EarthBorn (The Elemental Born Book 1) (8 page)

“I don't know.”

“Yeah right,” she spat, pushing me back against the wall, pinning me there with her hand around my throat, her perfectly manicured nails digging into my skin. If I hadn’t still been so weak from the ritual – and in utter shock at what was happening – I would have fought back. But at that very moment, I just didn’t have the strength. “You listen to me, bitch. Ethan is
mine
. We have been together years, and just because you tricked him into bringing you here with some stupid ritual and he decided to slum it with you for the night, that doesn't change the fact that he is mine.”

Part of me wanted to scream at her, to yell that Ethan was mine, not hers, but the truth was, he wasn't. The ritual may have chosen him as my protector but we weren't bonded, not fully. And hadn’t I decided that it was best if we never completed the bond? But, that being said, I was filled with jealousy at the thought of Ethan being with her.

“Chelsea! What the hell are you doing?” I heard someone shout from the door, catching a glimpse of short blonde hair moving quickly towards us. “Let her go, Chelsea,” the young girl demanded as she came into view. “The Alpha will kill you for this.”  

Shifting her hands, she released her claws, raking their razor sharp points down the wall beside my face, the noise going straight through me. “Stay away from Ethan, or next time it'll be your face I mark with my claws,” she spat.

As she released me, I slumped to the floor, pulling my knees up to my chest as tears spilled from my eyes. What the hell was going on?

“I'm so sorry. Are you okay?” the girl asked as the door slammed shut behind my attacker. Looking up at her, taking in the short blonde hair brushing her shoulders, the large blue eyes widened in shock, I noticed something really strange, something I had never expected… she wasn’t
Were.
She was human.

“Not really. Who was that? Is Ethan… is he…” I couldn’t bring myself to say.

“Is he her mate? No, she just wishes he was. I'm Jennifer. Chelsea’s my sister. Step sister, before you start to judge,” she added quickly.

“I won’t, promise.” Amazingly, I smiled, already liking the girl. 

“I can’t believe she did that,” Jennifer sighed. “She’s been obsessed with Ethan for years. He’s always said he would never mate with anyone but his truemate, but she always had this crazy idea in her head that one day he would just wake up and realise that she was it. Guess she’s not taking the news about you two so well.”

“You think?”

“Come on,” she said, helping me up off the floor. “Let’s go get a drink. I think you deserve one.” Smiling, she led me towards the door. I got the feeling she wasn’t talking about water.

Chapter Nine

~

Ethan

“Is that him?” I asked, turning to Isaac. “Is that the demon that is after Kaia?”

We had been down in the vault for hours, organising all the books. There was everything from history books to encyclopaedias, from books on demons to fairies. For some reason, as I had dug through the mountain of book that we were sorting through, this book had caught my eye and I just couldn't help but flick through it. The first page it had stopped on was this one and I kept coming back to it again and again. I just knew that it was him.

“Let me see... Oh yes, Abaddon. A very evil being that is said to stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

So not what I wanted hear.

As Isaacs moved away, I felt Frankie and Zak close in on my sides, looking over my shoulder to see the book. There were no pictures or drawings, but there was enough written to make my heart fill with dread. This was much worse than I had originally thought.

A demon from the lowest pits, Abaddon came to this world seeking power. After killing the four Elemental witches of that time, hoping to gain their powers for himself, he was angered to discover that upon their deaths the witches powers did not transfer to him, but instead passed on to the next witch born worthy of it. Angered by this, Abaddon spent the next decade raining terror upon the earth, leaving rivers of blood in his wake.

Sometime in the years after the original Elementals were killed, (Exact date unknown) a prophecy was made by the seer Galadriel, that Abaddon would meet his end when the four Elementals reunited as one to face him again. Since hearing of the prophecy, Abaddon has embarked on a non-stop mission to stop the prophecy from being fulfilled, by killing each and every one of the Elemental witches before they come off age, at which point they are still unprotected and vulnerable without their protectors.

“Oh shit, man!” Frankie uttered after reading the page.

“Shit is right. How am I meant to keep her safe from him?” I mumbled to myself, not expecting anyone to answer.

“By securing the bond,” Isaac stated simply, with a small smile on his face.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?” Frankie asked. “What's stopping you, anyway? I know she's refusing but can't just get another witch to do the spell or something.”

