The instrumentwasvaluable. But not so valuable that someone would risk jail time for it. His fingers started to tingle as he itched to pick up the guitar and play a few chords. He was rubbish at stringing them together to make actual music, but the act of trying? It calmed him. Almost as much as sculpting. Or working with the sand.
The Doolin House Pub was overflowing on a Friday night, and Eli didn’t feel like dealing with all the people to find himself a pint—or any food—so he returned to the beach and sank down onto the rocks far from the water line.
“You’re a fucking coward,” he muttered, unsure why he’d run in the first place.
Because they accused you of being an elemental. And hiding it.
Why did he care what they accused him of? He wasn’t even sure what an elemental was beyond Mara’s ability to conjure fire and water out of nothing. And the way Caitlin had forced him back against the hearth with what? Air?
They’d called him earth. He loved working with his hands. With stone. Sand. Anything that came from the earth. But…that didn’t make him an elemental. That made him a sculptor.
Eli flattened his palms against the rocks, letting their cool jagged edges soothe him. If he were home in London, he’d be at his studio this very moment, working until his muscles gave out. Until he had nothing left to give.
Under his hands, he imagined a great silver wolf taking shape.
“Blast it! Stop thinking about her.”
Farren was a distraction he didn’t need. Didn’t want. It was too late to drive back to London tonight, but first thing in the morning he’d leave. Despite wanting a drink like he’d never wanted one before, he wouldn’t touch a sip because he couldn’t let anything delay his departure.
Rising, he sucked in a sharp breath as his hands seemed to be fused to the rocks. With a shout, he wrenched them away, and pain arced from his palms halfway up his arms. Pieces of stone fell away in an intricate pattern, and Eli staggered back.
He’d done the impossible. He’d created the wolf he couldn’t drive from his thoughts. Farren. Almost as majestic in rock as she was in real life.
A tremor shook the sand beneath him, and he steadied himself by stroking the wolf’s head. He didn’t know why he felt such a connection to Farren. She’d brought him to a house where at least two other wolves wanted to kill him. If not more. But he still wanted to see her again. To explain that hewasn’tan elemental. Had never been one.
“There he is,” a hushed voice said into the darkness all around him. “Secure him now. Before he can fight back.”
Eli didn’t understand why the voice wanted to secure him, but hewasbloody certain he didn’t want to be secured by anyone. Except maybe Farren.
Whirling around, he found himself face to face with a man and a woman. Both wore long dark cloaks, and the woman’s light brown hair stirred in the wind. He couldn’t clearly see their faces, only the slight form of the woman on the left and the bulk of the man on the right.
“What do you want?” he asked, taking a step back.
“You, of course. We need an earth elemental now that Tharp and his little bitch failed in their task,” the woman said. Her voice held a thick Scottish accent, and a chill ran down Eli’s spine.
“I’m not an elemental.”
Stall. Someone has to come out of Doolin House soon.
But in his heart, Eli knew… No one would come to save him. He wasn’t the kind of man people saved. No, he was the kind of man everyone else forgot about.
“Your powers may be bound, but you are an elemental just the same.” This from the man. He whispered a few words in a language Eli couldn’t understand, and lightning—red lightning—shot from the man’s fingers.
Eli could only watch it as it landed squarely in the center of his chest, and the pain. Oh, fuck. He’d never experienced pain like this before. The power was eating its way through him from the inside out, and his arms and legs wouldn’t respond to his commands to run. To fight. To do anything.
When he thought he could take no more, he screamed, and the reddish streaks of what?—magic? energy?—flowed out of his hands, his feet, his eyes, ears, and mouth. The scream didn’t sound like him, but the pain in his throat told him it had to be his.
Is this how I’m to die?
The man and woman approached slowly, and the power coursing through his body intensified. Flaming hot and icy cold, winding around his bones. Pressure threatened to crush him, and he couldn’t breathe.
Help. Someone help!
They were almost close enough to touch him now, and when they did? Would he die? Or worse?
“He’s been with them all!” the woman hissed. “Air, Water, and Fire! Secure him, Monroe! He can tell us where the others are. Help us find them, despite that traitorous bitch’s handiwork.”
“What do you think I am trying to do? His power is bound, and it’s resisting me, Glenna.”
