The Tantalising Taste Of Water (Elemental Awakening, Book 4)

by Nicola Claire

  “I’ll bring him to you,” Hip said, turning back towards the door, but not before I noticed a look of confusion and doubt marring his normally upbeat features.

  I was surprised at his easy acquiescence, but the look I’d seen in his eyes said so much. He was lost. He was alone. His King was ignoring the obvious, forcing his people to hunker down and ignore what was happening in the world.

  “Hip,” I called before he’d made it through the door.

  “Yes, Aether,” he said, without turning around.

  “I should like to see your grandfather, too,” I said. Words I hadn’t thought I’d ever utter again.

  “I’ll ask him,” Hip advised and then walked through the door.

  It was a debate as to who would arrive first; Theo or the shaman. But as the ancient medicine man was not quite as ambulatory as Theo, I wasn’t surprised when my Thisavros burst through the door.

  “Casey!” he said, rushing in on a breath of fresh air and then halting in the middle of the room.

  Uncertainty flashed in those hazel eyes. Uncertainty and worry.

  I tried to smile. I was sure I failed. And then Theo took the steps necessary to cross the room to reach me and wrapped me up in his arms.

  “Oraia,” he murmured into my hair. “They wouldn’t let me see you.” He sounded wounded. Angry. And frustrated. The kind of frustrated that had “been there and done that” too many times.

  “I know,” I said into his chest.

  It felt better in his arms. It felt real. Safe. When I wasn’t being held by Theo, everything seemed so very far away. But when I wasn’t being held by Theo, I also couldn’t seem to make myself reach for him either. It was as if something disengaged when he wasn’t touching me. As if a switch was broken inside. In his arms, it was connected.

  Out of them, it was isolated.

  “Casey,” Theo said softly. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Hold me,” I whispered. “Just hold me.” And never let me go.

  He moved us to the bed but didn’t lie us down. Instead, he pulled me onto his lap and let me curl up in his arms. His hand softly stroked through my hair, down my back, and up again. His other anchoring me, across my lap, palm cupping my hip, holding me together, allowing that switch to stay “on”.

  I buried my face into his chest, inhaled his rich Mediterranean spice scent, the sunshine he always seemed to smell like, rosebuds mixed with Spring. At my core, I am Gi. Scent is everything to me.

  Touch is Theo’s balm, and he took it. What little I gave him. He stroked. He held me tight. He pressed his body into mine.

  Pyrkagia should have flared; I craved it, I wanted it. Theo would have given it willingly. But the Aeras were clearly too paranoid.

  The Earth cried. I sobbed silently. Theo held me.

  I’m not sure how long we sat there, how long Theo tried to give me something, anything, to make the world right. But the sun had sunk considerably when I finally opened puffy eyes. I ran a hand over my face, feeling wretched. And looked forlornly around the immaculate room.

  Here life progressed as usual.

  Out there the world suffered.

  Oh, Aether, Earth cried.

  Aether, Fire whispered.

  Help us, Air moaned through the closed door.

  Water rippled somewhere, but it failed to tempt me. I was still one Element short of a full house. And I had no idea if the Aeras' containment of my Stoicheio would mean Awakening that final Element was possible or not.

  We needed the Rigas on side.

  “Hip says the King won’t see me,” I finally said.

  “He refused an audience with myself,” Theo agreed.

  “Our only course is to approach the shaman.”

  “Are you up to it?”

  I was sure the question was simply Theo caring for me, concern marring his princely visage, but somehow it felt like a judgement of my failures.

  I shifted away from him and glanced out the window. The sun was sinking below the village buildings, casting long shadows and soft hues across crooked roof tiles. I stared at the surreal scenery for several long seconds. Theo watching me as I watched nature’s twilight.

  “Casey,” he eventually said.

  I stood up from the bed and quickly announced, “I’m taking a shower. If they have running water, I’m sure as hell taking advantage of it.”

  I felt Theo’s eyes on my back the entire time it took to reach the ensuite bathroom. I didn’t look at him when I closed the door. Sinking against it, I tried to breathe, but breathing, like so much now, was hard.

