Dark Currents: Elementals, Book 1

by Mima

  She folded her arms, recognized she was being influenced by him, unfolded them and breathed through her nose. “I’m not reckless. You have no reason to think I’d be so irresponsible.”

  “You’ve worked the gloaming without a rampart up until now, and you come down to the ocean’s shore regularly.”

  Her hands clenched into fists. It was a good thing he was standing across the room. “Can we get on with it?”

  He stepped forward.

  “Tut!” She pointed a dagger finger at his sandy feet. “Shoes!”

  He obediently toed them off revealing strong, high arches. Even his perfectly descending toes were sexy.

  Whirling, she went into the bedroom. “Do you know this ritual?”

  “Aye.”

  Duh. He was 237! Of course he did.

  He filled the doorway, shrinking the room. Studying the items on the bed, he said, “You’re going to ride air.”

  “Yes.” Glad of her cloak of irritation now, she shrugged the robe off and climbed onto the bed, sitting with her legs tucked to one side, fussing with the arrangement that had slid when she sat down. She wouldn’t think about her still damp hair tingling her spine, or how the sudden exposure hardened her nipples. She wouldn’t think about the fact that her reckless, irresponsible, terrifying crush was pulling his ratty red T-shirt off, undoing his jeans.

  “This is why you demanded the night off.”

  Relief burned through her, that he understood why she hadn’t worked the dreamtime tonight and wouldn’t think she was merely avoiding her duty after last night’s disaster. “Yes.”

  His scent, a salty musk, tickled her nose as he sat in the opposite corner of the bed. Delicious. It made her thirsty. She kept her eyes off the acres of chiseled, golden muscle on the edge of her sight. Without further ado, she lit the oil flame, sprinkled the small stones in a circle, picked up the feather, and dipped it in the cup of water that had come from a stream. Burning the tip, she laid it in the middle of the circle.

  Adam reached one huge, square hand forward and covered the feather. One of his fingernails was bruised. Hers ached in sympathy. Xia picked up the mirror and closed her eyes. She steadied her breathing. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. She centered her energy. She blanked her mind, and when a hint of Adam’s presence winked into her consciousness, she did it all again. Breathe, center, clear, focus. Then she formed her intent.

  Opening her eyes, she stared in the mirror at her plain gray eyes, fringed with their long red lashes. Her auburn hair was still damp from the shower and mostly just brown. Her face looked pale and pinched, with shadows painting the hollows of her eyes and cheeks. Her freckles stood out starkly, an army of childish cuteness marching from cheek to cheek by way of her upturned nose.

  “Hello, Markos. I caught a glimpse behind Aqua last night. It’s definitely witches, at least three, all male. They’re deeply concerned about Ignis. I’d take a look at who’s been on duty with feeding fire’s flames lately, because that’s their main goal. I’m enclosing the full memory, so you can see it complete.” She let herself grin a bit with sadistic pleasure. “You might want to sit down.”

  Opening the gates in her psychic center, she saw her eyes shine briefly, and then the memory poured forth. Her panic at water’s nearness, her despair at the coming pain, her rage that she’d failed again, the burning in her arm, the horror at the objects glimpsed in the water wall so close to her, her determination to hold, hold as long as she could—water winning, dragging her body outstretched, the shark attack, then the jellyfish, the shattering pain, the ache as her lungs drowned, spinning dizzily in the dark cold.

  Keep Ignis fed. At all costs, keep him fed and happy. Soon Aqua will be too strong, even were he to wake. But until then, keep him busy.

  Kindly, she cut off the memory there, not sharing the loss of her arm. Shutting herself back down, she sealed the entire message in the mirror, closed her eyes and laid her hand on the feather. Then jumped when she encountered Adam’s hard hand, his hair coarse on her palm.

  Breathe, center, clear, focus. She stepped onto the astral plane, her psychic self surrounded by Adam’s. It felt like opening a door in your mind and peeling your psyche free of a shell. The power of his age and elemental status, invisible with her real eyes, was unmistakable in this psychic working realm. Here he pulsed with energy and control. But so did she.

