Born Into Fire (13 page)

“Easy,” he soothed. “Slow down. Tell me what happened.”

She glanced around the room. “Where am I?”

“Like your garage, this is my sanctuary. We’re about three hundred miles from your home.”

“Three hundred miles?”

“In Element form, we travel at speeds greater than you’ve ever experienced. You aren’t human, Kenna. You can travel miles in moments.”

She gave her head a hard shake. “I only just left my bedroom.”

“Your bedroom?” Erion repeated.

She reached for his belt. “We don’t have time. He’ll find me again. He’s in a rage, and his anger is directed at you. I won’t let him kill you.”

Erion grasped her hands.

She met his gaze. “Please, I need you. Together, we can stop him.”

“You came here from your bedroom?”

Her heart raced at the steel in his voice. She wanted to deny the truth, but knew he already saw it in her eyes.

Erion’s gaze sharpened. “He came to your bed because you chose me over him.”

“Erion—”

“Son of a bitch. Did he touch you?”

Kenna shoved his hands off hers and began tugging on the belt in an effort to pull it from the jeans’ loops. “We don’t have time to talk.” She grunted with the effort of freeing the belt. “We need to hurry.”

“Did you merge with him?”

At the harshness in his voice, she looked up. A whirlpool of energy swirled in his eyes.

Erion’s grip tightened. “Did. He. Succeed?”

“No.” The muscled thighs beneath her began to dissolve. Kenna threw her arms around Erion’s neck. “No!” A rushing sound filled the air, and she tumbled onto the couch, clutching Erion’s shirt. The man was gone.

She yanked her attention to the tornado-like mass racing toward the door and leaped to her feet. “Erion! I’ll follow. I won’t let you face Aiden without me.”

Heat roared to life with her next step, and Kenna imploded in on herself in a burst of flames. Pain ripped through her, but she ignored the searing sensation and rocketed toward the swirling maelstrom. The mass abruptly turned toward her. She choked, feeling as if all air had been sucked from her lungs. Sounds of air rushing with a mighty force filled her ears.

The weight of matter forming from the weightlessness of her fire brought her partially re-formed feet in contact with the carpet again. Spinning pressure became cabled arms holding her tight. The clean scent of wood and rain surrounded her. Erion’s long black hair fell around her nakedness.

“You little fool,” he whispered with the rush of dying wind. “I shouldn’t—”

“Yes. Only you, Erion. Only you spark my fire.”

“The
spark
.” He growled as his mouth closed over hers. Her heart leaped when his tongue traced the seam of her lips, then thrust inside. Wet, hot strokes seared the inside of her mouth. He tasted good. Kenna leaned into his growing erection.

Erion broke the kiss, rested his forehead against hers, and released a shuddering breath. He shifted his hands to her shoulders in a light touch, but the tight line around his mouth said the tension hadn’t eased.

“Don’t leave me again. I need you.” She placed a soft kiss on his lips, then, lifting on tiptoes, aligned her damp curls with his cock, erect and thrusting from a thatch of dark springy hair. Kenna pressed her taut nipples into the hard plane of his chest and flicked her tongue against his jaw.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“You won’t, unless you say you don’t feel anything for me.”

Erion groaned. “I feel too much.”

“Show me. Make love to me,” she whispered. He kissed her again as she slid her hand between them and stroked the velvety length of his shaft from base to the moist swollen mushroom. His muscles tensed beneath her fingers, yet he didn’t move.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” he said.

“And I won’t let you fight him alone. We face him together…or I’ll find him myself.”

Erion yanked her close. She held her breath in the long moment before he cupped her buttocks and lifted her.

“Guide me in,” he rasped.

Kenna stroked his cock. His jaw tightened, and she watched his expression as, using her juices, she moistened the sensitive crown of his rod at the entrance of her wet heat. She rubbed the head along her folds. Erion groaned and closed his eyes. Cream dripped from her slit. He backed her against the wall. She grunted with the force of his body pinning hers as he slid inside until completely sheathed in her hot, stretched glove.

Rearing back, he plunged again. And again. Each hard thrust reaffirmed all she’d known. She was his as much as he was meant to be hers. Her body burned from his touch. His air seeped into her soul. The heat intensified. How could she deny the power of their connection? She couldn’t, and with each delicious slide of his cock into her quivering channel, she slipped more under his spell.

