Page 24 of Sealed By Fire (The Nature Hunters Academy 2)

“She was just a human,” Elias said. “Not like you. You’re special. We can’t lose you. Come with us, brother.”

Something wasn’t right. Elias would never say anyone was expendable, normal human or not. He wasn’t that callus. Not to mention, Shelly was his soul bonded’s best friend. “How would Tara feel about you coming back and telling her that Shelly is dead?”

Elias’s eyes narrowed on him. “Tara? Who the hell is Tara?”

“I told you he’s been here too long,” Liam said. “He’s already lost his damn mind.”

Ra realized he’d allowed his bow to lower when he’d seen his friends. In a flash, it was once again up, with both arrows pointed at the three beings who held his friends’ forms. He realized what was wrong. There was no way for Elias, Liam, or Aston to be in the underworld, no matter how real they seemed. He was being tricked again. Ra was beginning to notice a pattern. A new level, a new trick.

“Dude, why are you pointing that at us?” Liam asked.

“Show your true selves,” Ra growled. Everything inside of him told him they were here to help him, but he knew it was a lie. He couldn’t trust his emotions. He had to focus on the truths he knew.

“What are you talking about?” Aston asked. “You know it’s us, Ra. Who else would be able to figure out a way into the underworld besides me?”

This made Ra pause. Aston was one of the smartest and most studied people he knew. It was true that if anyonehadfigured out a way into hell and a way to survive, then it would be him. Maybe they’d been given a spell like Shelly.

“Who helped you get here?” Ra asked.

“We didn’t need help,” Elias answered. “Aston did it all on his own.”

Ra narrowed his eyes. “Was your girlfriend upset when you told her you were going into the underworld?”

Aston smiled. “Yeah, but she also said it was hot.”

Liam laughed. “Get it? Hot. Because it’s the underworld.”

“It’s not funny if you have to explain it, you git,” Elias said.

The three chuckled as they looked back at Ra. He shook his head slowly and moved the arrows to point at Aston. “There’s just one problem. You don’t have a girlfriend.”

The smile on the three males' faces dropped at the same moment, and Ra released the arrows. The demons saw them coming and ducked with inhuman speed. Ra threw the bow back over his shoulder and pulled his blades. He’d sparred with all three of them many times. But would these demons use the same tactics as his friends typically did?

“You do realize you’re wasting time, right?” Liam asked.

Ra knew he needed to stop thinking of them as his best friends because it would make it harder to do what he needed to. He had to see past their exterior shells. Inside the bodies that looked like his brothers were actually demons. They were imposters, and they had one purpose: to destroy him.

“He’s right, Ra,” Elias added as he drew his own sword from the sheath on his back. “We need to be getting you out of here, not playing around.”

“The longer we stay down here, the lower our statistics become that we will ever escape,” Aston said.

He was the most difficult to ignore. He seemed so rational, just like the real Aston. It made Ra second guess himself, which almost cost him a gut wound as Liam lunged forward, having picked up on Ra’s distracted state.

He jumped back and blocked the blow with the blade in his right hand. He quickly brought his dagger around, nearly contacting Liam’s right arm.

“Oh, snap, guys,” Liam laughed. “He’s playing for keeps.”

“Dammit, Ra,” Elias growled. “Quit fighting us and get real.”

Ra pressed his lips tightly together to keep from verbally engaging his foe. It’s what they wanted him to do. Talking would just serve as another way to distract him, and he was having a hard enough time as it was.

“Okay, listen,” Liam said as he danced around Ra, attempting to get behind him. Ra shifted his feet, keeping all three in front of him. “Do you remember the first summer we spent hanging out? Remember how we kept sneaking through portals trying to evade Jax and Zuri?”

Elias laughed. “If Zuri had caught us, she would have fried us.”

Ra did remember and felt the pain in his chest at having the demons before him telling him about memories that meant so much to him. He didn’t want them tainting those memories with their evil.

“Remember when you showed us the River Styx for the first time, and Liam nearly drowned?” Aston asked. “I thought for sure the idiot was a goner.”

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