Braving the Elements Read online

  Charles grinned. “Mental note.”

  “Shut up.”

  We walked into Master Bert’s training room and found a bunch of gawking kids. Their mouths hung open as they stared at us with wide eyes. Master Bert bustled up immediately. “Hello, hello! Maw, I had no idea I was working with so much power. I’ve been going about it all wrong. I’ve got someone coming in especially for you today, Sasha. If you’ll just walk out the back and wait by the nearest tree, he’ll be in shortly.”

  “Special treatment, or fear that I am insane?” I muttered to Charles.

  “Insanity, probably,” he replied as we found the tree. “No one has challenged the Boss like you did and lived to tell the tale.”

  “What does he usually do?”

  “Hurt them badly, or kill them, depending on the infraction.”

  “Kill them?”

  “We play for keeps. He hasn’t killed anyone since his first couple of years as leader, though. Everyone got the hint.”

  We weren’t waiting two minutes before an attractive man about my age, relatively speaking, approached with a glide. His toned body was decked out in trendy clothes, his face making the spit dry up in my mouth. Attractive little bugger.

  “Sasha?” His musical, midrange voice tickled my ears.

  “Y-yes,” I answered, smoothing my shirt, despite the fact that it was cotton and didn’t need smoothing.

  “I’m Jessiah.” His vibrant blue eyes shifted to Charles. “And your bodyguard?”

  Charles went rigid. Apparently being called a bodyguard was a sore spot. “She’s valuable. I’m doing my duty as Watch Commander and ensuring her survival.”

  “Ah.” Jessiah smirked and lowered in front of me, matching my cross-legged style of sitting. His eyes attached to mine, an inherent sultry quality suggesting I remove my clothes for the occasion. “You are the Boss’ pet, did I hear that right?”

  “Way wrong thing to say, bro,” Charles mumbled, shaking his head. “Especially when she’s working with magic.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I am mistaken.”

  And maybe you’ll get punched right in the throat! Right after I cop a feel.

  “Shall we begin?” I asked sweetly.

  His smile was sardonic. “Of course.”

  *****

  Charles waited in relative boredom for Sasha to make her dagger turn a rainbow of colors. Unlike the others in the class, she didn’t even have to try anymore. The elements session with Mr. Smooth Talking Jackass had her able to pull the various elements, mixing and matching as she needed, and working with what she found. Whether unconsciously, or out of fear, she only pulled enough power to reach the orange level, and that was only once. Usually she stayed in her default red. He’d asked her about it, of course, and she’d replied that Mr. Women-Love-Me made her nervous.

  Charles didn’t know why—that jerk wasn’t packing much and he didn’t know how to use it! When Charles tried to explain this, he got an eye roll, of all things.

  Plus, the Boss would not take too favorably to his special interest taking up with Mr. I-Smooth-Out-My-Eyebrows. The guy was great at working with elements, sure, but could he do any practical magic with it? Nope. He’d tried to get into the Watch Command twice. The Boss turned him down flat both times.

  Clap, clap, clap.

  “Okay, let’s learn some practical knowledge. Pair off.” James glanced at Charles. Charles stared back. He wasn’t in the mood to play babysitter to a bunch of newbies.

  James backed down immediately. Yet another guy with knowledge that didn’t go beyond the classroom.

  Sasha’s constant partner, Gabe, stared at her with nervous eyes and a line for a mouth. This was when things could get hairy. Sasha actually had great sword work, strangely enough, but with so much power zinging around her body, half the time her sword exploded. The amazing thing was that they used practice swords with no real edge—certainly not sharp. But they were metal, and could conduct energy—that was all Sasha seemed to need.

  Gabe came at her at a snail’s pace—the kid wouldn’t go into work as a fighter, that was for sure—and slashed at her chest. She stepped out of the way like someone born for the role, and swiped at his arm plate, connecting with a scrape.

  “Nice work, human. You are coming along,” James said, his eyes sweeping the students.