“Like I said,
it’s not that simple
.” Spotting the look of confusion upon his face, I decided to come clean about the final part of the bonding. “The bonding spell is performed during the
‘ultimate intimate moment’
,” I said quoting the Crone’s words. A frown formed on his face, him having no clue as to what I was talking about. Hell, my friend was slow. “Sex, you twat. During sex.”

“Well, why didn't you just say that.”

“Fuck, you really are in deep shit.” Zak slapped me on the back, moving back over to the large pile of books he had been going through before I’d drawn his attention.

“Tell me about it.”

We worked for another hour to two, cleaning the books as we went. Picking up a very large, very dusty book I blew on the cover, sending dust partials everywhere.

“Did you have to do that?” Zak spluttered as he choked on the dust swarming the already stale air of the vault.

Coughing myself, I almost choked to death when I saw the title of the book in my hands.

‘History of The Elemental  ~ Earth
’

It couldn't be. Not a book on Kaia's powers, surely?

Opening it up, I found that it was indeed all about the elemental power of earth. But what was it doing here in our vault? “Why would this be here, Isaac?”

“You will find that there are a lot of things here about that topic.” He smiled, his eyes all-knowing but holding his tongue.

What wasn't he telling me?

“Maybe you should hang on to that one, read it with Kaia. It may answer a few questions you both have.”

I doubted it. The only questions I really needed answering were the following. Why was Kaia so determined to push me away? And what had happened in the past to change her so completely?

A few minutes later, Isaac finally let us go and I made my way back upstairs to find Kaia, the heavy book held tight in my arms. I didn't know how it would help, if at all, but I was willing to give Isaac’s suggestion a try. What did I have to lose?

Chapter Ten

~

Chelsea

Anger flared through her, her wolf snarling and snapping at her to shift and let it rip the bitch to pieces. How dare she waltz in here and take Ethan away from her like that? He was theirs!

They had spent years trying to get his attention, destroying every relationship he had ever tried to have, until, finally, he had fallen into her bed. And that was where she had planned on keeping him. Now one stupid witch did one fucking ritual and Ethan was tied to her forever?

She hadn't believed it at first. When all the lads came back from the ritual and Ethan hadn't, she had asked Frankie and Zak where he was; knowing that being his best friends they would know exactly where he was. But they had just laughed in her face and told her that Ethan was joining the ‘
whipped club,’
whatever that was. She had ended up tracking down Trevor to ask him where Ethan was.

Trevor was one of the higher ranked of the pack, and had made it obvious over the past year or two that he was attracted to her, but he wasn’t high up enough in the pack for her tastes. Alpha Female was where she was headed. Even being high ranked, he wasn’t good enough for her and her wolf. He had told her that he would tell her what she wanted to know, but at a price.

"A kiss, Chelsea, it will cost you a kiss. And it better be a believable one."

Five minutes later, feeling pretty smug after giving Trevor a kiss he would
never
forget, he wiped the smile straight off her face. "Ethan has been chosen as protector for a witch. He, the Alpha and Beta stayed behind to talk with the Crone. They will be back later with his new mate.” He had laughed at her as he shut his bedroom door in her face. 

Oh hell no! She was his mate, not this fucking bitch. He was hers, and nobody else’s.

Her sister, Jennifer, had stopped her from strangling the bitch, but nothing could stop the raging tornado inside her. She needed to find a way of getting rid of this bitch, and soon.

She decided the best thing to do was to look to the old laws. There had to be some old books on them down in the vault. She just needed to find one loophole in this so-called mating, and Ethan would forever be hers. And he would love her forever. How could he not?  She was a much better match for him than
her
. He couldn't possibly be happy with her. From what she had seen so far he wasn't, they had hardly looked at each other during the announcement.

Arriving at the vault, she found that the doors were already open, meaning that someone was already inside. Creeping forward, she followed the sound of people talking until she could make out what they were saying. Figures they would be in the room filled with the old books she needed to get to. As she listened she recognised Ethan’s voice, a worried edge to it. “Is that him? Is that the demon that is after Kaia?”

“Let me see,” she heard the old bloke that festered down here reply. “Oh yes, Abaddon. A very evil being that is said to stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

So she really was in trouble. Good to know.

“Oh shit, man!” Frankie said.

