elemental 02 - blaze

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Blaze/ Larissa Ladd. -- 1st ed.

Something is wrong. Aira has come into her full powers but is more unstable than ever. Filled with dread, she visits her grandmother and learns her grandmother doesn’t have long to live. Racing against time, Aira focuses on her training, absorbing all her grandmother teaches. Before her grandmother dies, she transfers all her magic to Aira and warns her that she is now the key to war or peace in the Elementals world and she must choose a mate quickly--her safety depends on it! When her grandmother dies, Aira turns to Aiden for comfort, seducing him with magic, never expecting the fiery whirlwind that consumes her as their passion spirals out of control. With a heavy soul, she wishes she’d never used magic to compelled Aiden to make love to her. Has her reckless behavior destroyed any hope of a real relationship with Aiden? He’s sworn to protect her, but who’s going to protect him…and her heart?

Chapter 1

Aira woke from a sound sleep—her entire body jolted as if she had fallen out of bed. She opened her eyes as the power surged through her body. The darkness of her room was evidence that dawn was still hours away.

She groaned in annoyance. The surge didn’t hurt. Instead, every nerve in her body felt as though it were cranked to the max. The wind began to pick up outside and she grimaced, knowing it would take all of her focus to subdue it. She felt every thread of the sheets as they touched her body, heard the hum of electricity throughout the house. As the power surge continued, the wind blew harder and beyond her control, even as her sensory overload intensified. She covered her ears and tried to curl in on herself, but it was useless; the elemental power working its way through her body was building.

She heard movement downstairs in Dylan’s room and in the guest bedroom next to her’s. Aiden should have been sleeping, instead she was uncomfortably aware of his tossing, turning, and muttering in his sleep. Not to mention Dylan’s faint snoring. The wind began to rattle the windows and whistle along the nooks and crannies of the apartment building. Aira tried to focus, tried to assert the control that her grandmother had taught her over the years. It wasn’t working.

As the energy igniting her system peaked, Aira screamed uncontrollably, unaware that she was. The energy was too much—she couldn’t handle it. Her mind felt fragmented in millions of pieces. A thousand thoughts whirled through incoherently. She wasn’t sure which was worse – the wind, the sensations in her body, or the visions invading her mind. She was so overwhelmed that she barely registered the sound of her bedroom door opening among the sounds of the building creaking, the wind howling, and the sound of footsteps racing up the stairs. Still screaming, ignoring the pain in her throat, she tried to rid her body of the sheets.

Outside, the wind grew more intense. Aira tried to focus, the part of her mind not dealing with the onslaught of power knowing that a windstorm would be a rather conspicuous thing in her suburban town, that she should be more concerned about the possibility of creating a small-scale natural disaster than the unendurable sensations she was experiencing.

Her screams heightened in pitch as she felt hands gripping her shoulders tightly. She didn’t want to open her eyes, terrified of what she might see. In spite of her return to normalcy after her kidnapping two weeks earlier, Aira had been jarred to the core by the experience. The iron she had been exposed to had taken more than a day for her air-aligned body to recover from. Her usual self-confidence had been shaken.

When she opened her eyes to the sudden bright light of her bedroom, she expected to see a stranger, someone ready to cart her off to yet another suitor—or to someone who wanted her dead because of her abilities. The touch of the hands on her shoulders burned, and for a moment Aira’s panicked mind couldn’t process what she was seeing. The wind blew harder and a crack of lightning exploded outside. Bright blue eyes bore into hers, medium-brown hair rumpled with sleep, and as another loud crack of lightning reverberated overhead her mind realized it wasn’t an attacker holding her against the mattress. Aira recognized that Aiden had her by the shoulders and was pinning her down. Looking around wildly, she saw Dylan hovering behind his brother. The intense light burned her eyes, just as Aiden’s touch burned her skin. Aira closed her eyes tightly, turning her head away from the deafening sound of Aiden’s voice shouting to be heard over the wind.

“Aira! Focus!”

Instead of giving her an anchor, however, the energy from Aiden’s fiery grip only increased the surge of energy – heating her body, intensifying her sensations. She screamed again, struggling to get away from him.

She didn’t notice Dylan push his brother away, but she felt the sudden coolness of Dylan’s hands on her shoulders. He held her down and, instead of yelling, she heard his whispers as an undercurrent of the screaming wind. She felt herself weighted down. Everything began to calm down. Her screams eased and were replaced by gasps for breath instead. Cold invaded every cell of her being and, without any effort on Aira’s part, the wind began to gradually die down until it was a mere gust against the window. As the cold infected her body, Aira felt her senses attune to the sensations she had found unbearable only moments before. With deep breaths, Aira felt her racing heart subside. The moments of sensory overload, when she hadn’t been able to think straight or turn her mind to the point of actually understanding what was happening, began to diminish and allow her to assume a level of coherence. She heard Aiden’s voice, his words, where before she had only heard sounds. When he had held her down, he had been shouting for her to focus, for her to calm down, telling her she was safe.

