by Larissa Ladd
“We will have to get through it as best as we can,” she said, glancing at Aiden with a flicker of concern. “You should be able to at least ask her questions, right?” Aiden licked his lips and then nodded. Dylan wondered just how capable his brother would be.
They came to the room and stopped outside of it. “Dylan, you’re going to be the point person in this,” Aira said lowly. Dylan could feel the water-aligned energy flowing on the other side of the door, almost calling to him, almost intoxicating. He wondered just how much stronger his abilities would be in the room. Aira took a deep breath and turned the key in the door, slipping it back into her pocket in an instant. She turned the knob and Dylan felt the rush of elementally-aligned energy flowing through him as the door opened, strengthening him, amplifying his abilities. Aiden faltered as the three of them walked into the room; Dylan saw Aira reach out and touch his hand, and knew that she was bolstering him just as he had bolstered her in the cell they had found Alex in.
“Aira,” Oriel said from the bunk. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Oriel’s gaze flicked over to Aiden.
“How do you like the ambiance here, traitor?”
Aiden raised an eyebrow.
“How am I a traitor?”
“You’re fire-aligned like I am. You took up with the biggest enemy to our kind and even married her.”
Aiden rolled his eyes.
“Aira is an air elemental. By her very nature she’s not an enemy to our kind.” Oriel sat up. Dylan took in the sight of her: there were telltale signs of her confinement in the watery cell that were easy to read. Every moment in the suppressing atmosphere sapped more of her elemental energies, pushing down her ability to fight. He knew that because of her grandfather’s status as an elemental ruler she was occasionally let out of the cell—particularly for a prisoner who had been held for so long, it would be a huge benefit to re-stoke her elemental energies outside.
“The only reason you haven’t come up as an unstable is because you’re bonded with her,” Oriel said, almost snarling. She had lost weight in her confinement, the skin on her face was paler and her eyes had a washed-out look. “If you had stayed out of it and just let her die, we’d have a much more amenable ruler of air, and my grandfather’s authority would still be firmly in place.”
Aira sighed, stirring the air in the room to a quick breeze.
“Oriel, you were on the wrong side of that fight. I am no threat to your grandfather.”
Dylan felt the power blossoming inside of him, an onrushing torrent that he could barely control.
“Aira has done more to protect unstable talents and keep them safe than anyone else has for a century,” he said, feeling a flash of resentment towards Oriel’s priorities.
“What brings you here, anyway?” Oriel glanced between the three of them. “Is it time for my fate to be decided?”
Dylan took a deep breath. He wondered if this was what it would feel like when he came into his abilities fully on his upcoming birthday. No wonder Aira had been so agitated; if it was anything like this, Dylan wasn’t sure that he would be able to maintain his own stability.
“We need to talk to you about an attack,” Aiden said, reaching out and putting his hand on Aira’s shoulder. “It won’t do you any good to try and hedge—even if I can’t do anything about it, you know Aira’s fine and Dylan can practically obliterate you right now.”
“An attack? Oh, was your stupid wedding interrupted or something?” Oriel’s eyes flashed with glee and Dylan decided that he had no real interest in playing it safe—in working up to more intense forms of coercion. He strode quickly across the room, murmuring the beginnings of a spell. Oriel didn’t have the energy to try and evade him; she shifted on the bed but didn’t get up, even as his hand descended on her shoulder.
Her elemental essence was at a low ebb—Dylan felt the dim remainder of her energy simmering. He closed his eyes and let the emotional force wash through him and into her. She couldn’t fight him; even if she hadn’t been incapacitated by the long confinement in a water-aligned cell, the power that flowed in Dylan’s body from proximity to such strongly water-oriented materials would have made it difficult for her to avoid the influence of his magic. He impressed the pain, fear, and anxiety of the air elementals who were subject to the attack on Oriel’s mind.
The woman cried out, trying to push his hand away, struggling half-heartedly against the hold of his magic. Dylan opened his eyes. “People died, Oriel. People who had nothing to do with your petty argument with Aira.” Aira came up next to him and Dylan withdrew slightly, keeping a light touch on Oriel’s mind. Instead of flowing emotion through, he opened up his own mind, taking in the confusing welter of emotion that filled her.
