Elemental Awakened by Helen Scott
18
Tessa
The four of us walked over to their place with me smack dab in the center of their little trio. They were orbiting me like I was a planet and they were my moons or something. Griff and Finn both carried my bags, while Dres looked like he was ready for an attack at any moment. I couldn’t lie, the three of them were making me super nervous.
As we walked up the stone steps, two dragons—or caretakers, as they were apparently called by everyone else who could see them—appeared on either side of the porch. We all froze until Dres ran into my back and I stumbled forward, the caretakers vanishing as soon as they sensed movement. I knew from the way Finn and Griff were acting that they’d seen the dragons.
“The sooner we get in the house, the sooner you’re safe,” Dres said, as though he needed to encourage me to move. Apparently, he’d missed the dragons on the porch.
When Finn opened the front door and we made it inside, he called out, “Kai, we need you here!”
The fourth roommate came trotting down the stairs. “What the hell is going on? First, you all disappear in the middle of the night, and now—” His gaze landed on me, and he ground to a halt with both his speech and his body.
“Tessa was attacked by a group of distorted. Can you refresh the wards?” Finn asked.
Dres and Griff seemed to retreat, moving down a hallway I hadn’t noticed before with my bags and, I presumed, depositing them in a room, since they came back empty-handed.
“Can you back up?” Kai growled. His rich, earthy brown eyes seemed to glow.
“Let’s get you a drink, dove,” Griff said, his tone gentle as he tugged on my arm.
“Don’t leave. I need you to donate,” Kai said cryptically.
Griff’s pale eyes turned hard. “Again?”
“Yes, again. This isn’t baking. I never know how long these things are going to last, especially not here,” Kai ground out.
“I know, I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.” The brawny man rubbed the center of his palm as he spoke, and when he stepped forward, I felt like I knew what was coming before it happened, even though there was no way I should’ve.
Kai sliced a blade into Griff’s palm and let the blood drip onto the floor. It formed a small puddle before Kai let the other man’s hand go. Before I could ask anything, Finn stepped up and they repeated the process, followed by Dres. Finally, Kai cut his own palm and bled into what was now a large red puddle.
As soon as the first drop of his blood combined with the others, I felt like a gust of fiery wind had blown through the house, knocking me off my feet. As I scrambled to get back up, I saw Kai’s hand push down onto the circle of blood.
Magic filled the air. It was the only way I could think of to describe it. It crackled like lightning but felt like a static shock on my skin, continuing over and over again, while the ring on my hand heated. Bright yellow streaks of light seemed to explode across the floor from the epicenter of Kai’s hand. As they spread, they each formed different symbols, but it was in a language I didn’t recognize at all. Each symbol seemed to glide across the floor until it rested against the outer wall of the house.
I spun as the characters surrounded the edge of the house, and when they connected at the back, my ears popped like I was on an airplane but I hadn’t moved. Suddenly, the symbols all swirled and seemed to lock into place, making the heat on my ring blaze hotter than ever before. For a brief second, the thought crossed my mind about how it had reacted to the demons last night. I’d had to take it off in the tub because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep quiet if it kept getting hotter.
The pain quickly rose, cutting off all thoughts and becoming so overwhelming that I couldn’t even scream. I just stared at it open-mouthed as I held my hand like something was attached to it and I wanted it gone. It was kind of true, I guessed, but I’d never taken this ring off except to shower or when I was all puffy from PMS. Not even when my therapist had challenged me to go without it for a week. All I knew about it was that it was from my parents and whenever I had it on, I usually felt safe.
Right now though, not so much. Now I wanted it off as fast as possible, before it burned through my finger or something.
Dres was in front of me then, looking worried. The lines between his coal-dark eyes were deep set, and when his mouth moved like he was talking, I realized I was making a high-pitched keening sound.
“I can get it off, but it’s going to hurt,” Finn said as he squatted down on the opposite side to Dres. As he went to touch it to get it off, his fingertips actually sizzled at the contact. “Fuck!” He jerked his hand back.
“I’ve got it,” Griff said as he sat down next to Finn. His pale eyes seemed to grow darker as though they were filling with fire. It wasn’t just a soft little cracking fire either. This was an inferno, a damn wildfire that would consume everything in its path if he let it. A fire that burned so hot and so brightly that I couldn’t look away.
He wrapped his fingers around the metal of the ring, and I felt the heat bleed off into him as though he was absorbing it. As the heat lessened, the pain increased.
“Take a deep breath, and when I count to three blow, it out,” he said staring me in the eye.
Part of me wanted to be weirded out by the color shift or the way that they weren’t any normal, human color, but instead, I found it all the more attractive.
“One, two, three,” he said slowly, each time twisting the ring a little, making me dread the last number. When he finally called it out though, I felt a small gust of wind hit me right as he yanked the ring off my finger.
My skin went with it. I made a noise close to a horrified scream as the pain hit and blood oozed up from the wound a moment later, dripping onto the floor. Evidently, I’d finally hit my limit, because as I tried to sit up and contain it, I felt the blood drain from my head and I fell back.
