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

compound that had held and protected Hestia and Aidan, along with the elementals they had drawn to their cause. He had been thrilled when the last of the walls came down, when Leigh’s earthquakes had cracked the house itself, shaking its foundations and bringing it down onto the people inside. He hadn’t cared for an instant if the people within would be harmed; as far as he was concerned, it was turnabout, and absolutely fair play. 
    He could remember the fight itself—remember hearing Aira’s voice calling out to find out where he and Leigh were. They had chosen the weakest point in the walls surrounding the safe house—it made the most sense for both of them. Dylan’s growing power and the abundance of water in the area had given him abilities he had never tapped into before. At one point, Leigh had grabbed his hand, pulling him halfway onto the ground; with a rumble, Dylan had watched as the mountain above the compound shifted and transformed into a landslide, crashing the walls that extended in a perimeter. After he realized that Aiden and Aira had both—somehow—been captured, Dylan had lashed the whole area with torrential rain, not stopping until the arrival of the bounty hunters who had come to back them up. 
    “We have to find them, Leigh,” Dylan said, resuming his pacing. He was normally patient—he was normally capable of thinking things through. But he could only imagine what was happening to his brother, and worse—what was happening to Aira. He had searched his scrying bowl time and again, pushed his awareness of their energies to the brink, trying to find them through the paths of water that crisscrossed the nation. He had sent his awareness of his brother’s fiery essence up and down rivers, hopping across lakes, flowing through swamps in search of the faintest glimmer. He cringed, remembering his piece of advice to Leigh the night of his brother’s wedding: as long as Aiden and Aira were together, they were unstoppable. It was impossible to know whether Leigh’s report had somehow gotten into her cousin’s hands, or if the elementals arrayed against them had figured it out on their own.
    “There’s one thing we can do.” Leigh set her half-emptied glass of cider down on the table and looked up at Dylan, resignation in her eyes. Ever since the disappearance of his brother and sister-in-law, Dylan had avoided really thinking about her; he didn’t blame Leigh—if anyone shouldered the biggest burden of blame in the situation, it was Aiden, for insisting that they split into pairs. But in the rising panic he’d felt, Dylan had had no room in his mind for the earth elemental. They’d been forced by circumstance to spend their time together—Leigh wasn’t safe on her own, and Dylan wasn’t either; they were both targets for the last two elementals pitting themselves against the status quo. 
    “What can we do?” Dylan asked, forcing himself to sit down, to actually listen to whatever Leigh had to say. Leigh hesitated for a moment, picking up her cider and knocking the last of it back before she spoke.
    “We can combine our efforts,” she said. Dylan stared at her blankly; hadn’t they already been combining their efforts? They’d taken to conducting their searches at the same time, only feet away from each other, constantly on guard for a sneak-attack from the elemental renegades. They had both gone before the elders to tell them about the situation. They had both pitted themselves against Maralah and Connor to insist that bounty hunters join the search in earnest, instead of as an aside to other goals. “I mean, really combine them. We could … we could finish bonding. That would amplify both of our efforts.” 
    Dylan’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t given serious thought to completing his bond with Leigh since the day of the attack. He wanted to—and intellectually, after seeing her in action, Dylan couldn’t think of any person on the planet that he would