Air: The Elementals Book Two

by L. B. Gilbert

Logan shook her head. “This spell is more advanced. You couldn’t smell Bishop, but that was the only flaw. I could see an aura when I looked at him. It just wasn’t his. But if you saw those witches Diana and I fought in the street, you could see them, but that was all. They had no smell, no heat, and no aura.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t them,” he pointed out. “They could have easily sold a more advanced version to Bishop.”

  Logan crossed her arms and looked down at the table, her eyes passing over all the things on its surface. “I don’t know. If they had a more advanced version, I think they would have used it on themselves.”

  Damn, his head was starting to hurt. “Okay, let me see if I understand this. Your theory is that there is some mysterious third party hiding in the shadows. Someone who was in league with the witches you ran into before and with Bishop now.”

  “Yes. And that someone has access to T’Kairie. That list is short.”

  Good. Now they were getting somewhere. “Who’s on it?” he asked, trying not to sound too homicidal.

  He needed to know because he was going to hunt down everyone on that list and question them personally. And it was better if Logan wasn’t aware of his intentions—unfortunately, his tone didn’t fool her.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, giving him a narrow-eyed look.

  He switched tactics. “Logan, we need to work together on this.”

  “No, what you need to do is go back to the hospital. I’m going to take this back to the others. My sisters should all be gathered at the archives by now. We need to figure out how bad this is.”

  “Let me go with you.”

  Logan closed your eyes. “Connell, I don’t know what will happen to you in the currents with those injuries. You almost died.” She came around the table and put her arms around his neck. “Please stay here and get better. I will come back as soon as I can.”

  Connell tugged hard and pulled her into his lap—and he immediately regretted it. Her elbow hit his chest, and he hissed aloud. Wincing, Logan got off his lap gingerly. She pushed some things aside and sat on the table in front of him instead.

  “Okay. I’ll stay here. For now,” he conceded from between gritted teeth. His bullet holes hadn’t completely healed by shifting, and he didn’t want to retry that fucked up Harry Potter thing just yet. “But when you get back, we’re having that long talk about our relationship I told you about. And we are in a relationship.”

  Her mouth opened as if she wanted to object, but she didn’t say anything. “Logan,” he warned.

  The little eye roll told him he’d won. “Fine. We are in…a…relationship.”

  About time. Her reluctance to admit it made him smile, but nothing worth having was easy. “Thank you,” he said with a satisfied smile.

  “I wouldn’t thank me yet,” she muttered in a little aside before giving him a wicked grin.

  Evil little minx. “Behave yourself while you’re gone,” he ordered.

  “And you don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” she countered.

  The moment of levity passed. “Am I saying good-bye already?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head. “No, it will be later. I have to search the woods for more of this crap. I won’t be leaving for a while yet. In the meantime, do I have to go outside and hot-wire a car to get you back to the hospital?”

  “Oh, you mean one of the cars you flipped over?”

  She pushed her hair over her shoulder. “There is no need for sarcasm.”

  “You know, that SUV was Yogi’s.”

  “I’ll flip it back, okay?” she drawled.

  He reached out for her hand. “I’m sure some of the guys are still waiting outside. One of them can drive me, and Yogi too, if Salome doesn’t pick him up. But we’re going back to my dad’s house. I don’t need to be in the hospital anymore.”

  “Connell—”

  He grabbed one of her outstretched hands. “Really, imp, I’m on the mend now that I can shift again. And if I need anything, I’ll call Kiely, our resident doctor.”

  Logan squinted at him, examining every inch of his aura. “All right. Get your butt in bed. I’ll come say goodbye once I’m done.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to share the bed for a while before you go?”

  Logan looked at the ceiling as if pleading for patience. “You have actual holes in you, and you’re still a dog…”

  He grinned unrepentantly. “Never doubt I have my priorities in order.”

  45

  The sun had set when Logan walked up the stairs to the second floor of the chief’s house. Her feet felt like lead.