“Shit is right. How am I meant to keep her safe from him?”

Abaddon?
The name sounded familiar somehow. She needed to get a hold off that book. Maybe the old laws weren't the best way to go after all. If a demon was after her, then surely the best solution was to let him have her. All she needed to do was find the demon and tell him where this mate-stealing bitch was.

A wicked smile pulled at her lips as she retreated to the other side of the vault to a room full of old furniture. She would wait there till they left, then she would take a look at that book.

When they eventually left, leaving the vault in darkness having turned off all the lights, Chelsea crept out of her hiding place and made her way back to the room they had just vacated. Had she been a puny human like her sister, Jennifer, she would have bumped into the many objects cluttering the floor, but luckily, being
Were,
she had no problems seeing in the dark.

“Where is it?” she snarled, scanning the bookshelves before her for anything on demons. Finding the section on demons she snatched copy after copy from the shelf, flicking through the pages as quickly as she could, searching for the name Abaddon. Ramming a volume of ‘The demon dimension and the pests that exist there,’ back on the shelves, she reached for a small black leather bound book with no title. Flicking through it as she had all the others, she stopped dead when she found the name written in large black lettering at the top of one of the pages.

“Gotcha.”

The book had everything. A quick bio, a description of his powers, and even, much to Chelsea’s delight… how to summon him.

“Well, that will come in very handy.”

Chapter Eleven

~

Kaia

Walking into a room full of the people I had tormented at school was terrifying. How would they react? Would they threaten me like Chelsea? Yell at me and tell me to get the hell out? Hundreds of possibilities were flying around my head as I followed Jennifer into the room.

A large group of girls were sat chatting on the sofas over by the window, and over in the corner, another group were stood at a bar grabbing drinks. “Look who I brought,” Jennifer yelled over the chatter, getting everyone’s attention. As all eyes turned to me, I wanted to run, to hide. I had been so horrible to all of them in the past. After I’d been told of my fate, I’d kind of gone off the rails for a time, not just pushing away those that I loved, but also making sure that everyone I came into contact with hated my guts. I had done some pretty messed up things back then. “She just had a bit of a run in with Chelsea, thought she might need a drink.”

“Sure,” one of the girls by the bar said, smiling at me. “What will it be? We have beer, wine or would you like something stronger? I'm guessing after dealing with Chelsea it will be the latter.”

“Strongest thing you’ve got.” I needed my courage.

“Coming right up. Why don’t you guys go and sit down with the others, I’ll bring it over.”

“Thanks.”

Awkwardly I sat down in one of the armchairs, Jennifer perching next to me on the arm. “So what has that bitch done now?” someone asked.

“Oh, you know Chelsea. Attacked her up in Ethan’s room, yelling at her that Ethan is
hers
as always,” Jennifer informed them.

“She’ll pay for that when he finds out,” another girl laughed.

The conversation quickly moved on to other things and I sat quietly just listening, not really invited into the conversation. Feeling like I didn’t belong, I made to leave, hoping that no one would notice. Just as I got to the door, a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. “Where are you going?” Jennifer asked, pulling me back.

“I don’t really fit in here. I'm just going to head back up to Ethan’s room.”

Her eyes scanned my face, worry etched in her own. Frowning, she said, “We haven’t really given you a chance to join in the conversation, have we? I’m sorry, Kaia. Come on, let me introduce you to everyone and get you another drink. Then I promise, if you’re not having fun, I’ll take you back upstairs myself.”

Nodding, I allowed her to drag me back into the room and over to the bar. “So Kaia, let me introduce my friends here.” And she began pointing out everyone and telling me their names. Some I remembered from school, others not so much.

“I think I remember you,” Wendy said suddenly, looking at me strangely before her eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh my God! You’re the one that went all crazy; starting fights, playing cruel pranks. Didn’t you get kicked out of school in the end and sent to some kind of boarding school?”

“More like kicked out of the house and sent to live and train with the Crone,” I answered honestly. A couple of rumours had gone around after my sudden disappearance from the local school; guess that was the one that stuck. At least it was better than the rumour that I had gotten pregnant and sent to a convent.

“I remember when you rigged flea spray in all the males lockers, so when they opened them, they got sprayed in the face. That was so funny.” Reece laughed.

