by H G Lynch
Ember laughed, flipping her hair off her face. Hiro yelped, and she turned to see him pacing about on the grass, dripping wet, looking like…well, like a drowned fox. She picked up from his thoughts that he wanted her to climb the rocks with him. So she slid up onto the bank and followed him to the far end of the lake.
Hiro bounced agilely up the rocks, and Ember followed more carefully, making sure her wet feet didn’t slip or stand on anything sharp. When Hiro stopped at the same tiny platform she’d watched him dive from before, she shook her head.
“Is that it? Too scared to go higher, little foxie?” she teased, grabbing a jut in the rocks a little higher up. Hiro yelped indignantly and leapt up after her as she climbed to the very top of the rocky wall. On the other side, it was a steep, muddy hill covered in prickly trees. The tall pines ringed the lake like swaying, natural guards, protecting the secrets hidden within the depths of the water.
“Okay, ready?” she asked Hiro, who was pawing at the edge of the rock.
He nodded his little fox head, his ears up and swiveling alertly. He swished his tail, flinging drops of water over Ember’s bare legs.
Ember smirked. “On the count of three,” she said, raising her arms over her head. Down below, she could see Reid watching, his eyes riveted on her as she prepared to dive. Cris was watching too, sitting up on the bank of the lake, cheering. Ricky and Sherry had emerged from their private alcove and both looked up to see what was going on. When they spotted Ember and Hiro, they quickly swam out of the way.
“One,” Ember bounced on her toes, holding herself upright. “Two.” She fixed her eyes ahead of her, looking at a maze of bare tree branches, adrenalin pumping. “THREE!” She threw herself gracefully over the edge, her arms over her head to split the water first.
She soared down in a straight line, and broke the surface with barely a splash, sinking down, down, down deeper into darker, colder water. Then she was clawing her way back up to the surface, back up to the warm water. Finally, she breached the surface and gasped in air, throwing her soaking hair back off her face, wiping water from her eyes. Her heart was pounding with the rush of the dive and she beamed as everyone started clapping.
Reid held up an imaginary scoreboard and called out, “Ten out of ten!”
Giggling, Sherry mimicked him, “Ten!” she shouted.
Ricky was next, grinning brightly. “Definitely ten!”
Cris held up his imaginary scoreboard and yelled. “Ten!”
Ember laughed, bowing her head respectfully to her audience. “Thank you so much! I couldn’t have done it without the support of my swim coach and my best friend and my pet fox.” She giggled.
Hiro popped up next to her, bobbing in the water. He rubbed one soaked ear against her arm and she petted him, getting wet fox hairs all over her hand. She pulled a face and splashed her hand in the water to clean it. Hiro noticed and rubbed his tail against her ribs and she giggled helplessly, trying to push him away.
“Stop that! It tickles!” she squealed, swimming backwards to escape him. She bumped right into Reid, who encircled his arms around her. For a moment, she thought he was holding her still so Hiro could tickle her some more, but then Hiro paused and started paddling away, a snicker in his thoughts.
Ember turned in Reid’s arms and understood immediately. He had that heated, burning look in his eyes, and Ember sucked on her lip, watching him through her lashes as he pulled her right up against him and held her there. His arms were strong around her, his body solid and hot, his skin smooth. His hair was a tangled mass of wet gold around his face, and his soft mouth was pulled into a sensual smile. She felt her heart skip a beat and a frisson of heat licked its way down her spine, sinking into her stomach.
Slowly, teasingly slowly, Reid brought his mouth down to hers, just brushing his lips against hers while his fingers combed lightly through her wet hair. She shuddered delightfully and Reid smiled against her lips, clearly enjoying the way he was making her feel. Returning the favor, she reached up to twine her fingers in his hair, running one finger gently down the back of his neck. His arms tensed, pressing her even closer until she could feel every ridge of his lean, muscled body. She almost forgot how to breathe, feeling her wet skin slide against his, his soft lips molding with hers so, so teasingly. It was blissful torture, and she knew he knew it.
