Firestorm

  For thousands of years the Elementals have chosen people to be their vessels as they help control the natural world and protect the people in it. Dante, Elijah, Stephen, and Christian are the latest generation of vessels. Stephen and Christian are destined to be together as Wind and Earth; Dante and Elijah as Water and Fire.

  Then Elijah dies abruptly, tearing Dante apart.

  Fire is reborn in Nicholai, and destined to be Dante's new mate—but Dante doesn't want someone new, and Nicholai is far too young to understand his new role and all his future will hold. As the years pass and Nicholai grows, Dante's constant refusals harden Nicholai against their bond, straining the relationship between all the vessels.

  But if they're going to protect the world and ensure a future—for themselves and everyone else—they'll have to find a way to get beyond their pasts and let old wounds heal.

  Firestorm

  By Caitlin Ricci

  Originally Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by James Loke Hale

  Cover designed by Natasha Snow

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  Firestorm

  CAITLIN RICCI

  Chapter One

  Dante

  Another forest fire controlled, and I was exhausted. At least this one had been within a few hours of our home in Utah so the four of us—the humans housing the elementals—could get there, take care of things, and come back within the same weekend. It made the stress on us a lot easier. My boyfriend, Elijah, had gone out for a drive to relax shortly after we'd returned. I didn't blame him one bit for wanting to get some air.

  Right after he'd left, Stephen and Christian, the other elementals we lived with and our best friends, went out for a walk as well, leaving me with the TV and a pile of movies to watch. By eleven they were back and Elijah still wasn't home. I kept looking at my phone, waiting for him to call me, but it never happened.

  By one I knew he was dead. He had to be. He'd never stayed out this long and that was the only explanation I had for it. Even Stephen and Christian were leaving me alone as I sat there staring at my phone and willing him to not be dead and to call me. My brain thought up a hundred different reasons why he hadn't. I didn't even care if he'd found Chris Pratt and was in bed with him right then. Chris was his freebie. The one person he could be with and it wouldn't be him cheating on me. Mine was Zachary Quinto. I'd never thought I would have wanted to wish Elijah was with someone else, but as the clock on my phone crept closer to two I hoped he was.

  By three I knew better. The police stood in our doorway and I was numb. They spoke of a car accident, of Elijah driving too fast around a curve. I heard practically none of it. I felt Stephen's arms around me and I heard Christian's voice.

  *~*~*

  Elijah was burned a week later. We were elementals and so there was a large gathering of people, each wanting to see us, and him. I wanted them all to leave. We had been four and now we were three and I could do nothing but cry as he laid there only inches from me. He was unmoving and cold. He'd never felt as cold to me as that morning when I went to touch his hand only to be shocked back by the absolute chill of his skin.

  People took pictures of us as we mourned. I wanted them to get the hell away from us but there was nothing any of us could do about that. We were celebrities in a way, and now we were morbid celebrities.

  Stephen and Christian rushed me home as soon as they possibly could, but it wasn't soon enough for my taste. There had been too many people and too much noise when all I wanted to do was scream and cry about how unfair it all was that Elijah was gone. We weren't human, not really anyway, and yet something as absolutely human as a car accident had taken him from me.

  I couldn't deal. I laid down on my parent's couch and I didn't ever want to get up again. The US government had given us a month off to grieve, unless some massive natural disaster came up, but as far as I was concerned the world could burn. All I had cared about was Elijah and now he was dead.

  Chapter Two

  Nine Months Later

  Dante

  My mom shoved food into my face. She'd been doing it every day since Elijah's death. Stephen and Christian were always close, but my mom hovered. She made sure to feed me all the time, even though I was never hungry. I'd only been back from helping to stop flooding in Bolivia for an hour before she'd decided she needed to push food on me again. Working as much as possible was a good distraction and Water was there, always inside of me, always trying to comfort me in his own silent way.

  "I have some news for you," she began as she handed me a slice of cake as if my love for all things chocolate would somehow make this all better. Nothing could make any of this any better. The only thing that kept me from crying over Elijah's death everyday was work and there weren't enough natural disasters to keep any of us that busy.

  "What is it?"

  "Fire has been reborn."

  She'd kept her voice soft, but I still heard every horrible word she'd said. "No." I shook my head. It couldn't be. I didn't want to believe it.

  "Dante..." She tried to rub my shoulder, maybe to comfort me, maybe to try to keep me calm, but none of it worked. Nothing would. I needed out and I needed not to hear what she was saying. Fire couldn't be back. Elijah had been the element and no one else could replace him. I would not have another partner.

  "Dante there has to be a fourth, you know that." She tried to reason with me as I shoved my feet into some flip flops.

  There did, but I didn't need to know about it. I grabbed my things and stormed from the house. I needed to be away from there and I needed Christian and Stephen. Only they could make this right for me again.