“And when the girls from the coven were having one of their special dinners for the Sabbath and she put a potion in the punch bowl so all their hair turned green.”  Yeah, that joke hadn’t turned out quite so great in the end. It had been funny, hilarious even, but one of the girls had an allergic reaction to something in the potion and all her hair actually fell out.

Soon everyone was laughing and joking about all the crazy things I had done, some of those things I’d even done to them. But no one seemed angry. No one wished revenge upon me. They all just found the things I had done hilarious.

“Yeah, sorry about all that,” I said when the laughter had quieted down.

“One thing I have always wanted to know is why you did it? I mean, you were one of the most popular members of the coven at school, then everything changed and you were like at the bottom of the school hierarchy.” 

“It’s a long story. Let’s just say that finding out that I’d been lied to my whole life kind of pushed be over the edge.”

“Let me guess… your parents?”

“Yeah.”

“Join the club. Parents always lie,” Jennifer said, patting my hand. “Like my mother; when she started dating my stepdad, before I knew all about werewolves, I heard howling in the garden. Scared me to death. I ran around the house screaming that there was a monster outside. Anyway, she sat me down and told me that it wasn’t a monster, it was my rabbit Buttons. Because, apparently, rabbits howl at the moon just like wolves. The sad thing is, for the next year I believed her.” And that set everyone off, me included. I was laughing so hard tears were rolling down my cheeks.

“So what’s it like?” Reese asked, mixing me another drink. I wasn’t sure what was in it, but it tasted great and was going straight to my head.

“What’s what like?”

“Being mated to Ethan? You’re so lucky to have found a generally nice male for a mate. I’ve heard some right horror stories of females finding themselves mated to evil bastards.”

They thought we were already mated. Was that why they were being nice, because they thought they were already stuck with me in the pack? I could have lied, but they would have sensed it anyway. “Well, we’re not quite mated yet.”

“He hasn’t claimed you?” Wendy asked in disbelief. “What the fuck is he waiting for? The daft prick.” She put her arm around my shoulders, giving me a small encouraging squeeze. That set them all off, telling me that he was an idiot for not putting his marks on me the instant he was chosen and that they were all going to box his ears for it. I smiled along, laughing at their crazy ideas of how they could punish him for his stupidity. The whole time, the guilt of denying him, of pushing him away all over again built inside my chest.
 

~

Ethan

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Kaia was laughing and drinking with a bunch of the pack females. She was dancing around the room, looking the happiest I had seen her in a very long time. And not just any females either, these were females she hadn’t exactly been nice to back in our school days. What had I missed while I’d been down in the vault?

After we’d left the dust filled, cough-inducing vault, I’d left the guys and headed straight back up to my room with the book Isaac had suggested I show Kaia, expecting her to be there. But upon knocking and getting no reply, I’d opened the door to find an empty room. For a moment I’d panicked, thinking that she’d run off. I knew the thought had crossed her mind numerous times since her arrival. Leaving the book in my room, I’d used the fragile bond between us to guild me to her, shocked when it led me downstairs to the lounge on the third floor.

The third floor was where all the young unmated females rooms were. The lounge, the place where they all tended to hang out at night, away from the disapproving eyes of the older generations, was right down at the end of the corridor. That was the room I had been pulled towards.

Knocking on the frame of the open door, I couldn’t help the smile that pulled at my lips when all the females froze, their heads spinning round to look at me. With their sensitive hearing they heard my knock over the loud music, while Kaia carried on dancing a moment longer before noticing that the others had stopped. Spotting me, all the laughter and fun that had been lighting up her face vanished. What I wouldn’t do to be the one to put and keep that smile there.

“Hey girls, mind if I steal Kaia back?” I smiled, trying to ease the tension I could feel building in the room.

“We were just…” Kaia started to say before Jennifer cut her off.

“Of course you can,” she said, smiling at me strangely. Turning to Kaia, she whispered low in her ear, but still loud enough that I could hear. “Go talk to him. I promise you, she means nothing to him. Forget what she said.”

Okay, I didn’t like the sound of that. And I didn’t like the slight anger I felt directed at me from not just her but the females in the room.

Reluctantly, she approached, waiting for me to step out of the doorway so that she could pass by without getting too close.

Okay, she hadn’t been this uncomfortable with me before I’d left to go to the vault this morning. Sure, she hadn’t exactly been warm to the idea of us being mates, but she hadn’t been like this. Something had happened in the past few hours to make her pull away from me, more than she ever had before. I needed to find out what Jennifer had meant.

