The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  Socar was surprised into stunned silence. Unfortunately, Stanishlough wasn’t. “This is Council business, and you have no place here! You pollute this sacred place with your presence! You’re forbidden from interfering with our affairs!”

  Diana’s face hardened. She put both hands on the table and slowly leaned forward from her seat in Alec’s lap.

  “If I were you, I’d shut my stupid fucking mouth right now because there is nothing forbidden to one of my kind. And as for me polluting this place, I will remind you that there is nothing as purifying as a little fire,” she hissed before leaning back into his embrace with a relaxed expression.

  Alden had remained rather still during Diana’s sudden appearance. Now his features were expressionless.

  “Is this some sort of declaration?” he asked, his glance flicking back and forth from Diana’s face to Alec.

  She turned to Alden. “And what sort of declaration would that be?”

  “Are you here to tell us that Alec is under your protection for the service he provided you?” he asked, his face carefully neutral.

  Diana cocked her head, and seemed to consider her answer.

  “I’m here to tell you that if anyone fucks with my mate, I will burn this place to the ground with everyone in it,” she said before smiling sweetly at their audience.

  41

  Behind her Alec tensed, his body heating around her, but she didn’t turn to look back at him.

  Wordlessly, he took her hand in his and gripped it tightly. while she took in everyone’s frozen expression. None of the other vamps made a sound. Seconds stretched to a full minute before anyone stirred.

  It was Daviel Saturne, of House Saturne, who finally spoke. “This is unexpected. Are you sure?”

  Diana shot him a speaking glance, and he coughed apologetically. “I mean, an Elemental has never taken a vampire for a mate. A Fire Elemental has never. . .”

  The poor guy couldn’t think of anything else to follow that.

  She shrugged. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  Socar took a steadying breath and stood. “Your association with Alec is a. . .an honor to his house,” he finally said with an acknowledging nod to Alden.

  Diana pursed her lips, waiting for more.

  “But I’m afraid that the business we have with Alec supersedes any of his other associations,” Socar continued. “This Council requires that he hand over information critical to our survival.”

  Diana rolled her eyes. “I realize you might actually believe that, but your kind has gotten along for a millennium without walking around in daylight, and you can get along without doing it now.”

  The level of tension in the room jumped up a notch.

  “Are you refusing to give us what is our right? What is our due!” Socar’s renowned control broke down.

  The guards responded by fanning out behind them. But they kept a noticeable gap between them and the chair in which the odd couple sat.

  “No, actually,” Diana replied without batting an eyelash.

  The whirl of confusion that swept over the crowd left several with comical dumbfounded expressions on their faces. Her smile grew wider and Daviel’s expression went from confused to besotted as he looked at her. Alec shot him a warning look before turning his attention back to Diana.

  “Not that I believe anything of Alec’s is your due,” she continued. “He owes you nothing. His discovery was the result of decades of brilliant work, and if he wants to keep it to himself, he can.”

  “So you don’t want me to hand over the ritual?” Alec asked looking down at her, genuinely confused.

  “No, you can give it to them,” she said gently. She twisted a little on his lap so she could put a hand on his cheek. “The ritual is pointless. It worked for you because it was you. It won’t work for them.” She paused to make sure he was taking it in. “It’s simply a tool, a way to focus what magic there is in this world on you. If you are worthy and have the skill, it changes you. If you’re not, you stay the way you are. There is usually only one of your kind in a millennium that can pull it off. . .if that.”

  Diana’s explanation was met with complete and utter silence. Alec looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed. She continued to stroke his cheek.

  Stanishlough laughed. “She’s lying!”

  For people who didn’t need to breathe much, the shocked intake of breath coming from multiple vampires around the table was very loud. Even some of the guards behind them broke their stoic silence to gasp aloud.

  Insulting the bogeyman in their midst was suicide.

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Diana said, fighting the urge to laugh. “But only because your scintillating company is starting to get on my nerves. We are leaving. Alec can email the ritual details. You will leave us alone. Or you get my undivided attention. . .but only for as long as it takes for your smoldering pile of flesh to stop smoking.”

  With that, she got up off Alec’s lap. Slightly dazed, he followed after her toward the door, but Stanishlough was too stupid to keep his mouth shut.

  He got up from the table and pointed to them while making eye contact with Socar and as many members that would return his glance.

  “You can’t seriously think of letting them go! She’s lying. The ritual will work. He has to show us how he did it! I can get it to work this time!”

  “This time?” Alec turned sharply to face Stanishlough. “What do you mean?”

  “Aren’t others always in pursuit of the chance to walk under the sun?” Socar said evasively.

  “Yeah, but why would you bother to do the homework when you can just steal it?” Diana asked, looking up to check Alec’s reaction.

  “You stole my research.” Alec’s tone went from incredulous to angry before he’d finished the sentence. “But you can’t have. No one knows where I hid the research. No—” he stopped short. The look on his face was one of realization and. . .pain.

