Page 66 of The Lost Elemental

“Kai,” Atlas called, but he was already darting through the woods.

What the hell had just happened? I wrapped my arms around my middle, hugging myself tight. For the first time since I’d been brought into the guys’ fold, I felt cheap. The fact that it was so easy for Kai to bail the second I pushed back.

“Aura—”

“No.” I cut Atlas off, shaking my head to punctuate the point. “You don’t need to make excuses for him.”

“I wasn’t going to. But there are some things about Kai you don’t know. Things that make any kind of real intimacy difficult.” Atlas shot a look at Phoenix. “A little help here.”

Phoenix stared down at his hands. “Guys?”

There was something about his tone that made me pause. “What’s wrong?”

“Step back,” he ordered.

“Why?” Atlas demanded.

“Because my hunch that I wanted to test is right, but I think I was a little too right.”

I reached out for Phoenix, but he jerked back.

“I think you touching me would be a very bad idea right now.”

Atlas’s eyes widened and he pulled me away from Phoenix. “What do you need, man?”

“Space and maybe a fire extinguisher.”

Atlas released me and lifted his hands as if he had instantly understood Phoenix’s cryptic request. A moment later, dirt lifted into the air and swirled around Phoenix. “I’ve got you.”

Phoenix flipped his hands over and flames shot from his palms through the opening in the clearing and into the sky. The fire looked more like a volcanic eruption than anything else.

Phoenix’s chest heaved as he struggled to keep the power swirling inside him under control. Panic ripped through me, not at the fire but fear for Phoenix. “Help him!”

“He has to release it, or it could end him,” Atlas said, his hands weaving the dirt around Phoenix, readying himself for the worst.

End him. Combust. This was what Riven was talking about. This was what could happen to me. And I didn’t have one percent of the control Phoenix had.

Sweat broke out on his brow and his arms shook, but the flames showed no signs of stopping.

Fear clawed at my insides. “What did you tell me, Phee? Let the fire swallow you whole.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea with this one,” he panted.

“You are that fire,” I told him.

Phoenix shot a quick glance in my direction. “It’s you and me.”

“The kiss…” Atlas trailed off, unable to finish.

“Our magic really likes each other, Pip.”

Nausea swept through me. It was my haywire power that was causing this. I thought about what Kai and Atlas had said when affinities had gone wild in water and earth classes. I had to pull it back. Phoenix couldn’t do that without hurting himself, but I could.

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to picture fire within me. But I could picture that flow of energy, life force. I imagined a rainbow of colors, something happy and not at all threatening. I could feel it pulsing towards Phoenix as if the kiss had tied us.

Swallowing hard, I tried to slow the flow. But it wasn’t enough. Because Phoenix’s fuse had already been lit. I pictured the flow of colors halting and then reversing, pulling back to me.

“Aura,” Phoenix breathed.