Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Cyclone/ Larissa Ladd. -- 1st ed.

D
ESCRIPTION

AIRA IS AN ACCIDENT WAITING to happen. After her grandmother’s death, she’s more unstable than ever. She can’t forget the pleasure she found in Aiden’s arms or the longing she has for him each day. Thinking she might not be able to pull out of her downward spiral scares her. She’s the most powerful Air Elemental but, to the elders, her instability is a danger to everyone, including herself. Her testing begins and she’s unbeatable until the Elders throw her a curve ball—she’s to decide if her former lover, Alex, lives or dies. Whether or not Alex is executed she realizes she’s sealed her own fate and…this time Dylan and Aiden may not be able to save her.

C
HAPTER
1

DYLAN HAD BEEN CONCERNED ABOUT Aira several times since he and his brother had taken on the job of guarding her from other elementals who would be interested in her strength. However, in the week following her grandmother’s death, that concern deepened. He knew there would be fallout after the tryst between her and Aiden, but he had not anticipated the sudden abrupt change in Aira’s demeanor. She was more unstable than ever, spending too much time by herself, and causing the wind to howl against the house, battering trees that had been standing for generations. He had hoped the house belonging to her grandmother and suffused with water energy would help stabilize the mercurial woman he had come to admire—instead, it seemed to be making her worse.

He told himself they wouldn’t be there much longer. There was still the Will to be read, and then they could go back to the relative normalcy of Aira’s apartment. Dylan thought with increasing urgency that the need to find Aira a mate was becoming more intense – someone to bring her turbulent behaviors under control, to temper her ferocious, overpowered energy. On the surface, she was the same as she had always been – flighty, temperamental, charming, and witty. A pleasure to be around. But Dylan could sense the upheaval in her; in spite of the rigorous training, she was beginning to lose her grip on the humanity of her elemental being.

It started small. He and Aiden had gone with her to the grocery store to pick up a few things; while the casseroles, roasts, and more had stocked the fridge amply, Aira had been restless, and wanted something fresh—vegetables and fruit, she’d said. Dylan had been a little concerned when she had gone through and picked up a few of every single thing in the produce section, including items that she admitted with a laugh she had no idea how to cook. She and Aiden had argued when she’d insisted on buying them anyway, which had resulted in Aira instinctively using her ability to force her will against his. It hadn’t worked—Aiden had held his own—and Aira had trembled with barely suppressed temper until they came to the cash register. The cashier made an unfortunate facial expression, and Aira’s talent flared out at the teenaged boy. She commanded him to go to his boss the minute the transaction was completed and announce that he was quitting. Aiden had only barely been able to stop the boy by using some of his own magic to counteract the hypnosis that Aira had put on him.

Gradually, such eruptions happened more and more, and Dylan and Aiden were both almost helpless to stop it. Aira calmed down after a couple of days, but there was the sense of simmering discontent, of an animal trapped in a cage, staring through the bars, that Dylan didn’t like. She became short-tempered with her family members, restless enough to risk endangering herself by walking out to the edges of the property for hours at a time, and irritable enough that even her ability to control the wind got away from her frequently. Dylan knew she was building up to a much larger breakdown; he could read the signs.

He wondered, though he didn’t mention it to either party, how much of Aira’s distress was caused by the incident with his brother. He didn’t have to be psychically in tune with either elemental to feel the pulse of lust between them. It almost hurt him to watch them avoiding each other—knowing they were doing it for different reasons. Aiden was avoiding Aira because he understood her distress to some degree, and didn’t want to worsen it. Aira was avoiding Aiden because she was losing control, and didn’t want to bring him down with her—and because she was afraid. The intensity of their desire for each other radiated like heat waves between them. Watching them, Dylan could only shake his head and wonder how something so obvious to him could go completely over their heads. He knew they both thought that any relationship between them would be doomed. Certainly, Dylan thought wryly, he wouldn’t be comfortable in the kind of relationship that Aiden and Aira would have.

Dylan knew he needed to get Aira away from her grandmother’s home as quickly as possible. Her grief, her physical pain from the injury still healing slowly in spite of his attempts to help it along, made her a danger when combined with the fact that it would take her months longer to become accustomed to the full power of elemental energy that ran through her veins. In her own home, in her own routine, Dylan hoped she would calm down. There was still a lot of work for her to do in order to master the power she had. Dylan only hoped Aira had the will and strength to do it.

Lorene, her grandmother, had confided in Dylan shortly before her death. He hadn’t known it was going to be so soon at the time, but the old water elemental had taken him aside and told him her fears and predictions.
“Aira is going to be in contention for the title of Regina Sylphaea. I told you she was going to be powerful—but the way she has developed, I’m afraid for her. If she doesn’t become the elemental ruler, there’s a very good chance that she will be put to death by the elders.”
Dylan knew how the elders viewed his charge; they thought she was dangerous in and of herself. He also knew the same view had been had of Lorene. Water, air, and fire elementals that were sufficiently powerful made the elders uncomfortable. Earth elementals of strong ability were not nearly as frightening; they typically manifested their abilities in less volatile ways. But Dylan had heard about Lorene’s antics from when she had first come into her full powers as an elemental. Flooding her parents’ house had only been the beginning. She’d had a keen insight, a psychic ability that had troubled many. Her ability to bring about the rain, a strong indicator of her talent, was another matter.

