Elemental Awakening Book Bundle

by Nicola Claire

  I sucked in a deep breath through my nose seeking the soothing scent of Earth, but it was always just outside of my reach. A temptation that gnawed at my psyche, threatened to suck all reason from my mind, while all life was slowly seeping out from my soul.

  The emptiness was excruciating.

  Separating reality from fantasy was so hard. For a moment I just stood there and took in the scene before me and tried to see reason where there was none. But one thing reminded me that this was not real, as conversely one thing insisted it was.

  The fact that I could not scent the Earth was a clue. I knew that when awake the Earth's calming scent alluded me. Yet when I dreamed it should have been there. A dream is something you can create subconsciously. My subconscious was crying out for Earth's cool scent.

  Real.

  Then there was the fact that I had not walked amongst Earth's creations for too long to count now. Locked away in a room without windows. A room without plants. A room without access to the Earth. And yet here I was surrounded by nature, not quite embraced by it, but close enough to remember what that sensation actually felt like.

  Fantasy.

  For several seconds I swayed between the two.

  Real.

  Fantasy.

  Real.

  Fantasy.

  But like every night for the past six weeks the argument was made moot as soon as my eyes landed on the rose.

  A scarlet red newly budding rose on a long green stem lay across a flat stone. My breath hitched in my throat. I'd known it would be there, but the pain of that knowledge did not surpass the pain of seeing it again. It meant one thing; this... this mirage was false. A fantasy. Not real.

  I stumbled a step forward, making the mist swirl and retreat, and then regroup at mid shin. Blanketing the Earth beneath my feet, reminding me I was on my own. As if I needed that reminder.

  I curled my hands into fists at my sides and stared at the perfect, beckoning flower that had taunted me unmercifully for so many nights. I knew this rose. I'd seen it many times in the Parnell Rose Gardens on Gladstone Road when I went for my early morning run. It was called Millennium. Or more commonly: Everlasting Love.

  That should have been enough to break me, but it was by no means all there was to crush my dwindling strength and shatter my broken heart beyond that which is reparable. This rose was bred in New Zealand and was not native to South America.

  Fantasy.

  But knowing this and being able to stop what always happened next was impossible.

  I staggered across the clearing, my hand outstretched, reaching for the impossible. Reaching for Theo. Because no matter what I told myself I always believed this rose was from him. Impossible. Theo was dead. Had been for three months. This was a fantasy, a dream, a useless desire and nothing else.

  The rose was not from Theo, but then why did I dream of it every night?

  My fingers wrapped around the thorny stem, a prick of my flesh and blood welled in my palm, coating the stalk. The petals quivered, my breath was sucked in; preparation for what would come. A sense of anticipation invaded the clearing. Animals ceased all movements, branches stilled in the humid breeze, leaves floated to the ground without so much as a whisper.

  And the rose burst into flames in my hand, burning, searing, licking the flesh away from my wrist, up my arm, until my whole body was ablaze.

  I screamed, sucked in more fire, which felt like Fire - that's with a capital F - and sat bolt upright in bed.

  My room was dark and devoid of personality. The air stale. The floor concrete. A prison fit for a Gi.

  Real.

  And another day in Hell had begun.

  Chapter One

  And It Was Never Going To Be Enough

  Ice cold water splashed over my face making me splutter and choke on inhaled droplets. I coughed to clear my clogged lungs, and struggled to lift my head from where it lay defeated, chin to chest, lolling slightly from side to side.

  I was so tired.

  Another bucket full of the frigid liquid aimed directly at my face, followed by the clattering of the metal container as my 'interrogator' threw it across the room.

  "How many more will it take?" the man's voice purred next to my ear.

  He enjoyed this, there was no denying the thrill he got out of torturing me each day. I had no way of knowing if the sun had crested the top of the trees by the time he walked into my cell, but I guessed it was only just on dawn, as he couldn't possibly wait any longer.

  "It's simple," he said from behind my other shoulder, "tell us what we want to know and we'll set you free."

