Elemental Awakening Book Bundle

by Nicola Claire

"Mine," I breathed back making him growl in satisfaction.

  A part of me hoped that this would do it. This would bring our Thisavros connection back. A part of me I didn't want to assess too deeply. Didn't want to trust too deeply. But couldn't help feeling in any case.

  I felt him free himself, my hand darting down immediately and wrapping around his hard silken length, as though called there, unable to stop myself, needing that tactile connection, when the spiritual one may let me down.

  "Casey," Theo groaned rocking his hips. "Now," he begged, still rocking.

  "Yeah, now would be a good time to find your own room," my brother drawled from over on the mattress. "That's my sister you're about to..."

  "Don't finish that sentence if you wish to survive," Theo barked out, his entire body statue still, shielding me from view, but I still felt way too exposed just then.

  I closed my eyes, removed my hand from a certain part of Theo's naked anatomy, my body shaking, my heart pounding, my face flushed bright red.

  "And if you don't mind," Theo added. "I think we will."

  And then he lifted me off the wall, making sure I was suitably covered, and stormed out of Mark's bedroom and down the hall to the one we'd been sharing. Thunder and lightning in his intent gaze, a palpable feeling of pending explosion rolling off his body. His intention very, very clear.

  I held my breath and waited for him to kick the door closed behind us and lower me to the bed before I spoke.

  "Now the whole house will know what we're doing," I whispered as he hovered over me, frustration and longing on his face.

  "Bloody fucking hell," he muttered and then collapsed down the side of me and covered his face with the back of his forearm. "I don't suppose you can pretend we're on a desert island and it's just the two of us, could you?" he asked, hopefully.

  I let out my own frustrated breath of air, and said, "Want to go for a drive?"

  His head turned towards me and he slowly smiled.

  "No reason to stay here," he murmured. "Your brother is clearly recovered. The others are resting near their Stoicheio. It would be wise to see what's happening in the city, from a purely strategic and overall safety point of view."

  "Absolutely," I agreed, wholeheartedly.

  He jumped up off the bed displaying his youthful prowess beautifully and announced, "I'll bring the car around the front, you bring the blanket."

  And then practically ran out of the room, that same thunder and lightning in his focused gaze, but now mixed with a little hope and excitement.

  I just prayed it wasn't Genesis' turn to cock-block us this time. Mark had managed to do an excellent job, I'm not sure we'd survive the interruption of the End of Days as well.

  My brother was bad enough.

  Chapter Eighteen

  And In The End None Of It Mattered

  The tension in the SUV was thick and electric. I was momentarily relieved not to have our Stoicheio able to join in the fun right now. Had Pyrkagia been available to draw on, I was sure the temperature inside the vehicle would have surpassed the hot of right now and exploded into blistering.

  To take my mind off the impending and much wanted upcoming activities, and the logistics of actually finding a safe place to carry them out, I focused on the roadways and buildings and people we passed. In the short amount of time since the earthquake, the humans had rallied. An organisation of sorts was noticeable on the streets.

  Big blue porta-loos dotted the cracked pavement, large piles of rubble were being added to with wheelbarrow loads from nearby properties. A truck stood at the intersection of the roads at the end of our street, on it large clear flagons of water being handed out along with plastic wrapped care-parcels full of foodstuffs and survival essentials.

  The earthquake in Christchurch a few years back had certainly put a rocket up the Civil Defence's backsides, their rapid response to this disaster was commendable. But they didn't know this wasn't the end. And there was no point warning them.

  Of course the doomsday preacher on the end of another street, standing on an upturned wooden box and yelling at the top of his lungs about God's fury and the penance of mankind was a foreshadowing. Just the wrong god and wrong crimes to be paid for. I'm sure the balance of the Elements had nothing to do with greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony or wrath.

  We made our way through the upheaval and evidence of humanity's desire to survive, and wended up the curved road of Mount Victoria, coming to rest in a thankfully abandoned carpark. The clean-up of the city's streets having not made it this far, some off-roading had to be undertaken just to reach the summit.

