Page 5 of Bound By Earth (The Nature Hunters Academy 1)

The sylph shrieked, incensed as its quarry bolted. It made a motion toward the girl as if to follow, but then it turned toward Jax, its red eyes ablaze. He had to cover his ears with his hands to block out the sound coming from the tiny monster. Generally, wind elementals didn’t have many weapons that would hurt him. Sure, enough wind could lift his giant frame. But sylph were rarely that strong. Some of the giant cloud monsters were capable, but not the sylph. Instead, they used something even more terrifying. Their voices. The sylph could alter the atmosphere to create extremely high-powered, high-frequency soundwaves capable of incapacitating humans and other elementals alike. The sylph were living sonicweapons.

There was no sense hiding. The thing had already seen him. It swooped toward Jax, screaming as it came. Now, he got a great look at the tiny monster’s razor-like little teeth. They were beautiful—the sylph—until they weren’t. The creature’s mouth was wide open as itbellowed.

Jax fell from a crouch to his knees, hands pressed hard against the sides of his head. The sylph came closer, its deadly wail continuing. Jax fell forward, disorientated, or so he would have the little creature believe. He had to take his hands from his ears as he fell to all fours. The sylph knew she had him. She flew in close, producing a curved blade. It looked like merely a toy to Jax in the hands of the tiny monster. Still, given the proper enchantments, the blade might even pierce his rock-hard hide.And he would be powerless to defend himself, incapacitated as he was by the elemental’s persistent debilitatingwail.

The sylph raised the knife. Jax smiled and turned his head just enough so the wind spirit could see the yellow plug in his ear. He didn’t have to do this. Zuri constantly chided him as childish for the way he toyed with his kills. But Jax couldn’t help himself. The dark elementals deserved the punishment they received. If he took a little too much pleasure in dishing out that punishment … well, he had reason to relish in their suffering. Jax grinned wider as he saw the realization dawn on the monster’s face. In a flash, it turned to flee, but too late. Jax threw his hand up, releasing the small net he’d been holding. It enveloped the sylph, tangling itself in its wings, immediately bringing the monster to theground.

The net was a thing of beauty. Delicate gossamer strands of thin iron wire, intricately woven together to create a lightweight but exceptionally strong mesh trap. The sylph’s screams turned from sonic attacks to wails of pain as the iron burned into its skin. Iron, mined from deep underground, is the life force of the earth. Like all dark elementals—beings of death and destruction—the sylph couldn’t abide the element of iron, so closely associated with the life of MotherGaia.

Jax rose and went to the creature thrashing on the ground. The danger averted, he removed the earplugs. The sylph’s wails were pitiful. It cried and whimpered, all of its power drained away by the leeching magic of the iron netting. Jax almost felt sorry for the creature. But he didn’t. Not at all.Damn flying banshee.He raised a boot and brought it straight down upon the sylph’s head, sighing a contented exhale with the resulting crunch of the monster’s little skull. One more down, thousands more togo.

“Oh,my gosh. Did you feel that earthquake?” asked Shelly as Tara burst from the woods and ran to thecampsite.

“Uh, yeah,” she replied. “How could I have missed it? It almost knocked medown.”

“We’re packing up and going home. Dad’s afraid that might have been some kind of precursor to the big one. He doesn’t want a tree to fall on our tents in the middle of thenight.”

Tara turned back toward the forest. She felt something, but she couldn’t accurately describe what it was. It was a feeling of peace, as if a light had been turned on somewhere. No, that wasn’t it. It was more like … a globe of darkness had been removed. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said. “Earthquakes aren’t exactly common. I’m sure it was a one-timething.”

“Try telling him that. We were just about to come looking foryou.”

“Chop, chop, girls,” said Mr. Smith as he hoisted an ice chest into the back of their family’s SUV. “Let’s get this car loaded pronto. We’re in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, after all. The next one might be the bigone.”

“Dad, seriously, I think it’s fine. It’s Kentucky, not Los Angeles. We’re not going to get crushed by a fallingtree.”

“You didn’t even want to come,” Tarasaid.

“But now I want s’mores,” Shellywhined.

“You can have s’mores in the fireplace at home,” said Mr. Smith. “Get in thecar.”

Chapter 3

Two years after theaccident.

Tara staredat her locker in shock and a little bit of horror because people were beginning to notice, and she hated few things more than being noticed. And Shelly knew this better than anyone. So why her self-proclaimed BFF had gone and decorated Tara’s locker for her fifteenth birthday was a mystery. There were balloons, a sign, and a huge bow as well. She was afraid to open her locker, scared that Shelly had somehow rigged it to explode with confetti orsomething.

“Are you just going to stare at it, or are you going to open it and see what’s inside?” Shelly’s voice came from behindher.

Tara closed her eyes and forced herself to count to ten. She didn’t want to yell at Shelly because she knew her friend meant well. Shelly always meant well even if what she said or did was annoying as hell. Over the past two years, she’d pushed her way into Tara’s life with an unapologetic, relentless fervor that had exhausted Tara. She’d finally quit trying to push Shelly away. That didn’t mean there weren’t times when Tara had to take temporary breaks from thegirl.

“Shelly, I need you to go away for a little bit,” Tara said in a calmvoice.

“Oh dear,” Shelly said dryly. “Did I poke the grumpy bear a little toohard?”

“I’m just peopled out, and you are like ten people stuffed into one skinnybody.”

“School just started,” Shelly pointed out. “How in the world can you be peopled out already? And I’ve only been talking to you for less than twominutes.”

“You wore me out when I had to think about dealing with you this morning,” Tarasaid.

With her usual resilience and unwavering ability to ignore Tara’s less-than-kind words, Shelly said, “Whatever. You love me, you impudent Jezebel. Now open the locker. Nothing is going to jump out at you. I’ll see you atlunch.”

“You do realize that calling me an impudent Jezebel is not any better than calling me a bitch, right?” Tara asked. Sometime in the past year Shelly had gotten it in her head that using profanity made her sound uneducated. She said anyone could fly off at the mouth with “damn” or “bitch,” but it took real brains to use words that a lot of people didn’t understand or to come up with your own material. Needless to say, Tara had learned many new words and discovered that Shelly was indeed quitecreative.

“Contract the muscles of your lips and mouth and make a vacuum around circular objects that bounce,” Shelly called out over hershoulder.

Tara rolled her eyes. “You could just say suckballs.”

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