The Call of Fire: A Natura Elementals Novel

by Sloane Calder

  She glared at Samael. “If you harm so much as an eyelash on him, I will cut you down, and it won’t be with charmed bullets.”

  “Convicting me already?” His wide smile wasn’t friendly. “I can assure you I’m not working alone, and I’m not a one-trick warlock.”

  She returned a game-on smirk. “And I’m not a four-powered pushover.”

  “One chance.” He held up a finger. “What have you done with the witches?”

  She couldn’t stifle her double take. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A tinge of decomposition floated across her senses.

  Wrong answer.

  “You should beware the fury of a patient man. Killing your grandfather proved to be the simplest of spells. Lach has both feet in the grave, so that’s almost done. My Earth’s far stronger than yours, and I can best Ross. It’d be a real mudslinger, but I’d win.”

  Fire shot through her, the skin of her arms glowing red.

  “Get out of the car, or I’ll get you out.” She flexed her Water energy against his Earth, ready to strong-arm him onto the sidewalk.

  A warning skittered over her skin, a signal flare from her elements, an assurance that if she threw open the floodgates of her power, she’d lose control.

  “Your grandfather treated us like cattle. He wrote off our spells and our glamours and our charms as Natura lite.” He hunched a shoulder, and the green threading through his irises deepened. “You push people too long? They eventually push back.”

  A sensation started at the back of her neck. A crawling. No, a tapping. Like someone sought her attention.

  The area warmed, spreading down her body, a heated ooze covering her. A bath of light and heat. Aleron?

  Samael uttered low words in a language she’d never heard. Somber. Not pretty, but powerful, and the cadence of the eerie tone flowed through her, filling the car.

  “I’ll ask a second time since your energy signature is so fresh and new. What have you done with the witches?”

  “All I did for my grandfather was arrange unions and maintain a Natura database. Seanair kept me out of everything else.” She strengthened her shields at the rumble shaking the car.

  “I have no tolerance for liars.”

  The air shifted. A calm creep of fog spread over the floorboard. Time held, slowed, and the solid surface beneath her moved. Earth energy. Cautious, crawling…crushing.

  Nothing at all like Flora or Ross. Or was it? Had she been fooled into buying into the peaceful, tree-hugging reputation of the “quiet, gentle” element?

  Anger rose. Primitive and raw. A kill-or-be-killed fury detonated inside her. Her power writhed, twirled, raged at the man who’d threatened something precious. Something new and beautiful. Love for Aleron. Love for the future. Hope for…life.

  Her Earth energy rose, a cavernous call from her every cell, an urging to plow Samael down, pulverize him to bits, shove him deep in the dirt.

  A choking sound stopped her short. A wretch. A gasp. Aleron slumped over the steering wheel, his body seizing.

  “Stop!” She lunged at Samael, trying to break the flow of acid-green light aimed at the front seat.

  She hit a solid, invisible wall.

  “Stop!”

  Horns honked behind them.

  “Give me Flora,” Samael said.

  A landslide of pressure surrounded her. “What? Never.” She wouldn’t give up her cousin.

  Aleron lurched, an unnatural force turning his upper body. Red veins canvased the whites of his eyes. Tendons bulged along his neck.

  “Flora will come to me in two days.”

  “No.”

  “Flora will be alone.”

  “No.”

  “Flora will return when I’m ready to return her.”

  “Let him go!” She beat at the wall, now a brilliant emerald. Aiming heat, water, everything she had and pushing, shoving, pounding at his shields.

  As if sensing Aleron’s distress, her Air wasn’t having it. The reinforced glass flexed, bowed, and shattered. Spits of glass ripped her face. Aleron’s back arched.

  “Yes! Okay! Yes!” The words tore from her throat in a long, shrill scream.

  Samael sat back and brushed bits of glass from his slacks as if they were nothing more than a bit of dust. “And so it shall be.”

  The atmosphere rippled. His body shimmered, disappearing into smoke and glitter, and whisked through a busted window in a vapor-like trail.

  Aleron collapsed sideways across the console into the passenger seat.

