27. Rehan

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

REHAN

A larger-than-usual swell made the speed boat, with its nose stuck in the Ley Line, list to the side. Ogden pinwheeled his arms. I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him into my chest to keep him from falling. Using the momentum of the same swell, I whipped around to not so subtly get a look at Ryker's special forces, still in the same cowl sitting at the helm.

Although the textured dark red fabric rippled in the breeze, it didn't expose a single inch of the body underneath. The cowled helm's person rocked with the swell, more naturally than me even, before reaching forward and turning on the engine to nudge the tip of the boat back into position.

I let out an unhappy breath and realized I still had Ogden pinned to my chest.

"Sorry about that." I released him.

"No, erm," Ogden stepped back. A faint blush colored his dark cheeks. "It was the perfect opportunity to observe more than, um, just the Ley Line."

I grunted in agreement, which made the man's blush double. We turned our backs to the person at the helm, and Ogden pressed his shoulder into mine.

"Did you notice the straps?" He asked quietly.

I shook my head.

"They might have been holding the chair in place," Ogden said. "But I only saw metal and straps connecting him to the boat. I couldn't see his feet."

"Maybe he's sitting cross-legged on a chair," I responded.

Ogden looked at me skeptically. "Would you sit cross-legged on a chair in this situation?"

"No," I answered.

"Ogden, we need you now!" One of the other earth dragons called.

I followed on the warlock's heels. Sweat poured down Ofri and Obadiah's faces as they controlled pure Ley Line magic. The twins' long coffee hair, heavily streaked with aged gray, ran in thick braids down their bare backs. They lacked the typical dragon shifter bulk but made up for it with raw intelligence.

Both held wands pointed at the edge of the Ley Line.

"We have one," one of the twins stated. I honestly could not tell them apart.

Ogden practically danced. "What can I do?"

"Isolate it." The other twin stated. "If we had an air dragon…"

"We do have water." Ogden pulled off his shirt and traced matching runes covering his hips, which glowed with Ley Line magic.

My thoughts immediately went to Jay, who was currently training at the fire temple. She should be here. Over the last few days, I'd come to realize just how crazy smart she was. I had no doubt she was an immortal enchantress and knew more about the Ley Lines than all of us combined.

A ball of rotating gold coalesced around the wands.

But she wasn't here. Until I knew she was safe, she needed to stay where I could protect her.

"Aim true." Ogden dramatically pushed his hands out, and the gold shot toward whatever the twins had found. Both wands exploded in little balls of green fireworks, and their smoking ends bent at weird angles.

Something dropped into the ocean with a plop.

"Rehan, bring it to us, but don't touch it," Ogden ordered.

It took me an extra second to process the warlock's command, but I rushed to the edge of the boat and easily called on my water magic. Objects did not move fast through water. While I dragged it towards us, the fire dragons came up on either side of me.

"What is it?" One of them asked.

The pod came into view. More oval than round, the outside was so dark and smooth I saw my blurred reflection in it. Standing on its end, it would come up just past my knees.

"I've never seen anything like it," Ogden said. "But there are literally hundreds of those in our shield.

Unease filled my stomach, and phantom bugs crawled over my skin. Although I couldn't see them, these unknowns literally surrounded our entire island.

"We should take it to fire and study it," the fire dragon immediately said.

"No," one of the twins crossed his lean arms over his chest. "Magic is our domain. It comes with us."

"Then pull down another one," the fire dragon snapped.

"We cannot." The same twin waved his broken wand in the air. "It will take weeks to remake our tools."

The other twin threw a net over the side. I extracted myself from the fire dragons and helped him secure the pod. I half expected the net to disintegrate upon touching the thing or something magical to happen, but the dragon tendon lines wrapped around the pod and held.

Behind us, fire and earth argued.

Ogden came up to my side. "For a minute there, I thought you weren't going bring the pod to us."

I grunted. "The command in your voice caught me off guard." I side-eyed the earth dragon. "When you're not going with the flow, you tend to ask questions until I find myself acting on something you said without you telling me to."

Ogden grinned before shrugging. "I find academic debate essential and understanding key to getting good results." He wrinkled his nose, and his confidence dropped. "So if I commanded you to come to the fire temple with me right now, would you do it?"

I raised an eyebrow. Over the last few days, Ogden had asked a lot of questions about Jay. Given it was the one topic, I found myself more than happy to talk about.

"I can't go into fire territory." I ground my teeth. "It's why Tyson takes her back and forth."

Ogden put his hands up. "I have an open invitation to observe the preparations for Tyson's fire lighting ceremony. I'm sure the same invitation was extended to water as the ceremony is core elemental magic." When I still hesitated, Og continued. "This object we just pulled out of the Ley Lines will spend days waiting on bureaucracy. The moment it lost contact with the Ley Line, it went inert. It can't hurt anyone. Ofri is using every spell and trick we have to make a replica. There's nothing else we can do here."

I took a deep breath. It wasn't really a hard decision. "Why are we still standing here?"

I thought my skin would crawl, or the air would change when I flew into fire territory, but nothing like that happened. Maybe it was a little hotter inland, but the familiar air currents still smelled of salt and eucalyptus. A single fire guard flanked us, making sure we landed on the sleeping volcano's top.

