A Taste of Ice (The Elementals)

by Hanna Martine

  The bedroom stank of old blood and sweat and damp carpet. The top of the bloodied rug had started to crust over. Michael’s eyes had straightened out, and they eerily followed Xavier as he went toward the bed. Xavier stood over him for a moment. Michael’s mouth opened but the only sound that came out was a low, garbled mumble. When Xavier untied him from the bed there was no resistance in his body. However, when Xavier tossed him over his shoulder, Michael’s arms shifted all on their own. If his sight was coming back, it was possible mobility couldn’t be too far behind. The question was: how much?

  Xavier lay Michael on the floor between Sean and Lea. Sean awoke, saw Michael, gave a good struggle and tried to split. But two tied-up and gagged Seans weren’t any better than one.

  When Xavier went into the basement, Robert and Shelby were conscious and talking. Their plastic restraints still tightly clamped their wrists and ankles, which meant that Sean had succeeded in dosing them with enough nelicoda to destroy their water magic. Otherwise they’d have gone liquid and flowed right out of there. The twinge of sadness Xavier felt over that took him completely by surprise.

  He told them everything that had happened, and instead of looking overjoyed at being freed, they exchanged shameful, worried glances. Whatever Lea had been holding over their heads was about to come out. In front of Griffin and Gwen, no less. They were glad to be free of Lea, though, and offered to stand guard over their former captors.

  Xavier gestured to Shelby’s neck. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” she replied.

  Exhausted, Xavier went back to his lawn chair in the garage.

  Cat woke up when the sun rose and a line of light appeared under the garage door. Xavier leaned forward on his chair. “Hey,” he said, his voice sounding too loud in the garage. When Cat gave him a weak smile, he asked Kekona, “Can I get her something to drink and eat?”

  Kekona relented, but refused all food for herself. As Cat sipped water and ate a hard-boiled egg, Xavier crouched as close to her as Kekona would allow.

  “It’s not going to end like this,” Xavier told Cat. “Gwen isn’t going to let anything happen to you. Neither will I.”

  Cat stared right into him, and even with the deep smudges below her eyes, her gaze still had the power to level him. “I know you won’t. Just as I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  He couldn’t help it. He smiled.

  Kekona made a sound of disgust. “Love is so stupid.”

  Love. A warmth settled into his body, spreading out and chasing away the chill.

  Cat turned to the other woman. “You say that because I bet it’s never happened to you.”

  Kekona was sitting against the garage door and she rolled her head on the metal, staring someplace far away. “It has. That’s why I think it’s stupid.”

  Several times during the night, vehicles had chugged up the road, their lower gears kicking in with a whine as they negotiated the curve up the mountain. None had stopped. Until just then, when one vehicle, then another, turned off the road and sped toward the house.

  Kekona kicked off that weird coat of melancholy, hoisted Cat to her feet, and ushered her to the back of the garage. Xavier jumped up and slapped a silver button on the wall. The white garage door rolled up, admitting a gust of arctic air and a swirl of snow. The door rose and rose, revealing a boxy, blue van and a small, white SUV careening up the curved driveway. Xavier rushed outside, lifting a hand. The SUV flashed its lights in acknowledgement.

  He never thought he’d be so relieved to be surrounded by Ofarians again.

  The van braked hard, sliding on the fresh, six-inch layer of snow. The doors flew open, and Ofarian soldiers poured out. It had been five years but Xavier remembered the way they moved, the way they took over an area like water gushing into a canyon after spring thaw. Like they were in charge. Two soldiers broke off and went for the front door. Three others circled around back.

  The SUV came to a stop. Gwen Carroway stepped from the front passenger seat wearing the same all-black uniform as her soldiers, minus the weapons. Her blond hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. She looked the same—still gorgeous, still highly focused—maybe even more so, on both accounts. Her long legs ate up the ground between them, and he found himself moving toward her, too.

  “Xavier.” She looked like she wanted to embrace him, but made no move to do so. There was a sadness to her eyes, and the set of her mouth reminded him of that day he’d taken her through the Plant and showed her the hell of his birth and life.

