Blown (Elemental Series Book 2) Read online

  Something about the sight was haunting.

  But Madison was all right. She was safely in his arms and, at worst, she’d only twisted her ankle in the fall. So he turned and gently guided them back toward solid ground, several feet away from the edge. He wasn’t sure how she would react to what he’d just revealed, but he knew that that reaction would be another minute in coming. So he settled for remaining quiet and holding her close as she attempted to gather herself.

  He did his best to calm his own racing heart, too.

  She’d fallen off the cliff edge. She’d nearly fallen to her death—would have if he’d been anyone else. Already the memory was haunting him, her terrified scream echoing in his mind. Thank god I was here.

  From the beginning he’d been worried about his enemies coming after her, hurting her. Taking her life. Having enemies who wielded lightning the way he wielded the air made it easy to forget how fragile life always was. A guy didn’t need dangerous enemies to lose his girl, or anyone else.

  ****

  Slowly, the tremors in Madison’s body began to fade away as she accepted that, through some miracle, she had survived. I fell, she repeated, her thoughts barely a whisper, I fell off the cliff, and somehow Nate caught me… She recalled hearing him call to her. Seeing him watching her fall with frightened eyes. She recalled feeling oddly confused as he deliberately dove over the edge. Concern—not for herself, but for him—had begun to well within her, until she had suddenly registered that she wasn’t falling nearly as quickly as before. And then she’d been in Nate’s arms, pressed against his pounding heart with her head tucked beneath his jaw, and they hadn’t been falling at all. But … how?

  Carefully, Madison lifted her head, almost afraid to open her eyes and look around. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she expected to see, but when she did finally blink her eyes open, she was surprised to see them standing in the clearing again. Or, more accurately, to see that Nate was standing in the clearing again.

  As if on cue, Nate loosened his grip a bit and quietly said, “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

  Madison swallowed, a thousand questions leaping to the forefront of her mind, and leaned back enough to look up at his face. He was trying to offer her a reassuring, gentle smile, but his jaw was tight and fear dulled his usually bright blue eyes.

  Something about the expression on his face confirmed for her that she hadn’t simply hit her head and dreamed the entire experience. But she didn’t know how to handle that.

  It was a long minute before she hesitantly asked, “How … how did you do that? I fell. I know I fell. And you flew. How is that even possible?”

  Nate’s eyes drooped slightly, but his hold remained strong and his voice was gentle. “You did fall. And yes, I flew. Flight is sort of a side effect of my power.”

  Feeling suddenly like she’d been thrown into a movie, Madison blinked up at him and dumbly repeated, “Power?”

  With the faintest of nods, Nate explained, “I can control air—or wind, whichever you prefer. It does whatever I want, and the more focus I put in the more I can make it do. I can even turn into it if I need to, but I try not to do that since it’s sort of draining.”

  He said the words so simply that, for a moment, Madison only nodded as if she were being told that tomorrow was Wednesday. And then the actual words settled in her mind and her eyes widened again. “But,” she began, “I still don’t understand … how something like that is possible.”

  “That’s … a little more complicated,” Nate hedged, before tilting his head toward the ground and asking, “Do you mind if we sit?”

  Belatedly realizing that he was still holding her, Madison’s face flamed crimson and she nodded, saying, “Oh my God, I’m sorry! Of course we can sit!”

  Nate carefully set her back on her feet, otherwise remaining stationary as she took a step backwards and awkwardly settled herself back on the ground. She sat cross-legged this time, facing him, her face still fairly red.

  ****

  Once she was sitting, Nate released a breath and dropped into a seated position as well. There’s no getting out of this one. But he held her gaze without speaking for a moment, searching for the reaction that was undoubtedly bubbling within her.

  He found only shocked confusion and curiosity beneath her fading embarrassment.

  Taking a deep, calming breath, Nate said, “The short version is this is a power I was born with. I’ll have it until the day I die, though not nearly to this extent. But … the history is a lot longer than me.”

  Voice quiet and hesitantly thoughtful, Madison asked, “So this is a hereditary thing? Can the rest of your family do what you do?”

  “Yes and no,” Nate replied, glad that, for the moment at least, her reaction was only inquisitive. “It’s definitely hereditary. This power passes down through generations—on my mom’s side. And someday Angie will have a son with my power. But I’m the only one in my family right now with this particular ability.”

  Madison’s brow furrowed as she contemplated what he was telling her. “So … you’re saying that the rest of your family has different abilities?”

  Inclining his head, Nate explained, “My mother and sister are both healers. Angela’s powers are stronger, since she’s just coming into her prime, but Mom’s powers have only recently started waning. And each of my brothers has control of a different element. Their powers work the same as mine. They have utter control over their element, they can transform their bodies into that element or just travel through it without harm or strain.

  “That’s how it’s always been,” he continued. “My mother had four older brothers, each with elemental control, and someday Angela will have four sons and a daughter of her own. Nobody really knows how far back it goes, and there used to be lots of elemental families, but we’re … more or less the only ones now.”

