by Elle Thorne
“Depends on what kind of barbeque and where it’s from.”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “Don’t sit here extolling the virtues of barbecue to me. You do realize it’s made from the cast-off, cheaper parts of meat.”
“Wow. Okay, never mind. Didn’t realize you had such a chip on your shoulder. I’m not wild about it; it’s just another meal option.” His smile widened to a grin. “I won’t take you out for any on our first date, then.”
She frowned. “Enjoy your visit.”
Chapter Nine
Holy hell.
Marco watched the fiercely beautiful woman with the big dog walk away. That was a view he could get used to.
Guess that means no date.
Yeah, he pretty much knew that was the case from the way she’d glared at him with those gold-rimmed irises in ebony eyes.
So, she doesn’t like barbecue. Or elementals.
Was she Symone? The sister that Cedric and Jenner had told him about? He’d have bet so, but how could he be sure.
And I suppose there won’t be a chance to find out. Not judging by the dirty looks she was sending my way.
He turned his attention back to the water. At least he wasn’t somewhere that sucked. It wasn’t like he could exactly enjoy the vacation when Jaron’s hide and seek act was still going on.
And that whole matter of Jaron mentioning he wanted to retire. That was still unresolved.
Might as well try to talk to Jaron again.
You know, I didn’t do my paperwork, he told his elemental. The Order’s not happy about that. The least you can do is come and talk to me. You can’t just drop that on me and then vanish. Not cool. Not cool, at all.
My apologies, Jaron said.
Welcome back, man. Marco could have hugged someone—anyone—he was so damned glad Jaron was back. Stick around for a while, would ya?
I will. Thank you for being patient.
Marco bit back a smile at that. Like I had a choice? It’s not as though I can jump into my own head and kick your ass into talking to me.
Jaron laughed softly. I shouldn’t have put you through that, but there is a time and a place, and we haven’t quite had the right timing on this matter.
Since I don’t exactly understand the matter, then I can’t say I’d know what the right timing is on this.
Again, I apologize.
That’s fine. Let’s move on to what you talked about. Retiring. What’s that? Like dying? Or me dying? Elementals don’t leave a host until they are dying, so… Marco let out a deep breath. Clarify, please?
No. Like take my own form. Forever. No more traveling from host to host.
Am I a bad host?
Might I make a joke about you being the hostess with the mostest?
A smile made its way to Marco’s face. No, Jaron. That’s a bad joke.
You are not a bad host. But I learned something recently. I’ve been keeping a secret from you.
What? What secret are you keeping from me?
A surge of power rushed through Marco. The air in front of him shimmered, much like heat rising on asphalt when he’d driven through Arizona and New Mexico some time ago. A surge of energy coursed through him—
“Me.” The word came from a woman who’d just appeared in front of him from a shimmer in the air.
Tall, lithe, ethereal, with dark hair and sun-darkened skin, she reminded him of a living, breathing Egyptian statue.
Her smile was mystical. “I am the secret Jaron has been keeping from you.”
“What the hell?” Marco rubbed his temples and narrowed his eyes. “You. I recognize you. You look familiar. You’re… hmmm… you’re—that woman from the airport.” He remembered her now. Her robes had caught his attention when he’d bumped into her and stopped to apologize.
She’d smiled, and then the smile had frozen, and she’d looked at him with surprise.
She appraised him quietly, without saying a word, her straight ebony hair glistening in the sun, her eyes obsidian, hooded, nose aquiline, nostrils flared.
“You’re an elemental.” He hadn’t meant to make it sound like an accusation.
And still, she was silent.
In Marco’s head, Jaron also was silent.
But Marco, well, he was more confused than ever. He looked around the beautiful tropical beach, a place that should have been a vacation. “Wait. Hang on a second.” He tried to process his thoughts and put all of this together. “You’re not—how were you in me? I’m not your host.”
She nodded slowly. “True you are not. You have not been.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. I don’t have two elementals. I never have.”
“Until recently. I am more than that. More than a mere elemental. Not that being an elemental is commonplace, but you see, I am an elemental mage.” Clad in a long, plush robe that was the deepest color of sapphire he’d ever seen, she raised her hand and snapped her fingers.
Next to her, a shimmering began, rising from the ground, reaching the height of a man.
Seconds later, a being stepped through. A tall man, dark, muscular, head completely shaved, closely cropped goatee of the blackest shade emphasizing his dark exotic handsomeness. The man brought to mind a sheik.
“Marco.”
He recognized Jaron’s voice, though he hadn’t known the figure that had stepped through to join this world. He’d never seen his own elemental.
“Jaron.”
Jaron inclined his head. “It is I.” His rich baritone sounded the exact same way it had in Marco’s mind.
“How is this happening?”
Jaron indicated the woman. “Alara. She is a mage. She has magical powers.”
“Like a witch?”
Jaron gave a sideways nod. “That oversimplifies matters but let us go with it as an answer.”
“And you can come out of my body? Just like that?”
“Not permanently, he cannot.” Alara’s tone was bitter. “At least not yet.”
