AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Or rather, I believe you will find it in your best interest to ally yourself with my family.”
Alma managed a shrug, carefully controlling her face to keep the pain from showing on it. “I have no interest in allying myself with any family,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. Her spite came back to the fore, and she continued. “Especially not with a family that has abducted me with a dirty trick and is uncivilized enough to keep me in discomfort in their home.”
The man looked at her sharply, his dark eyes trailing over her face. Alma felt herself trembling from the pain and lethargy working on her and tried to marshal her strength, to keep her anger alive enough to keep it from showing.
After a long moment, the man came closer giving her a significant glance. “Out of concern for your well-being,” he said, “I will remove the bindings on your wrists. I don’t want you to run, so the ones on your ankles are staying to hobble you.”
Alma felt a rush of excitement. The man hesitated at the last moment and withdrew a small box from his jacket pocket. He dropped to his knees in front of her. “This should be more romantic,” he said brusquely, “but, I will free your wrists if you agree to become my betrothed.”
Alma cursed in her mind, keeping her face steady. The man opened the box and revealed the ring. The stone was a stunning, huge emerald, set in a band Alma assumed was platinum from its intense brilliance. The platinum wouldn’t do anything to her, but the emerald would limit her abilities. She thought to herself the man was a fool if he thought she actually intended to go through with it, and the emerald at least was not as bad as the bracelets she had on.
“I agree,” she said, thinking to herself that she would very much enjoy if this man were killed. He put the ring on her finger and then touched each bracelet, murmuring something Alma didn’t understand—a spell. One she had no way of learning. The bracelets fell apart and the man took them and slipped them into his pocket.
Alma’s mind cleared slightly, and she shook her head, feeling as though she had been saved from being buried alive at the last moment. She looked up at the man who had coerced her into agreeing to an engagement and felt only anger for him.Charm, she thought, her mind gradually clearing itself of some of the malaise and lethargy that had come from the iron. She was still weak, still pathetically unable to put her abilities to use, but her mind was coming back to her slowly.Charm him, and you might get some clue from him as to how to get out of this.
“You know,” Alma said, making her voice sweet and polite once more, “I never thought I’d agree to be engaged to someone whose name I don’t even know.” The man smiled, remaining on his knees in front of her.
“Phillip,” he replied. “My name is Phillip Sall.”
Alma nodded, fluttering her eyelashes slightly. She licked her lips. “I must admit,” she said, maintaining her sense of charm, “as irritated as I am from the way you’ve gone about getting me to agree, I have to give you credit for the intelligence of your strategy.” Phillip smiled at the compliment.
Alma thought to herself how thoroughly she hated the man in front of her, and how very much she wanted to watch him die. Alma glanced at Dylan, saw he was watching them intently. “Do you think, husband-to-be,” Alma said, licking her lips, “that you could arrange a private meal for us? There are some things we should discuss. I wouldn’t want him to hear.” She gestured to Dylan.
“Of course, my wife-to-be,” Phillip said, more than contented now that he had gotten what he wanted with so little fuss. Alma felt the bile rising in her throat. “I will arrange that for us right now.” Phillip leaned in and kissed her briefly on the lips.
Alma wanted to vomit. She pushed back the impulse and watched as Phillip strode out of the room, whistling to himself. She glanced at Dylan, who was still writhing in discomfort from the bracelets that trapped him. She wondered what the sensation was like for him—if it burned. She shook her head and looked down at the ring, deciding that even if it was an emerald, it was a pretty one, and probably worth a lot of money. Out of spite alone he would keep it even though she was most vehemently not going to keep the man who had given it to her.
Alma’s legs were weak, heavy from the iron on her ankles. Instead of bracelets, they were actual shackles, and Alma wondered what kind of absurd dungeon her captor had raided to find them. She squirmed until she was at the edge of the seat and then fell to her knees, knowing she had to work quickly to do what she wanted to do. Alma crawled on her hands and knees towards Dylan, ignoring the pain that lanced up her legs with every movement. She focused on the end goal, on getting Dylan freed of the bracelets somehow and finding a way for him to help her out of the shackles. She reached him eventually, and stopped, holding herself up against the chair Dylan was seated in and catching her breath. Every shuffling movement had been like trying to pull a car.
