by Larissa Ladd
Dylan almost sighed when the man took the predictable route; he started to cross the room, pretending to submit. As he passed near Dylan, however, he moved to attack, muttering a spell. Dylan reached around the man’s outstretched arms and slammed his hands onto the man’s shoulders, pouring his elemental energy into him. He stirred up the man’s emotions, acting as a conduit for the emotions of the other people in his group, flowing the feelings of pain, despair, humiliation into the man while carefully keeping his own mind untouched. The man staggered onto his knees, his eyes watering. “She should—should have never been selected…” the man said between shuddering sobs. Dylan backed off, pointing to the door.
“Get out there,” he said firmly. “Or I’ll do more than make you cry.” The man rose slowly, unsteadily to his feet, still crying quietly, sniffing, his breath hitching in his throat. Dylan watched him carefully, heard Aira’s shouted command for him to drop to his knees as soon as the door closed behind him. He was well in hand; and the only presence that Dylan could feel in the building was that of Leigh.
He moved through the hallways quickly, following the impulse of energy that he could pick up only as a dim echo of the heady essence he had felt when they had kissed. Dylan was trembling; what if it was a trap? What if he had been misled the entire time? But there was no way for Leigh to have pretended the pain she was in, the lowering of her vital energy. She had to be bound—but the question still weighed on him of why it was that she was.
Dylan came to a door at the back of the safe house; it was warded with water materials—nothing at all to him. He smiled to himself; he may not have the combined might of Aira and Aiden, but he did have his uses. The door was locked—which did present a slight problem, but since Dylan had been working with his brother to capture renegade elementals for his entire adult life, it wasn’t much of one. He crouched down and examined the knob in detail. It was a typical doorknob; it had been warded along with the door, but the lock itself would be flimsy. It was only for an earth or a fire elemental that it would present a real challenge.
Dylan stood slowly, taking a step or two back from the door. He looked it over quickly; it was a typical residential door—it opened inward, which would make it fairly easy to kick out. Dylan closed his eyes and drew the energy from the water-aligned materials on the other side of the door towards him. He was so tired; the battle had taken more out of him than he thought. He steadied himself on his left leg, turning his side to the door. He aimed his first kick just below the door knob, to apply force to the latch. The door would be weakest there and the latch wouldn’t offer much resistance at all. He kicked once—twice—three times, throwing his weight into it, pushing all the energy that he could accumulate, that he could draw from his tapped reserves, into the blows. After the fourth kick, the door gave way, the wood beginning to shatter, weakened by the onslaught of water-borne energy and his force.
Dylan pushed the door open and strode quickly into the room. Leigh was curled up on a rough bed, shivering and trembling, her eyes closed. Her pale skin was almost transparent, her whole body showing signs of fatigue and pain from long exposure to water energy that had eroded the hard core of earth essence in her. Dylan crossed the room, dropping down to his knees at the edge of the bed. Leigh opened her eyes and gasped, pulling back involuntarily at the sight of him. “Shh,” Dylan said, as a gentle smile formed on his face. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to bust you out.”
“How did you even find me?” Leigh asked in confusion. Dylan got to work, stripping the silver cuffs off of her wrists, unwinding the silver chain around her shoulders.
“It was lucky for you that we kissed at my brother’s wedding,” Dylan said with a wry smile. “I traced your energy.” Dylan moved down along Leigh’s weakened body and removed the water-aligned charms binding her knees, her ankles, sitting her up on the bed gently. “Well, to be fair I had help. But we found you. The others are all outside.” Color was slowly returning to Leigh’s face, light in her eyes.
“My cousin?”
Dylan checked, looking at her in confusion.
“Your cousin was here?”
Leigh nodded.
“He was set to guard me,” she said, rubbing at her wrists, her shoulders, her knees. How long had she been curled up, in a fetal position, water-aligned materials sapping away at her essence? Dylan shook his head.
“Was he in the house?” Dylan asked. Leigh nodded again, taking a deep breath as she continued to tremble and shiver.
