Page 66 of Sealed By Fire (The Nature Hunters Academy 2)

Tara was about to respond, but Elias was suddenly there, pushing her back against the door, taking her lips with his.

“Yep,” she heard Gabby say. “I need one of those acquaintances.”

When Elias pulled back enough that their lips were barely touching, Tara was breathing hard. “Miss me?” she asked with a laugh.

“Nah,” Elias said. “We’re just acquaintances, remember? I just felt like kissing you.”

“You go around kissing all your acquaintances?” Tara asked.

“If you do, I’m Gabby, you’re whoever the heck you are, and now we’re acquainted. Just saying.”

Elias looked at the redhead and then back to Tara. Tara bit her lip to keep from laughing at his annoyed look. “Who’s the stray?”

“Be nice,” Tara growled.

“I don’t have to be nice to anyone who gets to be around you when I don’t.”

Tara pushed at his chest, and he stepped back, not because she was strong enough to make him but because he was humoring her. “Gabby, this is Elias.” She pointed at her soul bonded. “Elias, this is Gabby. She’s my new friend, and you need to be nice to her.”

“And by nice, she means you can kiss me like that.” She pointed to the door he’d just had Tara pressed against.

Tara coughed at Elias’s glare. “Sorry,” he growled. “Only Tara gets that.”

Gabby looked at Tara and narrowed her eyes. “Did I just hit on your boyfriend?”

Tara nodded.

“And you’re not jealous? Dude, I’d cut a chick for saying what I just did.” Gabby looked completely serious.

Tara could feel Elias’s desire for her. When he’d kissed her, it had set Tara’s insides on fire and burned up all her drunk butterflies. She hadn’t felt the need to be jealous. Tara knew exactly how Elias felt about her because of the strange bond between them. He only had eyes for her. She shook her head at Gabby. “I know he’s mine.”

She felt Elias’s hand grab onto her ponytail and tug. She batted it away and looked back at him. “You holding up?”

He shrugged a shoulder, but his eyes said he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to a remote location. Tara took a few steps back toward the training field, deciding it would be best if they were where the professors could see them, just in case he decided to act on what she could see in his eyes. She heard Elias and Gabby follow her.

“Tara.” Elias’s voice caused her to stop and turn back to him. “How areyou?”

It was on the tip of her lips to tell him that she wanted him to force Zuri to put them back together. But she bit her tongue. She knew it was their magical bond influencing her. For whatever reason, the bond did not like it when they were separated. Instead, she forced her mouth into a smile and said, “I’m fine.”

He stared at her for several heartbeats before finally nodding and then turning to go in the opposite direction.

“Whoa,” Gabby said as Tara turned back to her and they began walking again. “That dude is intense. He could be a fire elementalist.”

Tara frowned. “What do you mean? Does personality have anything to do with what elemental magic a person ends up with?”

Gabby did some sort of skipping thing and then started to shuffle sideways while still walking forward. It was weird. Just like the redhead.

“No, but I’m a third year, so I’ve been around a bit, and I’ve met a lot of elementalists, young and old, and I’ve noticed some things.”

“Like?” Tara prompted when the weird girl didn’t continue.

“You know how they say when couples are married for a long time, they start to look alike?”

Tara nodded. “I’ve heard that.”

“Well, I have a theory that it’s kind of the same with elemental magic. Whatever magic you are given, you begin to take on qualities that could be attributed to that element or used to describe that element. Fire is intense. It’s hot. It’s unpredictable. Fire takes no prisoners because it burns everything in its path. Elias has some of those qualities, and they’re magnified enough that I would have mistaken him for a fire elementalist.”

Tara thought about Gabby’s words, but by the time she was ready to ask more questions, they’d already reached their group again.

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