“Oriel, tell me everything you know. Who you know is involved, where they’re hiding, and every bit of information behind the group you’re with.” Dylan could feel the push of Aira’s mind, her energy mingling with his into a wallop of persuasion that a person with twice Oriel’s strength would have been unable to avoid. Oriel fought—she struggled on the bed, trying to shake her head even as the compulsion took hold. Dylan almost felt bad for the woman; she was writhing with discomfort, though the magic he and Aira were subjecting her to was not inherently painful.
“I’ve been out of it for months,” Oriel said, panting slightly. “I knew they were planning some big gesture to get at you through your element, but I didn’t know for sure what.” Dylan intensified the feelings of anxiety and fear, pain and sadness, channeling them through his mind while being careful not to let them infringe on his own state. It was difficult—he wouldn’t be able to hold it forever—but he was willing to take the risk. Oriel’s eyes watered and she began to cry softly.
“Who is it? Who’s involved?” Aira’s voice was firm, and Dylan once more felt the push of her greater will, her ability to compel, reaching out and subverting Oriel.
“There’s a dozen of them,” Oriel said between gasps. “They have some other people underneath—but they’re earth and fire elementals. The earth elementals are out for you because they want to have control more in their hands. The fire elementals think you’re going to follow in Lorene’s footsteps. They don’t want you—they want another ruler for air.”
“Who is it?” Aira repeated. Dylan intensified the emotions running through him and into Oriel.
“Seraphina Williams,” Oriel said, the words coming out of her lips as if they were being ripped from her brain. “Aidan Willis. Dharithri Patil and Tenchi Mizuno, Hestia Adolfo and Bridget Wake.” Oriel was shivering—her lips were starting to turn purple from cold and fatigue as Dylan’s watery energy washed through her, carrying fear and pain, as she struggled against the compulsion that Aira had put on her. “Aelwyd Connolly. Jared Leichner, Annaliese Rogers.” Oriel shook her head again, trying to pull away from them as she gasped for breath, drowning in the atmosphere that Dylan and Aira had combined to create. “Those are the most important ones. Stop—stop, please. I can’t take anymore.”
Aira stepped back and Dylan followed suit, letting his hand fall away from Oriel’s shoulder as the woman shivered. “Is there anyone in the group named Leigh?” he asked. He had to know; the impressions he had gotten suggested that Leigh wasn’t part of the group herself—but he had to know, needed some hope beyond the ephemera of his other senses. Oriel looked at him in confusion, coming out of the depths of the spell that gripped her.
“I don’t think so,” she said. Dylan opened his awareness to its broadest possible band, searching through Oriel’s mind. She wasn’t lying—the compulsion that Aira had put on her had made it impossible for her to lie about the names she had given, and she wasn’t lying now.
“Where are they?” Aiden asked, and Dylan realized he had almost forgotten his brother in the room. It was not a good place for him to be, and when Dylan glanced at his older brother, he saw that Aiden was barely holding himself up.
Oriel shook her head, trying to fight the lingering compuls
ion that she felt from Dylan’s and Aira’s combined efforts. Dylan turned his attention back onto the woman; they would need to get out of the room soon—Aiden wouldn’t be able to withstand the effects of so much water energy for much longer.
“Tell us,” Aira said firmly, and Oriel shuddered under Dylan’s hand as the intense, deep compulsion took hold of her. She closed her eyes and Dylan sensed her trying to fight it, saw her pressing her lips together as if to hold the information in as tears continued to stream down her cheeks. Dylan intensified the sadness, the pain that he knew the elementals in the hotel had felt. Oriel gasped, her skin paling even more.
“They’re out west,” Oriel said dully. “In the desert somewhere. I’ve never been there. I think it’s in Nevada.” She opened her eyes, and Dylan was shocked at how hazed over they were, the shuddering sobs that worked through the woman. He shook his head. He had a feeling—based on his impressions, on what he knew about the possibilities of blocking tracking among elementals—that the desert would be the place for them to seek the group. But they would need something more definite than simply ‘the desert.’ They would have to find a way to break the spell that was keeping them from tracking the group. That was not a task for the current situation, though—they needed to get out.
