Blown (Elemental Series Book 2) (9 page)

Nate’s grin broadened and he teased, “Oh, I believe it.”

She rolled her eyes at him before turning her focus out, to their surroundings. The morning fog was thinner here, and thinning out the farther they walked, which meant she was able to actually see beyond the tree in front of her. And though at the moment it only looked like they were walking through a forest, the view was still good. The trees were tall, healthy, and wide, and the air smelled crisp and clean, if not slightly salty. It was a surprisingly good atmosphere for a date.

After a long minute of simply walking side-by-side, Madison casually declared, “I have a question for you.”

Curious, Nate arched a brow down at her without breaking stride and said, “Shoot.”

“Is it Nate or Nathan?”

He chuckled, the sound carrying easy familiarity. “It’s just Nate,” he replied.

“That’s sort of strange,” Madison admitted. “But I bet a lot of people just assume it’s a nickname, don’t they?”

Laughing now, Nate said, “Yeah. I can’t tell you how many teachers thought they could call me Nathan or Nathaniel to get my attention.”

Madison laughed softly, clearly imagining that scenario with a few of the teachers she herself had had growing up. “Why do you think your parents did that?”

Nate shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s because Nathan has a different feel to it than Blake, Logan, or Dean.”

“Fair enough,” Madison replied with a laugh and a nod. She lightly bumped her newly-bandage-free shoulder into his arm and added, “But I like it. It’s different without being weird or stupid.”

“Thank God!” Nate exclaimed with a laugh, reaching out and wrapping his hand around hers loosely. “What about you? Do you always go by Madison or do you have a nickname that you like?”

Smiling at the turnabout, Madison replied, “My mom usually calls me M, but my friends usually call me Maddie. I don’t really care which I go by, as long as no one tries calling me Mad.”

Nate cringed, asking, “Did someone call you that once?”

“In high school,” she declared. “Stupid rivalry stuff.”

“Ah, high school,” Nate said on an overdramatic sigh. “I don’t miss it.” He paused as she laughed in agreement before asking, “And how many dates do I have to take you on before I earn the privilege of using a nickname for you?”

Turning a mischievous grin up to him, Madison replied, “I’ll let you know when this one is over.”

“I suppose that’s acceptable,” Nate agreed with a grin and a nod. His eyes flashed, then, and he added, “Wait a minute; I could’ve sworn on your application that you said your mother’s name was Missy. Does she go by M, too? ‘Cause I’d think that’d get confusing.”

Madison laughed outright, slightly embarrassed at what she was about to say, and admitted, “Her name is Missy. And she used to go by M when she was younger, so when I was a kid she always called us ‘M&M.’”

Nate’s grin broadened again and he said, “That’s cute.”

“It was a lot cuter when I was in grade school,” Madison replied with an embarrassed laugh.

They were still chuckling when the path curved slightly and the trees began rapidly thinning before them. And then there were no trees at all on the other side of Nate, though there were still plenty beside Madison, and the ocean was suddenly spread out before them. They slowly stopped, turning enough to take in the sight as the ocean waves rolled gently along its blue surface. The fog had receded even more by now, and watching it slide over the ocean was strangely fascinating.

Madison sighed softly and tightened her hold on Nate’s hand. “It really is beautiful out here,” she breathed.

“It is,” Nate agreed, his lips twitching faintly. “Did you bring a camera?”

“I don’t have one,” Madison confessed, “and yesterday I was so distracted thinking about getting that bandage off my arm that I forgot to go get one.”

“Well,” Nate declared, using his free hand to extract his slim, metallic silver phone, “it just so happens that I have an amazing camera right here.”

Madison turned her gaze enough to see what he was holding, and she smiled. “You’ll have to email the pictures to me.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Nate assured her as he adjusted the phone and snapped the first photo.

They lingered there for another couple of minutes, taking pictures and enjoying the calm serenity of the view.

Nate temporarily pocketed the phone and they resumed walking. Their pace remained casual as they climbed, taking the opportunity to learn little things about each other.