  It had taken her hours to search the woods near the Kane home. A few search spells had cut that down considerably, but she’d retraced her steps and covered every inch twice to ensure she hadn’t missed anything.

  But there hadn’t been anything outside of what she’d found in his house and shed. He must have been supremely confident to believe no one would suspect him.

  Despite Connell, Logan was glad she had to leave for a while. The atmosphere around here was heavy. She wasn’t as bad as Diana when it came to dealing with emotions, but she had no idea what to do or say to the people Bishop had betrayed.

  Connell appeared to have bounced back, but it was obvious that underneath his cocky brashness, he was as hurt and bewildered as everyone else.

  Logan turned the corner in the hallway, hoping she had hidden the stash of magical contraband well enough. There was some bad mojo sticking to most of those objects. She hadn’t wanted to bring them into the chief’s house, so she’d tied the bag to the tallest branch of the highest tree in the vicinity. She would pick it up on her way to T’Kairie.

  She had said goodbye to the chief and Mara, telling them she would be back soon, and explaining that she had left an insanely skilled scholar, Alec, researching solutions for Sammy’s little problem. With any luck, he already had a solution waiting for her on the island.

  Connell’s bedroom door was open, and when she saw why, she was no longer tired. Riley was sitting on his bed, watching him sleep.

  “If you don’t get off that bed, I’m going to toss you out the window.” She was in no mood to play games. It had been a hard fucking day.

  “Actually, I was waiting for you,” Riley said quietly. The towering blonde took a deep breath and stood, holding out a hand to indicate they should speak in the hallway.

  Logan sighed and backed up so Riley could exit the bedroom. She reached for the door, watching Connell sleep for a moment before closing it.

  Riley stood there for a very long minute without saying anything. Expecting her to start on a “you don’t belong with Connell conversation,” Logan crossed her arms and waited.

  “Bishop is my uncle.”

  Oh, okay, not about Connell. She straightened. “And?”

  “And I was in their house a lot. I used to babysit Sammy for a little extra cash. I never saw Bishop do anything…you know, evil, but he went out at night every once in a while. I used to wonder where he was going. He always said he was going for a run, but then he’d take his car. For a while, I thought he had a secret girlfriend. The one time Salome came home from school early, I decided to meet up with some friends at a bar a few towns over.”

  Logan’s ears prickled. Could it be that the evil Amazon had a lead for her? “Did you see something?”

  Riley handed her a piece of paper. “I saw Bishop at the same bar a little later that night. He was holed up in the corner with some man. One who wasn’t a Were. I know all the male Weres around here.”

  Logan bit her tongue so the scathing remark she wanted to make wouldn’t spill out. She opened the piece of paper. It described a blue sedan and had a license plate number. “This is the vehicle of the man he was meeting?”

  Riley nodded. “Yeah. I don’t even know why I wrote it down, except that I thought it was weird.”

  “How was it weird?”

  The blonde behemoth wave
d her hand. “The sneaking and lying about it, and to top it off, the meeting took place at a human bar. Bishop always avoided outsiders and used to discourage Yogi and Sal from making friends with humans. That’s why I figured something was up—because otherwise, there’s no way he would have been caught dead at that place. But I never imagined this…”

  Riley’s eyes grew distant, her mouth slackening slightly.

  Logan shifted her weight, surprised to feel sympathy for her annoying predecessor. “I’ll follow up on this,” she promised.

  Riley took one last look at the closed door, a jumble of emotions in her eyes. She left without saying anything else.

  Logan held up the piece of paper and took out her phone. She texted the information to her contact at the DMV, a fae goblin who owed her a favor.

  Based on the model of the car, it was probably a rental, but there might be a trail to follow. She put the phone away and opened the door to Connell’s bedroom to wake him for a quick goodbye.

  At least, it was supposed to be quick… It was well after midnight when she finally left for T’Kairie.

  46

  Three weeks later, Logan landed in front of the chief’s house with a thump. Her landings were normally a little softer, but she was in a hurry. She only had a little while to prepare the group for ‘the solution’.