I shifted out of my dragon skin and pulled on my board shorts and flip-flops. A new hole punctured the edge of my shorts from where they snagged on one of my dragon teeth. Next to me, Ogden's pants and long-sleeved shirt still looked pressed and neat.

The earth dragon stepped forward, and I followed him, putting my hair up as I walked. A group of priestesses dressed in red robes gathered around their eldest, who made dramatic motions with her hands as she spoke.

"I just can't," she wailed dramatically. "Her hands must be just so."

Fortunately, I didn't see Jay among that group.

Ogden slowed, and I almost tripped over him. My mate bond made me look left, in the same direction Ogden was now staring.

Jay sat shoulder to shoulder with a broad dragon shifter draped in white robes. I didn't like how close they sat. They both looked at her phone. I shifted my ears.

"That has to be abuse," the white-robed shifter said, wrinkling her nose.

Jay blinked and pointed at a specific part of her phone.

"The googles are cute." The white-robed shifter shrugged. "But I still doubt the cat wanted to do it."

Jay took her phone back. I swear she mouthed ‘meme meme meme' as she scrolled. Although I spent as little time on the internet as possible, even I could admit my mate found some funny stuff. Maybe technology wasn't quite as useless as I thought. After a moment, Jay grinned and handed the woman in white her phone again.

"Do you just enjoy watching animals suffer?" the white-robed shifter asked after looking at it.

Jay's eyes flew open in shock. I growled and took one step forward, but Ogden put a hand on my arm.

Just as fast, Jay's shock turned into a sly grin.

She scrolled again before holding out her phone so both of them could see it.

The white-robed shifter cracked a smile. "Clearly photoshopped."

Jay jumped up, pointing at her face, and the shifter quickly schooled it.

"Betty, let's try this again. I think I've found a better analogy," one of the priestesses from the group called.

Jay grimaced but handed the white-robed shifter her phone. She made a scrolling motion before rushing to the group in red. I didn't take my eyes off the white-robed shifter.

"She's a priestess from the air temple, probably here to observe," Ogden said before walking forward once more.

‘She.' My dragon relaxed. Jay wasn't into women. Wait. I jerked. My security officer said an air priestess woke Jay for the start of The Hunt. And now one was here?

I looked at the air priestess, only to find her watching the practicing fire priestesses. Or was she only watching Jay? A small smile played on her painted lips, and she clutched Jay's phone to her chest. Did it mean anything? I wasn't good at reading body language.

Regardless, her presence was too much of a coincidence for me to ignore.

As we approached, the air priestess pocketed Jay's phone and turned. "Can I help you?"

Her voice was lower than I expected. The only part of her I could make out was her face, which she'd painted to look like a porcelain doll.

"Having fun with Jay?" I asked, not hiding the threat in my voice.

The woman didn't cower or even lower her chin respectfully. "Jay's really sweet. I think she feels bad about our first meeting and is trying to make it up to me."

"Oh? I asked.

The woman pursed her lips. I made eye contact with Ogden and tilted my head. The warlock got the message, and we sat on either side of the priestess. That fast I decided I really, really liked Ogden. Whatever the future held, I would reach out to him and make a friend outside of my element.

"Jay didn't react well to something I said," the air priestess explained. "Her training for Tyson's ceremony is intense. She's just looking for a friendly face."

"And that's you," I stated.

The priestess frowned. "I guess it is."

Her vague answers bothered me.

"She's my mate," I stated.

The three words were possessive and implied a world of hurt if this priestess found herself on the wrong side of me.

"I'm a priestess of the air temple," the priestess trained her gaze back on Jay. "I don't even associate outside my gender, much less my element."

"By choice?" Ogden asked.

The priestess grunted. "Who are you to be asking such personal questions?"

"My name's Ogden." Ogden held out his hand.

After a long pause, the priestess reached out with a cybernetic hand and returned Ogden's handshake.

"I love meeting dragons from other elements," Ogden continued. "Tell me about what I missed. Does the heat from their fire magic affect the air enough for you to use it? Are their steps generating any pure Ley Line magic?"

Ogden's straightforward, curious personality took the priestess off guard, but she opened up.

I let them chat and watched my mate as she danced. Every time the head of the fire temple stopped the practice, Jay twirled her hair with the dumbest look on her face. It didn't take me long to realize she was purposely frustrating the entire process.

"You've found someone special," the air priestess suddenly said to me. "Don't mess this up."

I grunted.

All three of our gazes rested on Jay as she twirled and grinned.

I wasn't very good at subtly. The idea of sitting here peacefully with Jay's kidnapper was eating me alive. "Did you bring her here?"

The air priestess frowned. "I woke her up." Her sculpted eyebrows furrowed. "If I'd realized the storm I was unleashing, I'm not sure I would have had the courage."

The eldest priestess let out a dramatic sigh, which Jay copied in the form of a wailing squeak. I wasn't sure who I felt worse for.

The air priestess chuckled. My suspicion of her eased. Jay's kidnapper wouldn't be sitting out in the open talking about their part in the abduction, right?

Tyson's winged shadow circled.

As much as I wanted to stay, I didn't want to watch my mate fly off in the fire prince's arms. Leaving Og to his studies with his new friend, I slipped off the mountain.