Page 79 of The Lost Elemental

She flushed and I wanted to smack him. “Sure. I need to go back to the dorm and get ready for classes tomorrow.”

“I’ll be back in a couple hours,” I told her.

Kai grumbled something under his breath at that.

I shot him a look. “I will be. If I’m not getting booted out of this place by the bitch squad, then I need to do my homework, so I don’t flunk out.”

“We could help you study,” he pouted.

“Yeah. I’m sure you’d be real focused on the books.”

Atlas tried to hide a laugh with a cough.

Kai straightened. “Hey, I could be a great tutor.”

“Enough,” Phoenix barked.

“I’m gonna go.” Kerry skittered out the front door before her words were entirely out.

I glared at Phoenix. “Stop scaring the only friend I have in this place.”

“Hey, I’m your friend,” Kai quipped.

“You are a lot of things, Kai, but I’m not sure friend has ever been one of them.” I’d been too damn attracted to him from the moment we met.

The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Like ridiculously sexy and impossible to resist, right?”

I patted his chest. “I’m really worried about your ego.”

“Riven!” Phoenix bellowed.

All amusement fled me instantly. I felt the sudden urge to bolt and hide in another room. But I forced myself to stay put, to face whatever was to come.

There was no response at first. Then I heard the faint sound of a door opening and closing. Faint footfalls on the stairs. But I couldn’t make myself look up.

“What?” Riven asked.

The complete absence of emotion in his voice was what had me finally lifting my gaze. Riven was dressed again. Dark wash jeans that hugged his hips and skimmed his muscular thighs. A crisp button-down that looked as if it had been made exactly for his form. As I met glacier blue eyes, I swallowed hard.

“We need you, man,” Kai said.

Wariness instantly filled Riven’s expression.

Atlas wrapped an arm around me, pulling me into his side. With the contact, the worst of my anxiety, that on-edge feeling that always overtook me around Riven, subsided. Atlas inclined his head to me. “Drue and her cronies are trying to get Aura kicked out of school.”

Riven scoffed. “You called me down here for adolescent girl games?”

A muscle in Phoenix’s jaw ticked. “It’s not a game. If Aura gets kicked out, she’ll never learn to master her magic.”

“They’ll strip her before she leaves. She won’t be at risk of harming herself or anyone else.”

Phoenix glared at him. “You know that’s torture to an elemental. She doesn’t understand yet that it would be like killing a part of her soul.”

That blue heat flared in Riven’s eyes. “Better than getting one of you killed.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Kai shot back. “You know we can all take care of ourselves. How many times have we fought off assassins?”

Riven’s jaw hardened to granite. “This is different. She’ll bring death and destruction to all of us. It’s better if she’s cast out. Even if it destroys a piece of her.”