by Kat Adams
He seemed to read my mind and offered the hint of a reassuring smile. How did he do that? How did he always know the one thing I needed even when I didn’t?
“Dude, you’re pushing your fire to me. Stop it. I don’t need your help controlling my element.” Leo looked sideways at Clay.
“That’s not me.” He regarded Rob. “It’s you. You’re practically setting my hand on fire, man.”
Bryan winced. “Ouch. Leo, pull it in. I can’t call fire.”
“It’s not me. What? It’s not!”
“I’m not calling anything either.” Rob turned to me. “Is that you?”
I shook my head and widened my eyes when each one of our right hands began to glow.
“Don’t break the circle,” Renee instructed. “You might feel a little heat.”
“A little?” Bryan bared his teeth. As the only one of the group without the ability to call fire, the element hurt him way more than it hurt any of the rest of us. I squeezed his hand and kept my attention on him. If he showed any sign of becoming magically enhanced over this, I’d break the circle. Then I’d break Renee.
But soon enough, the glow faded, and Bryan’s beautiful expression returned to normal. I let out a sigh of relief.
“It is done.” Renee, who’d been chanting in the center of our circle with her arms bent at the elbows, palms up, relaxed and nodded at where we were connected. “You are all now one.”
Whoa. What? Did we just get married? We all exchanged wide-eyed, confused glances.
“Sweet.” Clay held up his hand and showed us all his palm. “Matching wards. I showed you mine. Show me yours.” He waggled his eyebrows.
We all groaned at yet another sexual reference.
“Check it out.” Leo lifted his hand to display his ward.
“That was unreal.” Bryan stared at the ward now gracing his right palm. “And a little painful. What about you, bro?”
Rob checked his palm and snapped his brow into a frown. “I told you I didn’t need a protection ward.”
“You are part of the bond,” Renee explained. “You are all part of the same bond, the one.”
I leaned in when she didn’t finish. “The one what?”
She blinked as if I’d just asked her how to tie my shoe. “The one standing in the way of ultimate supremacy.”
Holy mamma bomb. I did not see that coming.
“Wait.” Clay jumped forward. “Are you saying we’re all part of the prophecy?”
Renee smiled warmly. “You always have been. That’s the message from Cressida.”
This time I jumped forward. “How do you know about her?”
“She came to us once, told us that one will soon rise to fulfill the prophecy, and to be cautious when choosing a side.”
“It’s true.” Stace came to her defense when, clearly, my expression must have conveyed how much I didn’t believe her. “I was there. Cressida Clearwater showed herself to us during a gathering.”
I dropped my jaw. “You’re part of the coven?”
“I told you I was a witch.”
“An elemental, a witch, and now the headmistress of the academy. Some girls get all the luck,” Renee quipped and took Stace’s hand. They held each other’s gazes for a very meaningfully long time.
“And some girls get the girl,” I said when the silence grew awkward. “You two are disgustingly adorable. Stop it.”
Stace blushed for the first time in front of me. I didn’t know she had it in her. She dropped her gaze all bashful-like. I had no problem who she loved. Love was love, period and the end. I loved four guys, equally, unequivocally. She loved a tall strawberry blonde with a nose ring. They were both totally and completely normal in my book.
Bryan raised his hand. “Can we get back to the part where we’re all the prophecy? Why a ward to bond us? We were pretty, uh…bonded before.”
“Yeah, we were.” Clay nodded enthusiastically, earning a groan from the rest of us.
“Would you show a little restraint, please?”
“That was showing restraint.”
Bryan worked his jaw in irritation as he shook his head and returned his attention to Renee. “Are we bonded on another level now?”
She nodded.
“We didn’t get married or anything, did we? Wouldn’t we have to jump over a broomstick or something like that?” I shrugged when the guys all shot me looks. “What? I saw it in a movie once.”
“Your bond is beyond earthly labels. There’s no word for how you’re now connected.” When we all blinked, she grasped my wrist and held up my left hand—the unwarded one. “Observe.” She hovered her hand over mine and moved it in a large circle. A ring scratched into my skin, carved by an invisible knife.
