Flight: The Roc Warriors (Immortal Elements Book 1)
Page 11
Avalon showed me how to do this. Legs crossed, sitting on the soft green grass in an Om position.
“You have to be able to see the end result of any situation in which you choose to use magic without losing your surroundings or leaving the moment.” She paused to look me up and down, waiting to make sure I didn’t have questions. I didn’t. So she continued. “It takes most witches years of practice to master. Because focusing in a dangerous situation can be difficult. Many witches either lose focus on the magic being cast or put too much power into the magic by leaving the moment. Thus, the magic becomes uncontrollable and dangerous.”
Okay, with that explanation we moved past ‘got it’ more toward ‘excuse me?’
But Avalon decided I could do this and as I hated the thought of disappointing her, I pushed up my sleeves, cracked the knuckles on my fingers and neck, and prepared to ground myself. The magic warmed me as it pulsed through my veins, powering up every cell. The hum of electricity filled my ears as the smell of ozone filled my nose.
Training commenced.
Once she showed me how to turn it on, it felt as if I’d always had it. A palpable sense of history. How? History wasn’t palpable, but mine was. Though I clearly lacked the control of Avalon, getting distracted more than a few times. Once when she had me levitating the bench next to the one Shadow watched from, it crashed to the ground and smashed into a million pieces.
She had the nerve to order me to use my magic to put it back together. Who was Avalon kidding?
And all throughout my cussing and tantrums—well, maybe my behavior stayed just on the lesser side of tantrum, but definitely frustration—Avalon waited on me with the patience of a saint. Shadow watched over me with the look of a loving partner. Sometimes the lines around his eyes crinkled with laughter. Others, his jaw clenched with concern. Those tended to follow a sharp wince when I lost control of the magic and broke a bench or sculpture, or landed backwards on my derrière.
It was safe to say my body smarted something fierce.
Though once I got control of the magic, I really controlled it. Avalon called practice for the day.
She walked over to hug me. “Meena, dear. You did wonderfully. I’m amazed how fast you bonded with the magic. For most of us, it takes years.”
I shrugged. “Maybe it’s the difference between learning as an adult and a child.”
“That is a possibility,” she answered, but didn’t get to say anymore on the subject as Shadow approached from behind, trapping me in an embrace.
He bent down to kiss my neck. “Maybe my mate is highly talented.”
“You just like me,” I teased.
“No.” He turned me in his arms. “I love you.”
Hearing those words, no matter how many times he said them, meant the world. How could they not?
“I remember when your father and I first mated,” Avalon responded with a wistful sigh. “Such a beautiful time.”
“Then if you no longer require the presence of my mate, I should like to take our leave, Mother.”
“Yes—go enjoy your time together.”
I could think of so many ways to enjoy my time with Shadow.
That was when he dipped down to kiss my temple and pulled back. “Meena, join me for a walk?”
It was safe to say I’d join him for just about anything right now. I was in love. I’d used magic. And we were headed down the mountain to face creatures who wanted to kill me.
Tomorrow.
Chapter Ten:
Magic Moments
Oh, I was most definitely willing to go for a walk with my husband. Except fate, this time known as my new brother-in-law, changed those plans. Crest’s ringtone and his picture lit up Shadow’s cell.
He answered. But I had to give it to him, Shadow didn’t look happy about it. And he sounded even less happy. “What?” he snapped into the receiver. He listened, grunted a few times, listened some more, then finished with a huff. “Fine.”
Turning to me, the disappointment clear in every etched line on his usually smooth face, he raised a hand to touch my cheek. “The walk will have to wait, eaglet. The wolves are making moves. If we’re to head down the mountain, I need to know why they’re moving.”
As I understood, I nodded, to which Shadow rewarded me with one of his wet, decadent kisses.
“I don’t know how long this will take,” he said after pulling his lips away to search my eyes.
