by Larissa Ladd
Dylan nodded solemnly, feeling Lorene’s viselike grip on his arm. The physical contact and meeting of gazes gave him a brief opening into the elder woman’s mind—only an instant—but he could feel, could see, that Lorene was deeply worried about the power her granddaughter had inherited, about the possibilities of her trials to come, she was worried Aira would have to face them alone.
“Aira won’t be alone, I can promise you that,” Dylan said, feeling his own sadness welling inside of him for reasons he couldn’t quite define. He swallowed against the lump he felt in his throat. Lorene took a deep breath, relinquishing her grip on his arm and turning away from him. Dylan felt more confused than ever, He understood Lorene’s concern about Aira, particularly since she had told Dylan and Aiden when she originally gave them the task of protecting her that, as the daughter of the Regina Undines, Aira was in particular danger—especially since the air elementals had no ruler. If Aira’s instability worsened, she could be put to death by a vote from the other elemental rulers, working with the elders. But the depths of fear and sadness he had felt in the old woman were more than just the concerns she had over her granddaughter. She was anticipating a set of events that could truly destroy Aira—emotionally, psychologically, perhaps even physically. Dylan had made the promise to Lorene because he hadn’t felt as if he had any other choice—but he was glad he had made it nonetheless.
By the time Dylan and Lorene walked through the front door, they could hear the sounds of Aiden and Aira arguing, and Dylan laughed, bringing his hand to his forehead. The wind wasn’t rising yet, but he knew if the situation wasn’t diffused, it would be. He looked at Aira’s grandmother in time to see amusement flicker across her face.
“Those two are going to tear this place down,” she said wryly, taking a deep breath and gathering her strength.
Dylan followed her into the house. As they made their way through the kitchen and dining area, Dylan was startled at the sight of Aiden being propelled backwards by an unseen force, colliding with a wall before he fell to the floor. Behind him, a gust of wind blew Lorene and Dylan both—cold and strong enough to make him stagger. Lorene tsked, glancing at Aiden for just a moment to make sure he wasn’t injured.
“Aira, come out here right now,” she called out. Dylan smelled the acrid reek of something burning and looked around the corner of the hallway in alarm, turning to look at Aiden, sitting dazed on the floor.
“Did you light something on fire?” Aiden shook his head in confusion before realization dawned on his face and he grinned. Aira stalked out of the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest. She glared at Aiden, who began laughing out loud at the sight of her. It was difficult for Dylan not to follow his brother’s example. Aira’s clothes were charred, smoldering at the edges, most of the material clearly burned away leaving her very nearly naked—but unhurt. Lorene sighed, bringing her hand to cover her eyes, not in modesty but in exasperation.
“I cannot believe I have to say this,” Lorene said, looking from Aira to Aiden. “No fire inside of my house unless it’s in a fireplace or a stove.” The older woman scowled heavily at Aiden until his laughter subsided. She looked at her granddaughter next. “Also, no knocking people around the house with wind, or causing wind storms indoors.” Aira muttered something under her breath about Aiden starting it, and Dylan was hard-pressed to keep his composure at the stereotypical excuse. “I do not care who started it,” Lorene said. “I am finishing it. Go get dressed in some decent clothes and come back out for training.”
Dylan found the training interesting. Aira’s grandmother insisted he go first—because of Aiden’s fire alignment, he would be less able to resist the persuasion Aira was capable of, at least instinctively. Lorene taught them both the mental discipline while Aira watched, seemingly as interested in the lesson as he was. Finally, he faced off against Aira. Dylan closed his eyes and called up the watery energy that made up his essence, repeating the spell Lorene had taught him. It was a question of will, she had said. Because of the relationship of water and air—cooperative, but mostly separated from each other—he had a natural advantage when it came to Aira’s newfound talent. He tapped into his emotional core of calmness, imagining the reservoir of deep, still water, unchanging and relentless. He opened his eyes finally and met Aira’s gaze.
