Whew! Another chapter all done, hope you like it. So excited to hear your thoughts on it. Please message me or comment if you edits that need to be made. Thanks for all your support! HUGS XoXo -Amber

I stood there staring at the huge glimmering gem on my finger, feeling lost for words. It took a moment, but I finally managed a quiet, "Jax..."

"I hope that we can be more than ring partners. I want to go forward and build our lives together. I don't care if the union happens here on Earth or back home in Acklemar, either way, I'd be the happiest guy alive. The ring is only a token of how I feel, and God I hope you say yes..."

"But Jax," I interrupted. He held up his index finger to my lips.

"I know, you want time to think about everything. I just wanted you to know while my world may feel new to you, I'm also trying to understand where you come from too." He took a breath and rubbed my back. "I was thinking, maybe you could consider wearing the ring until you've thought about everything?" he asked like I would shatter him into a million pieces if I said no.

"Sure, I'll think it over it." I held out my hand and looked at the ring, then raised my eye to meet his. "Hmmm, I don't know, I'm not sure the diamond is quite big enough," I teased, making him wait for my answer.

"If you don't like it," he said sounding panicked. "We can pick out a new one tomorrow."

"Jax, I'm teasing you. If this ring were any bigger, I wouldn't be able to move my fingers. It's beautiful, of course, I'll wear it." I smiled, and I reached up on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

I didn't realize how concerned he was about what I might say until I heard him let out the breath he was holding, "You're going to wear it? Really?"

I nodded. He was so excited, he scooped me up, lifting my feet off the ground as he swung me in a circular path around him. When he placed me back down on my feet, we were facing each other. We were so intimately close, that I could smell his musky scent wash over me. I watched him slowly dipped his head until I could feel the warmth of his lips hover over mine. His heated touch against my back, the presence of his body pressed against mine. All enticed me to lean in and just taste his lips. With a hunger burning through me, I lifted my chin to meet his mouth and he more than feverishly embraced my action. I could feel myself sink into his kiss, making me flush with the desire for more. It was as if could feel his presence swirl and dance around me, making me want to go on kissing him like this forever. When he gently pulled away ending our connection, we were both breathing a little more heavily.

I placed my head against his chest, "Ah, I wish I had more answers for you."

"I know," he paused, "I'm planning on building a pile of yes answers, with this being my first one. This way, you can't possibly say no, when you've already said yes to me fifty other times. I consider this just the first step to winning you over completely. Come on. I want to celebrate."

"Jax..."

"Okay, you contemplate," he smirked, "I'm celebrating my first yes victory. Besides, Robin and Sage will probably be back in the rec room by now." He spun me out of his arms still holding my hand, then scooped me up and carried me through the archway down the three wooden steps. He kept hiking like he was going to carry me all the way back to the house.

I poked him. "I can walk, you know." Then I crossed my arms and gave him a stern look.

"What? I thought this was the custom here. You know the guy carrying his girl through the threshold of their house?"

"Only if you newly wed and not the mile before getting to the house."

"Oh, I guess you better walk then. You're heavy," he teased.

"I am not." I swatted him lightly, as he placed me gently on the ground.

"Well, I guess it depends on how long I was carrying you for then. You were pretty light when I picked you up a half mile back."

"Try a quarter of a mile, He-Man. Can't you just use your superhero strength or something."

He stopped dead in tracks, "I belong to the Fire Circle. I'm not from some Marvel comic strip. You don't entirely understand what that means do you?" He stripped off his shirt and walked up to me, so we were only a foot apart with me facing him staring at his bare, muscular chest. My inner-self was doing a small dance of joy just to stand here and gawk at him without his shirt on.

He had an intricate series of flames that were etched on the left side his chests. They wrapped over his shoulder and around the upper part of his arm ending just above his elbow. Below the Fire Circle markings was a large hand print that looked like it was a very recently acquired sparring injury. It was red and just starting to heal.

Without breaking his stare, he raised his right hand in the air. Then the lights from each of the tiny lanterns went out one by one to join and form a larger flame heading right at us. Just when the fire looked like it was about to engulf us completely, he shot the flames directly into the air above us, and they burst into a dazzling show of fireworks. A moment later, the ground beneath us started to shake and rumble deep within the earth's core. Before I even knew what was happening, he had poured hot molten lava over the path in front of us.

"Very cute," I said, looking at the glowing lava heart on the ground. The drawing was quickly cooling off turning a dark charcoal color in a few spots. "I've heard of carving your initials into a tree before, but this drawing takes that practice to a whole new level." I rubbed my hands together to trying to warm them, then held them out toward the heart hoping to pick up some its extra warmth. "Anything else I should know you can do?" I flirted.

"Well, I can keep your hands warm, but I don't think that's what you meant." He chuckled and took my hand in his. "Here, hold your hand upright, like this," he said, turning over my hand. "Okay, now close your eyes and think warm thoughts."

I laughed, "You're kidding, right?"

"No, no, for real. Just give it a try, will you?"

"Warm thoughts, like in hot chocolate or like sitting by a campfire or that I'm standing next to a lava drawn heart?" I asked.

"I don't know. You tell me. Open your eyes."

"Now?"

"Uh-huh."

When I looked down, I could see cradled in the palm of my hand a tiny flickering flame. He lit me on fire! My first instinct was to do the stop, drop, and roll thing they taught us in first aid class last summer, but oddly my hand didn't hurt. No sooner than that thought had entered my head, I jerked my arm out of his grasp in a physical reaction to what I was looking at, causing the little light to go out. "Are you crazy?"

"Wren, I don't think you—"

"What, that I understand that you just lit my hand on fire?" I snapped, looking at my hand to see if there was a burn mark or blisters of some sort—but nothing, not even a hint of redness was apparent on my skin.

