EarthBorn (The Elemental Born Book 1) (9 page)

“I know, Jennifer told me.”

“Jennifer?”

Jennifer was Chelsea’s step sister. She wasn’t a werewolf, but when Chelsea’s father had married Jennifer’s human mother she had been adopted into the pack. She and Chelsea were the same age, even had the same light blonde hair, but apart from that they were worlds apart. While Chelsea was self-centred and arrogant, Jennifer was selfless and caring.

What the hell had I ever seen in Chelsea, apart from being an easy lay that is?

“Yeah, she overheard her yelling at me and came in to stop her. Then she invited me to have a drink with her and the girls.”

“Did you have fun?” I asked, wanting to change the topic, steer it away from Chelsea.

“Yeah, I did actually. I was surprised they were so nice to me after how mean I was to them all at school.”

We spoke a little more as we made our way downstairs and outside into the evening air. She seemed to be relaxing a little more around me. Maybe now would be a good time to talk about our past, dig a little to find out what had happened to make things change so drastically between us. Making up my mind, I took her through the gardens over to the edge of the wood. It was time to revisit a place from our past. 

~

Kaia

I’d thought Ethan was going to show me around the packhouse gardens or something, but instead he walked me quickly through them, before disappearing into the trees to shift, returning a moment later with his jeans hanging from his mouth. Nudging my side, I took the hint and climbed up onto his back, leaning down to wrap my arms around his neck. I knew straight away where we were going. The question was, why?

Ten minutes later, Ethan came to a stop in front of the cave we had used to meet up in all those years ago. Sliding from his back, I moved towards the entrance while he quickly shifted back and dressed.

“Why are we here?” I asked, spinning around to face him once he was descent.

“I thought it would be a great place for us to talk, get to know one another again.”

Entering the cave, it was like walking back through time, back to a time when life wasn’t so complicated, to when I was just a normal Wiccan with no threat of death hanging over my head. But I also remembered the last time I’d been there, the day I’d left to train with Grace, the day I told him to stay away from me. Now here I was again, almost five years later, and it hadn’t done any good. I had tried to save him, tried to spare him the pain that was to come. But here he was, my protector… doomed.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” he asked, sitting down on the large boulder in the middle of the cave that served well as a seat.

“Just how pointless it all seems now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I always knew it would be you,” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes as I acknowledged the truth I had denied all these years. I turned away from him so he wouldn’t see them. My emotions were already in turmoil after the incident in his room with Chelsea. Now, being back in this place after so long, I just couldn’t hold it back anymore. “I felt it deep inside, in my heart, my soul. And when my mother told me the truth of who I was, I panicked. It wouldn’t be just me the demon came after; it would be everyone I cared about, everyone I loved. And there was one thing my mother said to me that stuck in my head, echoed over and over. She said that at least I would die before I met my protector, bonded with him, so I would never have to live with the knowledge that it was my fault he was doomed to die a gruesome, painful death like myself. But that wasn’t true. Because I knew who my protector would be. And I knew I had to do everything in my power to make sure he survived, even if it meant making him hate me, him and everybody else I cared about.

“But what good did it do? Here we are, five years later… Doomed.”

He moved so silently I never realised he’d moved at all until I felt the power of his wolf behind me a second before his hands slid down my arms, entwining our fingers and pulling me back against his chest, wrapping me in his arms.

“So that’s why you pushed me away?” he whispered in my ear, his breath warm upon my neck.

“I had to do something. It’s bad enough that I'm doomed to die, but you… I couldn’t just let that happen. I had to do something, anything. And I didn’t think you would care anyhow. It’s not like anything had ever happened between us. You wouldn’t even acknowledge me out of this cave.”

“Kaia,” he sighed, turning me to face him. Gently he whipped the tears from my cheeks. “I cared a great deal, Kaia. I’d planned on telling my father about my feelings for you. I was going to ask you out no matter what his thoughts on the matter. But I kept putting it off. I was so scared of how everyone else would react. I left it too late. I came here to meet you, to tell you, but you never showed. And then when I finally did see you again, you weren’t the same girl I had fallen in love with.”

Love? He’d loved me?

“I want to get to know you again, Kaia. I want you to give me a chance. Forget what your mother said. Finding your protector gives you a chance that others like you never had. Being named your protector doesn’t doom me, it gives me a chance to spend the rest of my life – be it long or short – with the girl that I was born to be with.”

“I can’t, Ethan. I can’t put you at risk.”

