The Fire Within The Night (Night Aberrations - Book Two) Read online

  I snatched the book out of his hand, glanced at the cover, and threw the book onto the table next to me. “You’re already involved, Viggo.

  “Hey! I was reading that.”

  I gave him an exasperated look. “How many times have you read it? Twenty? Thirty times? You can read Twilight anytime. I’m going to practice magic, and I need help to not burn the place down. You in?”

  He grinned. “Oh, yes. That requires interaction.”

  I pursed my lips. I didn’t trust him. “No funny business. I still owe you for yesterday.”

  Jumping up, he walked to the center of the room. “I would not dream of it, poppet.” He stroked his chin in thought for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “I believe I will teach you the way my father taught me. We will start with the easiest magic—elemental magic.”

  “Do you mean elements from the periodic table or elemental as in weather and stuff?”

  He nodded. “Yes and no.”

  “Okay … what? I’m already confused.”

  “I mean fire, wind, and water.”

  “And Earth, right?”

  “That is the human interpretation, but yes. There is also spirit, though it is unheard of in this age, and weather. It is not a common magic, but I think you might be able to master, at the least, lightning. Your brother has a great affinity with electricity. I am sure you will, too.”

  I was more than dubious about that. So far, I hadn’t been able to do much. “How much of this can you do?”

  “All of it, except for fire. It is rare, remember?”

  I joined him in the middle of the room, a smug grin across my face. “Ha! I can do something you can’t do. Behold my awesome power.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes, you have the awesome power to set yourself on fire. I will endeavor to contain my jealousy and move on with my life.”

  “Shut up and teach me,” I said, with a withering look of disdain.

  “Promise me that you will not be disappointed if you cannot do this right away.”

  “I won’t.” He arched a brow. “Okay,” I conceded. “I will be upset, but I’ll get over it. Let’s do this!” I was excited to learn something that I could control on my own.

  He flung a hand toward the water pitcher on the windowsill and a tennis ball sized sphere of water floated out of the top. It zipped over to hover between us. “Your first test is water. Any other time, I would tell a student that this method is an excellent way of extinguishing flames, but you do not have to worry about that, do you?”

  “Jealousy is so unbecoming, Viggo,” I teased him.

  “So is smugness, poppet. Now, pay attention—if you can.”

  I almost refrained from flipping him off—almost.

  He grinned. “Okay, now that you are paying attention, I want you to concentrate on moving the sphere.” Noticing my dismay, he added, “Do not worry. If you fail, I will catch it before it ruins the carpet.”

  I closed my eyes. I hoped he had paper towels handy. “What’s the first step?”

  “Clear your mind. Think of nothing but what you want to accomplish.”

  “Okay.” I thought about the water, what it would weigh, and how it would feel in my hands if I were able to hold it in its current form. I could almost hear the water singing to me, telling me what to do in its own way.

  “Erin! Reel it in a little!”

  I opened my eyes to find six of the same sized spheres of water floating between us and laughed. “I did it!”

  “Yes, you did. You are still doing it.”

  “I am?”

  He chuckled. “Unless there is someone here I do not know about, you are. It is obvious that you have water under control. Can you combine these and send it back to the pitcher?”

  He might as well have asked me to walk on the water. I didn’t have a clue how to start. I wasn’t even sure how I was holding the bubbles up. Staring intently at them, I urged it together, pleading with it to do what I wanted. Like a bullet, the water combined and shot across the room and into the pitcher.

  Viggo’s mouth dropped open. “I hope that we never become enemies, Erin. You are more powerful than any elf I have ever seen.”

  “Are you including yourself in that?”

  “I will never answer that question.”

  I giggled and bounced on the balls of my feet. “What else you got?”

  “Take it easy. It gets harder from here on out.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Have ego much?”

  Putting my hands on my hips, I scoffed. “This isn’t ego. This is confidence.”

  He mock-cringed at my reprimand. “Yes, Ma’am!”

  “Damn, straight,” I said, but then lost it and burst out laughing.

