Read elemental 08 - elements of war for Free Online

energies combine to form?” Leigh asked.
    Aira chuckled. “Apparently neither of you noticed how flipping cold it was last night.” She glanced over the back of the seat at them. “Earth and water combine to form ice.” 
    Dylan smiled slightly; he had felt the temperatures dip—and he realized that Aira had known exactly what had happened when he and Leigh had kissed in the compound where she’d been kept a prisoner. 
    “What are the other combinations then?” Leigh wanted to know.
    Dylan dropped into his lecture mode, reciting what he remembered from his readings. Earth elementals had their own lore—but they had a tendency to mostly keep within their own kind when mating, and pairings of two strongly-aligned elementals were fairly rare. Usually, a stronger elemental was paired with a less potent one of any alignment in order to keep strong elementals rare within the community. Elementals with less potent energy didn’t produce the drastic effects in their pairings that stronger elementals did—though Dylan had to admit that as far as air elementals went, there weren’t many in history to rival Aira, and Aiden was not at nearly her strength.
    “When very strong fire and earth elementals bond, their energies combine to form molten metal—lava, though volcanos aren’t usually a danger,” Dylan explained. “Water and air elemental energies combine to form tornados, hurricanes, those kinds of weather phenomena, though they usually don’t have thunder and lightning. Earth and air—though that’s a really rare pairing—make sandstorms together. Water and fire combine—almost as rarely—to form fog, or in some cases, the energies produce floods.”
    “It’s a wonder they ever let any elementals cross-breed,” Leigh said, her eyes widening.
    “They were definitely not happy when Aiden and I got together,” Aira said, and Dylan could hear her smiling. “Two strong elementals, each in the full flush of our power, and our energies combine to become pure electricity.” 
    “I can definitely see why they’d be worried.” Leigh shook her head. “Air, fire, electricity—it’s no wonder my cousin and his ilk are going after you indirectly. There’d be no chance going up against the two of you together.”
    “And now, assuming you stay with us, Leigh, we’ll have earthquakes and landslides on our side,” Aiden glanced quickly over his shoulder. 
    Dylan felt a deep-down relief that both his brother and his sister-in-law seemed to have come around to the idea of Leigh joining their “merry band.” But he knew that it wouldn’t be easy—even with Leigh’s abilities, tied to her elemental alignment, they would have to fight to get all of the elementals involved into custody. And Dylan knew that the cockier members of the group wouldn’t be content to stick with only attacking relatively helpless air and water elementals. They would eventually make their move on Aiden or Aira, try and get the “royal couple” separated. Divide and conquer was a time-honored tradition of war; it would only make sense to try it in this case as well. Dylan mulled over the possibilities. As long as Aiden and Aira were together, there were very few people who could target them—no one would be able to get past the guard of either elemental to get the other. 
    “We have to all stay together,” Dylan said firmly. “The four of us, combined, are impervious to anything that the group can throw at us. Leigh can protect against earth-based attacks, as can I, Aira and Aiden can protect against any fire or air attacks, and I can keep us safe from any water-based attacks— even if none of my people seem to be involved in this stupid mess.”
    “I agree,” Aira said from the front passenger seat. “Between the four of us, we have all comers at a disadvantage. We have to make sure we don’t get separated.”
    “That’s the first thing they’ll try, then,” Leigh pointed out. “The minute they’re confident enough