“Just give me a chance. Give us a chance. We don’t have to complete the bond. I'm not going to force you into that. Even if the thought of bonding with you, of having you laid bare beneath me, taking me into your body, is something I have dreamed about for many years.”

A shiver ran through me at his words, my panties dampening with my arousal as he pulled me tighter against his hard body. The evidence of his own arousal pressed hard against me and I couldn’t help my instant reaction of rubbing against him.

“Don’t do that, Kaia. My wolf is snapping at me to take you, to claim you as my mate. The scent of your arousal isn’t helping as if is.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, mortified that he could smell that.

“Never be sorry of being attracted to me. I like that I affect you in that way. We just have to be careful with my wolf; he doesn’t think like us. He’s desperate for you, Kaia. For your touch, your taste, your surrender. He’s been driving me mad since the ritual.”

“Is there anything I can do… to calm him?”

A smile pulled at his lips as he lowered his head, closing the distance between us. “Well, there is one thing that I think might hold him off for a while.”

“And what’s that?” I breathed.

“This.”

And then he was kissing me. At first his lips were just a light caress against my own, then his tongue swept along the seam of my lips, seeking entrance that I gladly gave. Within moments, what has started out as a sweet meeting of mouths turned into a hungry kiss of passion, of lost years, both of us determined to conquer the other.

I was in heaven. Suddenly I felt whole, complete. But as he pulled away, that feeling disappeared. I knew why that was. The bond was not complete. And until it was, I would never be whole. Ethan was my soulmate, my true other half. But how could I do that, knowing that he would end up dead because of it?

Pressing his forehead against my own, his breath heavy, he asked, “Did you feel that? Feel the complete rightness of it?”

“Yes,” I gasped, just as breathless as he was. “I felt it. But I…”

“No. No buts. Not yet. Just give us a chance, Kaia. Let me be with you. I'm not talking about the bonding,” he stated quickly, seeing me about to argue. “I told you I would never force you to do that. Just give me a chance to show you how great we could be together, that we are worth taking the risk for. Please.”

Could I do that? Could I be with him, without actually
being
with him and completing the bond? To be honest, I doubted it very much. I was already aching for him, longing for that feeling of completeness, and all he had done was kiss me.

I was definitely going to regret this, but all the same, I found myself agreeing. “Okay,” I whispered against his lips, tempted to steal another kiss. “We’ll give it a go.”

Chapter Twelve

~

Kaia

“Come on, I have something to show you,” Ethan said as we headed back to his room. My head was still in a spin from the kiss we had shared in the cave. “I found it when I was down in the vault.”

“You have a vault?”

“It's not like an actual vault. It’s just a collection of rooms where we keep all the old books and relics, anything we don't really need any more that the Alpha refuses to throw away. And believe me, that’s a hell of a lot of stuff.” He laughed.

“What were you doing down there?”

“Penance,” he smirked. “I got in trouble for being out late the other night. With the ritual happening the following night, my father didn’t want anyone that was going to be out. He wanted to make sure that we were all in a reasonable state and not hungover when the time came. I was caught coming in late and Frankie was found drunk in the corridor.”

“Oh dear.” I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped my lips. “So what was the punishment?”

“Cleaning. And believe me, cleaning that place out if definitely a punishment. All the dust down there alone is enough to kill you.”

“Sorry. It’s my fault, isn't it?” If I had just told him where to take me instead of being stubborn, or hell, if I hadn't run off like that in the first place, he would have been home hours before.

“Don't worry about it. It wasn't just for being late to be honest. I’m next in line to be Alpha and I should be seen as making good decisions. I allowed Frankie to get drunk off his face and Zak to spend the night elsewhere the night before the ritual, even though I knew it was going against the Alpha’s wishes.”

“Where was Zak?” I asked. I was curious, sue me.

“Well, Frankie pulled, but he was too drunk to perform so Zak offered his services,” he explained, failing to hold back his laughter.

They swapped? “Do they normally do that?” I asked, gobsmacked that someone could just switch from one guy to the other. “Swap if one isn't capable of... preforming?” I used his wording, not knowing of a better why of phasing it. I could feel my face flaming with embarrassment. I so was not comfortable with this conversation.

“Depends on the female to be honest. She was human, but she knew what we were. Some humans that know about us tend to throw themselves at us just for the frill of being with a supernatural, someone not human.”

Did many throw themselves at him? And more importantly, had he taken the bait?

What am I thinking?  Of course he has, he’s a guy.

