by Maia Dylan
“Ariana!” Casey and Fiona both yelled at the same time and dragged Ariana into the present.
“What?” she asked, noting that her voice sounded hollow and sad. Both Fiona and Casey must have heard the same thing, as they shared a quick glance and then moved to sit on either side of her, but facing the opposite way so that they could see her face.
“Ari, you are my sister by birth, and in all things fucked-up and prophecy-like, and you know that I love you, right?” Casey waited until Ariana nodded. “But you are out of your cotton-picking mind if you think I am going to let you get all self-sacrificing and give yourself over to that fucked-up, cape-wearing, skeletal, crazy-as-fucking-bat-shit asshole demon with a God complex bigger than the state of Texas in order to solve this damn prophecy! You are my sister, and I will not let that prick have you. I will not stand by and let you give up your fucking life to save this world, so you can just get those fucking thoughts right out of your head!”
Ariana blinked as Casey finally took a breath. Damn, her sister could talk for a long bloody time without breathing.
“We will find another way to solve this,” Fiona added, and Ariana turned to face her. “We have fought Aeron twice and sent him packing, licking his wounds and feeling sorry for himself. We will do it again this time, and the next. We are Elementals, and powerful beings with which no one, not even demons with…How did you put it, Casey?”
“A God complex bigger than the state of Texas?” Casey offered helpfully.
“Yes, that’s it. Not even demons with egos and God complexes that size should fuck with us, and I would hazard a guess he is having second thoughts himself,” Fiona finished with a bloodthirsty grin. If Ariana had only just met Fiona, she might have thought it was a little out of place, but she had seen this pint-sized, red-haired spitfire face down that demon and hold him back.
She hadn’t seen Fiona take him down fully with the help of her two mates, Travis and Cole, because, well, she had been dead, as Casey had rightly pointed out. But from what she had been told, Fiona had not just stood up to Aeron, but she laid a smackdown on him that left all of them in awe of her. She had given everything she had in the fight to keep Aeron back from Earth, so much that she’d had to take strength from the very life force of her mates directly down their mating bond in order to defeat him. This was as dangerous as it sounded, but spoke volumes of the love that existed between the three.
Aeron had opened a rift between this realm and his, and that had torn the very landscape open. Even though the fight had taken place in that space between realms, the ferocity of the fight, and the fact that Aeron had actually tried to force his way into this realm, had gouged great craters into the rock and land that surrounded the Pagan Stone, which, amazingly, had been unscathed.
“You might be right, Fi.” Ariana smiled gently and nudged Fiona’s left shoulder with her own. “He’ll think twice about coming at you one-on-one again, that’s for sure.” Ariana leaned back on her arms and looked up between the branches of the trees at the sky. The leaves had all started to change color, signaling that autumn was well and truly under way. As leaves drifted to the ground around them, Ariana likened them to sands in an hourglass counting down the minutes left. “But, he will definitely come at us again. And this time, it will be me that has to stand in his way. And it will be my blood that will stop him.”
“Now that just pisses me off.” Ariana’s entire body heated at the sound of the voice that came from behind her. Ryan. Ariana had come to terms many years ago with the prophecy and what her role would be in putting a stop to Aeron’s plans. She had never feared death or thought about what she would be missing.
Since she had made a phone call over six months ago to get help for her sister, and spoken to Sheriff Ryan Winters, she’d started to have doubts. From the moment she met him face-to-face and felt the mating bond snap between them, she had started to yearn for a future she knew was impossible. And that made it so much harder. For both of them.
* * * *
Ryan was livid.
He had sensed that his mate was in a danger down their fledgling link. He had been having lunch with all three of his brothers at the time, and all of them reacted fiercely to their mates being in danger. All four of them had leapt up and sped out of his office so fast there was now a hole and two broken hinges where his fucking office door had once been. All four of them had jumped into his truck, and raced into the park with lights flashing and siren’s blaring.
