elemental 03 - whitecap

by Larissa Ladd

  “No more than you can vaporize them with fire,” Aira had responded, defensively.

  Aiden looked over and saw the expression on her face that indicated that she was focusing intently. The wind that had been pounding the car died down slightly, which was at least somewhat better than the stormy conditions he had been grappling with. Aiden had wished, fleetingly, that his brother had been in the car with them; between Aira and Dylan, they might have been able to clear the storm out, or at least push it behind them.

  The weather cleared by the time they were a half dozen miles of Lorene’s house, though there was evidence in the wet and muddy yard it had passed through. Aira leaped out of the car enthusiastically and Aiden took a deep breath, trying to conquer his annoyance and frustration. It had always been difficult for Aiden to control his temper; even as a child, before he had started showing definitive traits of his elemental affinity, he had had a short fuse, throwing tantrums at the slightest provocation or getting into fights with his brothers. In school, he had mostly turned his temper to defending the bullied students, particularly when his fire alignment had started to give him a real advantage in speed and power. He might not be the biggest person, but he could hit hard when he needed to, and as he had matured into his abilities he rarely needed to hit—he could call up fire on a whim. Once he had come fully into his powers at his last birthday, he had learned how to use several spells that came in handy.

  The tension Aiden felt wasn’t just because of the very real possibility of attack. He watched as Aira ran to the front door of her grandmother’s house, her energy and enthusiasm plain to him. Ever since the debacle with Alex and Dolores, Aiden had felt defensive and angry, frustrated and a little resentful. Mostly toward himself. He knew it was technically his fault. Not only had he encouraged Aira to join the forum where they had found the two elementals, but he had allowed himself to be turned by Dolores’ persuasive abilities when he should have maintained strict discipline. He never should have let himself be charmed, never put himself in a position to be subverted. If it hadn’t been for his brother, they might have both been doomed.

  But then he reminded himself, as he had Aira earlier in the day. Her abilities had grown by leaps and bounds in the hours when she came into her full powers. While she hadn’t fully recovered, Aiden had experienced her ability to use the persuasive compulsion that came along with her air affinity—however briefly. That one aspect of her fully-developed concerned Aiden. He and his brother had known an air elemental that had become completely unhinged due to the pressures of that particular ability. He lost track of reality and destroyed every relationship in his life due to his gradual dependence upon getting his own way. That wasn’t a fate Aiden wanted for Aira. He could almost hope against hope that she didn’t have it at all; that it could somehow be taken away from her. The ability to compel someone—anyone—regardless of that person’s own will was not a safe ability to have, especially when that person was already unstable.

  Aiden got out of the car and opened the trunk, glancing over to see his brother climbing out of the other car with a faint smile on his face. Aiden knew Dylan had been looking forward to this visit even more than he had. His younger brother, with his water alignment, wanted to learn as much as he could from Lorene. While Lorene probably would not be able to teach Dylan everything she knew—Dylan, while a strong water elemental, was not likely to ever have Lorene’s potency—she might have time to give him greater knowledge than he would be able to acquire on his own. Aiden was simply relieved they were in a place where Aira’s safety was guaranteed. Even if an elemental wanted to attack her on Lorene’s land, the ancient protective magic that welled from the center of the property made it impossible. It suddenly dawned on Aiden that the rainstorm they had encountered might have been the result of magic on Lorene’s behalf, not meant to make it harder for him but rather for any elementals that might be pursuing them.

  Aiden smiled faintly to himself as he walked into the house and saw Aira seated near her grandmother, talking rapidly to the older woman. There was something enjoyable about the way Aira loved and admired her grandmother—in spite of the way the younger elemental tended to be annoyed or frustrated by the restrictions her grandmother placed on her. It was clear to Aiden, Aira had the utmost respect for the matriarch, an understanding that no matter how much she might find the rules and restrictions galling, they were in place for her benefit.