  Sasha glared at him, and then glanced beyond him to that smirking redhead she had a vendetta against. She rightly assumed she’d earned a name at this point. She was one of the best in the class with hands-on, only failing because of the flaming sword issue, which the Boss suspected had something to do with her kind of magic and not her learning ability. Half the students grudgingly accepted her, acknowledging her right to be there. The other half only smirked when she wasn’t looking.

  Like that redhead.

  “Let’s see you do it, Ginger,” Sasha muttered at her enemy. Who was actually named Tessie.

  The other female sneered, looking back at her sword. Charles chuckled. A little competition was good for the soul. As was beating heads, just like he’d said.

  “Oh, God, sorry!”

  Charles crossed his hands over his chest and watched as Sasha laid her hands on Gabe’s back. He was bent over painfully, holding his stomach. She’d probably blasted him in her anger at James-the-Clapping-Moron.

  “Do what, kill my partner?” the redhead disparaged.

  “I’m good, I’m good.” Gabe waved his hand at her, the other still fastened to his stomach.

  Clap, clap, clap. “Focus, human! You are with the superior beings, now. You must focus.”

  Sasha glowered at Tessie’s smug expression.

  Charles groaned. That wasn’t going to help. When Sasha got angry, she had a harder time controlling the lesser power levels. He’d tried to get her to work in black, because she seemed to mess up less in that power, or even gold, but she was (for good reason) afraid she’d get magic shock. The Boss said they needed to find some better trainers who knew how to work with her; these weren’t harnessing what she had to offer. Charles had to agree, and since the Boss was one of the smartest people in the clan, well, he would know. Except, they didn’t have anyone. Not without verifying her power with the council. And that would mean Stefan would finally have to pick a mate, since them coming out here would serve that purpose as well.

  Dicey.

  Two more accidents later, and some more aggressive trash talking from the ginger, and it was finally time to call it quits. Charles needed to have a word with James about negative reinforcement…

  Sasha needed to give Ginger a fat lip. If this kept up, Charles would have to do it, and picking on a student was expressly forbidden.

  “Seriously, Gabe,” Sasha was saying as she rubbed his back, “I usually only make a mistake once, so hopefully—I mean, definitely—I’ll definitely stop hurting you very soon.”

  Gabe, a soft kid with terrible taste in fashion, shrugged his thin shoulders. He gave her his attempt at a sultry smile. “It’s okay. I’ll brave it again to keep being your partner…”

  Charles rolled his eyes and yanked Sasha toward the door. “Alright Casanova, let’s go.”

  “Casanova is a guy, nitwit.”

  “Whatever. You got a hard class next.”

  “Trying to learn to fight without impaling my partner isn’t considered a hard lesson? I think I should use a wooden sword so I can’t blast people.”

  “We have Darla next. I have to participate this time because I don’t know nothing about chanting and carrying on.”

  “You don’t seem to know anything—notice my word choice—about English, either.” Sasha’s chuckle turned into a groan. “Darla hates me—worse than Ginger. This is gonna suck.”

  “Yes on both counts.”

  Chapter 4

  I walked into the third story room with an air of confidence. Darla might be gorgeous, apparently great at whatever the hell she taught, and promised to the man of my dreams, but she would not get me down.

 
About eight people sat in chairs around the medium sized room. Darkness loomed outside, sucking the candlelight out of the space. Darla stood in the middle of the room wearing a chic red dress that hugged every perfect curve.

  “Oh goodie,” Darla drawled, “the Boss’s pet has graced us with her presence instead of throwing a tantrum and running into the woods. Aren’t we so blessedly privileged?”

  “Yikes, not pulling any punches, huh?” Charles muttered as he shuffled in beside me.

  I took a seat next to a sneering guy a few years older than me. In fact, I appeared to be the youngest in the class. Which meant they were super old.

  “Great, let’s start where we left off last time, shall we?” Darla turned toward a chair, waved her arms around, and started chanting in a completely foreign language. And not foreign like French, Spanish, or even Latin. No, these weren’t real words. It sounded like a bunch of consonants she spat out one by one.