Then the mood was broken, and she was thrown abruptly out of the spell, as someone called over to them, “Hey guys! You might want to get out of the water before you start that!” It was Ricky, snickering.
Sherry was pressed against his side, trying to look anywhere but at Reid and Ember as she repressed giggles. Cris was looking away too, pretending to be occupied with messing with his hair. Hiro was curled on the edge of the lake, his tail swishing back and forth in the water.
It took Ember a long, long moment to realize what Ricky was talking about. Then she noticed the water was steaming. Literally. Steam was pouring off of every inch of the surface and rising in misty white clouds. Oops. She blushed profusely, and tried to lower the water temperature again, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. Damn it. She hadn’t realized that would happen, but she should’ve known it would. Her hands always got warm when she fell under Reid’s spell like that, so she should’ve guessed the heat would expend itself in the water if she got too…warm.
Ricky chuckled and went back to whatever he was doing with Sherry, and Cris wandered over to join Hiro on the grass, swinging his feet in the water.
Ember, with her face on fire, pulled herself away from Reid, and held him at arm’s length, one fingertip against his chest to make sure he’d stay where he was. “Um, stay. Just stay there for a second,” she murmured, trying to breathe deeply and relax. But her face was burning and so was her body. It was hard to calm herself when Reid was still standing there, gazing at her with those azure eyes, his sculpted chest and abs on full display, running with rivulets of water.
Focus on something else, she told herself sharply, closing her eyes. It didn’t help. Even without looking at him, Ember could picture Reid perfectly, every delicate feature of his face, every etched line of his torso, even the mischievous sparkle in his lovely blue eyes. Clearly, trying to focus on something else wasn’t working.
“Whatever you’re imagining, it isn’t cooling the temperature here, Emz.” Reid chuckled quietly.
She frowned, opening her eyes to look at him. “I think I’ve got a mental problem. I have images of a sexy vampire bad boy stuck in my head,” she said, one half of her mouth curling in a smirk.
“Hmm, I’m not sure I can cure that. I’ll probably just make the problem worse,” Reid leaned in to whisper against her cheekbone, and she shuddered helplessly.
“Maybe we really should get out of the water,” Ember suggested, twining her fingers with his. Reid just gave her a knowing look.
“You know as well as I do that it won’t make much of a difference. You’re linked to your magic, whether you’re in the water or not. Getting out now would just give everyone else a very good impression of exactly how hot the water could be,” he murmured in her ear, stroking back her damp hair.
It took her a moment to figure out what he meant, and then she blushed profusely — Again — biting down her lower lip.
Reid snickered at her reaction, his breath tickling her cheek as his hand caressed the back of her neck. She tried very hard to control her magic, not to let the heat in her turn up the heat of the water around her. It was damn difficult though.
Then, something snapped her magic. She didn’t lose grasp of it, didn’t let it go, but something made her magic suddenly drop out, like a bad internet connection. Like an interfering signal or something. The water instantly started cooling as the heat was released.
“Um, Emz, I know I said the water was—” Ricky started, but she knew what he was going to say, and cut him off.
“I know. It’s cold. Something disconnected my magic. I can’t transfer the heat into the water anymore,” she grimaced, swirl
ing her fingers on the water’s surface, trying to charge it with heat from her fingertips. It didn’t work. The heat just dissipated back into the air. She could grab hold of plenty of heat; she just couldn’t put it into the water.
“Ember? What’s going on?” Reid asked, putting his hand on her arm, watching her with concern. She shook her head, frowning.
“I don’t know. The heat won’t stay in the water. Something’s pushing it out. It’s like something else is controlling the water.”
At that, Reid’s expression darkened, and he looked over her shoulder. She felt Ricky come up behind her — She knew it was him by the honeysuckle and mint scent. “I think we should get out now. If something else is here, we don’t want to be in its grasp,” Ricky said, his tone serious.
Reid nodded. “Right.”
