elemental 01 - whirlwind (7 page)

“We need to go over your schedule, so Dylan and I can cover you properly,” he said.

Aira sat down on the edge of her bed and then thought better of it, her grandmother’s suggestion about Aiden’s eligibility as a mate ringing through her mind. She stood quickly, glancing around her room until her eyes fell on the wingback chair she had moved into a corner months before and almost forgot about. She couldn’t remember why she had gone to the trouble of hauling it up the stairs to her room. The thought that she might need additional seating in her bedroom never crossed her mine.

She sat down, considering the question. She didn’t really have a set schedule as such. She had loose hours, part of the reason she had been so enthusiastic about freelancing. Aira remembered she had left her purse downstairs, with her phone still in it. She hadn’t even really considered when she would get back to work formally, so even the need for her alarm had failed to occur to her. She thought back to the arrangements she had been working on when the trip to her grandmother’s house had come up. There were a few clients she would need to speak to or meet with, to get information for her assignments.

Aira told Aiden the few details she could remember, the potential meetings she would need to travel to the next day. It occurred to her that she would have to bring one or the other of the brothers with her for the meetings, and Aira’s dissatisfaction with the situation grew.

“We can talk about it in the morning if you’ll have a better idea of things then.” Aiden suggested, surprisingly patient. “We’re all tired.”

Aira shrugged, thrown off-balance by the less antagonistic demeanor Aiden had adopted. She wanted to be angry with him, particularly after the bath spent in remembering their arguments. But the man sitting at her vanity, facing her, was difficult to be angry with. He was paying attention, being respectful, and not cutting her off mid-sentence with an insult or a dig at her intelligence or common sense. Aira was suspicious. He stood, finally, yawning and turning to leave.

“One last thing,” he said, the tension returning to him. Aira steeled herself for him to say something insulting or stupid—or both. “I want to apologize for being an asshole today. When I ended up getting the room next to yours, Dylan pointed out what a jerk I had been all day, and I realized he was right.”

Aira shrugged. “Neither of us was at our best.” She suggested charitably. The apology surprised her somewhat, though Aiden’s admission that Dylan had prompted it did not. Aira wondered why they hadn’t just agreed Dylan would share the room closest to Aira, since she got along better with that brother. She supposed they had their reasons for determining it with a coin toss. “I accept the apology. I’m sorry I was acting like an asshole, too.”

Aiden smiled slightly and turned away, leaving her room and closing the door behind him. Aira suddenly felt every bit of the fatigue she had earned over the course of the day, and no amount of frustration kept her from turning off the lights in her room and gratefully climbing into her own bed, curling up and falling asleep in a matter of moments.

Chapter 6

Aiden woke to the aroma of coffee and something delicious smelling cooking. He dragged himself out of bed, feeling as if he had only slept three out of the last eight hours, but telling himself that he was on the clock. It was to be expected he’d sleep lightly. He pulled a tee shirt on and left the guest bedroom he had taken, scrubbing at his face with his palms before he navigated the stairs to the main area of the apartment. The smell of mouthwatering food intensified as he made his way, and when he reached the ground floor of the unit, he saw Aira busily cooking and Dylan sitting at a bar stool watching as she did something at the stove. Music played quietly from a speaker set off to the other side of the open kitchen. For once something he liked: alternative rock.

Aiden sat down next to his brother in silence. The two nodded to each other in greeting, and Aiden glanced at Aira. She was dancing slightly, oblivious to anyone else, focused on the task at hand. In the morning light that poured through the high windows, Aiden had to admit she wasn’t difficult to look at.

“My dear brother has joined us.” Dylan said, projecting his voice just above the music. Aira looked up from her work at the stove sharply, her features briefly wary and disappointed before she replaced the expression with a more neutral, polite one. She turned away from the work of cooking scrambled eggs and Aiden watched her retrieve a mug from a cabinet, filling it with coffee wordlessly and depositing it in front of him, gesturing to the milk and sugar. Aiden doctored his coffee and watched with amusement as Aira ignored him completely, diving back into her cooking and her enjoyment of the music. She was moving her hips, singing softly along, closing her eyes occasionally and nodding her head in time.

