All my mates had gone quiet.
But I wasn’t listening for them now.
Elana was who I sought, her black heart twisted with foul energy that didn’t belong. Brushing my fingertips against the dirt-laden wall, I sensed it. A wrongness blossoming in the earth. Death lingering in her wake.
Closing my eyes, I began to walk again, tracing the tendrils of magic that soured my elements.
Until I entered an underground clearing filled with plants and flowers and a slotted roof with access to the air above.
I smiled, breathing in the core of my strength, my mates immediately rioting in my mind—their joint concern one I soothed with a thought to each of them. I’m fine. And what was more… I found her.
Lying on a stone.
Surrounded by snarling minions.
If this is another mirage, I’m going to lose my ever-loving mind, I thought, using my air magic to scatter the minions into pieces. Then engaged my earth to tie them to the ground, forbidding them from piecing themselves back together.
Elana came alive on a gasp, the threat of my presence yanking her out of the spirit plane. Something Exos and Cyrus both confirmed in my head, so I knew this was real.
Third time’s the charm, I thought, smiling. “Hello, Elana.”
Where are you? Cyrus demanded.
I stirred a geyser above us, shooting it high up into the sky as a signal of my location. Here. And the demon is awake, I added as Elana leapt to her feet.
“Mortus,” she spat, clearly irritated.
I knew better than to let her talk or to gain the advantage.
So rather than listen to the words spewing from her lips, I created an ice pick and aimed it at her heart.
She diminished it with a wave of her hand, her control of water surprisingly strong. A similar weapon came back at me, one I barely blocked as I called on my fire for a shield.
Liquid rained from above, dousing my flames in an instant, and Elana sighed. “Harming children has never been an enjoyable activity, but it is an easy one.”
My chest ached as she hit me with an invisible wave of power, knocking me backward and almost out of the small clearing. I called a gust of air to force me back into the center, requiring my elements, but Elana tripped me with a black tendril of thick smoke.
Shit! My ass hit the rocks, shooting pain up my spine.
“Ah, Claire,” Elana murmured. “How young you truly are.”
Ice pelted me from all sides, slicing through my clothes without preamble and digging into my skin.
I shrieked, spinning away from the foreign sensation that wasn’t water yet resembled it.
But it didn’t heed my call.
My fire tried to burn it away, creating an acid-like liquid that scalded my skin and elicited a scream from my throat.
Claire!
I couldn’t tell which of my mates was shouting. Cyrus? Vox? Titus? A mixture of them all?
I curled onto my side, fighting the pain and relinquishing my hold on the elements just for a chance to breathe. Somehow Elana was using them against me. Turning my powers into harmful substances that hurt me rather than offering me protection.
“We could have been so good together, you and I,” Elana continued, her icy power swathing me in a blanket of foreign energy. “But it’s too late for that now. I see that the way to breaking Exos’s hold is through your heart. Without you, he’ll crumble. And I can take what is mine to take.”
Exos, I breathed, sensing his pain through the bond.