by Kat Adams
“Bryan,” I pleaded. I pleaded, and I didn’t care. I wanted him, needed him, and was barely able to breathe as I waited for him to tease me more. He removed my shirt with one hand while keeping constant attention on my clit. “Oh God.”
“Wrap your legs around me.” He lifted me, supporting me as I did as instructed. Somehow, he’d managed to drop his slacks to his knees, so when I rested my damp sex against his rigid flesh, with a quick shift of his hips, he slipped his cock past my slick entrance. “Ah, Jesus. Katy.” He thrust deep, and I cried out from the thick invasion. “Jesus!”
I scrambled to remove his shirt, desperate to feel us skin to skin. When he drove deeper, I clamped my hands on his shoulders, digging my nails into his flesh for purchase. He hissed in a breath and slammed our bodies together again. The tight, tight coil constricted inside me, building the pressure that would lead me to the most powerful orgasm of my life. I felt it.
This was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I loved sex with my guys, but this…was something more. Bryan was animalistic in his reaction to the way I dug my nails into his shoulders. He bared his teeth and growled—literally growled like a wild beast—and continued to bite my lips as he drove into me.
“Do that again,” he moaned deep. I hadn’t realized I’d bitten his shoulder. I did it again, sinking my teeth into his flesh without breaking the skin. He hissed and thrust faster, his pace crazed. It pushed us higher until my back pressed against the cool ceiling. I welcomed the contact, my body too hot to control the fire inside me. If I called the element while we were connected like this, it’d seriously injure him.
He used our new position to his advantage and trapped me against the boards, slamming into me over and over. My muscles shook. My body tightened around him, swallowing him, pulling him in deeper. It was like he was in my head, doing everything exactly right to drive me to the brink and beyond. My orgasm hovered right below the surface. I trembled, unable to hold back my fire much longer.
“Bryan, we have to stop. My fire—”
He kissed me, silencing the rest of my words and rendering me speechless. I met his tongue thrust for thrust. It only increased my shakes. The fire was coming. I was coming. It was going to happen simultaneously.
“Bryan,” I whimpered as the first sparks flared to life. My fire had surfaced.
“Yes,” he hissed and drove harder, seemingly excited that my fire had started to burn him.
Only… It hadn’t.
Flames appeared in his gaze just as they had with Leo right before he’d collapsed. Panic tightened my chest. “Bryan?”
“Call again. Heat me up. Heat us both up.”
“A-are you sure?”
“Do it, Katy.” He thrust hard, shattering my reality.
I screamed out his name as the climax consumed me, the release so powerful, so earth-shaking, I saw stars. Fire flickered around us, dancing on my skin before jumping to his. Instead of him hollering out in pain, he sucked in a deep breath as the flames sank in. I called water to ease the burn, another element he couldn’t control. A thin layer of ice covered him. That too sank into his skin.
“Yes,” he hissed again. He continued to fill me in rapid strokes until his own climax took him. He growled and bared his teeth again as he pumped until he had nothing left.
Slowly, we descended until we both had our feet firmly planted on the floor.
“That was…” I trailed off, not finding the right word. I’d called two elements he didn’t have the power to call, and neither hurt him. I didn’t understand.
We stood there trembling in each other’s arms until noise outside the room caught our attention. He pulled back and held my gaze for an eternity. Gone were the flames, but that didn’t make his look any less heated. “Sounds like the guys are home.”
“Sounds like it,” I agreed and stepped out of his embrace. “I guess we’d better go say hi.”
Once we were presentable, we took each other’s hands and walked out of the bedroom to join the others. We both stopped as we entered the room. It was only Leo in the living room. Rob was out on the porch, while Clay had to be in the bathroom.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Uh…” Leo rubbed the back of his neck and colored hard. “The ward, uh…”
“We felt everything,” Clay explained as he walked out of the bathroom, a flush in his cheeks. “When Bry’s volcano erupted, all our volcanos blew. Know what I mean? Don’t get me wrong. I like big O’s just as much as the next guy. I just don’t want to be in the same room with the other guys when my volcano erupts.”
Bryan and I exchanged shocked glances. Could that be why elements he didn’t have the power to control didn’t hurt him when we were touching?
Just how connected did the wards make us?
6
As we headed into the weekend and most students went off campus to visit friends and family, I stayed at the academy since all my friends and family were here. Stace was away on Council business and couldn’t be reached, but did tell us Renee’s coven was just west of the barrier, so today, Bryan and I would venture into the woods beyond the barrier to seek her out and ask her to reverse the protection spell.
As cool as it was to sense each other—like when I had a burger waiting for Rob when he’d shown up unannounced at the dining hall, or like when I had a new cardboard crown waiting for Clay after some students pranked him by burning his old one—it was just as equally uncool to sense each other, as with Bryan’s burn when the Barbie bitches dumped coffee down my front. Or how all the guys felt Bryan’s orgasm—which was still disturbing—when we’d had sex. Could they feel mine as well?
I didn’t want to think about that and instead went back to the cold scrambled eggs in front of me. I’d already devoured the potatoes and bacon, leaving the healthiest part of breakfast for last. I’d never been a big fan of eggs and pushed them around on my plate until finally giving up.
