Elemental Awakened by Helen Scott
27
Finn
I hadn’t expected any of what happened. The sex, the level of control I had over my powers, the fact that Tessa was still letting me touch her and kiss her, even after I’d shown her my gills, it was all one giant surprise.
What wasn’t a surprise was the fact that our clothes were still dry, even though water had been splashing all over the place. Magic was a wonderful thing, especially for containing messes. The two of us had dried off and dressed. The top and skirt she was wearing were enough to make me want to bend her over the pool and have her again. The thought that she wouldn’t mind didn’t help the situation either.
“Are you okay?” I asked, trailing my fingers over the exposed skin on her back.
“Very much so,” she replied with a lazy smile. “I just wish we could take a nap and do that again.” Sweeter words had never been spoken, and my heart pounded heavily in my chest.
“Later, I promise,” I said, kissing her forehead.
“I’ll hold you to that.” She grinned, and as we left the healing pools, I nodded at Malia, while Tessa offered the woman a small smile in spite of the blush staining her cheeks.
We had barely made it inside the suite to drop off her clothes when I had her pressed up against the wall, her skirts falling away and revealing the pale ivory legs of hers that so eagerly wrapped around my waist as I kissed her.
When she pulled back slightly, I had to fight not to chase her, but she mumbled the one word that could have stopped me from fucking her up against the wall.
“Dinner,” she breathed, her chest heaving against my own, pressing her breasts into me.
We were due to be in the dining room in a matter of minutes, and keeping the queen waiting because we were too busy having a quickie was not a good idea. I released her and watched as she straightened her clothes, looking self-conscious in her outfit.
“Exposing your belly is a sign of trust and respect to the queen. You are showing her the weakest part of you, leaving it open to attack, and thereby showing that you trust her and her accommodations. Whoever picked it for you made a good choice,” I said, not asking the name of my sworn brother but hoping she’d supply it.
“Griff,” she said, shaking her head.
“Of course,” I agreed. The man might be a warrior, but he was cunning and frighteningly smart. You don’t get to be on a fifth realm team without excelling in every department though, so it made sense. It also made sense why he’d picked the colors he did, showing her tie to the origin realm and to Atlantis, along with the prospect of her being tied to the others with the leather touches.
If there was anyone I’d put up with trying to share Tessa with me, it was him. Or Dresden or Kai for that matter. The four of us were so much a unit that it was hard to ever think about life without them, and the idea that that was what I might be facing was scarier than anything else.
I wasn’t sure how the four of us would handle being apart after spending most of our lives together. It was almost unfathomable, and in all honesty, it wouldn’t be so bad if we could at least live in the same world, but the treaties being what they were prevented that. We all had to live in the realm where we were born or move to the fifth realm and give up our abilities. Neither of those options worked for me or my sworn brothers.
Tessa and I managed to make it to the dining hall with a minute to spare, and without me pushing her up against a wall again, no matter how much I may have wanted to. I was glad we were seated on opposite sides from one another so that I was forced to keep my hands off her.
I hadn’t realized until we arrived that it was a full state dinner. It made sense, given the circumstances. The table was set out in an almost teardrop shape, with space around the widest part for representatives from each realm. The queen would sit at the narrowest part, with her most favored advisors to each side.
The sections for the other realms’ representatives were decorated with their colors—white, orange, and green. Kai, Dresden, and Griffin all stood in front of their allotted seats next to the political representative from that realm. I couldn’t help but watch as Tessa took them all in, and even when her eyes landed on Kai, I saw affection and relief in her face. She was glad we were all okay and had made it safely back to at least one of the magic filled realms.
When the queen entered, we all sat when commanded and ate the food that was provided, which Tessa oohed and aahed over. I was glad that she liked it and was proud of my heritage and Atlantis in general. We were a successful, cohesive people. We adapted and overcame odds. When we ran out of land, we built down into the water, many risking or even giving their lives so that their family and others had a safe space to live. When the seas threatened our home, we retreated inward, leaving the outer ring as a sacrifice to the ocean and nature itself. When massive predators stalked the seas, we fished and fed our people for months without venturing into dangerous waters, luring the fish to us instead. We learned how to farm indoors and underwater, how to respect old traditions while still carving out new ones, and as the chatter of dinner died down, I wondered what the queen’s plan was now that the feast was over.
