by Larissa Ladd
After an undeterminable time, Aira heard movement from a distance. She and Dylan had looked at each other, but had no way of knowing whether or not there were guards listening in to prevent an escape. Instead, they exchanged pleasantries while they both writhed with discomfort, speculating as to where they were and what was going to happen to them. Aira’s mind had finally fallen on the idea that, if she could manage to gather enough strength, she could try and find a way to unlock the bracelets on Dylan. The fire-aligned material would have no effect on her, just as the earth-aligned iron would have no effect on Dylan. If she could get him free of his restraints, he might be able to use some of his magic to break her free.
A short man entered the room, immaculately dressed in a tailored suit. Aira stared at him as he approached. He wasn’t awful to look at. He had dark hair and eyes with a medium-dark skin tone. He clearly took a great deal of pride in his appearance. His hair was close-cropped to his head, his face smoothly shaven, and Aira thought she saw the glint of manicured nails as he folded his hands in front of him, stopping a few feet away from where she and Dylan sat, trapped. He smiled slowly at the two of them, and Aira found herself immediately resenting him. He was undoubtedly the owner of the house and the mastermind behind her abduction. Even if what he wanted was perfectly reasonable, Aira was suddenly determined to make sure he didn’t get it.
“Aira.” The man said, coming closer to her. His voice was thin and reedy, surprising compared to his muscular build. “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”
Aira scowled at him, feeling the pain pulse through her system from the iron that felt like it was crushing her slowly but steadily. “If you’re so sorry, then perhaps you will do me a favor and get rid of these stupid bindings, you asshole.” Aira kept her voice sarcastically sweet.
The man shook his head, frowning slightly in a mockery of regret. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he replied. He seemed to take no offense to the name calling. “I have to admit, you are even more beautiful than your pictures.” Aira raised an eyebrow, wondering where the man was going with that comment. She tried to push back the fog filling her mind. It was affecting her mind more slowly than her body, but the iron was insidiously breaking down every last ability she had as a creature of air. She had to get rid of it somehow.
“Why should that matter?” Aira asked him. She took deep breaths, trying to suppress the pain she felt in every inch of her body. She didn’t glance at Dylan, but she wondered what he was thinking, what plan he was coming up with. He was, after all, the one in the business of protecting and investigating people; he should know what to do in the situation.
“I have decided to ally myself with your family.” The man told Aira, coming closer as he became more accustomed to her state of debility.
He was only a few feet away, within kicking distance. Aira tried to gather the strength to kick him.
“Or rather, I believe you will find it in your best interest to ally yourself with my family.”
Aira 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 as neutral as possible. 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. Aira 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 be able to run, so the ones on your ankles are staying to hobble you.”
Aira 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 will agree to become my betrothed.”
Aira 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 Aira 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 currently 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 of the bracelets, murmuring something Aira 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.
Aira’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 nothing but 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 be able to get some clue from him as to how to get out of this.
“You know,” Aira 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.”
Aira 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.
Aira thought to herself how thoroughly she hated the man in front of her, and how very much she wanted to watch him die. Aira glanced at Dylan, saw that he was watching them intently. “Do you think, husband-to-be,” Aira licked 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. Aira 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.
Aira 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 was going to keep it even though she was most vehemently not going to keep the man who had given it to her.
Aira’s legs were weak, heavy from the iron on her ankles. Instead of bracelets, they were actual shackles, and Aira 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. Aira 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.
Aira 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 find a way to get them off of him. She looked up into Dy
lan’s brown eyes. “We have to be quick,” she said. “He could come back any minute.” Dylan nodded. Aira took the ring off of her finger and handed it to Dylan. “Hold onto this for me,” she said. Dylan snorted, the pain in his eyes receding slightly as he appreciated Aira’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 of some kind, running her fingers along the metal cuffs. She almost missed in 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 Aira could see he was trying to figure out what he should do.
Aira was stumped; looking down at the shackles, she couldn’t think of a way in which Dylan’s magic would be able to remove them.
“I’ll get you out of here, we’ll find Aiden and he’ll be able to take those off,” Dylan said. He shook his head. “My abilities aren’t strong enough.”