  “Gwen,” he said, drawing a breath. “It’s good to see you.”

  And it was. Great stars above, it was. She smiled, and the wistfulness of it pulled something tight in his chest.

  Reed hopped out from behind the wheel and jogged around the front of the SUV. He didn’t wear the Ofarian black, but jeans and a thick jacket, a skullcap pulled over his shaved head. And just like five years ago, he kept Gwen within several feet of him while his stern blue eyes swept over the scene.

  Reed stuck out his hand and Xavier took it. It had taken a long time to acclimate to this, the Primary custom of shaking hands. Reed gripped hard, as Xavier had expected, and looked straight into his eyes with a firm nod. Reed let go and stood back with his big arms crossed over his chest. “Can I help inside the house?”

  “If I remember correctly,” Xavier said, “you were pretty good with restraints. Mind checking on the people we have by the fireplace?”

  With a clap to Xavier’s shoulder and a touch to Gwen’s waist, Reed hopped up the front steps into the house. He always did know when to leave Secondary business to Secondaries.

  “Where’s Cat?” Gwen asked, and then her voice choked. “And Delia?”

  “Cat is”—he turned and looked toward the back of the garage—“there. Not the naked one.”

  Gwen followed where his gaze led, and sucked in a breath. “Who the hell is that?”

  “A fire elemental,” he said. “You said there were other Secondaries taken? Well, she’s one of them.”

  Gwen pushed past him and hurried into the garage.

  “That’s far enough,” Kekona said, and blew a little ball of fire into her palm as a warning.

  “Whoa.” So Gwen had never seen this sort of thing either. “Cat, I’m Gwen. Are you okay?”

  “I’m not hurt,” Cat said, starting to come forward.

  “Ah, Gwen Carroway,” Kekona said with a bland smile, curling her fingers over Cat’s shoulder and yanking her back.

  If Gwen was surprised, she didn’t show it. Used to being recognized, he supposed. “I am. And you are?”

  Kekona’s smile curled wickedly. “As if you don’t know.”

  “I don’t. And there’s no reason for you to be holding one of my own.”

  A car door opened behind them. Xavier glanced over his shoulder to see Griffin Aames, leader of the Ofarian race, sliding from the backseat of the SUV, phone to his ear and one hand harshly cutting the air. “Yeah, it’s a mess. Keep two teams on standby. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. Get as close to White Clover Creek as you can.”

  While Reed looked pretty much the same, Griffin looked older. More lines on his face, a harder glaze to his dark eyes. He had thick, straight eyebrows that made him look perpetually serious. He’d once been a soldier, an obedient do-gooder to the extreme, but his posture seemed even stiffer now. Carrying the weight and fate of an entire race had worn on him.

  He stalked up to Xavier and Gwen, the phone still at his ear. When he looked up, into the garage, he did a double take. The hand holding the phone dropped from his ear and his mouth fell open. But he wasn’t looking at Xavier or Gwen. He was looking at Kekona.

  “Holy shit,” he murmured. Griffin pushed the phone back to his mouth, but his voice had lost its stern authority. “Sorry. Get it done. Check back in thirty.” Then he shoved the phone into his pants’ pocket.

  He went right past Xavier, right past Gwen, to stand just feet from Kekona. Close
r than she’d ever allowed Xavier to be.

  “Well, well, well.” Kekona tossed her long hair, revealing one breast and the curving dents of her defined stomach muscles. “If it isn’t the high and mighty himself.”

  A muscle ticked in Griffin’s clenched jaw. “Keko.”

  Keko?

  The Ofarian leader and the naked fire elemental stared so hard at one another, Xavier didn’t think he could break the line with a sword.

  “Griffin,” Gwen said, half whispering. “You know her?”

  He swallowed and nodded once. “Kekona Kalani. General of the Chimeran forces.”

  “Wait.” Gwen gripped Griffin’s arm. “Did she have anything to do with—”

  “Gwen.” Reed poked his head into the garage, and his eyes were filled with regret. He opened wide the house door that led into the great room, revealing the bound hostages. “Is this your sister?”

