From Ashes

by Elise Faber

  From Ashes

  Elise Faber

  FROM ASHES

  by Elise Faber

  * * *

  Copyright © 2020 ELISE FABER

  * * *

  Newsletter sign-up

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  * * *

  FROM ASHES

  Copyright © 2020 ELISE FABER

  Print ISBN: 978-1-946140-86-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-946140-85-2

  Cover Art by Jena Brignola

  Contents

  Dark

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  In Flames

  In Flames

  Also by Elise Faber

  About the Author

  Dark

  This story began when light transformed to dark, when elements were twisted into tools of torture.

  Then it began again with a group of heroes trying to stamp out pockets of evil, a magical people learning to live in a world forever altered.

  And . . . it began again with a woman who had a secret.

  A secret that threatened everything she held dear.

  One

  Gabby

  Gabby hadn’t known it was possible for a file folder to explode like that.

  Papers flew into the air like a giant-sized version of confetti. Binder clips pinged down against the tile floor. And the Post-Its—

  Her eyes slid closed in embarrassment.

  The Post-Its were decorating the front of the LexTal’s T-shirt —an abstract rendering that was more ugly Christmas sweater than Picasso.

  Mason—said LexTal—didn’t say anything, and he didn’t have to. With his calm expression, his never-stationary gaze that took in each detail of the space around him, he was every inch the elite warrior who spent his life protecting his fellow Rengalla.

  The Rengalla were magic.

  Or well, they could control elemental magic. That along with the fact that they lived incredibly long lives—think centuries rather than decades—were some of the reasons they stayed hidden from the human population, and why they lived sequestered in small colonies around the world.

  She was currently living in the largest one, aptly named . . . the Colony.

  But names aside, for a long time Gabby’s people had thought the biggest threat to their existence was humans discovering them. The Rengalla were a small people, could easily be overwhelmed by the human population, especially one bent on having magic at their fingertips.

  But then . . . the Dalshie.

  A much larger threat than humans, and one created of the Rengalla’s own flesh and blood.

  Because magic used for ill transformed a Rengalla into something evil.

  The siren’s call of the dark power perverted. It turned goodness into sociopathy. It transfigured, converted, mutated.

  Rengalla became Dalshie.

  And their corrupted brethren seemed to revel in nothing more than hunting down and destroying the Rengalla. Thus, the need for protection from a threat that was both internal and external.

  A threat that had already touched Gabby personally.

  The Dalshie had sparked the formation of the LexTals—the elite warriors who were the most powerful of their people.

  But those elite warriors hadn’t protected her.

  “I’m impressed you managed to get them all to stick,” Mason said, her thoughts having drifted so far away that she nearly jumped. Luckily, she stifled the action, oddly soothed by his voice. It was a little raspy, as if a piece of velvet had gotten scuffed, and paired with the most beautiful set of eyes she had ever seen. Green and gold and brown swirled together in a mix of colors that made her want to look closer, to stare into the complex depths of the man and puzzle out all his secrets.

  He cleared his throat and her cheeks went red hot.

  Staring. Again.

  Mason had to know he was attractive, any red-blooded male or female could appreciate the chiseled lines of his jaw, the gorgeous eyes, the kissable lips, but she was the one with a staring problem. Mooning after him like a pathetic love-struck teenager.

  Or a stalker.

  Cool.

  “I-I’m sorry,” she said, standing and moving around the front of the reception desk stationed at the entrance of the infirmary. She needed to fix this. She needed to go back to her isolated bubble, to keep admiring from afar. That was the only way to keep her safe. Because if she let someone in—

  Unthinking, she began to peel off the offending slips of colored paper from Mason’s sweater in rapid succession.

  One. Two. Okay ten. More.

  She stacked the Post-Its together, realigning the little strip of adhesive carefully. Dear God, she would never, ever, practice her air magic in public again. She was a menace, a liability. A child had more control and—

  “Um . . .” Mason said, and she froze.

  Without realizing it, her hands had returned to removing the sticky papers and her fingers were just an inch above his . . .

  A curse flew from her lips and she jumped back.

  Mason reached down and removed the small blue square that was perched just above his groin. Turning it over in his fingers, he cocked his head, lips tipped up at edges, eyes dancing with amusement. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  Her lids clamped shut as shame washed over her. Her mother—

  No. Not going there.

  Her shame was because she was the first thing people saw when they came to the infirmary. She was supposed to be professional. Together. Not rattling off curse words and exploding folders.

