Wet (Elemental 1) (10 page)

“You can sit sideways,”
Blake said as he helped guide her into the seat. “That way you won’t have to
put any weight on your feet.”

Brooke released her
arm in order to adjust herself, though as soon as she was out of his arms Blake
crawled in to help her. She cringed visibly, the pain undoubtedly worsening
with each movement. “I’m sorry,” she managed on a gasp after she had finished
adjusting herself.

Blake’s gaze
followed hers. When he realized what she was apologizing for smearing little
bits of blood all over the backseat, he shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,
that’ll wash out.”

She looked up at
him, her eyes wide and tear filled, and said nothing for a long minute. He
crawled backwards out of the car, repositioned the passenger seat, shut the
door and ran around to his side. When he was sitting, buckled, and beginning to
back out of the driveway, she finally said, “Thank you.”

His eyes drifted
from the back window to hers for a long moment, and his lips twitched in a
bitter, apologetic half-smile.

Brooke leaned her
head back against the cool glass of the small window and her eyes drifted shut.

Instead of trying
to engage Brooke in conversation when she was so obviously fighting to stay
awake, Blake tucked his earpiece into place and dialed Logan. Logan answered on
the second ring, and Blake wasted no time with small talk.

“I’m taking Brooke
to Mom and Dad’s. She’s hurt. A large branch crashed into her living-room
window. Looks like storm damage.”

There was a brief
pause before Logan replied, “Storm damage, huh? Okay, I’ll head out and cover
the hole. I won’t be able to get a new sheet of glass in this late at night,
though. That’ll be tomorrow.”

“No problem.
Thanks.” Blake felt a little bad for his clipped tone, but he was in no mood to
be polite and chat. He knew Logan would understand.

As soon as that
call was done, he hit another button on his speed-dial and waited impatiently.
The red light he was stuck at turned green at the same time his mother answered
the phone. “Blake?”

“I know it’s late,”
he offered as an apology. “But Brooke’s hurt pretty bad. Please tell me Angie’s
home.”

“Of course she is.
I’ll run upstairs and get her. You’re on your way?”

“Be there in five,”
Blake replied before disconnecting. He’d never been more grateful for his
mother’s understanding of emergency situations.

He flicked a glance
in the rearview mirror to find Brooke with her eyes half-closed and glazed
over. The sight made his stomach roll, and he had to make a conscious effort to
keep the bile down.
She’ll be okay.

But he didn’t slow
down until he was swinging into his parents’ driveway.

Chapter Ten

Christopher met him
at the door, holding it wide and saying nothing as he watched Blake rush up the
steps with Brooke in his arms.

Lillian came to
stand at the edge of the hallway, one hand resting on the wall. “Blake,” she
said, concern in her voice.

Blake came to a
stop, his hands instinctively tightening. “Please. Questions later.”

Lillian released a
breath and nodded, her arm lowering. “Your sister’s in the living room, waiting
for you.”

“Thanks.” He
carried Brooke silently down the hall, knowing full well that his parents were
following them. And then the hall gave way to the living room, where Angela was
balancing on the edge of the couch anxiously. “Angie,” he said when he saw her.

Angela’s head
immediately snapped up, and she was just as quickly on her feet. “Put her on
the couch,” she said, moving to the side and gesturing needlessly.

Blake nodded and
approached the sofa, carefully lowering himself to his knees before gently
easing Brooke onto the cushions. “Just lie still for a few minutes, okay?” he
asked softly as he pulled his arms back.

Brooke’s head was
propped up against the arm of the couch, her injured arm nestled between her
body and the back cushion. She nodded slowly at Blake, her gaze flickering
between him and his sister.

Angela cleared her
throat, and Blake coughed self-consciously even as he pushed to his feet and
stepped several feet back. Then his sister moved up and knelt deliberately
beside Brooke, smiling gently. “Try to relax, all right? This will take a few
minutes.”

With another slow
nod, Brooke said, “Um, okay.”

It wasn’t until
Angela had unwrapped the blood-soaked towel, tossed it to her brother, and
reached over to hold her hands directly above the gash that Blake recognized a
look of realization dawning in Brooke’s eyes. In all the chaos, she’d likely
forgotten what he’d told her about his sister’s healing ability.

Angela released a
breath, her eyes fell closed, and her hands began glowing. The glow built,
slowly at first, wrapping around Angela’s hands like a golden aura. As soon as
the golden energy was undeniable Brooke’s entire forearm—from elbow to
fingertips—became surrounded by it.

Blake knew the
sensations Brooke would be feeling as he watched her eyes drift shut. As the
healing process began, the injured areas would start to tingle, almost like a
low-level massage. Then a relaxing warmth would seep into the surrounding
muscles, loosening them and freeing the tension. Those feelings would spread
from the injury sites to the entire body until the patient fell into a deep,
healing sleep. Angela and Lillian both said the sleep was necessary for the
restoration of energy. All Blake really knew was that it was always the best
sleep he’d ever had.

