Closing his eyes, he allowed his mind to dip into the tangled thoughts ricocheting in her mind. Time halted. She merged. Breath caught in his throat. A scream tore through her mind.
“Erion!”
“Fiera,” he answered before realizing he’d called her by the Element name he had no right to give.
He ripped the dildo from her channel. Glass sizzled against his palm. He tossed it aside. The clatter of the glass rang high in unison with the fly of his jeans as he yanked down the zipper and shoved them down his thighs.
“Ohhh.” She lifted her hips and gave several hard, quick thrusts against the air swirling around her.
“Shhh, hold on, sweetheart.”
“Hurry,” she pleaded.
The kiln crackled. Erion startled. Tiny flames danced upward. An arc of fire leaped across the garage. He jerked his gaze to the swirling vortex overhead. A man’s form shimmered in the flames.
Aiden
. The male Fire Element commanded the inferno. Erion’s blood chilled. If Fiera emerged now, and he merged with her—their sparks merged—it was over for them both.
The eyes glowed. Erion met the challenge with one of his own.
“Mine.”
“Yes,” Kenna murmured, dragging his attention back to her.
Erion stared at the woman who was no longer wholly human. Flames, color, and energy weaved through her hair. Her skin radiated light, and God help him, he felt the connection of her element as much as his own. The compulsion to thrust his cock into her tightened his body as if he was about to implode. Realization hit with the force of a thunderclap. Their surroundings faded. Time slowed as if they spun on the rim of a distant black hole, with Fiera as the nexus that flickered like a beacon in the black depths. If he dragged the Fire Element with him into her vortex, they would be torn apart and cease to exist. Kenna would be safe, and he would have the fate he deserved…welcomed even.
Peace settled. He stood within the eye of the storm. He could bond with her, merge as Elements, and
give
her his air. That would ensure he didn’t consume her as he had Airiana—as long as their sparks didn’t merge.
The roar of flames intruded upon the silence of his thoughts. The room snapped back into focus. He inhaled sharply. Aiden’s heat intensified. Rage filled Erion. Flames encroached on the pocket of calm that cocooned them. A tear slipped down Erion’s cheek. He’d sworn to protect Airiana, yet what remained of her would cease to exist because he must now protect Fiera.
Erion locked his gaze on to Kenna,
Fiera
, and the fire emerging in her eyes.
“Forgive me, Airiana.”
He plunged his cock into Fiera’s channel. Long hard strokes, a cyclone of energy.
She wrapped her legs tight around his hips and locked him to her. Her internal walls tightened. Heat rolled off her skin. He pulled her upright, grasped her ass, and lifted her into his arms. Kenna entwined her arms around his neck and hugged him close. He continued the thrusting rhythm.
Erion gritted his teeth against the intensity. The pleasure he experienced, making love to her as a man, paled in comparison to the rush of euphoric energy now coursing through him. One breath, one heartbeat, they merged on the physical level. One more step, and they would enter the realm of Shadow where only Element existed.
The flames that were Aiden glowed blue at the edges. The beast roared around them. Erion crushed his lips to Kenna’s. Her tongue slid into his mouth. Tasting, savoring, and joining. Her taut nipples pressed against his chest, searing his flesh.
Kenna pulled back. “Hot,” she moaned. “Need air.”
“Erion.
” The call echoed in his mind.
“I need your air—I need you.”
Satisfaction rocketed through Erion. She wanted
him
. Her desire was more than he deserved. He would give her all he had.
He released a small stream of wind from his core. The current swirled around them. Faster. She absorbed his element, burning brighter, shifting into fire in his arms. His cock pounded into the flames. Fire and air flowed between their joined bodies.
A sudden pull in the innermost part of himself felt as if he were being torn apart from the inside out.
The spark
. Erion fell in on his element. His clothing dropped to the ground as his physical mass metamorphosed into air. The furnace crackled. Arcs of fire leaped in hard-pointed tendrils from Aiden. Kenna liquefied, and Fiera emerged in long orange flames tipped with white. Aiden exploded between them. Erion channeled air into her fire. Sounds of rushing wind filled the garage, then centered on Fiera.