“That’s all we’re going to get out of her,” Dylan said to Aira. “We need to leave.” Aira looked at Aiden and Dylan saw the concern blooming on her face. She closed the distance between them and put her hands in her mate’s. For a brief moment, Dylan could almost resent the two of them for their closeness, for the ability they had to bolster each other. But he didn’t have any need for another person’s strength—not right now. Dylan was almost anxious from the sheer volume of energy flowing into him from around the room, the way that it surged through his own essence.
They left the room and Dylan checked the door, making sure it was securely locked behind them. For just a moment, he felt guilty at how he had manipulated Oriel; she would likely continue crying and shivering for at least a few minutes after they had all left the building entirely—but she had had a hand in trying to kill Aira, and wasn’t even repentant for what she had done. Dylan couldn’t let himself feel too badly about the means that they had used to extract information from her. Nothing they had done would leave lasting harm.
“We need to find Leigh,” Dylan said. Aiden began to recover the farther they got from the cell, as the magic keeping Oriel trapped in the room dissipated, the effects palling with distance. “If she’s not part of the group, they’re holding her for a reason.” Aira glanced at Aiden and then looked at Dylan, hesitating just a moment before she nodded slowly.
“I’m inclined to agree with you. If she’s in their keeping and not part of their group, she might be in danger.” Dylan was relieved; he felt at least a little bit vindicated by the fact that Oriel hadn’t heard of Leigh—by what he had seen in his visions, and what he felt by instinct. But there was a deeper concern weighing his mind now: Why was the group who had targeted Aira holding another earth elemental captive?
CHAPTER FIVE
AIDEN SIPPED AT A SLIGHTLY bitter, spicy potion, feeling its effects filtering through his body as he lounged on the couch. When they had all returned from questioning Oriel, Dylan had immediately gotten to work concocting the brew, giving Aiden a look and silencing his protests with the firm comment that his energy had been sapped by the elemental magic surrounding Oriel—and he needed to amp up a little bit to complete his recovery. The potion had cinnamon, clove, orange and red pepper among its ingredients. Dylan had cautioned him to finish it while it was still hot; after the first taste, the feeling of strength returning to him, Aiden hadn’t needed much prompting to continue—though it tasted strange enough.
After making the potion, Dylan had retreated into his room, and Aiden and Aira took up their positions on the couch nearby, in the living room, waiting for whatever answers the water elemental was able to glean. “I hate waiting,” Aira said, fidgeting slightly next to him. Aiden smiled to himself; he was starting to feel the effects of the potion, his fiery essence coming back to the fore, filling him up. There was more than a small part of him that wanted nothing more than to fill the waiting time reacquainting himself with Aira’s body once again—but if they got started, he knew it would be difficult for them to keep from continuing on and on until they were both exhausted.
“When are you going to talk to the families?” Aiden asked her, forcing himself to stay focused in spite of his impulses. Aira picked at imaginary lint on her jeans, her lips twisting.
“I need to do that soon,” Aira said reluctantly. “But I want to wait until I have some kind of news to give them.” The families of the air elementals who had been killed or injured in the attack on the hotel they had been staying in would want to hear from the ruler of their element—would want to know that something was being done to avenge their family members’ pain.
“What do you think about this Leigh person?” Aiden asked her. He knew that Aira had been thinking about the spy—the woman who had approached Dylan and told him outright that she was reporting back to her family about himself and Aira. She had kept her thoughts largely to herself—which was strange, considering how closely bonded they were. But Aiden knew that part of what was keeping Aira up at night was worry over whether there was something there—whether Dylan was becoming a weak link in their team due to his reliance on his judgment of the earth-aligned elemental.
“Well,” Aira said, gesturing for him to finish off the last of the potion Dylan had brewed for him. “If she’s not directly involved—and so far it doesn’t seem like it, but you never know—then there’s something about her that this group wants. She knows something, or has something.” Aira twisted her bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger slowly. “Months ago, I would have said that I trust Dylan’s judgment completely.”
Aiden smiled wryly.
