Lost Causes (19 page)

“I can think of a reason or two.” I moved forward.

Eila didn’t sputter or ask questions. She blinked at me, as if uncertain how I could be there when I was also on top of the mountain with her other food. “It is you.”

I’d expected Mac to relax once he heard me, but instead he struggled harder. He forced both hands under her inflexible arms and pushed. When that yielded no results, both hands changed into paws. He dug sharp nails into her flesh.

Eila disappeared, only to reform next to me. “You,” she repeated. This time, it was an accusation. “I tire of your interference.”

“Well, I tire of your face.” I brushed past her and crouched in front of Mac. He’d already swung his legs around so that he was sitting upright and was ready to move—or pounce—as necessary. “You okay?”

His fingers grasped mine, a rough touch. “I felt you coming when I started to heal. It had to be that. Otherwise…” He couldn’t finish.

Otherwise, it meant I was dead, our bond permanently severed. The only time Mac was free of our connection was when my magic was silenced—and death was a pretty permanent way to do that.

“Not an option.” I pushed a spark of power into him, strengthening our connection and giving him the energy to stand upright. After another minute of feeding our bond, he appeared recovered. If it wasn’t for the unwashed hair and sweat-dampened clothes, no one would believe he’d been tapping on death’s door only minutes before.

He scanned my body, performing a similar assessment. “You look the same, except dirtier. The cure?”

I glanced back at Eila. “Needs to be renegotiated.”

“That is unnecessary.” Eila kept her distance from us, though her ever-changing eyes watched our every move.

“I disagree,” I said. “You gave me a few days to think and a fair bit of new information to process. Now, I can’t say I understand it all, but I know a little more than I did before I went up the mountain.”

“What do you believe you have learned?” Eila’s voice didn’t change from its usual music, but the words sounded more alien in her mouth than they had before, as if she needed to reach harder for her humanity. Her face gave nothing away.

I looked past her. Sera had joined us.

“I know you need to feed off elementals, though I don’t know what happens if you miss a meal.” I paused for an answer, though I didn’t expect one. “I know you say giving up half my power is the cure, but I also know that if I hand over my fire side, you’ll need to replace me with the next strongest fire—who happens to be my sister. Somehow, that didn’t come up before. One might accuse you of negotiating in bad faith.”

This time, Eila’s face was a little easier to read. The black eyes and dark curling hair were a pretty decent hint.

“So if I’ve got this right, the old deal gave you half my magic, a new elemental food source, a vague promise to be allowed off the island sometime before the apocalypse, and a night with my boyfriend. That’s a crappy deal. If we took it, Luke and I might have our sanity, but we’d be broken in a whole new way. I’m glad we didn’t shake hands or do anything that would cause me to feel obligated to keep that deal, cause I’m about to break it.”

Eila grew several inches taller. I rushed through the last of my speech before I either chickened out or she flung me so far into the Pacific I could see Tokyo. “You get one of those things.” I looked at both Mac and Sera, certain they’d agree but needing confirmation. “You either get a new elemental plaything, a night with a shifter, or you get to devour my magic. In return, you heal Luke by fusing his threads together. Then you do the same for me, assuming you don’t choose to consume my fire. That’s the deal. No taking half our power and calling it a cure. We’re duals, and we’re going to remain duals. You heal us and we’ll give you something in return. Whatever you choose, you let us leave the island with the next sunrise. What’ll it be?”

The three of us had spent months arguing over who got to be noble and self-sacrificing. Nothing like putting your money where your mouth was.

Eila was dangerous and horrifying and probably three thousand other negative adjectives I didn’t have time to list, but as far as I could tell, she wasn’t a liar. In her own way, she’d kept her promises. We just hadn’t been careful enough when extracting them from her. I hoped I’d done a better job.

And if I hadn’t… well, there was always the backup plan.

I did my best to picture boring items. Beige paint chips. Vanilla custard. Seventies progressive rock. Anything to prevent my face from showing my actual thoughts as Eila sorted through my proposition.

“This is my island. You do not offer me choices.”

“And yet that’s what’s happening. You don’t have many options. Either you take our power, or we lose control, or you heal us. We have to agree to the first one unless we’re weak, and I’m feeling pretty damn strong right now. Keeping our powers dampened indefinitely will require putting tons of energy into the land. That seems like a lot of work. And if we lose control…well, maybe you could stop us, but who knows what damage we’ll do first? It could be Godzilla versus San Francisco levels of bad.”

Eila didn’t move while she considered my argument. “I do not understand what that means. I will kill you now.”

“Okay, there is that option. But if you choose it, you won’t get your night with the shifter, cause that whole willing thing is obviously important. You’ll lose Sera, because trust me, if you kill her sister, that woman will starve herself before she’ll feed you a single ounce of power. You’ll get nothing. Is that what you want?”