Madison revealed that her birthday was on Valentine’s Day. She admitted her three favorite colors were pink, purple, and blue, but she could never narrow it down beyond that. And she thought roses were cliché no matter the color. In return, she learned the only kind of music Nate didn’t like was Classical. Her eyes were his favorite shade of green—seriously—but blue would always be his favorite color bar none. And he couldn’t wait until vampires got scary again.

The sky was clear, bright blue by the time noon rolled around. Madison’s stomach began rumbling just minutes before they came upon a small clearing. The trail curved past it, continuing its way to the top of the cliff, but the clearing itself was covered in a layer of green grass that thinned out as it neared the edge. Wildflowers bloomed in sporadic patches, and a single, tall tree provided a bit of shade off to one side.

“Picture time?” Nate asked when her gaze lingered on the clearing. “Or lunch time?”

“Why can’t we do both?” Madison returned with a smile. “It’s a beautiful spot and I could eat.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Nate replied, grinning, as he pulled out his phone again. He snapped a photo of the clearing, and the ocean beyond, before releasing Madison’s hand and kneeling down to shrug out of the backpack. As he unzipped it and tugged out their carefully-packed lunch, Madison left his side to step into the clearing.

“I bet it’s absolutely amazing up here when everything’s blooming,” she declared as her eyes fell closed. She took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp, fresh air as a light wind blew through.

“Maybe we’ll come up next spring and find out,” Nate suggested easily, gathering their supplies and moving toward her.

Madison opened her eyes and turned back to face him. Her lips were tilted in a lopsided grin and she said, “Maybe.” She wondered if he even realized what he’d just implied.

Nate settled down in the center of the grass, depositing their sandwiches and fresh bottles of water, and declared, “Lunch is served.”

Laughing again, Madison moved over and sat beside him, easily lifting her sandwich to unwrap it. “Why thank you,” she teased, her green eyes shining.

Nate returned her smile, his eyes laughing along with hers.

They ate mostly in silence, angled just enough to have a perfect view of the rolling water beyond the cliff, the light breeze ruffling their hair and helping cool them down.

As she tightened the cap back over her bottle, Madison said softly, “This was an amazing idea, Nate. Thank you.” It was the truth. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself as much.

Nate smiled, reaching over and brushing his fingertips lightly along the base of her throat as he leaned down and murmured, “You’re welcome.”

A shiver entirely unrelated to the breeze raced down her spine and Madison swallowed heavily. Her skin tingled beneath his feather-light touch as his warm breath fanned over her ear, and she doubted any woman would begrudge her such reflexes. She leaned back, into his touch, and shifted so that she could reach over and loosely grasp the collar of his shirt as she tugged him closer. He leaned in willingly, and this time when their lips met there was no hesitation. After a lingering moment, his tongue slipped out and trailed along her lower lip before sweeping into her mouth.

Her hand released his collar, sliding up his toned chest and curving around his shoulders until she could tangle it in his loose, dark hair. His hand tightened slightly over the nape of her neck, his fingers massaging the skin, as his other hand landed on her hip and hauled her up against his chest. His tongue slid along hers, more interested in the sensual dance than the exploration that awaited him, and Madison’s other hand lifted to curl into the side of his shirt. She hadn’t expected his kiss to awaken her senses quite so thoroughly, but she couldn’t deny that it had.

He rolled his tongue over hers one more time, letting the motion linger, before pulling away.

Madison dragged in a deep breath, her own hold on him relaxing, and she slowly offered him a small, appreciative smile.

He swallowed as he pulled his hands from her and asked, “So … ready to keep going?”

She nodded, taking a moment to find her own voice. “Can I borrow your phone? I want to take one more picture before we move on.” She also needed to catch her breath. She wanted to enjoy the environment as much as the man sharing it with her and, at the moment, her instincts were to focus mostly on enjoying him.

His lips twitched and he tugged the camera out of his pocket. “Sure.” He handed it over before adding, “I’ll just clean up while you’re doing that.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling again as she pushed to her feet.

