Treasure of the Fire Kingdom (The Elemental Phases Book 4) (22 page)

“Humans
aren’t poisonous.”  Satour muttered.

“Yes,
they are.”  Djinn nodded.  “They go rabid and everything.”

“That’s
dogs, dad.”

“Don’t
interrupt.”  Alder ordered.  “So Teja comes in and Sullivan goes –like-- ‘cartoon
birds around his head’ time.”

“Meaning?” 
Qadesh’s hair was cinched back with a red skull-and-crossbones print bandana
that Hope had given him.  That was the only part of his body easily visible as
he settled himself into the deepest shadows of the room.

“
Meaning
he took one look at Tej and he was fucking head-over-heels.  In love one
hundred and twenty percent.”   For once, no one complained about the swearing. 
They all seemed fascinated.  Alder smirked, satisfied by his audience’s
reaction.  “That half-breed cop is. her.
Match
.”

Teja
squeezed her eyes shut.

“Oh
God…
poor
Sullivan.”  Tessie repeated sadly.

“You
found your Match, Tej?”  Djinn looked over at her in astonishment.  “And he’s a
Wood
Phase?
  That’s really the best you could do?”

“Shut-up.” 
She hissed.  “He’s not my Match.  We don’t know that.  This is all…”

“Bullshit! 
You could feel the energy, too.  I could tell.”  Alder glanced back over at the
others.  “Here’s how it went, right?  I’m the cop.”  His tone went Cletus the
Slack-jawed Yokel-ish.  “Wow.  Look at the pretty girl.”

“
He
did not fucking say that!
”  Teja roared.

Frankie
and Missy made identical “shhhh!” sounds.

“Now,
I’m Teja.”  Alder’s voice got higher and more robotic.  The little wiseass. 
“Oh, shit.  It’s my Match.  Better run.”

Teja
had
actually said that.  At least, the “Oh shit” part.  The rest she’d
just
thought
.

One
look at Sullivan Pryce and she’d… panicked.

The
Fire House usually knew instantly when they’d found the right person and Teja
had apparently inherited that skill.  There wasn’t a doubt in Teja’s mind that
Sullivan Pryce was hers.

It
was unacceptable.

Teja
didn’t
want
a Match.  She had all she could handle with Djinn and the
others slipping past her icy guards.  A Match would destroy her.  Everything
frozen inside of her, everything that protected her from that kind of pain,
rebelled at the very idea of Sullivan.

“Every
other female in the realm wants to Phaze with Sebastian the human guy and the
Fire
House
gets him without even trying.”  Pele smiled smugly.  “Damn, we’re
good.”

“His
name is Sullivan and he’s
not
my Match!”  If she kept saying it, maybe
she could somehow fix this disaster.  “I don’t have a Match and, if I did, it
wouldn’t be him.”

God,
just the idea made her feel lightheaded.

Having
a human for a Match was terrifying.  Like suddenly being responsible for
carting a Faberge egg across an atomic testing ground.  Humans were breakable. 
Vulnerable.  So damn easy to kill that it would be a constant waking nightmare
to permanently tie herself to one.  Sullivan was vulnerable to everything from
Ebola, to machine guns, to tornadoes.  When Sullivan inevitably died of some
stupid human-made disaster, it would destroy her, too.

She
couldn’t do this.

Wouldn’t
do it.

“So
ya finally found a Match, huh?  Where’s he at?”  Frankie looked around like
Teja might have been hiding the guy.

“He’s
still in the cop station back in humanland.”  Alder made a disgusted face. 
“Let me tell you
that
part of the story.  I’m her, again.”  He adopted
his “Teja” voice.  “‘Alder, we’re leaving.  Break the fucking chair and let’s
go.’”  Alder hesitated.  “See, I’d been handcuffed to the chair with plastic
restraints.”

“Before
or after the part with the bazooka?”  Satour deadpanned.

Alder
ignored that and pointed to his own chest.  “Now, I’m me and I pull the arm off
the chair so we can leave.  Only I’m trying to reason with her.  ‘Honey,
wait.’  I plead.  ‘Do you realize what the energy means?  It’s like a wonderful
miracle from Gaia.’  And
Teja
goes, ‘I don’t care what you say, I’m
going to ruin my life.  So
there
.’  And
I
go, ‘Please reconsider
this terrible decision and open your mind to love.’”

