The next fifteen minutes were going to be slow torture. I needed a distraction before my wolf and I lost it.
“You said earth elemental,” I said suddenly, looking at Lulu.
She glanced up at me in surprise. “That’s right. That’s what my people are.”
“But just earth? Is that specific or something?” I frowned, trying to focus on her as the plane turned.
Tate sat up, also needing the distraction as the view outside her window turned to clouds and sky.
“There are four elements,” Lulu answered. “Earth, fire, air, and water.”
“Spirit,” Dimitri murmured.
Her gaze flicked to him before turning to me. “Yes, and spirit. But spirit is not very common.”
“So, that’s how you do what you do?” Tate asked, gesturing with her hand. “How you make the magic stuff happen?”
Lulu nodded. “That’s why we’re called elementals.” She glared at Dimitri. “Not witches.”
He smirked, but stayed quiet.
“There’s a difference?” I asked slowly.
Dimitri groaned. “You had to ask, didn’t you?”
Lulu elbowed him. “Witches are something that were made up by idiotic parents who wanted to keep their unruly kids in line centuries ago. They’re a fairytale. Totally made up for stories and television and movies.”
“Good to know,” Tate mumbled, biting her lower lip to keep from smiling.
“Elementals can control an element found in nature,” Lulu added. “Like I told you before. We siphon magic from the element we’re bonded to. It’s why my people were able to create wolf-shifters. Wolves are earth creatures.”
“So, that’s why shifters are wolves,” I said slowly.
“No, that’s why you’re a wolf-shifter,” Lulu corrected. “You could have just as easily been a bear.”
I almost choked on my own spit. “A bear?”
“Sure. There’s bear shifters, mostly in Siberia and eastern Russia. I think there’s some around the Arctic Circle, too.”
Tate and I must have had the same wide-eyed expression of shock because Dimitri started laughing.
“I told you,” he said to Lulu, “the North American packs are a fucking mess. They don’t even think there’s other kinds of shifters out there.”
“There’s more?” I cut in, the pitch of my voice raising slightly. I looked at Tate. “Did you know this?”
She shook her head mutely.
“It depends on the elemental and the region,” Lulu added. “Wolves are found on almost every continent, and earth is a common element. Wait—how did you guys think there came to be so many packs all over the world?”
“That wasn’t from your people?” I blinked slowly.
Lulu laughed, her shoulders shaking. “Of course not. I mean, the Romani created the first wolf-shifters, but other elementals in different regions created their own packs as well. The concept of a shifter wasn’t completely unknown before then.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” she countered with a shrug. “Creating shifters became a way that elementals could protect themselves. They created their own armies and lines of defense from other elementals.”
Lulu snorted as another thought came to her. “If you think shifters fight dirty, you can’t imagine the shit elementals pull. That’s why there aren’t a lot of us left. Most have been killed throughout the years, the spirit ones in particular.”
“Why them?” Tate asked.
“Think of the Earth as a resource that can be divided up. The more earth elementals there are, the smaller the piece is that you can access. That means that the power you can siphon or access is less. If you eliminate other elementals in your faction, that gives you a larger piece to draw from. Make sense?”
We both nodded slowly.
“Spirit is a super potent element. It’s … everything. Spirit elementals went at it like no other faction. They tore each other apart because their element was like a damn drug. There were hardly any spirit elementals by the time they stopped fighting, and those that were left were batshit crazy from the power trip. At some point, the other four elementals got together and bound their abilities. It was the only way to stop them from draining the life out of every living thing on the planet.” Lulu leaned back in her chair.
“And now there’s no spirit elementals?” I tilted my head, trying to imagine a battle between magical beings.
It probably would be the same thing as normal humans trying to wrap their heads around what shifters were currently doing. We were fighting our own wars in the same world they lived in, completely unaware.
Lulu and Dimitri exchanged a look.
“There are still some,” she finally said, almost hesitantly, “but they’re mostly in hiding now. The ones that made it through the binding unnoticed hid themselves amongst humans. But there’s still a few out there.”
The heavy silence that settled around us told me there was more to that story than she was letting on.
I settled back in my seat, determined not to press her for details. I knew what it was like to not want to share your life and secrets with people you had just met.
But I also didn’t like the way Lulu was now staring blankly out the window. She had been so full of life and animation while she explained everything, but now she was just … gone.
“Are there any more besides wolves and bears?” I blurted out.
She blinked slowly, like she was waking up. “Um, yeah. Cats are pretty popular. You know, jaguars in the Amazon, panthers in Asia, lions in Africa. I think there may be a few cougars left in North America. Those are also earth-based ones.”
“Do the other elements have shifters, too?” Tate questioned curiously.
She nodded. “The first shifters, like, ever came from eastern Asia. They’re fire elements. They created dragons.”
“Dr-dragons?” I stuttered. “Actual dragons?”
“They’re extinct now,” Dimitri added. “No one has seen one in like half a century or more. It’s hard to hide a sixty-foot wingspan from radars.”
“The only water ones I know of are dolphins. Those are mostly found in the Pacific islands.” Lulu frowned, thinking. “Air is birds, obviously. Eagles and hawks, mostly.”
I was so busy thinking about freaking dragons that I wasn’t prepared when the wheels touched down on the runway. The plane bounced, jolting me. The roar inside the cabin became deafening as the flaps lifted to slow our speed.
Tate’s fingers clamped around my wrist and squeezed. “Skye.”
I followed her gaze out the window to where a group of people were waiting at the end of the runway.
My heart beat so hard, so fast, that I got dizzy.
“Breathe, Skye,” Dimitri told me.
I sucked in a deep breath as the plane slowly rolled to a gentle stop and the cabin lights came on. I unbuckled my seat belt and stood up, Tate right behind me.
I moved down the aisle until Nikolai stepped out in front of me.
“Wait, love,” he said.
My eyes narrowed. “For what? I’m not waiting. Move.”
“Skye—”
“Move, or I’ll move you myself,” I growled, my wolf ready to mow down anyone who got in our way. I could feel Tate crowding behind me, so I knew she would help me fight past him if needed.