Gabby tried shaking Liam’s hand off of hers, but he was like one of those spiderwebs you walk into while hiking. He just stuck. “Alright, how do we blow this thing?”
“Oh, the things I could do with that question.” Liam sighed with a sly grin.
“I suggest you don’t. And, dammit, let go, Liam.” She barked at him and held up their clasped hands as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Can’t do that, beautiful. I might die.”
Gabby’s eyes widened and her gaze snapped to Frost’s. “Is that true? If I stop touching him, will he die? I thought the whole soul bonding was supposed to fix that. I’ve wrapped him in my fire like a burrito. What more do you want from me?”
“Sounds like something that would give me some fierce gas,” said Liam. “Let’s not call it a fire burrito. How about we say you’ve wrapped me in your love fire?”
Gabby wasn’t sure if she should laugh. Fire burrito did sound like something a person might buy off a shady taco truck. But she also wanted to slug Liam in the face. He was holding her hand hostage, and her traitorous hand liked it.
“Liam will not die if you stop touching him. He will die if he continues to provoke you, and I’m simply saying that out loud as a reminder to him,” Frost said. “As for blowing this thing, as you put it, we need to heat the lava even more.”
“Because lava that could melt you like candle wax isn’t hot enough already,” Gabby muttered. She turned and kicked Liam in the shin, hard.
“OW! What the hell, woman?” He jumped around, glaring at her.
Gabby smiled sweetly and held up her now free hand. “I can’t work my magic with both hands, if I don’t have both hands.”
“I won’t complain if you’re going to use both hands.” He winked suggestively. “But next time just tell me, babe. You don’t have to kick me.”
“Lies,” Gabby sang. “Kicking is the only form of communication you seem to understand.”
“Gabby, take your shoes off,” Professor Frost instructed, ignoring the conversation between Liam and her, which was smart. Listening to them interact was a surefire way to lose brain cells.
Gabby slipped off her shoes.
“Socks too,” Frost added.
Gabby took off her socks and stuffed them in her boots. The ground was warm beneath her feet, but that wasn’t what had her frowning. She could feel heat coming up through the ground and into the soles of her feet. “What the…” she muttered.
“What?” Liam was beside her in an instant. “Are you okay? What’s wrong? What do you need?”
“She needs you to tighten up the reins on those overprotective instincts flowing through you,” Frost said.
Gabby looked at the professor and saw that she, too, was barefoot. “Do you feel heat coming up from the ground?” Gabby asked her.
Frost nodded. “Open up your power to the heat and then imagine yourself pulling the heat into you. We want to pull heat from the earth's core up into the mountain.” Frost looked at Liam. “You, make yourself useful and start crafting a lava riverbed down the side of the mountain.”
Gabby imagined her feet as little suction cups, as odd as that sounded, but it made it easier to envision pulling the heat toward her. She kept her eyes on Liam, partly because, damn, he was just too handsome for his own good, and two, because she felt like he would disappear or get himself killed if she looked away for a second.
She watched as he raised his hands into the air and put his palms out as if he were reaching for the sky. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Gabby knew that some of the older elementalists knew the language of the elementals and used it to help wield their particular element. Some even taught it to the students, though it wasn’t a requirement to wield elemental power.
As she watched, his hands began to move, first in a circle and then toward himself, as if he were gathering something in. Her mouth dropped open when she saw a stream of water appear and head straight for Liam. It moved fast, and Gabby was certain it would slam into him. She started to cry out to him, but the water shifted when he pushed his hands out. Instead of slamming into Liam, the stream hit the mountain. Soon, mud began to appear where solid ground had been before. About a hundred