“What can we do?” Dylan asked, forcing himself to sit down, to actually listen to whatever Leigh had to say. Leigh hesitated for a moment, picking up her cider and knocking the last of it back before she spoke.
“We can combine our efforts,” she said. Dylan stared at her blankly; hadn’t they already been combining their efforts? They’d taken to conducting their searches at the same time, only feet away from each other, constantly on guard for a sneak-attack from the elemental renegades. They had both gone before the elders to tell them about the situation. They had both pitted themselves against Maralah and Connor to insist that bounty hunters join the search in earnest, instead of as an aside to other goals. “I mean, really combine them. We could … we could finish bonding. That would amplify both of our efforts.”
Dylan’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t given serious thought to completing his bond with Leigh since the day of the attack. He wanted to—and intellectually, after seeing her in action, Dylan couldn’t think of any person on the planet that he would rather work with. The way that Leigh had brought the stone ramparts down, the way she had instinctively pulled him into her attacks on the building, spoke of an intuition that rivaled his own. But it had completely left his mind, consumed by the greater need to make sure his family was safe. “I haven’t … it’s not my birthday yet,” Dylan pointed out. “I won’t be at full power.”
“Even at three quarters, you’re pretty formidable. And so we won’t be as powerful together as we will be once you come into your full abilities. That’s still a lot more than we’ve got right now. Enough to blow every tracking block they might have.”
Dylan licked his lips. It was a solution that made sense. His body still tingled with the remnants of a power surge, and the sensation reminded him only too readily of what it had been like the few times that he and Leigh had had the opportunity to be together. He could feel her energy; he could feel her essence at the edges of his consciousness even when they were apart; his gaze fell onto her constantly. Until he had been distracted by the urgent need to rescue his brother and sister-in-law, Dylan had been unable to quite get Leigh out of his mind at any given time.
“You’re not just proposing this out of necessity,” he said, not quite asking it—not wanting to know if her idea was strictly pragmatic. He realized that in spite of their short association, he was absolutely in love with her. He wanted her—not just because of the bond, but because of who she was. He needed to be with her, but he didn’t want to jeopardize either of their lives by forcing the connection if it wasn’t the right thing to do. For a moment he had a fellow-feeling for his brother, for those weeks and months when Aiden had been partially bonded to Aira, infatuated with her, frustrated and consumed by the mercurial air elemental without being able to do anything about it. “You … I’m not going to bond with you if this is just a solution to a problem.” The bond between two elementals was nearly impossible to break once established; they’d be tied to each other for life, barring an intensely painful, potentially mind-shattering dissolution ceremony.
“Dylan, you idiot, I wanted to bond with you the night we first met. I didn’t … I haven’t done it until now because you weren’t ready and neither was I.” Leigh shrugged, giving him a hopeful smile. “Whether we’re ready or not, we both want it, and it is a solution to the problem we’re both facing.”
Dylan smiled weakly. “As long as you’re not … as long as it’s not just a utility thing.”
Leigh shook her head. “Even to save lives I wouldn’t enter into this lightly.”
Dylan nodded. He stood slowly, crossing the few feet between them and sinking onto the couch next to Leigh. He had made love with more than a couple of women in his life; he had made love to Leigh a few times. But the prospect of fully bonding with her, of merging their essences together, made him more nervous than the first time he had ever had sex. He felt the energy welling up inside of him, felt the answering call of Leigh’s essence—but for a long moment he couldn’t quite make himself move to start.
Leigh smiled again, looking as nervous as he felt. “It’s just like any other time,” she said lightly. “Just… you know, more so.”
Dylan laughed. “Except that we’re not going to be able to separate ever again.” “I’m a one-man type of woman anyway. Can’t find anyone better than you—why bother looking?”
She reached out and trailed her fingers along the line of his jaw. Dylan felt the cold pressure of her energy seeping into him, turning the deep currents of his own essence into an ice flow. Cold, tingling crackles traveled up and down his arms and legs, and Dylan felt the rush of heat in counter—the rising fire of lust. He leaned in and brushed his lips along hers, closing his eyes as he breathed in her spicy, green scent, as his tongue flicked out to taste the honey and apple flavor of her lips.