  Seeing Aiden and Dylan coming in, Lorene smiled and began to stand; Aiden noticed a hesitation, a stiffness to the older woman’s movements unlike the woman he remembered from the first time they had met her. Aiden saw that Dylan noticed the change more profoundly than he did—the startled distress in his younger brother’s eyes was profound.

  “Let me help you, Grams,” Aira said, rushing to stand and aid her.

  “I don’t need any help. I’m old, not feeble,” the old woman said, standing upright and making her way more briskly to the kitchen. “After all that rain, you three will need tea and something to eat,” Lorene said in a tone of voice that accepted no argument.

  Aiden sat down at the kitchen table, knowing nothing he could say would deter the old woman from her tasks. Aira sat down as well. Dylan moved into the kitchen, taking the initiative to grab the kettle before Lorene could. He gave her a smile and filled it using the summoning technique she had helped him improve upon.

  Lorene’s stern expression relaxed into a smile. “You’ve been practicing,” she said with approval.

  Dylan nodded, his face slightly flushed with pleasure at the praise.

  Lorene mixed the herbs for tea. Aiden watched from the table, and quickly realized she had carefully chosen plants that would most bolster his fiery energy for his tea cup, while she selected herbs that would suppress some of the wilder characteristics Aira’s air alignment brought to the surface of her personality. He couldn’t see what had gone into his brother’s mug, but he thought it likely Lorene would have given him something strengthening as well—it stood to reason. Along with the tea, she served them a meal of stewed beef and onions on top of rice, surprisingly good for how simple it was. Aiden ate two servings, restraining himself from asking for a third because he knew it was his taste buds that wanted more rather than his stomach.

  While they ate, the four of them caught up, with Lorene asking questions about their trip, about Aira’s safety and how her transition into full elemental status was proceeding. Aiden noticed the flurry of annoyance on Aira’s face when Lorene seemed to direct certain questions about her behavior to him or Dylan rather than her—and he could understand it. If he were the one being discussed, he would feel the same way. But he knew why Lorene was asking Dylan, for example, whether he had noticed a change in Aira’s temperament since the day she had come into full possession of her abilities, or why she asked him whether Aira’s sleep seemed more disturbed and restless. While Aira could answer the questions, input from people who were watching her was valuable. Aiden suspected Lorene was concerned about the degree of instability Aira was facing—that she shared his worries, particularly about her sudden gain in persuasive ability. As Aira fidgeted uncomfortably, grumbling under her breath, Lorene stopped asking questions, letting silence fall upon the entire group. After a long moment, her heavy gaze forced Aira to look up.

  “What? Is it time to ask me about my life, as if I’m some kind of adult?” she asked, frustration and annoyance plain in her voice.

  “You listen to me, Aira Norton-Moore,” Lorene said firmly. “There are things I need to know about you right now that you can’t tell me. You’re skirting a very real danger that has nothing to do with people trying to marry you against your will or kill you, and I need to know how to help you. So if you don’t want to take part in this conversation, you can excuse yourself from the table.”

  Aiden watched Aira bite back an angry retort, her nostrils flaring slightly as she took a deep breath. The younger woman stood with deliberate slowness, turning away from the table and walking
stiffly outside. She didn’t quite let the door slam behind her, but it was definitely firmly closed; Aiden remembered the first meeting he’d had with Aira, and the way she had stormed out, only to get into a fight with him a few moments later. He thought wryly that, given her sudden explosion of ability, he was not about to repeat that scenario. While he was able to more or less match her before she came into her full power as an elemental, he was much less certain of his ability to contain her now.

  “I’m worried about her,” Dylan said quietly, looking from the hallway Aira had just left through and back to Lorene. “She’s still so weak physically, and there’s so much power coursing through her—I don’t know how well she’ll be able to control it if she can’t get stronger physically.”

  Aiden pressed his lips together, nodding his agreement to the assessment. In truth, he thought Aira shouldn’t have been in a position to have to defend herself as she came into her full powers; she should have been deeply asleep shortly after midnight, instead of having adventurous sex with Alex, and then calling upon her new power to defeat him and Dolores. He knew that was at least partially his fault.

