by Cathryn Cade
Joel was dreaming. It was kind of a freaky one, because he was lying in a helicopter, being flown into the Hawaiian sunset. But it was good, because Bella lay by his side. Safe and alive. He turned his head and watched her sleep, smiling to himself. She was so pretty with flowers still clinging to her face, throat and wrists.
She’d scared the hell out of him back there at Na’alele. First jumping off that cliff with only a vine to hold her, and then drinking that stuff to save his sorry ass, and falling down in a drug-induced stupor. And when she’d come out of it—man, he’d never experienced anything like that. It was as if she’d awakened with another woman in her skin, one with a voice like thunder and freaky gold sort of trailing from her as she moved. Pixie dust, only hard edged, dangerous. He guessed if the island goddess Pele ever awoke, she’d have that same glittering aura.
Part of him knew that if he were awake, he’d be terrified by what he’d seen her go through and by the things she’d done, the way he had been when he was awake. Watching a girl—one with whom he’d just had hot, intimate sex, the kind that made him forget there were other women—bring down a tropical forest on a bunch of big thugs toting automatics, had just about blown his mind.
Good thing he was tougher than the average dude, because even knowing she could bring him to his knees with a houseplant if she chose, he had no intention of letting her go. He’d take her with him, everywhere. He was well and truly caught, as surely as if she’d wrapped him up in one of those vines, as she had Li. Huh, he wondered if the little slime ball was still hanging from that tree? He kind of hoped so.
He smiled at his wahine again. But now fear clawed through Joel’s sleepy haze. Bella was too pale. He struggled to lift his hand and touch her, make sure she was warm, but he couldn’t move his arms. Damn, they had him strapped in to the stretcher.
He opened his mouth to call for help. The words died in his throat as the pilot of the chopper turned and rose, filling the cockpit with her terrible beauty. He stared at her beautiful face, dark golden skin, and her crown of flame, and the long black hair that crackled around her, her skirts of smoke.
“You’re her, aren’t you?” he whispered. “Pele.”
She inclined her head, one of her hands resting on Bella’s blanket-covered body. “Help her,” he begged, struggling at his restraints again. “She’s—too pale. She’s supposed to be smiling, happy, alive.” He fought for words to describe what he’d seen, what had happened.
Pele raised her hand, and he fell back, wincing at the agony of ice that gripped his side.
“I know what has happened,” she told him. “It is why I am here. To take her.”
She bent to gather Bella into her arms, and Joel stared, grief driving the pain from his mind. “No,” he choked. “No, don’t take her. I-I need her.”
She looked down at him, the secrets of the ages in her burning, ebony eyes. “But is your need enough?”
“Enough for what?” he gasped.
But she disappeared in a hiss of smoke and steam, taking Bella with her.
She was replaced with the faces of strangers, leaning over Joel. They wore flight uniforms and headsets. “He’s waking up,” one of them said. “Joel, can you hear me? You’re in a Coast Guard chopper. You’ve been shot. Stay with us, man. We’ll get you to the hospital. You’re gonna be fine.”
Joel looked blearily for Bella but saw only an IV bottle rocking on a portable stand, and an empty space. Letting his eyes drift shut, he slid back into the darkness.
Bella felt as if she had been pulled from her body like a giant rubber band, stretched as far as she could go, and then released to slam back inside her battered, bruised and burning psyche.
She lifted her head slightly and then let it fall back to the hard, hot floor under her head. Sick, so sick.
Had she been drinking? She’d never had a hangover like this, not even when she and Claire helped Melia drown the sorrow of being dumped by her boyfriend and ended up finishing three bottles of wine.
She had the flu; that was it. Or cancer. With a sob of misery, she closed her eyes again and gave in to the cold shivers that racked her, even here in this heated space.
Finally, the slow pulsing beat that throbbed through the floor carried her with it, soothing, healing, and reenergizing. She drifted, breathing in and out, reassured by the voices that chanted for her. Her voices.
“‘Ae, little sister. All is well. You have saved us, and we in turn saved you.”