  “What is it? Did someone else know where you kept it?” she asked quietly with a glance at his father.

  “Yes, but not him,” he replied. With a look of hatred, he focused on Stanishlough, “Where is Daniel?”

  “Who?”

  “My servant, Daniel. He is the only one that had access,” Alec bit out.

  His voice was arctic, colder than Diana had ever heard.

  There was a pointed silence. It stretched so long the other members of the circle began to edge away from Stanishlough in a clear retreat of support.

  Not noticing, Stanishlough drew himself up in his most arrogant and supercilious manner. “It was his own fault. He would have survived if he had been quicker to obey.”

  The silence stretched. The loyalty of a servant to his house was a point of pride. Kidnapping and torture of a loyal retainer was sufficient cause to declare war on another house.

  Alec was frozen for an immeasurable moment until he suddenly blinked and lunged for Stanishlough. The older vampire broke his grip, and in the space between heartbeats, he twisted away from Alec.

  In movements too quick for eyes to see, the two fought in vicious bursts, one getting the upper hand and then quickly losing it as the other wrested it from him.

  Diana suppressed a flinch as one of the enemy’s blows landed hard. She debated moving in and ending it, but the entire council was watching. As much as she hated it, Alec had to end this on his own.

  The vicious fight continued in near silence. The other members of the council must have been too unnerved by her presence to take sides. She stood ramrod straight, fighting to keep her face impassive. Alec slammed Stanishlough against the table, the advantage clearly his when Diana saw Socar twitch his hand. A few nervous guards inched forward, responding to his sign in surreptitious movements.

  They hadn’t moved more than a few steps when a wall of fire rose in front of them. The guards reared back, and the wall became a circle around the two fighters.

  “Don’t even think about interfering,”
Diana hissed at the old man.

  Socar sneered. “I bind you to the same rule, Elemental.”

  “You can’t bind shit. I don’t answer to you. But Alec doesn’t need my help,” Diana said firmly.

  “Stanishlough is centuries older. Your mate—”

  “Will still tear him apart,” Diana cut him off sounding more sure than she felt.

  She folded her arms and raising the fire circle higher and hotter so that Socar and the others had to retreat farther.

  There was a sickening crack, a harsh sound that nearly stopped her heart. Diana turned to see Alec standing still with his back partly to her. Fear seized her until she saw that he was holding something. He dropped it and backed away, giving everyone a clear view of Stanishlough stretched on the floor. The older vampire’s head was lying several feet away from his body.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. Well, that was fast.

  Diana walked through the fire circle and stood at Alec’s side, taking in his frozen expression. Despite his strength and fighting ability, Alec was a scholar and gentlemen. He didn’t take death lightly, and being its instrument would always be painful for him.

  She cleared her throat slightly and whispered, “I didn’t mean literally.”

  Alec’s eyes met hers. It took a moment before they focused on her. A small coughing laugh escaped him.

  “I’m sorry about Daniel,” she said quietly. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He took a deep breath but didn’t say anything.

  “Yes. Leave and don’t come back,” Socar said from across the room.

  Alec’s handsome face became hard and cold.

  “I will leave, but I will come back. I’m keeping my seat on the council. If you oppose me, say so now.”

  “Now? While your witch is here to fight your battle?” Socar said. “Will you bring her to all of our meetings? Does she dictate to us now? Shall we bow before her?”

  A rustle of whispers erupted behind him.

  “If Alec wants to attend your boring ass meetings, I don’t care. I won’t be joining him. Frankly, I have better things to do. But rest assured, if he doesn’t come home after one, I won’t believe it when you say he got bored to death. If anything happens to him, there isn’t a hole deep enough for you to hide in,” Diana warned.

  Socar stood up, his eyes shooting daggers at her. Then he straightened his suit jacket and stalked out of the room.

  A few others followed him. The remaining company was silent until Daviel Saturne chuckled out loud. He got a few looks from his neighbors and subsided.

  Alec walked to his father and said quietly, “I’ll. . .be in touch. Will you be all right?”

  “Yes,” Alden said stiffly. “Stay safe, my son. I trust I’ll see you soon,” he added more graciously.

  Alec nodded and followed Diana out of the council chamber.

  42

  Alec watched Diana at the wheel as she drove straight to Boston.

  She called me her mate.

  She was his. And he was hers. He had lost Daniel. But he wouldn’t grieve alone. Diana understood, and she would be there with him.

  “Now what?” he asked her.

  Hours had passed in relative silence.

  “I can take you to your place. I guess you have stuff to take care of,” Diana said.

  “Yeah, some. I need to figure out what to do for Daniel.”

  “Did he have family?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s probably for the best. But I’m really sorry you lost him. I know he was important to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  It meant everything that she was there for him. And even though she would never say so, she needed him, too. He would take care of her and her secrets, if she let him.

  “What happened to you in foster care?” he asked suddenly, surprising himself.

