Elementally Priceless (7 page)

She put her hands on her hips. “I’m Lark.”

“Rylee. And this is Caleb, he’s helping me.”

“Rylee, don’t talk to this freak show,” Caleb said, and he grabbed my upper arm to drag me away. Back the way we came.

“Caleb, let me go. I have to get this kid.”

“No. This has gone far enough.” He gave me a hard jerk, snapping me around to face him and I gasped. He put his face to mine. “Enough games. I gave you a ride all the way here, went along with your silly rescue mission, and now I want what I want. When I’m done with you, and your body is nothing but a quivering mass of desire waiting for me to pluck the strings, you won’t even remember the kid. Then, and only then will I hand you off. ” He planted a hard kiss on my lips, his tongue gagging me. I jerked away, stunned and unable to process what he was saying.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I like you, Rylee, I really do, but not when you aren’t a good girl.”

Stunned, I stared at him. “What are you saying?”

He gave a roll of his shoulders and tried to draw me close to him. “I like a girl who is obedient, one who listens, and doesn’t try to play games with me. Your mouth is filthy, but I can work with that. And the rest, well, you need to learn your place.”

I freely admit my jaw dropped. He wanted to control me, tell me who to be, what to say, and how to act. And I’d kinda been letting him.

That was the end of that shit.

“You fucking dirt bag. You think because I let you kiss me, I’d let you control me? You think because I have a potty mouth, that makes me a bad person, or someone to be embarrassed of? Let me tell you something, 
Caleb,
 I am worth more than any other girl you’ve known, kissed, or fucked. If you want to judge me based on what your twisted fucking values are, go for it. I don’t need people like you in my life. The people who know me, know I’m a good person, no matter how I say or do things. You don’t like the way I talk, you can kiss my lily white ass.”

Oh, damn that felt good.

Behind us, the woman, Lark, clapped her hands for me and I felt amazing.

The slap came out of nowhere, and he hit me hard enough that if he hadn’t been holding me up, I would have dropped to the concrete. The bird on Lark’s shoulder let out a screech, and I heard her say, “This is not going to go well.”

But she didn’t interfere.

I came up on the rebound from the slap, not with an open hand, but a fist. A perfect uppercut had never felt 
so
 fucking good. Caleb’s teeth clacked as his jaw rammed shut and a part of me hoped he’d caught a portion of his tongue. His hand opened, releasing me as I staggered backward.

“You nasty little whore,” he snarled, the once perfect Adonis I’d admired gone in an instant as his skin rippled.

Yeah. Rippled. As in Caleb wasn’t human and had been fooling my stupid ass.

“Can you handle a siren on your own?” Lark asked.

I blinked several times, staring as Caleb shifted form. A siren? “I thought sirens were always women?”

She laughed. “No, the boys are rarer, but are real dicks to deal with.”

“I can’t on the street, everyone will see.” This was a damn mess, all because I’d trusted the wrong person. Giselle was going to kill me.

“No one will see. I’ll make sure.”

A quick look around showed me that the humans who were up and awake had taken no notice of Caleb shifting from decidedly yummy and human, to decidedly not yummy and very non-human. His body was still thick with muscles and he was the same height, but that was where the similarities ended. Where he had blond hair and stormy gray eyes, now he was bald, his head covered with puckered mud colored skin and eyes so deeply set into his skull, I couldn’t get a read on them other than the fact that they were glaring at me.

I moved to pull one of my knives from my lower back, forgetting they’d been taken from me, when something smooth and cool was placed against my fingers.

“Try this.”

I looked down to see the handle of a sword in my hand. I rolled it, feeling as if the weight and cut had been made for me. “Sweet.”

Lark

Watching the young Tracker take the sword, I knew she was the one to have it, saw the way the blade clung to her. Though I doubted she was supposed to have it right then, she could use it for awhile. She was going to need it to deal with the siren.

The siren snarled and lashed out with a foot, catching her off guard, tumbling her backward.

“You aren’t going to help her?” Kit yipped out, circling my feet, prancing with excitement.

“Nope.” I folded my arms and watched the fight. The girl moved with a grace that made me think of someone I’d known many years ago. Twenty to be exact. Could they be related? It was quite possible, they were similar enough in height and coloring, but it was more the way she moved that kept my attention and made me think of the woman from my past.

This girl had the same flow to her body, the bend and twist of muscles not only highly trained, but deeply ingrained with the ability to fight, and protect.

The realization of 
who
 she was hit me like a hammer between the eyes.

Sure, she was the Tracker Giselle was teaching.

But that wasn’t what struck me. It was the element that worked under her skin, she was part elemental. A small portion, but now that I was truly looking, I saw it.

Sweet earth mother, Rylee was a descendant of the Blood of the Lost.

She was the one in the prophecies, the one who would save the world.

She was also the one Orion wanted me to kill.

And she was the one I’d been put into banishment for.

I took three steps into the melee and wrapped my hand around the siren’s neck. He gargled and choked and Rylee stumbled back from me, her body still in fight mode.

I ignored her and increased the pressure on the siren. “Who sent you?”

He flicked his tongue at me, spit raining down on my face. “You can’t hurt me, you’re an elemental.”

Grinning, I tipped my head to one side. “Oh, you don’t know who I am, do you? I’m the elemental everyone’s afraid of. They call me the Destroyer.”