Madison moved closer to the edge of the cliff, wanting a picture of the clearing from the other side, and secretly glad that she would get at least one shot with Nate in it. And maybe she’d take a shot of the rocky shore that was surely far beneath them, too. But before she did either, she decided, she was going to shed her jacket. She had cooled down for the moment, but she knew that what was left of the hike would keep her temperature high enough without the fabric. So she dropped the phone in her jeans pocket and shrugged out of the coat as her gaze glided across the surface of the water before her.

She was too distracted to register the shifting of the ground beneath her feet at first, and when she shifted her weight to tug her arm free of the remaining sleeve, it was too late. The ground beneath her seemed to give, sinking slightly, before cracking and crumbling away entirely. The surface of the cliff arched out over open air, and there simply wasn’t enough to support her weight.

For a moment, Madison’s eyes widened and her heart stopped as she felt herself begin to fall. And then an instinctive cry tore from her lips as she attempted to spin around and throw herself backwards. She succeeded only in losing what was left of her footing and finding herself in free fall.

Chapter Seven

Nate froze for an instant at the startled, panicked cry that suddenly reached his ears. That was Madison.

He leaped to his feet and spun, his heart slamming against his ribcage as he saw Madison tumbling over the edge of the cliff. She screamed his name, terror in her voice, and he sprinted forward. “Madison!” he cried reflexively as he briefly lost sight of her over the edge. She was screaming incoherently now, her hair whipping the side of her face and her jacket dangling from one hand.

He didn’t actually think about his options before diving off the cliff edge, arms forward, as he simultaneously gathered an invisible cushion of air beneath her to slow her descent. When he was close enough he grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her into his arms, tucking one arm beneath her legs and wrapping the other around her shoulders securely. She clung to his neck and shoulders, her body shaking, as she sucked in ragged, gasping breaths. He silently tightened his arm around her shoulders, glancing down past her in time to see her jacket land awkwardly on a rock that was protruding from the shore.

Something about the sight was haunting.

But Madison was all right. She was safely in his arms and, at worst, she’d only twisted her ankle in the fall. So he turned and gently guided them back toward solid ground, several feet away from the edge. He wasn’t sure how she would react to what he’d just revealed, but he knew that that reaction would be another minute in coming. So he settled for remaining quiet and holding her close as she attempted to gather herself.

He did his best to calm his own racing heart, too.

She’d fallen off the cliff edge. She’d nearly fallen to her death—would have if he’d been anyone else. Already the memory was haunting him, her terrified scream echoing in his mind.
Thank god I was here.

From the beginning he’d been worried about his enemies coming after her, hurting her. Taking her life. Having enemies who wielded lightning the way he wielded the air made it easy to forget how fragile life
always
was. A guy didn’t need dangerous enemies to lose his girl, or anyone else.

****

Slowly, the
tremors in Madison’s body began to fade away as she accepted that, through some miracle, she had survived.
I fell,
she repeated, her thoughts barely a whisper,
I fell off the cliff, and somehow Nate caught me…
She recalled hearing him call to her. Seeing him watching her fall with frightened eyes. She recalled feeling oddly confused as he deliberately dove over the edge. Concern—not for herself, but for him—had begun to well within her, until she had suddenly registered that she wasn’t falling nearly as quickly as before. And then she’d been in Nate’s arms, pressed against his pounding heart with her head tucked beneath his jaw, and they hadn’t been falling at all.
But … how?

Carefully, Madison lifted her head, almost afraid to open her eyes and look around. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she expected to see, but when she did finally blink her eyes open, she was surprised to see them standing in the clearing again. Or, more accurately, to see that Nate was standing in the clearing again.

As if on cue, Nate loosened his grip a bit and quietly said, “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Madison swallowed, a thousand questions leaping to the forefront of her mind, and leaned back enough to look up at his face. He was trying to offer her a reassuring, gentle smile, but his jaw was tight and fear dulled his usually bright blue eyes.

