elemental 08 - elements of war (5 page)

Aiden laughed. “First we figure out how many we’re up against and where they are. Second we round them up. Third we take a very long vacation while they’re in custody and waiting to be tried for their crimes.”

“A vacation?” Leigh glanced at Dylan again, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Well, Aiden and I haven’t exactly had our honeymoon. We were going to be at least a month.” 

“No wonder you’re so tense,” Leigh said. 

Dylan shook his head. “Nah, they’re definitely taking plenty of opportunity even if they aren’t completely alone. Remember hearing thunder last night?” 

Leigh laughed. “So then it’s true,” she said, her voice not quite questioning, looking at the other three in the car with her. “What they say about the mingling of elementals.”

“Fire and air become lightning when the energies combine,” Dylan said, reciting from the snippet he had found in one of Lorene’s books. “It’s the secret weapon that Aiden and Aira have together—and what they used to help free you and round up the people at the compound.”

“What do earth and water energies combine to form?” Leigh asked.

Aira chuckled. “Apparently neither of you noticed how flipping cold it was last night.” She glanced over the back of the seat at them. “Earth and water combine to form ice.” 

Dylan smiled slightly; he had felt the temperatures dip—and he realized that Aira had known exactly what had happened when he and Leigh had kissed in the compound where she’d been kept a prisoner. 

“What are the other combinations then?” Leigh wanted to know.

Dylan dropped into his lecture mode, reciting what he remembered from his readings. Earth elementals had their own lore—but they had a tendency to mostly keep within their own kind when mating, and pairings of two strongly-aligned elementals were fairly rare. Usually, a stronger elemental was paired with a less potent one of any alignment in order to keep strong elementals rare within the community. Elementals with less potent energy didn’t produce the drastic effects in their pairings that stronger elementals did—though Dylan had to admit that as far as air elementals went, there weren’t many in history to rival Aira, and Aiden was not at nearly her strength.

“When very strong fire and earth elementals bond, their energies combine to form molten metal—lava, though volcanos aren’t usually a danger,” Dylan explained. “Water and air elemental energies combine to form tornados, hurricanes, those kinds of weather phenomena, though they usually don’t have thunder and lightning. Earth and air—though that’s a really rare pairing—make sandstorms together. Water and fire combine—almost as rarely—to form fog, or in some cases, the energies produce floods.”

“It’s a wonder they ever let any elementals cross-breed,” Leigh said, her eyes widening.

“They were definitely not happy when Aiden and I got together,” Aira said, and Dylan could hear her smiling. “Two strong elementals, each in the full flush of our power, and our energies combine to become pure electricity.” 

“I can definitely see why they’d be worried.” Leigh shook her head. “Air, fire, electricity—it’s no wonder my cousin and his ilk are going after you indirectly. There’d be no chance going up against the two of you together.”

“And now, assuming you stay with us, Leigh, we’ll have earthquakes and landslides on our side,” Aiden glanced quickly over his shoulder. 

Dylan felt a deep-down relief that both his brother and his sister-in-law seemed to have come around to the idea of Leigh joining their “merry band.” But he knew that it wouldn’t be easy—even with Leigh’s abilities, tied to her elemental alignment, they would have to fight to get all of the elementals involved into custody. And Dylan knew that the cockier members of the group wouldn’t be content to stick with only attacking relatively helpless air and water elementals. They would eventually make their move on Aiden or Aira, try and get the “royal couple” separated. Divide and conquer was a time-honored tradition of war; it would only make sense to try it in this case as well. Dylan mulled over the possibilities. As long as Aiden and Aira were together, there were very few people who could target them—no one would be able to get past the guard of either elemental to get the other. 

“We have to all stay together,” Dylan said firmly. “The four of us, combined, are impervious to anything that the group can throw at us. Leigh can protect against earth-based attacks, as can I, Aira and Aiden can protect against any fire or air attacks, and I can keep us safe from any water-based attacks— even if none of my people seem to be involved in this stupid mess.”

“I agree,” Aira said from the front passenger seat. “Between the four of us, we have all comers at a disadvantage. We have to make sure we don’t get separated.”

“That’s the first thing they’ll try, then,” Leigh pointed out. “The minute they’re confident enough to come after you and Aiden, they’re going to try and separate us somehow.”