“I kicked him out,” Dylan said with a flash of a smile. “He’s in Aira’s hands now. Unless the cavalry has arrived—then he’s with them. Come on; let’s get you out of here.” Leigh tried to stand and fell backward, shaking all over.
“God,” she murmured, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth. “Too cold. I’m stiff all over. I can’t move.” Dylan licked his lips. Leigh was suffused with water energy; he could pull it out of her. He hesitated for only a moment longer.
Dylan reached out and pulled Leigh up, bringing her into his arms. He pressed her body against his, closing his eyes and opening his mind to her. He guided her face to his and he brought his lips down on hers, kissing her in a moment of impulse he couldn’t quite resist. Dylan plunged his consciousness into Leigh’s mind, breathing in as he deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue past her lips. He reached into her body and found the water energy that had washed through her—he could feel it suppressing and washing away her essence. He needed the energy; she did not. He breathed in and pulled with his awareness, dragging the depths of Leigh’s essence and drawing it towards himself. Leigh moaned softly against his lips, her body coming to life against his, and Dylan felt the air around them getting colder, moister, clammy in the way that presaged a storm—but he didn’t care.
Dylan’s hands moved over Leigh’s body, tracing over her curves. He was aware of the need to pull the water energy out of her, but there was a deeper need, something more human, something that had stirred in him the first time they had kissed. Dylan groaned, feeling the watery essence of his own body rippling, surging, sucking the energy out of everything around them, out of Leigh’s body. The air cooled to a deep chill, and Leigh’s hands trailed over his back, her body responding to him more and more as the moments passed. He had exhausted the excuse of purging the suppressing energy from her body—he knew that he had taken it all out of her, that she would be able to move around freely once more—but he couldn’t make himself stop. Dylan’s hands slipped up underneath Leigh’s blouse, brushing against her skin, and Leigh was trembling against him—not with the cold of suppressing energy but with the hum of excitement.
Dylan staggered slightly as their energies met, Leigh’s cool, deep, solid energy flowing into him even as his tumultuous, chaotic water surged into her. Dylan heard something cracking, felt the temperature in the air descending, but he couldn’t make himself stop. He continued to kiss Leigh, breathing in her honey-apple scent, feeling her hot and cold against him.
“Dylan!” he broke away from Leigh with a start, hearing Aira’s voice shouting through the house. “What the hell is going on in there?”
Dylan shuddered, shaking his head to clear it of the disorientation he felt. Leigh reeled against him and Dylan was reminded of their first kiss, of the way he had felt both satisfied and intrigued—the way he had needed her so intensely.
“I found her,” Dylan called back. He looked down at Leigh. She was fully awake, fully conscious, her cheeks bright and her eyes shining.
“I can move now,” she said, her voice breathless, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Dylan licked his lips and smiled, feeling more than a little embarrassed.
“Let’s… let’s get you out of here then,” Dylan said. He took Leigh’s hand in his tentatively. “I’m sorry if…” he pressed his lips together, realizing suddenly that Leigh hadn’t exactly asked him to kiss her. He could have pulled the energy out of her body another way—but it was so much faster to do it while kissin
g. He thought for a moment that he could finally understand the dilemma that Aiden had gone through when Aira had been poisoned.
“Hey,” Leigh said, her voice soft with amusement. “You’ve kissed me before, and at least this kiss was—kind of a medical procedure?” A smile curved her full lips. “We’ll have to talk, I think.” Dylan let go of Leigh’s hand as they walked out of the room, moving down the hall in step with each other.
Aira was standing in the doorway, amusement glinting in her dark eyes, a smile twitching at her lips as she watched the two of them approach. “Leigh, I assume,” she said. Dylan pressed his lips together again to keep silent.
“Yes, Regina Sylphaea,” Leigh said, inclining her head slightly. “I was a spy at your wedding reception; I hope you won’t hold that against me.” Aira shrugged, glancing from Leigh to Dylan. Dylan’s heart stuttered in his chest; surely Aira couldn’t possibly think that Leigh was involved in the attacks—she had been kept as a prisoner.
