Chapter 209

Agnes

The saltwater felt like heaven against my overheated skin. I’d been soaking in my in-ground pool for nearly an hour now, but the heat that had built in my body still hadn’t completely subsided.

Honestly, I was surprised that I hadn’t burned down the entire bar earlier. My finger had certainly been smoldering when I walked out.

But what was even more strange to me was the fact that I didn’t even regret burning my father’s chest.

If anything, I kept telling myself that he deserved it—that he deserved to feel even a fraction of the same pain I’d felt in my chest for seven years. At least his pain would subside in a few days, would scar over and ultimately fade. Mine had agonized me for seven years.

Even though I’d been reunited with Thea, I still felt the lingering effects of those years of uncertainty and crippling aloneness. Those sorts of things leave scars. Deep ones.

Across the room, the thud of Elijah’s fists hitting the training dummy echoed off the steel walls. Neither of us could sleep after what had happened at the bar. So we’d come down here, to this underground sanctuary he’d built for me.

I hadn’t been in danger of burning the house down, not really. The fire wasn’t that close to the surface tonight. But the water helped me think more clearly, helped soothe the constant simmer that had started beneath my skin the moment my father admitted to orchestrating the theft of my daughter.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” I asked, breaking the silence that had settled between us.

Elijah paused mid-punch and stepped back, wiping his brow with his forearm. Sweat glistened on his bare torso, highlighting the defined muscles of his abdomen. Even now, despite everything, the sight of him set my heart fluttering pleasantly.

“About your stepmother’s family owning Elemental Enterprises?” he asked.

“About everything,” I said, sinking lower into the pool so the water lapped at my chin. “About my mother being an elemental. About him ‘protecting’ me by arranging for Olivia to take Thea.”

Elijah grabbed a towel and wiped his face, then the back of his neck.

“It’s hard to say. I don’t know the man, but from everything you’ve told me, he’s proven himself to be untrustworthy. And nothing can justify what he did to you.”

My jaw clenched. I couldn’t help but agree. If my father truly cared about protecting me, he would have stood up for me, not fabricated some convoluted plan to get me away from my stepmother and let Thea be kidnapped.

“Regardless, let’s look into your stepmother,” Elijah said, tossing the towel aside and approaching the pool. “If her family really does own Elemental Enterprises, then that narrows down our search by an enormous margin.”

I nodded, watching as he dipped his foot in the water. “I certainly wouldn’t put it past her. She’s always been the calculating sort…. And what about this relic you mentioned?” I asked, shifting to make room for him as he slid into the pool beside me. “Olivia said we need it for the unmarking ritual?”

Elijah sighed, the water rippling around his body as he settled next to me. His skin slid against mine, sending a pleasant shiver through me. “James is looking into it. According to Olivia’s notes, it’s been lost for centuries. But if it exists, we’ll find it.”

I sighed and leaned my head back against the edge of the pool. My father had claimed my mother had been hiding her abilities for years. Had she been just as alone as I felt now? Had she lain awake at night, terrified that someone would discover her secret?

And now here I was, following in her footsteps, hiding in an underground room built specifically to contain my fires. The thought made my chest tighten. At least I had Elijah. I wondered if my father had ever bothered to provide her the help she needed or if he’d just sat idly by, twiddling his thumbs until she passed.

“What do you think it was like for her?” I said after a moment. “My mother, I mean. Living her whole life afraid that someone would find out what she was.”

Elijah’s thumb traced circles on the back of my hand beneath the water. “Lonely, I imagine.”

“She never told me,” I whispered. “My own mother, and she never felt safe enough to tell me what I was. What we both were.”

“Maybe she didn’t have the chance,” Elijah said softly.

My throat constricted. My mother’s passing wasn’t something I liked to talk about often, but it had been when I was young. Too young. Certainly too young to understand why she had to keep our true identity a secret.

“I don’t want Thea to live like that,” I said firmly, glancing at him. “I don’t want her hiding what she is, feeling ashamed or afraid.”

“She won’t have to,” Elijah promised. “We’ll teach her not only to control her powers, but also to use them proudly. Once we handle Elemental Enterprises, that is.”

The certainty in his voice soothed me more than the saltwater ever could. He truly believed that we could keep Thea safe, that we could give her a different path than the one my mother had chosen for me. At least my father had made one good decision in manipulating Olivia to bring Thea to him.

I wondered, suddenly, if there were others like us out there. Other elementals hiding in plain sight, suppressing their abilities out of fear or shame. If the gifts hadn’t truly died out as the history books claimed, how many more might be quietly living among us?

“Do you think there are other elementals out there?” I asked. “Hiding like my mother did? Like I tried to?”

Elijah considered this for a moment. “It’s possible,” he said. “If the abilities are hereditary, and if your mother hid hers so successfully, then maybe others could have been doing the same thing for generations. Passing the secret down, teaching their children to hide what they are.”

The thought was both comforting and unsettling. Comforting to think that Thea and I weren’t alone in this, that there might be others who understood what we were going through. Unsettling to consider the kind of fear that would drive so many to deny such an essential part of themselves.

Elijah shifted in the water, sliding closer to me until our sides were pressed together. His skin was warm against mine, a different kind of heat than the fire that sometimes threatened to consume me. This was comfort, safety, home.

I leaned into him, resting my head against his chest. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat under my ear helped ground me, remind me that despite everything, I wasn’t alone anymore. I had a partner. A mate. Someone who would stand with me no matter what.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I murmured. The words didn’t feel like enough to show the gratitude I felt, but right now, I was too exhausted to articulate myself more than that.

Elijah placed his hand under my chin, lifting my face so I met his gaze. He was smiling, and I wondered: how did he do that? Smile when things felt so glum?

“Right back at you,” he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I love you.”

His eyes softened. “I love you, too,” he whispered. I laced my fingers through his, and he leaned down, gently pressing his lips to mine.