Page 7 of Tamed By Air (The Nature Hunters Academy 4)

He hadn’t, but neither had he really practiced.. Aston hadn’t focused on much of anything other than figuring out how to connect with Rory and missing his friends.

Kimba’s voice jarred him from his thoughts. “All right, get ready. Stand up.”

“What?” he called out. “And make myself a bigger target?”

“You’ve got one chance at this. I won’t help you again.” He heard sadness in the dragon’s voice. He knew she and Rory were friends, which meant if Rory was hurting, then so was Kimba.

“Now!”

Aston stood, saw the circle of light, and leaped before he could think. His arms went over his head, and he dove in an arc toward the realm’s exit. Warmth and darkness engulfed him. He heard himself screaming. With his eyes squeezed shut, Aston tucked into a ball and called upon the wind, forcing it underneath him. He hoped it would be enough to cushion the fall.

The landing was not graceful. Aston rolled over several times in a jumble of flailing limbs before finally coming to a stop on his back. At some point, his screams had turned to grunts of pain. Now he only moaned. Several seconds passed before he let his eyes open. He was staring up at a starless sky. Aston checked himself for injuries. He flexed his fingers, then ran his hands up and down his arms and legs. He was having difficulty catching his breath, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

As he lay there staring up at the night, thoughts of Rory still swirled in his mind. Aston wondered if he’d ever be able to breathe again. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, then turned to look at the swirling light through which he’d jumped, but it was gone. He was alone, surrounded only by trees. “Bloody hell.”

Aston dropped his head, his chin nearly hitting his chest as the reality of what he’d just done set in. How had he let this happen? Why had he said those awful things to his soul bonded? And why did he feel like he would never know warmth or light ever again? Now that he was away from Rory and out of the dragon realm, Aston’s mind seemed clearer, though his soul felt empty.

He climbed to his feet, his pulse pounding. Aston’s hands clenched, and his power began to build. The surrounding wind whipped and twisted. Trees bowed under the force. He had no one to blame but himself. He should have protected her, even from his own insecurities and emotions. Instead, he’d allowed his anger and pride to push her away. He broke his promise. He left her alone. Aston threw his head back and bellowed her name—the one his lungs breathed for, the one his heart beat for, and the one his soul longed for.

ChapterThree

“It’s easy to focus only on the negative things that happen in our lives. Oftentimes, bad things block our view of the good things and then drag us into a pit of hopelessness. Knowing that, we should try our best to see only the positive in life, taking time to dwell on the joyful moments, even when we’re trapped in the midst of the worst hell imaginable. Yes, I realize that is easier said than done. I’m not a complete idiot.” ~Tara

“Idon’t think he’s okay,” Tara whispered to Elias as she stared across the room where Ra sat alone. “He looks like he’s either going to stab the next person who walks too close, or himself. Neither is a great outcome.” The runes that Aviur had placed on Ra had faded, though Tara knew their power was still in place. Otherwise, Ra would have been in hell already. The power of the runes was the only thing keeping him from flying after Shelly.

Since the world had gone to hell in a handbasket, and subsequently rescued by the combined forces of kick-ass light elemental spirits and their human elementalist allies, life had mostly returned to normal. Or at least the new normal Tara had come to know. She’d settled into her life and classes at Terra Academy, training to use her power to control the earth so she could fight dark elemental spirits. She continued to learn more about what it really meant to be soul bonded.

For example, not only did the bond prevent the shattered soul from being pulled into the darkness, but the bond had begun to put the pieces of Tara’s soul back together. Every time she and Elias used their magic in conjunction with each other, she could feel herself being knitted back together. Tara and Gabby had talked about their experiences with the bond, and Gabby had expressed that she’d experienced the same thing. It made her wonder what that meant for Ra and Shelly. Their bond wasn’t a traditional soul bond but one given by Osiris and then finished by Aviur when he gave Shelly the ability to wield fire. Tara wondered if Ra was losing his mind because he was separated from Shelly, and not just because he was worried about her being trapped in the underworld. Was he in physical pain because of his separation from his soul mate? For Tara and Elias, being apart physically could become uncomfortable quickly.

