by Elle Thorne
His lion’s face looked slightly puzzled, but acquiesced. “Sure.”
They both shifted to their human forms.
Her clothes were rumpled, much like his own were; they looked like they’d been wrestling, tumbling around in a back seat.
Her cheeks reddened at the thought, and then reddened even more as she found the thought of touching him to be more than a little pleasant.
“Why did you want to shift?” he asked her. “We’re still a pretty good distance from your home.”
“We can shift back. It’s just that—” She paused.
Should she even tell him? He didn’t seem to be very fond of elementals.
Oh, what the hell, he’d have to deal with it. He had a niece that was an elemental.
She pushed forward with her answer. “My elemental gets antsy when the panther is in charge for too long.”
Something undefinable flickered in his eyes, and she didn’t think it was the amber of his lion.
She waited for him to say something before she went any further and stuck her foot in her mouth—not that I haven’t already done that a few times, clearly.
“So, your elemental, your panther, and you, the human part of you, all three of you coexist peacefully? Why is it not that way for Dina?” His tone was tortured.
She understood and empathized with the difficulty he’d clearly suffered as he watched little Dina struggle.
It just wasn’t that easy to answer questions.
Chapter Eleven
Linc waited patiently for Circe to address his question. It was clear she was mulling it over from the array of expressions that ran across her face.
Circe took a spot on a large boulder, and dangled her legs over the side, just above the brook’s cascading waterfall. She took her shoes off.
She plucked a blade of grass from a crack in the boulder. “Funny how grass can sprout anywhere, isn’t it?”
He gave a nod, and fought the urge to press her toward an answer. He needed to know what was going on. Needed to know what was happening with Dina. Linc joined her on the boulder.
Circe finally turned her gaze his way.
He took note of the anguish in her eyes.
“Being an elemental and a shifter isn’t easy. It wasn’t easy, but it’s something I’ve managed to get under control.”
He nodded, glad she’d finally gotten on with it.
“Elementals are like—” She paused, turning the grass over and over in her fingers. “Elementals are non-corporeal beings. They are not flesh and blood. They’re more like spirits, I guess. They’re reluctant to reveal their history, but Albani and I have a special relationship.”
When she said the name Albani, a flicker of golden yellow shined in her eyes, resembling lightning flashing in a dark sky.
“Who is Albani?” he asked her.
“My elemental. She—”
“Wait.” He shook his head in confusion. “So, your—these are—they are actual beings who have names?”
“They were once flesh and blood, long ago.” Circe paused and cocked her head, as if hearing something.
Or listening to something in her head, Linc thought.
“What am I missing,” he asked after a moment’s silence.
She turned back to him. “Albani and my panther.” She pursed her lips.
Albani and her panther… what?
What?
Linc fought hard to keep from pushing up on her. He’d seen her lightning skills and wouldn’t want those turned against him, but mostly, he’d seen her frailty and didn’t want to be the cause of this woman’s pain.
His lion roared in agreement.
Stifle it, Linc told his lion.
“A long time ago, there was a civilization of gifted people. People that could cast fire, ice, electricity—”
“Like you did,” he interrupted.
Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw worked as though sorting through what she would say next.
Linc held his breath.
Shit.
He hadn’t meant to reveal that he’d witnessed her particular gift from his suite’s window. Hopefully, she’d move on and ignore it, though he could see she’d grabbed onto the fact he knew her type.
After a second longer, she continued. “And that group of individuals was taken hostage by another, the Barabins. They were forced to use their gifts to perform tasks for the Barabins. Tasks like making rain—they can only make rain happen in targeted small areas, so like say, over a field or two. Not enough to flood the entire world, before you get to thinking about Noah’s Ark and stuff like that.” She gave him a smile to let him know she was kidding. “And it is extremely draining to keep up that type of sustained activity. Sometimes draining to the point of death.” Tears welled in her eyes.
He looked away, giving her privacy, though he had to wonder—was this her elemental Albani? Or…
God, he had so many unanswered questions, and each answer she provided spawned a new set of questions.
But for now, he had a more pressing question. “Why didn’t they use their gifts to kill their captors?”
She turned her face away from him, and he was sure the tears were flowing.
Her words were muffled when she spoke again. “Because the Barabins took their children and kept them far away, hidden. And if the ones who watched the children had cause to think my people had acted out, then they’d kill the children.” Her voice broke.
“Circe.” Linc put his hand on her arm. “What is it that makes this hit home so hard for you? Can you tell me? Help me understand.” His own voice sounded thick with emotion. “Help me so I can help my niece. Help me so she doesn’t suffer the same fate as her mother.”
Circe turned to face him. “Albani’s daughter was one of those taken.” She clasped her hands together and began to wring them frantically.
Linc took her hand in his. “Was she—” He couldn’t finish his sentence.
It was as if he hadn’t spoken, she went on with her story, his unposed question unaddressed. “The captives were conflicted. One faction wanted to kill the captors, thereby damning their children to a certain death, while the other faction wanted to keep complying with the Barabins and find another way to free themselves.”