“Now rise,” commanded a new voice. Feminine, yet resonant with power, the voice reverberated through Bella’s being. Like her voices, the owner spoke Hawaiian, liquid and lovely.
Lifting her head, Bella was astonished to realize that she now felt well, if a little weak. As if she’d awakened from healing sleep after being ill. She clambered to her feet, realized fleetingly that she was naked, only her hair falling around her. But it didn’t seem to matter here. She turned to face the owner of the voice.
At once she knew in whose presence she stood. She gazed in awe at the woman who sat at ease on the throne of hardened lava at the end of the cave. “Pele.”
The woman nodded regally. “And you are one of mine, yes? My young ho’omalu.”
Bella’s nerveless legs gave out, and she dropped to her knees, staring in awe at the goddess of Hawaiian volcanoes. “I—I am? I mean, yes. I am a Ho’omalu. I just found out that my father…” Her voice faltered to a stop, and she blushed hotly as the goddess smiled, amusement clear in her obsidian gaze. Of course the patroness of the island knew all that.
“I mean that you are a true ho’omalu guardian now,” Pele corrected. “You have served me well, young Bella.”
“I have?” Bella reeled as memory crashed through her—Na’alele, and the maelstrom of violence that had erupted.
She lifted her hands and stared at them. They looked so normal, just slender and tanned, with short nails and the little scars where she’d cut herself with florist wire. But at Na’alele, she’d watched golden power stream from them, and she’d nearly used it to bring down the mountain.
She curled her hands in her lap, shame burning in her cheeks. “I—I killed those men. They were going to kill us, but—but I nearly destroyed innocent people as well,” she choked.
Pele rose in one swift motion and glided to stand before Bella. She held out an imperious hand, and without thinking, Bella placed her own in Pele’s, warm and powerful, and rose to stand before her.
“She gave you a terrible poison,” the goddess told her. “Distilled from my good earth, but made to enslave your human kind, weak and trusting. She wished to destroy your mind. Instead, her drug swept away all your inhibitions, your ability to control your power. She would have used it to bring down my people and take my island for her own use.”
Her face glimmered, her eyes burning, so that Bella felt as if she gazed into the heart of a volcano.
“You did not act alone,” Pele told her. “I worked through you, as patroness of these islands, given to my keeping by our Creator. Now let the weight of those deaths rest on me, not you.” Lifting her hand, she rested it on Bella’s head, hot and infinitely comforting, a blessing.
“Mahalo,” Bella whispered.
She just had one more question for the patroness. “Joel?” she asked, looking up into Pele’s face. “Is he okay? They shot him.”
Pele searched her face and then smiled a little. “He is what you want, hmm? Then you must go and see for yourself. Now sleep.”
She waved one hand, and Bella knew no more.
Bella woke in the room at Na’alele that she had come to think of as hers. She opened her eyes and lay still for a moment, looking at the room around her. It was airy and full of the silvery light of dawn, the curtains lifting in the breeze that blew through the open window. She could see the red hibiscus that bloomed outside, the blossoms nodding in the breeze.
On the wall beside the bed hung one of David’s paintings, a study of monstera leaves, thick strokes of paint lay
ered to capture their rich green. She smiled a little. She’d been so afraid she’d never see this place again, or the man who slept in the chair in the corner.
Head tipped back against the cushions, mouth open slightly as he slept, his black ponytail drifting over the shoulder of his flowered shirt, was her father. Her heart swelled. He’d sworn to her that though he had missed the first twentyfive years of her life, he’d be there for the rest of his. It seemed he meant it.
A shadow fell across the partly open door, and a slender, silver-haired man peeked in. Jason smiled when he saw Bella awake, his famous smile flashing. He stepped quietly into the room, putting his hand on her father’s shoulder.
“Daro,” he said. “Your Nani is awake.”
Daro started awake, lifted a hand to swipe across his face, and then stared at her. A huge smile dawning, he rose to hurry across the room. He reached for her and then hesitated uncertainly.
Bella reached out her arms to him.
“You’re here,” she said.
