Stone of Ascension (5 page)

“No, of course not. You know his eccentric crypticness. He only reveals what he thinks you
need
to know. Evidently, the why of leaving New York is something we don’t
need
to know.” She gave a shrug of dismissal and held Amber’s gaze. “Do you know why?”

Yeah, she’d walked right into that one.

Amber smiled and blatantly ignored her friend’s question. “So what were the chances of me running over the head honcho like that out of all the people here?”

Kayla’s eyes narrowed, but once again, she let Amber do the duck and dive. A reprieve Amber feared wouldn’t last for long.

“About as probable as the wind turbines all magically tumbling into the ocean,” Kayla countered.

“Or the sun suddenly appearing to warm us the hell up.” Amber chuckled, waving her hand dismissively at the cloud-drenched sky. The laughter died from her lips when the clouds separated in an unnatural move. The golden rays of the sun rained down on the small gathering, making it seem like Amber’s action had parted the clouds.

Kayla stared at the sky in stunned amazement. “Yeah, maybe,” she mumbled, all amusement gone, the lame attempt at a lighter mood wiped out by the eeriness of the moment. She looked to Amber, her soft voice raspy in a way that had the damn hairs rising on Amber’s neck once again. “And maybe there’s a reason why you ran into Damian Aeros.”

Chapter Five

He stood still and rigid. Waiting. Observing. Assessing.

Patience. Damian Aeros was tempered with it—a thousand years’ worth of finely cultured patience. The kind that enabled him to stand stoic and placid as the overly boisterous voice droned on, trying to entice the gathered crowd.

The harsh wind snapped over the podium, ripping at the papers and compelling the esteemed mayor of Newport, Rhode Island to clutch at the fragile pieces in a frantic attempt to maintain control. The mayor’s voice faltered as the wind rushed against the microphone, forcing its own harsh voice to roar over the speakers in a glaring demand for attention.

But Damian’s focus wasn’t on the words of the mayor. No, his concentration was centered on the tall, raven-haired beauty bunched in the middle of the small crowd.

The one he always found. She was striking in her simplicity—make-up free, lips naturally red, cheeks rosy from the cold. Her long, unbound hair glimmered like silk in the light and flowed around her head like waves of dark water. She appeared distant, almost lost, clearly not focused on the mayor’s words as her gaze veered off to stare at the turbulent waves on the Sound.

What was she thinking about? Why did he care?

His fingers tingled with the faint, lingering energy that had shot through him when he’d touched her. An innocent collision followed by a reflexive action meant to keep her from tumbling against him again. But the jarring rush of feeling that had flashed through him had been anything but innocent.

Who was she?

A person’s energy signature usually made it easy to tell if they belonged to the Energy races. But hers had been jumbled, a mixture of signals that, although predominantly human, had also hinted at something more.

She was a mystery. One that only intrigued him more each time he saw her, even though it shouldn’t.

“To further elaborate on the advantages of Nantucket Wind, I’d like to introduce the founder and CEO of Aeros Wind Turbines, Damian Aeros.” The mayor’s loud, booming voice broke into Damian’s thoughts and brought him back to the task at hand.

Damian stepped up to the podium under a smattering of polite applause. His company, the one he’d started and built from the ground up, was in the middle of a never-ending project to erect wind turbines in Nantucket Sound. Although environmentally advantageous, they were touted as a visual eyesore by coastal purists.

This was yet another in hundreds of such events organized in a lame attempt to garner support for the politically unpopular project. The company publicist insisted he attend these events. So once again he was freezing his nuts off on a Saturday morning, smiling politely to the crowd as they waited for one more preplanned speech.

Only this morning, his pinpoint focus was distracted by her.

For five years, he’d listened to the protests and offered nods of understanding and statements of acquiescence that eased minds and curdled his stomach. But ultimately it was worth it. The turbines were going up, and it was one small, positive thing he could still do to honor the balance of the energy and protect the very people who protested Nantucket Wind’s existence.

Today, he was tired of pretending. Throwing off the planned, canned speech filled with platitudes and politically correct words, Damian let his real thoughts be heard.

“Most of you here today are protesting the wind turbines simply because you can see them. That’s it. Even though the turbines will be over six miles away from the nearest island town and closer to ten miles away from the mainland, you don’t want to look at them. You would rather slowly kill the earth with the continual use of non-renewable resources than look at a few swinging blades on the distant horizon.”

Short-sighted fools.

With effort, he
hid his impatience. He let the grumbling die down, although most of the crowd appeared too shocked or frozen to react.

“And let me tell you why Nantucket Wind is vital to our local economy,” the mayor bellowed, interrupting him and subtly trying to brush Damian aside in a blatant attempt to smooth over the damage his brief speech might have caused.

“But what about our rights?” a feminine voice called out from the crowd. “What about our views on what is sacred and our ability to practice our spiritual beliefs?” Damian’s gaze darted through the crowd, picking out the dark-haired woman who’d posed the question. “Why doesn’t anyone care about them?”

The portly mayor stumbled to answer the question from the female. Damian recognized the questioner immediately. She’d been one of the most vocal in the Native American protest of the wind turbines and was just one of the many local tribe members there today.

Damian spoke over the fumbling mayor, his clear voice cutting off the other man. “I understand that the local Native American tribes are upset because the wind turbines are going to hinder the unobstructed easterly view that you require for a spiritual ceremony. I appreciate the tribe’s needs and beliefs, but unfortunately, some things are bigger than any one group’s wants. This is one of them.”

Usually, he wouldn’t come right out and say that, but today, he felt the change in the air. The time for patient pretense had passed.

