elemental 02 - blaze (3 page)

Aira tried to read the look on Dylan’s face. It wasn’t disappointment or anger, it was a kind of concern. “I have no interest in being kidnapped again, but I also have no interest in staying put and just hoping everyone will decide there’s no point in either killing me or forcing me to marry them.”

“At least, if you decide to meet up with these two people, make it a public place, and bring me along. I can be objective.”

Aira looked at Dylan for a moment and wondered if some of his concern might be due to him being lonely. Since Aiden had started chatting with Dolores, Dylan had been left more frequently to his own devices.

***

They made arrangements to meet with the cousins for lunch, two days before Aira’s birthday. Aira was also hoping she would like Alex enough to convince him and his cousin to attend the party she was planning for the evening of her birthday. She would be traveling back to her grandmother’s house a few days after her birthday, but she wanted to really celebrate reaching her full abilities beforehand. She never mentioned to Alex that it was her “special” birthday, instead letting him believe she had already reached her full power as an elemental. She knew she needed to be careful around him, even if she did find herself attracted to him and the easygoing charm he radiated in their chats. She admitted to herself that she was hungry for attention from men.

In the midst of planning, Aira received a letter from her grandmother. The hand-written envelope was a surprise. Everything was put aside. If her grandmother wrote to her, the contents of the letter were important indeed. She’d tried to convince her grandmother to embrace technology, but the older woman refused to get used to chatting online, or even email. On more than one occasion she’d stated the phone was her personal limit for technology. She even still kept printed books and magazines for her gardening, instead of looking online. “Oh, I’m impressed and awed at how far things have come,” she told Aira, “and I’m glad that you’re so well-versed in how to use the newest technology, but I don’t have the patience to learn it myself.”

Normally Aira’s grandmother called when there was something she wanted to say. Letters were reserved for communication that required more privacy than the phone offered or for topics she wasn’t comfortable speaking about verbally. Aira wondered which of the two categories the letter would fall under.

Considering in the lingering danger—and that her grandmother had been the first one to be cognizant of that danger and insist on protection—it seemed odd that she would choose such an archaic form of communication, one that could be intercepted easily. Then again, Aira knew their code was hard to break and would look like nonsense to anyone else. She tore into the envelope.

Dearest Granddaughter,

You would probably prefer to have a conversation like this in person. However, I’ve never been comfortable talking about these kinds of things directly in the flesh, as they say. There is an aspect of your transformation into a full elemental that I wanted to explain to you. I had been hopeful that you would find a mate before it came time for your birthday, but since you haven’t, I thought a word to the wise would be a good idea. You are going to experience very strong—almost impossibly strong—lust as part of your transition into your full powers. As you approach the day of your birthday it will intensify and on the night of your birthday, it will be at its most intense. I want you to be very, very careful about who you spend your time with in that period. If I did not think that Dylan or Aiden were safe choices, I wouldn’t have them with you, but you should think very carefully about any other partners.

Aira felt herself blushing; she had indeed noticed an increase in her libido, just as her grandmother said. She kept reading.

I considered advising Aiden and Dylan, but Aiden, I assume, would know already and I trust your intelligence and sense of self-preservation. Please keep in mind that as an unstable elemental, you are more likely to find it difficult to control yourself. I love you, and I look forward to seeing you once you’ve assumed your full powers; I still have a great deal to teach you.

She set the letter aside and considered the message. Aira told herself she had no interest in either Aiden or Dylan. She was sure even a sharp increase in her libido, beyond what she was already experiencing, would drive her into either man’s arms. Talking with Aiden about it crossed her mind. He would know what she was going to experience—but she was wary of talking about her sex life with him. She considered going to Dylan. He wouldn’t be able to empathize with her from experience, but he was the person she trusted most.

She decided to think about it more and put the concern aside until she had a better idea of what the extent of the problem might be. Feeling her cavalier attitude returning, she assured herself it was possible she would be able to control her lust just fine. Even if she couldn’t control her lust, what would be the worst possible outcome? She would satisfy it with some man she didn’t care about and move on with her life, in possession of her full abilities. If she was unable to disconnect herself from a situation like that, she would consider herself a poor elemental indeed.

***

Aira worked hard over the next two days to get as much work done as possible; she didn’t want any assignments hanging over her head for her birthday, or for the week or so following it. Dylan and Aiden amused themselves practicing guitar and martial arts, playing video games and watching TV—and in Aiden’s case, talking to Dolores. Aira tried to ignore the slight stab of jealousy his attention to Dolores incited.

She reminded herself she had no interest in him. Just because he had the dark haired, light eyed look she preferred in men, and just because his every touch against her skin sent a burning, sharply desirous sensation through her body did not mean she had any intention of inviting any advances from him. Not that he made any. She thought about that fact as she glanced at him grinning and typing away on his laptop.

Watching him, she considered how from the time she had been safely extricated from the earth elemental who kidnapped her, Aiden had been increasingly distant. He avoided being alone with her, avoided talking to her at any length about any serious subject. In fairness to him, Aira realized her actions—grabbing for him and kissing him hungrily in the ecstatic aftermath of achieving her freedom—had implied she was interested in him. He was clearly communicating that what he saw as her interest was not reciprocal. Aira tried not to let it bother her, in spite of knowing she had never failed to charm a man she wanted. I’m not interested in him, she reminded herself.

She had to believe her lack of a social life was driving her crazy if she was regretting men she didn’t even want to be involved with. That can change—will change, she thought. Once she came into full possession of her abilities and learned how to master them, she knew she would be a match for anyone who might decide to come after her. She would allow Aiden and Dylan to remain her bodyguards, but she was not about to curtail her activities anymore.