  It hurt.

  I dashed tears away from my cheeks angrily and went to stand before the mirror. Aetheros help me, but I looked a fright. My hair was matted, my skin bruised and covered in mud, my clothes ripped and torn and ruined.

  I looked like I felt. Broken.

  Ignoring my reflection, I found clean supplies under the bench and set about brushing my teeth and then turning on the shower. I stood for several seconds watching the waterfall, wondering why it didn’t reach for me, wondering how Aeras still stood and Pyrkagia was ruined, and the world was dying.

  Why a forgotten god could cause so much devastation and yet here steam unfurled and tiles slicked and water ran through plumbing. It was such a strange thought that pockets of our world still stood. On top of a mountain in Peru and somewhere in Switzerland.

  CERN was home to the Alchemists. It was where they held my grandfather. Where they wanted me to go. Sooner or later they’d show their hand, and I had an awful feeling it would not be pleasant in the slightest.

  A knock sounded out on the door; soft and careful.

  “Casey?” Theo called. “I hear the shower running, but you haven’t stepped in.”

  I had no idea how long I’d been standing there staring at the falling water, lamenting my fate and that of the world. Steam clouded the room, misted the mirror, slicked down the tiles. The cloying feeling of being unable to breathe worsened.

  My head spun; I reach out to catch to myself. My hand slipped on the wet ceramic, and I was down. On the floor, gasping, my vision dimming, the water from the shower wetting my hair and mixing with the tears, and coating my lips as I fought for each breath as though it was my last.

  “Damn it, Casey!” Theo said louder. “I’m coming in.”

  I shook my head, but no words would come out. The door opened, and Theo looked down at me, such pain etched on his face, behind his beautiful eyes. Such depth of agony.

  I was hurting him.

  “Oraia,” he breathed. “Sweet, sweet, Oraia.” He was beside me on the floor in an instant, under the spray, arms wrapped around my shaking body, hands holding me steady, making it easier to breathe somehow.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he murmured. “Tell me what to do. Aetheros, please. Tell me what to do.”

  I’d thought he was talking to me, asking me, and there was no way I could offer an answer. But he’d been praying. To an absent god. His answers weren’t ever going to be forthcoming.

  Aetheros had abandoned us.

  And chosen poorly.

  “I can’t do this,” I said, the words merely whispered.

  “Just breathe,” Theo urged. His hand stroking through my hair, his body warming mine, his hot breath soothing against my damp skin. “Just breathe, Cassandra. Just breathe.”

  He kept saying it. Over and over again. The words, like his soft, tender strokes of the hand, soothed in a way nothing had for what felt like forever. I clung to him, this man who meant everything. I clung to him, and he held me just as tightly.

  I knew I was broken. I knew I was an Aether with only three Stoicheio. I knew the world was spiralling out of control, faster and faster, deeper and deeper into a chasm that promised to swallow it whole.

  The mountain rumbled. The building trembled. The night held its breath and waited.

  I couldn’t fix this if I couldn’t fix myself.

  I lifted my face to Theo’s. He looked down at me with so
much love and care it broke a part of me inside into little pieces. I sucked in air. The shower kept falling. Steam wafted around us, making the moment seem surreal.

  The earth shuddered.

  “I need help,” I whispered.

  “Tell me,” Theo urged in reply.

  I shook my head. I didn’t know the answer.

  Theo smiled; it was sad and understanding and shouldn’t have been a comfort, but it was. It so definitely was.

  “Then we find help,” he announced. “We don’t stop until you feel better. Whatever you need, we’ll get it. But first,” he said, brushing wet strands of hair out of my eyes. “We get clean. Water may not have Awakened, but we’ll dance in its shower regardless.”

  Come dance, Aether. Dance with me.

  I may not have accepted the Nero Rigas’ offer. But when Theo held his hand out to me, I took it.

  I was broken, but I was not beaten.

  Not if I had my Thisavros.