“So we do everything together,” Dylan smiled at the slightly chirpy sound of Aira’s too-chipper voice. “At this point, you might as well stay in Dylan’s room; his bed is more comfortable than the couch.”

“You just want them to bond fully,” Aiden said, freeing one hand from the steering wheel to tousle Aira’s hair in a proprietary, comfortable gesture that Dylan almost envied. He didn’t quite know Leigh well enough yet to know what she would enjoy, what she would appreciate; he gave her hand a squeeze. 

“Well, it would solve a lot of problems, but I can’t make them bond any more than someone could have forced you and I to bond.”

“Technically they did.”

“Technically they made me bond with
someone
. I could have theoretically bonded with Dylan if we had any actual chemistry between us.” 

Dylan rolled his eyes. “We have fabulous chemistry, and I don’t bother you nearly as much as Aiden does. You’re a very lucky woman, Leigh; I could have ended up as one half of the royal couple and all you would have been able to choose from would be Aiden.”

“No thanks,” Leigh said, laughing. “I’m pretty sure we’d drive each other completely insane.” 

Aiden raised an eyebrow. “Because Aira doesn’t drive me out of my mind on a regular basis.” 

Aira reached over and prodded Aiden in the ribs; Dylan laughed as his brother narrowly avoided a swerve, correcting his steering at the last moment.

“How in the world is it my fault that you are the most annoying man on the face of the planet?” 

Dylan sat back in his seat, casting amused glances at Leigh as his brother and his sister-in-law descended into bickering that was heated and yet not quite acrimonious. He had watched them arguing like this ever since he and Aiden had come into Aira’s life; but Leigh was obviously much more confused by the fact that two people could persistently and stubbornly argue without coming to a resolution and yet be passionate lovers, caring for each other. 

“If either of us took a side,” Dylan murmured in her ear, “There’s about a fifty-fifty chance that we’d be shouted down by both of them.”

“How do they have the energy for anything when they’re arguing so much?” Leigh shook her head. “It looks exhausting.” 

 “They have a lot of excess energy,” Dylan said. They’ve been doing this since long before they ever even considered becoming mates. You should have seen them before they started having sex.”

“You know we can hear you,” Aira broke the thread of her argument to inform Dylan and Leigh alike. “And the reason we bicker is because Aiden won’t admit that he is stupid. Cute, sexy, and pretty effective when it comes to certain physical things, but stupid.”

“I am not stupid!” And the two of them were off once more, playfully and passionately arguing while Dylan basked in the restful energy flowing through him from Leigh.

CHAPTER FIVE

“OKAY,” AIRA SAID, REACHING THE bottom of the staircase. “We have some leads.” Dylan watched as Aiden came down behind her, looking serious—the way he associated with his older brother preparing mentally for a coming challenge. 

“What’s the story?” Dylan asked, reaching into the fridge and extracting a couple of beers. Leigh was seated at the kitchen bar, already nursing a beer; he handed one each off to his brother and sister-in-law as they settled themselves, looking grim.

“So at the safe house back in Nevada, we captured Aelwyd, Bridget, Tenchi, and Jared, along with their underlings. The more recent attacks, at least from what we’ve been able to find out, were masterminded by Seraphina, Aidan, Annaliese, and Hestia. Someone else grabbed Dharithri.” Aiden took a sip of his beer. “We know where Aidan and Hestia are—it’s finding Seraphina and Annaliese that will be the issue.” 

“From what I was able to find out, Hestia has a bunch of people under her,” Leigh said. “Not sure what Aidan’s status is.”

“Aidan’s grabbed some fire-aligned followers; most of them aren’t all that strong, but together they can be pretty major in terms of nuisance.” Aiden’s lips twisted and Dylan saw the flicker of uncertainty on his older brother’s features. “Seraphina… well, we’ll deal with her when we get that far.”

“I still think she’s going to try and bust Oriel out,” Aira said. “It makes too much sense not to do.”

“Would she even be able to do that?” Dylan glanced at Aira in surprise. “I mean, you can talk your way in, but it’s not like just anyone can.” Aira pressed her lips together firmly. 

