If he could ever again get her to look at him directly, that is. She hadn’t looked at him head on since they had left their tent.
Benton was brooding over that – and over how to get Ellis to look at him again – when he felt a quick double tap against his foot.
Looking down, Benton found two firebirds looking up at him.
He blinked down at them.
They blinked up at him, one eye and then the other.
The one on the left stepped back then forward and then to the left.
Benton did not reciprocate.
The firebird on the left did it again. When he failed to reciprocate again, the one on the right pressed her invitation by stepping forward, to the right, and then back.
“They’re courting him!” exclaimed Everett, half laughing.
“I am hot as fire,” said Benton cheerfully, and then bit back a grin when Ellis smiled.
He ignored the two firebirds and, after another couple of attempts on their part, they pecked him in the ankles and moved on.
Ellis rewarded him for his stalwart faithfulness with another deliciously cold drink and a sandwich – or at least, that was how Benton chose to interpret events.
Today’s sandwich was not only edible, it was also tasty.
After lunch, the research teams switched places, and Benton returned to camp with Ellis, Everett, and Marc. Ellis would be going to the cold spring after this, and that would be his opportunity to speak with her.
Benton’s heart quickened at the thought of it. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but it was going to be moving and heartfelt, and she was going to swoon into his arms. It was going to fix everything.
Much to Benton’s annoyance, though, all four of them ended up in Ellis’ refreshingly cool spring, sharing space with the tiny fish and each other. It wasn’t exactly what Benton had been picturing when they had left the research post together.
Maybe I can wait them out? Benton wondered, while eyeing Everett and Marc speculatively.
“There you are!” exclaimed a woman’s voice, and Benton turned to see Marissa approaching the spring. She was the one on kitchen duty today.
“Hey Marc,” said Marissa, her one hand cupped against the side of her throat. “I was wondering if you could help me move some boxes in the kitchen?”
“Sure thing!” said Marc quickly. He was already sloshing towards the side.
“Thanks!” chirped Marissa, smiling prettily at him.
That just left Benton, Ellis, and Everett relaxing in the spring.
I just need to figure out how to get rid of Everett, thought Benton, or lure Ellis back to our tent.
Unfortunately, no ideas immediately presented themselves on either account.
Ellis and Everett were having an involved conversation about science fiction books, when Parker turned up to invite Ellis to yoga and meditation time.
It wasn’t what Benton had had in mind, but he wasn’t an overly proud man either. When Ellis headed back to their tent, Benton grabbed his opportunity with both hands. He followed her back to their tent.
“Don’t look,” ordered Ellis, as she toweled off and began to change.
“Why?” asked Benton, feeling annoyed. Nonetheless, he turned around as requested. Roughly, he began to towel off too. “I’ve seen it all anyway.”
Behind him, Ellis gasped softly.
“So what?” she demanded. “I don’t want you to see it right now.”
“Or again?” retorted Benton, stung.
“Benton…” said Ellis. Her voice was soft and sad, and Benton whirled to face her, feeling hurt and angry.
“Do you regret what happened?” he demanded, asking a question that he never thought that he would have to ask his very own soul mate.
Ellis, half wet and half dressed, looked entirely like a deer in the headlights.
“Do you?” pressed Benton relentlessly.
“I... don’t?” tried Ellis. “In the moment… it felt right. But I regret everything that came after it. Benton, I can’t have them snickering behind my back or mocking me to my face. I’m in charge of this group, and I’m responsible for everyone in it. I need them to respect me. And I need them to do what I say, when and how I say to do it.”
“Ellis, they weren’t mocking you,” said Benton, at a loss. “They were just teasing you. And even if they were, what does it matter?”
“Whatever they were doing, I won’t have it,” said Ellis sharply. “I worked damn hard to get where I am, and I’m not going to let something like this torpedo my career.”
“That… I can understand,” said Benton reluctantly, because he could. Taking a step closer to her, he said, “But when we leave, let’s take up where we left off, okay?”
Ellis’ eyes widened.
“Would you… want to?” she asked, almost delicately. There was a nearly undetectable tremor in her voice.
“Yes!” said Benton forcefully – maybe a little too forcefully, but it made Ellis smile.
Moving closer to him, Ellis asked, almost tentatively but with her smile still lingering around her mouth, “So… we’re putting a pin in this?”
“Only for now,” said Benton determinedly.
Benton had spent his entire childhood looking forward to her, and his entire adulthood looking for her. There was absolutely no way that he was going to lose Ellis now, not to anything or anyone – not even to her.
Ellis smiled at him again.
“Great!” Ellis wrenched a shirt over her head. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got stretches to yoga and unsuspecting firebirds to spy on. See you later!”
She left then, scrambling out of the tent to go meet up with the other women. Benton, still in his wet shorts, watched her go.
He hadn’t gotten what he really wanted, but at least she wasn’t actively retreating from him anymore. It was a start.
Dinner wasn’t awkward, and neither was sitting around the campfire afterwards. When Ellis went to take her evening soak, Benton went back to the tent that they shared.