Something about the expression on his face confirmed for her that she hadn’t simply hit her head and dreamed the entire experience. But she didn’t know how to handle that.

It was a long minute before she hesitantly asked, “How … how did you do that? I fell. I
know
I fell. And you
flew
. How is that even possible?”

Nate’s eyes drooped slightly, but his hold remained strong and his voice was gentle. “You did fall. And yes, I flew. Flight is sort of a side effect of my power.”

Feeling suddenly like she’d been thrown into a movie, Madison blinked up at him and dumbly repeated, “Power?”

With the faintest of nods, Nate explained, “I can control air—or wind, whichever you prefer. It does whatever I want, and the more focus I put in the more I can make it do. I can even turn into it if I need to, but I try not to do that since it’s sort of draining.”

He said the words so simply that, for a moment, Madison only nodded as if she were being told that tomorrow was Wednesday. And then the actual words settled in her mind and her eyes widened again. “But,” she began, “I still don’t understand … how something like that is possible.”

“That’s … a little more complicated,” Nate hedged, before tilting his head toward the ground and asking, “Do you mind if we sit?”

Belatedly realizing that he was still holding her, Madison’s face flamed crimson and she nodded, saying, “Oh my God, I’m sorry! Of course we can sit!”

Nate carefully set her back on her feet, otherwise remaining stationary as she took a step backwards and awkwardly settled herself back on the ground. She sat cross-legged this time, facing him, her face still fairly red.

****

Once she was sitting, Nate released a breath and dropped into a seated position as well.
There’s no getting out of this one.
But he held her gaze without speaking for a moment, searching for the reaction that was undoubtedly bubbling within her.

He found only shocked confusion and curiosity beneath her fading embarrassment.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Nate said, “The short version is this is a power I was born with. I’ll have it until the day I die, though not nearly to this extent. But … the history is a lot longer than me.”

Voice quiet and hesitantly thoughtful, Madison asked, “So this is a hereditary thing? Can the rest of your family do what you do?”

“Yes and no,” Nate replied, glad that, for the moment at least, her reaction was only inquisitive. “It’s definitely hereditary. This power passes down through generations—on my mom’s side. And someday Angie will have a son with my power. But I’m the only one in my family right now with this particular ability.”

Madison’s brow furrowed as she contemplated what he was telling her. “So … you’re saying that the rest of your family has
different
abilities?”

Inclining his head, Nate explained, “My mother and sister are both healers. Angela’s powers are stronger, since she’s just coming into her prime, but Mom’s powers have only recently started waning. And each of my brothers has control of a different element. Their powers work the same as mine. They have utter control over their element, they can transform their bodies into that element or just travel through it without harm or strain.

“That’s how it’s always been,” he continued. “My mother had four older brothers, each with elemental control, and someday Angela will have four sons and a daughter of her own. Nobody really knows how far back it goes, and there used to be lots of elemental families, but we’re … more or less the only ones now.”

It was a long moment before Madison had absorbed enough of his words to catch the slight pause in his final declaration, and she frowned. “What do you mean by ‘more or less’?”

Nate looked away now, his eyes narrowing as he found himself glaring into the trees. At length, he said, “We recently discovered that there’s another kind of elemental. A different family capable of controlling weather itself. Their main power seems to be summoning lightning, which makes sense, since nature has a way of balancing itself out and electricity is my family’s biggest vulnerability.”

Madison’s eyes widened again and she hesitantly asked, “Are you saying these other elementals are bad guys?”

“Yeah,” Nate replied on a sigh. He dragged his eyes back to hers again and added, “Legend has it there was a big feud a long time ago between the two families, and that that’s why there aren’t many of us anymore. My mom lost two of her brothers before any of us were born to freak storm-related accidents.” He paused again, jaw tightening, and said, “More recently, we’ve come under attack a handful of times ourselves. They went after Angela directly once, burned down Brooke’s apartment before trying to kill her, and…”

He cut himself off and looked away. He didn’t know how to go about explaining their theory about the diner’s fire. And he definitely didn’t want to shoot himself in the foot as far as their new relationship was concerned.