By the time they had jumped out of the truck, Micah, Travis, and Cole had all spoken with their mates and knew that the danger had passed. When Ryan reached down the thin thread of link that connected him to Ariana, he got nothing but a blank void. It was one that he had become quite intimate with, as he had bounced up against the damn thing time and time again trying to understand what she was feeling.
The brothers had then kept moving into the park to meet up with the women as fast as possible, just to assure themselves and their wolves that their mates were okay. When they had reached the edge of the clearing where the three Elementals would train, Ryan’s wolf had started pacing and growling at the scent of sulfur in the air. Knowing that they had faced another of Aeron’s demons without them there had him pissed. It became a rage when he heard that Ariana was still convinced that the only way to stop Aeron on this third stage of the prophecy was through spilling her own blood. Recognizing that she was absolutely positive that the answer was her death had him homicidal and fighting his wolf’s urge to shift.
“You think that you are going to be the only one that will stand between Aeron and our realm?” Ryan snapped as he stepped out into the clearing, his brothers already rushing to take their mates into their arms. He fought back the wave of jealous envy that swept through him at the sight of Micah pulling Casey up against him, and the way Fiona folded herself in between Cole and Travis. “That’s pretty fucking arrogant of you, Ariana.”
Ariana remained where she was, arms folded across her chest and her posture positively screaming indifference. If it weren’t for the flash of longing and fear in her eyes, Ryan would have accepted that she was indifferent to what he was saying. And that she was completely accepting that she was going to die without giving them the chance to solve and win this round without her death being the catalyst.
“I’m not being arrogant, Ryan. I’m simply being realistic,” Ariana spoke, and Ryan knew she was deliberately keeping her voice level and hard.
“Realistic? Really?” Ryan could hear the deep sarcasm in his voice and saw the flash of pain in Ariana’s eyes, but damn it! He was hurting, too. “Sounds more pessimistic to me. Jesus Christ, it’s like you have just given up! Why did you even bother fighting Aeron the last time?” Ryan saw Ariana flinch and noticed that Micah clamped a hand over Casey’s mouth. Flames suddenly burst between him and Ariana, and he turned to glare at a fuming Fiona, whose own mates had a hand over her mouth. Fiona’s eyes flashed with a flame that told him he was lucky she hadn’t thought it necessary to fry him.
“Dude,” Cole mouthed at him, and his face clearly said “shut the fuck up.”
Ryan glared at all his brothers and jerked his head in the direction they had come, signaling that he wanted them to leave and give him a moment alone with Ariana. He saw all three of them shoot him a look that told him that he would pay and he now effectively owed all three of them a kidney. Then they lifted their mates into their arms and strode off into the forest.
Casey made her displeasure known by the fact that the ground shook, and he had to leap around to avoid being sucked into the ground, and then when his shirt suddenly burst into flame, but didn’t burn his skin, he knew Fiona was pissed off, too. Well too fucking bad!
Ryan knew that perhaps he was being a little harsh, but he’d had it. He had tried everything he could think of in the past three weeks to get her to talk to him, but nothing had worked. He had turned up for a date with her the Friday after they faced down Aeron for the second time only to find th
at she had gone camping. Neither her parents nor her sister would or could tell him where she had gone. He had tried to track her in wolf form, but she must have known he would try that, because the wind kicked up just on the edge of the park, and he lost her scent.
He had even tried calling her, but she never returned his calls.
When he had turned up unannounced and managed to find a way for the two of them to be alone in a room together, either Fiona or Casey would turn up, both of them looking uncomfortable and offering a lame excuse to be there. Now, he’d had it. Breathing hard from trying to keep himself from being buried alive, and his shirt still smoking, he stood and faced his mate. Alone. For the first time since the night they had completed Fiona’s part of the prophecy and Ariana had told him that her death was the answer to her portion of the prophecy.
“No, Ryan,” Ariana said with ice in her tone. “I haven’t given up. I just know that there is no other choice. I have had Olwen talk me through this in more detail than the others because of what the end is for me. I know there is no other choice than spilling my blood, and I have it on very good authority that I will not survive this.”