I held my breath. That was all I had. The thin belief that Eila desired one of us so much she’d surrender a fraction of her control. We’d soon learn if I was wrong—or at least our next of kin would.

Eila’s eyes settled on Mac, hungry as ever. “I will have the shifter.”

He sighed with relief. “It’s a single night,” he said. “Better than Sera being food or you being torn in two. It’ll be okay.”

I agreed, but only because I’d been ninety-nine percent sure that would be her choice. “Done. Now cure Luke.” I pointed to the far edge of camp. Luke was stumbling toward us, still weak. He hadn’t stopped to heal himself.

Thankfully, he was alone. I suspected seeing all her food following him like the Pied Piper would have led to further contract negotiations.

“Afterwards.” Eila hadn’t removed her gaze from Mac.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” I watched her carefully. It was only there for a second. If I hadn’t been anticipating it, I’d have missed it. Fear.

I’d long assumed elementals’ emotions came from our human halves rather than the magic. After meeting Eila, I was beginning to question that. Perhaps the world really had been built on love and fear and desire. It would explain a few things.

“Very well.” The words were the sound of waves crashing. They contained only the barest hint of humanity. Eila undulated the ground, drawing Luke toward us. When he was closer, she began her assault.

My friend fell to the ground, though this time he didn’t scream. I didn’t think he could. His back arched and he threw his head back, and for several moments he shook uncontrollably. The pain was short-lived. Soon, the agony in his face melted, replaced with an expression I could only call bliss. His beatific smile suggested nothing but peace.

Before Luke opened his eyes, he flew through the air a hundred feet above us. An enormous wave caught him mid-air and dragged him backwards. In seconds, Luke was no longer on the island.

“He can swim, right?” Sera asked.

There was no time to answer her. No time to celebrate that my theory was correct. Eila already moved toward me, and with no warning, I was unmade.

CHAPTER 20

I
was a full-blooded elemental. Fire and water might coil in my core, but magic lived in each cell of my body.

Eila gripped every drop of power I possessed and ripped it from its moorings. With each tear, my anguish increased. This wasn’t the drug, silencing my power. This was violence, an assault on everything that made me what I was.

Luke’s expression had transitioned from torment to peace within a minute.

Perhaps Luke really was insane.

This was the cure I’d crossed deserts and oceans to find. I’d fought and begged and connived my way to this moment. I should be celebrating.

Instead, I panicked. Eila grasped both threads and pulled them one way and then the other, stretching them like taffy, then compressing them into a tight ball. She was like a child playing with a new toy, except when I managed to crack my eyes long enough to see her, her face contained no innocence. It was focused and hard, only a step below cruel.

Magic was birth and creation, but it was also death and destruction.

There was a viciousness to her touch I hadn’t seen when she cured Luke, and rising paranoia demanded I fight back. I wrenched my power toward me, desperate to reclaim it.

It didn’t matter how fiercely I struggled to keep it. It was tug-of-war between a professional football player and a toddler.

With a final yank, she separated my magic from my body. The threads were loose, no longer tethered to my core. Rocks dug into my shoulders, and that was how I knew I’d collapsed to the ground.

Keening filled the night, an unearthly sound coming from my own throat. My face was soaked with tears. I was a fraction of a person, sliced into sharp pieces that didn’t know how to work together. The magic connected my bones and muscles and organs as much as my blood and nerves did. I couldn’t function without it. It was like asking a human to live without their heart.

Already, my blood slowed with nothing to push it through my veins. Gaps appeared between my heartbeats, each longer than the one before.

Eila paid me no attention as I forced air into lungs unwilling to expand. Her fingers made small, steady movements, as if conducting an unseen orchestra.

They ceased moving, but my magic wasn’t returned.

“Not possible.” She pointed at Mac and hauled him closer, using the earth to drag his feet toward her. She released him just out of my reach. He tried to get to me, but the earth tightened around his ankles.

Mac’s eyes willed me to live. I’d do anything for him, but that request might be beyond my control.

We watched each other, and I saw the moment he began his own fight. Oblivion called, but I resisted. I forced my eyes open, though it was the only movement I could still make.

“Not possible,” Eila repeated. “You must give it to me.”

Mac shook his head, his jaw locked.

She’d found it. The residual water that lived inside him, entangled with his own shifter power. The part missing from the threads she twisted between her hands.

“Do,” I managed, my tongue heavy. We’d tried to retrieve that small piece once before, but the bear living inside him refused.

“I can’t,” he managed.

Eila’s coloring sped up, cycling through each element in the space of a single second. “He is yours,” she accused. “You have tainted him.”