I jerked my hand away and covered my new wound with my other hand. “Ouch.”
“Hey!”
“What the…?”
“No way!”
“That did not just happen.”
The guys all had the exact same wound carved into the back of their left hand.
Oh, hell no. With how often we all got the crap beat out of us at every battle, we couldn’t share each other’s wounds or we’d definitely be at a sucktastic disadvantage.
I jerked my attention to Renee, wondering if that was her intention all along.
5
The next week seemed normal enough—at first.
Spencer was a horrible instructor, but that didn’t appear to bother the students, who all sat completely captivated by his every word spoken in that annoying and arrogant accent. Rob and Leo spent every morning in the 3C classroom, watching Spencer, babysitting me, before patrolling the academy grounds to keep Clearwater safe and secure. Clay popped in and out, keeping a steady finger on the pulse of everything. It impressed me how serious he’d gotten in his role as the headmistress’s eyes and ears.
Bryan had been spending more and more time in the alchemy lab, which meant spending less time with me. When he wasn’t trying to turn some substance into something else, he was on patrol with the guys. I missed my giant earth elemental. I missed all my guys.
Adulting sucked sometimes.
Because the quad squad was busy doing exactly what Stace needed them to be doing, a new group calling themselves the NQS—new quad squad—had emerged as the new big-shot extractionists on campus. All four were over the top in their cocky arrogance, their egos so huge, it was astonishing they fit in the same room together. They grated on my nerves and knew it, so they kept their distance. They’d been busy as well, extracting new elementals from the Nelem world and bringing them here to the academy.
Then there was me. I’d spent the week catching up on the work I’d missed in Primary. I might be tasked with saving the world, but I still had to pass my classes.
I let out a jaw-popping yawn and blinked wide to clear my vision. It didn’t work, so I decided coffee was in order. Not having the energy to walk over to the small dining hall across campus now that it was back open, I hit the main dining hall’s coffee station.
And froze at the sight.
Two familiar identical blondes stood behind a brunette. Even though they had their backs to me, I’d recognize the ice queen and her Barbie bitch groupies anywhere. The trio of mean girls had returned to the academy.
“How’d you get past the barrier?” I immediately thought of Cressida, at how sick she’d gotten when the counter ward I’d accidently created accidently weakened the barrier enough to allow dark elementals through. Had the Council already dropped the barrier? Or had Julie Bailey made a miraculous recovery and returned from the dark side?
Jules stiffened and slowly turned, flashing that condescending smile I wanted to slap right off her Barbie bitch face. “Well, if it isn’t the quint.”
I rolled my eyes. “You guys need to come up with better material. With you, I’m the quint. Not exactly an insult coming from a single. Or from anyone, really.” I regarded Vanessa with a nod. “And you don’t seem to have the brain capacity to remembe
r my name, so I’ve been new girl to you. You might want to get that checked out. Not being able to recall someone’s name could be early onset dementia.”
I gave Jess a look. Poor, lost little Jess. She was like the scarecrow of the trio. Straw for brains. No spine. She couldn’t think for herself if her life depended on it. I thought when her twin sister had gone dark, that broke her, but I was wrong. Spencer broke her even before he’d revealed himself as a leecher. “You call me a dilute, which I am. It’s a stupid word to use to insult an elemental’s lineage, when, clearly, being a pure doesn’t make you more powerful. You three are pures and are all singles. I’m a dilute and a quint. Need I say more? If you three want to offend me, try harder. Now, get out of my way.”
It pleasantly surprised me when the twins parted, leaving me a pathway to the coffee station. I pumped the glorious liquid into a paper cup as three glares burned into the back of my neck. Once I had the perfect combo of creamer, sugar, and coffee to transform my glorious liquid into a cup of nirvana, I capped it and turned.
