elemental 03 - whitecap (3 page)

“I’m worried about her,” Dylan said quietly, looking from the hallway Aira had just left through and back to Lorene. “She’s still so weak physically, and there’s so much power coursing through her—I don’t know how well she’ll be able to control it if she can’t get stronger physically.” 

Aiden pressed his lips together, nodding his agreement to the assessment. In truth, he thought Aira shouldn’t have been in a position to have to defend herself as she came into her full powers; she should have been deeply asleep shortly after midnight, instead of having adventurous sex with Alex, and then calling upon her new power to defeat him and Dolores. He knew that was at least partially his fault.

“The situation surrounding her transition is no one person’s fault,” Lorene said, looking at Aiden and then Dylan. “Both of you need to drop your feeling of guilt on that score. If you hadn’t been there, she would have likely been in the same situation—or a worse one. So stop it right now.” 

Aiden had his misgivings regarding that. He could have avoided Dolores’ advances, if he had wanted to or had the will to do so. Lorene sighed, and Aiden saw sadness and pain in her bright green eyes before she recovered her composure. 

“I’m worried about my granddaughter as well. Tell me honestly; have either of you seen her using her ability to compel more than she should?” Dylan shrugged.

“I’ve only seen her use it in specific situations—she used it on Alex twice, and then on Aiden to diffuse the situation when we went in there to separate him and Dolores.” 

Aiden nodded. “Of course, there’s a possibility that she’s compelled us without us knowing it,” he said with a grimace. 

Lorene shook her head. “Yes, but you’d know something was off—not necessarily what, but you’d have a feeling of things not quite adding up.” 

Aiden thought back to the morning of the big fight between the three of them and the two air elementals. He had tried to resist the compulsion Aira had thrown at him, but hadn’t been able to. In that moment, everything had seemed unreal, and he could remember his sense of confusion and fuzziness; he could never quite remember the few moments before she had used her persuasion against him. 

“However, I should teach both of you how to resist the ability nonetheless—just in case.” 

There was another odd look as Lorene glanced down at the table, and Aiden could tell the old woman was worried indeed. He wondered—and decided he did not want to know—what she knew about the situation that he did not. 

“Do you really think we’re in danger of Aira trying to use her persuasion against us?” Dylan asked, concerned. 

Aiden looked from his brother to Aira’s grandmother, worrying at his bottom lip. 

Lorene sighed. “I would hope she’s received enough training, enough morality, to not give in to the temptation. But she’s unstable, and I can see she’s going to remain unstable for…” Lorene glanced at both of them. “For a while yet. For your own protection, you should be able to fight off her ability to compel you.” Lorene stood stiffly, and Aiden wondered what had made such a great change in the woman who only a few months prior had been moving about without any trouble at all. The older woman refilled their cups. 

“One of you should go after Aira,” she said quietly, smiling faintly. “Her initial temper should have settled by now.” Aiden stood and Lorene chuckled. “Just don’t get her riled up again. I don’t know that I have the strength to pull her off the ceiling just now.” 

Dylan snickered as Aiden, refusing to dignify the comment with a response, turned and walked out of the house. Aiden looked around the property for several moments before he found Aira—up in her favorite tree, sitting on one of the still-wet branches. 

“If you’re coming here to tell me it’s understandable why my Grandma would ask you and Dylan questions about me as if I wasn’t there…” 

Aiden felt the wind picking up as Aira called down to him. 

“I’m not,” he replied, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace. “You going to come down or do I have to climb up?” 

Aira raised an eyebrow, a slight smile curving her lips. Aiden felt his heart lurch in his chest at the sight of the expression. He had found Aira attractive from the first time they met—objectively physically attractive. But after the first time he had helped rescue her, when they had made out on the floor and almost lost control in front of God and everyone, he had treated his attraction as though it were nitroglycerine. He fully supported Aira finding a mate to stabilize her, he told himself repeatedly. He almost hoped, on more than one occasion, that Dylan would be suitable; Dylan was stable, and his water-aligned influence would help quell Aira’s tendency to flightiness and her temper. But after Aira had fully come into her powers, her face and body had taken on a luminous quality, her eyes brighter and her hair darker than ever before, her skin glowing in a way that marked her as powerful and potent; it made it much more difficult for Aiden to ignore her beauty. 