  It was a long moment before Madison had absorbed enough of his words to catch the slight pause in his final declaration, and she frowned. “What do you mean by ‘more or less’?”

  Nate looked away now, his eyes narrowing as he found himself glaring into the trees. At length, he said, “We recently discovered that there’s another kind of elemental. A different family capable of controlling weather itself. Their main power seems to be summoning lightning, which makes sense, since nature has a way of balancing itself out and electricity is my family’s biggest vulnerability.”

  Madison’s eyes widened again and she hesitantly asked, “Are you saying these other elementals are bad guys?”

  “Yeah,” Nate replied on a sigh. He dragged his eyes back to hers again and added, “Legend has it there was a big feud a long time ago between the two families, and that that’s why there aren’t many of us anymore. My mom lost two of her brothers before any of us were born to freak storm-related accidents.” He paused again, jaw tightening, and said, “More recently, we’ve come under attack a handful of times ourselves. They went after Angela directly once, burned down Brooke’s apartment before trying to kill her, and…”

  He cut himself off and looked away. He didn’t know how to go about explaining their theory about the diner’s fire. And he definitely didn’t want to shoot himself in the foot as far as their new relationship was concerned.

  “And what?” Madison asked after a long minute. Subtle suspicion weighed her voice, as if she’d already come to suspect what he was going to say.

  Nate closed his eyes tightly for a second before lifting them back to hers and saying, “We think they’re responsible for what happened at the diner.”

  Her eyes went wide but she said nothing for several seconds. She swallowed heavily, pushing out a long breath, and asked, “The guy in the BMW…?”

  “Probably the same one that ran me off the road with a hail storm a little while ago,” Nate replied. “Unfortunately, we don’t know much about them beyond the rumors we found. One of our enemies answers to Jacob, and the older guy in the BMW is his father. If there are more of them, we don’t have
any way to prove it.”

  “What is it they want with you?” Madison asked as she slowly recovered from the shock.

  “If we believe what they’ve told us,” Nate began, “they want revenge for all of their ancestors who died in the feud.”

  “That’s stupid!” Madison exclaimed.

  Nate sighed, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck, and said, “Tell me about it.” He took in and released another long breath, letting his arm drop, before he quietly said, “Anyway, that’s more or less my story. I know it’s heavy, and I understand if you don’t want to be involved.” He didn’t like that option, but he certainly understood it.

  ****

  It was early Tuesday afternoon, and Angela was wandering around downtown. She was supposed to meet Eric at the theater in about forty minutes, but she’d been bored so she’d had her mother drop her off early to do a little shopping. The problem was, after strolling through her favorite clothing store, she’d decided that that wasn’t what she felt like doing. So now she was walking the familiar streets, mostly window shopping to see if something struck her. It was fascinating to see how some of the streets were fairly busy with tourists and locals, and other streets were nearly deserted.

  She was walking down one of these largely deserted streets, lips faintly pursed, when a strange sound drifted to her ears. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was, or why she felt compelled to stick her head around the corner of the dead-end alley to investigate it, but she couldn’t deny that she did. Telling herself there might be an injured animal or something, she approached the corner and braced one hand against the wall as she peeked into the alleyway. And she quickly learned that that sound hadn’t come from a dying animal.

  To her horror, her eyes landed immediately on the familiar face of her boyfriend. His back was against the opposite wall, several feet down from the front of the alley, and his head was tilted up, eyes closed and jaw tight. Kneeling on the ground before him was a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair. One of Eric’s hands was holding tightly to her shoulder, and the other was fisted in her hair, moving with the subtle movements of her head. And even from her angle, it was obvious to Angela just what was going on between them.

  The sound drifted toward her again, and Angela realized it was Eric’s poorly muffled groan of pleasure. And as she watched, his hips bucked sharply into the blonde. The sound, coupled with the visual, snapped her out of her shock and Angela stepped rapidly backwards until her back was against the wall around the corner from them. Her heart slammed against her ribcage and tears stung her eyes as her throat swelled. Her hands clenched into fists against the wall as she bit back her sob. She and Eric had been together for nearly a year and a half, and now he was cheating on her!

  Her first reaction was hurt and sadness. She’d developed strong feelings for him, even going so far as to say “I love you” on numerous occasions.

  They had planned their first semester’s worth of courses together. She had even begun thinking about suggesting that they move in together.

  It had never occurred to her to so much as flirt with another guy, and she’d always felt safe and secure with Eric. She had even told him her family’s secret, and she thought they had grown closer since then.

  She swallowed heavily, a thin stream of tears breaking free. How could he…?

  How could he? she repeated to herself as the anger began to take hold, overpowering the hurt. How could he betray her trust like that? How could he be so willing to throw away what they were building? She sucked in a breath as the next question unexpectedly popped into her head. How long had he been cheating on her? She had no way to know, as she had never had any suspicions. But she could see now that her trust had been misplaced. And she was immensely glad she had never given in and given herself to him.

  The groan reached her ears again, sounding strangled and almost gasped this time, and again the sound spurred Angela into motion. Eric Matthews was going to rue the day he’d decided to betray her trust.

