Free elemental 08 - elements of war by Larissa Ladd Page A

expecting to see Aiden, Dylan, Leigh—one of her team come to help her into the building somehow, or at least take some of the effort off of her shoulders in taking down the elementals defending the building. Instead she caught a flash of blonde, the suggestion of tawny-peach skin, and ducked—realizing that it was from behind her, that the person wasn’t one of her allies, but another attacker. 
    “Fuck!” Aira darted to the side, torn between the very real threat of the people in front of her and the new person who had somehow managed to sneak up behind her. 
    Turning to the side, to keep both directions in view, Aira directed a gale-force gust of wind towards the building while she struggled to find the new assailant. The woman appeared suddenly, fully in front of her: Seraphina Williams. 
    “Got separated from the pack, didn’t you?” Seraphina asked Aira tauntingly.
    “The day I can’t take you on my own, Seraphina, is the day I end up dead.”
    “You’re close,” Seraphina countered. “The day you can’t take us on your own is the day you lose your crown.” Another flicker of movement behind her; Aira turned quickly to capture whatever it was—but it was too late. A heavy, tingling, aching cold fell over her shoulders, draped over her head, dragging her inexorably to the ground. The howling wind died to a mere zephyr in an instant. Aira tried to move, but every limb was weighted; her mind was sluggish. Her vision was crisscrossed with a fine, dark grid, and abruptly she realized what had happened. Looking up as she struggled to remain conscious, she saw Seraphina’s triumphant smile. Annaliese came into view, standing over her as Aira fought to free herself of the thin links of lead that made up the net she was captured in. 
    “Sebastian has Aiden in the car,” Annaliese said. “Let’s haul her away, leave the other two for Hestia and Aidan to take care of.” Everything began to swim around her, and Aira’s vision darkened. She barely felt the world shifting underneath her as the two women lifted up the net to carry her away.

 
     

    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    DYLAN PACED BACK AND FORTH in the living room of Aira’s apartment, reeling in the aftermath of his most recent power surge. It had been two weeks since the assault on the safe house holding Aidan and Hestia—two weeks in which he had had no contact whatsoever with his brother or his sister-in-law. 
    “Two fucking weeks,” he muttered, picking up his bottle of beer and bringing it to his lips as he strode back and forth in front of the couch. 
    “We’ll find them soon,” Leigh said. “I’ve almost got a lock on them.” 
    Dylan groaned and closed his eyes. He shouldn’t have let Aiden follow through with the decision to approach the safe house separately. He should have insisted on them taking the safe house as a group—all together. Because he and Leigh had been separated from Aira and Aiden, they’d lost each other. Somehow, Dylan knew, Hestia and Aidan had coordinated an ambush with Annaliese and Seraphina. He knew who had his brother and his sister-in-law, but he had no idea where they were being held; he hadn’t been able to track them down in two weeks, and Leigh was straining at the limits of her ability to do it.
    “They have to be moving around,” Dylan said, setting his beer down and throwing himself into a chair. “That’s the only explanation. The only way that either of us wouldn’t be able to find them is if they weren’t in a stable, single place.”
    “Or the magic concealing them is stronger than either of us can penetrate on our own.” 
    It was a possibility that Dylan didn’t want to entertain; if the magic that the other two elementals were using was too strong for Leigh or Dylan to push past, then they had little chance of being able to fight them off.
    It was small comfort to Dylan that he and Leigh had managed—with the help of the reinforcements that Aiden and Aira had called—to take the