The first night, when Ellis had looked hesitantly across the bed at him, Benton had tried to make her laugh. Tonight, when Ellis returned from her evening soak in the cold spring, he said, “Would you like to see some of my shots?” before it could get awkward between them.
Ellis looked startled.
“What about your battery?”
“I’ll recharge it,” said Benton. “I’ve always kept a spare charger for my electronics in my equipment bag, so that’s fine. Would you like to see?”
To his mingled relief and pleasure, Ellis nodded.
So they both clambered into the bed, Ellis curling up against his side so that she could see the viewing panel on his camera.
“These are really good!”
“Yeah?” asked Benton, pleased. If Ellis hadn’t currently had her head resting on his chest, Benton might have preened. As it was, he wondered if it would be too much to ask her what she liked best about his work. The colors? The compositions? His style?
“Yes! I can see why this is your job! The moments that you caught are really beautiful! And they seem… intimate sometimes. You really captured the firebirds’ spirits!”
Benton did preen then. It didn’t even matter that he was on his back with his mate lying half on top of him. He couldn’t help it. His mate was complimenting him. The way that she was looking at him – her beautiful eyes shining, admiration in every line of her – made Benton feel ten feet tall.
“Your eyes just now… They’re as amazing! Just like a firebird’s!”
Benton wilted.
Stupid firebirds. Why couldn’t she like a superior bird best? Something like, say, a phoenix? A phoenix was obviously better than any firebird.
Still, he was pleased by Ellis’ admiration. And he liked having her warm body pressed all along his side, her head a trusting weight against his chest and her soft hair tickling his skin. Benton decided to take her compliment in the spirit in which it was intended.
Happy, Benton continued to thumb through his shots for his appreciative audience of one.
There was more than one way to woo an errant soul mate.
The next day, breakfast was once again nearly inedible. Benton was beginning to sense a pattern in the cooking schedule. If so, Ellis’ faith in his culinary abilities warmed his heart.
That day, they followed the pattern of previous days. The firebirds sat on their eggs, the unmated juveniles courted each other on the shores of the lake, and the research team observed their interactions from the relative shade of the research post, while Benton and Marc faithfully recorded them all. And overhead, the sun climbed higher.
“So when are those eggs going to hurry up and hatch?” asked Marc once, sweat dripping down his temples. “We’re cooking out here.”
“It takes very specific circumstances to hatch a firebird’s egg,” said Ellis. “But if it’s going to happen, it’ll probably happen soon. And it’ll be magnificent.”
Marc huffed. He didn’t look particularly reassured. Ellis had never been particularly subtle about her partiality towards firebirds.
Four firebirds turned up to invite Benton to dance, invitations that he ignored and was soundly pecked for ignoring.
Lunch was edible, and dinner was certainly a thing that happened. Those were truly the best things that Benton could say about either meal.
The only change to the rhythm of their day came after sunset.
Ellis had gone to soak in the spring, so Benton took his cameras and Marc down to the lake for some quality after dark shots.
The firebirds were all asleep, either on their nests on the lake’s little islands or in little clumps on the shores surrounding the lake. They had their heads neatly tucked under their wings or, occasionally, tenderly laid across a partner’s neck.
The torrential rains during the rainy season had soaked the firebirds’ feathers and doused their flames, but they had spent the time since then drying out and growing new flight feathers. They hadn’t begun to burn yet, but in the dark they glowed softly.
It was all very peaceful.
Benton was just finishing up when a long, pale arm reached up from the water to grab one of the firebirds sleeping nearest to the water’s edge. The bird roused, shrieking, as long, pale fingers clamped around its scaly leg. As Benton watched, horrified but still filming, the arm dragged the flapping and shrieking firebird into the water.
Roused by their fellow’s distress, the other firebirds previously sleeping on the lake’s shores shrieked and flapped, rushing away from the water. They huddled near the trees, their clump seething with movement. Taken together, they looked almost like a flame.
Meanwhile, the firebirds on the temporary islands roused. They called out, their voices high and angry, and the ones nearest the edge of the water watched it suspiciously.
Much nearer by, the mermaid had not only pulled the unfortunate firebird into the water, she was holding the bird under the waves, drowning it.
As a bird that burned himself, Benton couldn’t think of a worse way to go.
The dead firebird disappeared shortly after that, pulled under the waves by that implacable arm.
It took awhile for things to settle down again, both on the shore and on the small islands. Marc and Benton were still filming when Ellis joined them, the twitch in his pinkie announcing her arrival.
She was fresh from the spring, still in her swimsuit and dripping water. The sight of her all cold and wet made Benton shudder.
Even though he knew where she had been, Benton quit filming so that he could reach out and touch her. He needed to make sure that she wasn’t a ghost, pulled under the waves and drowned by a mysterious arm.
At the touch of his hand to her arm, Ellis sighed and melted against his side. She was sold and wet, and she was getting him wet too. It was enough to make that shrill, frightened part of himself quiet.
Ellis was fine.
And so was he.
“Hey,” said Ellis. “Are you all right? You looked shaken.”
“I’m fine,” said Benton automatically. A brief silence, during which he realized that Marc had quietly left, then Benton asked, “Did you know that there are arms in the lake?”
