Forgotten Elements

“Thing?” Jade came to stand beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist in a half hug. If we weren’t busy dealing with this traitorous bastard, I would’ve taken the time to hug her and Ari, marveling they were both here.

“Then why the fuck did you attack me? Not once, you fucking prick, but twice.” His torn clothes were covered in dirt that was the same color as the canyon, confirming he’d been the one to attack me.

Too bad I hadn’t killed him back there.

He refused to look at me. Almost like he couldn’t face me, which pissed me off even more. If you were going to attack someone, own your shit. Not only was this annoying as hell, but his refusing to answer most of the questions was getting old. Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t the only one with thinning patience.

Ari patted his cheek hard enough to make a slapping sound and made him flinch. “Then why were you attacking her?

“If she dies, I get to live,” he gritted out.

A noisy sigh came from Jade. “Anyone else getting tired of these vague, unhelpful answers?”

Parker strode toward Heath and smacked him in the forehead. As his palm made contact, a burst of magic flowed into Heath’s forehead, and his eyes rolled back as his body jerked. His breaths were heavy as he attempted to shake off the aftereffects of the spell.

“Damn, that was kind of hot,” Jade whispered in my ear, her lips twitching at Koa’s low growl, having heard her comment. In truth, she hadn’t been wrong. There was something hot about Parker’s use of magic and even the barely concealed anger boiling under the surface.

Sheesh, I was more wound up than I thought if I was getting turned on by his anger.

“Try asking your questions again. He should be more willing to answer now,” Parker said as he moved away, not acknowledging Jade’s comment. My focus remained on him as he moved to a nearby tree and leaned his shoulder against it, crossing his arms.

“What did you mean by your previous answer? What’s this thing that’s killing the others?” Ari asked.

Heath’s face turned red as a jolt ran through his body, and a hiss slipped from his clenched teeth. Parker hadn’t cast a spell that compelled you to tell the truth as I first thought but instead used one that punished you if you refused to answer.

“I don’t know what the fuck that thing is. All I can say is, he was something else entirely and something you never want to meet.” His words were rushed and breathless, and I had a feeling that if he weren’t bound, he would’ve been doubled over. “He was going to kill me, but I made a deal with it. If I track down and incapacitate the others, he’ll let me live. But it turns out I’m not the only one he’s made a deal with.”

“Hold on,” Jade said, holding up a hand, her expression baffled. “He’s getting you dumb motherfuckers to do his dirty work? Did it ever occur to you that he was lying, and as soon as he gets what he wants, he’ll just kill you anyway?”

Heath didn’t respond, still seething, his body practically vibrating as he glared at Parker.

“How are you finding the others?” Koa asked, moving closer to stand behind Jade.

“The sorcerer was nowhere to be seen, so either he also turned traitor or they killed him and took the crystal he used to track them,” Reed said, rubbing his jaw as he paced, frustration painting his expression.

“I’m sorry, what?” I choked out. Parker had mentioned Fletcher remaining in the realm but not about him tracking us.

Reed shot me a grin, but it lacked any true humor. “The crystal with a map? It has a tracking spell. It’s how they know if you go off-path or interact with other participants. They don’t want you to ditch the crystal, so they don’t tell you.”

“I didn’t notice a tracking spell.”

“It takes a lot of skill, but it’s possible to do so without it giving off too much energy,” Parker confirmed.

Ari’s forehead creased as she considered Heath for a few seconds before she began searching his pockets, pulling out a tiny shard of a white crystal. Without looking away from Heath, she tossed it back to Wyatt.

He activated the crystal, and a holographic map of the realm appeared above it, but unlike mine, there wasn’t a marked-off path. There were tiny glowing dots—I assumed there were fifty-one—scattered around the mainland, and my stomach pitched at the invasion of privacy. I understood why they did it and why they didn’t tell us, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.

“It’s been broken.”

“Do you know how many pieces?” Reed asked, maintaining his pacing while keeping an eye on Heath.

Wyatt pursed his lips as he stared at the crystal. “Without knowing its original size, it’s hard to know the amount of pieces.”

Heath chuckled, but there was no warmth to it, and had a shudder working through my body. “There’s one less.”

“The fresh body in the canyon? He was a traitor like you?”

“Not anymore.” Heath’s gaze slid to me, and my body stiffened as he let out another dark laugh. There was something in his gaze and the way he laughed that had me wanting to get as far away from him as possible. “I guess you should be thanking me for saving you from him. He’d been following you, only I got to him first.”

My tenuous hold on the rage that had been building alongside my fear since I found the first body snapped. I lunged at him, slapping the shit out of his face and removing that stupid fucking smirk. Grabbing his shoulders for leverage, I kneed him in the balls. The binds held him in place, but the grunt and the pain shrouding his face told me he was hurting. Good. He deserved a shit ton more than that.