“I am here, Nani.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, Daro gathered her close in his arms. Jason Mamaloa hovered over them, one hand on his partner’s shoulder, the other on Bella’s head. “I’m here. And so is Jason.”
Bella smiled at her father. It was a pitiful effort. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear that.”
Daro nodded, his face crumpling. “I’ve been waiting your whole life to say it.” He laid his cheek on her hair for a moment.
“Are you well?” he asked anxiously, sitting back on the bed to peer into her face.
“I’m fine,” she assured him and lifted her arms to hug Jason as well.
“You had us worried,” he told her.
“Do you want anything? Some breakfast?” Daro asked. “Do you think she can eat?” he asked Jason. “Maybe she should just have fluids.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated. And she was, except—she frowned. Someone was missing.
“Joel. Is he…?”
Her heart stopped as Daro and Jason exchanged a look.
“Whoa, now. He’s in the hospital in Kona,” Jason told her, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm. “They say he’ll be okay, Nani. He’s healing well.”
Bella closed her eyes, relief swamping her for a moment. “Oh. Oh. I thought—” She covered her eyes, her face crumpling as tears fell.
Daro smoothed her hair. “Ah, I know, baby. But he’s a tough moke, the nurses say. Won’t be doing any mountain climbing for a few months, maybe, but he’ll make a full recovery.”
“Okay. What about Frank?” she asked, sniffling.
“He’s fine. Here at Nawea. They took him to the hospital, but he wouldn’t stay.”
Bella nodded. “And the others?”
The two men exchanged another look. “The younger ones—the models, they’re fine. I guess two of them hid safely when the, ah, storm blew through there,” Daro said. “And the other one is recovering, although she doesn’t remember anything. They’ve all been released from care.”
“Well, I think that’s enough news for one morning,” Jason told him. “I’ll go down and get you one of Leilani’s famous smoothies, Nani.”
He left the room, and Daro sat, holding her hand. “I called your mother,” he said. “The news crews are all over Na’alele. Big drug shipment gone bad, the police are calling it. With a group of innocent campers caught in the middle. With the, ah, storm, it’s the Hawaii news story of the decade.”
Bella squeezed his hand. “It’s okay, Dad. I know I caused a lot of it. I was strung out on Kona Kula. Turns out you really did pass on ho’omalu powers to me.”
They shared a snort of laughter and then both sobered. Bella supposed she wore a guilty look identical to his. But they were survivors. She hadn’t been the cause of the whole incident, just the unwitting conduit, and she was glad to be alive. She was even more grateful that Joel and Frank were okay.
“I have to go to Joel,” she said. “And see for myself that he’s all right.”
Daro looked disconcerted. “Ah, you may want to wait a few days.”
“Bella!” The happy cry cut through the quiet room, and Bella turned to see Melia in the door way, her pretty, freckled face alight with joy. “Oh, sweetie, we’ve been so worried.”
Footsteps thudded in the hallway, and Claire looked over Melia’s shoulder, their blonde hair mingling. “Bells! You’re awake.”
Daro rose courteously. “Come in. I’ll go see if your smoothie is ready, Nani.”
Bella’s best friends stepped in to let him go by and then hurried to climb on the bed with Bella, hug her and exclaim over her, and cry a little. Melia settled on the other pillow, and Claire sat cross-legged on the end of the bed.
“You look…stunning,” Claire said wonderingly, wiping away her tears. “Different.”
Melia nodded, sniffling. “You do look different.” Her expression turned solemn. “Passing through Pele’s chamber has that effect on you, hmm?”
Bella nodded, and Claire echoed her agreement. The three of them clasped hands.
“Who would ever have thought,” Claire murmured. “The three of us, here…and all that’s happened to us.”
“Did you know before you left for Na’alele, about your powers, I mean?” Melia asked reproachfully. “You never said anything.”
Melia did not like people to keep secrets from her. In fact, after returning from her honeymoon to find Bella was a Ho’omalu, she’d made her two best friends promised they would share all important details of their lives with each other.
Bella shook her head. “No, honestly I didn’t. When I was here for your wedding I felt…I don’t know, happy, alive in the forest, as if I couldn’t spend enough time there, but nothing like what happened this time.”