  The cooling tick of the engine filled the space as we looked out across Wellington and its harbour. From here we had a panoramic view of the entire city, covered in a haze of smoke from open fires, mired in a pall of broken civilisation and cloaked in an elevated level of fear. They may not have known more was to come, but the humans knew this was a disaster on a scale never witnessed globally before. It wasn't natural, even though it appeared to have taken form in a natural way. Earthquakes, the earth's unspoken temper tantrums.

  "Come on," Theo encouraged, opening his side of the car and pulling the blanket out after him, and a little soft sided chilli-bin I hadn't noticed he'd had stored on the back seat until then. I followed to where he took his time laying the woollen rug out, in a spot of still intact grass just beyond the tarseal of the carpark.

  It was too open for my liking, but no one was around to see. Too busy picking up the remnants of their lives down in the shattered city beneath us. And there was something about this place. If God had always appeared to live in a heaven in the sky, Aetheros existed around us. On the highest available peak in our newly adopted town.

  Theo held out his hand and I didn't hesitate to grip it, letting him guide me onto the blanket beside him. We had a spectacular view of utter mayhem. Somehow it fitted the mood.

  He began rummaging in the chilli-bin, pulling out a bottle of wine and two glasses and a Tupperware container full of Aktor-style cheese and crackers, fruit and nuts. My eyes welled and I glanced up at Theo's face.

  "Aktor?"

  "I do have a romantic streak, you know," he deadpanned. Then added, "He thought you might have forgotten to eat lunch."

  "I didn't forget," I whispered. I'd just been too busy caring for my brother and getting hot and heavy with my Thisavros.

  Theo smiled, clearly seeing where my thoughts had gone. He opened the bottle and poured two glasses, offering me one when he was done.

  "Here's to Aktor storing our wine in an earthquake proof cellar," he toasted.

  I had to smile at that.

  "At least we have the essentials," I offered taking a sip and letting the alcohol seep into my body.

  We drank and ate in silence watching a world try futilely to right itself.

  "They're resilient, aren't they?" Theo commented, watching the orange flashing lights of earthmoving equipment intermingled with the reflective jerkins on the police and army alike.

  "You've really never seen anything like this before?"

  "What? Humanity's ability to fight back against the odds? All the time. I just never had to see them do so against such insurmountable ones."

  "Why did Aetheros abandon us?" I asked, staring into my wine, unable to look the devastation before me in the eyes as I asked that. Feeling responsible for the heartache below on those streets, just by being associated with the Athanatos.

  Theo placed his wine down on a flat bit of ground beside him and lay back on the blanket, staring up at the clouds. At least it had stopped raining, as though even the heavens had cried themselves out.

  "We abandoned him," Theo corrected.

  "But why?"

  "We became complacent, too full of our own self-importance. Too sure of our place in the world. We entertained the notion that we were god-like. That we no longer needed to follow the sometimes strict teachings of a real god."

  "How did the Alchemists fit into your belief a
t that time?" I asked.

  "Come here," he urged, holding out his arm from me to lie down beside him. I placed my wine glass down safely and crawled into his embrace, looking up at the clouds while he talked.

  "I told you we gave the humans access to our history as payment for feeding us for so long," he started. "Even though they were not aware that Pyrkagia fed off humans at that stage. But it had been a long time since we had heard from our god, we were careless. Fearless. There were those elders who cautioned against our fraternisation with humans. They never gave reasons, just dire predictions of all that could go wrong. When it did, no one bothered to question their guidance again."

  He fell silent, his fingers slowly running through my hair as though to soothe him as well as me, as we stared up into the heavens. The elders had known. Probably still did, or the passing of time had helped dim their memories. But they'd known. Back then when the Alchemists returned and the Pyrkagia felt guilt enough to allow them access to their history as payment. They'd known.