Euphoric waves of pleasure rolled through her with each powerful thrust. Kenna tightened her internal muscles around his shaft and squeezed. She braced her hands on his shoulders, digging her nails into his flesh as he increased the fierce tempo. Erion leaned forward. He rasped his tongue over her nipple, circling the areola. She shivered, and he closed his wet mouth over the tip and gently sucked. Kenna arched into his mouth. She gripped the sides of his head as he laved the beaded tip again, cooling her heated flesh with his breath, then gently biting her. Pleasure streaked from nipple to pussy. She hungered for more.

“Erion.” She pulled him close and rocked her hips.

He grasped her waist, helping her raise and lower on his stiff stalk. Amber glow radiated from her skin beneath his fingers. Liquid warmth flooded through her channel and around his cock. A wave of pale crimson color flowed through her and surrounded her.

Erion increased his speed, building momentum and stoking the fires simmering within her. “Let go, baby.”

She let her head fall back. “Yes, more. I need more.”

He pumped deeper, long strokes out and hard thrusts forward. Pleasure crashed over her. Kenna cried out. Arcs of golden light emanated from between her breasts, spreading out to encompass him in her fiery energy. Erion tensed. Muscles hardened beneath her fingers.

He groaned, and pulsing jets of cum spurt from his cockhead. Continuing to rock her, he worked her clit against the base of his shaft. Kenna reached between them and opened her folds. His cock rubbed against her clit in exquisite agony.

Awareness of another presence penetrated the haze of desire. She tried to concentrate.
“Airiana
?” The presence drew closer. Pressure built within Kenna. She opened her mind.
“Airiana
,” she mentally called.

“No,” Erion ground out between thrusts. “Aiden.”

Fear slammed through her. The physical sensations of Erion sliding in and out of her soaked pussy transferred into every nerve, every synapse, transmitting orgasmic energy that rippled pleasure through her like a cresting wave. Fiera ignited, and he collapsed into air.

Brighter, hotter, the storm of their passion reached out, built inch by inch to a crescendo. Erion’s element isolated their joining in a swirling vortex of wind and fire, with them at the eye of the storm. Pride swelled in Fiera. Erion would not let Aiden near her—until she was ready.

The walls vibrated. Awareness settled deep in her being. The Fire Element was pooling his energy. A picture crashed to the floor, but their cocoon remained quiet. Even when the frame split and glass shattered, no sound penetrated their shelter. Blue flames seeped up from where wall met floor. Aiden gathered strength. So did she.

Erion’s wind closed in around her. Dread unexpectedly threaded through her like the slow crawl of a caterpillar.
Erion
. Why was he afraid? The flame creeping up the walls emitted little heat. Aiden was no match for them.

Erion began edging them toward the door. Fiera extended her flames. Fire swirled throughout the churning wind vortex that was Erion. Blessed heat burned through her outer edges to the core of her being.

Her attention riveted on the door an instant before a blast blew it from its hinges. The wood sailed end over end across the room and splintered against the mantle. Pieces fell onto the brick in front of the fireplace as a deafening roar of wind filled Fiera’s ears. Heat collapsed in around them. Fear clamped down on her and squeezed.

Aiden had the cabin surrounded.

Erion’s air thinned to a funnel, its spinning tail feeding into her center. The upper rim reached to the ceiling, then turned in on itself and slammed back down on the carpet, encasing her. Energy surged through her like a violent current of electricity. Erion was sucking the oxygen from the cabin and channeling it to her. He suffocated Aiden, while feeding her
his life
. Erion meant to do now what he failed to do in her workshop—sacrifice himself to save her.

In a panic, Fiera willed a wall between herself and the onslaught of wind. A tremor rocked the cabin. Heat shimmered around them. Erion forced more air into her flames. She commanded herself to become Kenna, but couldn’t halt the long draughts of oxygen her fire drank in.

“No!”
Her mental scream resonated off Erion’s walls of air in a deafening roar.

Soft wind abruptly whistled through her center. He was imprinting his final song upon her heart. Despair choked her.

“Erion, no.”