“There has to be a different answer! We—”
“There is no other answer! And there sure as hell is no ‘we’ in this equation!” Ariana yelled, throwing her arms in the air. Two trees on either side of the clearing fell to the ground, and Ariana was so worked up, tears filling her beautiful green eyes that had Ryan’s heart aching, he didn’t think that she even heard them fall. “Don’t you think I have tried? That I have thought through every damn permutation of what could happen at the Pagan Stone at the end of autumn to find a different answer! Don’t you think I have prayed that there was a different outcome for me?”
Ryan stepped forward only to be knocked back three steps by the forceful gust of air Ariana threw at him. He marveled at how powerful his mate was as she effectively held him prisoner, the change in air pressure around him acting almost like a force field holding him back from her. She was openly crying now, and his wolf began throwing himself at Ryan, trying to get free. Their mate was crying, and Ryan was at fault, and he needed to fix it.
“Then let me help you!” Ryan roared back. “Let me close enough that we can try and find a fucking way out of this! A way that doesn’t involve you leaving me!”
“No! Can’t you see how that will only make it harder? On both of us?”
“It can’t be any harder than having your mate, the one woman the Fates have deemed to be yours, turn her back on you. Can’t you see how hard that is on me?” Ryan thumped his hand against his chest. He felt like he was fighting for his life here, drowning in a sea of pain and disbelief that the gods would gift someone so perfect for him, only to take her away from him.
“On you!” Ariana yelled incredulously. “How hard this is on you! I can’t believe you just said that. Do you have any idea, any fucking idea at all, how hard it is for me! Knowing who you are, and what I am to you, but realizing that I can never know what it is like to belong to you! To truly be claimed by you the way that I want to be!”
Ariana sobbed and the wind dropped down as the fight left her, and Ryan froze at her words. She wanted him? She wanted him to claim her? He tried to move, but still that air pressure barrier held in him place. Gods, how he ached to hold her, ached to take back what he had said.
“There is only one way to win this next round, and it is with the spilling of my blood.” Ariana spoke softly. Ryan watched as she took a deep, calming breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I have to be strong enough to do that when the time comes, which means that I need people around me who can help me be strong.” Ariana’s voice hardened. “And from what you are saying, you are not able to do that for me. So stay away from me, Ryan.”
Ryan flinched back in shock.
“Help us to kill the demons that breached the rift three weeks ago, and then the rest of our group as they continue on this journey. But I want you to—no, hell, Ryan, I need you to stay the fuck away from me!” Then she turned and ran into the woods.
Ryan dropped to his knees as he felt the tenuous mating bond within them become choked. Ariana had used some type of psychic barrier to close the link between them, and Ryan threw his head back and roared, shifting as he did so. His clothes shredded and flew from his body until the roar merged into the haunting howl of a wolf. A wolf that had lost his mate.
Crazed with the knowledge that he had been the one to bring this about, Ryan took off in the opposite direction to Ariana, not wanting to hurt her any more, his paws flying over the forest floor. He felt his human consciousness being pushed down further behind that of his wolf, whose dominance pressed upon him until he was simply lurking in the back of the mind of his wolf. But even then, the pain of what had just happened was almost too much to bear.
* * * *
Ariana stumbled for the fourth time since leaving Ryan behind her, her tears making it near impossible for her to see where she was going. She had held her sobs in for as long as she could, but when they had finally ripped from her throat, she had felt like she would never be able to stop. Drawing breath, trying to calm her heart, she stopped and leant a hand against the trunk of a tree. She drew in large gulps of air, her hand pressed to her chest. She felt like she was desperately trying to keep the shattered pieces of her heart inside.
“Oh, Ariana.” Casey’s trembling voice came as she wrapped her arms around her, and Ariana collapsed against her, trusting her sister to hold her and keep her entire body from disintegrating like it seemed hell-bent on doing. “Shh, please, you need to calm down, or you’re going to make yourself ill.”