  Gwen let out a strangled cry then checked herself. She lifted her chin in that way Xavier remembered, drew a deep breath, and went to Reed. The door closed behind them.

  If Griffin and Kekona noticed that Gwen had left, they gave no indication. They had yet to break eye contact. Xavier circled around them and held out his hand to Cat, who looked at it longingly.

  “Don’t even think about it.” Kekona’s voice crackled with flame, and the palm cradling the fire shot out to prevent Cat from going anywhere. Then she turned to face Griffin. “This plan of yours isn’t going to work.”

  Griffin raised his hands, weapon free. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Xavier believed him.

  “We don’t kneel before bullies. We’ve survived centuries without Ofarians in the Senatus. This shit, kidnapping me then holding me hostage to bribe your way in, is going to blow up in your face. You’ve already screwed up big-time. You actually think this is going to make them change their minds? You’re a bigger egomaniac than I thought.”

  Griffin’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in anger. “What the—”

  The door to the house opened again. Reed stomped into the garage, carrying a laptop. “Griffin, you need to see this.”

  “That’s the computer Lea worked on,” Xavier said.

  Griffin finally snapped his focus away from Kekona. “Who’s Lea?”

  “Lea is Delia,” Reed said. “Gwen didn’t want to believe it all the way here, but”—he threw a pained look at the house—“apparently it’s true.” Then he flipped the laptop around to show the screen.

  Griffin leaned over it and shoved a hand into his short black hair. “Shit. Fuck.”

  Xavier peered over Griffin’s shoulder. “What is it?”

  Griffin’s finger swept around the display, and his hand shook. “She’s in the Ofarian communication system. The goddamn mainframe.”

  “That’s not all.” Reed toggled between screens. “Late last night she sent an e-mail.” The e-mail popped up.

  To: Senatus Premier

  From: The Office of Griffin Aames

  We want in.

  Attachment: photos

  Reed clicked on the attachments. A very clear succession of images showed Kekona being subdued using water magic, then being hauled unconscious into the fireproof cage…by Lea and Robert.

  From inside the house trailed a low, throaty laugh. Lea’s laugh.

  Gwen raced back into the garage, white as snow, her eyes and nose red from crying. “What’s happened? What did she do?” But she could barely get that much out, and she was sobbing again.

  “How did this happen?” Griffin yelled.

  “I think she’s got someone inside your office,” Xavier told Griffin. “Or at least someone pretty high up. She locked me up with a neutralizer cuff, the kind from the Plant. She got them sent here on short notice, because she didn’t even know I existed until a couple days ago. And she had nelicoda.”

  Griffin turned away, hands on hips, staring at the ground.

  “What did she do?” Gwen demanded.

  Reed snapped the laptop shut and tucked it under his arm. Xavier could tell he wanted to pull Gwen to him, but didn’t. Gwen was positively vibrating.

  Griffin turned back around and raised his eyes to Gwen’s. “Delia’s starting a war.”

  Now Gwen reached for Reed. She clung to his side as his big arm came around her shoulders.

  “There’s other crap on here.” Reed lifted the computer. “Videos of Secondaries. Proof positive of their powers.”

  Griffin made a terrible sound in the back of his throat. “Find out where else those videos might have been saved, who might have seen them.”

  “Try Raymond Ebrecht,” Xavier said, remembering Michael’s cryptic reference to the other man.

  Hands on his hips, Griffin stared at Lea through the door. “Why would she do this?” he asked, more to himself.

  In a very small voice, Gwen said, “Because she’s not my sister anymore.”

  Kekona started to clap, little bursts of firecracker flame sprouting from her hands with every strike. “Very nice. Fine acting, all around.”

  Griffin glared at Kekona, but he looked more hurt than angry. “I had nothing to do with this.”

  Kekona jabbed a finger toward the house. “That bitch is Gwen’s sister. And she didn’t work alone. The fact that you’re here, that you and Gwen came for me and you didn’t send your henchmen, that I have no way out of this place except going with you, tells me a whole hell of a lot.”

  Kekona hauled Cat backward, one muscled arm around Cat’s neck. Cat scrabbled in Kekona’s grip but the Chimeran was much stronger, and it took all of Xavier’s power to keep still.