“Tell me your most embarrassing secret,” she said, and Dylan felt the push of her mind against his. It was different from the touch of Lorene’s mind; where Lorene was cold, yielding, soft, Aira’s mind was warm—almost hot. Her words were a whisper in his mental ears, soft and beseeching, and Dylan felt his reserve giving way. “Tell me,” she repeated, and Dylan felt the pull on his mind increasing. Words were gathering at his throat without his will and he tamped down on himself, calling upon the cold reserve, the inner core of mutable energy.
Dylan took a deep breath and created a barrier within his mind, the way Aira’s grandmother had instructed. He saw Aira start slightly, a smile curving her lips as she felt his resistance to her.
“Dylan, tell me,” she said, her voice both commanding and somehow wheedling. The whispers echoed in his mind and he trembled with the effort of continuing to repel her will. He shook his head, imagining the water rising within him, the cold, relentless energy of his element moving to drown the command out. “Dylan! Tell me your most embarrassing secret, right now!” Aira’s voice took on a strident tone, twisting as if it were substantial through the air and hitting his mind like a ton of bricks.
“The first time I had sex with someone I came as soon as I got the condom on,” he said it all at once, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. Dylan felt the pressure on his mind give way abruptly, and Aira’s eyes widened. His cheeks burned as she giggled, sitting down at the table and closing her eyes. Dylan stared at his hands, feeling embarrassed. Aiden was chuckling and Aira’s grandmother had a certain amused glint to her eyes as she watched the proceedings.
“I’m sorry, Dylan…that’s actually not that bad when you think about it…” Aira tried to stop laughing, and Dylan managed a smile at his own expense. She cleared her throat and coughed a few times, regaining her composure. “After all, at least you’ve had sex. And at least you were able to ah…rise to the occasion…” she began giggling again, laying her head on her folded arms.
Dylan nodded, feeling oddly defensive and amused at the same time. “Oh yeah, I was. I managed to recover about five minutes after that… no similar problems the second time.”
Aira started laughing again, and Dylan’s cheeks flushed with pardonable pride as he remembered that particular moment of his life.
“That’s enough,” Lorene said firmly, though amusement crept into her voice. “Dylan, have some tea. Aiden, you’re up.” Dylan watched as Aiden went through the same ritual he had performed, calling the essence of his element. Dylan wondered what the outcome would be; while fire energy was essentially will-driven, Dylan knew, air tended to interact with fire in a much different way than it interacted with water. The way Dolores had persuaded and manipulated his brother was a potent example, and Aira had already demonstrated her ability to push his brother into a deep sleep without any training whatsoever, operating on instinct.
After a few moments, Aiden signaled his readiness. Dylan felt the tension ratchet up in the room and watched Aira gathering the force of her will. “Tell me your most embarrassing secret, Aiden,” she said firmly, and Dylan could almost imagine the words taking substance in the air, hitting Aiden with the force of her will. Dylan watched his older brother grapple with the command, and smelled burning in the air. Energy shimmered around him, red-orange in its intensity, and Dylan glanced at Lorene to see if she was concerned; since she was watching calmly, he decided not to worry about it—in spite of the fact it seemed as though his brother might burst into flames at any moment. Aira repeated the command, her voice twisting, resonating.
“I got thrown out of a girl’s dorm room naked, and tried to run to my car without being seen. Every gir
l in the dorm pointed and laughed, and a cop grabbed me in the parking lot.” Aiden’s face went bright red. “He didn’t press charges, but he did take a picture of me that he circulated around the campus to make sure I wouldn’t be allowed back on.”
Aira convulsed with laughter, and Dylan felt the tension dissolve, his older brother collapsing in a graceless pile onto a chair, grumbling lowly at his failure to repel Aira.
“Stop being such a grouch,” Aira said. “Think of my problem: I will now forever have the image of you running naked seared into my brain.”
Aiden scowled at her. “Is that supposed to comfort me?” he asked, irritated.
Dylan thought quickly of a spell that could diffuse his older brother’s temper, just in case it might be needed. Aira managed to stop laughing long enough to respond.