Seeing the question in my eye he spun me around to face him, his arms sliding around my waist, pulling me up against his hard body. “I've never traded off with them. I’m not saying I’m a saint. I'm sure you’ve heard rumours about me over the years, but I've never fancied being with someone that was just all over one of my friends. I want someone to want me for me, not just the wolf inside. Though, of course, I want them to accept him too.”

As he talked about his wolf, I felt the animal’s spirit brush up against me, a kind of caress that left me in no doubt that he liked me, accepted me as his would-be mate. That was something I had always been able to do. Even before I had known about the true nature of my powers I had been able to sense the
Were
. They were connected to the earth, so in part, they were connected to me.

“I like your wolf,” I heard myself say, horrified that I had just said it out loud.

“He likes you too,” he said with a smile, leaning in to press his lips against mine in a tender kiss. All too soon he pulled away.

I was addicted to his kisses. I could spend the rest of my life kissing him and still it wouldn’t be enough. But my life was drawing closer and closer to its terrifying end, and every kiss we shared would only drag him closer to joining me in that death.

Shaking off the dark thoughts, stepping out of his arms, I asked, “So what did you want to show me?”

Sensing my sudden change in mood we carried on walking back to his room. “A book… about you. Not sure why it was down there to be honest, but I thought you might want to see it.”

Pulling to a stop, shock radiating through my body, I asked, “What?”

“Well, your powers to be exact. Isaac, the pack historian, said there were a lot of things to do with the Earth power here. I think he knows something, but that old bastard never tells you what you want to know until, and I quote,
you are ready to hear it.
Over the years, I think he’s said that a million times to me.”

When we made it back to his room, I saw the huge, leather bound, dust covered book sitting in the centre of the bed. Running my hand over the cover, I could feel power radiating from it. My power? “This book is filled with power, earth magic. It must have been made my one of us,” I whispered more to myself.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his wolf hearing picking up my near silent words.

“One of the Earth Elementals before me must have made this. I can sense it.”

Looking more closely at the spine, I searched to see if there was a name for the author but found none. Crawling up onto the bed I made myself comfortable, Ethan taking a seat beside me as I pulled the heavy book onto my lap. My heart was pounding in my chest, my breathing coming hot and heavy as I turned to the first page with shaking hands and began to read. It was filled with the history of all those that had come before me. Their names, ages, even small drawings of them. They were simple sketches, but every one of them had the eyes painted in with the same dark green shade as my own. 

So the eyes really are a mark of my power.

As we made our way through the first section of the book, passed all those that had come before, I was shocked to see my own face drawn upon a page. The green eyes were more real and alive looking than ever, but my hair had also been painted in. With all the other pictures, the only other one that had more than just the eyes painted had been the first one, the original Earth witch that had died at the hands of the demon. All the other pictures had been incomplete, never finished, but why? And why was my picture more completed than others? 

Reading the text below my picture, my heart beating wildly in my throat, I was left with even more questions. Like how the hell did the author of this book know all this?

Kaia Wells

Born 22
nd
April 1995

An only child born into the Shires Coven, her father left the family upon her birth, not able to cope with the knowledge of his daughter’s fate. Left in the care of her mother until the age of fourteen, she was then given into the care of the Crone, Grace Hale, for training. Meeting her protector at the young age of eleven, though not aware of his true identity, her powers began to grow; maturing quicker than those that came before her. At the age of twenty-one, she performed the Protector Ritual before a collection of males from all corners of the supernatural world, only for her childhood friend to be selected, revealing the reason for her matured powers. Though not yet bound together as Wiccan and Protector, she is already the most powerful Earth Elemental since the original, Avani.

“Who wrote this?” Ethan asked. “It’s been in the vault for decades, maybe even centuries with how much dust was on the thing when I found it.”

“I don’t think anyone did,” I whispered, running my hand over the text. There was magic in these pages, old magic. “I think the book writes itself. I don’t know how, but I think one of these witches in the book made this. If I was to guess, I would say it was Avani. She is the only one I think could have been powerful enough to pull this off. I know I couldn’t do this, and according to this book I'm the strongest since her.” 

~

After dinner with the pack – or, at least, a part of it; they had so many members that they had to split each meal into three different sittings – we headed back up to Ethan’s room. I wasn’t sure how I felt about sharing a room with him. I was both excited and nervous by it. What would happen? Would he expect anything from me? I knew that Ethan would never push me to do anything I didn’t want to do. He knew how I felt and that I wouldn't sleep with him, that I wouldn't complete the bond. Though, every moment I spent near him I felt the pull of the bond growing stronger. Felt myself drawn to him more and more.