“I should have been a little more cognizant of the possibility, I guess,” Aira said, sighing. “You know, they have to remind me constantly that I’m a political figure now—I seem to keep forgetting it. You’ll be traveling with us. Everyone else has been rounded up.”
“My cousin is with them, I assume?” Leigh’s green eyes flashed with malice and Dylan, standing within inches of her, could feel the pulse of her suppressed rage.
“If he was the guy in here with you, yeah. He’s pretty thoroughly tied up. Aiden’s waiting at the car.” Leigh glanced at Dylan quickly before stepping away from him, walking past Aira with a brief nod of her head. Aira held Dylan’s gaze for a long moment, her face solemn until it broke into a slow, knowing grin.
“You know,” she said, “I was a bit worried that she’d be weakened by all the water energy surrounding her for the past few days. But then—the temperature dropped a good fifty degrees.” Dylan’s eyes widened.
“It did?” he had felt the air cooling around them, and he realized—in a flash that made him blush a deep crimson—that the cracking sound he had heard was ice forming on glass.
“It did. Come on, Dylan. Let’s get home already.”
CHAPTER NINE
AIRA SAT DOWN HEAVILY, TILTING her head back and closing her eyes. She finger-combed her hair back from her face, feeling the kind of bone-deep fatigue that she hated. Leigh—the woman who Dylan had worked so hard to rescue, the keystone to their plan to find at least some of the elementals responsible for attacking the hotel housing the air elemental complement—was on the couch in the living room, resting. In spite of Dylan’s successful efforts to reverse the effects of her imprisonment, the woman was exhausted, and Aira couldn’t exactly blame her.
“Do you want a foot massage, Aira?” Aira opened her eyes to the sight of Aiden, his pajama pants barely clinging to his hips, his chest bare, and his hair still damp from the shower he had taken the moment they had gone upstairs.
“I’d rather have a bath, but right now I’m afraid that I’d fall asleep and drown.” Aiden snorted, sitting down on the bed next to her.
“I could join you,” he suggested hopefully. “I’m pretty good at keeping you awake.” Aira smiled in spite of the exhaustion she felt and let herself fall backwards onto the mattress, sighing.
After Dylan had gone into the safe house, Aiden had managed to call in the bounty hunters who had been set on the trail of the same group of elementals—all of whom were happy to lend their aid. Thomas had arrived first, driving up in an SUV and climbing out to give Aiden a clap on the shoulder. The prisoners had been divided up into the four cars, with Thomas taking Seraphina and one of the earth elementals. All of the other bounty hunters had been scouring the desert, thanks to a tip that Aiden had given them; it only took a little while for them to arrive when he gave them the exact coordinates from the GPS that had come with the rental car they’d taken.
The drive back to the airport and the long plane ride back to Aira’s home had been tense. “What do you think about Leigh?” Aira turned her head to look at Aiden. Her mate shrugged, flopping onto his stomach next to her, reaching out to coil an arm around her waist.
“I don’t think she was involved in the attack,” he said. “We need to find out more about this spying business. I don’t like the idea of people coming to our wedding specifically to inform on us to their families, tell them how strong or weak we are.” Aira tilted her head, sighing.
“I wish that I could get used to the idea that this is the new reality for me,” she said. She licked her lips; they didn’t seem to have softened up even after landing, her whole body still slightly parched from the arid desert. “But I’m not talking about her status as a spy,” she said. Aira turned onto her side, draping an arm over Aiden’s chest. “I’m talking about the fact that Dylan and Leigh are halfway to bonding with each other.” Aiden’s eyes widened.
“No shit?” he smiled slowly. “Assuming she isn’t working to destroy us, I’m happy for the guy.” Aira chuckled.
“That’s a big assuming,” she said wryly. “I want to believe that she’s…maybe not on our side, but not actively against us.” Aiden pulled her close, burying his face against her neck and nuzzling into her. Aira felt her flagging energies bolstered by the heat of his essence flowing into her.
“It’d break his heart, if he is on the way to bonding with her. We’ll have to be careful.” Aira nodded slowly, breathing in Aiden’s particular scent of spice and resin, the warm smell of his body. She wanted nothing more than to make love with him over and over again, but she knew that after the fight they had been through a scant six hours before, it would be stupid to exhaust herself further.
