Page 70 of Sealed By Fire (The Nature Hunters Academy 2)

“Another one?” Elias asked.

“She has a thing for suckers,” Tara murmured to him.

“Ahh,” he said.

“In that case,” Gabby said, “I want you to be the guy who quits yapping so we can go get something to eat. I’m starving.”

Aston chuckled and Elias couldn’t help but smile. Liam’s jaw dropped open. He wasn’t used to being shot down. Elias wasn’t attracted to men in any way, but he had no problem admitting that Liam was a good-looking guy. Girls loved to gain his attention and found his flirting attractive. He obviously didn’t know how to respond to Gabby, who had already turned and started skipping toward the school.

“What happened to her clothes?” Aston asked

“She ripped the bottom of the shirt and the collar,” Tara said. “And used a knife to slice her cargos.”

Elias had been surprised when he’d seen the girl’s shirt showing glimpses of her stomach as well as the exposed shoulder where it hung off the right side. The cuts in her cargo pants weren’t shocking until she turned around. Then he’d seen that she had slashes under each side of the seat of her pants. Not high enough to show her butt cheek but high enough to make someone curious. Elias hadn’t been interested and still wasn’t. Tara had all his attention and attraction. Liam, however, was practically drooling.

They followed Gabby, and Elias glanced over at his water elementalist friend. His eyes were narrowed and firmly settled on the redhead.

“Liam?” Elias said.

“Yep,” he said, never taking his eyes off of Gabby.

“You good?”

“I’m excellent.” The words were snapped out and incongruent with his intense look.

“He’s not excellent,” Tara whispered.

Elias wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He’d missed her in just the short amount of time they’d been apart. “No, love, he isn’t,” Elias agreed.

“He’s gone into hunting mode,” Aston said just as quietly.

“What’s hunting mode?” Tara sounded like she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

“It’s the mode in which Liam focuses his complete attention on obtaining what it is he wants,” Aston answered.

“Apparently, what he wants is Gabby,” Elias finished.

“I don’t think he could handle her,” Tara said. “She’s a force to be reckoned with.”

Liam suddenly turned around and started walking backward as he looked at them. “That’s exactly why I want her. She’s a woman worth having, for good,” he said.

“She’s also crazy as hell,” Tara told him.

Liam just shrugged. “That’s even better.”

She sighed. “Why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well?”

“Chin up,” Aston said. “At least it will be entertaining for us.”

“There is that,” Elias agreed.

Tara sighed again, and Elias chuckled as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I missed you,” he told her.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and her lips turned up just a bit. “Me, too.”

“Good.” He grinned unrepentantly as she pinched him.

Tara couldn’t helpbut look between Liam and Gabby. Once they’d gotten a table for lunch, the two sat across from each other, and Tara felt like she was at a tennis match.

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