And so she had been forced, more or less, into an arranged marriage at a young age. Lorene had almost pursued a similar fate for her granddaughter, once she realized how strong Aira would become. It would have made some lives much easier if she had, Dylan thought. He chided himself every time the idea occurred to him; a woman like Aira would have ended up dead within years of such an alliance. She needed to find her own balance; she needed to gain her own stability.

Dylan was surprised by how anxious he felt with every passing day in the old woman’s home. It had been such a restful place to him up until her death and even in the first few days after. He knew the location, with its intense energy and elemental alignment, would be on his list of favorite places for the rest of his life, even if he never set foot on it again. But he could tell it was not doing the kind of good for Aira that it was for him. Aira was becoming increasingly manic, finding chores to do and risking further injury to herself. Dylan managed to divert her for an hour or two every day with practice of her skills, but she was clearly unable to focus on any one thing for too long. She ran away from him, climbing trees and calling birds to her for company.

Dylan worried about his brother as well. Aiden was not typically a solitary person; even though their jobs, their position in the elemental hierarchy, meant they spent a good deal of time with just each other for company. Aiden was a social person by nature, as befit is elemental alignment. But the longer they stayed in Lorene’s house, the more he spent time by himself, going off on hikes, doing reconnaissance, generally avoiding any room Aira was in. Dylan understood the impulse, even as it troubled him. The sooner they could get back to Aira’s home, hours away, the sooner they would be able to fix whatever was going on between the two elementals. Dylan felt he had an idea of what would fix it; but he knew the realization of it would have to come from the two of them, independently. They would never accept his word on the matter. Aiden especially wouldn’t be able to believe it, even as much as he trusted Dylan.

And so, Dylan was trapped. Watching and waiting. Hoping things wouldn’t become too difficult to deal with before he and his brother were able to extricate Aira. He reminded himself time and again that they only had to stay as long as it took to read the Will; that they could return to Aira’s home after that and she would be able to fall back into her normal routine. She could regain some stability. He and Aiden would guard her until she found a mate, and then they would be free to go about their own business once more.

Dylan knew the significance of the trials that awaited Aira. When her grandmother had told him she would be considered in contention to become the ruler of her element, he had felt a rising sense of near-panic. She would be in a very stressful situation, no matter how quickly the elders moved—or how slowly. They would examine her painstakingly, put her in positions to make decisions she would not want to make, test her repeatedly among any of the other contenders for the title, to make sure she would be a fair and appropriate queen of the air elementals. It was not just a matter of her abilities or strength; Dylan knew there would be others in contention who were not as strong as Aira, but who were more stable than she. He also knew her best choice, her best option—even if she didn’t want the title—would be to win it. It was not a fate he would have chosen for his worst enemy if he had one. The ruler of an element had to make difficult decisions constantly; decisions that involved life and death. She would be the one to decide whether air elementals who disobeyed the rules were put to death or spared—and she would have to prove, as part of her contention for the title, that she was willing and capable of putting someone to death if the need arose. There could be no elemental rulers squeamish about making the right choice, about preserving their entire kind instead of preserving a single elemental.

Dylan was glad, on more than one occasion, that he would never be called upon for that task himself. He was not powerful enough or important enough to be in contention to take over Lorene’s place after her death. Someone else would become the ruler of water elementals and Dylan was grateful of that fact. He had participated in apprehending more than one elemental who had to be put to death, but making the decision to do that to another person was beyond him. Even if he could separate himself from the personal tragedy of a person or family dying, could reconcile it with the greater good of his own kind, it wouldn’t be possible for him to vote for anyone to be put to death.

Dylan wanted more than anything to get Aira to her proper home once more. The best he could do while they waited was attempt to stabilize her. He had studied under Lorene as much as he could in her last days. He had her books, written in the language of water elementals, to guide him. He convinced Aira to drink teas he brewed to dull the worst of her emotional pain, to suppress the wildness of her spirit, to level her temper. They helped for a few hours at a time, and he tried to grasp the subtleties of how to make them last longer and give them the potency that Lorene’s teas had. For the first time in his life, he felt lost at sea, beyond his depths, struggling to keep his head above water. He had to brew his own tisanes to give him strength to repel the empathy he felt toward Aira. He remembered his promise to Lorene: Aira would not be alone, that he and Aiden would stand with her through the process and see her through to safety. In spite of his good nature and as much as he knew it was the right thing to do, he almost regretted making the promise.

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