“I could fly you up if you wanted,” she said playfully, her smile growing. Aiden shook his head slowly, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Have you ever flown someone else?” He asked her, fairly certain he knew the answer. 

Aira shrugged, a cavalier gesture. “How hard could it be? You’re kind of skinny anyway.” 

Aiden rolled his eyes, moving to the trunk of the tree. He looked up at the branches, thinking it had been over a year since he’d last climbed a tree—and then he had been in pursuit of a threat to one of his clients. 

“I’ll take the normal route, thank you. But be ready to catch me or something.” Aiden climbed up, making his way slowly to the thinner branches where Aira was perched. He slipped and almost fell when he reached the halfway point, struggling to regain his balance; he felt a breeze pushing against him, holding him up slightly until he managed to find his footing once more. Aiden picked a branch adjacent to where Aira was seated, watching him. Aiden realized as he got closer that she was tired—that was part of the reason she had stayed up in the tree for so long. She didn’t have the energy to bring herself back down safely. 

“So,” Aira said, straightening and fixing her gaze on him. “What kind of unstable super-villain am I supposed to be becoming?” Aiden felt the subtlest of pushes against his mind—more a suggestion than a compulsion, and he laughed.

“Well, she’s worried about you, you know that,” he said, relaxing as best as he could against the trunk of the tree. “You have to admit that you still need work on controlling your powers. I mean, if you deny it, it’s going to make people antsy.” 

Aira shrugged, shifting uncomfortably on the branch. 

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’d probably be better off with a mate.” 

Aira stood, turning partly away from Aiden. “I know that,” she said, and Aiden was surprised at the vehemence he heard in her voice. “But how am I supposed to pick a mate when apparently a bunch of people have all kinds of ulterior motives about marrying me that I have no idea about?” The wind began to rise, and Aiden gripped the tree tightly, thinking ruefully that even when he was actively trying not to make the woman angry, he managed to set her off. “I mean, I don’t even know why my Grams is so important to everyone! I’ve been left out of everything, sheltered and coddled, and now I have to cope with all of this when I really just… I just want everything to go back to the way it was before. I’m so tired.”

Aiden carefully climbed onto the branch with Aira, glancing down nervously at it; it didn’t seem likely it would hold them both, but while he was not the most diplomatic person when it came to words, he did have an instinctive knowledge of when a woman needed physical contact. He reached out with one arm and draped it around Aira’s shoulders. 

“I know. I know you’re tired. At least while you’re here you can relax a bit.” Aira sighed, leaning against him, making their position all the more precarious. Aiden felt a surge of heat through his body and swallowed against the sudden constriction of his throat. 

“Let’s get out of this tree before you fall and I have to save you,” Aira said. Her voice didn’t quite have the same playful quality it had before, but Aiden laughed anyway, holding her tightly against him and trying not to feel the surge of lust flowing through his body at the contact.

“So fly us down, bird-girl.”

C
HAPTER
3

AIRA WOKE UP THE NEXT morning, feeling the surge that accompanied the time of day when the powers of air were most potent. It wasn’t like the power surges she had experienced when she was coming into her powers. This was a milder sensation, a subtly erotic body-wide tingling. She squirmed, wishing briefly she was at home. Aira had hoped her lust would abate when she came fully into her powers—but instead it had remained a constant. She had even found herself remembering, in vivid detail, the way Aiden had felt when he had pinned her to the floor, kissing her in the brief moment they had shared. She reminded herself firmly—and repeatedly—that she was not actually interested in Aiden. She was interested in sexual gratification, and Aiden and Dylan were the only two men she had been around for two weeks.

Aira drew a deep breath, listening to the wind outside and focusing her mind on it instead of on the warm yet cool tingles dancing up and down her limbs and the banking fire she felt deep inside. She couldn’t even get relief from the basic arousal she felt; it would feel too strange to touch herself under her grandmother’s roof. Aira went into the meditative state her grandmother had taught her, orienting herself with her element, feeling the power coursing through her body and influencing the air around her. She brought the wind down to a draft, breathing slowly and steadily, and patterning the wind after her breath. If she just waited long enough, she thought, the feeling of erotic need would pass, and she would be fine.