  “Let me go home,” Kekona demanded, “without incident, without any more excuses, without any bargaining with the Senatus, and you can have your water virgin.”

  Griffin advanced another step toward Kekona. “You’ll let her go anyway. This isn’t about her.”

  Kekona raised an eyebrow. “Is it about us then?” Then she licked her lower lip. Long and slow.

  As Gwen might say, Holy stars in hell.

  “There is no us,” Griffin growled. “Remember? That wasn’t exactly my choice.”

  A glimmer of emotion swept across Kekona’s face. She tried to swipe it away and just barely succeeded. “It wasn’t mine either.”

  A prolonged silence followed. Then Reed pitched his voice low. “Griffin, bud. This is looking really bad for you.”

  “Look,” Griffin began, and inched even closer to Kekona. Xavier watched him desperately trying to look only at Kekona’s face, but he knew the signs of anger mixed with arousal all too well—the labored breathing, the constant shifting of his stance, the flush on his neck—and Griffin was having a hell of a time keeping his under control.

  The Ofarian leader ripped off his coat and held it out to Kekona. She just looked at it.

  “Go on,” he said. “Take it.”

  She laughed, deep and sensual. “Why? It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

  Gwen gasped.

  Griffin ground his teeth together and Xavier knew that reaction, too. Griffin may have been all over Kekona at one point, and whatever had happened may have been long over, but that didn’t mean he liked anyone else looking at what he still wanted for himself.

  “Put it on,” Griffin ordered. “Let Cat go to Xavier. And go back and tell your people I had nothing to do with this. The Ofarians did not take you. Just one lone, messed-up woman who went rogue from us years ago. There is no hostage situation here.”

  “Really?” There went that eyebrow again. Kekona still didn’t take the coat. “You don’t ‘want in’?”

  “I—” Griffin cut himself off, lowered his eyes to the floor. When he raised his head he wore the look of a confirmed, dedicated leader. “We want a seat in the Senatus, yes.”

  Kekona looked disgusted and satisfied at the same time. “Well, there you go.”

  She snatched for Griffin’s coat, but he didn’t let go. He gave his own jerk, making her stumbl
e. He pulled her another foot closer. She hated that. And Xavier was starting to feel shameful and awkward, standing here witnessing this exchange that so clearly had SEX written all over it.

  “Just do it, Keko,” Griffin begged, barely loud enough for Xavier to hear. “Please.”

  She snarled, pulled the coat from his grip and swung it around her shoulders. It was big enough to cover her ass, but just barely. After she zipped it up, only her fingertips jutted out of the sleeves.

  Kekona turned her face just slightly into the collar of his coat. Inhaled. Griffin went bone still.

  “I’ll deliver your message,” she said. “Just don’t expect them to believe it.”

  Griffin exhaled, as did Xavier. He stretched that hand for Cat again.

  “All right,” said Griffin. “Good.”

  Kekona grabbed Cat and walked her backward toward the driveway. Toward the cars. “I’ll take your wheels, Griffin, if you don’t mind.”

  “No fucking way.” Xavier charged forward. “Cat stays.”

  “Xavier…” Griffin warned.

  Xavier rounded on him. “She’s not leaving with Cat.”

  Kekona left the garage and stepped into the snow, the white flakes instantly melting under her feet, under her fire. A wave of heat shimmered around her body. She looked at Xavier with a tilted head, studying him for a moment, then shoved Cat toward him. “Here. Take her.”

  Cat fell into Xavier and he caught her, wrapping her up in his arms. Probably held her a bit too tightly, but then, the grip she had on his neck wasn’t exactly comfortable either. He didn’t care. He kissed her hair, her face, her lips.

  “I think I’m done with this, being someone’s plaything,” Cat whispered against his mouth, and her words tasted almost as sweet as her lips. “Unless that someone’s you.”

  He clung to her then, feeling her firmness and warmth, vowing to never let her go again.

  “Oh, Griffin!”

  Xavier looked up. Kekona had made it to the SUV and now stood on the running board, her head sticking up over the roof. Cat turned in his arms and he tucked her head under his chin.