  "Liar," I murmured, knowing freaking well that even if I could tell them what they wanted to know, I would be killed, not freed. They saw me as a threat, why else would they lock me away in a windowless room, cut me off from the Earth which fuelled me, and question me unmercifully?

  "Tsk, tsk," he admonished, as he finally made the circuit of my chair to appear before me.

  Long brown hair floated unnaturally around his shoulders, piercing dark blue eyes which constantly flashed a vibrant green, blinding in their intensity, and a physique that screamed strength, menace, superiority.

  His long, thick fingers reached out and cupped my chin, forcing my face up to his. I closed my eyes, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear.

  "Must we do this everyday?" he asked reasonably, as though what would come next was avoidable. It wasn't, I'd tried various responses to his questions over the past three months and always I ended up doused in Gi essence.

  "Give it your best shot," I spat weakly, receiving a chuckle for my pathetic attempt at rebellion.

  "Very well, but remember, this can all end. You need only tell us what we want to hear."

  But that was the problem. To tell them what they needed to hear, I'd have to lie. And even though it would be a falsehood, they would believe it.

  His fingers stroked my jaw, my chin, almost tenderly. But the sensation they created was not one of comfort, but a rolling wave of increasing dread.

  "Hederin," he whispered, his lips so close to mine I felt the wash of heat as he spoke.

  For a brief moment I was suspended in the beauty that is the Earth, as Gi Stoicheio flowed through me. This was one of the only times now, that I felt any connection to my Element. And it was borrowed, false, a trick. A glorious sensation hiding the evil beneath.

  I sucked in a deep breath of air, floating on the bliss the moment gave me. Hearing the Gi interrogator's humourless laugh. And then the world shifted around me as the dank, dark cell we had been in disappeared.

  I didn't want to open my eyes. I didn't want to see what trickery the Hederin toxin had created. Only once had it given me something bitter-sweet. Every other time had been gut wrenching.

  Warmth embraced me, wrapped around my body, kissed my skin. Seeped beneath the thin layer of clothing I was wearing and tempted me with a sensual wash of heat. Fire. Pyrkagia Fire.

  Theo.

  Without a second thought my eyes sprang open. How could I not look when Pyrkagia Stoicheio coated my flesh, teased my senses and lured me out of what little protection I had left?

  It didn't matter that I had no control over this hallucination, I always told myself that if I just kept my eyes closed I wouldn't have to see. Nonsense, of course. The Gi who channelled the Hederin essence was entirely in control of what happens next. Not me.

  I no longer had any control at all.

  The Earth shook beneath my feet, as Fire raged all around us. Shouts and cries of alarm were interspersed with barked orders and the crackle of flames, the groaning of trees, and the thunder of the Earth breaking apart before me.

  I lay crumpled in a heap on the grass, ten feet away from the horror that met my mortified gaze. A haze of green light filtered through the smoke of Pyrkagia Stoicheio, entwining with an unnatural shine of yellow-gold.

  Theo knelt, hands clawing at the vine that wrapped around his neck, breaking skin, causing blood to dr
ibble down his collar, pool in the dip of his throat. His gold blazed eyes were on me, just as they had been on me the day I was taken from Auckland. Just as they appeared each night in my mind when my eyes closed for the day and wretched sleep took over.

  There was no escape from that image. There was no respite. And now the Gi interrogator was making me relive it all over again. But not just what I had seen, no that would be too simple, too lenient. This time I got to see the ending.

  This time I got to see Theo die.

  The first time the Gi made me witness this I lay frozen in shock. The next time I cried. The time after I pleaded for it to stop. Despite the repetition, I never truly become desensitised to the experience. I have tried just lying limply and facing my sorrow head on. I have tried to close my eyes, but the images flicker inside my head instead. I have tried to fight back.

  And because it is cruel to give me hope and then dash it, they have let me.

