “That actually makes no sense. If I kill you, you can’t tell me a damn thing. No, I think I’ll keep you alive.” She had the power to call earth, air, and very weakly water, so I stole her weakest element so she couldn’t counter my call. I then danced fireballs around her, closing them in until she winced and whimpered from the way they licked at her skin. “Tell me where she is.”

  “I-I’ll never—ahh!” She cried out when one of the fireballs jumped on her. “She’s in the trees!”

  I killed my fire and glanced up. That was why we couldn’t find her, why the battles bounced around. The dark asshats took her to the trees. I pulled my attention to Brooks, who nodded and brought his ECAD to his lips. “Check the trees.” He then turned to Clay. “Get a healer here. We don’t know what kind of shape she’ll be in.”

  He nodded and immediately popped out.

  “You’d better hope they find her,” I told the dark elemental spewing venom at me through her glare.

  “It’s already too late. She’s dead.”

  I refused to believe that. If she was dead, this dark elemental was next.

  It seemed a lifetime later before an anguished cry sounded in the air, sending a race of fear up my spine. I spotted someone running toward me through the trees, a body in his arms. My heart sank.