The shimmering heat wavered, and the roar of a wounded beast joined the thunderous rush of wind. The funnel spun faster, building momentum.

She had to stop him, to hold him close, but recognized the pull of separation. Fiera commanded her fire higher, racing up the wall of wind, then over the edges of the funnel. She plummeted down the outer edges to the carpet, then streaked across the carpet to where the blue flame poured into the room.

She charged like lightning into Aiden’s flame and exploded. Marbled reds, yellows, and pinks of a supernova burst across her vision. She stretched like a rubber band, ready to snap back on itself. A shock wave of transparent greens and blues appeared. Shadowed blue revealed the form of a man. Aiden. His eyes glittered and locked on to her.
Desolation
. The eyes narrowed, then shifted to the weakened funnel that was Erion.

“No!” she shouted.

Aiden shot forward. Fiera leaped toward him as a wall of fire. He passed through like a bullet. Pain seared her insides. She whirled and lashed a whip of flames at him. Fire collided with fire. A brilliant flash of light lit the room. Time stood still as the vortex of swirling wind slowed and became a spinning black hole. Erion’s brown eyes riveted on her, stared for an instant, then winked out. Fiera snapped back on herself with a force that wrenched a cry of agony from her.

Kenna collapsed to the floor.

Chapter Thirteen

Kenna dragged in a heavy breath. The acrid smell of burned carpet singed her nostrils. She rose to her knees and wheezed in another harsh breath. Erion’s words rang in her mind.
Concentrate on your center. Bring your human form into harmony with your element
. A picture of her body, whole, human, flashed in her mind, and the dimly lit room snapped into focus.

The lamp on Erion’s desk was tipped on its side. Light bulb shards lay scattered in jagged pieces across the mahogany top. Splintered pieces of the front door were strewn across the carpet near the fireplace. Tiny wisps of smoke curled up from the carpet edges around the walls.

Where was the ruin? The cabin should be ablaze. Had Erion preserved his home as he had her workshop? She shoved upward onto shaky legs. Where was Erion?
God, please let him be here
. Kenna stilled. Where was Aiden? Her gaze caught on the closed door in the far corner of the room.

Dread wound its way through her. “Erion?”

She sprinted for the door.

Kenna threw open the door to a dark room. The scent of wood and spice hung in the air. She groped for and located a switch on the wall. Soft light illuminated an unmade sleigh-style bed against the left wall.

A moment of confusion immobilized her at the sight of neatly folded laundry on the bed. How had that bit of order remained when even the window on the wall opposite her lay shattered on the carpet not five feet away? How had Erion preserved her workshop, this cabin, when so much destructive power had surrounded them? Emotion—love—swelled inside her. He had saved her a second time.
Oh God
. She had to find him.

Accordion doors to a small closet on the wall to her right stood slightly ajar. She glimpsed a shower through the open door in the far corner.

“Erion!”

Kenna rushed to the bathroom only to find it empty. She faced the bedroom. Tears streamed down her cheeks. He couldn’t have simply disappeared.
But he had
. She raced to the living room and out the front door, then halted. Moonlight filtered through the trees surrounding the cabin. Frogs and crickets played a thunderous symphony in the darkness.

“Erion, please be here.”

She’d been careful to throw her fire only at Aiden. The flash of light that had followed couldn’t mean—no, she hadn’t read Erion’s intent correctly when they’d merged. He was here. He had to be, because if he wasn’t—fear bubbled up from her chest and tightened her throat. Had he let her fire incinerate Aiden
and him?

Tears blurred her vision. Her chest heaved. Erion had kept her safe, yet she’d killed him. A sob broke through. Dear God, why had Airiana led her to Erion?

“Erion,” the wind echoed in response, then added a barely audible, “
Ghen
.”

Kenna tensed.
“Airiana
?” She stepped closer to the darkness and strained her ears, but heard only an answering crescendo from the crickets and frogs.

“Airiana!”

Rustling in the trees yanked her attention to the right. Iridescent green shimmered against moonlight filtering through the branches. Kenna squinted. The outline of two sets of wings spreading in readiness for flight became visible.
Drakaura
. What were they doing here? Why hadn’t they intervened? The fire within her rekindled.