"Come on, Casey. Fight me."
So familiar. We'd done this before. But he wouldn't be able to remember. I struggled to remember how it ended myself, I was certain I hadn't won, but then I hadn't been in possession of three Stoicheio at the time.
I writhed against him, my legs wrapping around his waist without a thought from me.
"I'm winning," he whispered against my ear. "One Pyrkagia prince against an Athanatos who wields three Elements. Fight me," he encouraged. "Make it worth my while."
I growled, rolling us over in the vines, making one wrap around his neck as we effected the manoeuvre.
"Better," he rasped, his breaths getting cut off by the noose at his throat.
Then I was licking him. My tongue circling his nipple as my hand slipped between our bodies and found him rock hard.
"Oh, fuck," he mumbled, clearly not realising I'd be so bold. He was fuelling my desire, but he wasn't aware how much of my barrier he'd broken down. How much a naive innocent I no longer was. "Bloody hell," he added. "Harder," he encouraged, losing his battle, handing me the win.
"Fight back," I encouraged in a singsong voice.
"Fuck," he breathed as I stroked him, my teeth biting into his impressive pecs. "Oh, Casey," he breathed as Fire raged between us. "Oraia," he begged and something in me broke.
Remember me!
We rolled again, the vines disintegrating as his flames surrounded us, the Air quickly snuffing them out and then the plants re-wrapping us, lifting us higher before we hit the ground. The rapid descent and sudden halt in our free-fall left us both breathless. Or that could have been the Pyrkagia we were throwing around the clearing with desperate need.
A wave of pure ecstasy swamped me, taking me higher and higher, arching my back, stilling my hands, leaving my mouth wide open and a cry of blissful release to escape.
He'd done it. He'd pushed hard enough with his Stoicheio to get me to succumb. That break I'd felt earlier became a shatter. A million sharp edged shards stabbing at my heart.
"Beautiful," he breathed. "You are so beautiful."
I closed my eyes, thought of the first place I could, which happened to be one of the last we'd been in, and felt the air around us sizzle, that fresh ozone smell invade my nose again, and lightning to strike the ground under where we'd just hovered, covered in vines.
The good news was that we were still covered in vines. The bad news was we were otherwise naked - our clothes all burned off, thank you very much Theo - on top of the kitchen table, wrapped around each other and breathing hard. Flushed, eyes blazing all manner of colours - well for me, Theo's were just gold - gasping for breath and not alone.
A chair moved back from the table making a loud screeching sound.
I opened my eyes to look directly into Theo's. He smiled.
"Well," he said, not moving a freaking inch to cover us up or, I don't know, maybe run us away somewhere to hide. "I understand why now," he whispered.
"You think it's just sex?" I croaked, forgetting our audience right then with the flood of rage that hit me.
Sex was nothing to what we'd had.
"Oraia," he purred. "This is not just sex."
"Ahem," Aktor sounded out from across the room. "I'd leave, but you've brought half a forest with you and I can't seem to find my way past. Oh, and you might have buried Nico under a branch somewhere. With any luck, though, Sonya got out. But it would be helpful if you could perhaps check."
"Sonya?" I called.
"I'm fine!" she cried back. "Shocked, but fine. I don't think my eyeballs will recover. And hey! Is that a tattoo on Theo's butt?"
Someone started laughing beneath the table, it sounded distinctly male.
"Nico?" Theo called.
"Every day is an education," Theo's cousin replied. "Sonya, babe? What did your human mind dig up to explain this one?"
"A tree outside the house fell over in the wind, crashing into the kitchen. Theo and Casey just happened to be climbing it at the time."
Silence and then we all started laughing at once.
"Where's Isadora?" Theo asked, as he sat us up, brushing leaves out of my hair and twigs from my shoulders.
I frowned back at him, not for touching me. No. For mentioning the bitch. Couldn't we go five minutes without checking up on her? She was a grown-arse woman, as Sonya would say.
Theo smirked, raising an eyebrow at my scowl.
"Cute," he mouthed as Aktor said, "Went after you two. Probably walking the city streets calling your names."