His eyes, even as deeply set as they were in his skull, bugged out and he began to truly fight me. I drew on the strength of the Earth and held him easily. “Who sent you?”

“No one, no one. I was supposed to seduce the witch,” he spit out, words tumbling over themselves.

“Wait, Milly?” Rylee lifted the sword and pressed the tip into the siren’s belly. He went completely still.

“Yes, Milly was the mark. But she’s been avoiding me. So you were the back up plan. I was to follow you to the kid.”

I looked at Rylee, happy to see she wasn’t melting down. “Any idea why a siren would be sent after this Milly?”

“She’s a very strong witch, with no ties to a coven. I bet it’s so someone can control her.” Rylee pressed her blade and again, I was pleased. She was young, but had a spine of steel and wasn’t afraid to use it.

“Siren,” I cooed, softening my voice to that of a seducer and not a destroyer, “you will tell us who your master is, and I won’t let my hawk peck out your eyes or my fox eat your testicles while you scream for mercy. Understand?”

“A vampire. That’s all I know. One with blue eyes who hides in the dark,” he whimpered.

Rylee stepped back, her face pale. “A vampire. That can’t be good.”

I shrugged and snapped the siren’s neck, the bone crushing under my fingers like brittle wood. With a heave, I tossed his body to the closest green space which happened to be one of the gardens in front of Caesar’s Palace. As he dropped to the ground, I flicked my hand and asked the earth to flow up and grab him, sucking his body down and into the silence that was the grave of the supernatural.

Rylee drew in a sharp breath, her eyes going to mine. “You killed him. And where the fuck did he go?”

“If I’d let him go, he would have killed us, or worse, made a mess of this rescue mission. He didn’t know anything else. And he went to his eternal resting place. It is one of my duties to make sure the supernaturals here are taken care of properly when they die. Normally I can do it from home, the Earth lets me know when a supernatural kicks the bucket and I pull them into the earth from there.” Why I explained it to her, I don’t know. It wasn’t like she’d asked.

“How did you know he didn’t know anything else?” Her eyes searched mine and again, I was struck by how much she reminded me of Elle. . . I shook it off. There was still a huge task ahead and getting lost in memories would not help.

“The way his eyes dilated, the sound of his heartbeat, the fear in him. Get good at reading people, you’re going to need it.” I reached out and wiggled my fingers at her. “Now, give me the sword back.”

She hesitated, then handed it over. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’ll be yours one day, but not right now.” I tucked it into its sheath. “Go home, Rylee.”

Sputtering, she grabbed my arm and spun me around, surprising the hell out of me. “I’m not going anywhere, there’s a kid who needs me.”

I stared down at her hand on my arm, but she didn’t back off. I lifted my eyes to her. “You don’t want to push me on this, you can’t come with me.” I sure as hell couldn’t explain that taking her into certain danger was not a really good idea. Not when the world would need her later.

“You can’t stop me.”

From my shoulder, Red clucked his tongue. “She’s a cheeky one, isn’t she?”

“Goddess above and below. Damned Trackers,” I muttered. “Always so freaking touchy, grumpy, and lippy.”

Red leaned close to my ear. “She could help you get in and out faster since she has a direct bead on the kid.”

I let out a soft groan. That part was true enough. I didn’t want her to get killed, the world couldn’t afford to lose her. Then again, if she was with me, I’d be able to keep her safer than if she followed along behind. Which, looking at the determination on her face, was going to happen if I didn’t allow her to go with me. “Fine. You come with me, do what I say. This is dangerous enough that your mentor didn’t want you coming. Not even with her help.”

Rylee let go of my arm, her eyes narrowing. “Giselle knew about this missing kid?”

“Isn’t that how you found out?”

She shook her head. “No, I saw his picture on a bulletin board and knew I had to find him.”

Damn, that was the elemental in her, touching on the world, drawing her to where she was needed.

“Well, let’s get our lily white asses in gear.”

This was about to get seriously interesting.

Rylee

MY BRAIN STRUGGLED
 with what had just happened. Caleb turned into a siren, and Lark killed him, sucked his body into a garden in front of Caesar’s Palace, and now we were walking into the forum shops like we were on a girls’ day-out shopping. That is, if you discounted the hawk on Lark’s shoulder, and the fox tight on her heels.

“What’s with the animals?”

Lark’s eyes flicked to me, a half grimace on her face. “They are watchdogs, to make sure I behave.”

“You can talk to them?”

“Yes, elemental abilities 101.”

Her boots were silent on the tile floor, but mine made a steady clack that echoed through the hall. A part of me recognized I really hadn’t worn the right gear. Another part of me wanted very badly to be as calm and cool as Lark, and I was embarrassed I hadn’t been better prepared. For just a moment, I thought she would say more, but she didn’t. So I kept talking.

“Why do they call you the Destroyer?”

“Because I don’t behave the way I’m supposed to.” Her words were clipped and her eyes searched each area we came to.

“So you just wreck stuff for the hell of it?”

She stopped and turned to me. “This is not the time or place to be talking, or asking questions. The creature that has this kid is bad, worse than bad. It is strong enough that I’m not sure how we are going to get by it. And you, nattering away at me, are not helping my state of mind. Got it?”

“I’m not nattering.” I refused to slump under her glare or her words. No more of that shit for me. “I’m trying to understand. To learn.”

Lark gritted her teeth and even irritated, it was amazing how pretty she was. I doubted I looked that good when I was pissed off.