Just in time for one of the twins to use air to lift the cup, pop the top, and dump the scalding-hot liquid down my front. Ouch. If I didn’t already have the power to control fire inside me, that would have burned the crap out of my skin. The potential burn didn’t piss me off nearly as much as the loss of my cup of nirvana.
I tossed the cup aside and squared off against the trio of mean girls. The last time I went up against these three, I’d just come into my powers and had no idea how to control them. This time, however, I did.
The twins earned themselves a bath. I called the nasty water from the salad bar, melted ice that had sat out all day and collected rogue pieces of wilted lettuce, plops of cottage cheese, and whatever the hell that bean concoction was, liquefied Jell-O, waterlogged cheese, and every slimy drop of spilled dressing, and hovered it in a pool of murky sludge over the perky blonde heads of the Barbie bitches.
“Say you’re sorry.”
They crossed their arms and jutted out identical hips. In unison. They had to have been practicing that move, it was executed so perfectly.
“You wouldn’t dare.” Jess regarded the goopy liquid above them.
“Say you’re sorry,” I repeated more slowly. Maybe they’d pick up how much I would dare if I spoke at a pace that wouldn’t lose them.
Jules shook her head. “For what? It’s not our fault you’re so clumsy.”
That did it.
“You’re right. I guess I’m just a klutz.” I let the watery mess fall. It splashed on contact, immediately drenching them and leaving behind remnants of salad, sides, toppings, and slimy dressing in their no-longer-perky hair, on their no-longer-yellow uniforms, and stuck to their no-longer-white socks. Even their cute little buckle shoes were no longer black thanks to whatever white dressing chunks now covered them.
They, of course, both screamed and turned into wannabe ninjas like they’d just walked into a spiderweb, karate chopping the air to fight off the liquid assailant. I cringed and plugged an ear, wiggling my finger to get it to stop ringing. Jebus jones, man. They hit pitches only dogs could hear.
Vanessa hadn’t come to their rescue, which surprised me. I’d purposely used her primary in the hopes she’d try, so I couldn’t have her join the twins in their lovely bath. Instead, she stood off to the side, observing but not engaging.
“Well, new girl. Looks like you made a mess.”
I glanced at the Barbies before nodding at the linoleum. “I didn’t mean to get the floor.”
Was that the hint of a smile she attempted to cover with a huff?
“Hey! What’s going on out there?” someone from the back yelled.
Busted.
The twins both took huge breaths to no doubt tattle on me, but Vanessa stepped in, her hands up to stop them. “Come on, girls. Let’s let the new girl deal with this.” She glanced back at me over her shoulder as she ushered them out and offered a slight shrug.
What the hell was that? Was the ice queen of the academy apologizing?
They all walked out, passing Bryan as he rushed in, his gaze scanning the room before riveting to me.
“If it isn’t the new girl’s pet,” Vanessa jeered. “Following her around like a lost little puppy.”
“I’d rather be a lost little puppy than a bitch in heat,” he fired back.
Her jaw dropped, and she stormed off, the Barbie twins in tow.
I clapped, impressed at the insult. “Wow. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
He shrugged those massive shoulders. “Sometimes I can’t stop myself. Look, did something just happen, something that burned the front of you?”
Did the giant coffee stain all down the front of me not give that away? I nodded. “The Barbie twins dumped coffee down my front. Why?”
He opened his dress shirt to reveal burns on his chest, the skin red and angry. Oh no. The ward. I glanced at my palm, at the shimmering M on my hand. What injuries happened to me happened to my guys. Because Bryan couldn’t call fire and absorb the heat from the coffee, it’d burned him.
“Oh, shit.” I gently brushed my fingers over his wound. He winced, so I pulled back. “This is not good, Bryan. Not good at all. We have to get Renee to reverse the spell and remove the wards.”
“It’s just a slight burn. It’ll be okay.” He buttoned his shirt.
“No, it won’t. Whenever we go up against a dark elemental, they don’t fight fair. They use forbidden calls. They use dark magic. If Clay gets covered in ice, which happens to him a lot, it’s going to affect you too. If one of us gets hit by a forbidden call, we all get hit. This is so not good.”