Casey made soothing noises as she rubbed her back, and Ariana became aware of another person holding her from her left side. This person was tiny, and her body temperature was a lot warmer than Casey’s. Fiona. How long they sat there Ariana didn’t know, but long enough for the sun to have changed position significantly, and for her to finally stop crying as the pain that had been all consuming numbed.
“Thank you.” Ariana winced at the raspy sound of her voice and the slight ache in her throat from her crying jag.
“No need to thank us, Ari.” Casey wiped her fingers over Ariana’s cheek, much like Ariana had done for her when they were children. “We’re family. And that means that we can say whatever we want to each other, without fear of recrimination or getting a big ole gust of wind up our ass and being left hanging ten feet in the air when we don’t like heights.”
“Even though it was you that started it?” Fiona asked dryly.
“Yes, thank you, Fiona,” Casey grumped and frowned in the diminutive redhead’s direction. “We don’t need you weighing in on this at the moment.”
Ariana smiled at the memory. Casey had deserved it, but perhaps she shouldn’t have used her fear of heights against her. No matter how easy or tempting it had been.
“Now, that being said…” Casey stood up and drew Ariana to her feet. She had absolutely no idea how or when she had collapsed to the forest floor. “Even though right now I want to rip Ryan apart with my bare hands for saying those things to you, and upsetting you this much, especially as I know how much pressure you have on you regarding your belief that you need to die to fulfill your prophecy, I can understand where he is coming from.”
Ariana stared at her sister, unsure of how she was going to respond to that.
“Everything he said came from a place of hurt and frustration. He’s falling for you, and fated for you, and all he can see is you turning from him every chance you get. I know!” Casey continued, holding her hand up to stop the protests Ariana immediately tried to launch. “You feel that what you are doing is in the best interest of you both. That by guarding your heart and keeping your distance, you’re saving him from pain. I get that, I do. But what you didn’t factor into your self-sacrificing plan there, sister mine, is the amount of pain he would be in when you rejected him.”
Ariana’s heart stopped, literally stopp
ed beating in that moment, as Casey’s words came crashing down on her. She had never thought of it like that. Probably because she knew that rejection would be the very last thing she would want to feel or do when it came to Ryan, and yet that was what her actions made him think and feel.
She opened her mouth to voice what she was starting to realize, when the roar of an animal sounded in the distance, and it had all three of them tensing.
“What in the hell was that?” Fiona whispered, her eyes wide.
“That was no wolf,” Casey answered as she turned in the direction the noise had come from. “Micah, Cole, and Travis all returned to their car, waiting for Ryan. They might have been too far away to have heard that…that…well, whatever the hell made that noise.”
They stood in silence for a moment, and then they heard the snarling growl of a wolf fighting.
“Ryan!” Ariana gasped, then took off as fast as she could run, somehow knowing that was her wolf fighting whatever had been roaring in the forest. When she got there, he had better be in one piece, or whatever he was having to deal with right now would feel the full wrath of one pissed-off Air Elemental!
Chapter 2
Ryan had been running through the forest, replaying the scene between him and Ariana over and over in his mind, effectively torturing himself with his own stupidity, when he sensed his wolf’s sudden tension. He gave himself over to his wolf’s instincts and dropped into the forest undergrowth and crawled forward on his belly. Ryan pushed forward, growling and exerting his dominance over his wolf, pushing him into the background. Scenting the air, Ryan made his way toward a hole in the undergrowth so he could see what his wolf had alerted upon.
There in a large clearing in front of one of the many rivers that ran through the park was a large black bear. Could this be the shifter bear that he owed his life to? The bear suddenly roared and stood up on two legs, rolling its giant head on its shoulders, obviously displeased about something. When two large black shapes floated toward it from the forest shadows, Ryan understood its displeasure and felt a wave of bloodlust sweep through him.