  “What’s going on in here?” Emelie asked from the doorway, still in her pajamas and holding a glass of orange juice.

  “We’re practicing magic,” I answered, excited to show her what I’d learned.

  “How’s it going so far?”

  I could tell that she was trying to get the story from Viggo. “Don’t bother, Em. He won’t tell you that I’m a natural, but I will.”

  She looked to Viggo for confirmation and he nodded. “She nailed water on the first try.”

  Emelie set the glass on the coffee table and threw herself on the sofa. “That’s so unfair! I was terrible when I started trying my magic.”

  “Awwww, Em. You were not so bad.”

  She cut a look at him.

  “Okay, you were terrible. The worst I have ever seen.”

  “Thank you. All right Erin, let us see how you do with the soil of Ásgard.”

  I turned back to Viggo. “What do I do?”

  He grabbed a sack of potting soil and dumped most of it out onto the marble floor below the windows. “I want you to split the soil into two separate piles. Use the same principle as the water and concentrate on what you want it to do.”

  Nodding, I walked to the pile, thinking about how I would do that with my hands. That’s when the ground started shaking.

  “Stop, Erin!” Viggo screamed, over the deafening rumble.

  I thought about the ground being still and the shaking subsided.

  Emelie was on her feet looking harried. “Are you kidding me? You’re not a natural. You’re an elf on steroids!”

  Viggo’s eyes were wide as saucers. “I think we should go outside to practice air and fire.”

  Emelie ran from the room, yelling, “I need a coat! Don’t start without me!”

  Three minutes later, Emelie met us outside, grinning from ear to ear. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  “How do you feel about moving the wind?” Viggo asked me.

  “Fair to partly cloudy, with a chance of tornados?”

  “Do not dare to think of a tornado! All I want you to do is move the scattered leaves in a pile. That’s it.” He said all of this without letting go of the porch railing or Emelie.

  “Okay. Thanks for the vote of confidence, by the way.” I rolled my eyes and then stared at the leaves, thinking about what they’d look like merrily spinning, end over end into a small pile, and with a mighty gust, the wind picked up in all four directions. It whipped my hair into my eyes, blinding me.

  Viggo’s humored voice sounded in my mind. “The leaves are in a pile, Erin. You can stop the hurricane now.”

  That task was much simpler than I thought it would be. As soon as I had the thought, the wind died down to a light breeze, and then stopped altogether.

  Emelie clapped her hands together. Her cheeks were pink from being windblown. “That was so cool!”

  “That was crazy!” Viggo corrected. “Erin, your main concern needs to be focusing on scaling your magic down. Odin’s blood has made you powerful beyond belief. I have never seen anything that could compare to you in all of my years.”

  “How many years would that be?”

  “Let us just say that that I’m younger than Jakob but older than Kristian.”

  “Kristian isn
’t that much younger,” Emelie added, a smiling, mischievous look on her face. “Don’t let Viggo fool you. He’s a baby when compared to Jakob.”

  “Huh. I didn’t think that there was that big of an age difference between you two. Is it weird for you to be so much younger than your brother?”

  “Is it weird to be seven thousand years younger than Soren?” he asked.

  I laughed at myself. “Oh yeah, I forgot. It doesn’t feel weird at all for me. Not in the slightest.”

  “That is good to hear, sister,” said a deep voice behind me.

  I spun around to see Soren’s approving smile. “Guess what I can do?”

  His red eyes met Viggo’s green ones, and he quirked an eyebrow in question.

  “She is a walking natural disaster,” Viggo assured my brother. “Show him, Em.”

  Emelie put her hand on his bare forearm and his eyes silvered with her magic. “This is what I saw. Viggo will have to tell you about her water ability.”

  Soren’s eyes cleared. “That will not be necessary. I can see that Erin has unrivaled power. My own power may be eclipsed by hers.”

  “At least we are starting to gain an advantage over Odin. With Erin and Emelie, we may free the Norse-lands yet!” Viggo boasted.