He pressed her back against the couch, his hands moving over her body slowly, tracing over the ample curves of her breast, the narrow waist, the flare of her hips. Leigh moaned softly against his lips, beginning to move underneath him, her hands caressing along the planes of his back, the line of his shoulders.
“Kind of appropriate that it’s ending up here,” Dylan murmured, realizing the truth of it—that they were consummating their bond in the same location that they had first began it.
Leigh chuckled, the vibrations humming against his lips.
“It is a very comfortable couch,” she replied.
Dylan shuddered against her, feeling the conflicting sensations—hot and cold, anticipation and fear—coursing through him. He deepened the kiss, his hands skimming up underneath her clothes, brushing against her hot-cold skin as he opened his mind to Leigh. He felt a flash of ice slice through him; Dylan nibbled playfully at Leigh’s bottom lip, unbuttoning her shirt slowly, working his way from the bottom to the top.
“Open up completely,” Leigh murmured against his lips. “Let me in.”
“You too,” Dylan responded, pushing his awareness into her. He could feel her energy, feel her essence, solid and steady, constant in a low, throbbing hum against his more chaotic, rushing, flooding energies. She was just what he needed—she was everything. Leigh was the missing piece, the influence that bound him more strongly to himself, the earth that held the spring. Dylan kissed all over her face, peeling her shirt away from her skin as quickly as he could. He wanted to devour her; he wanted to know every last inch of her body and essence. The air temperature continued to drop as they moved together, their clothes falling away bit by bit.
Leigh’s deft hands stripped his jeans off, bringing his boxers down with them, and Dylan checked—just for an instant. He was ready for this; he wanted this. He wanted her. They would be able to do what they needed to do, if he could open himself up entirely to the enchanting woman who had come into his life as a spy and had stayed as an ally. As he opened his mind up, his awareness and his essence more and more, Dylan felt the yielding of Leigh’s mind, felt her cold strength wrapping around him, encapsulating and invading him, even as he flowed into her. Their essences mingled slowly, slipping into a steady back-and-forth, and Dylan felt himself growing more and more powerful, almost overwhelming—the cold of their combined energies contrasting with the heat of his desire.
Dylan ducked his head, cupping Leigh’s breasts in his hands, bringing first one and then the other up to his lips. He worshipped every inch with his mouth—trailing lips, tongue, even his teeth along the curves of her skin before lingering at each of her nipples in turn. Leigh moaned underneath him, the sound of her voice filling his ears, beating back the pat-pat-pat of rain as his energies rose to rush into her. Leigh’s energy crested to meet his, and Dylan reached down, bringing his face back up to hers, kissing her hungrily as he slipped between her legs, nothing between them anymore, nothing more than their bodies pressed together, skin slick with sweat in spite of the deep chill in the room.
Dylan thrust into Leigh slowly, savoring every moment as her body wrapped around his, her muscles flexing i
nstinctually, her hands trailing everywhere. He rocked his hips against hers, and moaned out against her shoulder as Leigh began to move in counterpoint to his thrusts, pushing down to meet him, her body falling into his tidal rhythm. The heat and cold in Dylan were at war—the cold of his energy and the heat of his desire, the ice of Leigh’s essence and the fire of his need. They touched and tasted each other everywhere their hands and mouths could reach, and Dylan felt Leigh’s pleasure mounting as keenly as he felt his own, felt her mind opening up to him.
Her sensations coursed through him and for a brief moment, Dylan was overwhelmed, confused by the onslaught of perceptions—his own and Leigh’s, the feeling of penetrating and being penetrated. He groaned, holding onto Leigh as the only anchor in a chaotic world of feeling and sensation, the grounding point for his entire existence in the moment.