  "Mark said that the Alchemists and Athanatos once worked together," I offered and Theo's soothing touch stilled.

  "What else did he say?"

  "That the Alchemists worshipped Aetheros."

  Theo let out a disgruntled snort.

  "That their role was to record history and guide the Athanatos through times of peril, such as..."

  "Genesis," Theo completed for me.

  I nodded. "I guess that could be why they know so much more than us about what's happening."

  "You believe that?" Or did he mean, you believe Mark?

  I shrugged against his arm as it wrapped around my shoulders.

  "I honestly don't know anymore. Trust earned can be so easily broken, but I do know right now that we've nothing to work with. No knowledge or experience to lead the way. We're flying blind, rudderless, and incapacitated at the same time, and if what he says is true, the Alchemists are not."

  "Know thy enemy," Theo murmured, quoting Sun Tzu. "We need to question him, even if we can't wholly trust him, we need to know what he knows."

  I nodded. "You're not going to like it."

  He groaned and rolled over until he was looking down into my face. "Tell me," he instructed softly, clearly resigned to his dislike already.

  His fingers delved into my hair again, at the side of my temples, brushing it away from my cheeks as though he couldn't stop touching me, needed to keep touching me, wasn't ever going to let me go again.

  I liked it.

  I needed it.

  It felt so very right.

  "He told me Gramps faked his death when their seers discovered I was to be the next Aether."

  "To protect you," Theo surmised, figuring it out faster than I had.

  I nodded. "He killed the seer and gave them a false name to follow. Eventually they found out the truth, though, and now he's trapped in CERN."

  Theo looked intently at me. I didn't think I had any particular expression on my face. I couldn't put into words even what I was thinking or feeling right then. But he could.

  "You are not mounting a rescue mission to save your grandfather," he declared.

  I hadn't realised until then, that thought had indeed been in the back of my mind. But now voiced, it took root and rapidly grew, overtaking all other reasoning, stealing into the depths of my psyche, wrapping sticky tendrils around my mind.

  "Cassandra," Theo pressed. "We are without Stoicheio, cut off from any support, facing an additional Genesis disaster, it is impossible right now."

  Well, it was impossible. I'd give him that.

  "Life's a little complicated to storm the Alchemist fortress, huh?" I hedged.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  "You vex me, sometimes, you really do," he muttered.

  "So, first things first," I said brightly, trying to steer the conversation towards happier ground. "Attempt to commune with our Stoicheio and commune with each other." I was sure my smile was wicked.

  His eyes opened and hungry hazel stared down at me.

  "Now, there's a plan I can get on board with," he quipped. Then proceeded to nuzzle the skin behind my ear.

  "Of course," I added, my mind not willing to let go of a damn thing right now. "We do need to establish which side the Alchemists are on."

  Theo groaned and slowly pulled his head back.

  "What did your brother say they wanted with you which forced your grandfather to fake his death, thwart his people, and kill one of their, no doubt, precious seers?"

  "He didn't," I admitted. "But he did say mistakes were made on both sides, and that Alchemist and Athanatos history was complicated."

  "That narrows it down," Theo quipped.

  "You know what I mean. Good and bad exists in both camps, that doesn't mean they intended anything horrible once they got me."

  "Then why did your grandfather take such drastic action to ensure they didn't?"

  Good point. My shoulders slumped.

  "Oraia," Theo murmured. "I don't have the answers, but we will figure this out."

  "How do you know that?" I asked, looking up into warm eyes.

  "Because where you are concerned, I have come to realise there is no need for doubt. You set your mind to something and you succeed at it. Whether it's finding acceptance in amongst a new preternatural race you've just joined, or thwarting the Queen of the Gi. Or befriending an insular Aeras or pledging to right the world when its Elements are imbalanced. You have a way of making things happen and I believe wholeheartedly that you will accomplish whatever your next goal is."

  "I just need to pick one," I muttered.

  "How about I help you with that," Theo offered, suddenly looking at me in an entirely different light. No longer awed as such, but definitely a type of wonderment.

