Catalyst

Chapter Twenty

 When she snapped awake it was early morning. The summer sunrise had only barely broken the edge of the sky and only the earliest sparrows were making their territorial claims, shrill calls emanating from their trees. She was ready.

Waking up the boys was more difficult than she thought it would be. Elliott shrugged away from her hand as she shook his shoulder and she gasped as sharp spines poked out from his polo. He grumbled and curled into a tighter ball on the floor and the closer she looked at the spines the more they looked like...thorns.

"You're totally a plant," she muttered, shaking the sharp sting out of her hand.

Since Elliott refused to open his eyes she felt no guilt for pressing her lips lightly against James' mouth to wake him, grateful that for once he wasn't snoring. His body gave a small, surprised jolt and he opened his eyes. His shocked expression turned hot when he saw her, his hands automatically reaching for her face as he kissed her back with quick, warm pecks.

"Come on," she dragged his hands away and stood, moving far enough backward that he couldn't reach her. "We're going to go train, remember?"

He groaned and begrudgingly got out of bed, his hair deliciously rumpled and his eyes hazy. She poked Elliott with a Bible she got out of the bedside table drawer until he agreed to get up as well.

Once they were outside, Elliott seemed much happier. Every few minutes he would glance upward and stare at the sun, eyes completely unfazed by the light, and then direct his gaze back to the concrete sidewalk as they walked further into the city. Back to the sun, back to the ground. Back and forth. He seemed to be counting the inches the sun climbed, cataloging the moments with loving affection.

They took a bus away from the hotel and stopped at a park which ended at an enclosure of private property along one of the local rivers: the Monocacy. James had been doing internet searches the night before and picked it out as a pretty un-visited spot, considering trespassing was forbidden, but the owner was a wealthy landlord with property all throughout the state as well as in Virginia. Fingers crossed he wouldn't be watching for interlopers, they walked into the barren park, devoid of people this early in the morning, and climbed the simple chain-link fence that separated the public grounds and the private riverfront.

Phoebe may have shifted her hands into sturdier claws to climb the mesh, but James didn't notice. Elliott made an obvious sniff and she knew he could probably smell or feel her shift—however it was he managed to keep track of those things—but he didn't say anything.

The Elemental stopped in a small field, full of brown and yellow stalks of something Phoebe couldn't define. It wasn't wheat but it looked like it, and they itched a bit against her skin as they walked into the center.

"Ready?" Elliott asked.

"For what?" Suddenly the ground around her began to shake and she bent her knees, holding out her arms and trying her best to remain upright. James quickly shifted into a form half-way between human and dragon and used his wings, smaller than if he'd completely shifted, to raise himself off the ground so he would be unaffected.

"Hah!" he yelled. "Try and quake me to death now!" His claws were dark in the early light but the gold on his arms still flashed as he moved through the air, making a direct beeline for Elliott.

The quakes increased and Phoebe had to kneel in the brown, grassy plants to avoid falling on her butt. They were really going to do it. Fight while she tried desperately to shift...or maybe...

Concentrating hard and trying to ignore the sound of Elliott and James colliding, she split her conscious between two goals: shifting herself and shifting Elliott. She wanted to be with James, a dragon like him, stay with him as long as he would have her, travel with him, fly with him. And she wanted to be with Chevy. No, Elliott wanted to be with Chevy. Elliott would be cute, with floppy ears and the little white spots in his fur. A penchant for nibbling on wooden bars, or vegetables that her mother planned to use in that night's salad. He was warm and soft.