  “Aleron? Aleron! Answer me!” She exited the rear of the car and ripped open the front passenger door, grabbing his shoulders. She strained to push him upright, but her strength was no match for a body of solid muscle.

  She pressed her fingertips to his neck, found his pulse, but panicked at his jerky breaths. The blue around his eyes and the bruising circling his mouth faded. She patted her pockets. No phone. Couldn’t find Aleron’s either.

  The rev of a motorcycle cut through the street noise. The grumbling Harley stopped alongside the car, the rider pushing up the helmet’s visor.

  “What the fuck?” Kazumi shrieked. “My friendship bracelet with your boy is going nuts.” Her gaze shifted to Aleron, her eyes wide as she seemed to realize how exposed they all were. “Ripple.” She drew out the word in a hush.

  An otherworldly blue wave fanned out around them, the power bathing and absorbing into every person on the block and moving to climb the walls of the buildings and flashing at the windows.

  “Graham’s coming with a battalion of guards. He’s called off the meeting.” Zum rushed around to the driver’s side and took hold of Aleron’s body. “Let’s get him up in case he comes to. You push. I’ll pull. One, two, three.”

  She grunted, shoving him upright in the driver’s seat. Tracing her fingertips over the cuts slicing into his scar, she avoided the bleeding gash over his eyes. A bald fury consumed her. Flashes of blue, green, red, white flared, her power firing like a camera flash.

  “Get a grip, E. Now. Don’t make me brain-blip those rubbernecking a-holes again.”

  A black Suburban pulled up. Five men poured out and moved her aside, pulling Aleron out of the car with done-this-before proficiency and putting him in the SUV.

  Zum’s glare was so like Aleron’s, scanning the surrounding area with brutal efficiency. She nailed the obvious leader of the Elite team. “Have someone alert our people in the monitoring center right away. Have them destroy the camera feeds from noon on. If we get word about stand-alone cameras, you’ll have to deal with them one on one.”

  The man’s expression sharpened into don’t tell me my job. “We know this area. We got it.”

  Elspeth watched her best friend handle the crisis while she could only stand there, staring at the SUV where Aleron was in the back, being checked over by one of the men. Her body, her elements, her soul longed to touch him, make sure he still breathed. His chest had barely seemed to rise and fall, and she couldn’t erase the image from her mind.

  Kazumi returned and shoved her cell phone into her back pocket.

  “These guys are trained in emergency medicine. I called our people at Mount Sinai, and a team will meet us at your apartment. What the hell happened?”

  “A warlock happened.” Her hands shook, adrenaline still pumping through her. “A warlock who wants a war and can take pure element form.”

  “That’s impossible.” Zum motioned her toward the bike and unfastened the extra helmet secured to the back.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “What did he want?” Zum threw her leg over the seat and nodded for her to climb on.

  “He wanted to know what we’ve done with a bunch of witches, and he was interested in Flora.” She settled on the seat behind Kazumi and put her arms around her friend’s waist. She wanted to be with Aleron but realized the motorcycle could get them back to her place quicker than the Suburban. “Let’s go. I need to see my cousin and tell her what
I’ve done.”

  Aleron hadn’t believed in the space between life and death where a Natura’s consciousness loomed above their human body. His Fire was like looking into a furnace, flames roaring and hot. His Air churned, swirling but stationary, wind waiting to be set free. Then there was his body, the home where his element seeds lived, his human shell, allowing him to blend in and do his job.

  It was strange, his awareness floating above his still form in Elspeth’s room.

  He watched her stroke the backs of her fingers gently down his face, take his hand. An English bulldog rested at the foot of the bed, her body still, her eyes shifting toward the man with Mount Sinai embroidered on his scrubs.

  “Why won’t he wake up?” Elspeth looked from the doc back to the bed.

  “His element energy was immobile too long. It’s like muscle atrophy in humans when they’re inactive for an extended period or bedridden. Neither species is meant to be in stasis.” The doctor firmed his mouth. “The primary issue is he nearly drained his Fire down to nothing. May I be candid, Ms. Lennox?”