Either way, Brooke
would be out for most of the night.

****

Once Brooke was
unconscious, Blake allowed himself to breathe again and simultaneously
registered the weight of her bloodied towel in his hands. With nothing better
to do, he turned to throw it away. His parents followed him into the kitchen,
as he’d known they would, and so he opted to begin the conversation on his own
terms. Keeping his voice low in order to help Angela focus, he said, “I’m
sorry. I know it’s late and you probably feel I should’ve taken her to the
hospital.”

Neither of his
parents spoke for a long minute, and after dropping the towel into the garbage,
Blake turned to face them. Just as he registered the lack of anger on their
faces, his mother broke the silence.

“We’re not angry,
Blake,” Lillian said, voicing the realization he’d only just made. “You
wouldn’t have brought her here if you didn’t think it was necessary.”

Blake swallowed,
accepting his mother’s faith in him and taking a moment to compose what he had
left to say. “It gets worse,” he warned. “I think our enemies are responsible
for this.”

Both of his parents
went wide-eyed at his declaration. It was Christopher who asked, “What do you
mean?”

Eyes drifting to
the hall reflexively, Blake explained, “A thunderstorm hit directly over her
apartment. It looked like lightning struck the tree in her front yard, and a
branch went crashing through the window. The glass is what caused those cuts.”

Lillian’s eyes fell
closed and she curled her hands into fists at her sides.

Without waiting for
their response, Blake continued. “I can’t imagine she’s ticked off the same
people who hate us. So I’m assuming that they went after her
because
of me.”

It was a long
moment before, with obvious reluctance, Christopher said, “I can’t think of a
more realistic scenario, either.”

Taking a deep
breath, Lillian asked, “Were the police called?”

“No,” Blake said.

They nodded. After
a moment of heavy silence, Lillian released a breath. “Well, she’s going to
need a safe place to stay tonight. I’ll go prepare one of the rooms. I’ll put
fresh sheets on your bed, too, if you want to stay close to her.”

“Thanks, Mom,”
Blake said before his mother turned and slipped down the hall. He’d always
wondered why his parents had kept his—and all of his brothers’—bedrooms intact
after they’d moved out. Now he was feeling like an idiot for wondering.

Christopher stepped
up to his son and dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Blake. Let’s go
keep your sister company.” He gave Blake’s shoulder a squeeze for good measure
before releasing him and starting toward the living room.

“Wait,” Blake said.
His father stilled and looked over his shoulder curiously. “Do we know anything
yet?” The question was past his lips before he’d given it any real thought.
“Did Mom or Uncle Nicholas figure anything out about who these people are? What
their deal is?”

Christopher offered
him an apologetic frown and turned back around. “No, nothing,” he said.
“Nicholas is still trying to look into things, though. There’s always a chance
he’ll find something.”

Blake felt his own
frown dip his lips. His father didn’t sound any more pacified by that line than
he himself felt. But without even a clue as to where to start looking, Blake
supposed he had no choice but to sit and wait. And hope.

****

Brooke slowly
blinked her eyes open, feeling as though she’d slept for days. For a lingering
minute, as she lay on her back, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling, she was
completely relaxed. She didn’t want to move. In fact, she really wanted to just
close her eyes and wait for sleep to reclaim her.

Then her gaze
focused in on the ceiling fan poised almost directly overhead. It was obviously
high end, and not the kind of thing that would ever belong in her apartment.
But that could only mean…!
Brooke’s eyes
shot wide open as she realized that she was not somewhere familiar, and she
lurched into a sitting position with a startled gasp. She reached for the
comforter that had pooled in her lap with the motion, instinctively seeking to
cover herself, but when she looked down to grab it, she realized that she was
still wearing her shirt from the night before.

“You’re awake.”
Blake’s voice was tinged with sleep.

Brooke lifted her
eyes from her shirt-covered torso until they landed on him. Blake was sitting
in what appeared to be a well-cushioned loveseat, one arm stretched out and his
head propped up by a decorative pillow. As she watched, he yawned deeply. For a
moment, she felt guilty for possibly having woken him.

“How do you feel?”
Blake asked, the sleepiness in his voice already mostly gone.

It was at this
point that she remembered everything from the night before.

Her eyes went wide
again, and she immediately returned her attention to her arm, expecting to find
stitches, or at least bruising. But, aside from the fact that her left sleeve
had been turned into the sleeve of a t-shirt, she found nothing.

