Elementally Priceless (12 page)

What I didn’t count on was Rylee, or her fierce loyalty. Though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Elle had been the same way. Trackers, for all their foul mouths, were as loyal as they came.

“You nasty fuckers, you can’t take Lark!” She fought to get in front of me, placing herself between me and them, the sword held up over her head, the blade glinting in the bright sunlight.

My father, King Ghobe, gave Rylee a nod. “I hear you, Blood of the Lost, but she has brought this on herself.”

Rylee shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. She was in the right. Where were you asshats when a kid needed to be saved?”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t. Just don’t. You can’t save me from this.”

Her shoulder tensed and her muscles bunched as the wind elemental drew close. Without warning, she leapt, using the momentum of the storm they’d stirred and slashed out at the elemental. She caught him below his left knee, taking his leg.

The wind died and the elemental dropped to the ground, writhing in pain as blood pumped out of him. Shit, the weapon I’d given her was stronger than I realized if it could actually damage an elemental. My father went to his companion’s side and laid a hand on him, healing the wound. Or at least, closing it off.

“Larkspur, you are creating things you shouldn’t… again.” His eyes lifted to mine and again, I wilted. If he’d been angry, or raging, I could deal. But disappointment was the worst thing he could have offered me.

“She needs the sword. You know who she is,” I said softly, keeping a hand on Jonathan.

He strode forward, flicked his hand, and the earth swallowed Rylee in a gulp, right to her chin. “That as it may be,” he ignored her yelling at him, “she doesn’t need it right now. She doesn’t have the control; she has yet to face the trial that will ready her to be able to use it properly.”

Hellfire, he was right, but I didn’t like it; I changed the subject. “And the boy needs to be somewhere safe.”

“Already taken care of. The Sylphs, and Samara will protect him. They will train him.” He motioned toward the fallen elemental. “Channing will take him to his new home.”

Channing, the first elemental I’d ever known with a deformity (and even though I’d seen it happen, I was still stunned), stood and used the air to buffer himself.

“I should kill that human for this,” he snarled, waving at his missing leg.

It was my turn to stand in. I put myself between Channing and Rylee. “You really want to see which one of us is stronger? It’s out of respect for my father that I haven’t leveled you. 
Channing
.” I couldn’t help the smirk on my face. No doubt he thought he could pass off ‘Channing’ as his given name and not some name he’d chosen in hopes of impressing ladies. What a douche.

His face slowly darkened and he lifted his hands. Seriously, he was going to pick a fight in front of my father? That was an air elemental for you.

But I welcomed it. I wanted to throw his ass into the ground and beat the smug superiority out of him. He flexed his fingers and the wind picked up again.

Oh yeah, now we were talking.

“Jonathan, get back.”

He pulled the dragon scale book out of my shoulder pack and ran to crouch beside Rylee where she had fought her way almost out of the earth, her arms and chest free of the hot sand. That in itself was impressive. “Kick his ass, Lark,” she growled.

“Oh, I plan to.”

Except, I should have taken into account that my father was standing right there. As good as I was, my father was more experienced and he knew how to stop me. My legs were incased in stone in a matter of seconds, and I never saw it coming. The material grew and wrapped around my entire lower body before the top burst into vines that wrapped my arms tightly and stopped me from moving.

“Larkspur. For breaking your conditions, you will be placed in an oubliette for an unknown quantity of time.” Again, the sorrow was heavy in his voice, but this time it just pissed me off.

“You know I did the right thing!” I yelled at him, fighting the bonds around me, but the Earth ignored me for my father.

This must happen, child. You are nor forsaken.
 The mother goddess whispered through my mind but it didn’t soften what was about to happen.

He was king, even if I was stronger than him. I’d forfeited my rights to take the throne and once again, I was paying the consequences.

“Right is not the question. You have disobeyed me. For the last time.” Now there was a bite to his words and it flared my own anger.

“Right 
is
 the question! This world would be in a better place if the elementals got off their asses and—” The rest of my words were choked off as the vine curled around my neck and mouth. I rolled my eyes to Rylee, saw the anger in her, the desire to strike out. I bit through the vines. “Find me, Rylee.”

And then the ground opened and took me.

Rylee

“YOU CAN’T DO
 this,” I snarled, pulling myself the rest of the way out of the dirt and lifting my sword as the ground gave a final burp and Lark completely disappeared. Her words rang in my ears, settled into my bones. I would find her. I would Track her and get her out of whatever the hell the oubliette was.

Her father eyed me. “You have to leave now, Blood of the Lost. It is not your time.” He flicked his hand at me and the sword leapt from my fingers and raced toward him. He took it and tucked it to disappear under his shirt.

“What the hell?” I stood stunned at how fast things were going downhill.

“I will take the child as well. You can be assured he will be safe. He is no more human than you and does not belong in their world.”

“His parents are looking for him. They deserve closure.”

The elemental shook his head. “No, his parents are long dead, his foster parents are the ones he was taken from. They will not miss him seeing as they were trying to sell him.” My jaw dropped with that little revelation, as the elemental continued to stare at me. ‘’There are many forces that would use this child and his abilities. We must keep him as neutral as possible, unlike the Shadow Walker and others who would try to bend him to their will.”