Tara again experienced the pain of being separated from Elias a few times, though it was by choice on her part, because they’d argued, andshe’dstepped away in order to keep from clobbering him. Even for just a couple of hours, there was discomfort while separated, but the level increased when the separation was not desired. Elias hadn’t wanted her to leave when they’d been arguing, but Tara’s temper had been growing, and she hadn’t wanted to say something she couldn’t take back. Eventually he’d come and found her sitting in the library. Not entirely against her will, he had carried her back to their room. She could still hear his voice in her head as she remembered that night.

“Don’t leave me next time, please.” He growled as his arms flexed around her.

“I was mad, Elias. My next step was going to be physical harm. I’m pretty sure that’s not the way to have a healthy relationship.”

“Neither is feeling like my skin is being peeled from my bones while my insides try to claw through to my outsides.” He huffed. “Next time, yell, kick, hit me with a damn lamp, and then let me distract you with make-up sex. No more of this walking away to be the bigger person nonsense.”

Tara’s lips turned up at the memory. She had to agree that his way had its merits. Regardless of all of the things she learned, she constantly found herself worried about Ra. Though he came to classes, there wasn’t anything in the curriculum about a soul bond created by the lord of the underworld. It wasn’t like he was gleaning anything useful. Sometimes she looked at him and saw a vacant look in his eyes that gutted her. Tara was amazed at his ability to keep going, to keep coming to class, to keep functioning when it was obvious he was devastated. It was written on his face in the lines of stress and the shadows under his eyes. His depression was evident in his tense body and constantly clenched fists.

When she wasn’t worrying about Ra, Tara’s mind kept wandering to her best friend, Shelly, who was currently being held in hell against her will.Isn’t everyone in hell being held against their will?There she went again, getting distracted.

And finally, there was Aston, literally snatched up off the ground by a wild, dragon-riding girl. Who knew what she wanted with Aston? Considering she’d kidnapped him, it probably wasn’t anything good.

Learning about her newfound powers was amazing, and Tara wished she could focus on them more, but her heart wasn’t fully devoted to her efforts because of her worry for her friends. Tara was very thankful she had Elias to help her endure. Since being bonded to him, Tara had noticed that despite all of the crap they were going through, things didn’t seem as dark as they might have if she didn’t have him. She remembered what her life had been like before being bonded—before she knew about the supernatural world. Back then, she’d just been trying to survive from day to day. Colors seemed dimmer, air seemed stuffier, and even small problems felt like too much to face. Elias wasn’t a miracle cure, but having him with her to bear the burden and feeling his love through their bond and his own power flowing into her definitely gave her more confidence to face it all.

“Let’s just be glad Ra has been assigned to train here with us.” Elias patted Tara’s thigh. “That way, we can keep an eye on him.”

“Keeping an eye on him isn’t good enough, Elias,” she said, not for the first time. “It’s been two weeks, and we have done nothing to get Shelly back. He needs reassurance that she isn’t lost to us for good, that Shelly’s rescue is still priority number one. Hell”—Tara threw down her fork—“Ineed reassurance.”

Elias sighed and rubbed his brow.

Tara reached up and ran a hand across his back. “I’m sorry.” Tara’s frustration over Ra’s suffering and the abduction of Shelly and Aston often made her forget what her soul bonded was enduring. He’d recently lost Jax, who was not only a mentor but a friend. “I don’t mean to add to your stress.” Neither of them was a stranger to death. No one at the Academy was. The death of their parents brought them to the academies in the first place. But losing someone was never easy, no matter how many times it happened.

Elias shook his head. “Don’t apologize. Jax is gone. Zuri is gone. Nothing can be done about that. Shelly and Aston are not gone. They’re simply on … unintended adventures.”

She snorted. “Is that what we’re calling it?” As worried as Tara was about her friend, she also knew that Shelly could hold her own. And Tara didn’t think Osiris would hurt Shelly. He wanted her as a mate, not as a whipping post.

“It’s how I have to think of it,” he said. “I can’t bear the thought of either of them being hurt or in danger. That won’t help bring them home. It will only serve to paralyze us.” He turned to look at her, and the pain in his eyes made her heart ache. “Aston is a brother to me. He completes our group. And Ra…” He sighed. “I didn’t realize how much he needed a soul mate. Shelly changed something inside of him. She gave him hope. His ancestors and their choices have haunted him his whole life.”

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