“So, what were they called? The ones with skills? The elementals? If the bad guys were the Barabins, what were the good ones called?”
Circe shook her head. “That’s not for me to say.”
“Do you know?” he asked her.
She smiled, just a tiny one that gave a slight curve to her full, luscious lips.
Linc looked away from the temptation of those lips before he asked his next question. “Then what happened? How did they get from being a civilization to being—” He waved his hand. “—to being what they are now?”
“They were massacred.”
Ouch.
He hadn’t been expecting that, though he should have.
For Pete’s sake, how else could they have become spirits, or spirit-like?
“And they became—” Was he supposed to call them spirits? He changed direction. “What happened to the children?”
“So, while the adults were attacking the Barabins, the captive children weren’t exactly inactive. Albani’s daughter was a teenager. She was the instigator behind an uprising. The children killed their captors and went back to find their parents and instead found their corpses.”
“Shit,” he hissed the word out.
What a thing for children to find.
“With the aid of witchery, Albani’s daughter led the children and managed to resurrect their dead parents. But it wasn’t without a cost, and they couldn’t resume life in their own bodies. So, they traveled, and still do, body to body, for an eternity.”
Who the hell knew?
Linc leaned against a tree trunk next to the boulder. Who would have thought this was the story behind Dina’s powers? “So, the elemental in my niece has a name? And a history?”
Circe nodd
ed.
“What’s the deal with being in a shifter then? Why’s the hybrid thing so dangerous?”
“Shifters aren’t as easy for an elemental to control, or to hide in. Sometimes humans don’t even know they host an elemental.”
“What? Really? How can that be?”
“It depends on when the elemental enters the host. At birth, in utero, as a toddler, or even as an adult. If it happens when a human is an adult and knows how things are, how their body is—I’m not making sense.” She paused and frowned.
“You mean if they don’t know what it feels like to have someone else in them?” Linc tried to help her, if only to hasten her toward answering those questions that burned within him.
“Yes, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. If they don’t know what it feels like to host another being, then they have nothing to compare it to. That’s how it is for young ones. Older individuals get it. Some go crazy. Some try to kill themselves. Some do so successfully.”
Linc got that. He totally got that. That’s what happened to Dina’s mother. After she’d killed Linc’s brother.
“Anyway,” Circe continued. “A shifter is powerful, not just physically, but also mentally. And a shifter recognizes that someone who doesn’t belong is in the body with him. Or her.” Circe chewed on her bottom lip.
“That’s a hell of a lot for a person to have to deal with,” Linc admitted.
He thought of Dina. A hell of a lot for a little girl to deal with.
“Tell me about it.” Circe’s smile was hesitant.
“I have a question,” Linc said.
“As if you haven’t asked any yet?” Her smile grew, was more confident, more like the Circe he’d met earlier.
And her smile was contagious. He returned it with one of his own.
“Point taken.” He forged on, though, he knew this was probably risky territory, and quite invasive. “What was that drama about, earlier?”
The breath that she heaved came out with a whoosh. “Long story,” she said.
“So was the one you just told me,” he countered. “And you gave me the short version, I’m sure, and I stuck around for it.”
“Yeah, but this one doesn’t really have any impact on you. The other one, at least, casts some light on what your niece is going through.”
He wanted to tell her that what impacted her, impacted him as well, but how the hell would that sound?
His lion snarled who gave a damn how it sounded, they both needed to let her know how he felt.
How I feel?
The lion roared.
Fine. How we feel? How am I supposed to do that when we just met her? She’ll get creeped out. You need to chill out with that territorial claiming shit, right now, he warned his feline.
His lion roared even louder.
Linc ignored him.
He turned his attention back to Circe, still wondering what the drama had been about. “Yeah, I know it may not be my business. But who knows, sometimes getting things off your chest can mean a lot. It can help.”
He knew he was being hypocritical when he said that. It wasn’t like he was one to ever lean on anyone or share anything.
Chapter Twelve
Circe studied the man beside her. It was as if his face was chiseled of stone. He had a face that even in a resting pose, looked like it proclaimed don’t mess with me.
His body, hard and full of muscles, added to his fierceness.
But it wasn’t like Circe was a wilting flower. She could take care of herself. She feared no man, no entity.
She raised a brow and issued him a challenge. “How about this, you tell me a few things about yourself, then I’ll let you in.”
His dark eyes narrowed. The gold and amber flecks in their depths bespoke of his lion’s presence near the surface. He rubbed his jaw, then moved his fingers up absently, tracing his lower lip, fascinating her.
He’d vexed her. He’d mesmerized her panther. Circe was inexplicably drawn to the man. And so was her cat.
He was still silent, his intense gaze still locked on her, assessing.
“Well?” she prompted him.