Everyone started swimming for the edge of the lake. Hiro and Cris were already out and Cris was rubbing a towel over Hiro’s soaking red fur. Hiro didn’t look like he was enjoying it. Sherry pulled herself up out of the water. Ricky and Reid swam a little ahead, muttering to each other. Obviously, playtime was over and they were all business. It always sucked when the fun was cut short by mysterious trouble.
Ember sighed, and swam lazily after the boys, gooseflesh rising all over her skin from the frigid water. It was ice-cold now, cold enough that even she was likely to get ill from it if she didn’t get warm soon.
She was still several meters from the bank of the lake when something abruptly yanked at her foot, pulling her down under the water. She gasped, choked on water, and went under. It felt like there was a hand clamped around her ankle, dragging her deeper and deeper under the surface, deeper than she’d even realized the lake was. The icy water stung her eyes and she struggled to free herself, kicking viciously at whatever had hold of her, but her foot didn’t collide with anything but more water. It got darker and darker, until she could hardly see, until her lungs began to burn. She kept thrashing, staring down into the blackness of the endless depth of the lake, but she couldn’t see what was pulling her down, couldn’t fight its strength.
Then, as suddenly as she’d been being dragged down, she was being pulled up toward the surface. Fingers as strong as iron bands were curled tightly around her wrist, dragging her up through the dark, freezing water. Her lungs were shriveling inside her chest, and she whimpered behind sealed lips, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the stinging. Only, she found that with her eyes closed, she couldn’t determine which way she was being pulled, and the disorientation made her open her eyes again, blinking rapidly against the icy water blurring her vision.
Eventually, she broke the surface and gasped desperately, rubbing water from her eyes, her hands trembling so badly she wasn’t sure whether she was shivering or if it was the effect of the fear of drowning. Probably both, she decided, pushing her wet hair off her face.
“Ember? Ember, are you okay? What happened?” Reid took her face between his palms, staring into her eyes intently while she gasped for air to soothe her burning lungs. His blue eyes frantically searched her face, for what she wasn’t sure, but clearly he wasn’t happy about whatever he found. He jerked her to him, and held her tightly. “Holy crap, Emz. You nearly gave me a heart attack. I just turned around, and you were gone!” Reid sounded more shaken than she felt, and she had to wonder why. He wasn’t usually so easily shaken, even over her safety.
Peering over his shoulder, she saw Ricky standing on the grass, a little away from everyone else, and his expression told her she’d been in more danger than she’d realized.
“Reid?” Ember pulled away from him slightly, and he released her, instead taking her hand firmly and dragging her after him to the edge of the lake.
He didn’t look back at her as she spoke.
“Reid, what am I missing? Is there something else here?” she asked, looking around, knowing that if there was something else here, she wasn’t likely to see it. It was probably under the water; probably the thing that had just tried to drown her. Whatever it was, it wasn’t friendly.
They’d reached the edge of the lake now, and Reid wordlessly lifted her up out of the water and deposited her on the slick grass before pulling himself out after her. Then he started walking away toward Ricky. She frowned and stood up, wrapping her arms around herself as she followed him.
“Reid, seriously, what’s up? Don’t ignore me. You know that won’t make me shut up,” she said mulishly, catching up to him. She reached out one hand and snagged his arm, pulling him to a stop.
Finally, he looked at her, and sighed, shaking his head. His wet hair dripped over his forehead, his eyes swirling like pools of glacial water, but his mouth was a hard line. She waited.
“It’s not important,” he said, shrugging. But his expression said he didn’t expect her to believe that.
She didn’t. She arched a brow at him, and crossed her arms stubbornly.
A pained expression flitted across his features and he hung his head. “Emz, do we have to do this? Really? I mean, we just finished with one enormous problem less than a week ago, and we barely dodged that bullet. If I tell you what’s worrying me now, you’ll want to fix it as well and put yourself in danger again and…” Reid’s voice held that tone of exasperation and he sighed again.
For a minute, Ember just gazed at him, thinking. Did he really believe she’d go throwing herself into danger if it wasn’t necessary? If the issue wasn’t directly a threat to her, she wouldn’t deal with it. It could be someone else’s problem. She’d done enough, dealt with enough, to last a lifetime. Well, a human lifetime. Seeing as she’d outlive several generations of mortals, most likely. If she didn’t get killed first.