  My arms prickled and my chest got warm, the indicator she was working a spell. A similar feeling, though to a much larger degree, also happened when the Dulca monster things called to me.

  The chair started to bubble, wisps of red gathering and pulling around it, until it kind of…vanished. If you looked right at it you could see bits of it, like right after staring at the sun and having a sun spot obscure it. But if you weren’t looking directly at it, you wouldn’t notice it there.

  It was probably that spell—with a ton more power—that hid the house I lived in. Neat. I really wanted to learn it. Or did it take multiple people to produce?

  Darla took her manicured hands out of the air and put them on her hips with a smug nod. “Now, you try.”

  I stared.

  All eight students stood obediently and faced their chairs. Charles followed shortly after.

  “I don’t know that language,” I whispered through half my mouth.

  “Did you have a question, pet?” Darla’s honeyed voice rang out.

  I turned slowly, wanting to find a corner to hide in. “Um, I don’t know the chants. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do this lesson.”

  Her red lips pulled back into a sickly smile. “Oh, poor baby. You push your master to get you in school, but you aren’t ready for it.” She shrugged, gathering her students’ attention like flies to poop, which was exactly how this whole thing smelled. “I guess you’ll have to learn on the fly.”

  Master, huh?

  Anger licked at my awareness, surging. I didn’t know what the heck she’d just done, but I roughly knew the elements she’d called, and roughly the shape the magic took. Gathering all the ingredients to me, I waved my hands like I thought I’d seen her do, and then gave the thick cloud of red a little push with my palms, nudging it forward gently.

  The chair exploded.

  Oops.

  Wood splinters rocketed out and sprayed the class like bullets. Some students ducked, some crawled away, and one guy, apparently a ninja, did a spider jump, turned it into a flip, and landed on his feet five feet away with his dagger out.

  “Care to explain what the hell you just did?” Darla screeched.

  I faced her with hunched shoulders. “Blew up my chair?”

  Her eyes burned into me as the rest of the students drifted out of their sheltered places. “Who taught you to do that?”

  Ninja warrior had not tucked away his dagger.

  I shrugged, digging my hands into my pockets. My gut twisted. “I thought I was doing what you did…”

  “What incantation did you use?” she demanded.

  I grimaced. “I didn’t. I tried to just download the right elements, swirl them around, and kinda…drape them over the chair…”

  “Download the right elements? Swirl them around?” Her long red nails tapped her crossed arms.

  “That’s how she thinks of it,” Charles helped.

  Darla’s cool gaze fell on Charles. “Ah yes, the boy wonder. Youngest Watch Commander in a century. And here you are, playing bodyguard to the Boss’s pet. How far have we sunk?”

  It was Charles’s turn to hunch his shoulders. Unlike with the elements or with the sword stuff, Charles wasn’t packing a whole lot of confidence in this class. At least we were in it together.

  Her gaze speared me again before she turned with a whoosh, her silky black hair flying. “Pair up. Dog and dog walker, break apart. Let’s do some simple spells. How about containment spells? Go.”

  “That’s easy?” Charles mumbled.

  I looked around the circle, knowing no one would want to pair with me. I knew I would have to wait until the least liked kid in class had to come shuffling over to pair with the dropout. God, this sucked.

  To my horror, Darla noticed the situation, and took matters into her own hands.

  “Doggy, pair up with Adnan. Go.”

  The ninja, fortified with a glare, stalked up to me. Straight, simple movements bespoke an ordinary guy. The fact that he’d just flipped through the air had me intensely nervous. Unlike Gabe, this would be the wrong guy to accidently blast.

  “Hi,” I squeaked.

  He frowned in response.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I warned.

  “Then stand there and look pretty. You’re apparently great at that.”

  Ouch. But also, thanks for the compliment.

  He held his hands out, palms facing each other. In that strange language, he began chanting. Well, he could’ve been spitting and hissing for all I knew, but I felt the magic collect and pull, fanning that heat in my chest. Pale red formed between his hands—now green—now red again. He straddled the cusp of power, but I felt more available within him.

