The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  “Actually, that’s a good idea,” Logan said, circling him with something of her old swagger. “We should stop talking about anything that isn’t about your case or Sammy’s.”

  “Logan—” he said, starting toward her.

  “Connell.”

  It was her tone that stopped him in his tracks. He stood silently, his broad shoulders relaxing after a moment before he let his hands down. “Fine. We won’t discuss our relationship. Not yet. But once this is settled, we’ll be having a very long talk.”

  Logan blushed in spite of herself. It was clear that Connell didn’t intend for there to be much actual conversation if he had his way.

  Well, he’s not getting his way. She was getting hers.

  Connell paced in front of her, throwing her the occasional smoldering glance while muttering under his breath. After a minute, he put his hands on his hips and faced her, a wall of aggressive testosterone and muscle. It almost looked as if he were going to leap on her anyway when a delicate throat was cleared.

  Logan swung her gaze to Gia, who had stepped away to give her time to deal with the new arrival. She shot her older sister a grateful glance, and Gia nodded before turning to Connell.

  “Hello, Connell Maitland, son of Douglas. My name is Gia.”

  Connell looked confused for a second as he assessed the small Hispanic woman in front of him.

  Logan could see the play of emotions across his face. It was hard to believe so much raw power could be contained in one small body. But Gia was the real deal, and Connell could see it. It was in his eyes. He lowered his head and nodded, but his respectfulness didn’t last. He turned back to Logan, and all the annoying male aggressiveness was back in an instant.

  “I found the site of Sammy’s attack. It’s only a few miles from the Kane house,” he announced.

  Finally, a lead she could follow. She turned to her sister. “Will you come?”

  Gia turned to her, her gaze flitting between her and Connell with a small smile on her face. “Yes, for now.”

  Logan held out one hand to her sister and reluctantly extended the other to Connell. He reached out to clasp her hand in his much larger one. They were gone in the breeze, Connell’s motorbike temporarily abandoned.

  19

  The winds read Connell’s direction and deposited them at a small glen surrounded by young trees twenty kilometers to the east. Unlike the location of Connell’s attack, the stain of violence was still fresh, although it was much smaller than Logan had expected.

  “Almost nothing,” Gia said, her nose wrinkling.

  Logan turned to her and nodded in agreement.

  Every hair of the Earth Elemental’s braid was still in place. She was completely unaffected by the trip. Logan resisted the urge to smirk at Connell, who was holding his head as if his ears were ringing.

  “Are you okay?” she asked him, a superior little smile on her face.

  Connell shook his head like a dog and glowered at her. “I’m fine,” he said defensively. “It gets easier and easier.”

  Logan pursed her lips and focused on their surroundings. Turning around in a circle, she examined the space around them, absorbing what information she could from the winds, but they were silent except for the odd bit of swearing here and there.

  Dry pine needles littered the ground on a mostly dirt floor. This late in autumn, there was little green besides the sparse pines mixed in with the bare hardwoods.

  “Why isn’t it bigger?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” Connell asked.

  “The act of tearing an aura apart should have left an echo of violence that we could see even from space,” Logan exaggerated. “Instead, this is small and already fading.”

  “Yes,” Gia said, her eyes closed as she focused on the terrain.

  Though Logan had seen it multiple times, it was always awe inspiring to watch Gia work. The voices Gia referred to as her “wind talkers” were spirits of the dead—most of them anyway. She suspected the loudest voices were members of her family line, but that was just a guess. Gia’s gift was different. She was listening to the earth, absorbing what information she could glean from soil and stone.

  It was one thing to have a pet rock; it was another to have it talk back to you.

  “There’s something here,” Gia said eventually. “But it’s not on the scale it should be. It’s no wonder there’s nothing left where you were attacked. In fact, I’m somewhat surprised that we can detect anything at all after seeing this.”

  She gestured to the trees around them. With a nod of agreement, Logan ran a frustrated hand through her hair while Connell paced the small diameter of the clearing.