  Chapter Nine

  No Matter What

  “A fire would be nice,” Theo murmured, as he brushed my hair straight. I sat on the bed, my back to him, as he tended me as though I was a child.

  He’d washed me so carefully, so diligently, in the shower. He’d held me when I’d fumbled. He’d propped me up when I’d swayed. He’d continued to murmur encouragingly. All the while his hands had shaken slightly, his eyes had held a wealth of pain, and his jaw had flexed with the effort required to move gently, softly, warily.

  When all he’d wanted to do was rage.

  I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t stop whatever it was that I was feeling. Even when I told myself to smile, to pay attention, to engage, I’d been unable to completely commit to the endeavour. Even as I knew I was hurting him with my strange behaviour, I was still unable to change the route my body, my mind, my heart, was taking me.

  “Of course,” Theo added, still brushing long strokes through my hair, “even if we had a fire, we couldn’t communicate with Aktor and Nico. I should like to have known they were OK.”

  Yet another reason to feel guilty. I’d let go of Aktor’s hand. Broken the chain.

  “Maybe we can negotiate a pass on Pyrkagia,” Theo added. “Simply for the purposes of ascertaining our family is safe. The Aeras aren’t so unreasonable.”

  He knew the answer to that better than anyone. The Aeras, like all Athanatos, were extremely paranoid beings. Allowing us access to our Stoicheio, even if only briefly, was not even remotely possible with these creatures. Safety of their people came first.

  “Hippolytos may well aid us,” Theo suggested as if continuing to offer impossible solutions would finally make one of them stick. “Surely he’ll understand our need to ensure they are safe.”

  Hip was as blinded as the Aeras Rigas. The at-one-time exuberant Ekmetalleftis had come down from out of the clouds in which he’d once played.

  “We could appeal to their protective instincts,” Theo said. “You are, for all intents and purposes, Aeras, your need to assess the safety of your own people would make sense.”

  I would ask, of course. But gaining an audience with the King would be difficult.

  “Do you think they’ll treat you differently? Did Hippolytos, once he realised you had Awakened Air?”

  Every now and then he threw a question at me, clearly in the hopes that I’d reply. I offered a shoulder shrug, as I had done the several times before this. Theo kept talking as though that was enough.

  Sooner or later it wouldn’t be.

  “Naturally they’ll want to assess you,” he said. “At which point they will have to return Aeras to you. Perhaps it is then we should consider our escape.”

  “Escape?” I said, entering the conversation at last; if you could call a monologue a conversation that is.

  “Casey,” Theo said. “We are cut off from our Stoicheio. We are paralysed here.”

  “Coming here was intentional,” I pointed out.

  “I gathered that,” he said drily in reply.

  “I intend to seek their help.”

  “In Awakening Nero? When they welcomed you with your Aeras so very well?”

  “Hip didn’t know I had come into Air.”

  “Of course he knew, Cassandra. How else did we end up here?”

  “He seemed surprised,” I argued.

  “And in all the thousands of years he’s lived, do you not think he has learned to lie?”

  I paused.

  “I understand why you came here, Oriaia,” Theo said more softly. “But you must consider the possibility that they are too insular to risk giving us any help.”

  But that was the problem. Every single branch of Ekmetalleftis was the same. Insular. How did you balance a world when none of the key players wanted to help?

  I shook my head. “We’re not leaving.”

  Theo stopped brushing my hair and placed the brush on the side table with undue care. As though he was tempted to throw the thing and was working very hard to avoid that outcome.

  “I think we need to tread very carefully here,” he finally said.

  “There’s more than one reason why I brought us here, Theo,” I advised, pushing up from the bed and starting to pace. “They need to know I’ve Awakened Aeras. It’s an obligation I have to see to. But,” I added, staring out into the dark streets through the drapes on the windows, “someone helped the Nero. Someone loaned them Air to use lightning. It was either the Aeras themselves or someone else. I think if they didn’t do it, they’d appreciate knowing it was being thrown around. And if they did do it…”

  “Then you just walked us into a trap,” Theo finished for me.

