Page 66 of Bound By Earth (The Nature Hunters Academy 1)

“Speak of the devil,” said Elias. “We were just talking about you,Ra.”

“All good I hope.” A young man with dark features stepped forward and shook Elias’s hand. His movements were purposeful, as if he never even shifted without having planned it first. His voice was deep, and he talked with a distinct cadence that Elias assumed was normal for the Egyptian people. He turned to the other man standing next to him. Ra was tall, but this man dwarfed him. If Elias didn’t know he was a professor at Crimson Academy, he would have assumed he was a professional basketball player. He was tan skinned with dark hair as well, but not as dark as Ra’s black locks. His almond-shaped eyes seemed to take in everything around him with a glance. His nose was long and straight, and his mouth a thin line. “Professor Fernis, this is EliasCreed, of Terra Academy,” Ra said with a small indication of hishead.

“Pleased,” said Professor Fernis, extending a long, slender-fingered hand. His voice was smooth like liquidmercury.

“Likewise,” saidElias.

“Jax,” said the professor, nodding to Jax. “Long time nosee.”

Jax returned the nod. “Frederick. I trust you’ve been keeping well.” The contrast between the two men was striking. Professor Fernis was slender and suave, with a quiet intensity burning behind his eyes that was almost a tangible thing. He wore dark slacks, a red vest with gilded buttons covering a white button-up shirt, and a long peacoat. Belted to his side was a slender rapier. Jax, with his giant muscles, shaved head, army fatigues, and pistol at his side, looked as if he was about to lead a company of army rangers to war. Ra and Elias both wore simple jeans and t-shirts.

“Always,” answeredFernis.

A minute later, there was a sudden blast of wind. Seemingly out of nowhere, two figures stepped into existence. Closest to Elias was he and Ra’s good friend, Aston Spence. At six foot, he was the shortest of the four best friends. He was also the smartest of the bunch. Aston was their resident techy. He could hold his own in a battle but preferred to be behind the screen of a computer hacking into files that not even top government officials could get into. Next to him was a man about three inches shorter and ten inches wider. He wasn’t fat. he was just built like a brickouthouse.

“Elias, Ra,” Aston said and then motioned to the man next to him. “This is Professor DawsonHart.”

Professor Hart gave a slight bow of hishead.

“Nice to meet you, Professor,” Elias said and then introduced him to the others. “It shouldn’t be long now,” Elias started but was cut off by a loud whooshingsound.

Twenty feet away, the sky opened up, and rain suddenly pounded to the ground, and with it, two people dropped to the surface of theearth.

“It never gets old seeing you do that, Liam,” Elias said as he walked over to his friend from the HydroAcademy.

“I do love making an entrance,” Liam said with a wide grin and deep dimples. He shook Elias’s hand and gave him a quick hug. Aston and Ra came over, and Liam greeted them the same away. Then Liam turned to the woman standing next to him. She was average height with shoulder-length brown hair and shrewd blue eyes that took in each of them in quick successive evaluations. “This is Professor BeatrixWarren.”

Elias and the others introduced themselves, and, once they were all acquainted, Jax gathered the group's attention with his raisedhand.

“I appreciate you all coming when Elias contacted you. It shows me how much you all trust one another to simply drop whatever you had going on and travel across the world to meet us. As I’m sure your own headmasters and headmistresses have been doing, we’ve been monitoring the movement of the dark elementals and their acolytes closely for the past few years because it seems their standard operating procedures have beenchanging.”

“It’s indeed concerning,” Professor Warren said as she crossed her arms in front of her. “They’ve never worked togetherbefore.”

Jax nodded. “So, you’ve seen it, too. Acolytes of differing elemental attunements have begun workingtogether.”

Professors Hart and Fernis both nodded theiragreement.

“The last Mark I checked on,” Professor Hart said, “was being shadowed by a water acolyteandan airacolyte.”

Jax glanced at Elias. Elias could see in his mentor’s eyes that the problem was more widespread than hethought.

“This might take longer than I anticipated,” Jax said. “If they’re working together, then we need to stick together as well. We should try and visit as many of our Marks as we can across the globe and find out how many of them, and which ones, are being tailed byacolytes.”

“Once we gather this information,” Professor Warren said, “whatthen?”

“Then we take it back to our respective headmasters and headmistresses and determine when to tell the kings and queens of the elemental kingdoms,” Jax answered. “It will be up to them on how we respond to the new threat. For now, we need to get as much information for them as wecan.”

Elias looked at each of the friends he considered brothers. He could tell by the seriousness in their returned stares that they understood the magnitude of the fact that their four academies were willing to work together in this matter. It was a testimony to just how dangerous the situationwas.

“Let’s do this,” Elias said as he turned back to Jax and motioned for his mentor to open the portal to take them to their first Mark. He bit down on the inside of his cheek as he walked toward the opening portal. It was taking him even farther from Tara. He knew because everything inside of him was screaming at him to turn around, to go back to her. Going against his instincts was like having salt poured on an open wound. He ground his teeth together and forced himself to focus on the task at hand. Once they got where they were going, he’d send Tara a text and hopefully hear back from her quickly. By the side looks he was getting from Ra, Liam, and Aston, they knew something was up. It wouldn’t be long before they were cornering him and forcing him to tell them what was going on. Then again, he thought, as his magic stretched inside of him, apparently attempting to seek out its mate, they probably wouldn’t have to wait long before he had a mental break and blurted it all out. Wouldn’t that be dignifying? “Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath as he pulled a blade from the scabbard on his back and swung it in a small arc. He rolled his neck as he prepared to walk through the portal, knowing he needed to be ready to face any threat they might accidentally stumble upon. He took a deep breath and let it out as he followed his brothers through the portal, right behind the professors who had joinedthem.

“Don’t look so grim, E,” Liam said as they crossed through. “Worst case scenario, we die a warrior's death in battle and our respective academies immortalize us insong.”

Elias shook his head. “Because nothing says, ‘I love you’ like a good old battlehymn.”

“Exactly,” Liam said and pounded his chest with a fist before pointing at Elias. “You get me, E. You totally get me. I swear we’resoulmates.”

“Don’t start that shite again,” Eliasgrowled.

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