  “I don’t feel anything like that,” he said.

  Logan frowned. “Then how did you find this place?”

  “Fear. I can smell it. This place reeks of Sammy’s fear and something else…”

  He trailed off and looked around, his pain for the little cub apparent in the tightness of his features and the stiff set of his posture. Subdued now, Logan felt sorry for him despite her lingering hurt feelings.

  “What’s the something else?” Gia asked after a beat of silence.

  Connell rolled his shoulders and glared at the trees like they were responsible for his current predicament. “It’s faint, but there’s a trace of something like…surprise. Shock.”

  He scowled and passed a hand over his face. “You need to find the person responsible. I need someone I can beat into a bloody heap.”

  Gia smiled at him sympathetically, but Logan’s lip curled. “No, that’s my job,” she said.

  Connell crossed his ridiculously defined muscular arms. “I’m the enforcer in these parts.”

  “One without a wolf,” she pointed out bluntly, making his expression darken. But she wasn’t in the mood to pull her punches.

  “All right, so what does this tell us?” she murmured, more to herself than the others as she studied the lingering traces of magic in the air. She turned to Gia. “There are no ley lines around here, are there?”

  “None close enough to make a difference,” her sister confirmed.

  Gia started walking around the circle, bending occasionally to touch the earth or turn over a stone. Meanwhile, Connell paced in the opposite direction like a caged animal.

  Look high.

  Logan snapped her eyes up, following the breeze that whipped her long hair around. The winds had been silent since entering the clearing, but now a voice she recognized rose up from the aether. Look high, it repeated.

  Pivoting on her heel, she scanned the tree trunks around them, a glint of something metallic catching her eye. Adrenaline carried her across the clearing to the tall trunk of a pine tree. A fragment of something silver was embedded in the rough bark about two and a half meters up.

  Connell had been watching her. He moved behind her and put his hands on her waist to lift her above his head, high enough to reach the object.

  Twisting to give him a venomous look, she flashed out of his arms. She reappeared clinging to the trunk right over the object, holding herself with one hand while her heels dug into the bark.

  Prying the thing out with her free hand, she took hold of it before dropping to the ground. Turning it over, she held it up for Gia to see. Both she and Connell crowded closer.

  The object was a flat piece of metal only a few centimeters long. It was shaped like a spike, with a jagged bottom from where it had broken off something larger.

  “There’s something familiar about this,” she said, handing it to Gia.

  Gia hummed. “Perhaps. The metal is terrestrial at least. Most of it. It’s a composite. It does contain iron from a meteorite. However, it’s only a trace.”

  “But doesn’t it feel good?” Logan asked.

  Connell harrumphed. “How in the seven hells can it feel good?”

  Even Gia was looking at her funny. Logan shrugged.

  “It just does,” she said, taking the piece when Gia handed it back. She held
it between her fingers. The sensation was difficult to explain—it felt like home.

  “Yes, that’s it…” she said, holding up the spike. “This thing feels familiar. Like it’s mine.”

  Connell face darkened at her words. “Are you telling me it belongs to you?”

  “No. That’s not what I mean.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen it before.” She turned to Gia. “But don’t you feel something similar? A connection?”

  Her sister shook her head. “Not quite. There’s a sense of familiarity, of course, but not one of belonging or possession.”

  A large hand reached out. Logan inhaled and handed the piece to Connell. No sooner had he taken hold of it with the tips of his fingers than he swore loudly and dropped it.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, sucking on his fingers.

  Logan and Gia watched him, eyes wide. “What happened?” Logan asked.

  “Did it burn you?” Gia asked.

  Connell did one of those headshakes that reminded her of a dog again as she bent to pick up the fragment.

  “Fucking shit, yes,” he growled. “But it wasn’t hot. It was cold, like sub-zero.” He narrowed his eyes at Logan. “And I think you’re right. It’s yours somehow.”