Did he sound amused?
"Didn't she see us disappear in a lightning bolt?" Theo enquired, gripping my hand when I went to climb down from the table and make a hasty retreat up to the bedrooms. He could deal with the forest.
"You've got something here," he whispered as Aktor said, "Yes, but we assumed it would be to somewhere in the city; where did you go? The Botanical Gardens?"
Theo's thumb stroked over my lips, his eyes holding my now wary gaze. He made a sound, and then his mouth pressed into mine, tongue searching entry as his arms wrapped around my shoulders and hauled me hard against his chest.
"Are they making out up there?" Nico demanded from beneath us.
"I'm not looking!" Sonya offered from over by the door.
"Yes," Aktor said as if he'd seen it all before. And he probably had.
"Have we got our Theo back?" Nico asked hopefully, as I found myself getting swept away in a Theo sized tsunami of lust.
No Pyrkagia in this one, it was all Theo Peters kissing the living daylights out of me. He groaned when my hands fisted in his hair, waking me up from the moment and making me push back from the embrace.
"This is not finished," he growled quietly at the space I pushed for, staring me down when I glared back.
"Then get a room," Sonya suggested, while Aktor asked, "Are you back, sir?"
I watched as lust and hunger and longing and need slowly seeped from Theo's face and a bone weary exhaustion replaced it. His eyes never left mine when he spoke.
"I remember I used to call Casey, Oraia. I'm not sure why, but I know it's my name for her."
He looked sad, and apologetic. I'd known the answer, but hearing it aloud still hurt.
"I don't remember anything else," he admitted quietly.
"Then why are you molesting her?" Sonya demanded, as Aktor said, "This is still good news."
"How is it good?" Nico immediately asked. "It seems fucked in the head to me."
Theo remained silent as his eyes continued to soak up my face.
"It's good because he's remembered something significant, this could be the start of more memory return," Aktor suggested hopefully.
I shook my head. I wasn't hoping for anything anymore. It just hurt.
"So why are you molesting her?" Sonya pushed. I could imagine her standing there with her arms crossed over her chest as she laser beamed Theo in the head from the door. I couldn't be sure, because I couldn't look away. Theo was sucking me into his very soul.
The silence stretched as everyone waited for Theo's reply. Why was the horny prince molesting me?
Well, of course, I'd been molesting him back, but we all knew I was a lost cause.
Then Theo murmured, "Because I find myself falling for her. All over again."
All breath left me. Sonya made an, "Aww" sound as Aktor humphed in satisfaction and I think Nico said something like, "Hot damn." But all I could see was Theo. Not my Theo, but a Theo I could maybe love.
"You're falling for me?" I whispered.
"Oraia," he said on a breath of heated air. "Don't sound so surprised. I fell for you once, didn't I? Apparently I frequented your store for a bloody year just to see you each day. There had to be a good reason for me to do that."
"Hear! Hear!" Nico mumbled.
"Of course it was possible for me to fall for you again," Theo whispered, but everyone could hear him. I think they were all straining their ears to be sure, but they could hear. I knew it.
"Oh
," I said.
Theo chuckled.
"And then, of course, there's your courage. Your strength. Your ability to fight back when the odds are against you. Your willpower to stay alive. Your loyalty. Even when I'm being an absolute prick, you still look at me as though I'm worthy. Your hair," he added, his hand running through the blonde strands as his eyes darted down to the triangle at the apex of my thighs; he'd always been fascinated with the matching shade between my legs. "Your eyes," he whispered, finally lifting his back up top. "I like the blue, but when I saw the green just now, I almost cried. So beautiful. Do you know they go white when you call Air? A little spooky," he teased. "But I find myself attracted to the unusual."
"Unusual?" I said, but I didn't really care. He was falling for me. All over again.
I didn't care about a thing, but here and now and this.
"He means eerie," Nico offered. Theo frowned.
"No," Sonya argued. "He means mysterious." Theo smiled.
"Nah-uh, babe. He means ghostly." Theo rolled his eyes and I suppressed a giggle. His gaze came back to my face, my lips, and he mouthed, "Beautiful."