“I thought a stud like you would want as many women as possible to picture him naked,” she said playfully. Aiden’s lips twitched with the start of a smile, and Dylan began to relax.
“Not laughing!” he said, though Dylan could see his brother was secretly pleased with the joke—even if the confession that had inspired it was humiliating.
“I wonder if I could get my hands on one of those pictures,” Aira added, beginning to laugh again. “What face were you making? Was it more an embarrassed grin or a ‘yeah, that’s right ladies’ look?”
Lorene called them to order before Aiden could respond, and Dylan shook his head, grinning at his brother’s expense.
The practice moved outside, and Lorene made each of them work with Aira until they could repel her attacks of will for longer than a few moments. With each round, Dylan felt both more tired and stronger at the same time; he found shortcuts to his resistance and by the end of the session, he could hold Aira off for ten minutes before he finally succumbed. Fortunately for everyone’s state of mind, Lorene made Aira stick to commanding the two brothers to perform tasks rather than make confessions.
Aiden’s progress was slower than Dylan’s. Dylan suspected, though he didn’t say it, that Aiden was having trouble resisting Aira’s attacks not because of his basic nature—he knew his brother was willful indeed when he wanted to be—but because he didn’t truly want to repel the persuasion. There was some part of his brother that wanted to give in to the commands Aira delivered, the same as he had given in so readily to Dolores before. Dylan knew he would have to talk with Aiden and find out what was behind it. There was too much at stake for Aira’s sanity if Aiden couldn’t hold up every part of his agreement to protect and guard her until she found a suitable mate to balance and help her protect herself. The urgency of their mission was underscored by what Dylan had vaguely felt earlier in the day; Lorene was expecting a major upheaval in Aira’s life—and soon. The younger elemental would need all of the support she could get when facing the struggle and pain Lorene had foretold. Dylan felt the weight of the promise he had made to her; he would have to sort out what was going on with his brother—and quickly.
CHAPTER 5
AIRA TRIED IN DESPERATION TO ignore the signs of her grandmother’s deterioration. It became more and more obvious her prediction that she didn’t have very much time left was completely accurate. She was luminous with watery energy, glowing more every day, but every day the older woman was weaker physically. Aira didn’t know why, when her grandmother had so much power inside of her, she was incapable of healing herself—or of helping Dylan heal her. It was a question she couldn’t ask, the information she couldn’t let herself know.
She avoided Aiden as much as possible, spending time on isolated parts of the property, honing the skills her grandmother taught her in hours-long lessons that seemed to take more and more out of the older woman. The one time she had suggested her grandmother rest, that she could wait until the next day to impart some lesson or another, she had received a tongue-lashing in front of Aiden and Dylan. The two brothers still didn’t know about the old elemental’s imminent demise, although Aira thought Dylan suspected something deeply wrong.
“It will not wait until tomorrow, Aira. You will master this today. I don’t have time to wait until tomorrow, and I am not tired. Stand up straight and listen to me right now!”
Aira had conquered her tears until she was able to get away for practice, choosing a spot deep in the woods where Aiden would never find her.
Aira distrusted her feelings towards Aiden. They bickered constantly, but there was an undercurrent, something she hadn’t felt in the entire time she had known him. Whenever they weren’t in the midst of instruction, they managed to find something to argue about, even if it was as inconsequential as whether Aira or Aiden would cart the trash out to the isolated road. Aira had always done that chore in the past; Aiden thought it wasn’t safe for her to be by herself by the road, at the edge of the protection her grandmother’s property provided for her. No one would grab her on the property itself, but if someone were lying in wait to capture her, stepping out onto the road to put out the trash would give them an opening.