“Go,” I ordered. “Do aerie-lord stuff. I’ll be fine.” One more quick kiss and he left me to find out about wolves. Seeing as I’d almost died a horrific death by wolf-mauling, to say I wanted us nowhere near those monsters was an understatement. But I kept those thoughts to myself. If Shadow thought me scared to go down the mountain for any reason, then he’d find a way to prevent it.
And with the readings coming in before my mating hiatus, something monumental was coming and I had to find out what. Had to, lives—possibly millions—hung in the balance.
I walked out from the courtyard around the side yard until I hit the main gate where two guards in their eagle headdresses and sharply creased jackets with epauleted finery, stood out front on duty. Different from the men who guarded the front of the palace when Shadow and I arrived this morning. Had it only been this morning? It felt like so much had happened to me, to us, in that time. Too much to cover in one day. Still, I walked over to introduce myself, stopping in front of the closest man. Dark skin, yellow eyes. As with most of the people I’d seen since my arrival, the man towered over me and had an exceptionally handsome face.
“Hello.” I held my hand out to him. A hand he didn’t take, instead looking at me curiously. “I’m Meena.” I said as introduction.
“Aerie-Lady.” The man breathed the word out with what sounded like adoration.
Aerie-Lady? “You can call me ‘Meena.’”
The second man, more of the typical coloring of the Roc people, snickered. “I’m sorry. We are only allowed to address you as ‘lady’ or ‘Aerie-Lady.’”
Uh, no. Titles belonged to sophisticated, regal women who waved with the back of their hands, not to a woman like me who spent her days digging in the dirt. I opted to ignore it for the time being, however. “How may I address you?”
“M’lady, if the need arises, I am Coopersmith,” the first man said.
“And I am Talc,” added the second.
“It’s good to meet both of you, Coopersmith and Talc. I’m heading to the park for a while, so… I guess I’ll see you around.”
The men let me pass. The park wasn’t that far from the castle; however, that didn’t stop every person on the street from stopping to say hello or that I was “so tiny.” They wanted to shake my hand. I even kissed a few babies and a toddler who told me I was pretty.
News traveled so fast up here in Cloud City that my private life entered the public domain before I had the chance to live it. Over a million people knew I’d had sex—specifically with Shadow—last night.
Time to call my best friend Breya.
Yes—tell her? No—don’t? And if yes, how much? How much was I allowed to divulge; how much could she take?
Yes—tell her won hands down. Hands down, as in one was at my side and the other, I used to fish my phone from my pocket in order to dial. Shadow and his brothers had cell service. I counted on the fact that mine would work too.
Breya answered on the first ring. “Hey, biotch! It’s been forever,” she said, laughing. “I thought you might’ve fallen into one of those volcanos.”
We’d lived in a foster home together when we were kids. She’d come to stay after her grandfather died, but before her older brother had passed basic training in the army so he could take her in. Whereas I researched volcanos, she was a real humanitarian taking care of the homeless. When I’d start to lose faith in people, one phone call to her and I’d find it again.
I laughed along with her. “No. I’m clearly alive and intact. Actually, well, I’m calling to tell you… I got marri
ed.”
“What?” she screeched into the receiver. “You never told me you were seeing anyone. Married?” Her voice went soft. “I never got an invitation.”
Shit! She sounded hurt.
“No wedding. It was a whirlwind and we eloped.”
“You… the commitment-phobe… eloped after a whirlwind courtship? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend Meena?”
“It—I don’t know. It’s just right. I knew it, felt it from the moment we met.”
“Happy for you, Meen. Do I ever get to meet this magic man who swept you off your feet?”
“Yes. I promise, you will. But tell me now, how are things going with you?”
I walked over to a wooden picnic table and climbed up to sit on the tabletop. The weather-worn (most likely) fir, per the indigenous trees of the area, snagged at the denim material of the jeans I’d changed into after my shower as I scooted my bottom into place.