  She returned to the task at hand. She would psychically ride Aer to Markos’s real location and deposit her memory in person. This kind of spell was direct, involving no messengers or technology, providing pure privacy. Except if you had a rampart.

  Bringing Aer was easy, directing it was not. Ignis was male, Aqua was female, but Aer and Terra were both androgynous. Today, it was thankfully mostly obedient, being steered with calm nudges as it flew south over the psychic ether toward Majorca, Markos’s position. The island emerged through the mist of the duplicate astral world just as it would in real life, towering rough cliffs cut with thin switchbacks, dotted with ancient stone homes. When Xia found his trail, she sped forward on air and connected.

  Markos always throbbed with power in the ether, pulsing with a fire elemental’s energy. She wove into his familiar power and knocked. None too gently, because she wasn’t happy with him. He was in bed, so she had to wait while he oriented himself that she wasn’t a dream. When she had his mind conscious and open, she dumped her message, tipping the mirror into his power. The brush from him filled her with glimpses of his current thoughts—admiration for her, concern and remorse, and iron determination. Markos had not been an advocate in charge of sending morphi into danger for over a hundred years without his own strong sense of duty.

  Without staying, she closed her side of the mental portal and let go of the comforting warmth. Markos was better than any quilt for emotional and physical shelter. Aer bumped happily along back north, towing her psychic self, with Adam a humming shadow under her.

  When they were about to leave France, someone else summoned Aer, quite sharply. Calmly, Xia tried to redirect, but whoever called was more powerful than she. Aer went where it was of most use. That Xia’s task wasn’t finished and hers a prior claim meant nothing. This thread of Aer had been distracted, and there was no point in arguing with it.

  Xia launched herself into the nothingness of the astral plane, stalled over Europe. Without Aer’s help, it would be a long, utterly draining journey back to her body in Scotland. She didn’t want to admit she couldn’t do it and wasn’t about to let Adam rescue her on their first pairing. Looking for a new connection, she calmly called for Aer, her pulse of power the equivalent of shaking a toy at a bored cat. Something stirred. Not fond of free-floating, Xia called again. And this time she noticed that it hurt to push the call. She was exhausted. A new strand of Aer caught her call and suddenly came galloping toward her like an enraged lion. Damn. Aer had no rhyme or reason to its reactions.

  She adjusted the call, bracing, ready to jump and grab and wrestle with Aer, but just as the shard of element approached, a shimmering sheet of water rose up and smacked it sharply. The thread halted with Adam’s rebuke, and Xia felt herself psychically shoved onto it. While it was confused, she directed it and stroked it with a pulse of power, ow, and it went, bounding with considerably more energy than the first trip’s thread had.

  As they neared their bodies, Xia caught her breath. There was her psychic thread, waving like a ribbon in the ether, seeking her missing mind. But her body’s weak ribbon was entirely encased in a vivid, roiling mass of purple. Deep amethyst, it was nearly black, gleaming with rich tones as they dove closer and closer. The purple parted, flowing past her, and she grabbed her silver thread, feeling the ping as she rejoined herself.

  Opening her real eyes, she met the deep black gaze of Adam. Once again, they were nude, sitting on her simple bed in her simple house. His hand was under hers, so that he was the actual contact with Aer. Her fingers felt heavy where they held the cold mirror. He blinked, his free hand goi
ng out to pinch the flame off.

  She breathed, her lungs fluttering a bit. “I could have handled that overeager Aer. It wasn’t out of control.” He’d kept a piece of himself behind, to guard her soul’s base. The concentration, power, and intense skill that took left her breathless. Despite her intention to remain aloof, she was impressed. Okay, maybe even a little awed.

  “You could have. But you don’t have to. I am your rampart.” His fingers came up and took the mirror from her, laying it on the bed. His hand under hers turned, his fingertips feathering along her sensitive wrist, zinging shock up her arm. He laid his other hand over the back of hers. She was captured in his gentle grip. “And I tell you, Morphi, you will never face Aqua’s attack like that alone, again.”