After a few minutes she served up eggs alongside bacon and French toast on three plates. She deposited each in front of him and Dylan. Aiden was impressed. He was generally useless to the world until after he’d had a cup or two of coffee and, although he knew Aira had excellent manners, he hadn’t reckoned on such a spread for her unwelcome guests.

He accepted a fork and knife from her and started in on breakfast, wondering what motivated such a change in demeanor. Likely, he thought with a twinge of envy, his brother had been at work softening the stubborn woman. Aiden had spent most of the time he was awake thinking of the variety of things he knew about Aira’s situation and the importance of her attaining her full abilities—things Aira did not know. Her grandmother had told him certain things privately, outlining why it was so important Aira be protected until she allied with another elemental. Aiden was glad he and his family had very little to do with the politics of the elemental world. The stress of “wild” elementals had made things precarious for even the oldest families. Lorene’s instructions to him were to prevent Aira from being forced into an alliance with another family, as well as to keep her from being killed. Considering some of the rivals Aira’s family had, it could prove to be a challenge, even if he and his brother kept a watch on her twenty-four hours a day.

Dylan had made it clear to Aiden that it would be much easier to protect and defend Aira if he wasn’t constantly offending her and picking fights. The fact that Aiden was barred from telling Aira specifically what they were protecting her from made it difficult to bear when she insisted she was fine and could take care of herself. Aira had been sheltered from the darker aspects of the elemental community, even as she had been trained for her place among the elite. She had only been formally introduced to the families Aira’s grandmother trusted. Even in college, her grandmother had worked to keep as many bad influences away from her granddaughter as possible, though she had told Aiden sadly she hadn’t been able to temper the girl’s wild spirit before she had become a woman.

“So.” Dylan said, pushing his plate aside when he finished eating. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

Aira glanced at her phone, taking a sip of her coffee. “I have a meeting at eleven with a client who wants to introduce me someone who needs a translation from Russian into Bulgarian,” she said. “After that I am working at home all afternoon on translation work I’ve already lined up.”

Aiden glanced at his brother. One of them would have to go with her to the meeting. It would be better for both of them to go, but it would be much less conspicuous for Aira to have one additional persona as opposed to two. If one of them remained at the apartment, it would also allow them to guard against anyone sneaking in while she was away. Aira leaned against a counter and Aiden knew she was waiting for them to weigh in.

“One of us should go with you,” Aiden said. “I’d say both of us, but that would be too obvious. Anyone watching you would figure out you’re being guarded.”

Dylan nodded his agreement.

“How well do you know the client?” He asked.

Aira considered it. “The one who contacted me, I know pretty well. I don’t know his new client at all.”

Dylan glanced at Aiden, who shrugged.

“It could be nothing at all, just a coincidence.”

Aira raised an eyebrow. “Are we really going to do this thing where we question everything that happens in my life?”

Dylan smiled mildly at the woman, and Aiden took a deep breath, forcing down his impatience. “Since your grandmother hired us to protect you, we have to look at the worst possibility for every situation.” He kept his voice as level as possible. “Which one of us goes with you?”

Aira looked from one to the other, her arms crossed over her chest. Aiden noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra and wondered, without meaning to, whether she was wearing panties underneath her pajamas. He pushed the thought away immediately.

“Well, you decided by coin toss last night, go for it.” She collected their dishes and took them to the sink. Aiden read her irritation and knew she was trying to suppress it, to channel it into more productive activities. He looked at his brother who shot him a grin and found a quarter in his wallet he had left on the bar the night before. Aiden called heads, as he typically did; the quarter landed on tails. Dylan would go with Aira to her meeting. Aiden tried not to be annoyed when Aira greeted the news with a satisfied smile. He knew she preferred his brother’s company and he could understand why. It seemed as though if he and Aira spoke for more than ten minutes at a time, they ended up having an argument, sniping at each other in irritation over some very unworthy topics.