Reluctantly, he nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Bonding us like this won’t help us in a battle. Maybe we can have her remove that part of the bond so we can still sense each other and the ward still protects us, just doesn’t have us share the other stuff.”
Together, we cleaned up the mess I made by dousing the twins in nasty-ass stale water that smelled like day-old salad that’d been left in the sun too long. They’d have to shower multiple times to get that smell out of their hair. I smiled at the memory of their shock when I dropped the pool of water on their heads.
By the time we were done, I was over my craving for coffee. Now I just wanted to take a shower and get the contact stench off me.
“I need a shower,” we said at the same time. We studied each other, both debating what to do about our predicament. We could return to our dorm, go our separate ways, and take separate showers. We could then go to our separate floors and sleep in our separate beds.
“Rob and Leo are still here patrolling the grounds,” he offered. “There’s been an increase in activity, and Stace wants them to stick around to help her monitor it. They’ll be stuck here for hours.”
“Hours, you say?” I walked up to him, my breasts pushing against his hard chest. Suddenly, everything inside me sparked to life and centered in my core, heating it. He sucked in a breath as I ran my hands over his ribs, slowly snaking my arms around his waist. “Maybe we should—”
Bryan popped us out and landed us in the master bedroom of the cabin. I didn’t have time to recover before he had me against the door. It rattled behind me on its hinges as Bryan pressed our bodies together. Who was this man assaulting my senses, his dilated pupils a giveaway to the lust pulsing through his veins? If I didn’t pick that up from his eyes, the bulge between his thighs was unmistakable. My earth elemental was usually gentle, deliberate when we had sex. He usually took his time, torturing me in every awesome way possible.
Not this time.
He kissed me. Holy mama, did he kiss me. His tongue swept into my mouth, finding its mate and taking control of the connection. I went limp as his kiss melted every bone in my body. He explored the recesses, covering every inch, and driving me wild. He’d never kissed me like this before. So sure. So dominate. This was more Rob’s style, not Bryan’s.
It made me wonder… What other things did the wards
force us to share?
Could Bryan somehow be channeling that need for control, that overwhelming dominance that had me weak in the knees and my lady bits humming? He seemed crazed as he released my mouth and rested our foreheads together, our heavy breaths mixing together. “What was that?”
“Are you complaining?” He nipped at my lower lip.
I lifted my chin until our lips made contact. He pulled back just enough so our mouths were barely touching. I whimpered and leaned in. Again, he kept us apart. “What are you doing?”
He cupped my backside and jerked me against him. The feel of his cock pressed into my stomach, making me ache as my clit throbbed for attention. “Having a little fun. You like to have a little fun, don’t you?”
I nodded, unable to force any words past the tightness in my throat. Fun was Clay’s style, not Bryan’s. My pulse raced, pounding in my ears as I eagerly waited for whatever he had planned. Someone with more common sense might stop this before he took it too far, channeled all the guys at once, and fucked me into a quad-squad coma.
I’d never been known for my common sense.
He tightened his grip on my ass and called air, hovering us a foot off the floor. “Have you ever had sex in midair?” His eyes darkened to almost black, something I’d never seen.
“Not recently, no.” It was Clay’s preferred position, one that had us crackling with bolts of gold energy whenever we really bonded. Bryan and I had always been safely on the ground, usually in a bed, when we had sex.
A gasp slipped past my lips when he reached under my skirt and literally tore off my panties, snapping the elastic before tossing them aside. Whatever had gotten into him had me so excited, my body trembled in anticipation of his touch.
Bryan’s fingers teased the inner part of my thigh, slowly tracing up and brushing across my coarse hairs. I whimpered and tried to kiss him, but he did it again and kept us a breath apart. I whimpered again.
He brushed my clit, sending a rush of liquid to gather where he touched. Chuckling, he nipped at my bottom lip again. “Someone likes to be teased. Would you like to go a little higher?” He floated us up to the center of the room, a foot from the high-peaked ceiling.