Free elemental 05 - inferno by Larissa Ladd Page A

inside of her—a pulling, drawing feeling. She instinctively fought against it, in spite of knowing it was exactly the point of the spell—for Dylan to pull her grandmother’s lingering elementally-aligned energy out of her. Some part of Aira didn’t want to let go of that last scrap of her grandmother, even if it was damaging her with the poison that infected it. She reminded herself that she had her grandmother’s house—she had her grandmother’s legacy. She had a thousand little pieces of her grandmother to cherish; she didn’t need the part that was living inside of her. Slowly, Aira felt the energy ebbing away from her, seeping out of her in a gradually growing torrent, being pulled into Dylan. He would be a better keeper of that energy anyway, she thought—he was of the same alignment. 
    “Okay,” Dylan said after several long moments, running his hands over her body one last time. “Drink the potion right now.” Aira sat up, feeling oddly light, and reached out for the mug. She took a deep breath and exhaled it all at once, gulping down the room-temperature contents of the container as quickly as possible and avoiding tasting it as much as she could. There was a bitter edge to the brew, which almost made her throat close up in protest, but Aira forced herself to continue swallowing until there was nothing left. The last bit of it went down her throat, and Aira felt her body tingling all over, electrical impulses dancing along her nerve endings, up and down along her veins. It was similar to the feelings she’d had waking up and during the days leading up to the birthday where she’d come into her abilities as an elemental—a kind of body-wide power-surge that wasn’t quite as uncontrolled and wild but was just as distracting for the moments it lasted.
    She opened her eyes to see that Aiden had joined them. Her anger at him was starting to evaporate, but Aira wasn’t ready to let him off the hook just yet. “Did you find anything out?” she asked him curtly, putting the mug down and making a face at the aftertaste of the potion.
    “I’ve got a few people in mind. It’s really going to come down to what happens at the execution tomorrow.” 
    Aira sighed and nodded. “Yeah, it all is pretty much going to depend on that, isn’t it?” She stood, feeling as if she wanted to run—no, fly. She was filled with a nervous energy, a constant internal locomotion that she needed to satisfy somehow. She made the mistake of looking at Aiden and felt the full force of his attractiveness, nearly blinding her with sudden lust. Aira left the room quickly—she barely had control of herself, she certainly wasn’t going to engage in a sudden impulse to throw Aiden onto the floor and strip him naked and have him. She rushed up the stairs to her room and made her way for the shower. A cold deluge would have to do.
     
    The next day, Aira was not at all surprised to be called on by Saoirse. The younger elemental was surprised to see her answer the door, looking completely alert. Aira had been testing herself all morning; bringing the wind up to an almost dangerous speed and then bringing it back down to a gentle zephyr, just to reassure herself that her abilities were fully in place once more. She wasn’t sure how she was going to go about completing her mission from the elders, but Aira was determined to see it through, to show that even a plot to poison her wouldn’t bring her down. She hoped the elders would at least appreciate that fact.
    Saoirse recovered her composure in a moment, and Aira told the other woman that no matter what the rules stated, Dylan and Aiden were coming with her. “Someone tried to kill me, outside of the rules. I am not above flouting them in response.” She reached out with her will, forestalling Aiden’s bristling defense with a gesture, and stared Saoirse in the eyes. “You will take me to the elders, and you will allow Aiden and Dylan to follow you.” Saoirse’s dark eyes