  My fingers dug into the soil beneath me in a futile effort to conjure enough Stoicheio to protect my love. The Earth responded with a joyous sigh, a rumbling crossed the space between my body and Theo's; still struggling to pry the vine from his flesh. It had dug into the skin by now, burying itself deep in the tissue. But the Earth urged me on, promised it could help. Teased me. Tempted me. Trying to entrap me.

  I shook my head softly, my eyes still held by the rapidly defeated look on Theo's face. I could try to use my Stoicheio to command the vine to unravel. I could try to use my Stoicheio to make a concentrated burst of soil sever the vine from its root, and therefore its source of power. I could do either of these things, and I have done them before today. But it would be useless.

  I am useless here. As useless as Theo was on that day.

  The sense of futility was astounding. The acknowledgement that I had to watch this again, watch Theo's last moments before all life and Fire was snuffed out, turned the world a bleak black. Theo was so full of passion and the essence of what it means to be alive. He embraced life, he loved, he celebrated living. He was the epitome of what being an Ekmetalleftis is.

  And I loved him, more now than I did when he was alive. The memory a strength that distance could never diminish. Shadowed by the fact that the type of distance that exists between us is as basic and deplorable as life and death.

  Theo Peters no longer lived.

  But I did.

  In a desperate attempt to shatter the vision before me, the vision I knew was false, but conversely true. I sent my Stoicheio not towards the vine at his neck and Theo, but out towards the Gi who created this hallucination.

  I'd never tried this before, and part of me already knew the physics behind this actually working was impossible. This was an essence induced poisoning, creating an illusion that only worked in my mind. The Gi interrogator was never present when these visions occurred, leaving me to experience their horror alone. Just as I am alone in reality, he ensured I felt the same solitary experience in the fantasy he created.

  But I was tired and worn out. Beyond the ability to sit through another moment of Theo's death. My only other option was to curl up in a ball and admit defeat. It was tempting. It beckoned with its easy answer to my predicament. But I'd done that before too. And it didn't work.

  The images just swirled inside my head, the sounds closing in on my foetal position.

  So, I'd try this and weather the storm - or disappointment - afterwards.

  The swell of Earth, through the contact of my fingers in the dirt at my sides, flooded me. It felt so real, despite me knowing this was all a product of a powerful toxin. I put everything I had left in me, into that final push of power from deep below the soil at my fingertips. I poured myself into the command, I willed my being into every part of it. I let myself believe.

  I'm not sure if it was that; the belief. Belief is a tangible thing. To truly believe you become one with the belief itself. I became one with the belief that this would work. That I actually had the ability to connect with my Element and use it against my captor. I didn't allow a shadow of doubt to enter my mind, I just believed.

  And the vision, the hallucination, shattered, with a curse in Greek and a muffled cry of pain from my interrogator.

  The cool, dark room coalesced around me, including the panting, sweating, angry face of my Gi tormentor.

  He was several feet away, hunched over, hands to knees, breathing too rapidly. His green blazing eyes on my trapped form. Tied to a wooden chair, no hope of escape should he lash out.

  "How did you do that?" he demanded, straightening up and attempting to hide the grimace of pain the movement caused.

  I had no answer, and I thought silence was my best defence right now.

  He tilted his head and studied my blank face. Then in a rush he was on me. His arm pulled back before I even registered what he was doing. The smart of the slap making me cry out in pain. He didn't stop. Another backhanded slap across my cheek and jaw. Another scream of agony, followed by splatter of blood arcing through the air, to the side of where I sat trapped, and up the wall.

  Again and again he struck, making my head whip from side to side as he put every ounce of his physical strength into beating me. I counted thirteen strikes before I lost consciousness. Thirteen screams, which became cries, and then finally whimpers.

  I'd succeeded in something today. Something I had not managed to do for three months.

  I broke a Hederin induced hallucination.

  And I broke my Gi interrogator’s composure.

