by Quinn Loftis
“I’ll go,” Nasima volunteered.
“I will join you,” Aviur said. “If it winds up taking longer than a day, we can rotate.”
Nasima and Kairi agreed.
“I will check in with Terrick and get a status report,” Kairi told them.
“And I will try to slow the earth’s dropping temperature,” Nasima said, attempting to not sound as defeated as she felt.
“There is no shame in reacting to your pain and worry,” Kairi told her. “We are all struggling.”
Aviur nodded and Nasima saw flames flare in his eyes, indicating his own emotions were indeed affecting him. “I will do my best not to burn down one of the oldest libraries in existence.”
Nasima smiled. “That would be bad. But a good story to tell our mates.”
Kairi laughed. “My mate, Ecthelion, would get a kick out of that. You know he does find it amusing when you fire elementals have fire burning fits.”
“Agni would never let me live it down,” Aviur said, his eyes taking on a lost look. He shook his head after a couple of moments, seeming to bring himself back to the present.
“Let’s get this over with,” Nasima said, opening up a portal. “Stay safe, Kairi.”
“You too,” the water queen replied and headed toward the hidden doors of Terra Academy.
“After you,” Aviur said, motioning for Nasima to step through the portal first.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself for the smell of stale, old books and being enclosed in a building for longer than she would be comfortable.
“Why does Gabby get to stay at Crimson Academy while we have to stay in this warehouse?” Shelly asked Ra as she stared down at the text she’d received from her new friend.
“The power plant is going to need continual help staying warm enough to keep the power on,” Ra said just as patiently as he had the first ten times she’d asked a similar question. “Crey and Tinley will take the first rotation while we rest.” He emphasized the word and pointedly looked at her phone. “Then it will be our turn.”
“I have to check on my girls, Ra,” she told him. “If I don’t bug the crap out of them, they will never tell me how they really are doing. One of them could have lost an arm, and they’d just tell me they were fine.”
“How do you know they will tell you the truth, even if you pester them?” he asked.
He obviously didn’t know the power of annoying the hell out of someone. Shelly smirked. “When you refuse to stop asking the same question over and over until you get the truth, it’s human nature just to blurt it out in order to get the offending ass to shut their trap.”
“And you’re the offending ass in this scenario?” He looked amused.
“Dude, I own my assery. I have no shame in taking care of my friends, even if it resorts to me being as pestering as a gnat hyped up on speed.”
“Have you checked on Tara?”
She knew it was yet another subtle hint for her to get off her phone and lie down.
She nodded. “She said she hasn’t lost any limbs, she’s tired, and to leave her the hell alone.” Shelly grinned. “She loves me. If I didn’t pester her, she would totally feel abandoned.”
Ra’s brow rose. “If you say so, Mery. Now will you lay down?”
“You do realize you could lay down and get some rest without me, right?”
The look on his face made it clear she was completely insane by making such a suggestion. It was as if she’d just suggested he eat live spiders and chase it with cow urine.
“It is my job to take care of you,” Ra said, his voice low. “I cannot do that if I am sleeping and you are pestering people. If you need to pester someone to feel like a good friend, then come lay down beside me and pester me until you fall asleep.”
Shelly sighed and finally set her phone down. She was exhausted, but her worry for Gabby and Tara outweighed everything else. She crawled over to the makeshift pallet Ra had constructed out of blankets he had brought in his pack.
She shivered and Ra snagged her around the waist and pulled her tightly to him. He tugged the blankets up around them until they were just under her chin.
“It’s getting colder,” Shelly said as she attempted to get closer. Ra was shirtless, and the heat of his skin was quickly enveloping her, warming her much faster than the blanket alone.
“I’ll keep you warm,” he promised, and she swore she could feel the temperature under the blanket increase.
“Do you have some sort of internal thermostat?” Shelly asked as she grinned to herself, picturing Ra adjusting a temperature gauge in his mind.
“Something like that.” His deep voice rumbled in his chest against her back. “I just want to warm up, and I do.”
“Can I do that? Now that I’m all fiery?”
She felt his silent laughter. “You were all fiery before Aviur made you an elementalist.”
“Uh, yeah, I was. I went to hell. I’m pretty sure that makes me fiery as hell.” She paused and then snorted. “Get it? Fiery as hell? Because I was in hell.”
“I think you’re tired, beloved. You’re getting goofier than usual, and that’s saying something.”
“I’m hilarious. My hell jokes are even funnier than if I’d never been to hell,” Shelly said. “But I am tired.” Shelly let her mind wander back to the remainder of their day after they left her parents’ house. She and Ra had been delivered to their team, then they’d been taken to a power plant in California.
Professor Briggs from Hydro Academy had met with some of the workers at the power station and somehow convinced them that Shelly and the others were there to help keep the plant running in the event that the plummeting temperatures caused an issue.
The first thing Shelly had noticed when she’d seen the people at the power station was that they were very confused about the dropping temperatures. It was May… or June? Hell, she didn’t even know anymore. Too much had happened in such a short amount of time. But she did know it wasn’t supposed to be thirty degrees in California in either of those months.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” Ra asked. “I can practically feel your wheels turning.”