“Alara.” Jaron’s voice took on a cautioning tone. “I have said that I am not ready for that.”
“How was she in me, with you, and I didn’t know it?”
Alara frowned. “You are speaking of me as though I am not present.”
Marco cringed. “I apologize.” Really? He was apologizing to someone who’d trespassed on his mind and hadn’t even made her presence known? For once, he was glad that Jaron was not in his head, that he was unable to hear that thought.
Alara smiled. “Apology accepted. Mages can do that. We can cloak ourselves. Our host does not know we are there. Unless we choose to reveal ourselves.”
“Which you didn’t do.” Okay, he had to get that jab in. “But still, you can be here, in your own body? And how is Jaron here? Color me lost. Can you two bring me up to speed?”
“Alara can assume her physical form.”
“How?”
Alara didn’t answer his question. “And I can bring Jaron out. Permanently, if he should wish it.” She raised a brow and gave Jaron a pointed look.
“I have said this is not a step I am ready to take.” Again, Jaron’s tone contained a warning.
She harrumphed and crossed her arms over her chest. “More than a thousand years since we have been together—”
Marco looked between the two of them. What the heck was going on here?
Jaron turned toward Marco. “She was—is—my wife.”
“That you have not seen in eons,” she hissed the last word.
“Mind blown.” Marco scrubbed his face. “Who would have thought.” His question about how was now at the very back of his mind. He looked at the two of them. “If you haven’t seen each other—in the flesh—in ages, you’d probably like a moment. Or two?”
Alara’s cheeks reddened. “That is—”
Marco raised a hand. “Whoa. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Jaron chuckled, put his arm around Alara.
She shrugged it off. “When are you going to�
��”
Jaron leaned in and covered her lips with his, kissed her gently, then raised his head. “In time, cherished one. In time.”
Marco studied the gentle waves rolling onto white sands. More than any other occasion in his life, this was one when Marco wished Circe were here. She was so much more than a sister. More than a confidante. She was great at giving advice. This situation was unlike any he’d ever have thought he’d encounter as an elemental. Feeling eyes upon him, he looked up.
Jaron was watching Marco, studying his face, probably discerning the emotions flowing through Marco from his expressions. He knew him too well.
Marco looked from one to the other. “So that little bomb you dropped on me, about wanting to retire. I guess that’s got something to do with Alara?” He indicated her with a gesture.
Jaron nodded. “Marco, I am ready for a life. My life. To live for myself. Alara’s powers can grant that to me. And to others of our kind. We have been talking, Alara and I.”
“Talking about what, Jaron?”
“About bringing our kind together. Finding those of us that are in hosts and bringing them out. Starting our own community. Becoming a people again. Like we were before the Barabins took all of that away from us, so many ages ago.”
“You do realize that in today’s time, with technology, boundaries, countries, satellite imagery, that won’t be possible. Right? I mean how would you be able to hide from the rest of the world?”
“There are parts of the world that have not been infiltrated by technology,” Alara interjected. “And I have skills that can help us stay hidden.”
“I see,” Marco said. “That cloaking thing?”
“Of that nature.” Alara’s smile was cryptic.
“A life without elementals.” Marco shook his head. It was unfathomable. “Why has this never come up before?” he asked Jaron.
“Because I did not know any mages existed. Especially not this one.” He took Alara’s hand and kissed her palm.
Marco turned to Alara. “Are you the last?”
“I have not encountered others in all my travels. Other mages that is. I have encountered an elemental here and there—rarely. But I’ve kept my distance.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, the motion elegant. “Trust.”
Chapter Ten
If she’d been asked later, Symone couldn’t have said what made her talk to the man on the beach. The elemental-shifter man. The very good-looking, probably too sexy for his own good, elemental-shifter man on the beach. What the hell was his name? She remembered her brothers mentioned a name when they’d talked to her. But for the life of her, she couldn’t remember it. M-something. M. Michael? Morris? Maurice?
Damn my memory.
She’d gotten to the edge of the brush. The man was pacing. He looked like he was talking to himself.
She squinted when the air before him began to shimmer.
Elemental-shifter man seemed to double over, as if in pain, then he straightened.
Symone bit back a gasp. A woman stood before him. She’d materialized out of nowhere.
Symone was no stranger to witchcraft, of course. She was one of the more powerful witches in the hemisphere, but she’d have been knocked over by a feather by this turn of events.
She studied the woman. Tall, elegant, willowy, garbed in a cerulean blue robe made of what seemed the finest of fabrics. She resembled a cross between Nefertiti and the Egyptian goddess Isis. Or at least, the Isis that Symone would have imagined.
Next to Symone, Max shifted his weight, leaning forward, his attention fully on the woman and the elemental shifter. Symone lowered to one knee and took the dog’s head between her hands. She looked into his eyes.
“It’s very important that you don’t give us away,” she whispered.
Max’s eyes gleamed as though in understanding. At least, she hoped it was understanding.
