WarriorsandLovers

Alysha
Ellis

Sequel to Warrior’s Apprentice.

Firefighter Elijah
Denton has a secret—he can move things with the power of his mind. His hidden
ability has made him the hero of his local fire department but the gift comes
with a dark side.

A disturbing
visitor threatens to expose Elijah unless he helps to defeat the Dvalinn, a
race of underground dwellers who pose a threat to humanity. But when he is
trapped by a thermo-magnetic storm with Eora and Nieko, his supposed enemies,
the attraction is immediate. They embark on a passionate mixed ménage that
calls into question everything the three of them have believed.

Nieko has secrets
of his own. Although the Dvalinn do not accept the concept of romantic love and
punish any reference to it, Nieko loves Eora for her spirit and curiosity. His
feelings for Elijah are growing as well. The trio must fight to keep their
people safe—humans
and
Dvalinn—as they struggle for a way to make their
love work.

A Romantica®
science fiction erotic romance
from
Ellora’s Cave

The spider’s long, articulated legs worked in nightmarish unison,
inching it closer. Multifaceted eyes glittered and a pair of pointed fangs
twitched. With primitive, hindbrain hatred, Elijah wanted it dead. His fist
clenched around the smooth leather of a sports shoe.

A shudder shook him from head to toe and a cold wash of
nausea trickled into his mouth. He stared in revulsion, the spider forgotten.
The trainer he held had been on the shelf in his closet, in his bedroom, behind
two closed doors.

Less than thirty seconds ago he’d staggered out of bed,
stumbled into the bathroom, barefoot and empty handed, turned on the light and
come face to face with the eight-legged intruder.

The instant he thought of it the shoe had materialized in
his hand. It shouldn’t have happened. It
wouldn’t
have happened if he
hadn’t been surprised into an instinctive reflex. Damn it! Years of practice,
years of control sabotaged because some part of his brain refused to respond to
discipline.

Too often in the past, he’d found objects he wanted suddenly
and inexplicably within reach. Memories of himself as a toddler reaching out to
grab toys that flew to his grasp were overlaid with visions of his mother’s
fury.

He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t seen fear and
anger in his mother’s face or a time when she hadn’t averted her eyes if he
tried to meet her gaze. He remembered her harsh whisper as she beat him over
and over again. “The devil is in you. He’ll destroy you if he is not driven
out.”

She had never succeeded in her endeavor, no matter how hard
she’d tried, but she
had
instilled in him the need to hide who he was
and what he could do. He’d learned to shut out the stray threads of other
people’s emotions when they insinuated themselves into his mind, and to ensure
that objects stayed where they were supposed to.

That morning’s incident had been an aberration, one he was
determined wouldn’t happen again. All it required was strength. Strength to
lock those things away in the deep recesses of his mind. Strength to turn the
key on the writhing horror that plagued him. Strength to suppress the knowledge
that the urges were becoming more powerful, threatening to burst out of the
prison he’d made for them.

Leaving the spider to stay or crawl away or whatever the
hell it wanted to do, Elijah dressed, slammed out of the apartment and headed
to work. The punishing pace he set on the one-mile walk to the fire station
gave him a good excuse for his accelerated heartbeat and the thin film of sweat
that coated his skin.

“Hey, Lije,” called Steve, one of his fellow firefighters,
when Elijah walked into the locker room. “Reckon we’re going to have a quiet
day or is your money on a big call-out?”

“How in the hell should I know?” Elijah snapped.

“Come on, Lije,” another man said. “You know you’ve got a
feeling for it. How many times have I seen you pulling on your boots before the
alarm goes off?”

A chorus of voices agreed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve got quick
reflexes. Any one of you would—” He broke off and grabbed his jacket from the
hook. He had rammed his feet down into his boots before he heard the clanging
of the alarm bell.

“Told ya,” Steve said. “You know these things, man. You
gotta be psychic or something.”

With a disgusted grunt, Elijah finished donning his turnouts
and clambered into his accustomed spot on the fire truck.

On the way to the fire the men were too busy getting
information and updates to pursue the conversation but the memory of it, the
revelation that others had noticed things he tried so desperately to hide, kept
Elijah unsettled and edgy.

The fire truck rocked to a halt and Elijah prepared to do
what he did best. Inside the burning apartment block, people were trapped.
Elijah’s job was to get them out. His record for saves was outstanding—no one
else located victims as quickly. No one else calmed them or ushered them to
safety as well as Elijah.