  I turned slowly to look at him. He was still sitting on the bed, angled toward me, features stoic and slightly hard. That Athanatos mask firmly in place.

  “The shaman,” I started.

  “Is mad.”

  I smiled; it was almost believable.

  “He’s the closest thing to Aetheros that we have,” I offered.

  Theo sighed and ran a hand through his thick head of hair. I watched as the lights of the lamps in the room caught the auburn hints. My fingers itched to touch him, stroke him, like he had stroked me in the shower.

  For a moment, I almost felt normal again. A flare of desire that lasted too brief a length of time.

  I swallowed thickly and looked back out the window.

  “Promise me something,” Theo said softly, drawing my eye again. “Whatever you choose to do, wherever you choose to go, don’t leave me behind.”

  He had a right to ask; I’d left the others behind. But still, it smarted.

  “I have no intention of leaving you behind,” I said, voice thick with emotion.

  “Don’t you?” he queried, and then he stood up from the bed and walked into the bathroom.

  The door clicking shut behind him battered my heart.

  I stared at it for a suspended moment, then turned back to the window and lifted my palm to rest on the cold glass. The window misted around my fingers. My breath came out in a huff of steamed air. I blinked back tears.

  Aetheros, I pleaded. Help me. Put me back together again.

  A sigh left me when no booming voice replied. Had I truly thought it would?

  I was still standing in exactly the same position when Theo emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later. My hand was frozen.

  Just like my heart.

  “Time to see how they will receive us,” he announced. “Are you ready?”

  Theo could switch off emotions as easily as he donned a suit jacket. The political Prince was here.

  The hurting Thisavros was not.

  I stared down at the borrowed clothes Hip had left me; a figure hugging dress made of sturdy material, designed to handle the frigid mountain air. Theo was dressed similarly, in thick woollen trousers that seemed tailored to perfection despite the coarse looking fabric, and a warm shirt that stretched provocatively across his broad chest.

  Even the insular Aeras liked to show o
ff their well-honed physiques.

  Athanatos, thy name is vanity.

  I smirked. Theo let out a breath of air. Our eyes connected.

  “No matter what,” he whispered, but didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. I knew how it went.

  No matter what, I will always love you.

  “I know,” I murmured.

  “Sometimes it needs to be said,” he deadpanned.

  My smirk blossomed into a smile.

  “There she is,” he whispered, his voice catching. He cleared his throat and took a step closer. “You are so beautiful, Oraia,” he murmured. He moved closer still, until he could reach up and cup my cheek. Then he stared down into my eyes adoringly. A thumb brushed over my jaw lightly; heat unfurled inside at his touch. I blinked, my eyelids suddenly heavy. The lashes fanning against flushed skin. “And still she blushes,” he said softly. “Such a beautiful shade for a beautiful woman.”

  His lips brushed against my own, making me realise I’d closed my eyes completely. They sprang open, held fast by hazel and amber. No hint of gold but, God, I could swear I felt it.

  “Casey,” Theo whispered. Then eyes still holding mine steady, he moved slowly, lowering his lips inch by excruciating inch, allowing me time to run if needed.

  It couldn’t be easy for a Pyrkagia Prince to contain his passion to such a degree. Theo didn’t take uninvited, but he did demand regularly. There was no demand here. Just a simple invitation to kiss. An invitation he held in check, just like he held his desire in check, giving me a chance to adjust, to acclimatise, to retreat.

  Retreating would hurt him. But he’d allow it. He never pushed me where I didn’t want to go. But he did challenge me. Often. And the kiss he offered now was a type of challenge in itself.

  Kiss him and deny that hollowness inside.

  Turn my cheek and lose myself to the darkness.

  I was scared, if I’m honest. Scared that kissing Theo would be different. Different from how it had once been. I am Pyrkagia, as much as I am Gi and Aeras. I am passion and Fire and lust and desire, wrapped up in the steady hand of Earth and the flighty moods of Air.

  Kissing Theo had meant everything, so facing this challenge now took effort. And courage. And a willpower I was no longer so certain I possessed.