Brooke lifted her
arm, her heart racing as disbelief encompassed her, and she used the fingers of
her right hand to poke and prod at her skin. There was no soreness whatsoever.
There wasn’t a single marking. No stitched-up gash, no scab-covered cut, not
even a slim, white scratch mark to indicate she might have hit something. Her
arm was flawless.

Blake settled on
the side of the mattress, just within reach, as she explored her arm.

“How is this
possible?” Brooke asked, her voice as full of disbelief as she imagined her
face was. Her arm slowly dropped back to her lap, but her eyes held his
searchingly. “It’s completely healed, like it never happened at all. And my
feet don’t hurt, either. Are they healed, too?”

“Yes.” Something
flickered in his eyes that looked like restrained amusement. “Are you feeling
any pain?”

“I—no, I’m not,”
Brooke replied slowly. “But … I still don’t understand … how is this possible?”

Blake allowed one
corner of his lips to tip upwards this time, the faintest of teasing glints in
his eyes. “I did tell you that my little sister has healing abilities,
remember?”

Releasing a breath,
Brooke said, “Well, yes, but …” She paused, scrunching her lips in thought as
she searched for the best way to articulate the way she’d interpreted his
earlier words. After a moment, she finally settled for, “When you said that, I
think I pictured, like, healing away scrapes and bruises. Or maybe turning big
cuts to fresh scars or something. I don’t know.” She held her arm up again,
exposing the uninjured flesh. “Not this.”

Blake shrugged with
deliberate nonchalance. “Well, it’s not my fault you didn’t imagine it the way
I meant it.”

Brooke reached
behind her, snatched the corner of the nearest pillow, and threw her arm
forward. The pillow fell against his face exactly as she’d planned. “Maybe you
just should have explained it better!”

Blake shifted the
pillow easily into his lap, grinning faintly. “No, I’m sure I explained it
fine.”

Brooke dragged a
deep breath in through her nose, but the light humor that was curving her lips
faded as she blew the breath back out. “Blake,” she said, dropping his stare
and locking her fingers together in her lap. “Thank you.”

His own halfhearted
humor dissipating, Blake quietly said, “Don’t thank me. What happened to you
was my fault.” He looked up from the bunched comforter as he spoke, and she met
his gaze with widened eyes when his words sunk in. “I’m sorry, Brooke.”

Her surprise fell
into frustration, and she frowned. “Blake Hawke,” she scolded, “this is not
your fault. You didn’t call up the storm and drop it on my roof, so you wipe
that guilt right out.”

It was Blake’s turn
to stare at her with widened eyes. Apparently, he hadn’t expected that
response.

“I assume you’re
thinking I was targeted by those other elementals we learned about,” Brooke
began after taking a second to compose her argument. “And I’m inclined to agree
with that theory. But that doesn’t make it your fault.”

Blake met her
frowning expression easily. “If they are the ones who attacked you, they only
came after you because of me.”

He was beating himself up inside, Brooke realized. She
could see it in his eyes. But she didn’t want him to.

Without a thought,
Brooke leaned forward, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and kissed him firmly.
If he was going to do the stubborn macho-male thing, then she was going to
fight dirty. She was not going to have him blaming himself for her injuries
when he hadn’t even been around to cause them in the first place. So she held
her lips over his until she felt him giving in, but when he tried to take over
the kiss, she beat him to it and slipped her tongue inside his mouth instead.

Her grip of his collar
loosened so that she could slide her arms around his neck, and his hands came
up to land on her hips. She rolled her tongue along his, and his arms wound
completely around her waist.

Blake rumbled
against her, one hand sliding up the back of her shirt, and Brooke moaned into
his kiss. The next thing she knew, Blake had her back on the mattress, both
hands under her shirt and teasing her skin mercilessly, his weight braced
apparently on his knees as he leaned over her. Brooke stroked his tongue one more
time before breaking the kiss in order to hold her arms over her head in silent
invitation. An invitation he took full advantage of, ceasing his teasing to
remove her shirt altogether. He followed it up by removing his own, and Brooke
took the opportunity to discard her bra.

Both articles hit
the floor only moments before one of Blake’s hands closed over one of her
breasts.

Brooke arched into
the touch and swallowed another moan when his lips descended on her throat. He
kissed, licked, and sucked her flesh from the underside of her jaw to her
nipple in sweet, torturous fashion. One flick of his thumb had her gasping, her
hands landing on his bared shoulders and digging in. Her body was screaming for
his. For more of his touch, more of his passion.

Blake’s lips
detoured below her collar until his kiss settled over her neglected breast. His
hand worked magic on one side—squeezing, flicking—while his lips and tongue
drove her crazy on the other. When he took her nipple into his mouth, she
gasped sharply and buried a hand in his hair, holding him there. He sucked and
licked, even grazing his teeth over the hardened peak. And for every moment of
pleasure his ministrations brought her, another part of her pulsated with need.