An elemental fantasy romance where magic sealed away becomes the world’s last hope. Book 1 of the Fire, Stone & Water series—ideal for readers who crave slow-burn power and supernatural peril.

One will find a love that shakes the earth itself.

Cara’s compassion freed three dangerous elementals from a hellish prison, and triggered a transformation that destroyed her mortal life. Now the Fates have decreed her the destined bride of Tremor, the earth elemental.

Cara refuses to be his, but she can’t survive without him. Can Tremor teach her to trust him, or will her new power unleash terrible devastation?

Humans feared the power of the elements, so they locked them away. In the process they altered the balance of nature. Eight hundred years later, the elementals have awakened. Maddened by centuries of imprisonment, these powerful beings crave vengeance. Three unsuspecting women will have to soothe the savage forces before it’s too late.

One will find rebirth in the flames that take her life.

One Night To Burn

One will meld with the sea that seeks to claim her.

When the Sea Burned

One will find a love that shakes the earth itself.

Scorched Earth

She will make the north wind howl.

Wind Burn

In Scorched Earth,

Cara’s compassion freed three dangerous elementals from a hellish prison, and triggered a transformation that destroyed her mortal life. Now the Fates have decreed her the destined bride of Tremor, the earth elemental.

Cara refuses to be his, but she can’t survive without him, either. Can Tremor teach her to trust him, or will her new power unleash terrible devastation?

35,000 word Novella
No explicit love scenes

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CHAPTER 1

He was used to the weightlessness by now, but even 800 years couldn’t dull his body’s scream for the touch of earth. Trapped in a cave but cocooned in a cell of air, he could never touch the stone that remained tantalizingly out of reach. He was hungry, starved, and he was not alone. Two others shared his hell, though their cells reflected their nature.

Fire sat on a bare patch of floating earth surrounded by a sphere of water. Black as night and skeletal, he stared unseeing at the water.

Water’s cell was bone dry. Severely dehydrated, he looked like a sad old man and rarely spoke, unwilling to force the words past his parched throat. Once blue as the ocean, he’d faded to a sickly gray.

They’d tried everything they could think of to break free. Over the centuries hope had dwindled, leaving them empty, despairing. If they could have ended it, they’d have welcomed death.

The earthquake was the first harbinger of change. Earth’s eyes snapped open as he sensed the earth shake. Though he couldn’t physically touch the ground, it gave him a brief burst of hope. Maybe…

As days went by, hope became depression…until, abruptly, he sensed the woman.

***

Cara wiggled through the crack in the earth, calling herself a fool. Something tugged at her, music barely felt, a longing unfulfilled. Using her cellphone light, she navigated the fissure, turning sideways once to ease through. She’d planned a simple walk this morning to contemplate her twenty-second birthday and exploring a cave wasn’t on the agenda.

She knew there was a cave at the end of the tunnel, and it bothered her that she was so certain. She was equally certain the quake that formed this crack had left it stable, but couldn’t have said how any more than she could ignore the urge to explore it.

The day had been so ordinary. Her parents had gone to Mexico to visit family, leaving her to watch the house. They’d celebrated her birthday early, so she had no big plans for the day. She’d savored a cup of coffee, read the news online and checked the mailbox at the end of the paved drive, enjoying the scent of freshly watered grass and flowers. Blue sky and singing birds promised a beautiful day, and she waved at Mrs. Kelly across the street who was loading her kids in her car. It was a quiet subdivision, and peaceful; the perfect morning.

The plain brown package addressed to her intrigued her. Filled with newspaper packing and jewelry, it lacked a return address. Maybe her parents had left it to surprise her?

The earrings were gold with a green stone that twinkled when she admired them in the mirror. Delighted, she’d slipped the heavy gold cuff on her left wrist and twisted it to enjoy the way the “emeralds” sparkled, but when she tried to remove the cuff it wouldn’t budge. It seemed welded to her wrist, and the clasp had melted away.