“Oh, oh Dylan,” Leigh said, panting, gasping for breath as they both began to move faster, both becoming more and more turned on. He had only ever experienced such deep pleasure with Leigh; he had only known what it felt like from the other perspective, from her. He held himself back for as long as he could, wanting to savor the moment of their bond, the sensation of icy, steely combination that brought them together as one.
But no matter how he tried, Dylan couldn’t fight the rising lust that filled him, the growing pleasure that drove all other thought out of his mind. He reached his climax, moaning into Leigh’s lips as the first wave of orgasm rocked his body, shattering through every nerve in electric jolts too potent to hold back. He felt Leigh’s muscles tightening around him in erratic spasms, felt her whole body tense as she reached her own orgasm, crying out in pleasure. Her sensations and his flooded through him in a torrent as inexorable as a tsunami, obliterating everything else in the world. Dylan kept moving until he couldn’t anymore, until his arms and legs felt boneless and he sagged against Leigh, panting for breath, shivering with the hot and cold flashes of aftershocks.
He knew, dimly, in the back of his mind, that he should lift himself up, pry himself off of Leigh and get to work on the crucial task of tracking down his brother and sister-in-law. But Dylan couldn’t resist the call of Leigh’s body; in moments he was tingling again, heat rising up from the pit of his stomach, radiating through his limbs, down to his hips. He had to have her again—and Dylan smiled to himself, remembering all the times he had teased Aiden about the fire elemental’s seeming inability to pull himself away from Aira’s body. Dylan would never taunt Aiden about it again; or if he did, he’d do it with far more awareness of how complete the addiction between the two elementals was.
He reached down between Leigh’s legs, stroking her as he started to get hard once more, his whole body ready in a matter of moments to have her again, to deepen the connection between them. In time—a few minutes, a few hours—he and Leigh would be ready to tackle the task of tracking Aira and Aiden. For now, they had each other.
CHAPTER NINE
AIDEN STARED AT THE CEILING of the room that held him, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. Apart from meals, he had no way of knowing how long he had been imprisoned; even then, he thought, his sense of time felt weirdly distorted by the emanations of the water-aligned materials holding him on lockdown. If it weren’t for the fact that he could faintly feel the pulse of Aira’s presence, he would have lost all hope.
The last time he had seen her was in the car on the way to Seraphina’s and Annaliese’s safe house; they had both been bundled up in nets that suppressed their abilities—Aiden’s made of silver, Aira’s made of lead. Aira had fallen unconscious, her energies nearly exhausted even before Seraphina had ambushed her, her body twitching slightly in the pain caused by the earth-aligned material that bound her. She had awakened at one point in the long journey away from the mountain—but they were being watched by a pair of elementals while Seraphina drove. It was impossible for them to do anything about their situation while they were wrapped in the nets, while their preternatural abilities were suppressed and they were under surveillance. They couldn’t even plan any method of escape—though Aiden could feel Aira’s presence, she couldn’t project her thoughts to him. He’d seen that they’d bound her even more than they had him; before they’d loaded her into the van, someone had managed to put iron shackles on her wrists and ankles, further driving down her immense abilities.
Aiden wished he could even get up and pace the small length of the floor in his room; the water-aligned materials that sapped at his abilities bore down on his essential strength, leaving him lethargic and too weak to do more than sit up, walk to the toilet, stand in the shower. He was trapped as thoroughly as any prisoner ever could be. In the early hours of their imprisonment, Aiden had struggled against the insidious, constant grip of the water-energy surrounding him to try to pry the door open, to find something to dig through the wall. If he could chisel out the stones that warded the room, he might be able to break through. But the washing gush of water energy depleted every bit of his strength.
He knew that it was probably even worse for Aira; he had no illusions that they’d hold back in fear of reprisals. Aira might be subject to regular torture—though not anything that would kill her, or even leave a physical injury. They’d be forcing her to drink water laced with colloidal silver or nothing at all, tying her to the bed with emerald-studded chains, feeding her rhubarb to suppress the intense energy that flowed through her and to heighten her pain. Anything that they could get away with, Aiden thought, they would do.