The thing was, I had never actually had a boyfriend before, so I didn't have any real experience with guys. I had kissed guys before, so I had some experience in that area, but even that experience was limited. Everything that generally came after the kissing… well, that’s what I had zero experience with.

I was so in over my head.

“Are you okay?” he asked as we reached his floor, heading down the hall towards his door.

“Yeah, course,” I lied. In truth, I was far from it. My palms were getting sweatier by the second.

“Come on, Kaia, don't lie to me. We have the bond, remember? Even as small as it is, I can still tell when you’re lying.”

I was really going to have to get used to that. That was the thing about protectors, there was no lying to them, no secrets kept. Everything was shared. Not that it was ever easy to lie to the
Were;
their senses were just too good.

“Damn,” I said, stamping my foot in a mock tantrum, causing him to smile. Opening the door, he allowed me to enter first, then closed and locked it behind him. As the lock clicked my stomach clenched nervously.

“Come on, tell me.”

Biting my bottom lip nervously, I contemplated not telling him, but I knew if I wasn’t honest he would just keep asking. Maybe not there and then, but eventually he would ask again, and again. With the bond growing all the time, even without it being complete, it wouldn’t be long before he didn’t even need to ask, he would just know what was wrong. “It's just that… well… I've never exactly shared a room with a guy before.”
Or done a whole lot of other stuff
, I thought to myself.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“You’re not that type of girl. You never were.”

“
What type?
” I asked, feeling a little irritated. Did he think I was frigid or something? Or was it that he thought no one would ever want to be with me like that? That I wasn’t attractive enough?

“No, Kaia. I didn't mean it like that,” he quickly said, obviously feeling my emotions though the bond. “I just meant that you’re not the type of girl that throws it away, that gives it to just anyone.” Cupping my face between his palms, looking deep into my eyes, he smiled. “And I'm glad.”

“Really? You’re not bothered that I... that I have no experience?” I was embarrassed to admit that I had none.

“I love knowing that no one has claimed your body, that when… or if,” he added quickly, “you give me that honour, I will be the first and only male to have had that privilege.” His words and the slow sexy drawl of his voice caused desire and want to rush through me.

A mischievous smile pulled at the corners of his mouth and his eyes filled with heat as he inhaled deeply, smelling my arousal. “My question is, how much experience
do
you have?” Capturing my lips, he thrust his tongue deep, tasting, claiming. Now this was a kiss.

Nibbling his way down my neck, shivers of pleasure racked my body, my pussy growing ever wetter. I had never responded to anyone like this, never wanted someone so much that my panties were practically dripping wet.

“Has anyone ever done this?” he moaned, licking a wet, hot trail up to my ear. “Or this?” Biting down on my tender lobe, causing a small gasp of shocking pleasure to escape my lips.

Slipping his large hands up under my top, I melted against him, the skin to skin contact too much. All the tension I had been feeling since before the ritual drained away, leaving me like putty in his hands. It felt so good to be touched, wanted. I longed to get closer, to merge our bodies together. Forever.

I could feel his wolf pushing against me, its need to claim me, to take me for its own. But I couldn’t do that. No matter how much in that moment of time I wanted to get as close to him as I possibly could, I couldn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Ethan. I always had. No matter how much I had tried to forget him over the years, he had never been far from my mind. But I was cursed, doomed to die. Could I really doom him to the same fate?

Grasping my buttocks in hand, he squeezed, pulling me tightly against him. I could feel the hard length of his cock straining against me. “You feel that?” he asked, his words almost a growl. “That’s what you do to me, Kaia. What you have always done to me.”

Kissing along my collarbone, he gently pushed the strap of my top down and trailed his lips over my shoulder and back along the tops of my breasts, swiping his tongue briefly into the dip between as he watched my face, reading my reactions. Whatever he saw, he liked.

“Ethan,” I gasped, a shiver of desire running through my body all the way down to my core.

“It’s okay, Kaia. I’ll take care of you.”

Lifting me up into his arms, he deposited me on the bed, settling down beside me on his side. As he ran his hand up and down my hip, small jolts of pleasure assaulted me every time his fingers trailed over the small strip of skin left bare at my waist where my top had ridden up. Suddenly he stopped, his fingers stilling on that bit of bare flesh on my right side. “What’s this?” he asked, tracing his finger lightly over the flesh.