“Things have been…” Breya paused. “Weird.”
“Weird?”
There was a second, longer pause. “Yes… weird. Regulars who haven’t been showing up for mealtime. I’m worried.”
“They’re homeless. I’m not trying to sound insensitive, Brey, but doesn’t that happen? They don’t exactly live an easy life.”
“Not in these numbers. Ella and I have been monitoring, connecting with shelters all over the country in a group chat. It’s scary, Meen. They’ve been disappearing, turning up dead in numbers that frankly, we can’t account for.”
That sounded ominous. My gut told me there was something more to this.
“I’m in the Canadian Yukon. A volcano that’s been dormant for over ten thousand years is suddenly active.” I didn’t know why I told her, except for while I listened to her tell me about the missing and deceased homeless, pin prickles—the magic kind—ran up my arms and through my core, down my legs.
“Do you think it’s connected to the earthquakes?”
“Earthquakes?” I asked.
“Yeah, in the chat group people from places who rarely, if ever, see earthquakes have been reporting them. Not necessarily little ones, either. Five point four. Five point five. The rate of quakes has picked up exponentially over the past couple months.”
I’d been up in the mountains without television to keep me informed. And with Shadow and my work to occupy my time, I had no idea about the state of the rest of the country.
“That’s not the worst of it,” Breya said. Her voice lowered, serious. “Just yesterday a man from Lisbon, as in the capital of Portugal, Lisbon, joined the chat. Get this, he said they’d had a significant rise in missing and deceased homeless and wanted advice on what he might try to curb the situation.”
“Honey, be careful. The quakes might very well be related to the volcanos picking up steam, but I have a bad feeling about your homeless going missing. What the hell is going on out there?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.
“I… don’t know,” she answered anyway.
“Will you do me a favor? Keep me informed.”
“You got it, girl. But I have to go. Time to get the truck loaded with the dinner boxes and clean blankets.”
“Eyes open, Brey. Love you.”
“Always,” she replied. “Love you too.” Then she rang off.
As if the universe had been eavesdropping on our conversation, an alert sounded from my phone. A news message flashed across the screen: Eruption in Iceland: Mt. Katla has erupted, spewing thousands of pounds of volcanic ash into the atmosphere. Many parts of the country are being evacuated. Towns burned to the ground from the destructive lava flow.
I sent off a quick text to my boss to update her on the readings I’d been getting and asked her to forward any updates on Iceland to my phone. After a few minutes I got a fiery one back chewing me out for not making contact sooner. But how could I tell her about Cloud City and the Roc? Crest had told me on our date, when I insisted I needed to get back to work, that it was important for me to go along with what I now know was the mating ritual.
Now, taking in account not only the volcanoes I was studying, but the earthquakes and homeless disappearing, I had this overwhelming feeling that he meant it was important for more than me gaining a husband.
My Spidey sense picked up. Pins and needles tingled from my fingers up my arms. I guessed I’d felt them all my life, never realizing what they were or what they meant. Time to ground myself. I could use the practice anyway.
I kicked off my shoes and ground my feet into the grass and dirt beneath me. Then, as Avalon had directed, I called up the power of the earth—let the energy flow through my body, but now, unlike those times in my life when I didn’t know the energy was magic and thus wasted its potential meanings, I focused my mind, directing the magic.
It came to me faint at first. Nothing more than a feeling. Digging my feet in deeper, catching grass between my toes, I closed that invisible circuit, and that feeling turned slightly louder, the faintest voice riding a puff of air. But I heard it.
A cry. A plea.
Help.
Who? Who needed my help?
This had to be the most bizarre thing to happen to me yet. I hadn’t experienced anything close to it when I’d practiced with Avalon.
I needed more. More contact with the earth to ground myself. And I imagined what anyone who saw their newest aerie-lady as they strolled through the park, had to think of my antics. I’d deal with that later.