  “The situation surrounding her transition is no one person’s fault,” Lorene said, looking at Aiden and then Dylan. “Both of you need to drop your feeling of guilt on that score. If you hadn’t been there, she would have likely been in the same situation—or a worse one. So stop it right now.”

  Aiden had his misgivings regarding that. He could have avoided Dolores’ advances, if he had wanted to or had the will to do so. Lorene sighed, and Aiden saw sadness and pain in her bright green eyes before she recovered her composure.

  “I’m worried about my granddaughter as well. Tell me honestly; have either of you seen her using her ability to compel more than she should?” Dylan shrugged.

  “I’ve only seen her use it in specific situations—she used it on Alex twice, and then on Aiden to diffuse the situation when we went in there to separate him and Dolores.”

  Aiden nodded. “Of course, there’s a possibility that she’s compelled us without us knowing it,” he said with a grimace.

  Lorene shook her head. “Yes, but you’d know something was off—not necessarily what, but you’d have a feeling of things not quite adding up.”

  Aiden thought back to the morning of the big fight between the three of them and the two air elementals. He had tried to resist the compulsion Aira had thrown at him, but hadn’t been able to. In that moment, everything had seemed unreal, and he could remember his sense of confusion and fuzziness; he could never quite remember the few moments before she had used her persuasion against him.

  “However, I should teach both of you how to resist the ability nonetheless—just in case.”

  There was another odd look as Lorene glanced down at the table, and Aiden could tell the old woman was worried indeed. He wondered—and decided he did not want to know—what she knew about the situation that he did not.

  “Do you really think we’re in danger of Aira trying to use her persuasion against us?” Dylan asked, concerned.

  Aiden looked from his brother to Aira’s grandmother, worrying at his bottom lip.

  Lorene sighed. “I would hope she’s received enough training, enough morality, to not give in to the temptation. But she’s unstable, and I can see she’s going to remain unstable for…” Lorene glanced at both of them. “For a while yet. For your own protection, you should be able to fight off her ability to compel you.” Lorene stood stiffly, and Aiden wondered what had made such a great change in the woman who only a few months prior had been moving about without any trouble at all. The older woman refilled their cups.

  “One of you should go after Aira,” she said quietly, smiling faintly. “Her initial temper should have settled by now.” Aiden stood and Lorene chuckled. “Just don’t get her riled up again. I don’t know that I have the strength to pull her off the ceiling just now.”

  Dylan snickered as Aiden, refusing to dignify the comment with a response, turned and walked out of the house. Aiden looked around the property for several moments before he found Aira—up in her favorite tree, sitting on one of the still-wet branches.

  “If you’re coming here to tell me it’s understandable why my Grandma would ask you and Dylan questions about me as if I wasn’t there…”

  Aiden felt the wind picking up as Aira called down to him.

  “I’m not,” he replied, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace. “You going to come down or do I have to climb up?”

  Aira raised an eyebrow, a slight smile curving her lips. Aiden felt his heart lurch in his chest at the sight of the expression. He had found Aira attractive from the first time they met—objectively physically attractive. But after the first time he had helped rescue her, when they had made out on the floor and almost lost control in front of God and everyone, he had treated his attraction as though it were nitroglycerine. He fully supported Aira finding a mate to stabilize her, he told himself repeatedly. He almost hoped, on more than one occasion, that Dylan would be suitable; Dylan was stable, and his water-aligned influence would help quell Aira’s tendency to flightiness and her temper. But after Aira had fully come into her powers, her face and body had taken on a luminous quality, her eyes brighter and her hair darker than ever before, her skin glowing in a way that marked her as powerful and potent; it made it much more difficult for Aiden to ignore her beauty.

  “I could fly you up if you wanted,” she said playfully, her smile growing. Aiden shook his head slowly, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

  “Have you ever flown someone else?” He asked her, fairly certain he knew the answer.