Aira opened her eyes slowly, taking another deep breath. When she realized she was half-naked, the sheet wrapped around her the only thing keeping her from being completely indecent, her face burned with embarrassment and she pulled the sheet to cover her completely. Dylan released her shoulders and stepped back. Aiden hovered behind him.

She sat up slightly, smiling sheepishly. “So,” she said, not quite meeting either man’s gaze, “How about that crazy weather we’ve been having?”

Aiden squinted his eyes curiously and Dylan stared at her as if trying to decide whether or not she was serious. She was somewhat relieved when Aiden began to laugh and both men relaxed. Dylan sat down on the edge of her bed and Aiden sank at the foot, both of them continuing to chuckle in relief that the crisis had apparently passed.

“Power surge?” Aiden asked finally, raising an eyebrow. Aira nodded slowly. She hadn’t experienced anything like it before—or at least, nothing so intense—but she knew what it was immediately. Her arms and legs continued to tremble, an electric sensation rushing through her nerves. Dylan’s intervention had slowed things down, had subdued the powerful elemental energy thundering within her, but it wasn’t done with her yet. Aira wondered how much more of the changing she would have to take; if the sensations in her body would become her new normal. Would she ever not feel constantly distracted, alerted by random movements of elemental energy in her body? Aira had been looking forward to assuming her full abilities as an elemental, but the prospect of more moments like the one she’d just had wasn’t exactly enticing.

“Yeah. Hey—why didn’t anyone warn me that could happen?” Aira felt her fear transform into annoyance. Even though she knew anger wouldn’t solve anything, and if she let it go too far she’d likely start another wind storm, she couldn’t help feeling resentful that something like that could happen and no one had thought to warn her.

“Well, you are a powerful elemental. For most people going through the adjustment, it’s not quite that…intense,” Dylan said. “Aiden only lit his bed on fire accidentally twice before he came into his full abilities.” Dylan threw his brother an amused grin.

“At least I’m not likely to flood the house,” Aiden shot back. “Or wet my bed.”

Dylan rolled his eyes. Aira was suddenly uncomfortably aware of just how naked she was under the sheet. Not to mention the fact that the two men sitting on her bed had seen at least her upper body fully exposed. While she had grown accustomed to a certain level of unavoidable intimacy in sharing her house with the two bodyguards, she hadn’t considered the possibility of them seeing her naked in any capacity. Aside from the moment she had, in an ill-timed impulse, made out with Aiden. She fidgeted, glancing down at the sheet as her face burned.

“Why don’t you get dressed. We’ll have some coffee. It’s technically morning and I don’t think any of us will get any more sleep anyway.” Dylan gave Aira an understanding smile and stood, glancing significantly at his brother. Aiden glanced at Aira once more before following his brother out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Aira sighed, taking a moment to absorb the mortifying situation and all of its implications. She ran her fingers through her hair, shaking her head. She still felt the influence of Dylan’s calming magic, but she was—as he pointed out—wide awake and unlikely to get any more sleep. Fortunately, she thought, the freelance nature of her work meant that if she was exhausted in the afternoon, she could take a nap.

She slipped out of bed, trying not to think about how exposed she’d been or the two very attractive men who had seen her basically naked. They certainly could infer the rest from what they had seen. She pulled on a pair of pajama pants and a tee shirt, roughly finger-combing her hair before she pulled it back into a messy bun. Aira considered not going downstairs for a moment, cherishing her solitude in the room and avoiding the awkwardness of the situation, but she had never been a coward and she didn’t intend to start. She took the stairs slowly, still experiencing the tingling in her body, and still hesitant to be around the two men, in spite of her hype about courage. The aroma of coffee brewing urged her on.

Aiden sat at the breakfast bar and Dylan moved about the kitchen, doing something while the coffee brewed. Aira sat down, feeling self-conscious and graceless. Aiden glanced at her over his shoulder and sat back, giving her a surprisingly understanding smile. “Dylan’s right, you know,” he told her. “I literally lit my bed on fire twice in the week before my birthday.”

Aira snorted, wondering how he had managed to deal with that situation.

“The people at IKEA were amused and pleased to see so much of us that week.” Aiden smiled.

Aira chuckled, imagining the embarrassment of the situation. It made the events of a few moments ago seem slightly less mortifying.

“Didn’t we tell them we had decided to start a B&B?” Aiden asked Dylan.

Aira began laughing harder, picturing the two men sheepishly standing in an IKEA and lamely asserting that they needed another new bed because they were going to run a small hotel out of their home.

Dylan poured coffee, taking the milk out of the fridge and passing Aira the sugar. “I think we did! I don’t think they believed us, but they couldn’t really question us too hard about it.”

Aira doctored her cup of coffee, shaking her head. “Probably thought that one or the other of you was having particularly energetic sex and just didn’t want to admit it.”

Aiden dropped the spoon in his hand, spilling sugar everywhere and staring at her. “Why didn’t I think of that?!”

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