  Her lips parted, dry enough for her to be hyperaware of the seam opening. Of course, he’d seen the memory she’d set in the mirror when she’d poured it into Markos. “I don’t want—I don’t want you—”

  “Whist.” His face, usually so closed and still, flexed with some emotion. “Lie down.” His hands pulled from hers and a shiver rolled down her spine.

  Weaving without his support, she could do nothing but follow his command. She tipped over, avoiding the objects on the bed. He took the oil lamp and the dish of water away and put them on her dresser. He took up the little dustbin she had sitting there and whisked the stones into it. Then he took the lighter, the mirror and the feather. She battered her way under the comforter, pulled a pillow into herself as she got her head comfortable. She felt dizzy with exhaustion.

  He came to the side of the bed holding a glass. Cradling her head, he helped her drink. It tasted so cold and refreshing she was able to focus on him again.

  “Let me in.” His order was matter-of-fact. Simple.

  But it had been over two years since she’d last had a rampart. It was hard to let him in, where he’d twine with her energy and watch over her as she slept without her conscious self, protecting her against any spillover from the dreamtime or an astral psychic attack. Now that she’d been found once, it would be so much easier for the enemy to find her again, especially when she was in the same general location. She could safely say she wouldn’t be seeking Aqua in her dreams, but the unconscious mind could never be predicted. For the duration of this assignment, he would remain connected to her whenever she slept.

  Her eyes rolled, her body impossibly heavy. His big hand tightened on the back of her head, shook her. “Xia. Let me in.”

  She stared into the bottomless, cold black of his eyes. “I—”

  “Let. Me. In.” His eyes shone with his power as he slid his own gates open, and in that second, she saw it. Amethyst. Deep, rich, gorgeous. His eyes weren’t black. They were purple.

  She slid her gates open and felt her lungs compress with the force of his otherness sliding around her.

  “Breathe.”

  She breathed, and her lids sagged. He set her head on the pillow, his thumb caressing her fluttering pulse. She pulled the extra pillow closer, hiding in the softness. And she was done.

  The scent of coffee mixed with the sharp salt sizzle of black pudding in the kitchen. Bathroom first. Her arm only ached a bit in the shower. When she got out, she had a moment to be grateful that the bloody mess had at least led to a sparkling clean house for her guest.

  When Xia shuffled into the kitchen, still finger-combing her hair, she stopped in awe. An acre of food stretched out along the counter space between the living room and the kitchen. Sausage and bacon and toast and fish and scrambled eggs and jam and butter and scones and yogurt and granola and Cheerios and strawberries and orange juice and a china teapot that was not hers, along with a new two-cup personal coffee brewer.

  “Whaaa?”

  Adam stood in the kitchen, wearing the clothes he’d come in with last night. He clicked off the stove and slid the crunchy mess onto a plate. He added it to the last spot on the counter.

  Taking the serving platter she’d never used from the highest cupboard shelf, he began to fill it with a bit of everything. “I need to leave in a few minutes.”

  Xia closed her gaping mouth with a snap of her teeth. “Good morning.”

  “Aye.”

  See, now, this man was going to drive her to drink. During breakfast. “Where did all this come from?”

  “Anne.”

  “Anne? Delivered this?”

  “Most of it, aye.”

  “How do you know Anne?”

  He just slid a look at her and went to sit in the living room. With his platter.

  “I didn’t know she opened so early.”

  “She doesn’t.” He began to eat the food like he’d never seen any before.

  Xia looked over the impressive outlay. “The teapot is beautiful. Is it hers?”

  “’Tis yours.”

  Delighted, Xia picked it up, studying the wild roses hand-painted on the side. “Really? Where’d you find it?”

  “I asked Anne to pick a nice one.”

  Oh. She put it down. “Adam, what is all this?”

  “Breakfast.”

  She was going to brain him with the lovely teapot. She got a mug and filled it half-full with honey, then poured her tea. Taking it to the couch, she sat next to him. Maybe it was time to buy a chair, a nice lady’s recliner. He stood and went to the counter, filling his plate again.