Seconds later, or so it seemed, a man materialized next to the woman. Tall, handsome, muscular, with bronze skin and strong features.
The three of them became involved in a conversation that seemed intense. Symone wished she could hear it.
What am I thinking?
Of course, she could. She didn’t make it a habit of eavesdropping. But it wasn’t like she didn’t have the witch skills to do so.
She knelt and picked up a handful of sand. Closing her eyes, she uttered the words, closed her fist to make a funnel, then let the sand cascade from the bottom of her closed fingers.
Opening her eyes again, she put the hand that had clasped the sand to her ear. On the ground in front of her, the sand slowly shifted, moving, creating a tunnel that led from her feet to the trio still engaged in a conversation that seemed to have many emotions in it.
The elemental shifter glanced from the Egyptian-looking goddess to the bronze man with the shaved head. “So that little bomb you dropped on me, about wanting to retire. I guess that’s got something to do with Alara?” He gestured toward the woman.
Alara. So that was the name of the Egyptian-looking woman who appeared from thin air.
Symone watched intently, her interest piqued by the situation, by the appearance of these people. These types that were not witches. The bronze man and Alara did not have the auras that witches and warlocks carried. So, what the hell were they?
The bronze man nodded. “Marco, I am ready for a life. My life. To live for myself. Alara’s powers can grant that to me. And to others of our kind. We have been talking, Alara and I.”
Marco! That was what her brothers called the shifter. Symone let the name roll around in her mind, enjoying the sound of it. Enjoying it maybe a little too much. She had no business being attracted to this man. And judging from the two beings that had materialized out of nothingness, who appeared to be flesh and blood, but that she had no idea what they were, she had no business trusting him either.
And yet.
Yet, there was something about Marco that made her want to trust him.
She pushed herself out of her internal conversation because, by damn, she was going to miss what they were saying.
She studied Marco’s body language. He didn’t seem completely at ease with the bronze man and Alara.
“Talking about what, Jaron?” Marco asked.
Aha! Bronze man had a name now. Jaron.
Jaron was speaking. She wondered how much she’d missed. If much at all.
“… bringing our kind together. Finding those of us that are in hosts and bringing them out. Starting our own community. Becoming a people again. Like we were before the Barabins took all of that away from us, so many ages ago.”
What community? What people? Who the hell were the Barabins?
Marco cocked his head. “You do realize that in today’s time, with technology, boundaries, countries, satellite imagery, that won’t be possible. Right? I mean how would you be able to hide from the rest of the world?”
All questions Symone had as well. Except she had many, many more.
“There are parts of the world that have not been infiltrated by technology,” Alara interjected. “And I have skills that can help us stay hidden.”
Like what skills, dammit? What skills did this Alara have? Damn. Damn. Damn. So many questions.
“I see,” Marco said. “That cloaking thing?”
Cloaking? What cloaking?
Symone wondered if this was anything like the cloaking that some witches were so adept at.
Alara’s smile was mysterious. “Of that nature.”
“A life without elementals.” Marco shook his head.
What does he mean by that?
Symone was starting to think that in order to get answers she’d have to dig around the annals in the Circle’s Library of Archives. There were two such libraries. One in the north. And one—how fortuitous for her—in the very villa at the top of the hill. If she could get more information, she could add it to the archives. And learning more about elementals was definitely something she should d
o.
Like learning how to kill one. A bitter taste touched her palate. She had a damned good reason for not being fond of elementals.
Symone pushed that thought aside. She fought a perpetual battle to keep the grief and the need for vengeance from becoming overwhelming. The bastard was incarcerated in the Circle’s prison. He’d never kill another.
She sighed softly, counted to ten to regain her composure and release her fury.
Marco was speaking, “…never come up before?” he asked Jaron.
“Because I did not know any mages existed. Especially not this one.” Jaron took Alara’s hand, kissing her palm.
The gesture was so romantic, so sincere, a surge of melancholy hit Symone where—and when—she least expected it.
Wait a minute—
He said mage.
Mage?
Now she really had some questions.
And they’re on my damned island.
Jaron released Alara’s hand. She graced him with a smile that spoke volumes about their love.
“Are you the last?” Marco was asking Alara.
Damned good question.
“I have not encountered others in all my travels,” Alara said.
What travels?
Alara continued. “Other mages that is. I have encountered an elemental here and there—rarely. But I’ve kept my distance.”
“Why?” Marco asked.
Exactly my question.
Alara shrugged. “Trust.”
I can relate to that.
Then everything went to shit.
In her peripheral vision, Symone caught sight of a tiny brown and white form. A little rabbit. It darted from the cover of one bush to the safety of another.
Max saw it. He growled low, but his tail was wagging. It wasn’t the growl that got them, it was the tail wagging. His tail swatted a branch, causing a dead branch to fall amongst the brush.
Shit.
Just like that, the trio froze.
Great. Just freaking great. Symone gave Max a dirty look. One he rewarded with yet another tail wag.
He’s just a young one, she told herself. Yeah, and he’s a young one that gave me away.