  "And what would you suggest I battle first?" I asked, eyebrows raised.

  He licked his lips, his eyes darting down to my breasts and back up to my mouth.

  "Your Thisavros," he husked. Then offered me a rakish smile and said, "Let the battle begin."

  I giggled as he made his way under my t-shirt, the location forgotten, the scenery no longer viewed. My top was removed in a flash and then his hands were on naked skin, making all protests - had there actually been any - disappear. My bra came next, leaving me bare chested and open for anyone who passed by to see.

  But I had a feeling, a strange, unexplainable feeling, that although we may have abandoned Aetheros in the past, he hadn't abandoned us. And right here on that mountainside, overlooking a crushed and near broken city, his presence was felt.

  No cry of Oh, my Aether inside my head, just a sensation that we were not alone, but our companion was not of this world.

  Hot lips wrapped around my nipple, followed by the tingling touch of a wet tongue. I moaned, arched my back and then he began to suck.

  I was sure I'd come from his suckling alone, the pull of his hot, wet mouth on my breast, the connection each draw seemed to have directly to my centre, making me writhe and groan and beg for more.

  Then he undid the buttons on my jeans, the zip followed, and his hand slipped inside. I came the instant he touched my core, before he'd even sunk a digit inside, just a soft glide over my swollen nub and I shattered beneath him, calling out his name for all to hear.

  "Aetheros," he growled, removing his shirt and quickly moving onto my jeans and underwear. In a second I was fully naked and he was shirtless and struggling with his belt.

  I reached forward and brushed his shaking hands away, bemused to note his body was thrumming with nervous anticipation like he was the innocent and not I. Although, I could hardly be called innocent any longer. Theo had put paid to that in the most delicious of ways. And life had a way of making you grow up in other areas, survival making embarrassment of nudity seem a trivial thing indeed.

  He sprang free, a proud, broad head weeping his desire. My thumb brushed over the moisture making him rumble in encouragement and my insides curl with my desperate want an
d need. I pushed him onto his back and worked to remove the rest of his clothing, until I had my Greek god laid out before me, under the sky, beneath a gentle breeze, high up in the heavens.

  I kissed his chest, following the contours of his so beautifully defined muscles, marvelling all over again at the dips and ridges, the flat planes and hard bulges. He was a pure work of art, magnificent in every way. Mine.

  My lips wrapped around his arousal causing him to shout out at the sensation it created. Hands gripped my hair carefully, as his hips rose and his breaths rasped and my hum electrified the moment.

  "Casey," he cried, straining to hold himself back from the final surrender.

  Then in an instant I was hauled up his body, lips crushing into mine, tongues tangling as he encouraged my legs to spread wide, straddling his waist and allowing him entry.

  He rose up, as I came down, and we met in a heated, explosive collision, our breaths spent, our eyes locked, our hearts thundering in tandem.

  "You are stunning," he managed to rasp in that sexy husky voice he uses. "Absolutely stunning."

  I smiled, sat upright and began to rock my hips in a seductive wave.

  "Oh, Aetheros," Theo groaned. Sweat beading his forehead, his hands gripping my hips, his shaft plunging in so deeply and then withdrawing to the very tip, only to be taken in a rush all over again.

  It was heady, it was sensual, it was completely out of this world. Out of any world. Just us. Just that moment. Reconnecting our bodies and hearts. Our souls. Every sensation so vivid and colourful, so full of glorious life.

  Theo rolled us, my back to the blanket, the scratch of the wool a contrast to the smooth glide of his erection as he thrust in and out of my core.

  "Stunning," he whispered, his fingers lacing with mine. He held them above my head, making my body stretch out beneath him, allowing him full access to view what he was doing to me. Where we met at my centre. How my skin was damp with perspiration, flushed with arousal. My back arching, making my breasts thrust out and bounce before him, as he picked up pace and moved us closer and closer to the edge of blissful release.