Blue flames of Aiden twisted in a vicious dance. Erion engulfed her in a whirlpool, drawing oxygen from the farthest corners of the garage. He would kill Aiden while feeding Fiera.
Erion forced a tiny eddy deep inside himself. He drew the air from around them, gave to Fiera, but kept the small center, the spark, separate. Slowly, his insides began to tear apart, but he concentrated on Fiera, ignored the pain. Deeper, stronger, he drew energy from the room, from Aiden.
A primal roar of rage cut through the tumult. The consuming hiss of fire grew more intense as Erion sucked the last molecule from his victim. The hiss rose to a high pitch, then stopped. Aiden was gone.
Two Elements twisted in frenzied ballet. Fire burned white-hot. Erion’s wind churned Fiera into a torch of elemental power.
She abruptly winked out.
Gone.
Erion gave a scream of terror.
“No!”
Chapter Eight
A rushing filled Kenna’s ears. Heat pooled into a tiny point at her center, and the weight of atoms forming into matter replaced the weightlessness of flames. She felt as if she was falling inward and, in a sudden bolt of energy, shifted from fire back to woman.
Erion still held her, his palms gripping her ass. The feel of his cock lodged deep inside her body jarred her. She trembled but dared not unwrap her legs from around his waist. She’d erupted into flames.
Literally
. Panic rose on a wave of bubbling heat. Erupting into flames wasn’t possible. People who spontaneously combusted became a pile of ash. They didn’t experience earth-shattering orgasms. Yet, in testament to her desire, flames of yearning still licked at her core. An answering ache pulsed deep in her pussy. And she breathed, felt…lived.
Impossible.
Erion clutched her so close, she could barely breathe, his head buried in her neck. His hands trembled. She knew how he felt! Her insides smoldered. Her
sanctuary
smoldered. Nearest them, large glass sculptures dripped in half-melted globs on the shelves and tables. Smaller pieces had puddled and still drained down shelves like slow-moving rivulets of lava into a multicolored mass where the concrete floor slanted slightly toward the house.
Why hadn’t the fire department been alerted? Kenna swallowed, her throat a dry bed of sandpaper. What would have happened if the fire department had come? She would have been carted off for dissection by the world’s scientists. And Erion?
She gasped softly. He had shifted into rushing wind that fed her. Shock replaced comprehension with dizzying speed. Aiden. Gorgeous, rich Aiden was
fire
—a fire that would have consumed her. How did she know that? Because she and Erion had shared more than their bodies.
“You’re safe from Aiden.”
“You’re in my head?” She rocked against Erion, attempting to free herself from his embrace. Her stomach pitched. They’d merged minds…souls.
“You’re free from Aiden. He sought to enslave you.”
And Erion freed her.
Freed her into what?
She pushed against his chest. Her mouth burned. “Down,” she croaked.
He gently lifted her off him. The chill of loss stunned her. Her toes touched cold concrete, and she shivered.
He hugged her to his chest. “Fiera.”
Fiera
. The name startled yet invoked images of sharp orange flames leaping heavenward in an effort to stretch farther into the unknown. She wasn’t Kenna anymore. She was…more.
Her gaze riveted on the glass dildo lying forgotten—and half melted—on the floor. Blown glass took days to cool in the leher, yet she had picked up the phallus moments after it came out of the furnace and impaled herself on it. She grappled with the reality—reality, what was reality? She had held a molten-hot piece of glass, Erion had shoved it inside her—and she’d liked it. That was some fucking reality.
Her body still hummed with having gone from the ball of fire back into herself. Her imagination had always been vivid. Her dreams, often in 3-D color that would shame the big screen, felt real, alive. Working with glass was her attempt to bring those dreams to life. Now, only moments after wakening as a woman, the dreamlike quality of having shared consciousness with Erion warred with the reality that was the shambles of her workshop.
She and Erion—fire, wind, whatever they were—had
merged.
Shock rippled through her anew. Air—his wind—now softly whistled through the chambers of her heart. Kenna tentatively tuned into the rhythm of the intimate song, then was shocked at sensing the hunger that lay beyond the quiet of his protective embrace. In her mind’s eye, she stretched out a hand to touch his need. Pain lashed out. She stifled a cry and snatched her hand back. Guilt flooded her…his guilt.