  “Are you going to eat any of the pudding and kippers?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t care for meat at breakfast.”

  He shoveled it all onto his plate and sat back down, eating with a steady motion. Between bites, he managed, “Only one nightmare, and I detected no magic in it.”

  Xia froze. A sudden image flashed and faded in her brain. A tiny round boat, a rawhide stretched over a wood frame, very old, strangely deep, but the edge rode only a few inches above the water. A storm blowing up. She crouched in it, wearing a wool dress and leather shoes that were cold and wet. Staring up at the seething sky, she despaired as the gray water around her began to toss.

  Looking over at Adam, she blinked to see him considering her as he thoughtfully munched through a strip of bacon. His eyes looked flat today.

  She snapped, “You look like Macgregor with your jaw working like that.”

  He nodded. “There’s something you should know.” Standing, he put his platter in the sink and poured a glass of orange juice in his coffee mug. Ewww. “Do you remember the nightmare you had last night? Of being in a boat on a stormy loch?”

  “Just a bit.”

  He nodded, his gaze going far away, a tic pulsing twice in his jaw before he downed the juice and set the mug gently on the counter. “I cooked. You get the dishes.”

  She bit her lip against her protest. The mountain of dishes in the sink, the four pans on the stove, and the still-full army of offerings on the counter was not what she preferred to face in the morning. Drawing in a deep breath, she kept back her words. She did not want to start this partnership arguing over dishes. They’d work out their patterns soon enough. At this point she didn’t know if this was his preference after a night watching over her, or an offering to her, like a gift for a hostess.

  He went to the door and bent to pull on his battered hiking shoes. He now had wool socks on. She tried not to look, but couldn’t help glancing at his ass as he presented it so. His jeans were old and outlined the hard globes nicely. Pulling open the door, he said, “Around seven?”

  That would give them an hour before sunset. It would be enough if they were merely facing a normal dreamtime foray, but for what Markos had in that letter…

  “Just a minute.”

  She went and got the letter from the top of the TV. Handing it to him, she said, “Read this today. Come earlier if you can.”

  He turned it over, his thumb brushing over Markos’s emblem. “You haven’t opened it.”

  Crossing her arms, she shrugged. “I know what’s in it, mostly.”

  He stared at her, but she couldn’t hold that black gaze.


  “Your dream was mine.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Last night. In the currach. ’Twas Meg’s death.”

  Xia blinked at him, her throat swelling shut as her body utterly froze. Her heart gave one hard thump, her brain reverberating with his words, understanding them, but stupidly denying it. “What is a currach?”

  His face looked as frozen as she felt. “The little ox-hide boat you were in is a currach, at least as they were then. Meg. My first wife. She was a sprite. She drowned in Loch Mhòrair in a sudden storm. I wasn’t there, you see.”

  Xia felt her heart thump again. I don’t know what to say. “What does it mean, that I dreamed her memory?”

  “That nightmare wasn’t yours. ’Twas mine. It means naught but that we will work well together.”

  She stared at him for another heartbeat. He tucked Markos’s letter into his back pocket and went out into the morning mist, closing the door. Xia blinked at it. They’d work well together? Her own nightmares weren’t enough, now she was having his? His Rover revved, and he turned on the lawn and went away. She’d have to tell him not to always turn on the lawn or he’d ruin it. Long after he’d gone, she was able to move again, stiffly.

  Revolving, she stared at the decadent food spread before her, stomach churning and the taste of anguish in her mouth.

  Chapter Five

  It was about five kilometers to Loch Mhòrair from the village. The journey would have taken a few minutes in a car, but Xia didn’t have a car. So she packed some of the extra food from breakfast, tied on her hat with the missing piece in the brim, and put her cell phone, wallet and raincoat in the basket on her Schwinn.

  It was a blustery, overcast day, again. Summer was very touchy in this part of Scotland. She rode down the lane at top speed. She caught herself humming “We didn’t light the fi-ire! It was always burning, since the world was turning!” Shaking her head and cursing Markos, she leaned into the wind, her brim bent upright as the Schwinn purred down the road.