Page 33 of Tamed By Air (The Nature Hunters Academy 4)

Ra nodded.

“What oath?” Rory’s head moved back and forth looking from Aston to Ra.

Ra shook his head. “It’s not really important.”

“Sounds like it is.” Tara’s brow rose. “It seems like Shelly’s presence in the underworld has triggered the magic. Because she is in the underworld, the magic itself assumes she has died.”

“That’s not what’s happening,” Ra said through clenched teeth.

“But—” Tara started. Ra’s eyes snapped open, stopping her in her tracks.

“Bloody hell.” Elias wrapped an arm around his soul bonded and pulled her farther back from Ra.

“It has nothing to do with my damn oath,” Ra snarled. His eyes, no longer simply black, now showed an emblem etched in fire. They burned with the fury that radiated off of him. Rory swore she could feel the heat.

“Osiris said if either of us ever gave ourselves to another, then our fate would be with him. The power in that magic when he spoke that over us was fueled byhispowerandthe power of my ancestors,” Ra explained. Though Rory had no idea what the hell he was talking about. “Because my ancestors are in the underworld under his rule, he is able to draw on their power.”

“What?” Aston asked. “He used yourEgyptianancestors’ power to fuel a spell that only kicks in when one of you cheats? Why? That seems like an oddly specific thing to do, especially considering he had to know the chances of you cheating on your soulmate is slim to none.”

Rory wanted to give her man a high five for throwing the whole Egyptian bloodline thing out there, because she knew it had simply been for her benefit. Ra obviously knew he had an Egyptian bloodline.

“Wait,” Rory said, her mouth running away with her again. “As in, the royal Egyptians? Like pharaohs? Ramses and Tutanwhatsawhosit?” She looked at Ra and knew her face had gone from scared witch to awed fan girl.

“Sweets,” Aston murmured against her hair.

Rory crossed her arms in front of her and huffed. “Sorry, but pharaohs are freaking awesome.”

“Why is it important that Osiris blended his own power with Ra’s ancestors?” Liam asked.

“Forget that,” Tara said. “What does cheating have to do with it?”

Ra walked in a circle, baring his teeth periodically as he growled like a caged animal.

“Ra,” Tara yelled. “What does cheating have to do with this?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong—” Aston began.

“We all know you won’t be wrong,” Liam interrupted.

“But,” Aston continued, “what I think Ra’s trying to explain is that when Osiris saidthey—as in Ra and Shelly—would be his if they ever cheated on one another, he meant it in two different ways.” Aston paused. Rory watched his face as her soul bonded seemed to work through his ideas. “He meant Shelly would literally be his, as in, like, his mate,his. And Ra wouldn’t simply be a captive in hell. He would become like his ancestors, which, if I remember correctly, turned into demons.”

“Your ancestors are demons?” Rory asked. At the same time, Tara walked right up to Ra and slapped him clean across the face. “Shelly would never cheat. Not even with the devil himself. Whatever you think is happening, isn’t.”

ChapterEight

"There has to be another explanation. I know it. But I also know the rules of Osiris’s spell. It leaves no wiggle room. And I know my soul is being ripped in two. The only way that could be happening is if… Well, I’m not going to think about it. If I do, the thought will send me somewhere dark—a place from which I cannot return." ~Ra

Ra couldn’t breathe. The four walls were shrinking, like the bars of a cell, caging him in. He had given voice to his suspicion, and now he knew he’d made a mistake. He shouldn’t have given the thought so much as a tiny toehold in his mind.

“She wouldn’t cheat!” Tara roared at him, the sting of her hand still on his cheek. He heard Elias’s voice attempting to calm her, though the words were muted and indistinguishable. Ra couldn’t focus on anything other than trying to keep the flames inside of him from burning the building down around him. He needed to get outside. Now.

He held up his hand and opened a portal without even thinking about where to go. Vaguely, Ra heard his friends shouting his name, but he ignored them and stepped through, closing the portal immediately behind him so they couldn’t follow. His control was gone. They weren’t safe around him; no one was.

His feet hit the ground at the same time his body lit up like a torch. Ra did not know where he was, only that he was surrounded by trees. Praying to Mother Gaia that there were no humans around, he released his rage.

Flames exploded outward from his body. For a moment, his power flew unchecked in all directions, the heat sucking all the oxygen from the surrounding area. But suddenly his power slammed against something solid.

Ra turned to find Viscious, the dark fire king, standing behind him a few yards away. The king held his own fire—dark and oily—against Ra’s bright flames. Ra’s eyes widened, and he pushed his flames harder, but they gained no ground against the dark king’s magic. The pharaoh drew in all of his power and channeled it toward Viscious. The flames flowing outward from Ra’s body coalesced into a single channel of flame. Viscious grinned. The two elementalists were like swordsmen locked in combat, each pushing their magic forward, but neither able to move the other.

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