Aira knew her emotions were partly from the stress and hurt she felt knowing her grandmother would soon be dead. She was anxious about everything to come, about her own position in the complicated hierarchy of the elemental world; she found an easy target to vent her frustrations and insecurities on in Aiden, whose fiery temper made him more brusque and irritating than Dylan, and who didn’t possess the skilled diplomacy and patience Dylan had. When Aira was alone with the younger brother, she was able to maintain calm; it was partly due to Dylan’s instinctive empathy, his ability to flow calm into her without even realizing he was doing it. With Aiden, Aira was constantly tense, her nerves shot, her mind torn between annoyance and a peculiar arousal she rejected as nothing more than basic, elemental energy-driven lust. The fact that she didn’t have that feeling around Dylan didn’t occur to her.
Aira had never experienced learning quite as intense as the weeks that passed after she arrived at her grandmother’s home. Even in college, there had been parties, distractions, downtime to recharge her batteries. The sense of urgency behind her grandmother’s teachings, the need to cram in every last possible lesson, made Aira anxious; but she knew the only way to help her grandmother was to comply with her plans.
She felt a sense of constant agony every time she saw her grandmother struggling to move around, or saw the random flicker of pain on the older woman’s face. She knew her grandmother was struggling to stay alive long enough to impart what Aira needed to know; she sent the two brothers away for privacy and gave Aira as much information about the state of affairs in the world of elemental politics as she could. She also tried—as much as she was able—to force Aira into stability, to bring her abilities into rein. The more Aira became aware of the pain and weakness plaguing her grandmother; however, the more difficult it was to control herself. The property was plagued with windstorms, with gales that shook every dead branch down and broke buds off of trees, scattering them around the maintained yard.
Aira took refuge in the trees her winds ravaged, using the wind to drive herself up into the highest branches. She used her abilities to call to the birds, surrounding herself with their undemanding company and exchanging confidences with ravens, mockingbirds, jays, and owls, with crows and even hawks. Aira’s control and command of birds grew—she was able to call them immediately to her side—but even with the development of her abilities, even though she knew she was becoming a stronger elemental every day, the thought of losing the woman who had guided so much of her life was almost too much to bear. Aira cried more often than she wanted to, taking refuge from Dylan’s prying gaze and Aiden’s growing irritation. She wished she had the strength or the will to make both men leave, so she could be alone with her grandmother—or so she could run away from the problem of her grief altogether. She knew she would be ashamed if she did; but the temptation to flee from the strong emotions she was feeling was intense indeed. If the two men hadn’t been there, learning from her grandmother as well, guarding the two of the
m, Aira knew her base instinct to avoid grief would probably overcome her.
Weeks after Aira discovered the depths of the situation she was heading into, she noticed another change in her grandmother. Instead of simply being stiff and weak, she was confined to the reclining chair she kept in the front room, adjoined to the kitchen and dining room.
“I’m just tired,” she told the two men, brushing aside their concerns. She managed to make it out to her favorite garden once a day, but she delegated the rest of the upkeep to her three houseguests. Aira threw herself into her chores with a dedication she hadn’t felt in years, pulling weeds as aggressively as if they were the cause of her grandmother’s deterioration. Aira noticed the rain was more frequent than usual for the time of year; every day there was a downpour, until the whole property was drenched, lower-lying parts of it turned into a mire of mud and waterlogged plants. The ponds verged on overflowing and it was only with effort that the cultivated gardens managed to thrive.
One morning, Aira woke up gripped, not with the transient lust that ran through her veins as her elemental energy crested with the rising of the sun, but with a sense of intense foreboding and dread. She turned over in her bed, feeling an urge to cry that was so strong she couldn’t resist it, no matter how she wanted to. Aira buried her face against her pillow and began to sob, not knowing why she was crying, but knowing she felt a grief so intense she couldn’t deal with it any other way. She sobbed uncontrollably, her whole body shaking, cries of anguish ripping through her throat muffled only by the pillow. After several long moments, the spasms of grief began to abate, and Aira was left trembling but calm, the tears drying on her face.
She went directly to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, in her eyes, trying to erase the evidence of her outburst. It wasn’t until she was drying her face that she realized she couldn’t smell the usual savory aroma of breakfast cooking.