  “Elspeth, and yes.”

  “I understand you’re new to your elements, and while I know little of Nexus abilities outside of old textbooks, I can tell you Naturas have an internal line they mustn’t cross. Think of it like the low-fuel light in a car. When the light comes on, you must refill the tank soon.” The old doc’s gaze softened. “But for us, if we run out of gas, we can’t just add more and go. If Naturas completely deplete their energy stores, they die. I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that some can exist in humanlike form, but I’ve never seen it. In all my years of practice, I’ve never seen a patient recover after his levels dropped this low. How did he get to this state?”

  Her chin quivered. “A warlock’s spell. Even bound, Aleron shielded me. His Fire energy cloaked me the whole time. He…he tried to give me his remaining mantle.”

  In this half world, he couldn’t feel her warmth or her soft skin, couldn’t smell the intoxicating combination of shampoo and her.

  “He had two?” The Fire doc went to the other side of the bed and held a hand over Aleron’s midsection. A red glow emanated from his palm, held for several seconds, and retracted. “There’s only one now, and it’s barely detectable.”

  “He gave me his second mantle right after I came into my power.” She studied the red glow around her hands. “That’s why I can wield Fire without thinking. He must’ve… Goddess, he tried to give me his primary Fire. He was going to sacrifice himself to save me.”

  Damn straight. She still had so much training to do, and her Earth had been nowhere near as strong as that warlock’s. When that thing, that aberration, had struck, he’d done what his father had. If he’d had them, he’d sacrifice a hundred mantles. For her.

  The dog got up, took several unsteady steps, and plopped her bulky, muscular mass between his arm and his body, her muzzle right in his armpit.

  Elspeth waved a hand, her expression animated, both her mouth and the doctor’s moving, but the sound had cut off.

  What are you going to do?

  Something sharp and prickly skittered over his aura.

  I’m waiting.

  He wondered how he was supposed to speak without the ability to use his mouth.

  Mathair?

  The voice didn’t reply, so he wasn’t sure if he’d had a thought, engaged in some sort of telepathy, or hadn’t responded at all.

  I’m here, Mathair said. For as long as you wear the cuff, you will hear me. What are you going to do, young man? I can’t hold you here forever, and if you’re giving up, I must transfer the cuff to someone else.

  I’ll keep the cuff. He didn’t want to die. He had to protect Elspeth at all costs. She’s the hope for our race. I know it.

  She has many challenges ahead of her. She needs you.

  He shifted his attention back to the bed. The doctor had left, and Elspeth sat beside his body, his hand still in hers.

  I’ll protect her.

  That’s not what I meant. She can protect herself.

  He wasn’t about to get into his relationship with Elspeth with her dead grandmother.

  “Please, Goddess. Please. Bring him back to me.” Her voice broke. “I’ll do anything you ask. Anything. Please, bring him back. I love him.”

  She stretched out beside him, tucking up against him. “Take back your mantle. You need it. Come back to me, and we’ll have lemon pie and lemon cake. Just come back.”

  She placed her palm on his heart. A blood-orange glow spread down his body.

  It was strange what love looked like. Romantic comedies and advertisements portrayed smiles and laughter, sex and sparkly engagement rings. Not a woman begging a man trapped between life and death to come back. No praying, pleading, begging. No smiles and finger brushes over a body badly in need of bathing and care.

  “I wanted to kill Samael. I wanted to break his body into pieces, burn them to ash, blow them away. I need you to come back and tell me I’m not a monster. That I’m not like Seanair.” Her fingertips traced over his heart. “I have a rage in me now. An appetite for destruction against anyone threatening someone I love.”

  If he could have felt his body, he knew his breath would be dammed by the clog in his throat, and his heart would burn with a roaring, raging level of love for her that he’d never before understood. She grasped the lightning inside him ready to strike down those who’d dare to harm what was his. What would always be his.

  He got it now, what his father had felt for his mother. What it meant to know you’d found the one you’d fight for until your last breath.

  I love her, he said to Mathair.