Aira contacted her friends, working out a plan for her birthday. She wanted to go out, drink, and make a fool of herself. Approaching 23, she knew there would be few opportunities left to really enjoy being foolish and getting drunk. She wanted to enjoy the time she had left before she was consumed with responsibilities or a “mature” relationship with a “stable” elemental who would likely get her pregnant in a matter of months. The idea of “settling down” had always been an enigma to Aira, and never more so than when it loomed and seemed more necessary than it had ever been before.

She planned an evening to rival the level of partying she had achieved during her college days. The evening’s festivities included her favorite bar, which hosted karaoke on the night of her birthday eve, a strip club, and an after-hours location she had only partied at rarely, but knew stayed open until almost dawn. Dylan and Aiden could handle her security, and she knew she didn’t need to worry about a ride home—Dylan was responsible enough to make sure they got home in one piece.

Aira thought it would be nice to invite Alex, if he didn’t turn out to be less interesting and charming in person than he was over the computer. She and Aiden would meet him two days before her birthday celebration, which should be ample time for him to clear his calendar and have the night free, if she decided she wanted him to be part of her revelry.

The four of them—Aiden, Aira, Alex, and his cousin Dolores—were going to meet for lunch. The prospect was very inviting, and Aira didn’t even need to consult her lust to know that a desire for intimate contact was very strong inside of her. She was tired of being careful, of avoiding her social life for fear of being attacked or kidnapped. She wanted to live a little, to enjoy herself.

Chapter 3

Aiden woke up in the middle of the night, frustratingly aware of the stillness of the apartment around him. In the days since being awakened abruptly by the sound of Aira’s screams, he had found himself repeatedly jolted from sleep with the anticipation of another crisis. He remembered coming into his full powers and the week before that birthday. He had told Aira about lighting his bed on fire twice, but he had not told her about what had provoked the fires. He wondered if he should talk to her about one of the side-effects of the power surging through her. He had experienced it himself. The lust he had felt starting a week before his full possession of fire abilities had never completely abated. He had learned to control it, to push it aside when it wasn’t convenient, but he knew it would take something very intense indeed to satisfy the desire he still felt.

The two times he had lit his bed on fire, he had been in a deep sleep. Dreaming. The first time, Aiden had found himself in the middle of an impassioned argument with a woman whose face was not quite clear to him; no matter how many times he recalled the dream, he could never remember what she looked like. When he tried to remember what had started their argument, he was never able to. The dream began in the midst of the argument, past the point where something as mundane as cause was irrelevant. He and the woman were shouting at each other for no real reason simply venting their frustration. In the dream, Aiden felt his anger transform into something else: pure, unadulterated lust. He had no idea what his connection with the woman in his dream was, but there was the suggestion that they were involved somehow—though the idea was vague. He reached out and grabbed her, silencing her words with a deep, passionate kiss. The woman in his arms froze for an instant in shock, and then her body relaxed against him. She responded, deepening the kiss as her hands explored his body.

The heat rose inside of Aiden. He knew he should be controlling himself, pushing it back, but her touch made it impossible for him to do anything but give his inner fire free reign. He began to peel her clothes off slowly, his hands too slow for what he wanted. With a rising sense of urgency he needed her naked immediately and in his arms, her skin pressed against his, every inch of their bodies touching. He wanted to be inside of the woman he had been arguing with just moments before, to feel her power surging through him; somehow he instinctively knew that she, like he, was an elemental.

He had just managed to get her naked, to touch her exposed skin, when the smell of smoke woke him out of the dream abruptly. Aiden’s eyes opened to flames rising around him, burning the sheets and the frame itself, digging into the mattress. He managed to contain the fire before it reached the walls or floor, but the bed had been utterly destroyed. The dream had remained with him. His desire for the woman he had been fighting with, their passion for each other, was something that still stimulated everything within him. It was exactly what Aiden wanted—a person who wasn’t afraid of him, a woman willing to stand up to him, who would fall into his arms when his mind shifted from frustration into lust. The woman he had been wanting his entire life, only available in his dreams.

The second dream had been similar. He had been dreaming of a woman whose face he couldn’t see—in this case, they weren’t fighting. He was comforting her. Aiden had never been fully comfortable with the prospect of extending comfort, but in the case of the woman in his dreams, he had put forth the effort, murmuring things that he couldn’t remember the next day, touching her and soothing her grief. He couldn’t remember what she was upset about, what it was that had caused her so much pain. But he knew that she trusted him—completely and totally—by the fact she was willing to cry in front of him. He had wrapped his arms around her, and she had turned to him, pressing her lips to his in an impulse he could completely understand. The kiss transformed from an expression of the woman’s need for comfort into something deeper; she was touching him everywhere, her warm tears rolling onto his face. Her hands, small and deft, slipped under his shirt, and Aiden knew that the kind of comfort she really wanted was something much more visceral and much less gentle than he had been giving her.

Once more, clothing was shed and both of them were touching each other, hungrily kissing every spot their lips could reach. Aiden had been so turned on it was agonizing, his whole body tense with anticipation of release. The smell of smoke had pulled him out of his deep sleep, and once more the bed had been destroyed. The incidents had since ceased, not because he had gained control of his abilities, but because Aiden’s dislike for lighting his bed on fire prompted him to wake up from the increasingly erotic dreams before they became so intense that his abilities kindled everything around him. He had never been able to recognize the woman in his dreams, but Aiden knew if he ever met her, he wouldn’t be able to handle himself. He would have to have her—he would have to win her, convince her that no other man would be able to give her what he could. Of course, remembering that resolution, he knew it would be a good idea to keep his fiery impulses under control to avoid lighting another bed on fire when, and if, he managed to win the woman of his dreams.