The cuff no longer seemed so wonderful. Was this a prank? Had someone put superglue on the bracelet to make it stick? But how had it slid on so easily, and what had happened to the clasp?

She thought about getting glue remover, but had the sudden urge to take a walk…

Cara grimaced as she shimmied past a skinny place, strangely unconcerned about what would normally be a claustrophobic press of earth. She wondered what would happen if she tried to remove the earrings. She’d been so distracted by the cuff she hadn’t tried.

The tunnel ahead brightened, and it had nothing to do with her cell light. She clicked it off, thinking she was approaching daylight…and stepped into a fairytale.

The cave was lit, but not by the sun. A glow illuminated three pitiful looking men in the oddest “cells” she’d ever seen. At least, she sensed they were cells, though only one resembled a prison in the traditional sense. She glanced at the withered black man encased in a bubble of water, noting his intent stare, but it was the one floating before her that stole her attention. Pale and chalky, he appeared cracked like a weathered statue, a ragged cloth wrapped around his hips. His hair was white and sparse, but his eyes were very alive. Bronze with copper chasing, they focused on her with a single-minded intensity.

“What are you?” she whispered. Her instincts would normally caution her about releasing him, would make her question why he was locked up, but today everything in her cried out with the need to help. She looked around, but there was no obvious way to free him. She looked at the huddled figure in the cell to her left and winced at his obvious dehydration. That was something she could do. Taking her water bottle from her pack, she loosened the top and reached past the bars to set it on the floor.

The man stared at her and slowly unfolded his limbs. Moving painfully, he crawled like an arthritic old man across the stone floor, and it was all she could do not to try to move the water closer. Apparently she still had some shred of self-preservation, for she kept a respectable distance.

He reached the bottle and feebly undid the cap, inhaling like a junkie snuffing his latest hit. Astonishingly, the water rose from the bottle as if he were inhaling it, flowing into his mouth in a steady stream. He shuddered and bowed his head with a dry sob, clutching the empty bottle.

Cara swallowed her astonishment and looked around with wide eyes. She flushed as she met the intense stare of the chalky prisoner, glancing quickly to the water surrounding the withered black man. Moving to him, she cautiously undid her belt and flicked it at the sphere, braced to let it go quickly if it tried to suck her in. Instead, the belt flicked the water and came away wet, dribbling water on the floor.

“Okay.” She slicked the water off her belt, put it back on and returned to the shriveled gray man. Did his color look a little better? That was assuming blue was his natural color, of course. “If you give me back the bottle, I can get you more water.”

He quickly pushed it through the bars.

Cara began to trek from the water to his cell, water dripping down her arm and forming a trail between cells. As soon as she got close, the withered man sucked the water to him. He was looking better all the time, and she glanced between the other two, wondering what she could do for them.

“Throw him a rock,” the blue man suggested, following her gaze to Chalky.

She started at his rough croak, but after a moment’s hesitation, set down the bottle and searched the cave until she found some loose stones. Lugging them to the floating man, she set them down and considered while he watched her with heart pounding intensity. Taking a breath, she lobbed the rock underhand, arching to his left.

He grabbed it like a lightning strike and held it to his chest, protecting it like a precious child. A green glow surrounded his hands, and when his hands fell away, the rock was gone.

Cara blinked, astonished, but quickly tossed him the rest. One by one, they were absorbed, and he started to look better, less corroded. Pleased, she turned to fetch more, only to stop dead. A trickle of water flowed from the water sphere along the trail of drips, slowly building as it went to the blue man. A glance showed the sphere seemed to be thinning around the black man.

The hair on her neck prickled in warning. She may have felt the need to help these guys, but she didn’t know them, didn’t even know what they were or why they were here. Not only were there three of them, but they had abilities she didn’t. It was time to leave, because they seemed to have things under control.

Acting as if she was going for more rocks, she calmly stepped over the small stream and headed to the far wall, heart pounding. She passed the rock pile and kept walking, hurrying through the tunnel. The urge to leave now was as strong as the one that brought her here. She suspected those men had been locked up for some time, and she didn’t want to be standing there when they escaped.