  It wasn’t what he said, so much as the way he said it, that made her stomach drop. She stared into Connell’s handsome face and could see the heat in his eyes dying as he looked at her. In its place, suspicion grew.

  Despite her acceptance that Connell wasn’t her true mate, the distrust in his eyes hurt like hell.

  Gia looked from one to the other. “What precisely do you mean?” she asked.

  He scowled. “I can hear the buzz in the air when I touch it—the same one I hear when I touch Logan when she’s listening to the winds. Spirits or whatever the fuck. The ones that give her intel.”

  “You can hear them?” Logan asked, unable to hide her dismay, but he didn’t answer her.

  What did that mean? Not even her sisters could hear the voices on the wind—not unless she was sending them a message. Then they heard her voice—but not the spirits that had filled her ears since childhood. How could Connell hear them?

  He’d hinted that he could at the howf. But she’d immediately dismissed the notion. Nothing in their long history suggested that another type of Supernatural—mate or otherwise—could hear the wind spirits.

  Only witches of elemental lines were susceptible. Those that did were marked. Often, they inherited the Elemental mantle, but not always. It was a rare gift, one often disguised as a curse. And not all Air Elementals could hear them for the Mother’s sake!

  She turned to Gia, her confusion and pain clear to her sister. The Earth Elemental didn’t appear alarmed, only intrigued.

  “Interesting,” Gia murmured before cocking her head at Logan and gesturing at her to step away from the contentious Were.

  They walked to the other side of the clearing, and Logan leaned in to hiss at supersonic speed.

  “What the hell is going on, Gia? Not even a mate should be able to hear the winds. And he’s definitely not my mate. You said so yourself!”

  Gia’s mouth turned down at the corner, and she rocked back on her heels. “Well, that isn’t exactly what I said. But you’re right. In any case, this is unprecedented. And it’s a hell of an important clue.”

  She reached out for the fragment, and Logan handed it over. “Do you think it belongs to us?” Logan asked.

  Gia nodded. “Somehow, I think it might. I’m going to take this to T’Kaieri to search the archives. There is something about this thing—a suggestion of a memory if you will.”

  “And you think there’s a record in the archives that will explain what it is?”

  The Earth Elemental took a deep breath. “I hope so. The fact that you’re drawn to it is significant in of itself. But combine that with the fact the Were over there associates it with your wind talkers, and I’d say a trip to the island is imperative.”

  Logan wrinkled her nose and glanced over at Connell. “I suppose that means that I have to stay here?”

  Gia grimaced. “If it wasn’t for the child, I’d say we both could go, but you’re the one who has made a connection with the cub. Also, if this piece is part of a larger whole and it’s still in the area, then you stand a better chance of finding the thing than I do.”

  Shoulders slumping, Logan nodded. “Trust you to be logical and reasonable about this.”

  “I’m sorry, darling. But he’s not stupid. He knows you didn’t do this.”

  Peeking at the glowering Were, Logan narrowed her eyes. “I wouldn’t bet on the not stupid part myself,” she whispered at a volume so low no human could have heard at that distance.

  She was rewarded with a deep growl from Connell’s direction. Just like old times. It almost made her want to smile, but she restrained herself long enough to hug her sister goodbye.

  “If you find something, send word. I can get to the island in a few hours.”

  Gia put her hand on her cheek, and suddenly, Logan felt much younger and smaller than she was. “Trust your instincts and in the Mother’s guidance. You’re here for a reason. Don’t forget that.”

  With that, the ground underneath them rippled and softened. Logan stepped away to watch the earth open. Gia slowly sank from view, leaving her alone with one pissed-off idiot Were and the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  20

  Connell watched the Elementals talk across the glen. It was hard to believe that those two small women contained the power of Mother Earth. Earthquakes and summer storms…

  He regretted his snap judgment of Logan when she admitted feeling a connection to the bit of scrap metal they found. The fragment had to be from a weapon of some kind. Glancing up at the tree trunk where the piece had been lodged, he counted the meters. At least three. He stepped up to the tree and turned his back to it, raising his hands over his head as if holding a sword or a spear.