Dropping my tray off at the wash station, I then grabbed a blueberry muffin on the way out. They were Bryan’s favorite. He didn’t usually eat breakfast, but he’d make an exception for a blueberry muffin.
It was cold, the steam of my breath swirling above me, but at least it wasn’t raining. The sky hung low, the gray clouds thick as they settled across the grounds. Just another lovely February day on the island.
I already knew Bryan was behind me before feeling him, the ward allowing me to sense his presence. I turned and held out my offering. “Good morning. I come bearing gifts.”
His expression lit up as he accepted it. “Thanks. They’re my favorite.”
“I know.” I took in his appearance. Black jeans leading down to heavy black boots. A black-and-gray-plaid flannel open to reveal a black turtleneck. He even had on a black stocking cap. “You plan on robbing a bank in that getup?”
He nodded at my faded jeans, tennis shoes, and rather stylish puffy jacket. “You plan on posing for an Eddie Bauer ad in that getup?”
“Touché.” I bowed, conceding to him as the winner of this round.
“You don’t have any boots? The woods are going to be muddy. You’ll need traction and something to protect your ankles if you step wrong.”
“I’ll be fine, nature boy. Let’s go.” We stepped up to the barrier and paused, looking at each other. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Passing through the barrier was never the issue. It was what waited for us on the other side that usually bit us in the butts. Then again, maybe with Graves attempting to merge the two sides of our world, dark elementals wouldn’t try to attack us every chance they got.
We braced ourselves as we stepped beyond the barrier and into the woods, glancing around and listening for any slight noise announcing we had visitors. So far, so good. As we moved deeper into the shelter of the trees, the ground grew spongy, the mud thick and slippery. It stuck to the bottom of my shoes and crawled up the sides. I kept losing my footing and reaching out to Bryan to stop me from fal
ling on my ass.
“Told you that you needed boots.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I scraped the mud off my shoes on a nearby fallen tree. The very next step, I had even more mud caked to me. Awesome.
The woods had a very distinctive smell during the winter, like a cross between wet wood and wet animal. Even though it wasn’t raining, water droplets dripped off the ends of the sagging underbrush. Every so often, a slight breeze would whistle through the trees, forcing us to pause to see if a dark elemental had blown in with it.
After the first hour of searching in silence, I started up the small talk. “How’s alchemy going?”
“I’m getting a lot better at my elixirs. Yesterday, I created one that cured the hiccups. It’s not turning lead into gold, but it’s something. Monday, we plan to create one that heals broken bones like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“That’s very cool. Too bad it wasn’t around when I broke my wrist last year. Wearing the cast for so long totally sucked. My hand looked all pale and wilty when Syd removed it.”
“You’d be amazed at the things we’ve already done. A powder that melts through metal. Elixirs that make you see in the dark. A serum that removes scars. We even turned a rock into a crystal.”
“Are you going to chase the dream of creating that one stone of immortality?”
He shook his head. “The philosopher’s stone is a myth. It doesn’t exist.”
“Tell that to Harry Potter,” I teased. We both laughed before falling silent once again.
We’d been searching for hours before I called it. My stomach grumbled, reminding me we forgot to bring something to snack on. Then again, we didn’t think it’d take all damn day. “I don’t think they’re here.”
“Stace said the coven was west of the school. This is west of the school.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” I’d never been able to tell the difference between north, south, east, or west. I had a hard enough time with left and right. I drew in a breath to tell him we’d try again tomorrow when something caught in my senses. Was that bacon? I sniffed the air. That was definitely bacon. The glorious aroma of salty awesomeness cut through the stench of wet everything. “Do you smell that?”
“It smells like Sunday morning.”
“Huh?”
“Every Sunday, my granddad would come over and make breakfast. It was kind of his thing. He would start with a giant batch of bacon. I’d wake up to that smell every Sunday morning and race out of my room to help him cook. It was…some of my better memories of him.”
“That’s why you don’t eat breakfast.” I put it together. Hell, I wouldn’t eat it either if it was a constant reminder of the man who epitomized darkness. Bryan’s granddad was a legend on the dark side, one so powerfully evil that to this day, some people still labeled Bryan as dark for sharing the same last name.
We followed the smell and spotted the source. Renee stood above an open fire, poking at a pan full of sizzling meat. Around the fire sat at least a dozen other women. She didn’t look up as we approached, simply waved for us to have a seat near the fire. We gladly did and both held out our hands to warm them. The rest of the woman all stared at us but said nothing.
“I was wondering when you’d open your eyes.” She kept her attention on the pan.
Again with that phrase. “What do you mean?”
“You passed us several times before you allowed one of your other senses to lead you here. The scent of the food pulled you in. You knew it was bacon, knew it was out of place in the middle of a forest, knew it had to be us. You trust your sense of smell.”
“It’s never let me down.”
“You listened to the breeze, listened for anything out of place, listened for any sign you’d been followed. You trust your sense of hearing.” She finally glanced up from the pan and regarded me with warm eyes. “You need to trust your sight as much as you trust your other senses. Open your eyes.”