Aiden realized he was as much to blame as Aira for the arguments. The fight that started their relationship off had been a portent for how it would continue. Aira was fiercely independent, a trait Aiden could appreciate and would normally have enjoyed, but her independent spirit could get her into trouble under the current circumstances. He had never again tried to impress upon her the limits of her abilities, particularly since she hadn’t come into her full power as an elemental yet. But he had been tempted with every argument they’d had since that first day.

Dylan was the more suitable person, Aiden told himself, as he settled in on the couch in the living room. She was meeting with someone she knew already. If the ‘new client’ was someone suspicious, Dylan could handle the situation. If he wasn’t, then he and Aira could come up with a decent cover, a reason for him to be there. When Aira came down from her bedroom ready for the meeting, Aiden tried not to stare. She was utterly professional looking, in a pair of dark wash jeans, a subdued blouse, and a fitted blazer; but somehow in spite of the fact she was dressed conservatively, Aiden couldn’t keep his eyes from tracing her curves. His gaze lingered at her full bust, the way her hips moved as she walked across the floor in a pair of low heels. For a moment he was tempted to ask her to get something for him from the kitchen, for the sole purpose of seeing her from behind. He conquered the temptation and turned his attention firmly back to the hockey game he was watching, even though he wasn’t interested in the least.

Dylan came out of his room in a suitably professional looking outfit and he and Aira discussed what the cover would be. Dylan would be her assistant. Aira produced a notebook for him to write in while they met with the clients. They went over their cover story and Aiden thought to himself that it stood as good a chance as any of working. Aiden got involved in the planning just before they left, taking Aira’s phone from her and programming his own cell phone into it as one of the quick-dial contacts.

“Dylan’s got me on his phone too,” he said. It was an obvious precaution they took with every phone either of them ever owned. “If anything goes down, call me. Even if you can’t talk. If I get a call from you, I’ll know there’s something going on and I can track you down from there.” He didn’t tell her he had a barely-legal program built into his phone that would trace the location of her cell phone once it received her call. It wasn’t important. He could track any number that called, and if Aira and Dylan were separated, it would do no good if Aira couldn’t call.

Aira said the meeting shouldn’t last longer than an hour and left with Dylan in tow. Aiden tried to settle back into watching the game, but found he felt anxious in spite of the precautions they had taken. While Dylan had never had any problems dealing with similar assignments in the past, Aiden understood from his conversations with Aira’s grandmother they were up against some heavy hitters—something Aiden and Dylan hadn’t really contended with before. The client they were seeing wasn’t an elemental, and had no idea Aira was. Aiden knew there was no reason to suspect anything was out of the ordinary. In addition to the phones, Aiden and Dylan had invested in fail-safes. They carried backup contact methods, so in the worst case scenario, they could always find each other.

One of Aiden’s fire-aligned talents was tracking. He was a quintessential hunter, like the animals his fire abilities gave him the ability to control. Dylan had limited psychic abilities, which would doubtless become strengthened when he came fully into his power, but at the very least he could lock in on Aiden’s mind anywhere in the world. As teenagers they had tested the ability, increasing the distance gradually. He was able to “read” Aiden and some other people he was close to, in a limited sense, but didn’t have any ability to communicate. Aiden thought if Dylan got sufficiently close to Aira, between the two of them combining their power, they’d be able to get a message out telepathically.

Aiden helped himself to another cup of coffee, trying to settle his uneasy nerves. He realized some of his disquiet sprung from the fact there hadn’t been any attempt on Aira since he and his brother had arrived in her life. Of course, he told himself, they had only been away from her grandmother’s house for a little over twenty-four hours. That was hardly enough time for someone to spring any real trap. His mind countered, if someone had been working on a plan before her grandmother had asked him and his brother to protect Aira, they should have already come after her. He flipped through the channels and told himself he was uneasy because he was in a stranger’s home, and because he was out of control of the situation. He had faith in his brother. He reminded himself that Dylan had protected plenty of people before; they had acted as bodyguards on more than one occasion. While they may not look like the stereotypical bodyguard type, both of them athletically built rather than muscle-bound, they were sufficiently powerful to make up for it—and they were stronger than they looked.