  Angela stomped up to the corner again, angry enough not to care what she saw, and she spared only a fleeting glance to the blonde that had probably gone to her high school. The two had separated, if only barely, and the blonde was now resting on her haunches, smiling seductively up at him as her fake nails trailed along his pants leg. His jeans were still undone, and his hand was still loosely tangled in her hair.

  “Eric!” Angela shouted, fists clenched at her sides, as she suddenly wished she’d been the one born with fire powers.

  The two started, their heads whipping toward the entrance to the alley, and both of their eyes went wide as they realized they’d been caught.

  “Angela,” Eric began, trying to quickly stuff himself back into his pants and zip them up, as if he could manage it before she realized what had been happening a moment ago. “It’s not—”

  “Save it,” Angela snapped, her voice nearly a growl. Then again, maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have an element of my own.

  The blonde pushed to her feet, smiling now, and smoothed down her hair. “Whoops,” she cooed. She wiped her mouth as she turned her smile to Angela and added, “I’ll just leave you two alone.”

  Angela glared at her as she passed, but she made no move to stop her. She felt only slightly better to learn that she really didn’t know the blonde woman. But then she returned her gaze to her flustered soon-to-be-ex boyfriend and that tiny bit of relief vanished. In fact, a stranger might even have been worse. She could feel her blunt nails digging into her palms as she ground out, “I can’t believe you. I’m so angry right now I actually want to punch you, so you’d better stay away from me.”

  “Listen,” he cut in, holding his hands in a pacifying gesture as he took a tentative step forward. “It was nothing, I swear. I know I shouldn’t have done that, I really do, and I swear it won’t ever happen again. We can work past this.”

  Angela took a half step backwards, keeping a healthy distance between them, and snapped, “Am I supposed to feel better because ‘it was nothing’? Or because ‘you knew better’? Really? Give me a break! With all the stupid drama in my life right now, I don’t need this! I need a little bit of stability! I need someone in my life that I can trust who isn’t—by some miracle—being targeted, too!”

  “Angie, sweetie,” Eric tried, taking another step forward. “Let’s take a deep breath and talk about this, okay?”

  “Do not call me that,” Angela hissed. “There is nothing for us to talk about. I’ve seen all I ever need to see. You’re a lying, disrespectful asshole, and there is no way I could ever trust you enough to let you back into my life. We’re beyond over, so lose my number.” She spun around, intending to walk away from him before he could say any more.

  But his hand landed on her shoulder, holding her in place, and he said, “You know you don’t mean that right now, Angela. You’re just upset, and I deserve that, but this isn’t the end. Don’t walk away from me.”

  For a second, she swore she saw red. Her heart ached, clenching and throbbing with the sting of his betrayal, and before she knew it she had spun around and smacked him across the face. “Keep your filthy hands off me! I mean every single word I’m saying and it is over!”

  Eric took a step back, eyes wide, as he raised a hand to his stinging cheek. “You actually hit me,” he mumbled, disbelief evident in his voice.

  Angela’s glare never wavered. “Apparently you’re under the impression that I’m some weak, ignorant little girl, so let me clear something up for you: I know enough to know that I don’t need to give a cheater like you a second chance. There are better men out there and I’ll find one. And until then, I’ll be fine on my own.”

  His hand fell to his side and something flashed in his eyes. “I thought you needed a little stability?” he asked, paraphrasing words she’d used only a minute before. There was a detachment in his tone that was hauntingly unfamiliar to her.

  She disregarded the tone, however, and snapped, “I do. But if that st
ability is me on my own, then that’s what it’ll be. They’re not mutually exclusive. Now I’m going to walk away, and with a little luck you’ll use this as a life lesson.” She spun on her heel once more, her body tensed in fear that he’d reach for her again.

  Instead, the unexpected sound of his almost-echoing laughter followed after her. The laughter brought her up short, though she didn’t turn back around until he said, “Angela, Angela, you are so naïve. But I really don’t care. I hadn’t meant to get caught, but on the bright side, I don’t have to pretend to care about you anymore.”

  A cold chill ran down her spine as she slowly turned to face him. His lips were twisted in a dark smirk, and suddenly there was a frighteningly foreboding air around him. Her stomach clenched as she breathed, “What?”

  He narrowed his eyes on her slightly and rolled his shoulders, saying, “You heard me. The last year and a half has been a lie right from the start. The truth is, I hate you. You and your arrogant family.”

  Her eyes widened and for a long second she forgot to breathe. He … can’t be…

  A dark chuckle rumbled up in his chest and Eric said, “I can see you’re finally realizing the truth. Yes, sweetie. I’m one of ‘the other elementals’ who’ve been hunting you. And, in case you’re curious, we’ve been hunting your family for a few generations now. My father and uncle are the ones responsible for your two dead uncles.”

  Angela’s mouth was dry. It had never occurred to her—never would have occurred to her—that Eric could possibly be connected to their enemies. His reaction to her secret had seemed so genuine. “You … you’ve been spying on us,” she gasped, her eyes wide. “This whole time, you’ve been using me to get personal information on my family.”