“And what?” Madison asked after a long minute. Subtle suspicion weighed her voice, as if she’d already come to suspect what he was going to say.

Nate closed his eyes tightly for a second before lifting them back to hers and saying, “We think they’re responsible for what happened at the diner.”

Her eyes went wide but she said nothing for several seconds. She swallowed heavily, pushing out a long breath, and asked, “The guy in the BMW…?”

“Probably the same one that ran me off the road with a hail storm a little while ago,” Nate replied. “Unfortunately, we don’t know much about them beyond the rumors we found. One of our enemies answers to Jacob, and the older guy in the BMW is his father. If there are more of them, we don’t have any way to prove it.”

“What is it they want with you?” Madison asked as she slowly recovered from the shock.

“If we believe what they’ve told us,” Nate began, “they want revenge for all of their ancestors who died in the feud.”

“That’s stupid!” Madison exclaimed.

Nate sighed, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck, and said, “Tell me about it.” He took in and released another long breath, letting his arm drop, before he quietly said, “Anyway, that’s more or less my story. I know it’s heavy, and I understand if you don’t want to be involved.” He didn’t
like
that option, but he certainly understood it.

****

It was early Tuesday afternoon, and Angela was wandering around downtown. She was supposed to meet Eric at the theater in about forty minutes, but she’d been bored so she’d had her mother drop her off early to do a little shopping. The problem was, after strolling through her favorite clothing store, she’d decided that that wasn’t what she felt like doing. So now she was walking the familiar streets, mostly window shopping to see if something struck her. It was fascinating to see how some of the streets were fairly busy with tourists and locals, and other streets were nearly deserted.

She was walking down one of these largely deserted streets, lips faintly pursed, when a strange sound drifted to her ears. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was, or why she felt compelled to stick her head around the corner of the dead-end alley to investigate it, but she couldn’t deny that she did. Telling herself there might be an injured animal or something, she approached the corner and braced one hand against the wall as she peeked into the alleyway. And she quickly learned that that sound hadn’t come from a dying animal.

To her horror, her eyes landed immediately on the familiar face of her boyfriend. His back was against the opposite wall, several feet down from the front of the alley, and his head was tilted up, eyes closed and jaw tight. Kneeling on the ground before him was a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair. One of Eric’s hands was holding tightly to her shoulder, and the other was fisted in her hair, moving with the subtle movements of her head. And even from her angle, it was obvious to Angela just what was going on between them.

The sound drifted toward her again, and Angela realized it was Eric’s poorly muffled groan of pleasure. And as she watched, his hips bucked sharply into the blonde. The sound, coupled with the visual, snapped her out of her shock and Angela stepped rapidly backwards until her back was against the wall around the corner from them. Her heart slammed against her ribcage and tears stung her eyes as her throat swelled. Her hands clenched into fists against the wall as she bit back her sob. She and Eric had been together for nearly a year and a half, and now he was cheating on her!

Her first reaction was hurt and sadness. She’d developed strong feelings for him, even going so far as to say “I love you” on numerous occasions.

They had planned their first semester’s worth of courses together. She had even begun thinking about suggesting that they move in together.

It had never occurred to her to so much as flirt with another guy, and she’d always felt safe and secure with Eric. She had even told him her family’s secret, and she thought they had grown closer since then.

She swallowed heavily, a thin stream of tears breaking free.
How could he…?

How could he?
she repeated to herself as the anger began to take hold, overpowering the hurt. How could he betray her trust like that? How could he be so willing to throw away what they were building? She sucked in a breath as the next question unexpectedly popped into her head. How long had he been cheating on her? She had no way to know, as she had never had any suspicions. But she could see now that her trust had been misplaced. And she was immensely glad she had never given in and given herself to him.

The groan reached her ears again, sounding strangled and almost gasped this time, and again the sound spurred Angela into motion. Eric Matthews was going to rue the day he’d decided to betray her trust.