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“What the fuck happened? Are you okay?” I asked, worried and glancing around the battlefield, seeing the fight rage on, although there was a wide diameter opened around us that wasn’t there before.

“I just absorbed the electromagnetic energy expelled from the lightning.” His shoulders shook from trying to hold it all in. That was an astronomical amount of power he’d just absorbed. Holy shit. “In doing so, I was able to control it for you.”

“Share it with me,” I said, holding out my hand for him to take. I wasn’t sure what we were doing, but something told me to do it. Perhaps the bond? There was no way he could release that amount of energy with his ability. Everything would be obliterated for miles.

He didn’t question it. Instead, his hand latched onto mine, and the implosive energy he held in flowed to me. Feeling my hair rise again, I held his eyes. “Ready, little savage?”

I nodded, unsure about what we were about to do, but I trusted him to not allow this unbridled power to kill those we swore to protect.

“Let go, Gray. I got you.”

With the power back, I let lightning treat me as its conduit. I had no way of knowing how to control it yet, but that was where Chrome came in by slipping in through the bond we shared and taking control of my Kinetic power. Just like he had that day with Orion. He directed it to strike down Kinetics, turning them into charred black bodies.

The Hollow became home to a wild, vicious lightning storm. Each time it struck, a body would drop. With every strike, it sounded like a bomb went off. It was deafening. Some Kinetics with auditory abilities tried to control it, but the lightning soon smited them all down.

Chrome remained still, squeezing my hands and darting his eyes around the battlefield to pinpoint targets. He directed the strikes as I let the energy flow from me. Multiple strikes would hit at once, leaving behind dropped Kinetics.

As my Kinetic magic waned, gravity seemed to pull against my body harder than usual as exhaustion took hold. Chrome looked at me. “Come on, Gray,” he said, grabbing the Mushweed from my pocket. “Take more. Not so much this time.”

My eyelids began to droop, and my legs grew weak and cold. I slumped forward, but strong arms caught me. “Take it, Gray. Open that pretty mouth of yours.”

I complied. His golden and chromatic beauty blurred in my vision. The bitter herb sat on my dry tongue, and I worked to swallow it down.

Chrome held me upright against his side while I waited for the Mushweed to work its way through my system to restore my reserves.

Once the lightness returned to my limbs and chest, I leaned my head against his shoulder.

“Better?”

“Getting there,” I mumbled. “That was fucking intense.”

He nodded. “They’re gone. The Warrior Guild.”

I tensed, pulling away to take stock of the carnage. “Holy fuck…” I whispered as I scanned the front lawn of the Hollow, covered with hundreds of dead bodies. Sadly, there were more Elementals in the mix than I hoped to see.

Chrome clenched his jaw, his nostrils flaring. “I failed them.”

I whipped around to face him, taking his jaw in my hands. “No,” I demanded. “Stop it. You saved them.”

“Look at all the Elemental bodies, Gray! And Onyx…” His head drooped forward, the reflective hair drenched like his morale.

The rain had stopped, but the cold seeped deep in the marrow now that the fight was over. “Where is he? I couldn’t…I tried to get to him, but I—”

“It’s not your fault.” Chrome took a deep breath. “He’s with the healers. Hopefully, it’s not too late,” he said. “I need to get to him and figure out what happened.”

“Go. I’ll stay here and see what I can do.”

“I need to fix the wards. It’s a mix of my magic and Onyx’s. But mine can work for now until we can move locations.”

“Move locations?” I asked, my heart slamming to a stop.

“Forest knows where we are now. The wards will make it a bit difficult, but he knows where we are for the most part,” Chrome explained, moving to head into the lodge.

“Wait.” I grabbed his biceps, stopping him. “What the hell was that you pulled earlier with Onyx? The little—” I whirled my finger in a circle to indicate the black cloud of ash he turned into.

Chrome raised his brows with a breath. “I don’t know exactly. I saw Onyx go down, and I wanted more than anything to be right there to help him. And next thing I knew, I was fading away into the ether and reforming beside him.”

“Like teleporting?”