“We want to hear everything,” Melia told her. “But not right now. My gosh, you haven’t even had breakfast. Or coffee,” she added longingly, stroking her still-flat belly, where David’s baby grew.
“More importantly,” Bella said, as another need became apparent, “I haven’t been to the bathroom. Be right back.”
She slipped out of bed and reached for the red shorty robe hanging nearby. Someone had dressed her in her usual tank and boxers, she noted. The last thing she recalled wearing was nothing—but that had been in Pele’s cave.
Claire gasped, and Bella turned to find both of her friends staring at her, their faces shocked. “What?”
“You—you have tattoos,” Claire managed. “Like the Ho’omalu men, where they’ve been wounded.”
“I do?” Bella looked down at herself.
“Your arm,” Melia whispered. “And your leg. And, I’m pretty sure I saw some ink between your shorts and top. Oh, honey, what happened to you out there?”
“Close the door,” Bella said.
Claire leapt off the bed in a flurry of long limbs. As soon as the bedroom door closed, Bella ripped off the robe and then yanked off her tank and boxers. She stared at herself in the mirror hanging by the bathroom door.
Delicate tattoos marked her left thigh, her right forearm and the slope of her right hip.
David had several tattoos, and Daniel even sported tattoos on his bearded face. Homu and Hilo had many as well.
Hers were intricate, swirling designs, tribal yet feminine. Very different from those her male cousins bore but tying her to them with invisible strands of shared victory.
“That’s where she shot me,” she remembered, stroking her fingertips over the tattoos. Now that she knew they were there, she realized that the skin there itched and even burned a little.
“Aloe cream works great on the irritation,” Claire said, touching her own arm. She’d had a small, pretty wave inked on her upper arm to cover the scar of a wound received beside Daniel in battle.
“Yours are prettier than mine,” she added, moving to stand behind Bella at the mirror. She shook her blonde head and smiled ruefully. “Pele’s magic does excellent ink.”
“And you look fabulous,” Melia
added.
“Mahalo.” Her friends were right, Bella realized. She did look different. She looked…great, like a woman who was sure of herself and her place in the world. Sure of what she felt and what she wanted. She looked damn good, and she was going to use that to go after the man she loved.
“I’m quitting my job,” she told the two faces reflected in the mirror behind hers. “And I’m going to stay here. In Hawaii.”
Smiling at their identical looks of shock, she caught up her discarded things and sauntered into the bathroom.
Supper that evening at Nawea was an occasion. Homu and Tina were there, as was Hilo. David and Melia, Daniel and Claire, Daro and Jason, and even Zane had appeared, on a quick visit from school at the U of H.
Frank was waiting to hug Bella as she descended the stairs, and his sister Leilani came out of the kitchen to say hello.
Everyone carried dinner down to the patio table. Nawea was a lovely sight in the lavender dusk, surrounded by flickering light of tiki torches and the banks of blooming shrubbery, the sea an expanse of dark silver stretching to the horizon, and the dark bulk of the mountain crouched protectively behind them.
Homu stood at the end of the long table, holding his glass high. “I propose a toast. To our own brave wahine, Bella Moran-Ho’omalu, who, through the worst the enemies of Hawaii could throw at her, persevered and fought bravely and well. To Bella.”
The others raised their glasses high and looked at Bella, seated between her father and Zane. “To Bella. You’re a real ho’omalu now,” Hilo added. “You have faced the same family that David and Daniel battled and won, as they did.”
“I knew we’d get those Helmans in the end,” Daniel added, with a glinting smile. “But I never thought my little slip of a wahine cousin would bring down the last of them.”
Bella smiled mistily at them all. “Mahalo, my ohana. You kept me strong, and you saved me.”
“And you got some great ink,” Zane added enviously. The others laughed as she swatted him playfully.
“And I have a toast,” Bella added, rising. She looked at Frank, sitting across the table from her. “To the toughest, bravest kanaka I’ve ever met. He stayed cool through—well, a nightmare. And he saved my life. Mahalo, Frank.”