  Deep breath. If she just counted to ten, he would leave—

  A hand settled on her shoulder and Gabby jumped so high she should have been attached to the ceiling.

  “Don’t!” She stepped back, bumped into the desk, and flailed. Her coffee cup rattled, porcelain against wood, and there was a series of crashes as pens and pencils and more papers fell to the ground.

  Her eyes were open, but she couldn’t see anything.

  Just blackness, fear burning through her, freezing her lungs, seizing her nerves.

  And then the hands returned, grasping the tops of her arms. Her body unfroze, but the blackness stayed, and the fear spun absolutely out of control.

  “No!” She panicked, tore away from him, and she started to run.

  “Wait. You’ll hurt—”A firm grip caught her and held her in place. Words—calm words, she processed only distantly—filled the air. “Easy. Deep breaths. Sl
ow and steady now.”

  No.

  Not slow and steady.

  Run. She needed to run.

  “What’s—”

  Suz’s voice registered and Gabby finally ceased her struggles. She glanced over and saw that the Rengalla’s main healer, and her good friend, had come into the room.

  Humiliation filled her from head to toe, heating her cheeks, making her shoulders dip, her gaze fall to the tile floor. It was heavy, stifling, and made her want to run all over again. Only this time it wasn’t from panic, but from crippling embarrassment at losing it in front of Mason, in making a scene where she was supposed to be helping.

  Why was she still like this? She should be over it.

  She was alive. She’d survived . . . albeit not whole, that much was for damned sure.

  Fuck. She’d panicked. Again. Her heart still slammed against her ribs, sweat was sheeted her body, and adrenaline coursed through her, making her feel both incredibly strong and extremely weak.

  Or maybe that was because Mason’s hands continued to hold her in place.

  They were warm, the grip firm yet somehow still gentle, and making her yearn for something she knew could not be.

  She tugged against his hold. “I’m okay,” she said, her eyes flitting up to meet those pools of green, brown, and interwoven gold for a fraction of a second before darting away. “Let me go, please.”

  Her tone was calm, confident even. If not for the trembling that had seized her—the adrenaline letting down—Mason might have even believed it. But she was shaking like a leaf, and didn’t have a chance in hell of convincing him that her roiling insides matched her composed tenor.

  He scoffed. “You’re not okay.” But his hands loosened, and instead of releasing her, he ran them up and down the outsides of her arms.

  He was comforting her.

  Despite her freaking out, despite her showering him with office supplies, he was comforting her.

  That made everything so much worse.

  Her eyes dropped to the floor. “I’m fine,” she murmured and retreated again, but with more purpose. Which meant that Mason either had to let her go or follow the movement.

  His fingers slid free.

  She tried to convince herself that she wasn’t disappointed.

  “Why?” He didn’t need to expand on the question, not with the concern clouding his expression, the pity in his eyes.

  She wasn’t right.

  And now he knew it.

  Her stomach dropped to the ground. Of course he wouldn’t let her pretend that nothing had just happened. Of course he would attempt to ferret out the truth. Of course he would want to know her deepest, darkest secret.

  The single thing she could never tell another soul.

  Gabby shook her head.

  “Tell me.” It was a command. One she didn’t dare heed. One she, thankfully, had enough spine left still to resist.

  Sort of.

  Because his hazel eyes were dark and intense, and the way he looked at her, as if he could see to the depths of her soul, see the ice, the pain, and fear locked within her made her so damned tempted to unburden her soul—

  No.

  She couldn’t let that happen.

  “Suz?” Her eyes flicked to her friend, pleading.

  The doctor was the person who knew the most, the single individual Gabby had confided in and she still didn’t know the entire truth.

  But Suz knew enough.

  Which is why she gave Gabby the out.

  “I need supplies,” she said. “Can you get them for me? Closet seven.”

  A breath slipped between Gabby’s lips. Seven was in the basement, and the furthest possible supply closet.

  It might as well have been an all-expense paid trip to the Bahamas or an entire triple chocolate cheesecake for how much relief—and affection for her friend—poured through her.

  “Yeah, sure,” she told Suz. “I’ll go now.”

  She turned and bolted out the door.

  Two

  Mason

  He watched Gabby disappear through the closing door, the tip of her blonde ponytail fluttering up into the air, and attempted to figure out exactly what had just happened.

