A little taste of Air: The Elementals Book Two, a WIP

I can’t believe I lost her.

He’d had her in his hands and then poof. At this point she could be anywhere. A strangled sigh escaped from deep in his chest. It sounded pathetic and broken, even to him. He checked the house to make sure she wasn’t there and then walked back out to his rented jeep. He was going to have to start tracking her all over again.

“Hey you, what’s your name?”

Stunned Connell froze. Slowly he spun around to see the sprite standing on a huge boulder in the distance. He was so damn surprised to see her that he lost his tongue. He just stared at her like a jerk.

Apparently she agreed. “I can’t keep calling you tall, dark, and stupid now can I? What … is … your … name?” she repeated, over-enunciating each word while cocking a hip and resting a hand on it.

He was too relieved to get upset over the fact she was talking to him like an idiot. “Connell Maitland.”

The imp turned away and started addressing the air around her, “He says he’s one of the Maitlands. American accent so one of the Colorado ones. Yeah. It’s severe. I haven’t seen anything like it. It’s like his wolf was torn out of him somehow. He thinks we did it. Hold on a sec—” she broke off as Connell started to run toward her.

A gust of strong air slammed him down to the ground before he cleared the rise.

“Stay there,” the sprite ordered in a voice that was as cold as ice.

Frigid as the wind, he thought as he picked himself up off the ground. Hell everything about her should be ice cold, but instead he felt like he was burning up around her. It was disconcerting. So was the hard edge in her voice. That kind of steel shouldn’t be coming out of such a tiny doll-like thing.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. He’s on a leash,” the imp said, a touch smugly.

Connell growled low in his throat. At least that hadn’t changed. Prey the world over would still react instinctively in fear at that sound. Under normal circumstances anyway…

The imp didn’t even blink. And she had definitely heard him. She just hadn’t cared. Just kept on talking like some gossipy housewife on the phone. Except that she was addressing no one.

“Who the bloody hell are you talking to? Invisible fairies? Can anyone even hear you?” he asked incredulously.