  Aira shrugged, a cavalier gesture. “How hard could it be? You’re kind of skinny anyway.”

  Aiden rolled his eyes, moving to the trunk of the tree. He looked up at the branches, thinking it had been over a year since he’d last climbed a tree—and then he had been in pursuit of a threat to one of his clients.

  “I’ll take the normal route, thank you. But be ready to catch me or something.” Aiden climbed up, making his way slowly to the thinner branches where Aira was perched. He slipped and almost fell when he reached the halfway point, struggling to regain his balance; he felt a breeze pushing against him, holding him up slightly until he managed to find his footing once more. Aiden picked a branch adjacent to where Aira was seated, watching him. Aiden realized as he got closer that she was tired—that was part of the reason she had stayed up in the tree for so long. She didn’t have the energy to bring herself back down safely.

  “So,” Aira said, straightening and fixing her gaze on him. “What kind of unstable super-villain am I supposed to be becoming?” Aiden felt the subtlest of pushes against his mind—more a suggestion than a compulsion, and he laughed.

  “Well, she’s worried about you, you know that,” he said, relaxing as best as he could against the trunk of the tree. “You have to admit that you still need work on controlling your powers. I mean, if you deny it, it’s going to make people antsy.”

  Aira shrugged, shifting uncomfortably on the branch.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’d probably be better off with a mate.”

  Aira stood, turning partly away from Aiden. “I know that,” she said, and Aiden was surprised at the vehemence he heard in her voice. “But how am I supposed to pick a mate when apparently a bunch of people have all kinds of ulterior motives about marrying me that I have no idea about?” The wind began to rise, and Aiden gripped the tree tightly, thinking ruefully that even when he was actively trying not to make the woman angry, he managed to set her off. “I mean, I don’t even know why my Grams is so important to everyone! I’ve been left out of everything, sheltered and coddled, and now I have to cope with all of this when I really just… I just want everything to go back to the way it was before. I’m so tired.”

  Aiden carefully climbed onto the branch with Aira, glancing down nervously at it; it didn’t seem likely it would hold them both, but
while he was not the most diplomatic person when it came to words, he did have an instinctive knowledge of when a woman needed physical contact. He reached out with one arm and draped it around Aira’s shoulders.

  “I know. I know you’re tired. At least while you’re here you can relax a bit.” Aira sighed, leaning against him, making their position all the more precarious. Aiden felt a surge of heat through his body and swallowed against the sudden constriction of his throat.

  “Let’s get out of this tree before you fall and I have to save you,” Aira said. Her voice didn’t quite have the same playful quality it had before, but Aiden laughed anyway, holding her tightly against him and trying not to feel the surge of lust flowing through his body at the contact.

  “So fly us down, bird-girl.”

  CHAPTER 3

  AIRA WOKE UP THE NEXT morning, feeling the surge that accompanied the time of day when the powers of air were most potent. It wasn’t like the power surges she had experienced when she was coming into her powers. This was a milder sensation, a subtly erotic body-wide tingling. She squirmed, wishing briefly she was at home. Aira had hoped her lust would abate when she came fully into her powers—but instead it had remained a constant. She had even found herself remembering, in vivid detail, the way Aiden had felt when he had pinned her to the floor, kissing her in the brief moment they had shared. She reminded herself firmly—and repeatedly—that she was not actually interested in Aiden. She was interested in sexual gratification, and Aiden and Dylan were the only two men she had been around for two weeks.

  Aira drew a deep breath, listening to the wind outside and focusing her mind on it instead of on the warm yet cool tingles dancing up and down her limbs and the banking fire she felt deep inside. She couldn’t even get relief from the basic arousal she felt; it would feel too strange to touch herself under her grandmother’s roof. Aira went into the meditative state her grandmother had taught her, orienting herself with her element, feeling the power coursing through her body and influencing the air around her. She brought the wind down to a draft, breathing slowly and steadily, and patterning the wind after her breath. If she just waited long enough, she thought, the feeling of erotic need would pass, and she would be fine.