“I won’t. I just want to know what you’re so freaked out about. Curiosity, not a moral urge to save the world.” She smirked a little and saw Reid’s shoulders relax slightly.
He gazed at her for a long moment before answering. “Fine. Ricky and I can feel something…strong. A presence. So, I suggest we get out of here before whatever it is decides to make you a permanent target, okay?” He put a hand on her back and hurried her off toward where she’d left her bag with her clothes.
She gave a sigh and wandered off to get changed, but when she looked over her shoulder, Reid and Ricky were deep in a serious discussion, their faces lined with concern. Well, damn. This was going to end up being her problem anyway, wasn’t it? It always did.
Chapter Two
** Reid **
“Go ‘way,” Reid called vaguely in the direction of the door. His voice was a little muffled by the fact that Ember refused to remove her mouth from his. The knocking persisted, though, and he reluctantly tore his mouth from hers, holding her down so she wouldn’t just pull him down to her again.
She sighed and muttered something under her breath that sounded rather like ‘Fodding suck-tard’. Reid couldn’t help the small smile that curled his lips, even as he slid off the bed to stride to the door.
He flipped the lock and pulled the door open just wide enough to see who it was, without the other person being able to see into the room — he had the feeling Ember wouldn’t appreciate anyone else seeing her shirtless. Behind the door, much to Reid’s irritation and mild surprise, was Brandon. And he was missing his usual tagalong; Perry was nowhere in sight. Huh.
“Reid, we need to talk. Where’s Ricky? He told us about what happened at the lake and—” Brandon’s dark eyes were feverish with either excitement or concern. It was hard to tell the difference with Brandon, because he almost always wore the same expression when Reid was around. Not a happy one either.
Reid groaned, turned slightly, and banged his head on the edge of the door.
Brandon shut up abruptly, and glowered at him.
“Reid, if that’s who I think it is, get rid of him before I throw an orange through the door at him,” Ember said from the bed behind him, and he turned to arch a brow at her.
“You don’t even have an— Oh, you do have an orange. Where did you get that?” H
e blinked. She hadn’t had that a moment ago.
She snorted. “The orchard under my bed,” she replied dryly.
Reid tilted his head. “You know, if you throw that at the door, you’ll just end up with a sticky, pulpy mess, and I’m not going to clean it up. In fact, you’d be better with a mango, or possibly a pineapple—”
Brandon interrupted their fruit-banter by slamming his hand against the door impatiently.
Reid turned back to him and grimaced, wishing the other boy would go away now.
“Reid, I’m serious! The incident at the lake wasn’t the first strange thing to happen there! Over the past week, two boys have—”
There was a sudden, dull thud against the door, and Reid leaned back to peer at it. There was a large splotch of orange pulp, and on the floor, there was a mangled orange seeping its sticky blood into the carpet. With a frown, he looked at Ember.
“I did warn you that would happen.”
And to Brandon he said, “Look what you made her do. She’s throwing fruit. And she’ll probably make me clean it up, as well.”
Brandon threw up his hands with a growl of exasperation and frustration. “For God’s sake, Reid, what does it take to make you listen? Two boys have gone missing at that lake in the past week, and just yesterday, soon after you left, one of the bodies was found. Dead, Reid. A corpse,” Brandon added, as if Reid were stupid and didn’t understand the word ‘dead’. Or ‘bodies’ for that matter.
Resisting the urge to bang his head on the door again, Reid said, in a very carefully controlled tone, “How interesting, Brandon. Though, I do not see why that is of such great concern to me that you would interrupt me while I’m with my girlfriend.”
With a dark look, Brandon spoke through gritted teeth, clearly losing patience — Which amused Reid. It wasn’t easy to make Brandon lose his patience, but Reid had mastered the skill by the time he was twelve. “Because, it is our job to investigate what is going on at that lake, seeing as it appears to be something supernatural,” Brandon said tightly.