  I'd barely used my powers since Elijah's death but as I walked along the river that ran along the trail I took to get to the house the three of us shared I felt the pull of the water again like I had before his death. It was a sign Fire had returned to the world and so our powers would all be stronger, but it was one I was quick to ignore.

  I was still in a rage as I stormed into our house. Stephen noticed me first. He tried to smile, but I glared at him and he lost it quickly.

  "He knows," Stephen called out.

  "Give him space," Christian yelled back from another room.

  I snarled at them both and went to the hot tub. I needed to be in the water right then, to feel it all around me, and to know its calming presence.

  Stephen apparently didn't take Christian's advice because he joined me when I was up to my ears in the hot water. I looked over at him, but I didn't say anything. I didn't want to yell at him. They were my best friends and I needed to not be pissed at either of them.

  "Do you want to talk about it?" Stephen asked me as he leaned his forearms against the rim of the hot tub.

  I shook my head. I didn't want anything to do with the new Fire.

  "Do you mind if I talk about it then? I miss him too and Christian won't talk to me about this new Fire and I feel like I need to talk to someone."

  I couldn't turn him away too, not if his partner already had. I shrugged. I wouldn't be talking with him about Fire, but at least I could be there and listen to him talk.

  Stephen smiled at me like he was relieved at least someone was willing to listen to him right then. He didn't join me in the tub though, leaving that for me. None of them did. The water was mine.

  "I knew Fire would find someone else. He had to. But I thought it would be after we were gone. You know? Like I thought okay, this was it. W
e, the three of us, were going to be able to handle anything that was thrown at us and it would all be okay. But now it's like there's this kid out there, not even a kid since he's a baby, and he's supposed to be one of us? He's supposed to be Fire? What the fuck is that supposed to be?" His French accent came out sometimes when he was angry, like he was now. He'd been born in Quebec.

  I snorted and ended up getting water up my nose. He'd been cursing a lot more since Elijah's death. I lifted my head out of the water to be able to talk to him because thankfully at least he got it. "This new Fire, he's not my partner."

  "Of course, he's not." Stephen looked disgusted by even the idea of it. "He's some kid who happens to have Fire living inside of him. That's all he is. He's not one of us at all. We're the elementals. He's a backup."

  "Exactly. We won't talk to him. He won't talk to us. Everything will be good." I was fine with that plan. The less I had to deal with this new Fire the better. The three of us didn't need him. Just having Fire back in the world was enough to make us strong enough to fight back against anything that might have come up so there was no reason to involve a baby of all people.

  "He was born in the Ukraine. I don't think we've had an elemental from Europe in a few generations. And his name's Nicholai in case you were wondering. "

  I gave him another shrug. He could be named anything his parents wanted. It didn't matter to me at all. He wasn't Elijah and he wouldn't be taking Elijah's place on this team or in my heart.

  Chapter Three

  Dante

  Over the next few years I knew Fire was out there. It wasn't anything substantial, but it was a gut feeling the four of us were whole, even if I never saw him. We didn't talk about him at all and whenever my parents tried to bring him up I left and eventually, they'd stopped trying to get me to see him as Fire. The reporters sometimes mentioned him, but not often enough it got to me. They liked to interview us whenever we averted some disaster. It was part of the life, like the magazine articles and the sponsor deals. Sometimes Stephen or Christian answered a question about him, but I never did. I didn't know this kid, so I had nothing to say about him. Nicholai was some kid who was an elemental too. Not a big deal. Nothing major. I told myself that every day until I started to believe it.

  Then his letters started coming to our house.

  "How'd he even get this address?" Christian asked me as the second letter came. I'd thrown the first away and had hoped there would never be another one.

  "My mom probably gave it to him. She used to say we needed to include Nicholai in things and treat him like one of us. But he's a baby. What are we going to include him in? Diaper changing? Bottle feeding? There's nothing for a baby to do here."

  "Uh... he's not a baby anymore." I turned away from the movie I'd been watching to see Christian reading the letter. "He's five. It's his birthday. Apparently, the last letter he sent, the one you threw out, he sent it on his birthday too. He's got crap handwriting, but then again, he's a kid. Talks about wanting to meet you and wanting to get to know his partner and wants you to call him and maybe you can take him to the zoo. Apparently, he likes Red Pandas even though they aren't pandas."

  I'd heard enough. "Throw it away." I turned back to the movie.

  Stephen looked worried. "This is Fire we're talking about here. Don't you think you should at least reach out to him? He's not one of us. He's way too young to join the team right now anyway. But maybe this Nicholai kid could use one of us at least saying hi once in a while."

  I gave him a hard glare. "No. That's never going to happen. Don't even mention it."

  Stephen rolled his eyes. But he did shut up about it. It was settled. No one was going to try to make nice with Nicholai.

  *~*~*

  I ignored his next letter, and the one after that. They were just pieces of paper, so it was easy. I didn't think about Nicholai getting older or how much the four of us had needed each other at his age when our powers were beginning to form. Thinking about him meant thinking about Fire which meant Elijah and I couldn't do that. Thinking about him hurt far too much and so I chose not to.