  I woke back on my hard bed, a cool cloth wiping carefully against the skin on my neck. Without windows I couldn't tell what time it was, how long I had been out. From the ache in my body, not just my face, my tormentor had progressed on from cheek slaps, to full body punches. I sucked in a shallow breath and realised I probably had broken ribs as well as a bruised jaw now.

  I whimpered as the cloth was dragged across sensitive flesh, then wrung out in a bowl of water to my side. I hadn't yet opened my eyes. I don't think it was intentional. My lids felt a little too puffy to be normal right now.

  "Sorry," my carer whispered. "He made a mess of your face."

  A sliver of light appeared along the bottom of my vision; the gap my swollen eyelids allowed me to see through. The Gi doctor sat on a chair beside my bed, gently tending to my sorry state.

  "I pissed him off," I mumbled, perhaps incoherently.

  "You shouldn't do that," he replied neutrally, but didn't stop cleaning up the blood with tender strokes of the cloth.

  "How long was I out?" I asked, a little more light seeping through my half closed lids. I could make out the broad chest of the doctor now, not quite his face. But I knew him. He'd tended to my injuries in the past.

  "It's late afternoon," he surprised me by saying. "I've only just now been called in and you were still unconscious when I arrived. I'm uncertain when Davos left you, but he wasn't seen in the hallways until one hour ago."

  It was the most the doctor had ever spoken. Usually his answers were oblique and short. He hadn't even called my interrogator by name before, and as the doctor and my tormentor were the only two Gi I ever saw, my conversations had been limited. Until now.

  I'm not sure why he was in a talkative mood, but despite the pain of my injuries I decided it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

  "Will he back?" The most important question.

  The doctor grunted. It was an unamused sound he'd never made before. "Oh, he'll be back, little one. He's feeding his Stoicheio so when he returns he can really let you have it. What were you thinking?"

  Another surprise. The doctor had never asked me a question before.

  "I couldn't watch him die again," I admitted, not in the slightest ashamed to own up to that fact. Davos knew already. The doctor probably knew as well. I wasn't admitting to anything that wasn't already common knowledge.

  "You have to promise me not to strike back," the doctor whispered, moving the bloodied water bowl away to the sink in the corner to wash it o
ut.

  I turned my head with effort and watched his back for a moment. My eyelids allowed further vision as time past. The strange healing abilities of an Athanatos. I could already feel my ribs reforming and the bruise on my jaw getting smaller. But those unusual abilities were not what was making me feel unsettled.

  The doctor was acting a little too differently today than I would have liked.

  He returned to my bedside, all the while I watched him closely, and unscrewed the lid of a smelly ointment. Dipping in two fingers he pulled out a dollop of the foul stuff and proceeded to lather it on my face and jaw. I kept my lips sealed, even though I wanted to breathe through my mouth, not my nose. But fear of tasting the vile medicine kept them firmly shut.

  Once he was satisfied with the state of my face, he moved on to my ribs. Lifting my thin cotton shirt to expose my naked chest. He didn't bat an eyelash at the mess Davos had made or the glimpse he was getting of my breasts.

  He finished his task, lowered my shirt and then finally met my eyes. Green danced hypnotically across their normally blue depths.

  "How much more can you take?" he asked quietly.

  I stared at him for a long moment wondering what the best answer would be. Wondering why he would ask the question in the first place. I had no answer to either dilemma. As with everything else, I was out of my league.

  "I don't know," I whispered, finding it hard to lie to the man, despite knowing he was one of them and shouldn't be trusted. He'd cared for me, shown mercy where Davos had given me none. I didn't trust him, but I hadn't categorised him as yet, either.

  He sighed and ran a hand though his long brown hair, resting his palm at the nape of his neck.

  "It's too soon," he mumbled, not making any sense. "We're not ready."

  "What's not ready?" I asked, voice quiet in the hopes he'd not be startled by my query.

  But I needn’t have worried, because he didn't have time to answer, even if he'd intended to. The door banged open and Davos stormed in. Green flooding the darker space before him, stealing all natural light and banishing any momentary relief from rest I'd just had.