Now I stripped out of my jeans and my blouse, leaving me in only a dusty pink bra and panties set and dropped to the grass, lying down so every surface on my back, from head to heel, connected with the land.
And I focused harder.
Who needed my help?
A vision opened up in my mind. Like a wormhole, a direct connection leading me down the mountain, back to the cap and falling deep inside the recesses of my volcano.
Deep underground. Inside my volcano.
The cries for help grew louder, and though in a language I didn’t know, I understood it. A distinctly male voice.
Where? Where are you? I called out to him in my mind. The air grew steadily hotter. My eyes, skin, and lungs burned with every blink, touch, or breath.
Where are you? I begged again, burning up. Blisters formed. Flames licked at the hair on my arms, singeing it clean off.
It hurt. I hurt. He hurt—the mystery creature calling out to me.
“Meena—”
He called to me? He knew my name?
“Meena,” he called again. No. That wasn’t right. I knew that voice. Down to the depth of my soul, I knew that voice.
And I began to vibrate, as if someone shook me violently. My eyes popped open. No longer inside my volcano, I lay back in the park, staring up into frightened amber eyes.
I blinked several times. “Shadow?” My voice scraped over the rawness of my throat. I felt cooked from the inside out. He didn’t answer, but simply scooped me into his arms, placing frantic yet gentle kisses to my temple. Almost as if he needed that contact.
“Meena.” He breathed out my name again.
“We need to get her back to the castle, where I can check her over.” That voice I recognized too, and so I pushed back slightly from Shadow’s strong embrace to see myself surrounded by family. The voice belonged to Avalon, but Rogue and Crest sat to either side of my mate and mother-in-law.
“I am going to carry you.” Shadow spoke into my hair as he kissed me there again.
“I think I can walk.” The thought of his people seeing me being carried back to the castle humiliated me.
“No,” Shadow demanded. “You were having a seizure when we found you. I will carry you.”
A seizure?
My head felt cloudy. I hurt like I’d fallen asleep in the sun and forgotten to apply my sunblock first. Shadow shifted me so one of his arms ran along my back, with the other he hoisted me off the ground, placing it under my bent knees as he stood to carry me off princess-style.
Everywhere the blush touched burned even hotter.
“Shadow, I have to tell you—”
He cut me off. “Shh… Let my mother look you over first. Then we will talk.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, along with the fear, I heard the definite twinges of…anger? Angry with me? How dare he be? We’d deal with that later. Right now, I needed to cool down—literally.
Shadow carried me through the park, taking me out a back way. That was actually sweet. Fewer people to see me. I had no idea the park ended so close to the castle.
We came upon a cave guarded by a wrought-iron gate and two guards perched in the trees, in bird form—not man—watched our approach.
A feeling, that instinct of being watched, made me look up to see them. It was the only reason. They had incredible stealthiness for such large beings.
One of the guards leapt from the tree bough and landed buck-ass naked in front of us. My Shadow looked more impressive, but still, this guy looked like he could offer a gal a good time. Not this gal, but a lucky woman nonetheless.
Although hard, I managed to stop ogling the man candy to keep my eyes fixed on his face.
“Your Majesties. Is the aerie-lady unwell?” he asked.
“Please, get the gate,” Shadow said.
With a bow of his head, the guard used the key that hung from a thin leather strap around his neck to unlock then push open the gate.
“Must you have stared so hard, my love?” Shadow whispered when we were far enough away from the guard, then he nipped my earlobe.
“You’re better,” I answered him just as softly, shifting my head to rest by the crook of his neck.
“That’s a given.” He laughed.
Then in the language of the birds, we heard the voice of the second guard carry on the wind. “She’s so tiny.”
I harrumphed.
Shadow laughed harder.
The cave ended up being a short passage that led to a courtyard behind the castle. A door at the base of the turret where our apartment lay several stories up opened to a staircase, which even carrying me, Shadow ascended with ease. His mother and brothers trailed us closely.