The mayor immediately jumped back in and tried to once again control the microphone. Damian didn’t fight him. He’d made his point.

Another bite of wind gusted off the icy waters, blasting the frozen crowd with a punishing reminder that there were far better things to be doing that morning. Damian took a step back, curled his fingers tight and burrowed them deep into the pockets of his wool trench coat. The temptation to up the punishment and assist the wind in its unrelenting torture itched over his fingers. It practically begged for him to do it, whispering its seductive voice, urging him to give in.

It would be so simple to use his powers, his affiliation with the air, to increase the wind’s strength. To pummel the crowd until they retreated. Tempting, but not possible. Going down the path of punishing the innocent would go against everything he’d been striving to prove for the last millennium.

The sudden pull of being stared at in a deliberate, penetrating way simmered over his senses. His attention snapped back to the crowd to find a set of dark golden eyes boldly locked onto his. Like always, they were stunning in their clarity, and mysterious in their depth.

They belonged to her. At that precise moment, with their eyes held—his attention solely on her—the air pummeled the crowd. It whipped around the beauty, swirling her hair in black, silk ribbons around her body. She blinked and looked away before pulling her gloved hand out of her pocket to clear the hair away from her face. He was captivated by the simplicity of her actions, the graceful movement of her arm as she tried to capture and tame the errant strands.

Apparently frustrated at her lack of success, she yanked off a glove, baring her fingers to the bitter elements and furrowed her brow as she continued to swipe at the mass of black. The winter headband she wore did little to control the waist-long hair against the force of the wind.

The flash of white amidst the sea of black grabbed his attention. His eyes narrowed in focus as his stomach tightened then churned in slow, dreaded anticipation.

It could be nothing. Instinct, honed and cultivated along with his patience, told him it was more. She was more.

Her hand flashed then held as she worked a piece of hair from the clutches of her lips, offering him a clear view of the mark on the back of her now gloveless hand.

A white bird rising in flight.

He inhaled sharply, his breath held, incapable of moving through his lungs. A millennium of pain and betrayal, of soul-wrenching longing pierced through his heart.

The wind died a sudden, startling death, and the abrupt shift caused his senses to rise in warning. It was her. It explained so much. The Marked One had finally been found.

By him.

The sudden stillness that dropped over the crowd after the relentless pounding by the wind was far more chilling than the air itself. Amber got her hair under control and quickly put her glove back on. An unexplained need to leave urged her to hurry.

The mayor was still slinging his propaganda to the gathered group, but she couldn’t care less. She stole a quick look out of the corner of her eye, but it only confirmed what she already felt.

His focus was still on her.

What had compelled her to stare so boldly at the handsome CEO? She’d been startled when he’d caught and held her gaze. Even more amazed when she’d brazenly met his challenge. For that’s what it’d felt like—a dare to look away.

Of course, she’d lost. But for that brief moment when she had ventured to play, the intensity had been startling. It was as if he could see into the very heart of who she was…and he wanted to know more.

Now he wouldn’t look away.

She stifled a shiver as she remembered the last time a man had looked at her like that. It had been almost two months since Nate had attacked her, but the events were still fresh in her mind. She had been duped by a man she thought she knew. So naïve that she hadn’t heeded the danger signs until it was almost too late.

Lesson learned. She might be naïve, but she wasn’t stupid.

And this man, with his hard, chiseled features and stoic mask of authority was stroking every warning instinct she had, despite the way her stomach fluttered when she looked at him.

Maybe because of it.

She leaned closer to Kayla. “I have to go.”

Her friend shot her a look. “Why? You said you would be here to support us.”

“I know,” she hedged. “I did, but I really need to go. I told Aunt Bev I would be back by noon to open the shop.” It wasn’t a straight lie. She had promised to open the shop, just not by noon.

“Do you need help today?” Kayla raised her eyebrow in question, the look one of sleek sophistication.

“No. Thanks. It’ll be slow with the weather like this.” Amber caught her hair in her grip as the wind started up again, the brief respite from its torment over. “I can handle it on my own. Aunt Bev will be back from the reservation by late afternoon anyway.” She’d made the day trip to Martha’s Vineyard for a tribal council meeting. Although the majority of the tribe members lived off the reservation, the council meetings were still held on the island.

“Okay.” Kayla licked her lips and shook her own hair away from her face. “Thanks for coming today. I know it’s basically a lost cause, but it’s still worth fighting for our beliefs.”

Amber looked away, unable to meet the fiery resolve that flashed in her friend’s eyes. It was hard to see her dedication and commitment to a community that had always regarded Amber with wary distance. She often wondered why Kayla was so kind to her when most tribe members were not. But then she didn’t want to question one of the few friends she had.

And Kayla had never given her a reason to doubt the truth of her friendship.

Amber stole another quick look at the stage and stiffened as she once again caught the hard-edged gaze of the CEO. He was
still
staring at her. Not Kayla.
Her
.

Why? Because she ran into him earlier?

His stare drilled into her like a slam to her chest. His firm, square jaw was tilted upward in a position that forced him to look down on her. It was nerve-wracking. Her stomach knotted as her body flushed with sudden warmth.

But she didn’t look away. She straightened her spine and narrowed her eyes to meet his taunt with a dare of her own. She would not cower. Never again.

“Are you okay?”

The sudden question yanked Amber’s attention back to her friend. “Oh, sorry,” she mumbled, shaking her head to clear her thoughts but unable to resist another darting glance at Damian Aeros. “I’m fine.”

Kayla, always perceptive, didn’t miss the action nor, apparently, the sharp focus of the man on stage. “What’s going on?” Her brow creased in concern as she leaned toward Amber. “Why is he staring at you?”