“There are still some idiots among my element who think they can make things right by overthrowing me. They want someone else to be the ruler of the element.” Aira took a long drink of her beer. “I kind of want them to spend as long a time as possible in the cells if we can catch them.”

“So what’s our plan of attack?” Leigh asked, spinning the base of her beer on the countertop. 

“They’re hiding out in the mountains. We have some backup from a few bounty hunters I’ve been able to get in touch with, but this is mostly us.” Aiden picked at the label on his bottle and Dylan could feel the anxiety radiating from his older brother. “It’s not a big compound, but two of the most important members of the organization are in it. Neither Aidan nor Hestia is going to go down easily. I expect they’ll be much more prepared than the first group.”

“I know Hestia pretty well,” Leigh said. Dylan raised an eyebrow; she hadn’t mentioned that to him. “She almost joined my family—then backed off of the last moment.” 

“You hadn’t mentioned that,” Aira said, glancing at Dylan. Dylan shrugged. He wondered—not for the first time—if he really knew what he was getting into with the woman he had partially bonded with. Maybe Aira had had a point in her comment about how short a time he had known her. It was hard to imagine that it had only been about two weeks—less than a month— and that he had invested himself in her so fully.

“It wasn’t relevant until I was free to start asking questions,” Leigh pointed out. “I’m not friends with her or anything—I didn’t even really want her to marry my brother. But I know her pretty well after all that mess. She’s unstable.”

“Well,” Dylan said wryly, “deciding to attack a bunch of people to overthrow an elemental ruler would point to that.” 

Leigh shook her head. “No, seriously unstable. She was her parents’ pet growing up, so they never taught her any discipline. She doesn’t know how to manage her energy properly.”

“That gives her a vested interest in keeping Earth as the prime focus of power in the council,” Aiden said, taking another pull of his beer. “With Maralah calling all the shots, she keeps under the radar, maybe doesn’t go on trial.”

“Overshot that one, didn’t she?” Aira smiled wryly. Dylan chuckled.

“So she’s going to be a difficult opponent, but nothing we aren’t used to.” Dylan considered the situation. He and Aiden had tracked unstable elementals before—and so had Aira, once she had gained her title. 

“It’s more the people she has under her that are going to be the problem,” Leigh said. She bit her bottom lip. “My brother tells me she’s got powerful backing—money, resources. Aidan’s the stronger elemental, but without Hestia he’s dead in the water—no one wants to work with him.” “Aidan’s always been kind of an asshole,” Aiden agreed. “I’d be more concerned if he’d gone through with his family’s proposal to mate him to Seraphina, but Connor came out against it. I think he wanted Aidan for Oriel, though they can’t stand each other.”

“Oriel’s into Seraphina, isn’t she?” Aira smiled slightly. “They kind of fit in a weird way.”

“Yeah, they’re—frenemies, I guess you’d say. Oriel always had the power, Seraphina the ambition.”

“So how are we going after Hestia and Aidan, then?” Dylan asked. It was the central question they were all dancing around—the one that he couldn’t quite feel at ease about until he got a straight answer from his brother or his new sister.

“We’re going to need Leigh to find Hestia; Aidan will be with her. From there …” Aiden shrugged. “Like before, only more so.” Dylan looked at Aira.

“We’ll get to see Leigh in action; even if she can’t contribute much more than tracking help, I can’t imagine a better scenario,” Aira said. 

Leigh smiled and Dylan found himself smiling with her. He didn’t know her very well yet—but he had felt her energy. She had more to her than just tracking, he knew. He may not have an exact idea of what she could do—but Dylan was certain that she could do something rather spectacular.

“I’ll need some things,” Leigh said, glancing at Dylan. Dylan raised an eyebrow, silently asking. He had fallen into the role of supplier—of someone who got everything they needed. It was simply too risky for Aira to go out on her own and Aiden was useless when it came to finding things. “I’ll need good salt, jade, and oak branches.”

“I’ll need to be upstairs when this happens, then,” Aira said, smiling ruefully. 

Dylan nodded. “And as soon as we’re done with the materials we’ll get them out of the living room.” 

Aira hesitated a moment. Her great strength came with a price—she was more susceptible to the draining properties of earth-aligned materials than someone with a smaller degree of power. Being around earth magic could weaken her for hours.