* * *
Kai
When Tessa fell back, my stomach dropped. I had no idea what had happened. It was just a regular ward buffer, nothing major, but somehow, my magic seemed to have made her pass out. It was unsettling to say the least.
The weird purple glow that she’d been emitting was gone now, and her finger was steadily bleeding through the paper towels that Griffin was wrapping around it. The way the three of them were with her upset me, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Maybe because we were supposed to be the team, but they were all fawning over her? That didn’t feel like it though.
I shoved the thoughts aside and asked, “What the hell happened?”
“Are we secure?” Finn fired back.
“As we’ll ever be, yeah.” I crossed my arms over my chest, not liking his doubt.
“I think all four of us combining our magic sent a shockwave out to her or something. I saw her fly back, but I know how you hate it when people move around during your magic.” Finn gave me a pointed look. “So I waited until you were done, by which time, the damn ring had burned itself onto her finger.”
“A ring burned her? How? Why?” My arms dropped, and I was drawn to the cluster of them out of curiosity.
“Those are the questions of the hour,” Dres said as he pushed to his feet, briefly cutting his glance to me, only to make me feel like I was out of the loop on something.
“We should put her in the spare room, let her sleep it off. She’s dealt with a lot tonight, and I can try and speed the healing of her finger a bit,” Finn said. We all knew what he wasn’t saying with that—we’d need to pick up the slack because he’d be a bit drained afterward. I didn’t blame him for wanting to heal her, she was still bleeding after all, but I hated how this realm drained us of our stamina when it came to our magic.
Griff nodded and scooped the small woman up before disappearing down the hall with her and Dres, leaving me with a very agitated Finn.
“Tessa is going to be staying with us for a few days, do you think you can handle that?” I’d expected his tone to be angry, demanding even, but it wasn’t. It was resigned. As though he was willing to bet I was going to be an asshole anyway, even if I didn’t mean to be.
“Sure.” I shrugged. It was no skin off my nose, so long as she was able to take care of herself and wasn’t like so many fragile human women that seemed to need everything to be done for them.
“You need to be nice to her, okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I threw the question back at him, not liking where this was heading.
“I heard about dinner, so just, I don’t know, pretend she’s one of your fancy court ladies or something. Whatever it takes.”
“Why?” I asked, wanting to hear him say it.
“Because she might be what we’re looking for.” He sighed and rubbed his face. “Look, just try not to be so…yourself.”
“Gee, thanks,” I muttered.
I knew Finn responded, but I couldn’t hear it, my mind too focused on the memory of her falling into me at dinner earlier. The weight and warmth of her body against mine was not something I should’ve been thinking about. It wasn’t just that though, it was the earth-shaking sensation that seemed to roll through me as we connected. Plus, a moment later, Dres had screamed at me mentally, which he never did unless he was trying to make a point. I was diligent about my mental shields, not liking the flyboy rooting through my mind when I least expected it or popping in to tell me that dinner was ready and scaring the absolute crap out of me.
My realm seemed much different from theirs. We were the core kingdom, the ones who had bridged the four realms. We were the gate makers, and yet none of that seemed to matter. Now with Tessa, they were all focused on her, which was fine by me, but part of me craved her attention the way I’d had it when I first saw her. Those beautiful heaven and earth eyes had locked with mine while her lips parted.
While Finn suggested I treat her like a court lady, I knew she was so much more. If she were a resident of Agartha, then she’d be queen and all the court ladies would be serving her. I wouldn’t even warrant a second, third, or fourth glance from her.
I didn’t realize that Finn had walked away, but as I came back to my senses, I noticed I was alone, standing in the entryway like an idiot. As I went to my room, I couldn’t help but feel as though I should go down and check on Tessa. If Griff and Dres were there though, they’d probably just kick me out. Plus, Finn might be trying to heal her, and the last thing they’d want is me sticking my nose in and distracting him.
We might have known each other since we were kids, but sometimes, the deep-seated prejudices of their people still reared their ugly heads. My people were the engineers, but that was often looked on as the simplest of the magics. Water, air, fire, healing, psychic abilities, all of it was considered better than my own. Yes, I could manipulate magic the most out of all of us here in the human realm, but that was partially because growing up, we’d had very little magic. We were the ones who’d realized that the realms were destabilizing because our own magic was fading.
I ran my hands through my hair. Looking at the dull, dirty brown locks that were wound between my fingers, disappointment skated through my veins like the beginning of a rock slide. It was supposed to be long, beautiful, a symbol of my status within the kingdom, and instead, I’d had to cut it to fit in on Earth. Disgust at my current predicament filled my mind, followed by the fleeting thought that Tessa might see me the same way. I knew I shouldn’t care what she thought, that I was just an engineer, albeit one who’d graduated top of his class and was selected for a fifth world team, but still, would she see me the way a human would? Or would she see the brain and the heart that resided in me?
A sigh blew past my lips, and I forced myself to look away from the mirror, stripping the leather jacket off and pulling one of the few decent T-shirts I had over my head. I needed to run, to clear my mind from all the clutter that was bogging it down. Hopefully, any of these wistful thoughts I was having about Tessa would vanish with the clutter. One could only hope.