Alma waited for a moment for the pain to subside and looked at the bracelets on Dylan’s wrists. They weren’t the same model as hers. She tried to get them off of him. She looked up into Dylan’s brown eyes. “We have to be quick,” she said. “He could come back any minute.” Dylan nodded. Alma took the ring off of her finger and handed it to Dylan. “Hold on to this for me,” she said. Dylan snorted, the pain in his eyes receding slightly as he appreciated Alma’s thought process.
She studied the bracelets, trying to think of a way to get them off. With most of the iron off of her, and the emerald away from her body, her mind grew clearer. She tried to find a clasp, running her fingers along the metal cuffs. She almost missed it in her rising sense of panic, but she finally found the seam and slipped her finger around to the other side of the first bracelet. She flipped the inner catch, and the bracelet sprung open, freeing Dylan’s wrist. She quickly worked on the other one as well and glanced at Dylan in amusement, slipping the bracelets into her pocket. She intended to keep those too, they might be valuable. Dylan shook off the lethargy and pain, and Alma could see he was trying to figure out what he should do.
Alma was stumped; looking down at the shackles, she couldn’t think of a way in which Dylan’s magic could remove them.
“I’ll get you out of here, we’ll find Finn and he’ll be able to take those off,” Dylan said. He shook his head. “My abilities aren’t strong enough.”
Alma nodded. They needed to get out of the mansion. As long as they could get away, they could take care of the rest between them. If nothing else, they could find someone who could break the chain or cut the shackles off.
Before they could decide on how to get out, however, Phillip was back. He spotted Alma on the floor, the ring off of her finger. His surprise and alarm turned into a deep scowl. “I should never have trusted the word of an air elemental so soon,” he said, striding up to the two of them. Alma tried to move away, but the iron was weighing her down too thoroughly. Phillip grabbed her arm and pulled her up onto her feet. “You really think a water elemental will be able to help you?” he asked, his expression haughty.
The next moment, chaos erupted. What sounded like an explosion rocked the room from the other side of the door Alma and Dylan had been carried through. Dylan stood up quickly, reaching out and grabbing Phillip’s arm, murmuring something under his breath Alma recognized as a spell. Phillip’s grip on her loosened and Alma struggled to pull away, tumbling back onto the floor.
While Phillip’s attention was on Dylan, she tried to think but the iron still clouded her thoughts too much. She shook her head, looking around. She couldn’t reach out to the wind, she couldn’t call upon any animals, and she couldn’t use any of the spells she had learned over the years. Her heart pounded quickly, but her mind moved slowly. The intense pain in her legs radiated up from where the shackles gripped her ankles. Before she could put her thoughts together, Dylan was murmuring another spell. Alma watched as he pulled all of Phillip’s strength from his body. He gripped both of his shoulders, while Phillip tried to wrestle him to the ground.
“Well, this is interesting.”
Alma smiled faintly at the sound of the familiar voice. She looked beyond the two combatants and watched Finn stride into the room, a billow of smoke behind him.
Dylan and Phillip both looked at the new participant who stood several feet away, his bright blue eyes almost glowing as he took in the struggle going on. Alma wasn’t sure if she felt relieved or annoyed at his presence. She and Dylan would have handled the situation.
Finn rubbed his hands together quickly and a fire sprung up between them, forming into a crackling ball. “Lot of nice stuff you’ve got here, Phillip,” Finn said, looking as unconcerned as ever. “Be a shame for it to all go up in smoke like your door just did.”
Alma pulled herself up onto her feet, gripping a chair for support. She gritted her teeth against the pain, wishing she could do more for herself than simply stand up.
Phillip pulled back from Dylan, apparently deciding the brother with the fire was the more important enemy at the moment.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Phillip said.