Teja
saw red at that pack of lies.  “You said, and I quote, ‘Oh God, Tej, you can’t
Phaze with a
human
.  They’re all germy.’”

“They
are.”  Djinn concurred seriously.  “Rabies.”

Satour
sighed.  “Still dogs, Dad.”

“Hey,
I’m
half human.”  Tessie snapped.  “And isn’t Hope probably half human,
too?  She’s just like Sullivan, only the Elemental parts are more dominant in
her.”

“Hope’s
a Fire Phase!”  Half the room roared.

“Look,
I
think
I remember what I said, Teja.”  Alder rolled his eyes.  “So
anyway then the cop starts in on how I was still under arrest.”  His voice went
slow and dumb again, with a hint of Sullivan’s human accent tossed in.  “‘I
don’t care if Sophia Loren’s here for you or not, Alder, you’re not going
anywhere until you post your bail.”

That
part was actually verbatim.  Alder even captured the way Sullivan had tilted
his face to hide the scar on his cheek when he spoke.

Teja
had no idea why Sullivan would do that.  The scar was super attractive.

Elementals
didn’t get warrior’s marks very often, so they were always an exotic turn-on. 
No wonder so many Phases headed to Mayport Beach, hoping that that human would
be their Match.  Even if the world
hadn’t
been within sight of the
finish line… even if this one man
couldn’t
help postpone the extinction
of an Elemental House… even if he
wasn’t
a vital key in helping the
universe survive… he’d
still
be a great catch.

Sullivan
Pryce was really, really gorgeous.

Plus,
he’d been giving off some kind of energy.  Teja felt it radiating out from him,
although no one else seemed to notice.  The guy was more than just a human. 
Whatever Elemental DNA Parson had passed to his grandchildren, it was stronger
in Sullivan than it was in Melanie. 
Much
stronger.  Teja felt his
dormant energy, even with the distance separating them.

Her
body had warmed and her pulse sped up, her powers tuning so they could try to
brush against Sullivan’s… and she’d known that she had to get away from him
before she was lost.

Emotions
that she forgotten how to feel, suddenly threatened to break free.  Beneath the
ice in her chest, her heart had started pounding.  She couldn’t have that. 
Couldn’t go back to feeling things.

This
time it really would kill her.

“Now,
Ty
gets in on it.”  Alder continued.  “She’s all, “Blah-bity, blah,
blah, blah.  Oooh, the Water House just loves you soooo much, Sullivan.’  And
then Gion starts –like-- crying,
begging
me not to leave him there in
the police station alone with the human.”

“He’s
such a pansy.”  Djinn murmured.

Tessie
pinched the bridge of her nose.  “I think we’re gonna need to go to the instant
replay on that one.”

“Hey,
that’s totally what happened.”  Alder insisted.  “Meanwhile, Teja’s dropping a
stack of that paper money on the human’s desk and already marching back out the
door, shouting at me to move my ass.  She doesn’t even say anything to
Sullivan.”

That
last part was true.

Teja
had no idea how much she’d thrown onto Sullivan’s desk.  She’d been too upset
to count it out or ask him about what bail was set at.  Most Elementals kept
human currency lying around, in case of emergency.  The Wood House could make
the stuff, so it was easy enough to get.  Freeing Alder had probably cost about
around fifteen grand, since there’d been three stacks of money and it usually
got dispensed in five thousand dollar bundles.

She
would have happily paid a hundred times that to get out of there faster.

“So,
the human’s staring after Teja like an abandoned puppy on the side of the road,
not even looking at the cash.”  Alder went on.  “And
Ty’s
going, ‘Alder,
you have to talk to her.  Even I can feel the energy between them.  I won’t
allow Sullivan to be hurt.  Yappity, yap, yap, yap.’  And I’m like, ‘Hey, if
the human is her Match, he’s a
Fire Phase
.  It’s none of your business
what we do with him, so stay the hell out of it.’  And then fucking
Gion
starts getting in my face, for some reason.”

“The
guy is such a hothead.”  Pele rolled her eyes.  “He’s always been that way.”