I nodded and stared at the fire. She was right. I really needed to work on my trust issues. My sense of sight wasn’t just the physical sense. It was my insight, my intuition, trusting my gut. My instincts had saved me on several occasions, but only when my life had literally depended on it, when I had no other choice but to trust myself.
Okay, Cressida. I hear you loud and clear.
The founder of the academy and original supreme elemental worked in cryptic and mysterious ways. She spoke to Bryan as well as me. I didn’t know if she’d ever manifested to him, but she had to me. Several times. And, apparently, she’d manifested to this coven of witches.
A woman with long sandy-blonde hair stood and, without a word, took over for Renee, poking the meat in the pan with a fork. They nodded to each other before Renee turned to address us. “You’ve come to ask me to remove the wards.”
Was she a mind reader? Or a telepath? With the way the blonde had simply taken Renee’s place without instruction, it did make me wonder. “Here’s the thing. We’re feeling each other’s feelings. It’s more than just sensing each other. This is…” I didn’t know how to say it without revealing the whole volcano scenario. “This is just more.”
“You don’t want to be bonded to them?”
“It’s not that.” I looked to Bryan for help.
He jumped in. “Being bonded is one thing. Being able to feel everything the other one feels is something else.”
“Can you elaborate?” Renee tilted her head to the side, causing her long strawberry-blonde locks to fall over her shoulder. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
“We wanted protection,” he countered and held up his hand. “Not this.”
“Well, if you’d rather not have the ability to call upon any element…” She paused and eyed Bryan knowingly.
He stiffened and glanced at me before returning his attention to her. “Are you saying the reason it didn’t hurt me when she called fire, and then water, was because I now have the ability to control them?”
“Whatever you were doing when she called the elements must have been during a heightened state of emotion. You were vulnerable as you transferred control from one person to the other. It also left you open for other elements to enter your system.”
“All the other elements?” Bryan asked. When Renee didn’t answer, he continued to push. “Like, even those forced into her against her will?”
I knew exactly what he meant. He was scared my darkness had transferred to him. Completely understandable and had me curious as well. I thought about how first the fire and then the water both sank into his body. Did anything else sink in that I didn’t see? “So, is that a yes? Or no?”
She glanced at the circle of women. One by one, they stood and left. Even the blonde, who’d set the pan of bacon off to the side away from the fire, leaving us alone with Renee. She took a seat next to me and turned to face us both. “You were blessed with extraordinary gifts. The elements speak to you, connect with you. You have the ability to bond with all the elements, Katy. No element can harm you. You have no weakness when it comes to your powers. Others have the ability to bond with opposing elements like you do, Bryan. If attacked by an element you can’t control, one of your elements steps in and protects you.”
All that was great and everything, but it didn’t answer the question. I really just wanted to know whether Bryan had suddenly become a quad thanks to me. “He can control more elements now?”
She shook her head, and Bryan and I both deflated. “He can pull in another element through the bond, borrow it, if you will. Removing the ward removes that ability.”
It clicked. “Are you saying that as long as we all have this ward that bonds us, we all have the ability to connect to each other’s powers?”
“It’s a bond in its entirety.”
Holy sheep sheers. My guys were all quints plus one now. That alone made the whole feeling each other, sharing in our weaknesses not seem so bad. We were five elementals with the power to control every element out there. That was thirty diff
erent elemental ways to protect each other.
“Still want me to remove the ward?”
I looked at her, then at Bryan. He gave me a slight shake of his head. I agreed and answered with a resounding “No. But I do have another request.”
“That is?”
“Join us.”
My invitation surprised her. She crinkled her brow as she leaned back. “Join you?”
Maybe she wasn’t a mind reader after all. Maybe she was just really good at reading people. “The Council is allowing dark elementals into the school and even taking positions within the Council itself. My archnemesis, who’s tried to kill me on multiple occasions, now has a seat next to the head of the Council. It’s not going to merge the two sides. We’re already at war. This is giving the dark side the in they need to take over our world. We need to fight this.”
She stood and turned from us, staring into the fire. Darkness had settled in around us, which surprised me. How long had we been sitting here? It couldn’t have been so long as to have night fall, yet the inky blackness consuming the light of day couldn’t be mistaken. “What you’re asking… For us to choose a side… That’s exactly what Cressida Clearwater had warned us about. She said not to choose sides.”
“No,” I corrected and stood as well. “She said to be cautious when choosing a side. That’s not the same thing. Please, Renee. If not for me, then do this for Stace. She’s in the middle of all this, torn between her loyalty to the Council and her loyalty to me.”
Renee kept her chin down as she glanced slightly over her shoulder, keeping her gaze down. “This isn’t our battle.”
“It’s everyone’s battle,” I practically cried. “If the dark side takes over, our world as we know it will be no more. We can’t do this alone, Renee. Please, join us.”
“I’m sorry, Katy.” With a wave of her hand, we were plummeted into absolute darkness. It wasn’t the void—thank God for that—but it was still so black, I could barely see.