"See, not even a mark," he commented, taking my hand back and kissing the ends of my fingers. He then placed my hand against the inky flames on his chest, and the fiery mark instantly came alive with movement. I watched the flaming animation in amazement, feeling its warmth grow beneath my fingers, pulling me in, making me feel some way connected to them, to him. Looking up and could see his eyes were glowing a warm amber hue, with a single red stone on his leather pulsing on and off. "See, my fire sweep yields to your touch." He dragged my hand along the markings. The flaming etchings danced and alternated in color as our fingers brushed over them. "It recognizes its fire ring on you. That's why you can hold my flame. If anyone else tried to run their hand against my sweep, they would have some pretty nasty burn marks. That's for sure."

"Sweeps, rings, flourishes, I'm going to need to start keeping notes." I could see him cringe when I said the word flourish. "Sage's mark doesn't look like yours." Or Kellan's, I thought, not daring to say his name aloud.

"You're right," he said, lifting our hands off his chest to interlace our fingers. "That's because she and Robin would both have insignia circlets. That's what most people have. Only those that belong to the Fire, Water, Core or Sky courts would have sweeps."

"Really? I don't understand. I don't have an insignia or a sweep."

He smirked, "Of course you don't. Nobody gets theirs until they come of age at eighteen, and that's not until later this month for you."

"You remember when my birthday is?"

"Um, well," he said looking at the ground. "We were supposed to be partnered on your eighteenth birthday. It's an Acklemarian tradition for a couple to pair on the woman's birthday. I guess that would make it hard for me to forget September twenty-fourth, huh? Did you know you were an equinox baby?" He turned and started walking toward the house with me following.

I shook my head no, "So, I have until my birthday to give you my decision?"

"Uh, almost," he hesitated. "The date for equinox varies every year. It falls on one of three days, either the twenty-second, twenty-third or twenty-fourth. This year it's on the twenty-second."

I would have known that if I had asked Gran like I had planned to do before I left the house. Nineteen days, I counted. I had nineteen days to figure out the rest of my life. No pressure or anything.

(KELLAN SPEAKING)

Freaking Jaxon. Typical of him to run away from a fight he started. I stared at my smoldering porch with a big chunk the stairs now missing from them. I hope that car costs him a fortune to get fixed, and they take their sweet time doing it too.

My hand throbbed like crazy when I moved it. Heat blisters covered my palm. Well, if I was looking for a reason to visit Wren later tonight, I now had one. Rosemary had to have something in her cupboard that would help. Ah the justice, if Jaxon only knew that was the ultimate result of his little temper tantrum he might actually go nuclear.

I'd already cleaned up most of the mess, and I was just about to go back inside when a car turned up the driveway with its headlights on. Ugh, don't people use phones anymore?

I turned on the porch lights and locked the door. Then I saw whose car it was, and of course, the she-devil herself, Jessica was driving it. This day kept getting worse. The only highlight today was seeing Wren rip apart the kitchen, and extinguish Jaxon's little emotional fit. I don't know how she tapped into me, but I could feel her presence wrap around me, knitting and tying into my core. I had no idea what it meant, but I hadn't been this hopeful about winning her heart, since before she disappeared.

Jessica and Lizzy got out of the car and headed toward the cabin. There was no way I was letting her and her comrade come in. She'd already fried my TV use, and if she blew up my fridge with the remainder of my beer in it, I might just have to declare war on them. Yeah, better to use some finesse and angle for some co-operation.

"Jessica, Liz, nice to see you," I mumbled.

"Hmmm, I see my cousin has paid you a little visit." I stuffed my hand painfully into my pocket. There was no way I was giving her anything more to gloat over while she was here. "Kellan, you're being rude, aren't you going to invite us in?"

I'd rather her burn down the other half of the porch and make me permanently crawl in through a window to get in than let her inside for even one minute. "I was just leaving to get a few things to take care of this," I lied, pointing to the hole in the stairs, I doubted anything would even be open.

"Oh." She pouted. "I thought maybe we could finish our little chat, but perhaps you're right. Maybe you should take care of the messy reminder that Jaxon left you. I wouldn't want to you to trip and break you neck on all those missing stairs. That would make it tough for us to unite our realms that way. While you're fixing things, do you think you can air out the place as well? You know how I don't like my stuff smelling like a campfire when I stay over."

I didn't like what she was suggesting, especially with Lizzy overhearing every word. "Jessica, the one time you were invited to stay at the Water Circle citadel, you fell asleep in front of the fireplace in the common room. The way you're making it sound we..."

"I know. If we had, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Anyway, it's only a matter of time that you and I, well," she paused like she didn't know whether or not to continue, "I know Jaxon has something special planned for Wren on their date tonight."

"Are you done?" I know I was.

"Not quite." She smiled and ran her hand along the railing. "One last thing." She walked up the remaining of steps and leaned into me as if she was going to whisper something so that only I could hear it. Then turned and boldly kissed my cheek leaving behind her greasy lipstick impression. "Just a little something to remember me by."

Not if she was the last option in the universe would I consider her as a match again. "I've got to go." I tried to ignore the intense desire to scrub the side of my face off with the back of my hand. I took two steps and jumped over the hole in the stairs and landed next to Lizzy, leaving Jessica behind on the porch. "See you around, Liz."

I walked over to my truck, hopped in, and started the engine. I drove away, leaving the girls behind in the smoldering smoke. I had no idea what Jaxon had up his sleeve now, but it was obvious, he was playing for keeps. I was halfway down the driveway when my cell phone started vibrating in my back pocket. I fished it out while I kept one hand on the steering wheel. When I glanced quickly at the screen, all I got while I was driving was that the text was from Sage, the first word read—urgent.

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