  *~*~*

  I was thirty the first time he called. I made the mistake of answering my cell phone for a number I didn't know. I was forever answering calls from magazines, so I'd figured it had to be one of them, but I was definitely wrong. "Hello?"

  "Dante? This is Nicholai. I—" I cut him off. I hung up on him and when he called back again I didn't answer my phone. Too bad I didn't have some flooding or something to distract myself with or to blame my rudeness on.

  When he called five times in a row and I didn't answer any of his calls Stephen came over and took my phone from me. "Who is this?" he demanded as he answered the phone. He sounded angry and I expected him to hang up the phone as well, but he didn't. "Hey. I'm Stephen. I'm Wind. My partner, Christian, is Earth. I know it's scary when you first start being able to do things and I'm sure your chemistry teacher wasn't mad at you for catching the chemistry lab on fire during a test. It probably happens all the time even when we elementals aren't involved. Just take a few deep breaths when you get frustrated next time, and this shouldn't happen again. Okay. You take care. Bye."

  Stephen hung up the phone and threw it back to me. "I thought we weren't engaging with the new Fire," I snapped at him.

  "Next time you feel like being an ass to a crying eleven-year-old, put your phone on silent." He stormed past me and okay, yeah, I did feel like an ass. I hadn't realized Nicholai had been crying, or that he'd actually needed help with something.

  With a sigh I decided to text him to apologize. This is Dante. I'm sorry. I'm not okay with this. It's stuff you wouldn't understand.

  His reply took almost an hour and I'd nearly given up on him talking to me about it at all until my phone beeped to let me know I'd gotten a text. You lost your partner, but everyone keeps saying I'm your next partner and to give you time. That doesn't seem like what will help this anymore though. I won't ask for help again.

  Nicholai's text should have made me feel better. Instead it only made me feel worse. I hated anyone who had told him he and I were supposed to be together someday. He was a kid. I'd been an adult when he'd been born. There was no way we were ever supposed to do anything more than work together and even that was stretching it.

  I didn't reach out to him again, though. Instead I left it alone. I told myself things were fine between us and everything was good and right in the world. I was still healing from Elijah's death and Nicholai was going to school at least so there was that. I didn't need to know anything more about him than that and things were fine. I had nothing to worry about.

  Chapter Four

  Nicholai

  On my sixteenth birthday Dante's parents threw me a birthday party. They'd been doing it for the past three years. It was weird though because I knew going into it Dante would never have wanted me there, but I still stood in their living room eating the hot wings his mom had ordered for me. Dante hadn't been there in a long time. I knew that without even having to think about it. The house didn't feel like he was in it at all. There were pictures of him on the walls, some of them from even when he was my age, but it was the more recent ones of what he would look like now that interested me.

  In the photos he was always with two other guys. I assumed they were Stephen and Christian. Wind and Earth. Some of the older pictures had four guys in them and I knew I was seeing Elijah. I didn't feel anything when looking at a picture of Fire's old human host. He was a vessel, a shell, just as I was. Fire was in my head to the point where I didn't know what was me and what was him.

  We had cake and I enjoyed it. I didn't eat much cake at home, so this was nice. I didn't do much at home, actually. I lived in a boarding school, and since I'd burned down the chemistry lab everyone was afraid of me so that left me studying in my room and working on my powers. With very little to distract me from harnessing my fire I thought I was getting pretty good, but I didn't know of course. I didn't have anything to comp
are what I could do with what someone else could.

  "Can I go for a walk?" I asked Dante's parents once the food had been put away and the dishes were done.

  His dad looked excited about that. "Of course. Let's all go."

  That hadn't been what I'd meant though.

  Dante's mom took his hand. "Let's let Nicholai go explore for a little bit on his own instead. We can get the movie ready. Nicholai, take your phone and be back in half an hour. Okay?"

  I dug it out of my pocket to show her I already had it on me, even though I hadn't had a big need to. Most of what I handled was little fires. I hadn't handled anything more than five acres yet and even that had taken a lot of concentration.

  "Be back soon," I promised.

  Then I was gone and walking along the trail. There was a river only a few yards from me, but I didn't go any closer to it than the edge of the dirt trail would allow. Being fire, I didn't exactly love getting close to water. I showered because I had to, but I didn't linger in the water at all. It made me uncomfortable.

  What didn't make me uncomfortable though, was calling up fire and letting it play over my fingertips while I walked. It helped me think. This was Dante's life I was stepping into and I thought he'd probably gone down this trail more than a few times. I felt close to Water out here. I knew he was somewhere nearby and I followed that instinct until it led me to a little bungalow surrounded by cactus and shrub grass. They lived in Canyonlands National Park. Why Water would want to live in a desert was beyond me, but I knew Water, Wind, and Earth were all inside. My power felt a lot stronger with them so close to me. It was like Fire wanted to go see them again and was calling out to them.