Mac’s face relaxed the moment Eila stopped her exploration.

“I cannot finish.” She waved a hand, dismissing both of us. “She will not be complete. It matters not. His animal is weakened. It protects the girl instead of himself. I have no use for such a creature.”

“You promised.” My voice disappeared on the last syllable.

“As did the shifter. We both spoke words without meaning.”

Mac’s roar suggested he wasn’t impressed by her argument, and the enormous black bear that appeared in place of the man seemed to agree. The grasping ground released him as his feet became paws.

Eila did nothing, too fascinated to move.

Mac charged. A moment before he reached her, she dispersed, leaving him with nothing to attack. He lumbered around, as fast as a seven-foot bear could move, but it would never be fast enough.

I tried to hang on, but sometimes determination and denial aren’t enough. If there were any tears left, I’d have cried then, knowing I was leaving Mac and Sera alone, but even that was beyond me. My eyes drifted shut.

It should have been my end, but magic had other plans.

Power slammed into me, and I woke with a gasp.

Eila was distracted. All her attention was on Mac fighting to reach her, and her gaze was more covetous than bothered. The threads she’d toyed with and bent and eventually sewn together had been forgotten, and they did what magic always does. They returned home.

I stretched every part of my body, down to the tips of my fingers and toes, letting the muscles and bones and blood return to life as power filled them.

I’d known strength before. Both sides of my magic were impressive on their own, and when I combined them I thought I was the most powerful creature alive.

That was a fraction of what I felt now. The fire and water were a single piece, no longer writhing against each other but connected, fused together until I couldn’t tell one from the other.

I howled my victory to the night. The surrounding trees burst into flames, the fire so hot they were incinerated in moments.

A wave followed, twenty feet high. It crashed over everyone, drenching Eila. I found Luke swimming toward us and pulled him to shore.

The residents who’d been woken by the noise stopped halfway to us, watching from a safe distance.

This wasn’t the cold madness I’d known before. This was hot and angry.

I couldn’t burn Eila or drown her. I doubted she could be physically harmed, but I could destroy her home. I could burn their trees, flood their camp. I could hold every last person in my grip and send them to safety on another island.

They could be free. We all could.

As quickly as the power arrived, it settled. My knees buckled and I fell to the earth, my human side too weak. It seemed even a cured dual needed a few minutes to recover from a short case of death. I reached for the surrounding water and burning embers, needing to heal myself. Destruction of a psychotic first’s home needed to drop down the priority list for a while.

Eila forced the water back to the ocean and extinguished any remaining flames. The wave grasped Luke as it slid past the beach and hauled him back out to sea. Like that, the chaos stopped.

“She lives. She is almost whole.” Though Eila watched me, the words were meant for Mac. “Shift.”

“What do you mean, almost?” Sera sounded like Eila could tell her the sky was blue and she’d still be suspicious of anything the creature said.

“I mean she is not whole.” Eila was confused, as if the explanation should be self-evident. “The bear keeps the rest.”

Mac shifted in a hurry. Eila’s gaze locked on his naked form.

He gathered the remnants of his torn clothes and wrapped them around his waist. “Is this true, Aidan?”

I managed a shrug. “I feel pretty damn complete. Also, alive and sane. If I’m not struggling after the whole tsunami and bonfire combo, I think we’re doing okay.”

Eila ignored me. “She cannot be whole. The bonding was incomplete.”

I checked the cord, looking for any holes or gaps. The fusion was flawless, the two magics inseparable.

Then I found it. It was minuscule, a tiny section of fire missing the matching water that resided in Mac’s core. It was a loose thread, one I instinctively knew I must never pull.

“I’ll be okay,” I reassured Mac and Sera.

As soon as I spoke, I knew it was true. My magic didn’t rule me. I controlled it, and I wouldn’t touch that forbidden strand. I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name.

I stood. My legs were unsteady, but they held. “Now we get to leave.”

Eila’s attention was completely fixed on Mac. “They may depart. Though incomplete, she has deemed the cure acceptable. I did not lie. You cannot lie, either.”

“I thought I was tainted,” he reminded her. “You didn’t want me.”

“I was incorrect.” The word sounded especially foreign in her mouth. “You possess the wildness of a shifter. She has not ruined you.”

“Have so,” I muttered.

“The agreement was made. You will come with me.”

Mac laughed, a short bark with no humor. “We spoke words without meaning, remember?”

Her eyes flashed black. “You believe it is your choice.”

His smile contained a hint of amusement. “I know it is. Unless you want an unwilling partner?”

Eila exploded, unable to contain her rage, then reformed an inch from Mac. She was as tall as he was, pitch black eyes meeting his brown ones. “You agreed. You agreed.” She spoke as if the repetition was enough to make it true.