“What’s wrong, Kaia?” I asked once we were clear of the females’ floor, even though I knew for a fact that some of them had followed us out of the lounge and were listening at the top of the stairs as we headed down.

“Nothing,” she mumbled, looking down at her feet as she fidgeted with her fingers.

“Bullshit! Things weren’t exactly great between us this morning, but they weren’t this bad. What the hell has happened to make you hate me?”

Stopping mid-step, she sighed heavily, turning to look me in the eye. “I don’t hate you, Ethan. I just feel… Hell, I don’t know… Annoyed maybe. Pissed.”

“Why?”

Taking a deep breath, she clenched her fists tightly at her sides. “You’re
mate
came to see me today while you were gone.”

Hold on, my mate? What mate?

“What the fuck are you talking about, Kaia?” I asked, grabbing her arm as she made to continue down the hall.

“You should know what I'm talking about, Ethan. That girl! The one that, according to her, is
your
mate. She turned up at your door this morning looking for you and told me, not too politely I might add, that you were hers and I needed to stay away from you.”

What was she talking about? I didn’t have a mate. Who would say that?

Dumb question… “Chelsea,” I snarled, my wolf raising its hackles in anger as it too clicked onto who Kaia was speaking of. “What did she do, Kaia?” The anger and rage of both myself and my wolf were pumping through my blood. My own fists were now clenched tightly at my sides as I did my best to calm my emotions. A wolf on the edge was a dangerous thing. A loose cannon. I couldn’t put Kaia at risk like that. I had to get control of myself. 

“Nothing. Just what I told you.”

She was lying. “Kaia, I know your lying, I can feel it. Tell me.”

“Really, it was nothing.”

“Tell me, Kaia.”

Shifting nervously, shuffling her feet on the floor, she sighed, “Well, she kind of pushed me a little. Might have threatened me a bit.”

“She what!” I roared, my body shaking with the need and want to shift, but I held the wolf back, barely.

Eyes widening, she backed away from me, which was probably for the best. I was losing control, fast. Fur was sprouting along my body, claws releasing. I needed to calm the fuck down. Luckily, having sensed my growing rage, my father rounded the corner. Allowing his wolf to rise to the surface, he placed his hand on my shoulder, holding me in place. My wolf instantly calmed upon his touch, reassured by the presence of his Alpha. “You need to control your emotions better, Ethan. Do not let them rule you.”

Taking a deep breath, I pushed my wolf back, little by little, until I was once again in control. “Yes, Alpha. Thank you.”

Releasing me from his hold, he turned to look at Kaia. “You okay?” Her nod was the only response she gave. “Ethan, you care to explain the problem here?”

“No problem, father. We’ll be fine.”

Eyeing me suspiciously, knowing full well that something had to have been majorly wrong for me to lose control like that, and that I was most definitely keeping something from him, he said, “Okay, if you say so. Just don’t let yourself lose it like that again.”

It had been a very long time since I’d lost control of my wolf. The first and only time had been shortly after Kaia had disappeared when my wolf matured at sixteen. All
Were
are born with their beasts within them, but they are nothing but pups, children, until the age of sixteen. That’s when we have to learn to control them, keep some of their more aggressive instincts at bay. Shortly after my wolf had matured, I’d overheard someone talking about Kaia, saying things about her being a slut and that she had left because she’d gotten knocked up. It had set my wolf off, big time. I hadn’t understood why he had gone off the way he had at the time, but now I understood. She was my mate, and somewhere deep down, even all those years ago, he had known that.

After my father left and I knew he was out of earshot, I turned to Kaia. “I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to lose it like that. It’s just… I care about you, Kaia. I always have. And the thought of someone hurting you… well, it kills me.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “It’s okay. It was just a shock to have her telling me that she was your mate. I know were not exactly mates, because I'm not completing the bond, but… well, it just hurt when she said that you and her…”

A small bubble of hope began to build in my chest. If Chelsea’s words had upset her, hurt her, then maybe she did feel things for me, want me. “I won’t deny it, I have been seeing Chelsea on a regular basis for a number of years, but never once have I told her that we were mates, or that I would mate with her. And I was going to end it even before the ritual.”