  “Viggo, it will be a long time before I agree to send my mate and sister into battle. Regardless of the magic they possess, they are both still novices at their craft.”

  “Whatever!” Emelie said crossly. “Bring Odin, Thor, Viveka, any of them on. Erin and I will take care of them all by ourselves.”

  Giddy with excitement, I agreed wholeheartedly. “Hell, yeah! Let’s do it!”

  Soren sighed. “Relax, all of you. Not one of you is even going to consider anything as rash as taking on Odin or his servants right now. I mean it.”

  Viggo and I saluted at the same time and when we saw each other, we burst into helpless giggles.

  Soren pursed his lips and shook his head. “You two are too similar.”

  “They are, aren’t they?” Emelie spoke more to herself than her mate.

  Soren glanced at her with concern. “What is it, little one?”

  A bad feeling filled me. Most likely because Emelie was aiming an agonized look of sympathy toward me with her silvered eyes. “What is it? Why are you looking at me with the sad eyes?”

  “No. She cannot be,” Viggo said, shaking his head in disbelief. “She just can’t.”

  They were driving me crazy! “What? Stop the mind-speak, and tell me what the hell is going on!”

  Viggo’s face was incredulous. “They believe that you and I are kin. But, it cannot be.”

  Their faces swam in my vision. “What did you say?” I couldn’t have heard him right. I couldn’t have heard that Jakob and I are related. Shame and revulsion racked me. “No. I can’t be.” I couldn’t … wouldn’t believe it. Not until I had proof, not if I valued my sanity.

  Emelie’s calm voice spoke in my mind. Don’t worry about Jakob. Viggo has a different mother.

  Viggo’s voice spoke next. You’re safe. Don’t worry.

  Soren cast a suspecting glare at Viggo and me. “Is there something going on between you two?”

  “No!” We yelled in unison.

  He didn’t look convinced. “Tell me what is going on here, Emelie.”

  “Soren,” she whispered, looking torn. “I can’t.”

  “Em,” he pressed. His tone was not one of amusement.

  “I’m not sure if I can tell you. It might interfere with her fate. I have to be careful.”

  The disapproving look he gave her made us all squirm. He knew we were hiding something. Something big. “Fine, you three. Have your secret. But know that I will find out before long. I hope that it will not be too late to salvage the situation.” He directed his attention to me. “Erin, let us see you practice your fire abilities. It will soon be nightfall.”

  “Sounds good.” More than delighted at the change in subject, I walked away from them and readied myself for instructions.

  “Wait a minute!” Emelie called from the porch. "I just planted that grass. It’ll never grow back right.”

  Viggo rolled his eyes. “All right, you heard Better Homes and Gardens over there. Erin, will you step this way.” He couldn’t contain his wide grin as he led me to the fire pit.

  “Are you serious? You want me to get in there?”

  He snickered. “Yep. Get in there.”

  I stepped in and turned to face them, feeling silly. “Okay, what now?” They were beside themselves with laughter. Viggo even had his cell phone out to take a picture. “You guys suck. You know that, right?”

  Emelie sobered. “I’m sorry, Erin. Come on, guys. Tell her what to do, so she can get out of there.”

  Viggo pocketed the phone. “Since I do not have fire magic, you are kind of on your own here, but from what I have heard, you carry the fire within yourself. It is up to you, how you get it out.”

  “Okay.” I breathed slow deep breaths and thought of the blue flames that I’d seen reflecting in Jakob’s eyes. Without delay, I felt a sudden rush of warmed wind and looked down to see my body erupt in bright blue flames from my feet upward, consuming me until I was covered head to foot. I couldn’t hear the words that my family were speaking, but their faces were both awestruck and worried.

  I yelled over the din. “What is it?”

  They motioned to the reflective glass of the sliding doors. I gasped at what I saw. The outline of my body and the hair whipping around my head were visible through the flames, but my clothes were just a memory. I wasn’t just covered in flames. I was the fire. I closed my eyes and concentrated on burning brighter and hotter, amazed at my transformation.

