Peta (An Elemental Series Novella, 3.5) Read Free

why so few of us are connected to elementals now. Even the queen discounts Jag.”
    I snapped my mouth shut. I’d said too much. Despite the fact I was now Dirt Girl’s familiar, my home had been the Pit for most of my life. My loyalty was to Fiametta, even if she was a hard ass.
    Brand led the rest of the way to his home, and I mulled over what had happened as they sat at the dinner table. It had to be a fluke. There was no reason for her to trust me, or listen to me.
    Very likely she’d done it for show because Brand had been watching.
    Yet, I couldn’t help but feel her emotions as they skimmed through her body. Gratitude. She was grateful I was with her.
    I kept my mouth closed and my jaw tight. I would not feel for this Terraling. I would not.
    Brand and his wife Smoke fed Dirt Girl while I sat on her shoulder. They ignored me as if I were an inanimate object. No doubt they thought I truly was bad luck and if they ignored me they would stay safe.
    Breathing evenly, I kept the hurt at bay. It should not have been a surprise to me, yet still the snub bit at what was left of my pride. I withdrew further into myself and away from the conversation.
    Until the Terraling offered me her cup of milk, shocking me out of at least one of my nine lives.
    Mother goddess . . . I could not turn it down. I ducked my head into the stone cup and lapped up the cool, frothy milk as a tear slipped out of one eye and into the drink.
    “How long has it been, Peta, since one of your charges actually accepted you?” Smoke asked.
    I pulled my head out, milk clinging to my whiskers in tiny white droplets at the very ends. I did not answer Smoke. “That is enough for me, Dirt Girl.”
    Dirt Girl gave me the most imperceptible of nods and then drank the rest of the milk down in a gulp.
    No idea . . .she had no idea what she’d done. Sharing with me like that, it was a formal acknowledgment that I was her familiar and that she would work with me as a teammate. Putting my needs and knowledge on par with her own.
    Could I trust it, though?
    That was the question I had no answer to, and the one that scared me the most. Trust.
    Could I trust her with my heart?
    No. I would not trust her. She may have shared her drink with me, but I doubted she even understood what it meant. I let a slow breath slip out of me. So it meant nothing to her.
    And I would let it mean nothing to me.
     
     

CHAPTER 3

 
     
    moke took the Terraling down to wash clothes so they could discuss the problems within the Pit without Fiametta’s spies overhearing. Dirt Girl actually washed clothes while she talked, and I was perhaps a little bit proud of her. Perhaps. At least she was helping while she sought answers. There was no way she could know Smoke struggled with her health. The fire half-breed should’ve known by staying in the Pit she’d suffer as her body craved the windswept mountains of the Eyrie. Still she never left and it weakened her.
    I sat in the now empty basket, studying my charge asking about the fire elementals. It was almost like she wanted to know more about someone besides her people.
    “There is more,” I said, jumping into the conversation. “Something with the night bells has shifted. People are sleeping longer, and are harder to wake up. I have seen that, too.”
    Dirt Girl turned her face to me, her mouth opening as if she would speak, and then she dove into the rushing water.
    I leapt out of the basket and ran to the edge, but the Terraling was already swept down river toward the lava flows that warmed the water.
    Shifting into my leopard form, I sprinted along the edge to catch up with her. What was she doing diving into the water like that? Was she crazy?
    Finally she broke the surface, but she was closing in on the lava. A Salamander I wouldn’t even have gone after, but the Terraling wouldn’t survive the excessive temperature.
    “Dirt Girl, swim to the edge and don’t dawdle.”
    Her eyes met mine and I saw the heat behind them, how