  I know. For now, she’s learning her power, but she’s a quick study, already ahead of where I thought she’d be. One day, she’ll be unstoppable. Mathair’s voice held a note of pride. What do you really want, Aleron? If I could give you one thing for yourself, what would it be?

  Her. He didn’t hesitate. If I could have only one more good thing ever, I’d want her with me for the rest of my life.

  Power isn’t our greatest strength.

  I never believed it, he replied. Never understood before now. Love is our strength, and we’ve screwed it all up.

  There’s time to fix. To repair. Not much, but all hope isn’t lost.

  He thought again of his parents. How they’d touched each other as Elspeth was touching him. Whispered words and shared secrets. His aura weighted, like his soul was a jar and her love was filling it full.

  How will I know who is the right bearer? He couldn’t sense the cuff, but he could see it midway up his arm.

  I’m a ghost, not the Goddess. The true bearer of Water, this Kazumi, her veins have blued, some pushing close to the surface of her skin, like rivers or streams flowing through land. You’ll know when you find the rightful keeper of Fire. They’ll bear relevant markings and the cuff will sense the call of its faithful ruler.

  Great. Hopefully, said right person wasn’t camped out in a Fire commune on some remote island.

  Can I call you if I need you?

  I may not answer.

  If possible, his spirit might have scowled. He wasn’t down with being rude to Elspeth’s grandmother, but Oracle-wise, she seemed like a dud.

  So surly. What I mean is your call is best placed near a source of Fire, and my answer will deliver fastest if I’m also near a supply. I travel by Fire, as you will when you die and return to the mother source.

  What of our enemies? he asked.

  I’m not omniscient. I will pass on what I learn if I observe something concerning. No more questions. This is your elemental last call, Aleron. Will you release your Fire and Air to their source and let your spirit reunite with your father’s? Or will you return to her?

  Dad? He jerked, looked, frantic to see if he could detect a hint of his father’s signature.

  Goddess, his father had always known the right thing to say or do. He longed to return to Elspeth, marry her, love her, keep her. But he
couldn’t.

  For the Lennoxes to have a shot at thriving politically, she needed to ally herself with a powerhouse family. A dynasty with clout and connections and unmatched elemental muscle. Aligning with a loner like him would kill her chances of success before she even started and doom her family and the continent to political unrest.

  For a second, he ached to fall into one of his dad’s lung-squashing bear hugs one last time.

  But he had a legend to protect. A legend he loved. A legend he’d have to let go of to see her succeed.

  I’m going back to her. There was only one choice for him. Tell my father I’m sorry for failing him when he needed me most.

  That day in the chapel came back, new life breathed into the nightmare.

  The bravest thing you’ve ever done is weakening yourself so she remained strong enough to fight Samael. I forbade Seanair to kill you that fateful day in the chapel, as there was only one young man strong and worthy enough to tend the Fire cuff in its transition—and that is you.

  A sense of peace came over him like a father’s comforting hand on a child’s shoulder. He’d never fill his father’s shoes, but he could share something with his dad.

  He could run Elite One and fight a warlock.

  Send me back. His Air was prime-time ready to detect deceit. And his Fire? Oh, it was time to cook.

  He took one last look at Elspeth nuzzling his cheek with her nose, her hand still over his heart, pressing red and white light into his skin. Then she stood, trying to convince Maylene to get out of the bed and eat, but the bulldog let out a snorty sigh and nuzzled the side of his chest.

  His two protectors whom he needed to relieve of their guard.

  I promise to defend and serve her with everything I have. I’m ready.

  And he’d love her from a distance. Close enough to protect her, but far enough away to let her go.

  War looms. The covens have spent the last century preparing to take back what they lost. Remember that. Mathair’s tone was more kickass grandma than sweet old lady. Hang on. This is going to hurt.

  His eyes flew open. Breath shoved into his mouth, barreling down his throat and overfilling his lungs like they were maxed-out balloons. His Fire and Air crash-landed. He sat up, immediately doubling over. Tears welled and spilled, and the pressure behind his eyeballs threatened to smush them like grapes.