He was grateful every time he brought out someone who would
otherwise have died, but he refused to examine the implications. Experience,
luck, intelligence—any one or all of them together provided a more acceptable
explanation than the one that lurked constantly at the back of his mind—and
from the conversation back at the fire station, in the minds of some of his
colleagues as well.

Wearing their Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, he and
Steve worked their way through the smoke and flames, checking apartments,
leading panicked residents to safety, helping them to breathe. Protecting them,
leading them out of the inferno.

The two-minute low-oxygen alert vibrated on Lije’s mask at
the precise moment they gave the all-clear. He staggered out into the fresh air
and pulled off his helmet, pausing to grab a quick drink.

The first rush of water had just hit the back of his throat
when a shiver rippled over his skin. With a deep sense of foreboding, he
turned. A frantic woman was fighting desperately to free herself from the firefighter
holding her.

“Jayden!” she screamed, as she plunged and twisted. A cop
emerged from the crowd to help hold her back. “My little boy is in there. I
went to the shops. I left him. Just for a minute.”

Steve stepped up to her. “Ma’am, we’ve checked. No one’s
left inside.”

But they were wrong. Lije was already running before he
heard the mother’s reply. “He was in the basement. He plays there.”

Pulling on his helmet with one hand, with the other he
grabbed a new SCBA and shrugged it on. He picked up his axe and raced back into
the smoke and heat.
Damn it all to hell!
The building supervisor had
sworn the basement was locked with no one inside.

Whether the man was mistaken or had flat-out lied didn’t
matter—a child was trapped. Elijah had to get him out. He picked up his pace
and hurtled down the stairs. Above him the fire raged, the sound accompanied by
the hiss of steam as the hoses poured gallons of water into the flames.

Three swift blows of his axe demolished the flimsy,
hollow-core door. The fire burning above had funneled much of the heat away
from the basement, but swirling black clouds obscured his vision. He stepped
into the crowded, smoky maze of boxes, jutting walls and pipes. Steve, geared
up and ready, clattered down the staircase behind him.

They searched in the grid pattern training and experience
made routine, but found no sign of anyone. Time was running out, the need to
find the child urgent. In the midst of the raging heat, Elijah stopped, let
himself relax, slowed his breathing. An image of a small, cavelike space
floated into his mind, the entrance hidden. “Shit,” he yelled to Steve. “He’s
back near the water tank.”

Both men turned to look through the smoky gloom, located the
metal cylinder and strode toward it. There was a loud crack, audible even over
the noise of the fire and the hoses.

“The joist’s gone!” Steve called. “The ceiling’s going to
collapse.” His voice rasped through the diaphragm of his mask. “We have to get
out.”

Elijah knew Steve was right. Two hundred and fifty gallons
of water a minute was pouring into the fire-damaged building, further weakening
the already compromised structure. No firefighter was expected to put his life
on the line when this level of danger threatened. He should get out now but
Elijah
knew
the boy was there, cowering back in a heating duct. He heard
the boy’s fear as clearly as if the child screamed it. He couldn’t leave him.

He pushed forward, ignoring Steve’s shout of protest. When
he reached the opening of the heating duct, he knelt kneeled down. A pair of
wide, terrified eyes, white in the gloom, peered out from the narrow tunnel.
Elijah called to the boy. “Come on…” He remembered the boy’s mother screaming
his name.
Jayden
. “Come on, Jayden,” Elijah said, holding out his hand.
“Let’s get out of here.”

A series of coughs shook the boy’s small frame but he didn’t
move. “Jayden, my name’s Elijah. I’m a fireman. I’m here to save you. Come on.
We have to go.”

He wished he could tear off his mask to talk to the boy. The
breathy sound of his voice through the diaphragm sounded like a horror movie
monster but rules existed for a reason. He tried again. “Don’t be scared,
Jayden. I won’t hurt you.”

Tears rolled down Jayden’s cheeks but instead of moving
forward he shuffled back even farther. The only way Lije was going to get the
boy out was if he dragged him out. He might terrify the kid even more but that
was way better than letting him die.

Beside him Steve yelled, “Come on, man—we’ve got to get out
of here.”

With a wet roar, part of the ceiling in the opposite corner
caved in. Water and debris rained onto the floor, splashing over Elijah. He
glanced up, shuddering at the sagging bulge above his head. The rest was going
to give way at any moment. He thrust his arm into the duct, trying desperately
to grab the boy. His arm flailed around, six inches short of reaching him. He
hunched his shoulders, trying to make himself smaller, but it was futile. With
his gear on there was no way he could get any closer. “Jayden, please,” he
begged. “You have to crawl out here to me. Your mommy is waiting upstairs for
you.”