“Perhaps you’ve told us the whole truth, but I don’t believe you.” He narrowed his eyes. “Let them go. Aidan and Sera, Luke. Everyone in the camp who wants to leave. Let them go, and give them enough time to get away from you, however far that is. When you’ve done that, you will have what you want.”

“I accept.” She answered before he even finished speaking, flitting backwards. She no longer felt the need to loom over him.

“No, no, no.” She couldn’t have accepted his offer. It meant giving up everything—all her pets, all her food. We’d been so damn close. “Hell no. It’s done, Mac. I’m good. Cured. See? Sane as a… really sane thing.” I swallowed. “You can’t stay.”

Mac looked at me. His eyes held no doubt. “We got what we came for. This is the final cost. It’s not even that high, and it will get us off the island. You really think we’ll all make it by fighting our way off?”

“We’re going to try,” I argued. I would argue until the volcano below us rose to the surface before I let him follow through on that offer.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

I trusted him more than I trusted the sun to rise, but I didn’t trust her. I knew with a bone-deep certainty that if I left Mac with Eila, I’d never see him again.

Good thing I had another plan.

“Right back at you.” I told him. “You’ve got to trust me, too. Did you really think I’d offer a deal where you spending a night with someone else was an option?”

I gave him what I hoped was a confident smile. It was time to test the theory I’d formed on my race down the mountain.

After all, there had to be a reason Eila was afraid to cure Luke, and a reason she’d flung him into the ocean the minute his power was fused. Deborah and Michael hadn’t even been allowed to set foot on the island. She kept the strongest elementals as food sources, but none of them were fulls.

Somehow, fulls were Eila’s weakness.

I’d been two halves. Now I was a full. One she’d allowed to stay a few minutes too long because of her desire for Mac—and her belief that I wouldn’t figure this out so soon.

My strength built, the same irresistible energy I’d felt before. Sera’s fire kindled and stretched toward me, her magic augmenting my own.

I’d planned to assault Eila, but Sera’s touch distracted me. Behind us, the camp began to burn, though I was careful and gave the residents plenty of time to gather their few belongings and get to safety. They were already awake, drawn by our noise. No one would be harmed. I’d make sure of it.

There was only one woman on this island who needed to die.

But I didn’t know how to kill her. She was pure magic, and magic had been around since the dawn of creation. I had no idea if it could be destroyed.

Still holding Sera’s fire, I called to the ocean. I was feeling pretty damn immortal myself at that moment. I fueled the wave with a glorious burst of power and slammed every part of a full’s strength against Eila. The first creature staggered under the assault, inhuman eyes widening. I was almost too astounded by my success to plan another attack. Eila struggled to recover from my assault.

She feared fulls because they could damage her.

My victory was short-lived. Eila stood, and with eyes dark as flint, she gathered her own power, everything she’d been given at her creation and everything she’d stolen from others, and she attacked in turn. The ground beneath my and Sera’s feet erupted, launching us into the air. Eila’s grin was pure malevolence. It was both the least and most human expression I’d ever seen on her face.

I struck, flames and waves battering her from every side. Nothing slowed her.

Ice shards encircled me and Sera. Sharp points stabbed us again and again, dozens of tiny wounds. I healed as fast as she cut me, and I melted the deadliest shards, but I was growing distracted, spending too much time defending when I needed to attack.

“You ask me to lower myself.” Her voice echoed. It sounded like the night itself spoke to us. “You play with agreements you do not keep. You believe you can trick me. You dare believe you can control a force older than the stars above us. You are nothing to me, and only when you become mine will your pale lives be given meaning.”

“Eila.” It was the first time Mac used her name. It was his final attempt at seduction.

She didn’t even look at him. “Someday, you will come to me, shifter, and you will beg me to take you, because that is the only way you will ever join your incomplete woman.”

Incomplete. Missing a piece. Not whole.

Cold understanding hit me like a slap to the face. I’d based this entire plan on whatever mystical control fulls held over Eila—and I wasn’t a full. I was ninety-nine point nine percent elemental, but so long as Mac carried that final piece, it wasn’t enough.

I’d made a huge mistake. We were going to lose.

Eila retrieved all the magic at her disposal and gathered it to her. Her hands circled each other, creating a smaller and smaller ball. As she touched each thread, she grew more solid, her body appearing to be formed of flesh and bone like the rest of us.

When she was done, an orb of pure magic hovered in the air. She didn’t need to chuck it at us like a pitcher. She only needed to will it toward our bodies. Our human halves would be ripped apart, releasing pure magic. Magic that Eila would claim forever.

For the second time that day, I prepared to face death.