  “Erin!” I could barely hear the frantic words Emelie was shouting over the sound of my roaring magic. Glancing over to see what the commotion was about, I spotted Jakob. He stood, uneasy but fixated, next to the house. I met his eyes with my own, smiling when he mouthed, “You are beautiful.”

  In the split second my attention lapsed, my fire began to burn in erratic bursts, changing color and sparking closer to the apartment. Soren, noticing the change, followed my eyes to Jakob, then hurled himself in his direction to question him, his face the picture of rage.

  I threw my hands over my ears to block out the roar of the fire and Soren’s yelling. “Stop!”

  The fire reacted to my emotions, burning a blistering hot white, and then it exploded outward, raining tiny brick pieces from the fire pit over the lawn. Emelie and Viggo stood there stunned, a fine layer of dust coating their shocked faces. Neither seemed able to move.

  Nils chose that moment to pop into existence with a strange male. Taking in the chaos with wide eyes, he strode to the water hose, turned it on, and doused me to extinguish the out of control flames. “For fuck’s sake!” he said, in confusion and anger, and then he turned to Jakob and Soren, who were still arguing. “What the fucking fuck? Stop fighting! We have more important shit going on.”

  Emelie seemed to unfreeze after Nils’s string of profanity and rushed to cover my naked body with her shawl. “Shit. Shit. Shit! What am I going to do?” she mumbled to herself as she led me into the house.

  I didn’t answer, just continued the baffled teeth chattering I was doing.

  Snapping out of her internal debate, she led me into the bathroom. “I’ll get you something to put on. Wait for my instructions on what to say to Soren, okay? You and Jakob need to have the same story.”

  Weary from the magic, I let out a heavy sigh. “Why can’t we just tell him?” I didn’t understand the need for all this secrecy. What a perfect waste of time.

  “I know that that seems to be the best way. I agree with you, but Soren?” She frowned. “He’s from a different time. In the ancient days, what Jakob has done was punishable by death. And as your brother, he is well within his right to deliver that justice. Soren considers what he believes Jakob is guilty of as the ultimate in treachery. It is a matter of your honor. And
even more so, since…” She chewed her lip. “Jakob will tell you later.” She tapped her head. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Okay.”

  Emelie interrupted the lamenting I was doing over the fact that everyone had seen me naked when she spoke in my mind a few minutes later. “Soren has calmed. He no longer believes that you and Jakob are a couple.”

  I fought the urge to cry and/or bang my head on the shower wall. This was the exact opposite of what I wanted.

  Emelie's tinkling laughter filled my head. “No, it’s not. It’s quite genius if I say so myself. You get to stay with Jakob at his house this way. Otherwise, you’d be locked in a tower in a faraway land.”

  I pictured Jakob climbing my hair in Rapunzel style.

  “Exactly.”

  “I hate that we’re lying to Soren.” And I did. I’d known my brother for a couple days, and already there were secrets. And I really didn’t want to drive a wedge between him and his mate over some secret love affair that I should have the balls to tell him about myself.

  “Soren is so stubborn. He forgets that when I was betrothed to Kristian, we were fooling around, just as you and Jakob are.”

  “That hypocrite!” I shook my head at Soren’s double standard and pulled a towel from the rack.

  “Yep. That’s why I don’t feel guilty for lying to him. He’s being the definition of overprotective. You couldn’t find a better male than Jakob, and he knows that.”

  “Let’s hope he remembers that when he finds out the truth. And speaking of remembering, can you remember to stay out of my thoughts?”

  “I wish I could, Erin. Believe me. I want to stay out of everyone’s thoughts. Some more than others.”

  “Nils?”

  Her laughter filled the connection. You nailed it. It’s just ironic that it took me so long to block my own mind. Anyway, are you out of the tub?”

  “I’m about to get dressed. Why?”

  “We need to talk about your mother and you still need to…ah…meet Nils’ father, Loki. Soren doesn’t trust him, but I see him being an intricate part of the war against Odin. Whether my mate likes it or not, he is part of the rebellion now.”