  “Can you just stop for a sec?” I asked as politely as I could.

  His eyes flicked up with a glower. “Why? I’m not going to show you what I’m doing. You should have been here at the beginning of class for that.”

  I grimaced to prevent myself from retorting like a wiseass. This guy could kick my ass—bad news with Charles on the other side of the room. “I just want to help.”

  “How the hell can you help?”

  Darla hung around near Charles, occasionally petting his muscles or rubbing her fingers across the base of his neck. She was occupied.

  “Look, I’m an idiot, yeah, and I largely haven’t a clue, but I do somehow know how to help others grasp magic. At least, I can with Charles and Master Bert. And, uh, Jessiah.” This was not a time for my face to turn red when I mentioned a new crush.

  His frown intensified. “What?”

  “Just…do it again, and let me put my hand on your skin, that’s all.”

  “Is this some weird attempt at seduction?”

  “I can assure you, no.”

  Frustrated—he didn’t seem to have a lot of patience—he shrugged me off with a, “Whatever.”

  He started again, not allowing me to touch his arm, since that would distract him, so I put it on the side of his stomach. I really tried not to feel his bumpy lateral muscle.

  It wasn’t me doing the seducing.

  “Okay.” He concentrated, his intensity blocking off some of his magic flow. Charles did it constantly. Too uptight.

  I closed my eyes, focused on his block as I drew in magic, and gradually pulled, forcing more magic through to break that block. “Loosen up,” I murmured.

  He gasped. When I opened my eyes, the magic hovering in front of him, waiting for a command, was deep red.

  “What is going on?”

  Damn it.

  Darla took her hand away from Charles’ butt so she could put it on her hip. Her cold gaze leveled us from across the room.

  “I was just helping him with his—“

  “You help someone? You can’t even help yourself. Stand in front of him where you’re supposed to be so he can put the spell on you.”

  I trudged to my place, my head lowered, and waited while he summoned that red haze again. It got paler and paler as he worked. “Loosen up. You’re struggling to control it. You need to partner
with it. Join with it.”

  Those weren’t the right terms, but I was largely learning by feeling it, and I didn’t know how else to describe it.

  He worked harder, his power level staying in the red, but the intensity of it fluctuating. Finally, after another minute of trying, Darla appeared behind him. “Here, let me help. Next she’ll be offering blood for protection to you, too.”

  She slid her hands down his arms, giving him goose bumps and entwining her fingers in his. “Now, say the words with me.”

  Her steamy voice entranced him as her breasts squished against his back. Red pulsed between their hands, and then floated over me into a box similar to what Stefan had put me in when trying to protect me. As the box solidified into a translucent, red cage, I touched the side and got the expected shock.

  Darla backed away with an evil smile, her hands feeling down the side of Adnan. “That’s all for today, class. Charles, you can get your charge out of this predicament. I have faith in you.”

  I’d never gotten so many smirks in my life.

  Charles stood in front of me uneasily as the rest of the class filed out merrily. “I have no idea how to make one of these, let alone how to undo one.”

  “Oh great. I’m trapped. God, she’s a bitch!”

  Charles nodded, surveying my cage. “Shall I throw a chair at it?”

  “I doubt it. How about cutting it with your sword? You have higher magic.”

  “What about yours? You can do more powerful magic than I can.”

  My gaze flicked to my dagger, lying forgotten near my hoodie on the other side of the classroom. “I didn’t think we’d need it.”

  Charles sighed and dropped his head, his hands finding purchase on his hips. “Well, what if the blade goes through and cuts you?”

  I showed my teeth. “That would be bad. Okay, try your knife, and do it really easy-like.”

  Charles took out his dagger, waited until it glowed orange, and then gingerly sliced into the box. Sparks lit up the side like a sparkler, but the orange knife parted the red.

  “Does it hurt when those sparks touch your skin?” Charles asked, stopping the cutting.

  “Yes, it hurts! But keep going. I don’t want to be trapped in here forever, and I don’t want to have to get some human-hating clan member to break me free. I’d look like the clown I am.”