He knew that he and Aira were ransom; Seraphina had told him on the second or third day that their intention was to hold Aiden and Aira hostage until the elders agreed to release the other members of their group, including Oriel. Aiden did not have high hopes for what would happen if and when Seraphina and Annaliese accomplished their hopes. It was not difficult to imagine that they would kill Aira outright; it was the only thing that Aiden could imagine hurting more than his long stay in this dark, cold, watery room.
There was a shuffling, scuffing, scratching sound at the door. Aiden barely had the energy to turn his head and direct his gaze towards the sound; it was probably Annaliese, coming to collect him for another session of “conversation” with Seraphina. He and the other fire elemental had something of a history together; though she had bounced around from potential mate to potential mate, she had wanted him at one point—wanted him passionately, wanted him for the increase in power that his essence would provide. There was no false modesty in his thought that part of why Seraphina had come down so hard against Aira had to do with her disappointment that she had never managed to snare Aiden in the way that Aira had.
Instead of Annaliese, Aiden watched as a short, pale, not-quite-fit man came into the room, looking over his shoulder nervously. He glanced at Aiden and smiled as he closed the door behind him.
“We haven’t met before,” the man said. “And under normal circumstances, I would never in a million years help you.”
“I don’t exactly see you helping me right now.”
The man sighed, moving to the sole chair in the room and sitting down.
“I am though,” he said, glancing nervously at the door once again. “I owe someone a debt. Because of that, I’m going to help you break out of here.”
“Really?” Aiden looked at the man once more; there was nothing in his demeanor, in his body, or the pale sickly green of his eyes that suggested he was even remotely capable of helping Aiden break out of the prison he had been locked in. “What about Aira?”
The man shrugged. “Someone else is helping her. Look, we don’t have very much time. I owe Leigh, so I’m helping you.”
“Leigh? You’re … Leigh sent you?”
“I don’t have time to explain. Just listen and pay attention. I’ve brought you some materials and a potion that will help you break out of here on your own. Someone else is giving Aira something similar. There’s a note in this bag explaining it—and what the plan is. Once I leave this room you’ll have an hour.”
“How the hell am I going to know when an hour is up?” Aiden gestured to the clock-less, window-less walls.
“You’ll know, okay? Dylan and Leigh will both be waiting for you outside.”
“Who even are you?” Aiden watched as the man nervously pulled a small sack out of his pocket.
“That’s not important. I’m an ally of Leigh’s; she sent me here. It took me a week to infiltrate the group, and I can’t stay in here for long or they’ll start getting suspicious. Just do what the note says and try not to blast me when you break out.”
The man stood quickly. Aiden watched in bemusement as the man walked towards the door and let out a bizarre mimicry of a mocking laugh, loud enough to be heard through the thick walls of the room.
“That’s what you get! Traitor to your own kin, aren’t you?” The man opened the door and strode through it without a backwards glance.
Aiden reached down and picked up the sack from where the mysterious man had left it on the floor next to the bed. The moment his fingers came in contact with the material, Aiden began to feel better, the ache in his bones receding, the fogginess of his mind beginning to abate. That was definitely promising. He sat up in the bed and opened the pouch, peering inside to examine the contents. There was a watch—digital, a cheap thing, but presumably set to the right time; at least it was enough that he would know when an hour had passed. There was a pair of brass bracelets, embedded with tiger’s eye stones. It was easy to understand how they would help to counter the influence of the water-aligned materials in the room. There was also a potion, a gold necklace with a ruby pendant, and a note—Aiden’s glance told him in an instant that it was Dylan’s handwriting.
The potion will reach its fullest potency in your body within fifteen minutes of you drinking it, the note read. Put on the jewelry first, take the potion after the effects of the room start to diminish. You won’t be 100% until you’re out, but you’ll be able to get out. Leigh and I will be waiting, hidden, outside. Get Aira and we’ll finish this whole stupid mess. Dylan had scrawled his signature at the bottom, in case Aiden had had any doubt of who had sent him the care package.
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