It hit me that Caleb was likely one of those the elemental was talking about. In my gut, I knew he’d been using me to find Jonathan and I’d fallen for it. Probably for that fucking vampire he’d mentioned. Even so, that didn’t mean the kid had to go with the elemental, no matter how close I’d come to being the siren’s lackey.

Lark’s father started toward us, and I pushed Jonathan back, but he resisted.

“It’s okay, Rylee. I will go with them. I’ll see you again.” The kid stepped around me and walked toward the elementals. The one I’d cut the leg off scooped up Jonathan and was in the air before I could say or do anything.

And then it was just me and Lark’s father, the King.

“You shouldn’t punish her; she saved us both, you know.”

He let out a heavy sigh, his beard trembling. “She has the heart of a lion, but it is not for elementals to interfere. I have been lenient with her in the past because of the pain she’s been through. But I can’t afford to be lenient any longer.”

“She shouldn’t be punished.” I knew I sounded like a broken record, but nothing I could say would bring her back. I knew it and it already ate at me.

“One day, perhaps things will be different. But for now, this is how it must be. Go home, Tracker, Blood of the Lost, savior of the world. Go home and forget you were ever here, that you ever met Lark. That you ever heard of elementals.”

His words bounced around in my head like metal ping pongs and I dropped to my knees, the words slamming into my brain. My composure shattered as the pain spiked, driving deep into me, and I fought to keep at least something of Lark with me.

“I will find you,” I whispered. My knees ached, and I slowly lifted my head and lowered my hands from ears. Who was I supposed to find?

A small plant caught my eye, struggling to grow in the desert, though how it grew at all in Death Valley in that heat was beyond me. A deep, indigo blue stalk of flowers beckoned to me. In the center of each flower rested a pale splash that resembled a splotch of paint. I reached over and plucked one of the flowers from the stalk, the dainty petals drooped but it was still alive.

I frowned at it. I didn’t know flowers, or plants for that matter, but I knew what this was. “Larkspur.”

The name sunk into me and I tucked the flower behind one ear. “Larkspur.”

All around me was desert, but in the distance the sound of vehicles beckoned. How did I end up in Death Valley? I knew I’d come here for a reason, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Was I going crazy?

Again, I put a hand to my head and let out a slow breath, trying to force my brain to tell me what I was missing. Only thing was, I couldn’t recall the last day at all. I’d come to Las Vegas, looking for a kid… the image of the missing child poster hit me hard and I Tracked Jonathan.

Nothing.

Like he never existed.

My shoulders slumped and I fought tears that welled up in me. I’d lost the kid. Giselle was right, I wasn’t ready to be out on my own.

Putting one foot in front of the other, I started toward where I heard vehicles. The heat seared the tears from my face as I trudged along the barren landscape.

But no matter how hard I tried to pull up the events of the last day, I got nothing. The last thing I remembered was walking down the Vegas strip with Caleb, Tracking Jonathan… after that, nothing. Damn it, what happened to me?

Finding a ride into Vegas was easy enough and I headed straight for the parking lot where we left Caleb’s motorbike. With the way my luck had been turning, I didn’t expect it to be there.

The bike, miraculously, was still there and I had an hour before the parking time was up on it. Of course, I vaguely recalled that Caleb paid something ridiculous like a full day. So had I been gone twenty four hours? I shook my head. No time to think about it, I had an hour to find Caleb.

I Tracked him, and like Jonathan, got nothing back. What the fuck was going on?

I started toward the historical Freemont Street. Maybe the ogre I’d met could fill me in. I found him on his break and when he saw me, the big blue dude scooped me up into a bear hug like I was a long lost friend. “Rylee, how did it go?”

As he set me down, I stared up at him. He really was nothing like what I’d been told ogres could be. “I was hoping you could help me. You hear anything in the pipeline about weird things happening?”

He tugged me out of the crowd that surged around us. “Heard something went down around Caesar’s Palace. Something with a siren and an elemental. Wouldn’t have anything to do with you? Siren was supposed to be a good looking guy helping out a Tracker.”

My jaw dropped. Caleb was a siren? “What happened to the siren?”

“Elemental wiped the floor with him. Of course, that’s just the rumor.”

Blinking, I tried to put the pieces together in my head, but even hearing them and knowing I was probably right there when it happened, I couldn’t remember a single fucking thing. Damn it.

I stayed with Dox for the hour remaining on the parking space, let his good nature and quick jokes soothe the raging frustration flowing in my veins. Not remembering things pissed me off to no end, and worse, I felt like I’d not only let the kid down, but someone else too. Someone who needed me.

“Larkspur,” I whispered, fingering the flower tucked behind my ear. Somehow it all came down to that damn flower. But how could a flower help me understand what I was missing?

It couldn’t, and that was the worst part. Reluctantly, I left Dox with a promise to visit him again.

“Rylee, you got enough money to get home?”

I shrugged and turned away, but he grabbed my arm. “Here, take my tips. They should get you most of the way back.” With a wink he slipped a wad of bills into my hand and then turned back to his customers.

Squeezing the money in my hand, I knew I’d found a good friend. I only hoped I would get the chance to make good on my promise and see him again.

That would be if Giselle didn’t kill me for doing exactly what she didn’t want me to—go on a salvage on my own, and royally screw it up. Sighing, I hopped on the bike and slid my helmet over my head.