I smiled, my heart aching but in such a different way than it had before. Light. Floating. Blissful.
"You're a creep!" Sonya declared and I blinked trying to keep up with the conversation.
"Ever done it with a creep?" Nico asked. "Would you like to try?" he added, hopefully.
"In your dreams," she replied haughtily.
"Baby, I could make your dreams come true."
"Nico," both Theo and I said in exasperated tones.
"What? It's all right for you two to flirt, but not me?" he demanded.
"I'm not getting on a table top, naked and covered in leaves, with you," Sonya declared.
"But have you dreamed it?" Nico asked.
"What's going on?" Isadora's voice sounded out from over by the door. Sonya yelped. Clearly having not heard the Athanatos walk up behind her.
"Make some noise next time," she muttered. "Creepy," she whispered under her breath making Nico burst out laughing.
"The Master has returned," Aktor offered helpfully.
"I can see that," Isadora archly replied. Theo pulled me closer, as though he could hide me, or protect me, I wasn't sure.
Isadora was not going to take to our new found overly friendly understanding. And I was certain he knew that.
"What's going on?" she repeated when no one said a word.
"Casey needs to get upstairs," Theo announced. "I'm taking her."
"Why?" Isadora snapped, as Aktor said, "I'll dig Nicodromos out."
"I'll help," Sonya offered, probably to shut Isadora up.
"I knew you wanted me," Nico preened from beneath us.
"Dreams," Sonya reminded him.
"And I'm in yours," Nico reminded her.
"Children," Aktor admonished, but his heart wasn't really in it. You could tell the old man was happy. Happy Theo and I were moving on. "Shall we all get going now?" he added.
"Good idea," Theo murmured, helping me off the table's surface, pulling vines around me to hide me from a waving Nico underneath.
Theo hadn't tried to hide me before, when we'd appeared outside singed but naked. Now he was all about the protective male. It warmed me, as it conversely left me feeling empty inside.
It didn't make sense. Theo was falling for me, like he did the first time. I should be cock-a-hoop. But I wanted my Theo. With our memories. I wanted my Thisavros back.
I was greedy and maybe a little too needy. But it was what it was.
We met Isadora at the door to the kitchen, her eyes taking in our undressed state - disregarding the vines, of course - and returning to Theo's face.
"So, you remember?" she whispered.
"No," he said softly and her face hardened. That ancient Athanatos mask they wear falling into place. The one this woman had to wear on so many occasions. When Theo had walked away all those times in the past.
"I see," she said.
"Dora," he called, as she went to turn away.
"I understand," Isadora stressed, not looking over her shoulder, keeping her back to us both.
I felt an unwanted empathy for her, one I was sure she didn't deserve.
Then she proved me correct when she threw out, "You always did like them naive."
"Dora," he growled, just as a knock sounded out at the front door.
Everyone stilled.
"Aktor?" Theo called, voice modulated not to carry through the foyer to the entrance.
"A male," Aktor whispered back, loud enough to reach us from the kitchen and the security monitor there, but not too loud. "Didn't trigger any perimeter alarms."
"What branch?" Theo demanded.
He could sense the power as well. Something fluctuating, something I couldn't quite identify, yet there was something about the Stoicheio, I could register on the other side of that door, that called to me.
"Aeras?" I asked, thinking it had to be the new Element, unfamiliar yet familiar. "Hip?" I added.
He'd come for me.
Aktor appeared at our sides, eyes blazing gold.
"No, Miss Eden," he whispered. "Not Aeras. Not any other branch that I can determine either."
Nico walked out of the room, Sonya on his tail. She wrapped her cardigan around my shoulders, it was long, down to my knees, leaving her in jeans and a t-shirt, and giving me at least something of a cover.
Where would I be without my friend?
"Best we find out," Nico announced. "Whoever he is, he's not hiding his power."
Theo pushed me behind him, still fully naked and not giving a damn. Sonya cowered half behind me, half in the kitchen still. Dora moved out to flank Aktor, with Nico at his other shoulder, as the butler approached the door.