The usual protocol of having a consolation dinner for the team members lost on mission or the injuries sustained was gone. Here, we were celebrating what we believed to be accomplishing the first step in stabilizing the four realms and protecting the origin realm from annihilation. As I looked across the table at the woman I had so recently claimed as my own, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride for her too. She was giving up so much to help so many that she didn’t know and couldn’t even understand for the most part, but she understood how much was at stake and she was willing to step up to the plate.
“Tessa, would you visit with me tomorrow so I can show you the scrolls?” the queen asked.
The entire room fell into a hushed silence, and my head whipped toward her and then my eyes sought out Tessa. Would she agree? It was an honor for sure, but was it one that she understood?
“Yes, Your Majesty, but it might be best if one of the team came with me to help me understand the differences between Atlantis and my home. I’m afraid I have found it very confusing here so far,” my little siren said.
She was a smart one, using the queen’s politeness against her and giving her an excuse to agree to bring one of us along.
“Finn?” the queen asked.
“I would be happy to oblige, Your Majesty,” I said, dipping my head in a show of respect.
“Very well. We will—”
A scream sounded, though it was cut off suddenly, the sound silencing the queen’s words. The doors to the chamber were flung open, and the redhead who’d stabbed me came rushing in with a small army of demons behind her, all dressed in black and white like they had been in the human realm.
The four of us pushed up from our seats, though we had no weapons, and guards rushed forward. Their spears and swords clashed with the other demon’s weapons while the redhead strode forward.
“The five realms will become one. What you do here doesn’t matter. Whether I die today doesn’t matter. You will fail,” she said as she pointed her dagger at each of us before landing on me, where she paused. “You should be dead.”
“So should you,” I growled out as I stepped out from behind my chair.
“Allow me to finish the job,” she said with a shriek as she launched herself at me.
I called on my magic, blasting her with water as she tried to move toward me. She countered with her own magic, using air to split the water in two and walk down the center between them. The other guards joined in the fight with my brothers-in-arms, and they all called on their magics, as did the demons they were fighting.
Wind, water, earth, fire, it all seemed to explode within the room with the queen’s personal guard making a column of ice around her, protecting her. If the insurrectionists managed to take her life, it would throw the tentative peace that existed between the four realms into chaos and we would go to war with each other, which would only make the realms even more unstable, pushing them closer to the goal of the demons that wanted one realm.
There was another section of guards that had done the same thing around Tessa. If she was even slightly important to the stability of the four realms, then they had to protect her at all costs. She and the queen were the primary targets of this attack.
The redhead launched herself at me as she dove through the last of the water I was throwing at her. I did not particularly want to be stabbed again, and for lack of a better alternative, I grabbed the knife I’d been using to eat and had it so the dull edge of the blade rested against the inside of my wrist while the sharp edge stuck out. It wasn’t quite what I was used to fighting with but I could make it work.
“Why won’t you just die?” she demanded as she swung her dagger at me once again.
“Why don’t you tell us who let you in?” I asked as I swiped at her with my makeshift weapon. Someone had betrayed Atlantis, let demons who wished to harm us through our gates, demons who should be dead after that fight at the pier.
She just grinned at me and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
When the sounds of the fighting increased, I glanced behind her and saw even more demons had come in to the banquet chamber and were fighting the guards and my battle brothers. If they kept coming, we wouldn’t be able to win this fight. As it was, we were outnumbered. It would be difficult to win this if we even could, and I was sure we wouldn’t all survive unscathed. I only hoped that if it came down to it, we could give Tessa enough of a head start that she could escape.
I glanced over at where she’d been encased in a tower of ice, and my heart dropped. Not only was the tower gone, but Tessa was there, completely exposed and vulnerable. As I launched myself across the table to get to her, a jet of fire reached her first and before my eyes, she crumpled to the floor. My heart seized in my chest. I couldn’t lose her. Not like this.