“We need to find out everything she knows. But that can wait until tomorrow.” They had made it clear to Leigh when they arrived at Aira’s apartment that while they didn’t think she was involved in the deaths of other elementals, they couldn’t exactly let her go free—not just yet. Aira had seen the look of disappointment on Dylan’s face as she told the woman the news. He covered it well, but Aira knew that Dylan was convinced of Leigh’s ultimate innocence. It would have to be she and Aiden who questioned the woman in the morning, as soon as they were awake. In the meantime, Leigh was trapped in the living room; Aira had set a perimeter around the room, at a sufficient distance that it wouldn’t sap Leigh’s slowly-returning strength, but enough that it would keep her from leaving the apartment.
“You need a bath, a glass of wine, and a good long sleep,” Aiden told her firmly. “You go run the bath and I’ll get you some wine from downstairs.” Aira watched as Aiden sprung up from the bed, heading to the door with a flash of a grin in her direction. She smiled, coiling in on herself and pulling her flagging strength together to propel herself out of the bed. She knew he was right, but there was something almost offensive about the way that Aiden was so full of energy. She was exhausted, worn out completely from the effort involved in apprehending the handful of people that they were able to capture at the safe house in the desert.
But, she told herself firmly, a long bath and a good night’s sleep would set her right. Dylan would watch over Leigh; even if he thought she was innocent, even if he was halfway to being in love with the woman, she knew that he couldn’t do anything to let her escape. Aira grinned to herself as she unsteadily climbed out of bed and started shucking her dusty, dirty clothes, walking across the room on aching, tired legs. She had felt the temperature drop; she knew from lessons her grandmother had given her what that would mean—especially when there was a water elemental and an earth elemental in close proximity. If there had been more water vapor in the air, there might have been a freak hail storm, or at least snow flurries.
Aira told herself that she would get to the bottom of the situation. She and Aiden were long overdue for a vacation, and Dylan would welcome some time to himself; not spent as the brother-in-law of an elemental ruler, or the third wheel of a bounty-hunting team. Aira couldn’t quite fight down the niggling suspicion that now that
she had shown some of the breadth of her abilities to part of the group, the rest would be more cautious. Of course, if they went underground, that would make things more difficult from her perspective as a ruler. The other two elemental leaders would continue to deny the seriousness of the situation. But that was a battle to think about later. Aira turned on the water, getting it as hot as she could possibly stand, and sat down on the ledge of the bath, waiting for Aiden’s return. She was more than happy to enjoy a brief respite from the larger battle.
CHAPTER TEN
IN THE DEPTHS OF THE night, Dylan woke up in darkness, uncertain of what had called him out of the intense sleep he had fallen into. He looked up at the ceiling in confusion, trying to remember what it had been. One moment he had been dreaming about his mother, remembering her words to him when they had been alone, asking her for advice—and the next he had been fully awake, jolted back to himself and still disoriented from the vivid dream. There was something amiss. There was something wrong.
Dylan sat up in his bed, opening his mind to the world around him. He felt a low, deep tingling rushing through his body, cold chills that were not like the violent shivers that accompanied hypothermia but something thrilling and frightening all at once. He gripped the sheets of his bed as they intensified and he heard a pat-pat-pat of water hitting the metal gutters that ringed the apartment. Pit-pit-pit-pit…pat-pat-pat-pat-pat…the tingling deepened, and Dylan felt cold washing through him, coursing through his veins, awakening his entire nervous system. The drops of rain outside sped up, hitting a steady rhythm, transforming from an errant shower to a steady drizzle. He gasped as the energy coursing through him went from a gush to a torrent, a rising tide washing through every cell in his body. The rain came on heavier, and Dylan realized with a rush of insight exactly what was happening: He was having a power surge. It was six months away from his birthday, the one where he would come into his full abilities as an elemental; it was about the time when he could expect to start feeling these tremors of his body adjusting to the onslaught of elemental energy.