He gave a terse nod, as though she had him against a wall, or stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“A long time ago, I met a woman. A shifter. I didn’t know at the time she was—had an elemental part of her. We dated. We split up. It wasn’t a good split. Angry and bitter, I guess, then she went after my brother.”
Circe watched him closely for signs of deceit or callousness, she sensed only resignation in his demeanor, and wondered why.
“So why did she get with your brother?”
“Maybe to make me jealous, hell if I know. She was still coming on to me when she was with him. I tried to warn him that she wasn’t exactly what she appeared to be. I told him she was downright crazy. He thought I was jealous, so he cut me out of his life.” His tone carried the torment this must have caused him.
Circe frowned; his brother’s reaction was harsh.
Linc brushed some dirt from the boulder. Tiny pebbles and dirt merged with the cascading water beneath them.
He continued, “So anyway, Brit—Brittany—she ended up pregnant with Dina—Dinaria—and I never got to see her. Brit forbade it, and by then, my brother couldn’t really see her much either, and never without Brit being there. He’d split up with Brit before Dina was two and Brit limited his access to Dina. And of course, my access was still completely cut off.”
Circe shook her head. “That’s ludicrous. Why didn’t you—he—someone get a lawyer or something?”
“He didn’t want to upset Brit too much. She’d said the moment he did anything legal, she’d know—her mother worked for the courthouse—and Brit would leave the country. With Dina.”
Circe hissed her discontent with the matter.
“Then came the day that changed everything. Brit must have flipped out. She killed my brother, then herself. Dina was left alone, unattended, no one to care for her for three days. The authorities contacted me, Child Protection Services had Dina, and I had no clue what to do. I was in too much of a daze, learning that Steve was dead.”
He grabbed a twig and snapped it in half with a ferocity that Circe could completely understand.
“Like I’d let someone else raise Steve’s daughter. I hired a lawyer. Took custody. Then one night, Dina damn near burned the house down, and I knew I had to get her help. And here I am. How’s that for a short story?”
His smile was melancholy.
It took every bit of her strength for Circe not to reach out and hug him.
“Unbelievable. Was Brittany’s last name Fellows?”
His head snapped in her direction. “How’d you know?”
“Her mother had contacted us. Asked us to help her, to intervene, to assist her in managing her elemental and her shifter.”
“And?”
“There’s no and,” Circe said. “She flat out refused all assistance.”
“That sounds like Brit,” Linc added grimly.
His face wore the ragged expression of one who’d experienced way too much pain.
“Your turn.” He pointed at Circe.
Chapter Thirteen
Linc was torn. Half of him felt like he’d had a weight lifted by sharing that story with Circe. Hell, he’d never told anyone any of it. The other half of him felt like he’d just taken on the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He’d shared.
He didn’t do that.
Haven’t shared since… well, fuck.
Since ever.
The only one he’d ever shared anything with was Steve. He’d sure as hell never gotten close enough to a woman to share that, or anything.
“So.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Your turn. The drama. What gives?”
“How’d you know I had an electric elemental?”
“I was in my room, checking out the scenery, when I saw you do that electric chain thing on that woman.”
&
nbsp; Damn it, she’d caught him off guard. He hadn’t meant to let that slip.
He gave her a look, letting her know she’d caught him unaware.
Her expression was unreadable. “So, you came downstairs to save me? Or save her, perhaps?”
“First off—” He ticked his index finger as he gave his reply. “I didn’t go down there to save her. I don’t even know her. Second—” He ticked his middle finger as he made his point. “I’d sooner save you than her.” He tapped his ring finger next. “Lastly, you’re digressing from the point at hand.”
She opened her mouth to respond, and he could see the fight in her eyes.
Linc held up his hand. “Nope. No more diversions, no more detours or questions. It’s your turn to tell me your story.”
“I already told you a story,” she harrumphed.
“Your story,” he insisted.
“Fine.” There was a pout, just barely there, as she responded. “She’s my cousin. She abandoned the Order, chose her mate over the Order. She’s not welcome here.”
“What the—” He was dumbfounded.
“What?” she asked with mock innocence.
“I poured my heart out to you, and you give me the beats of the story with detached indifference.” He shook his head in disgust. “That attack you launched on her, those chain lightning bolts, or whatever they were, that was not detached indifference. That was full-on aggression, anger, whatever you want to call it.”
“I’m over it,” Circe announced.
“I call bullshit on that.” He gave her a grim smile that let her know he was all business.
“Okay, okay,” she huffed and brought her legs up. She pulled her knees to her chest and held them close to her torso, wrapping her arms around them.
“Mae and I are cousins. We were once best friends. Our elementals were sisters. They are sisters. Albani and Benithe. Hers is Benithe.”
He nodded. He’d put that together, but he didn’t want to interrupt her flow by telling her so.
“We were supposed to lead the Order of Elementals. Her elemental is very powerful, almost as powerful as mine. We’d been inseparable since the time we could walk and talk. And then one day, Mae met a shifter, fell in love, and decided she wanted to follow him back to Bear Canyon Valley.”