Airiana
. Kenna startled. Another being like Erion…like her, lived inside him. Airiana, a female gust of wind. She had been a part of their
merging
. Tears welled in Kenna’s eyes, only they weren’t hers. They were Airiana’s.
“Water,” she croaked.
Erion hesitated, then released her. He turned and headed toward the utility sink at the far corner of the garage. She inhaled sharply at sight of his muscled buttocks. Fever heated her blood. Every muscle burned in exhaustion, but she wanted more—more fire, more air…more of the merging.
At the sink, Erion picked up the ceramic coffee cup she’d left there that morning and filled it with water. When he faced her, his gaze dropped to her breasts. A thrill jolted through her. Even after the fire, the destruction, the all-consuming lust, he still wanted her. Evidence of how much was revealed in the growing length and thickening girth of his cock.
Erion returned. Wordlessly, he slipped a hand around her nape and brought the cup to her lips. She closed her eyes and sipped. Guilt seeped from him. Why? She opened her eyes as he set the cup on the marver. He pulled her into his arms, then gently blew into her face. Heat radiated from her center. Desire warred with confusion.
Airiana.
No. She must first understand the confusing yet comforting presence of this other
woman
. A woman like her and Erion. She looked up at Erion. “Who is she?”
“An Air Element, like me.”
“I feel her.” Kenna touched his chest.
He tensed beneath her fingers. “I’m sorry. I never meant for her to merge with you. I didn’t know she could.”
Confusion coiled in her stomach, along with what she knew to be true. Kenna shuddered. “Aiden meant to kill you and enslave me.”
Erion gently squeezed her arm. She startled at the tremble in his fingers, then gasped at the realization conveyed in his touch.
“You intended to…to die for me.” The room reeled. What was this insanity?
Garbled whispers rose in Kenna’s mind. She shook her head in an effort to clear the choking fog.
Airiana
—too many thoughts. Strength, determination. An eddy of wind with Airiana at the center. The female Air Element existed within Erion. And now, somehow, within Kenna as well.
“Why am I hearing her?” Kenna demanded in a voice she knew was near to hysteria. “How the fuck did this happen—how did
we
happen?”
Erion didn’t immediately answer but finally said, “Like you, her element called to mine.”
“Like me?” Kenna recalled how, ten seconds after meeting him in the art store, she had wanted to rip off his clothes. That had been a first. Even now, a thread of heat ran from her breasts to pussy. She wanted his cock inside her—wanted to merge. As if reading her mind, he trailed fingers up her arm and across her collarbone.
“Tell me about her,” Kenna demanded. “And…I want to know about the rest. Look at me. I’m scared. I’m hot. I feel this incredibly overwhelming connection to you,
and her
, and I know this isn’t normal. This is fucking crazy, and I feel like I’m going crazy. We need to talk.” She glanced around and swallowed. “But not here. Let’s go into the house.”
Erion took a step back as if she’d sprouted horns.
His thoughts slipped into hers.
“I should leave…before it’s too late. Maybe it already is too late.”
Kenna seized his arm. “Too late for what?”
Airiana’s full-throated laugh floated through Kenna’s mind. She straightened, understanding dawning. “Airiana. Both of you are in my head. She’s part of you, too. Isn’t she?”
****
Airiana’s whispers filled Erion’s mind. For so long, he’d shut out her wind song. A wave of crippling guilt turned his legs to rubber. He grabbed for the table.
“Erion!” Kenna seized his shoulders and shoved him back.
Hard wood jammed into his hip, and he grabbed the table edge.
“Erion.”
He lifted his head and met her gaze. Tears shimmered in the hazel depths of her eyes.
“No,” Kenna said, “don’t shut her out. Listen to her.”
Erion shook his head in an effort to drive the crooning softness from his mind. He straightened. Beautiful glass pooled in melted ruin around them. What more proof did he need of the threat he posed? And—another crippling wave of guilt washed over him—he’d nearly consumed Kenna as he had Airiana. But he hadn’t. Why?