“Don’t push it,” she snapped, but the faintest blush colored her cheeks again.
Nate chuckled low beside her, his hand brushing against hers again, deliberately this time. She shot him a glare that didn’t have much bite to it.
Jaden threw them a glance, half a smile and something else I couldn’t decipher.
It made me wonder if he had been betting against them or driving them together all along.
“Hey, Ethalyn!” Jaden shouted loud enough to wake the dead—or at least attract some demons. “Get up. I’m bored, let’s spar.”
A few heads lifted. Faelin exhaled through her nose, a soft, elegant sound that somehow conveyed amusement and disapproval at the same time. I closed my eyes briefly, seriously considering pretending I hadn’t heard him.
“Bored, in these woods?” I muttered as I stood. Jaden was already on his feet, bouncing like he hadants in his pants.
“That’s not a no,” he said, grinning. He wasn’t interested in me, never had been, so the grin wasn’t loaded with anything but restless energy. The ground near him shifted in a slow roll, as if sharing his impatience.
“We’re supposed to be resting,” I reminded him, stretching my arms.
“Exactly, I’m resting from being bored. Come on.” He waved his hand at me. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Like you haven’t seen me tearing through demons multiple times now,” I muttered.
“Yeah, but they’re not me.” His smirk widened.
I snorted. “Charming.”
The others watched with amusement as we closed the distance between us. Shadows from the twisted trees leaned long across the ground, but I’d fought in worse places. I let a spark ignite between my fingers, a warning.
Jaden cracked his knuckles. “Ready?”
“No,” I said, and launched the first blast of fire.
He laughed as he slammed his palm down, raising a slab of earth that drank in the flames. Dirt and stone rippled out beneath him as he advanced, pushing the wall in front of him and forcing me to dance back over uneven ground. I retaliated with a whip of fire that lit the branches above us in a brief flare of orange.
“Better!” Jaden called, lowering his wall. “But you’re still too—”
I threw a small fire ball at him, not waiting for his evaluation of my stance. It struck his sleeve, catching fire. Quickly, he used dirt to smother it. “Oh, I see, we’re playing dirty?”
“Funny, coming from the boy who actually plays with dirt,” I sneered and heard Ashley cackle in the background.
“You show him!” Nate cheered.
Jaden flicked his hand and a wave of dirt passed over the two of them, burrowing them in a mud-blanket.
“Hey!” Nate objected, but Jaden wasn’t wasting time. Instead of answering them, he raised four walls of dirt around me, caging me in.
I blew a strand away from my face, as I kicked against one of them. It didn’t break, but it forced him to focus on keeping it strong. They kept closing in, squeezing me in the narrow space. I inhaled a long breath, before fire erupted all around me, burning against the walls and bringing them to a stop. Then, I hurled myself against one of the sides, my flames eating their way through to create space for me.
Once out, the walls behind me fell to the ground again. “Not bad.” Jaden admitted. “But still…”
He didn’t move, but the earth beneath me jolted and made me fly into the air. I fought to regain my balance, hurling myself into a roll instead of slamming against the ground. I kept my hands to the dirt, letting my fires spread like veins through it, encircling him. Jaden tried to dodge, dancing out of every possible outcome.
But fire spread too quickly, even now. The flames began to climb into the air, he hesitated for a moment, and that was all I needed. He was focused on me trying to cage him, thinking I was using his techniques. But instead I burst into a sprint towards him.
Jaden’s blue eyes locked on me, surprise gleaming inside of them as my hand balled into a fist that caught fire right before I swung it into his stomach. He stumbled slightly and a groan left him, but his eyes told me he felt no loss.
“Amazing,” he chuckled. “However—”
He prepared to strike back just as a powerful gale blew between us, forcing us both to stop.