  A lot of Weres were milling around the main compound today. A few surprised her by waving in a friendly fashion, although most gave her that stoic male nod that used to annoy the hell out of her.

  She found the chief and Mara in the barn. They were surrounded by a bunch of teens in fighting stances. To her surprise, there were girls mixed in with the boys.

  When one of the girls, a fierce-looking black Were with her hair in braids, gave her the same distant nod as the men outside, she broke into a grin—until Mara punched the chief in the face with a killer right hook.

  “Whoa,” she said, wincing. “Is there something I should know? Should we all start hoarding food and stocking up on batteries? Cause regime changes can be vio-lent.”

  Mara turned and smiled at her, but the chief glowered. “Mara is not challenging me for leadership of the pack. I’ve decided, after recent events, that some of our more talented females need to be trained alongside their brothers.”

  He turned to the girls. “That’s because they are just as strong, just as fast, and just as capable as any man—and we don’t know when or where the next danger will strike. We must all be prepared to defend our pack.”

  It wasn’t so much the words, as the weight he gave them, that made Logan want to clap by the time he was done. A few of the kids did cheer, but stopped immediately when the chief gave them his alpha stare. They resumed their practice poses before Mara dismissed them to freestyle.

  Logan joined the chief and Mara as they walked outside. “It’s about time you started training the girls,” she said. “If you like, I can show them a few things too when I have time.”

  “Are you trained in combat?” he asked a touch sarcastically. “Don’t you just throw things at people or blow them down?”

  Logan crossed her arms. “My tiger mom had me in judo the minute I could walk. These days, I’m considered an expert in over a dozen styles of martial arts,” she informed him. “Gia trained me herself in krav maga and pencak silat.”

  Douglas stopped walking and turned to her in open-mouthed shock. “Pencak silat?” He coughed. “Well, if you have time…”

  Time, shit. She was wasting it. “Oh yeah, speaking of, I actually had something to run by you about your scaly situation. Is Sammy around?”

  “Yes,” Mara said. “He’s upstairs with Salome. He and Yogi have been bunking here for the last couple of weeks. Sal’s still at school, but on the weekends, she stays here too.”

  That makes sense. Logan couldn’t blame them for not wanting to stay at home with all those memories of their father. And she was glad the chief was embracing them, making sure they weren’t ostracized from their community.

  “Well, I have some news about his condition. Or lack of news…” she amended.

  Mara and the chief exchanged glances. “I take it you don’t have a solution?”

  “Not the kind you wanted—and I put our best book nerd on it. Alec hasn’t found anything that can change Sammy back into a wolf. Not yet anyway, and he’s gone through most of our records. So far, he’s got a big fat nada in the way of fixes. So my sister Serin suggested something.”

  She broke off and looked up. “And there’s that something now.”

  High overhead, a telltale shimmering ripple approached at Mach speed. It vaguely reminded Logan of the see-through camouflage the Predator used in the movie, but in this case, it was much bigger.

  “You may want to stand over here,” she warned, hugging the wall of the barn. “We need to give him a little more room.”

  “Him? Him who?” Mara asked with a frown.

  There was a second—much louder—thump next to them. The invisibility glamour dropped away, revealing a green-and-gold dragon roughly the size of a small cottage.

  Douglas swore under his breath, and the teenagers inside the barn poured outside with shouts and exclamations. All the noise and bustle alerted the people in the house. Soon, Salome and Sammy came running outside.

  “He’s right there,” Logan called out, pointing to Sammy.

  The dragon nodded once and shifted with a small swishing sound. In its place was a much smaller bespeckled blond man with a ponytail. Fortunately for the mixed company, he was fully dressed. Unlike the wolves, dragon shifters could fashion clothing from some of their scales when in human form.