Ellis laughed.
“Yes,” she said. “They’re attached to mermaids and mermen. We should be fine though.”
“It just reached up and pulled a bird under and drowned it.”
“They do that sometimes. The freshwater springs and lakes and wells on this island are likely an interconnected honeycomb. The mer-people probably use them to get around.”
That got Benton’s attention.
“They’re all interconnected? Including your spring?”
How many times had she nearly ended up like that unfortunate firebird? Benton wouldn’t leave her alone there any more, not if there was any danger of her being drowned by a hungry mermaid or merman.
“There wasn’t a pool there the first year. It was just a trickle that we enlarged, so the opening should be too small for any mer-people to sneak up on us,” said Ellis reassuringly. Turning, she reached up to put her arms around his neck. Almost teasingly, she said, “But if there were mer-people in it, I’d protect you from them.”
Benton closed his arms around her waist, allowing his camera to hang by its strap. Ellis was cool and wet in his arms, and she got the front of his clothes wet, but he didn’t mind. At least she was there to get him wet, rather than carried off or drowned.
Just thinking about it was enough to make Benton shiver.
He swayed into her, trying to get closer to her, and Ellis swayed with him. She took a step to the left, one that he followed. He stumbled over a bit of uneven ground and stepped back, and she followed him.
Soon they were dancing, moving together without benefit of music or even set steps. It was… soothing. It felt right, like pieces clicking into place together.
Benton didn’t know how long they swayed together, and he honestly didn’t care. If he could freeze moments in amber and wear them on a chain around his neck, this would be one of his jewels. He would revisit it always, the night that they first danced together.
“We should probably go in,” Ellis said eventually, her voice hoarse and her words a puff of warm air against his shoulder. She was still damp, but she was warmer now than when he had first wrapped his arms around her.
“Should we?” he asked, his heart sinking.
Ellis nodded her head against his shoulder.
“It’s been awhile since I heard any of the others,” she said. “They’ve all gone to bed, and we have to get up early in the morning.”
Benton sighed, because it was true, and she was right. They always had to get up early in the morning.
In that moment, it became Benton’s secret ambition to enjoy a late night and a late morning with Ellis, one that started with good food and ended with them sleeping in together. And maybe a late brunch; after this, it would be a long time before he took good food for granted again.
And we’d do it all somewhere a little cooler than here, decided Benton. But not too cool. I’m a phoenix, not a polar bear.
In their tent, they both quickly readied themselves for bed. Together they curled up on their inflated mattress and dropped swiftly off to sleep, Benton’s last thought being, I would do this forever with you.
Chapter 09 – Ellis
When Ellis woke the next morning, Benton was already gone, his half of the bed cool to the touch. Alone in her bed for the first time in days, Ellis felt… bereft. It had only been a few days, but already she had gotten used to waking up with him nearby. Rising, Ellis dressed to face the day… and go find Benton.
She found him in the mess tent, serving up breakfast to the person in front of her in the line.
He had made omelets; delicious omelets filled with chunks of spam and oozing with two kinds of previously powdered cheese. Ellis had no idea how he had made the cheese ooze or the previously powdered eggs fluffy,
but somehow it had all come together to make something tasty.
When she told him as much, Benton’s face lit with pleasure.
“I’m glad that you like it!” he said cheerfully.
And Ellis smiled too, because how could she not? His good humor was infectious.
When it was time to go, Benton loaded the research group down with a cooler and sandwiches and waved goodbye to them.
Ellis missed him on the lake. It was silly, the eggs were unlikely to hatch today, and Marc was with them anyway, but she still considered going back to get Benton at least half a dozen times. Just because it was unlikely didn’t mean that the eggs couldn’t hatch today, and Marc wasn’t as good a photographer as Benton. It would be a shame if he was the only photographer around at the hatching.
And she wasn’t the only one who missed Benton. At least half a dozen of the unmated adult firebirds casually wandered through the open sided tent that served as their research outpost. Firebirds seemed to have a particular liking of fire dragons, but they never usually came looking for them. It was probably silly, but Ellis couldn’t shake the idea that the intrepid explorers had come looking specifically for Benton, although maybe she thought that because she missed Benton.
And at the back of her brain, Ellis felt that he missed her too.
It had been like that last night.
She had been lazing in the spring when she had felt a jolting of surprise that wasn’t her own. It had been followed by gut-wrenching fear and, frightened for him, Ellis had scrambled out of the spring. In her haste and fear, she had nearly forgotten to pull on her shoes – a potentially fatal mistake.
Ellis had rushed to the lake, knowing in her bones just where he was, and found Benton well but unsettled. And she had known when he had settled. She had even known that he was happy when he drifted off to sleep that night.
It was becoming harder and harder to deny the bond that stretched between them, though the idea of directly acknowledging it made something inside of Ellis tremble. Benton wasn’t the sort of soul mate that she was supposed to have, but Ellis found it impossible not to love him all the same.
Her Photographer Phoenix: A Paranormal Romance (Lone Dragons Book 2) Page 7