Just before they made it, Nico branched off into a room at the side, and Isadora did the same opposite him. Hidden, but probably not missed. Aktor glanced back at Theo, waited for his nod, and then opened the door.
"Alchemist!" Theo hissed upon seeing the man.
And all hell broke loose.
Chapter 8
I Wasn't Fooled
"I come in peace," the man got out before he was blasted back by a wall of flames.
It was still raining, I noted, and with wide eyes I watched as that rain turn into a sheet of water, a wall of liquid that met the flames head on and held them back.
"I come in peace," the man shouted again from the other side of that wall of flames and sheet of water.
"Casey," Theo urged. "Vines."
Oh. Right. I stepped out onto the marble of the entranceway, still under the portico and called Earth. It took a little urging as the man was still on the driveway; he hadn't been pushed back far enough to reach the manicured lawn. But with a shudder and a heave the gravel shifted and dirt was exposed, followed by surging roots and branches as they shot up and wound around the man's legs.
Little mini tornadoes began to turn the gravel and loose leaves into whirligigs all over the driveway tearing along towards the man, and in a move that looked too precise to be real, severed the vines climbing up his legs at the roots. He jumped back and frantically untangled the rest, still maintaining that wall of water as protection against the roaring Fire.
The flames surged as all four Pyrkagia put their combined will behind the command. It was obvious they would break through the water wall before too much longer, but suddenly the wall became a funnel, tearing through the flames and heading straight for us. For a second I couldn't figure out what he was doing, and neither could the others, who had made the wall of Fire reunite and surge forward towards where we all assumed the man still stood on the other side.
"Blow the water away, Casey!" Theo yelled.
Freaking hell, did he think I had a handle on all of this already?
Sweat beaded my brow as I clenched my fists and closed my eyes concentrating with all my might. To use the lightning, I just had to visualise where I wanted to go. Maybe that wasn't necessa
ry, but it worked for me. So I'd stick with visualisation techniques to command Air for now. I pictured a strong wind cutting through the space between the wall of Fire as it kept crackling evermore forward across the driveway to the grass and the five of us - Sonya was hiding, that girl had good sense. I aimed for the tunnel of water as it swirled and churned before us, moving like an inexorable monster closer and closer. The wind cut through the liquid, making arcs of spray spread out in a circle, some of it landing on us, the rest damping the wall of Fire.
Standing, this side of that diminished wall of Fire, not even wet, was the man. Dressed in jeans and a Movie World t-shirt, scuffed boots and loose hands at his sides. Blond dishevelled hair was the only indication that he'd been in the centre of a tornado of water. Pale blue eyes connected with mine and I swayed.
"I will kill you, if you step an inch closer," Theo announced.
The man ignored him, his eyes all for me. Theo noticed, flicking a concerned gaze my way and noting the paleness of my skin, I should think.
"Casey?" he said, moving to catch me before I toppled. "What have you done?" Theo demanded of the man.
"Scared the crap out of her," he replied in a broad Kiwi accent. "Hey, sis," he added, making everyone still. "Long time, no see."
"Oh, this can't be good," Nico muttered as Sonya ventured out of the front door.
"Mark?" she asked.
"Hey, now there's a surprise. Marin, looking good," my brother said with an appreciative nod of his head.
His eyes flicked over the Pyrkagia, landing on Theo holding me flush to his side.
"Do you greet all your guests in the buff?" he asked, eyeing Theo's naked butt and thigh as he had managed to turn himself side on, by wrapping his body around me. At least there was some modesty to be had, even if he was now wearing me like an apron.
Silence met the question and I don't think it was because no one wanted to answer. Tension hung in the air, chilling the raindrops that continued to fall on us, but somehow missed my brother completely.
Oh, freaking hell. My brother. Marcus. An Alchemist.
"Can I come in?" he asked, when no one started talking. "I did say, I come in peace, didn't I? Because I'm not sure that message got through."
His eyes came back to my stunned face.
The Chilling Change Of Air (Elemental Awakening, Book 3) Page 8