The child didn’t move. Steve tapped him on the back. “Give
it up, Lije. It sucks but there’s nothing you can do. Your dying won’t save
him.”

“I’m not leaving him there,” Elijah roared. “I want him out
of there now.” Suddenly there he was. A four-year-old boy, sobbing and writhing
in Elijah’s arms. Elijah didn’t stop to question or think. He spun around and
raced up the stairs after Steve, shutting his mind to the sounds of the roof
crashing in behind him.

* * * * *

The newspapers leaped on the story. Firefighter Saves Boy’s
Life. Miracle Rescue, the headlines read. Elijah did his best to avoid the
reporters—Steve, on the other hand, loved talking to them. Not about himself.
Steve wanted to tell everyone that Elijah was a genuine hero. “I’ll never know
how he got that kid out of there,” one news report quoted him as saying. “One
minute the boy was out of reach and the next Lije was striding out of the
flames with him in his arms.”

The media loved it, and they loved Elijah. Lije’s refusal to
talk to them fed their frenzy. Every time he reported for duty, the click of a
camera or the flare of a flash told him another photo had been taken. The
station notice board would have another article cut out and pinned to it and
he’d cop more ribbing about being “Southwell’s Handsome Hero,” the tag he’d
been cursed with by the papers.

Even his home was no longer a refuge. Cameramen and
journalists clustered around the outside his building trying to get a comment.

The sight of a reporter waiting in the hallway outside
Lije’s apartment snapped the frayed control of his temper. “I have nothing to
say to the press,” he yelled. “Get the hell out.”

“I’m not from the press,” the man replied, turning to face
him. “I’m not interested in what you do or do not want to say. I have something
to tell
you
.”

The man was expensively dressed in a gray, designer-brand
suit. Whatever the man wore would be noticed, because Elijah was certain not
many people would feel comfortable looking at his face. One side was shockingly
distorted, as if a dissatisfied sculptor had run a hand down the raw clay,
blurring the hard lines, dragging the left eye and corner of the mouth out of
alignment, giving it the look of a macabre mask.

Elijah mentally slapped himself. He knew what it was to be
different, to be afraid that people were looking at you in disgust. He lifted
his head and met the man’s gaze. His eyes were bright and hard—their surprising
intensity combined with the laxness of his facial muscles made Elijah’s skin
twitch but pity didn’t change his mind about wanting him gone.

“I’m not interested,” he said, heading toward his door.

The man blocked his path.

“All right,” Elijah snapped. “That’s enough. I don’t want a
physical confrontation but if you don’t get out of my way, I’ll make you move.”

The man stepped aside. Elijah strode past and pushed his key
into the lock. The stranger spoke, his voice low. “You don’t have use
physical
force to make things move. You can do it with your mind.”

Elijah froze. He stood so still he could hear the thud of
blood as it pounded in his ears. Behind him the man continued. “I’m not a
reporter but I have the power to make sure
that
interesting piece of
information gets published in every major media outlet in the country. I’d
strongly advise you to listen to what I have to say.”

The man spoke quietly, without particular emphasis. His very
lack of emotion made the threat convincing. Elijah’s shoulders slumped. He’d
wanted to come home and forget about the fuss people were making, not deal with
another problem. With his luck, to set the seal on his shitty day, any minute
now a genuine reporter would appear to start asking this guy questions.
Questions Lije didn’t want raised. Ever.

“You’d better come inside.”

He opened the door. The stranger brushed past him. With
mind-boggling arrogance he walked straight to Elijah’s table, pulled out a
chair and said, “You need to sit down while we discuss this.”

His attitude irritated the hell out of Elijah. He’d have
given his right nut to be in a position to kick him out, but the threat of
exposure forced him to swallow his anger and shut up and listen. He had to know
what this jerk knew about Elijah’s abilities.

He plonked his behind on his own damn chair and glared at
the man. “Say what you’re here to say and say it quick. You’ve got five minutes
before I throw you out, regardless of the consequences.”

The man nodded. “All I need is five minutes.” He leaned
forward. “That child was too scared to come out of the heating duct. The duct
was too narrow for an adult to reach him. The boy should have died but you
rescued him. You, Elijah Denton. No one else could have done it.” He paused and
let a moment pass by. “No one else but another telekinetic empath. That’s your
secret. The real reason why you refuse to speak to anyone about the rescues.”