She thought of her sister, how essential she was to Hele’s life. She thought of her brother Artem, how his steady support, even from a distance, helped guide her. And then she thought of this man, with his mask of indifference, andached.
Who was there for him when he was lost? Where were his siblings? His clan?
Here,she thought, straightening her shoulders.I am here now.
“Hello,” she said, forcing her voice to sound calm. “I am Hele. You must be Calamity.”
The other elemental cocked his head to one side as he scrutinized her unabashedly. After several tense seconds, he replied, “Cal is fine.”
“Cal.” Hele nodded once. “This is better.”
The smallest smile lifted one corner of his full mouth. “I agree. Why did you ask to meet me,Hele?”A wary light entered his dark eyes. “Most people who seek me out are after something. What is it that you want?”
Hele understood that this was why it was so difficult for them to get in contact with him. She’d tried it on her own several times, with no success. After a century of people seeking him out only to use him, she did not begrudge him caution. That didn’t stop her from using her ace in the hole, though.
She gestured to the ledge before padding over to it herself. Crouching down, she dropped onto her backside and threw her legs over the edge to dangle her bare feet above the fog and the rushing vehicles it obscured on the deck below.
After a moment of hesitation, Cal followed suit.
When he was sitting beside her, his long, pale fingers curled over the metal edge and his hair moving in an unnatural swirl around his shoulders, she said, “Thank you for agreeing to talk with me. I know you do not meet with strangers often, so I am grateful.”
“As my mate tells me, it is not very often that the Isand of the Draakonriik sends emails, so I did not have much of a choice in the matter.”
“Still.”
He tilted his head in her direction. “Still.”
“I am nervous,” she admitted.
Cal looked askance at her. With similar directness, he asked, “Why?”
“I’ve never met another elemental before.”
He grunted. “I have. Briefly.”
She peered at him through her lashes, terribly curious. There was so much she knew about this man and yet there were so many gaps left for her to explore. Elise Sasini’s book left out much of the mundane, the things that mattered most to Hele. What were his favorite colors? Did he have a preferred food, like she did? Did he ever go to school? She wanted to know it all.
Tempering her rabid curiosity, she asked, “What were they like?”
“We are all pretty much the same,” he answered, lips turning down. “Short-tempered. Blunt. Alone. That’s what happens when you come into the world as we do — wreaking havoc.”
Gods, her heart ached for this man. “That is not how it was for me.”
Cal pinned her with a narrow-eyed look. “What do you mean?”
Hele folded her hands in her lap and looked out across the bridge, toward the tower that stood opposite the one they sat on. She could just make out the shape of a heavily muscled man standing on top, his legs spread and arms tucked behind his back in a relaxed but ready military stance. His wings, huge and talon-tipped, spread around his shoulders. The thin membrane between the bones caught the light from the lamps at the top of the tower, making them glow.
A little bit of her nervousness ebbed away. Her mate was there. Watching. Waiting. He believed she could do this and shewould.
Sucking in a deep breath, she said, “What do you know about dragons?”
“Nothing more than what I’ve observed. There are a few dragons in my city, but not enough to know them well.”
“I belong to a dragon clan,” she told him, proud all the way to her bones. “And I am mated to a dragon.”
Cal’s brows rose. “You… belong to a clan? How is that possible?”
So Hele told him — all of it. Her making. Her falling. She told him how she was caught by her mate, and then how she was whisked away. She detailed her first years in the ‘Riik, as well as the support she received, and then how she decided on Vael. She told him about her little apartment and then how she’d wisely given it up for the roost she now shared with her mate. She left nothing out. Not only did she have nothing to hide, but she felt like she owed it to this man, whose life story she clung to so fiercely in the beginning.