“Is that because of our bond thingy?”
“It’s a bond, Mery. Not a bond thingy.”
“Bond thingy is the technical term. Don't argue. You won’t win,” she teased.
“I’m too tired to argue so I’ll give you this one. Will you please tell me what you are thinking about?” His hand rested against her stomach.
Shelly liked how secure he made her feel. His physical presence gave the emotional support she needed to voice her concerns.
“I guess I’m just wondering how we are going to keep power plants all over the world running,” she said, expressing the worry that had begun growing the minute Professor Briggs had explained why it was so important they keep the power stations from freezing.
“We aren’t the only elementalists helping,” Ra said. “There are others, and elementals as well. Even more are being contacted.”
“But an actual fire elemental can’t exactly walk up to a power plant employee and be like, ‘Hey, I need to warm your plant up because we’re about to be plunged into an ice age.’ How can they help?”
Ra chuckled. “No, they can’t walk up to a human, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help. Elementals have been around since the beginning of time, beloved. They know how to stay hidden.”
Shelly’s curiosity outweighed her fears as she listened to him talk about the elementals. “So what fire elementals are there besides dragons?” she asked. “I mean those are obvious, but what about the less obvious?”
“Besides dragons,” Ra began, “the other one you might have heard of is the salamander.”
“Like the lizard?” Shelly asked.
“Yes and no.”
“It can’t be both, Ra. Pick an answer,” she said, though it sounded a little distorted since she began yawning in the middle of her response.
“I
t can be both, stubborn female,” he said as he nipped her shoulder with his teeth. “The fire salamander can look like a lizard, or it can look like fire.”
“Like an actual flame?” Shelly asked.
“Yes. And when it looks like the flame, it is hot like the flame as well. They can radiate heat much like a heater.”
“Much like a pharaoh I know, too.” Shelly snickered.
“The pharaoh you know is happy to give you a different kind of heat if you are not tired enough to fall asleep,” he said, his voice dropping an octave as he leaned in close to her ear.
The butterflies that had been sleeping soundly in her stomach suddenly lifted their little heads, their ears perking up at the sound of Ra’s sexy suggestion. As if Shelly needed any encouragement from her internal winged friends. “We aren’t alone, Casanova,” Shelly reminded him. “You keep those talented hands to yourself.”
“Then go to sleep. We can teach you all about the different elementals when you aren’t exhausted and we aren’t hours away from trying to keep a power plant from shutting down and plunging a city into cold and darkness.”
“I’m not sure that qualifies as a pep talk, if that was what you were going for,” Shelly said.
“It was a sleep warning,” Ra rumbled. “Not a pep talk to get you motivated.”
“It still needs work.”
She heard Ra chuckle and smiled to herself. Shelly loved making Ra laugh. He didn’t do it often, and she liked knowing she was able to add humor to his life.
“Good night, Ra,” she whispered.
He pressed a kiss to her neck. “Good night, my mate.”
Tara stared at her phone, waiting to see if Shelly would respond to her text. When nothing appeared after a couple of minutes, she tossed it onto the bedside table next to Elias’s bed and sighed.
“Did she finally get the hint?” Elias asked as he walked back into the room from the bathroom. He was freshly showered and shirtless. Dangerous combination in Tara’s book. Not that she had a book that listed all of the things that were dangerous to her libido. But maybe she should. It might be a way to keep her from groping her man at inappropriate times. Having a plan was always a good thing, right? She would call it her “keep from embarrassing yourself and Elias by not sexually assaulting him in front of unsuspecting people” manual. Okay, so maybe the title needed some work.
“Yes. She tends to be a worrywart,” Tara said.
“Ra probably took her phone away,” Elias said with a grin that made it clear he thought that would be hilarious.
Tara didn’t think he was too far off the mark. Ra seemed completely set on taking care of Shelly and making sure she got rest would definitely be a way to take care of her.
“He’s certainly got the bossy thing down,” Tara agreed. Though that wasn’t exactly what Elias had said.
He looked at her, tilting his head, seeming to study her. “How are you?” he asked. “Today was rough, not just with Carol but with the assignment we were given.”
Tara wasn’t about to deny her emotions felt raw. Carol was a force to be reckoned with, yet Tara was still shocked at how well her foster mother had handled all the new revelations. It’s not every day a person learns there is a supernatural war going on all around them.
Carol was also stoic about Tara’s departure. She’d been worried that her foster mom might fight her on it. Tara didn’t want to feel torn between Elias and the only thing she had that resembled a family, the person who had helped pull her from a very dark time in her life. She owed Carol. Not that her foster mom felt that way, but Tara didn’t believe in not giving back to someone who’d sacrificed so much for her.
“I’m good,” she said after several heartbeats. “But I do have a question.”
“Yeah?”
“Remember when that giant troll was stomping around all over the place and trying to bash our heads in?”
“A bit hard to forget, luv.”