  He was close to the right height. In his mind, he pictured the assailant holding the weapon above his head to strike down at Sammy. They would have had to hit the trunk behind him pretty hard to get that shard stuck in the bark.

  That someone had to be almost as tall as he was. At most, they were a few inches shorter. He glanced at his mate. She was nearly a foot and a half too small. Not to mention that she didn’t need a weapon to inflict the kind of damage that had been done to him. She would use magic.

  He was feeling fairly stupid for jumping to conclusions when he heard Logan call him an idiot. Connell chaffed at the idea of his mate thinking so little of him, even if he had been acting like one. Growling in response, he crossed his arms and waited for the Elemental conversation to wrap up. He needed to speak to his mate and clear up this Riley bullshit.

  Only half his attention was on them. His mind kept going over the faint scent of surprise he kept detecting among these trees. Then the sound of sand shifting carried to him, and he snapped to attention. Underneath the two women, the dirt was moving like quicksand. The Earth Elemental was sinking, disappearing from view.

  Fuck! Was Logan leaving? He crouched and braced himself, ready to spring into the bowels of the earth after them. But Logan stepped away from the shifting sand, and then they were alone.

  He heaved a silent sigh of relief.

  Logan didn’t seem to share his sentiment. Her adorable little nose was wrinkled as if she smelled something bad. They stared at each other for a long moment.

  “We should go to the house and check on Sammy,” he said, extending his hand, palm up.

  Logan glanced at his outstretched hand and smirked. “Get your own ride, douchebag.”

  She was gone in a blink, a blast of cold air smacking him in the face.

  He scanned the skies. “Yeah, that sounds about right…”

  Sighing, he started to run.

  It took him a full hour to get back. Forty-five minutes running on foot, and then a quarter hour on his bike. When he got back inside the house, it was
late. Most of the lights were off, but his father was waiting for him.

  “Is Logan here?” he asked.

  Douglas nodded. “She’s with the cub.”

  Nodding, he stopped to take off his jacket. “We found something.”

  “She told me. It didn’t sound familiar.”

  “No, I didn’t recognize the piece,” Connell said. “But it’s possible they do. The other Elemental agreed and went to go dig up whatever she could on it.”

  His father leaned against the mudroom door. “Logan didn’t mention that, only that Gia held on to it.”

  “Yes, that Gia woman is looking into it,” he said, unconcerned. “Mara says you know her.”

  “I do.”

  Connell waited, but his father didn’t volunteer more. Okay, then.

  “I gotta go see Logan,” he said, crossing the empty living room to head for the stairs.

  “She’s not your mate.”

  Connell hesitated and turned around. He hadn’t planned to have this conversation in the form of a fight, but if that was how the chief wanted to play it, so be it.

  “Actually, she is.” He was ninety-nine percent sure.

  Okay, maybe ninety-five.

  Douglas sighed and passed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, son, but she’s not. Trust me on this.”

  Connell’s head drew back. He should have expected this reluctance, but his father talking about it out loud was catching him off guard. The chief didn’t discuss personal matters with his subordinates, not even his son.

  “Father, I have the highest respect for your opinion. As your second, I am ready to serve you in any way that I can, but taking a mate is a private matter. You don’t get to weigh in on this.”

  The issue of getting to choose your own mate was something they’d fought wars over. It was one of the issues his grandfather had lobbied for. Before the packs were united, each pack alpha could dictate who mated with whom—sometimes against the wolf’s own natural inclination. When that happened and the alpha didn’t relent, he might try to impose his own will over a pair of subordinates to force a union. It was a practice that led to a lot of strife and misery. Allowing wolves to mate according to their own nature had thrown a lot of support his grandfather’s way. Any interference with a courtship was now against pack law.