  Douglas looked askance at the man’s long hair and Birkenstocks as the man approached Sammy and Sal with a friendly wave. He bent down to speak to Sammy. When nothing else exciting happened, Mara ushered the other kids back into the barn with a stern command to get back to work. However, their attention wasn’t on practicing their kicks and strikes. All eyes were on the two dragons who were, for some reason, practicing an intricate handshake now.

  “Let me guess,” the chief drawled. “His name is Draco or Drake.”

  Logan’s lip curled. It was a fair assumption on Douglas’ part. Most dragon shifters had ultra-cool names and tattoos to match. This dragon shifter was an exception. “Actually, his name is Ed.”

  “Ed the dragon?” Douglas asked sardonically.

  Mara swallowed a laugh. “Oh. Is that short for Edward?”

  Logan giggled, her sense of humor getting the better of her. “It’s Edmund actually. We call him Eddie sometimes, but usually, it’s just…Ed.”

  This time, Mara did laugh. “Okay, then.”

  Logan shrugged. “Until a fix is found—if one exists—Serin thought you could benefit from a mentorship of sorts. Most of the dragon shifters we know are kind of…odd, but Ed’s okay. He collects novelty cookie jars.”

  “Cookie jars?” Douglas asked, his nose wrinkled.

  Logan opened her hands. “Well, they all hoard something. Most have tons of money in jewels and coins tucked away, but Ed’s refreshingly non-materialistic—although I’m sure his 401K is rock solid. Financial acumen is a dragon thing.”

  “Is it really?” Mara looked briefly intrigued, and then she humphed. “You learn something new every day.”

  “He’ll be helpful,” Logan assured them. She couldn’t go out on a limb and assure them Ed was harmless. He was a dragon shifter after all, but Serin vouched for him, and Logan trusted the Water Elemental’s judgement—even with what was going on with her still-missing mate.

  She explained that Ed was prepared to share his experience as a dragon shifter with Sammy, including a few tricks to avoid setting things on fire when he was annoyed. The offer was accepted with typical grudging grace.

  Logan turned to watch Sammy and Ed get to know each other. They were walking toward the clearing at the border of the woods, presumably to practice something dragony.

  High up on the hill, she spotted some
new construction. Someone was building a house overlooking the compound. Logan was about to ask if the pack had decided to give the Kane family a new house when Sammy shifted for Ed. Smiling, Ed pointed to his feet while saying something.

  “I suppose this is the best solution we could have asked for,” Douglas admitted. “Considering the circumstances,” he qualified.

  “Personally, I’m just glad Sammy can still shift,” Mara said with a philosophical head bob. “He’s young enough that he’s the envy of all his friends. It might not stay that way when he gets older, but for now, he’s still pack to everyone.”

  Logan acknowledged that, and then asked the question she had been dying to ask since landing. “So…where’s Connell?”

  “Oh, after a few days, we couldn’t keep him in bed anymore,” Mara informed her with a twinkle in her eye. “He said you were taking too long and decided to go after you.”

  “He left?” She had busted her ass to get back here, and he was gone?

  “Yes, but he’s been in touch. Mostly to complain,” Douglas said with his trademark deadpan expression. “Apparently, you haven’t stayed in one place long enough for him to catch up with you. He said to tell you he found the damn island by the way—his words—but you had already left.”

  Logan’s mouth dropped open.

  Mara grinned at her. “What he actually said was that he was going to nail your little butt to the floor when he caught up with you.”

  “My butt is not little,” Logan grumbled. “People have got to stop saying that. I told him there was no way to get to T’Kairie without me. I can’t believe he found it. But no, I wasn’t there this whole time. I had to travel a lot because I was helping my sisters investigate the missing artifacts.”

  Once Serin had arrived and all the Elementals had gathered at the archives, the shit had hit the fan. No one had come right out and accused Jordan of stealing from them—especially since he hadn’t been there to defend himself, but he was her prime suspect.

  Not everyone agreed. Serin’s parents and Jordan’s uncle were particularly loud in their defense of him. And even Diana admitted that she hadn’t picked up on any lies or anxiety from him during the little time she’d spent in his company.