“Well, what happens if someone hears them or sees them? I haven’t heard anything on the news about a mountain troll attack in Wisconsin.”
“Ah, good question. The forest sprites will have cleaned up the mess.”
“Sprites?”
“Yeah, they’re a bit like our … well … our cleanup crew, for lack of a better term. At least the light ones are. That’s why no one would have seen or heard the trolls crashing around. The sprites would have placed a glamour over everything during the fight so the mortals wouldn’t see us.”
“And why would they do that?”
“It’s just what they do. Of all the supernatural beings, sprites are the most secretive. They are distrustful of humans and feel they have the most to lose if the supernatural world is ever discovered.”
“Why is that?”
Elias shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. Maybe it’s because they’re so small. They’re probably worried they’ll be captured and kept in cages in the zoo or something.”
“Wouldn’t they have the power to escape?”
“Maybe, but humans are ingenious when they want to be cruel. It probably wouldn’t take a team of human scientists long to build an escape-proof sprite cage.”
“Hmm,” grunted Tara after a few moments.
“I’m not going to lie, Tara,” Elias said as he walked over to her. “I was scared out of my mind that I wasn’t going to be able to keep you safe.”
“I know,” she admitted. “I felt it. And I was trying hard to stay safe so you wouldn’t have to worry. I was terrified that if you got distracted, something would happen to you. And I honestly don’t know how I would handle that.”
Elias wrapped his arms around her and pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you,” he said quietly with an intensity that still baffled her.
Tara didn’t understand how he could feel such adoration for her. And she knew he did, not just because he told her, but because she felt it through their soul bond. It was something she was still getting used to, and honestly, she didn’t know if she would ever get used to it.
“I love you, too,” she said as she hugged him back. Tara closed her eyes and let his warmth surround her, taking comfort in his familiar scent. He’d become so much to her in such a short amount of time. Tara couldn’t imagine how she would feel about him in ten or twenty years. If they got that many together. She honestly wasn’t sure if that was a possibility given the danger that they were facing.
“Let’s get some rest,” Elias said as he stepped back and took her hand. He led her to the bed and pulled back the covers. Still holding her hand as she climbed in. He turned off the lights and then settled in next to her pulling the covers up over them. She didn’t have to wait long before he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into him. Elias buried his face into her neck and pressed a kiss there. “Sleep tight, love,” he whispered.
She snuggled back into him and let out a deep sigh. Even in the midst of all that was happening around them, Tara had never been more content.
Chapter 11
Tucker paced the corridor just outside of Viscious’s dungeon. Okay, so it wasn’t a dungeon per say, but it sure felt like one. Stone walls and corridors illuminated by torches instead of electric light created dancing shadows that gave the place an ominous feel. Then again, what did he expect from the dark fire king, floral patterns and an open floor plan?
Tucker knew the king wouldn’t be happy to see him. He was supposed to be out doing dark acolyte things, which mainly consisted of finding Marks and trying to persuade them of the benefits of aligning themselves with dark elementals before the light elementals could get their rainbow-colored hooks into them.
It had been a while since he’d been required to hunt because he’d been assigned to Tara Thompson. Viscious had known she would be a soul bonded and somehow, through the witches, had found out that if she met her mate, then the power of the curse would begin to weaken. And that had been exactly what happened.
Tucker had failed at his mission, and he’d been severely pun
ished. The problem was, no matter how angry the dark fire king was at him, and despite the fact that Tara was with Elias, Tucker still wanted her. If he could kill Elias, Tara’s soul would have no light to anchor her. Then she would easily be taken over by the dark elemental power.
The door to Viscious's office opened. One of the dark fire king’s diminutive minions, a fire pixie, stood in the doorway. They were very rare and almost always on team darkness.
“My lord will see you now,” the pixie said.
Tucker straightened and pulled back his shoulders, preparing himself for the ass chewing he was about to get. But maybe after Viscious reamed him, Tucker would have the opportunity to present his plan.
The dark king sat at his large, polished black desk. The monstrosity was a work of art. Made from black marble, red flames traveled up each leg. They burned without causing any damage. Carved into the trim of the desk were different fire symbols, wards preventing portals being opened inside Viscious’s office. Apparently, once upon a time, he’d had an unwanted visitor. It hadn’t ended well for that guest.
“Why are you here, instead of out doing what you’ve been assigned to do?” Viscious asked. His eyes were full of bright orange flames lined in blue. A sure sign he was pissed. Tucker might be lucky enough to make it out un-singed.
“I want to right my wrong,” Tucker answered. He forced his voice to remain steady. The last thing he wanted Viscious to see in him was weakness. If the king detected even a minute amount, he would pounce and exploit it until Tucker felt about an inch tall.
“She is already with her soul bonded. Short of a miracle, there is nothing you can do to right it.”
“Forgive my impertinence, my lord,” Tucker said, nearly gagging on the words, “my lord.” He hated addressing Viscious with such respect, especially after the king had chewed him up one side and down the other. “But there is a way we could ensure that Tara would switch sides.”