“I
know, right?”  Alder shrugged expansively.  “It was crazy.  He starts coming at
me and then Ty gets between us and then the cop steps into protect
her
.”

Teja
frowned at that.

“And
I’m like --Shit!-- What’s their problem?”  Alder’s tone went righteously
offended.  “
I’m
not gonna do anything to Ty. 
I
was never an Air
House bad guy or a crazy damn human.  I’m a Fire Phase and we look out for the
useless people in this world.  We always have.  If it wasn’t for us, the whole
lot of ‘em would have been picked off centuries ago, right?”

Everyone
nodded in agreement.

“They’re
all sooooo ungrateful.”  Missy mused.

Alder
gave his “last sane man in the world” sigh.  “So I’m saying to them –real
nicely--‘Back the fuck off, ya bastards.’  And the cop’s like, ‘Leave, Alder,
before I come to my senses and book you for something else.’  So, I’m –like--
fine
. 
I’ll take the highroad, because that’s just what I do, ya know?”

“Very
classy.”  Missy nodded.

“Hey,
I’m all about being the bigger man.  So, I’m headed for the door and the cop goes,
‘Wait.’  And I’m thinking ‘Shit, why won’t he just let me go, already?  I’m
really am gonna hafta kill him, aren’t I?  And then Teja’s gonna get on my case
big time.’  I mean, you can imagine what an ordeal that would be for me.”

“Don’t
kill him.”  The words were out before Teja could stop them.

Everyone
in the room turned to look at her.

Teja’s
mouth thinned.  “Just nobody…
touch
Sullivan Pryce.”

Qadesh
arched a brow.

Satour
made a face.

Pele
gave a “huh” sound.

“The
kid’s Parson, of the Wood House’s grandson.”  Frankie absently tossed his sword
in the air like a baton and caught it one handed.  “Probably, be a hard one to
kill, anyhow.”

“I
can kill
anybody
.”  Djinn said confidently.

Teja
leveled a flat stare at him.

Djinn’s
eyes rolled skyward.  “But, I
won’t
,
okay?  God, finding love is
totally not making you any cheerier, Tej.  When I finally met Pele, I was
happy
.”

“You
set my house on Fire, D.”

“Yeah,
but that’s ‘cause you wouldn’t talk to me, at first.”  He leaned down to kiss
her.  “It was a fire that came for a happy, loving place.”

Pele
grinned.  “I was totally playing hard to get, wasn’t I?  You were fun to
tease.”

“My
Match chained me from the ceiling during
our
courtship.”  Frankie said
cheerfully.  “
That’s
romance.”

Tessie’s
face was going to get stuck in that disbelieving expression if she kept it up. 
Clearly, the Quintessence didn’t understand Love Fire House Style.  If there
wasn’t some kind of kidnapping or bondage involved, you were doing something
wrong.

“Can
I finish my story here?”  Alder complained.  “Pay attention, already.  So the
cop’s telling me not to leave, yet.  And I always try to be law-abiding, so I
obediently stop and I ask, ‘What now, jackass?’  Because, I’m respecting the
fact that this moron is now kinda related to me, ya know?”

Missy
nodded earnestly, looking like a kid hearing a fairytale at bedtime.

“Sullivan’s
not a moron.”  Teja snapped.  “He arrested
you
pretty easily, it seems.”

“Hey,
there was extenuating circumstances to that.”  Alder jabbed a finger at her. 
“Don’t interrupt.  So, –like-- a whole minute goes by and I think the cop’s
forgotten how to talk or something.  But,
finally
he clears his throat
and kinda sighs at the same time and goes, ‘Just tell me… what’s her name?’”

Teja’s
frozen heart lurched.

Alder
shrugged.  “And then I left and that was the end of it.”

Missy
gave him a round of applause.  “Oooooh.  I
liked
that story.  Next time
you should add a giraffe to it.”

“Giraffes
really do have rabies.”  Frankie announced wisely.  “Believe me, I know.”

Tessie
gave her head an “I give up” shake.  “Hearing about poor, poor Sullivan getting
you guys for in-laws is depressing me.  Can we just get back to Frankie trying
to kill me with a broadsword?”