  Mase considered himself smart and competent, would say he was excellent at reading people, at discerning any threat they might present. But for the life of him, couldn’t figure out what had flipped the switch in Gabby. Obviously, his touch had frightened her. But it wasn’t as simple him startling her or coming up behind her and making her uncomfortable.

  She’d been panicked, had begged him to let her go, and he’d wanted to—God he’d wanted to—but a part of him had worried she would hurt herself.

  So he’d held tight.

  That wasn’t what bothered him.

  He knew he’d reacted correctly, had made sure she hadn’t injured herself on the desk or tripped over the clutter on the floor by lurching away in a blind panic. Instead, what sickened Mason was that he’d enjoyed the feel of her soft body next to his, had loved the way she’d smelled.

  The woman was terrified, and he’d acted like a pervert.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Suz’s words were unnecessary. Mason already knew what he’d done was wrong on a number of levels—the most basic of which was that he’d upset Gabby.

  “I know.”

  He bent, began stacking papers and supplies back onto the desk.

  Suz placed her hand on top of his as he straightened Gabby’s penholder.

  “No,” the doctor said, her voice fierce with mama-bear protectiveness, her golden-brown eyes flashing. “You have no idea.”

  “I’ll leave her alone.”

  It wasn’t something he should have needed to say. Suz knew his history, understood that he would never—

  Pursuing Gabby wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities, no matter how beautiful or sweet or deliciously curvy she was. He was no risk to Gabby because he wouldn’t go after her. Wouldn’t go after any other woman.

  Because no one could ever compare to Victoria.

  Thinking about or even the vague consideration of being with another person meant the possibility of marriage, of commitment . . . of children.

  And he was never going there again.

  “She’s wounded,” Suz said. “She needs care, not someone to make demands on her.”

  “I’ll leave her alone.”

  Suz didn’t answer, so he retrieved the last folder then placed it atop the desk. A curl of scent wafted up and tickled at his nose, and Mason swore he could practically taste the lavender and lemon smell on his tongue, floral with a hint of sharpness.

  Sharp enough to wound.

  He shook off the thought and opened his mouth to ask the healer to come to the gardens, his main reason for being in the infirmary in the first place, or at least that’s what he told himself. And anyway, that purpose had been forgotten when Gabby had begun peeling off those slips of paper, had run her slender fingers over his chest, trailed them across his abs—

  “What did you need, Mase?”

  Suz couldn’t have known what direction his thoughts had drifted. He’d worked damn hard to always keep his expression locked down, to never let anyone know the soul-wrenching pain that was still welded into his bones.

  But the way the doctor studied him made Mason wonder if she had the barest inkling of where his mind had gone.

  He didn’t like that. At all.

  “Morgan needs you. Francis was teaching at the Circle and one of the kids fell,” he said instead of anything else—instead of the excuses, the denials, the blatant dismissal Suz wouldn’t believe anyway. “A sprained ankle. He wants you to decide if it needs healing or just rest. Morgan stayed with him so the class could continue.”

  “I’ll get my bag.” Suz was already walking down the hall.

  A minute later she breezed out the door without a backward glance and Mason was left in the empty reception area, files cluttered across the desk and a Han
sel-and-Gretel trail of paperclips across the floor.

  With a muttered curse, he bent and picked up the small folded pieces of metal then righted the bowl on Gabby’s desk and placed them inside. Unable to help himself, he began straightening the rest of the mess—organizing the mussed papers, mopping up the spilled coffee. All the while he tried to tell himself he was just doing what anyone else would do, fixing what he’d screwed up, and that the action meant absolutely nothing.

  But as he straightened the small framed photo of a young Gabby with an older woman and man and carefully refilled her coffee cup from the carafe down the hall, it didn’t feel like nothing. His heart convulsed and fear gripped his insides in a vice-hold.

  Because . . . it felt very much like something.

  Three

  Gabby

  Something made her pause just when she would have pushed through the door to the infirmary. She glanced through the small glass window and saw Mason bent over her desk.

  Her eyebrows drew together.

  Then she understood and . . . promptly melted.

  Because he was cleaning up. She watched him straighten the framed photo of her and her parents, tuck a few pencils into the holder on her desk, then pick up her coffee cup and walk down the hall to the break room, appearing a few seconds later with the mug full of the steaming hot black stuff.

  And coffee. The man was getting her fresh coffee. After she’d acted like a lunatic, he’d cleaned her desk, had refilled her mug.