After several moments the sensations began to abate, becoming a low, though constant humming she felt in her bones. Aira knew she needed an outlet for all of the energy coursing through her; her grandmother had found her outlet in cooking, healing, and gardening—tasks uniquely aligned to her element. If she ever hoped to find stability, Aira knew she would need to find similar outlets. She thought wryly if she could leave her house, or do anything other than her translation work, she might have a better chance of figuring out ways to vent her nervous energy.

She got out of bed, slipping into pajama pants; she had slept in her underwear and a tee shirt, but it was certainly not attire she needed to be walking around in. Aira knew her grandmother would object to it—especially if either Dylan or Aiden were awake. The smell of coffee and breakfast greeted her when she opened the door to her bedroom.  She closed her eyes, breathing in the heavenly aroma and smiling. As she walked through the hall leading into the kitchen and dining area of the house, she heard Dylan speaking with her grandmother, asking questions about some process. 

“How do you do the pulling?” he had asked, as Aira stepped out of the hallway. Dylan was seated at the table in a tee shirt and pajama pants, both of them baggy on him, obscuring the shape of his lean body. Aira was surprised to find herself slightly disappointed; Dylan had a nice-looking body. She sat down at the table, unwilling to interrupt the lesson clearly going on.

“You’ve got a good handle on pushing—I could see that immediately. Pulling requires a little more focus, but I think you can learn it quickly.” Aira’s grandmother looked up and greeted her with a smile, pointing to the coffee pot to indicate Aira should serve herself. 

Aira stood and poured a cup of coffee, fascinated by the information her grandmother was imparting to a fellow water elemental. 

“When you’re pulling the pain or illness out of a person, you have to think of it like drinking it in—like a glass of water you’re taking in through a straw.” As her grandmother stirred a pot of grits meditatively, Aira doctored her coffee and sat down, sipping it.

“Tell me the incantation again,” Dylan said. Aira’s grandmother pronounced it slowly, and Aira was surprised—as she always was—at the sensual tone of the water-based spell. All of the water spells had a subtly erotic flavor to them, she thought, remembering the various words she had heard her grandmother recite in the elemental language. Her grandmother had managed to find books of the air-aligned language with which to teach Aira incantations, but she knew if she had grown up in an exclusively air-oriented family, she would have had more teaching in that area. Dylan murmured the words in a quiet tone, focusing on getting the pronunciation right. Aira knew Dylan was keen to learn more about healing—he was intrigued by that aspect of his alignment, more so even than the possibilities of attack and defense that came along with water. 

As if on cue, when her grandmother finished bringing the meal to the table, Aiden appeared. 

“Never late to a meal, are you bro?” Dylan said, smirking. Aiden wore pajama pants but no shirt, and Aira forced herself to look away from his lean chest and toned stomach, to ignore the sudden welling of lust she felt. 

“Hasn’t caught up with me yet,” Aiden responded, pouring himself coffee and sitting down next to Aira. She was uncomfortably aware of the heat that radiated from him, and shifted to the side slightly, trying to get her incipient lust under control. As they ate, Aira’s grandmother told the two brothers she needed them to run an errand for her; Aira knew by the diplomatic tone her grandmother had information for her ears only—she was likely to get a lesson and much more before the two men returned. 

“You’re sure you’ll both be safe?” Aiden asked. 

Aira almost chuckled at the look her grandmother settled on the fire elemental.

“The day that I’m not adequately able to protect myself and my granddaughter on my own property is the day I’m dead and cold,” she said, haughty and proud. “Dylan knows the plants I’m looking for,” she said in a different tone, glancing with affection at the younger of the two brothers. 

With the meal finished, Aira cleared the table while the brothers got dressed to leave. She felt anxious, worried about what her grandmother might tell her. As soon as Dylan and Aiden were gone, her grandmother sat down at the table, looking down at her hands for a long moment. Aira joined her grandmother, waiting patiently. She knew whatever it was the older woman had to say, it was important.