“You piece of fucking shit! You fucking coward.” As I cussed him out, I drove my knee into his balls several more times.

Before I could start punching him in the face, Ari grabbed my shoulder and spun me around to face her. “As much as I’d love nothing more than for you to take your anger out on him, we need him alive and able to speak. For now.”

“You’re right.” Pulling my focus away from his stupid face—I’d never be able to calm down otherwise—I took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds as I focused on the soft grass and dirt beneath my feet to steady myself.

There was no way I could remain close to this fucker without losing my temper again. My anger was far from being satiated. I could knee him in the balls twenty more times and still be far from satisfied.

I could’ve gone to stand next to Jade, but instead, I moved to stand beside Parker. Despite the tension holding his body, his lips twitched into a brief smirk as he glanced at me. “I love seeing your fire, especially when it’s not directed at me.”

“You love it when I’m annoyed with you,” I said, fighting a smile as I watched Ari return to her previous spot.

Before he could respond to my comment, most likely with some sort of innuendo, Ari resumed her interrogation as if I hadn’t interrupted it. “So, you incapacitate the others. How do you summon this thing? Is it with a rune, crystals, potions?”

The part of me that still raged and wanted to finish what I started was pleased with how he still appeared to be in pain. “I don’t. He somehow knows when the job is done and appears. I don’t know where he comes from or how he kills them. As soon as he appears, I leave so he can do his thing.”

“Do his thing?” The casual way he described giving over his fellow elementals to be killed had my anger spiking. I would’ve lunged for him again if Parker hadn’t wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against his side.

“Whoa there, Firecracker. You can kill him after we get all of our information,” Parker murmured in my ear.

“He doesn’t need to be able to stand to tell us what we want to know,” I muttered, but I didn’t fight his hold.

Parker chuckled as his fingers lightly trailed over my rib cage. I still felt the overwhelming urge to punch Heath, but it was no longer the only thing I felt. Over the past couple of weeks, I’d forgotten how intoxicating it was to be in Parker’s presence, to have him touching me, even if it was a chaste touch.

“He could be watching him somehow,” Koa reasoned, stroking his chin, and I realized I missed part of the conversation.

“Doubtful. Wouldn’t he have interfered by now?” Despite her words, Jade still glanced around as if she’d find him in the trees watching us.

Wyatt moved closer to Heath, having hung back the entire time. His steps were casual as were his hand gestures. A green glow formed in his palms, filling the air with an electric and buzzing energy. “Step back,” he said to Ari, and she moved away a few feet. He released the ball of magic that spread over Heath’s body, stopping in the center of his chest.

Ari reclaimed the distance between them and tore his shirt down the middle, exposing his chest. The glowing magic formed a rune covering Heath’s chest. Based on how his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head as he stared down at it, he hadn’t known it was there.

Parker’s eyes narrowed, his hand stilling on my side as he stared at the unfamiliar and jumbled rune.

“Do you see what I see?” Wyatt’s voice was soft, his focus never straying from the massive rune.

“Yes,” Parker murmured. “He’s lucky it hasn’t killed him or driven him insane yet.”

Jade let out a noisy sigh, letting us know she was only seconds from going off on them. Wyatt must’ve realized this since he turned his attention to the rest of us. “Whoever made this rune doesn’t know what they’re doing and could’ve easily killed him.”

“Wait, so our badass, scary monster is untrained?” Jade asked, raising her hand as she shared a look with me.

“Untrained in rune magic, but don’t let that placate you or begin underestimating him.”

“What does this rune even do?” I asked, my breath hitching when Parker resumed tracing my side.

“It’s difficult to know their true intentions,” Parker whispered in my ear but was still loud enough for everyone to hear. “He’s bastardized and combined several into one, making it near impossible to read.”

“He’s lucky to be alive and unharmed,” Wyatt muttered, wiping his hands down his face. “From what I can tell, he’s created the rune with the intent to be able to sense if someone is close to death—or something close to that. There’s also a tracking rune jumbled in there so he can find you wherever you are.”

Just as Wyatt leaned closer, trying to decipher the cluttered rune, Heath squeezed his eyes shut as his mouth opened on a wordless cry. My gaze snapped up to Parker, wondering if this was part of his spell, but he shook his head.

“It’s not me, it’s the rune.”

“Get back!” Wyatt yelled, throwing up a translucent shield between us and Heath as we moved away.

Panic and agony filled Heath’s expression as the rune pulsed and veins of black energy began spiderwebbing out of the rune, running up his neck and down his arms. Within seconds, the veins covered his face and hands, filling the air with pulsating energy.

The glowing light of the rune and veins began pulsing in time with the energy as it grew stronger. We continued backing up, keeping our focus on Heath and that damn rune, having no clue what the fuck was happening. All I knew was that if Wyatt was worried, some serious shit was about to go down.