“Yeah. Of the three of us, he’s definitely the most stable. He doesn’t seem easy to sway; but I wonder what it is about this woman that blew him away so much.” Aiden couldn’t quite resist the urge to reach out and lay his hand on Aira’s knee. He felt the whisper-fine flow of her energy seeping into him, bolstering and improving the efforts of the potion. He smiled to himself at the familiar sensation; the cell he had been in—the one designed to keep Oriel contained—had been misery for him, and he thought back to their interrogation of Alex, the way that Aira had somehow managed to hold herself upright in spite of both the vibrations of earth-aligned materials and the poison working away at her.
“It’s pretty clear that he’s partial to her,” Aira agreed. She hesitated a moment. “Do you think…could she be like Dolores and Alex were—at least originally? They certainly put some kind of voodoo on both of us.” Aiden considered it.
“Dylan said that she refused to sleep with him, that she said she’d just come into her full powers as an elemental. If she was trying to get an ‘in’ then she would have gone for it, wouldn’t she?” Aira shrugged. “I guess anything’s possible. But for right now the evidence is not exactly stacked against her.”
“I guess you’re right,” Aira said. “Do you want anything to get the taste of that out of your mouth? If we can’t do anything until we’re able to break through the tracking block, I might as well be useful somehow.” Aiden laughed.
“Dylan might want something to eat, too,” Aiden pointed out. He handed Aira the mug that had held the potion his brother made him and sat back; he was only slightly less inclined to sit and wait than the woman he had married. Aira went into the kitchen and he listened idly as she began to work on something—smells of onions and garlic came to him, along with cooking meat and spices, after a few minutes. He had no idea what she was making, but it would almost certainly be delicious. Aiden let his mind drift; it was rare that he had nothing to do, and he tried to appreciate the novelty of it, but it grated at his need to be active.
Dylan’s situation was troubling him. From almost the momen
t that he had told Aiden and Aira about the spy at their wedding, Dylan had been eager to vindicate the woman. When the search started for the elementals involved in the attack on the hotel, and it became clear that Leigh was missing, Aira had told Dylan firmly that if she was willing to admit to being a spy, she might be much more than that. The attack had shaken Aira more than Aiden had seen anything affect her in the time that he had known her. When she had been in contention to become the ruler of her element, and had been under attack, it had been easy for her to shrug off the threat. But the fact that these people were willing to attack other air elementals just to get at her—that innocents had died simply because a group of earth and fire elementals didn’t like the way she was conducting her rule—had been so much bigger. “I can’t stand the fact that I know they’ll probably attack again,” Aira had said. “If we can’t find them and start dismantling their little group, then they’ll relax and plan their next attack.”
At first Aiden had mostly been consumed with annoyance that the attack had necessitated putting all of his plans with Aira on hold; it was a petty reaction, he knew. But he had been looking forward to the time away from politics and power, a few weeks where he could spend all the time he wanted with Aira without worrying about the next crisis to come up. He wanted more than just the passionate sex that the small vacation offered; he wanted the chance to cement his relationship with her beyond their mutual interests and the bond that tied them together. He wanted to talk about their future. But the attack, in the middle of the night, before they had even been able to board their plane to get to the secluded location they had booked, meant that any conversation they might have about their future was put on indefinite hold. They had been in crisis mode ever since, waiting for another attack. It had been less than a week. The group could target more air elementals at any moment.
Aiden’s thoughts jumped from his feeling of resentment for the deprived opportunity to have Aira completely and totally to himself and back onto his brother. Aira was right that it was strange for Dylan to have been so heavily impressed with anyone he encountered. Dylan had always been the cool-headed one of the three of them. He had been able to mostly see through Alex and Dolores from the beginning, though he had reserved judgment to make sure of his impression. He had the ability to read people, much more than Aira could; the watery energy that made up his brother’s essence gave him a natural telempathy, a perceptive quality that led less-stable water elementals to manipulate others. Dylan was not easily swayed, not easily tricked into throwing his allegiance with someone. The fact that Leigh had apparently managed to convince him that she was not the type of person who would participate in such an attack—in spite of her allegiances, in spite of her connection to extremists who very much wanted Aira out of the way—was a profound change in his younger brother.