Fire Stones - By Kailin Gow Page 0,38
I felt a vast sense of relief. Being with him was easy – it felt natural, right. All my worries and anger about my mother seemed to vanish when he wrapped me in his arms and ran his tongue so lightly across my lips. He gave me a long, deep hug, looking into my eyes. But something was strange about him. He seemed oddly tense – his shoulders straight, his expression dark.
“I’m glad you’re back, Mac,” he said.
“I’m glad to be back, too.” I smiled up at Chance. “I missed you so much – the ocean was so dark, so lonely without you. I missed flying through the air with you. I missed our fire.”
Chance frowned. He opened his mouth –as if to say something – but then shut it again. His cheeks colored slightly and at last he cleared his throat and spoke. “Going back down into the ocean like that – it was dangerous, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I don’t know what might have happened if I’d tried to go down there alone. For starters, I’d have drowned.”
“I…uh…” Chance swallowed hard, his jaw twitching almost imperceptible. “I’m glad that Varun was able to help you, I guess.”
“You don’t have to worry,” I said to Chance. “Nothing happened between me and Varun, I promise you that.” After all, infidelity in thought wasn’t the same thing as acting on those feelings in real life. “It was perfectly platonic. I know it was hard for you to admit that – that you two aren’t on the best of terms…”
“That’s how I lost her, you know.” Chance turned from me. “The other one. That’s how she met him. I sent her – she decided to go – on a mission to the ocean, to the Water gods. Another flood had started to wash away the earth, and she decided to go see if maybe some of the more moderate Water deities might be willing to compromise, to make an alliance against the extremists. Poseidon – Varun – was one such deity. She went to his palace as a diplomatic gesture, asking him for help against those who, like Abzu, would see the earth destroyed and covered in waves. And…she never truly returned – not in spirit. His shining pearl palace, the beauty of mermaids, the rainbow scales of flying fish – all these things enchanted her, so that she forgot the heat of the flames and the feeling of soft earth between one’s fingers. She forgot me, and her love for me.” He sighed. “When she came back from the sea, she was different, somehow. Paler. Her fire abilities didn’t work as they once had. She didn’t kiss me with the same fire. And then, one night, she simply left…walked into the ocean and let the waves take her to her new lover.” He pulled me in for another kiss, desperate in its urgency. I felt his passion shiver through me.
He pulled away and smiled.
“But you’re happy now.”
“I am happy,” Chance almost laughed aloud. “I’m overjoyed, my darling. You see, you came back. You returned to me. You didn’t leave me for Varun the way Vesta did. I can feel it in your kiss that you still love me. I can feel your passion for me.”
I looked up at him, my eyes making contact with his. After all this time, his beauty still had the power to surprise me, to make me tremble with desire – even now!
“Come with me, Mac,” Chance put out a hand. “I think it’s time. I think you’re ready.”
“For what?”
“To see what Fire can really do.”
In an instant his arms were around me, and we were flying through the air – up, up, higher than we had ever been before. The island was but a tiny dot surrounded by water – and yet we flew higher, the whole globe spread out before us, pin-pricks of land surrounded by waves.
“Where are we going?” I cried. But Chance did not reply, flying faster and faster until I couldn’t see the earth below us at all but only the darkness of the night and the stars all around us.
And then I saw it. A small blue globe – as small as the moon had looked from the field. Millions of miles away.
Earth.
“What’s going on?” I started screaming, terrified – but somehow I was still alive, still breathing. Defying gravity as we flew through the darkness like shooting stars. “Where are we?” My heart was beating a thousand times a minute.
“We’re