She reached the sunlight and jogged down the winding path, eager to put distance between them. She wasn’t much of a jogger, but she was healthy and managed a mile before slowing to a fast walk. Feeling safer, she hurried along, wondering who those men were and why she’d felt compelled to help them. Not that she was cruel by nature, but the whole day had been bizarre. The jewelry, the cave, the man eating rocks…it was difficult to process.

She hit a soft spot on the trail and her foot sank to the ankle. Startled, she lurched, nearly going to her knees. “What the…? There’s no mud out here.” It hadn’t rained in weeks, and the rest of the path was hard packed dirt.

“Hello, dear.” Three women circled Cara’s expanding mud hole.

Bewildered, she struggled, her feet sinking a little more as the mud sucked at her shoes. “Hey, could you help me? I’m stuck.” She held out a hand in expectation.

It was ignored.

“We are helping,” a tall Polynesian woman said. Dressed in a short-sleeved red blouse, jean shorts and hiking boots, she seemed right at home. “I’m Destiny, by the way.”

“Providence,” the statuesque black woman introduced herself. She sized Cara up as if considering her for an important position. She wore a knee-length white skirt with tiny pleats and golden sandals that laced up her calves; definitely not hiking apparel. Her top was an artfully tied white scarf that left one shoulder bare, and heavy linked gold disks circled her neck and wrists. A gold cord bound her hair, holding it back from her strong face. “We are the judges. Well done on setting the prisoners free.”

“Yes, well done. You may call me Fortune,” a pretty Spanish lady said, brushing her long, wavy red hair over her shoulder. “I see you’re wearing your wedding jewelry. Excellent. We can begin now.” She took a pouch out of her peasant blouse and a bottle from the pocket of her long green skirt. She grabbed a handful of herbs from the bag and sprinkled it over the mud. “Blessings of sage for wisdom, rosemary for strength, wisdom and fidelity…”

“Is that for her or him?” Destiny quipped. “Because ‘playboy meets former human’ sounds more like the plot of a naughty joke than a love story.”

“Tony Stark was a playboy, but Penny turned him around,” Providence argued, referencing the Iron Man movie.

“Do you mind?” Fortune growled. She cleared her throat. “And orange thyme, for refreshing courage. Destiny, you have the oil?”

“Of course. Destiny took a water pistol out of her pocket and squirted oil at Cara’s head.

“What are you doing?” Cara cried as she sank to her knees. Struggling made her sink faster, but holding still didn’t help, plus she had oil that reeked of ginger and spruce dripping through her hair, stinging her eyes.

“Good question.” Providence sent a quizzical look at Destiny.

Destiny shrugged. “She’s anointed, isn’t she?” She glanced up the trail. “It would be best to finish soon. They’re almost free.”

“They have to feed. Right now they’re too weak to fight us.” Providence focused on Cara. “Be strong, Cara. He will be difficult at first, but he won’t be able to ignore his wedding tokens. He will be yours. Soon you will sleep, and wake to good fortune.”

“You’re crazy!” Cara shouted as the mud sank to her chest. She couldn’t believe they were just standing around, watching her sink. “Help me!”

“You’ll be all right,” Providence promised. “Providence is with you.”

“Destiny awaits,” Destiny said crisply, raising a sparkling copper vial. She let the contents fall in a trail of copper tears. Where it fell, it blazed, causing the mud to burst into light.

Cara slipped beneath the mud, her body on fire. Mud clogged her eyes and ears, making her heartbeat boom like a drum. She tried to hold her breath, but the pain was too much.

She screamed, gagging as charged mud slid down her throat and filled her lungs. It felt like swallowing lightning, and it filled every air sac, clogging her bronchioles like fiery mucus. She clawed at her chest, desperate for air, but it was useless. The pain spread, dirty mud pushing into her veins in a hot, agonizing wave. She thrashed as her body fell apart, ripped cell by cell.

Wrapped in pain, she gratefully gave into the darkness.