  He’d meant to wait for a better time to ask.

  Diana tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she glanced at him. He watched her quietly, but she didn’t answer. She kept driving until she found a parking spot outside his apartment building.

  He didn’t ask again. He just kept staring at her.

  “I killed my foster parents,” she said finally, looking straight ahead into the darkened street.

  “Did they deserve it?” he asked.

  “Yes and no.”

  He waited patiently. Sighing, she sat back into the leather seat of her favorite car, a perfectly restored 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500. It had been waiting for them when they left the council chambers, courtesy of Logan.

  “I lived in a lot of different homes after my mom died. Never lasted long in any one place. Stuff would happen that would spook the foster parents. Kitchen stoves going crazy until they broke. Electronics burning out. I was considered bad luck. And as I got older, things escalated, and fires broke out. I was labeled a problem case. I got stuck in some pretty rotten places after that. Till I ran away. But I didn’t know where to go and eventually someone would find me. Then I would be sent somewhere else.”

  She stopped when he slid his hand over hers. As he gripped it tightly, she continued. “The last place was the worst. There was a husband and wife. They had three awful kids of their own but took in a lot of others for the checks they got from child service. Some of those kids were heading for the state pen, but I could handle them. Most of them found me. . .creepy. It was the parents who were a problem. The dad—I hated him. He beat some of the kids when they acted up, but it’s what he did behind closed doors that made my skin crawl. Even to his own kids.” She stopped and looked away. “I didn’t have to wait long for it to be my turn.”

  He wanted to pull her into his arms, but he was worried she might stop. He settled for stroking her palm with his finger.

  Eventually she continued. “The father waited for everyone to be out of the house. He kept me behind when everyone else had gone to school, telling them I was sick and that he would have to stay home and watch me. Only I wasn’t sick. And I was done waiting for him to make his move. I sat quietly on my cot until he came to my room.” She closed her eyes briefly. “He looked at me like he was having second thoughts. I think my calmness may have thrown him. But then he shrugged it off. He smiled and petted me, told me how pretty I was. And then I told him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That he was a monster. But it was okay. Because I was there to kill monsters—and no I didn’t know what I was. Not back then. It just came out. And then I called the fire,” she said, her eyes distant.

  “It was the first time I did it on purpose. I wasn’t sure it would come. It always seemed to happen when I didn’t want it to. But it came. The cot burned, then the room. Eventually the whole house. I walked out of there without a scratch or singe. Not even my clothes were damaged. I went outside and sat in the front yard until the police came. The social workers took me away, and that’s when I found out that my foster mother had gone back to the house after dropping the kids at school. She wasn’t supposed to be there. And she died, too.”

  “She had to have known what was happening in her house,” Alec said quietly.

  “Yeah, she did. But I’m not sure that’s enough of a reason for her to die. If she had chosen to fight him, she would have lost. He probably would have killed her.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. All she had to do was inform the authorities. It’s possible they would have been able to put a stop to it.”

  Diana cocked her head to the side. “I don’t think it would have gone down that way, but there’s not much point in speculating. I got locked up after that. They blamed the fire on me. I had a history with them. But I wasn’t locked up for long. Gia came for me. And then everything changed. I had a calling, a purpose. And sisters.”

  She pulled his hand into her lap and held it with both hands. “Sometimes things still get to me. You’re going to get frustrated, too. There are a lot of things we don’t have the power to change. But you get to make a difference. Most of the time, i
t’s enough. But not always.”

  “I get that,” he said. She raised her eyebrows, and he insisted, “I do. But wouldn’t it help to have someone to hold on to when it’s not enough?”

  She didn’t answer right away, and he held a breath he didn’t need.

  “I need to move on soon,” she said eventually.

  Not what he was hoping to hear. But it was now or never.

  “Yeah, I figured. Are you finally going to ask me to go with you?”

  She smiled wryly. “I’m telling you to be ready to leave by noon tomorrow.”

  Alec laughed a little and then stopped and held out his hand. “And I’m telling you to come upstairs with me now,” he said softly.

  Diana stared at his outstretched hand for a long while before finally taking it. They got out of the car, and he stopped to admire it.

  He put his arm around her. “Hey, do you think I can drive it tomorrow?”

  “Not a chance,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “That’s what I thought you were going to say. I’m going to have to teach you a little something about sharing. And we’re going to start your first lesson right now,” he said, tugging on her hand and pulling her in close before leading her upstairs to his bedroom.

  THE END

  Continue the Elemental’s Series with Air, a Readers’ Favorite Silver Medalist!

  Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite wrote:

  “I can honestly say Air is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It was “un-put-downable” and I raced through it with little pause. An excellent read and definitely one of the best within its genre.”

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  Air: The Elementals Book Two

  Introduction

  “I can honestly say Air is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It was “un-put-downable” and I raced through it with little pause. An excellent read and definitely one of the best within its genre.” - Grant Leishman for Readers’ Favorite ★★★★★