Aira nodded. They needed to get out of the mansion, first and foremost. 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 make any decisions about how to get out, however, Phillip was back. He spotted Aira 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. Aira tried to move away, but the iron was weighing her down too thoroughly. Phillip grabbed her arm, and started to pull her up onto her feet. “You really think a water elemental is going to 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 Aira and Dylan had been carried through. Dylan stood up quickly, reaching out and grabbing Phillip’s arm, murmuring something under his breath Aira recognized as a spell. Phillip’s grip on her loosened and Aira 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. Aira 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.”
Aira smiled faintly at the sound of the familiar voice. She looked beyond the two combatants and watched Aiden 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. Aira wasn’t sure if she felt relieved or annoyed at his presence. She and Dylan would have handled the situation.
Aiden 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.” Aiden said, looking as unconcerned as ever. “Be a shame for it to all go up in smoke like your door just did.”
Aira 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.
Aira wondered just how much magic Phillip had at his disposal and how effectively Dylan’s spell had rendered him helpless. “I would have the police after you worldwide. There would be nowhere for you to hide.”
Aiden shook his head, tossing the ball of fire idly and catching it. “What would you tell them? That three elementals destroyed your house with magic because you kidnapped two of them? I can see that holding up…particularly once the elders hear about it.”
Phillip was shaking with rage and Aira thought that someone in the room finally understood how she felt. She shuffled heavily, the iron shackles rattling as she did, echoing the jolts of pain every movement sent shooting up her legs.
“Phillip.” She kept her voice as strong as possible. “You should have known better than to chain up an air elemental.”
Phillip didn’t look at her, too captivated by the threatening fire Aiden was wielding.
Aira looked around and found a heavy vase. She gritted her teeth and picked it up, glancing at Dylan, who was gathering water around the two of them, condensing the vapor in the air into a kind of fog to protect them from his brother’s pending attack. Aira smiled to herself in spite of the pain she was feeling, the weakness continued to spread up from her legs.
“Hey, Aid!” She called out, hefting the vase in her hands. Aiden glanced at her, raising an eyebrow at her use of a nickname.
“Don’t call me that.” He formed another orb of fire, not quite taking his attention off of Phillip.
Aira could see the wealthy earth elemental was considering his options. He crouched down and began murmuring. Aira realized what he was going to do; he was going to call to the earth underneath the home, start a localized earthquake that would knock them all around—all except for Phillip.
Dylan was too absorbed in his spell to do anything to prevent it. Aiden saw what the man was doing and pulled his arm back, a fireball in hand. He launched the flames toward Phillip just as Aira made her move. She heaved the heavy vase and brought it down as hard as she could against the back of Phillip’s neck, falling to the ground next to him as she did. The fireball hit the chair beside them and lit almost instantly. The only thing that prevented the heat from affecting Aira was the cloud of vapor that surrounded her.
Aira struggled to get up knowing that, water vapor shield or not, she needed to get away from a fire that would quickly consume everything it could. Aiden rushed toward her and Aira looked down at Phillip, who was unconscious on the floor.
“Get these off of me right now!” Aira said to Aiden, pushing her feet towards him. Aiden looked down at the shackles. Dylan directed water toward the fire Aiden had started, putting it out. Aiden knelt at her feet and took the chain in his hands, murmuring. An intense heat began to rise between Aira’s ankles. A moment later the chain parted.
She wasn’t entirely free, the iron still constrained her, even if her movements weren’t limited by the chain. Still, she was relieved that freedom was in sight. Impulsively, Aira reached out and wrapped her arms around Aiden’s shoulders. She pulled him in close and kissed him hungrily. The heat generated between them was intense and for one moment she reveled in it. They tripped and fell to the floor together. Aiden pinned her against the rug, kissing her back with burning tongue and lips, his hands traveling over her body in quick, devastating movements that left Aira breathless.
Dylan shook them and cleared his throat. “We should probably get out of here, don’t you think?” He asked, pointing to the smoke still coming into the room from the hallway Aiden had entered by.
Aira pushed Aiden away from her, remembering in a flash she disliked the fire-aligned elemental in spite of his handy assistance in the previous moments. Dylan lifted her from the ground into his arms and gestured for Aiden to lead the way.
They walked through the smoldering hole that had previously been the impressive front door.
“Did you take care of the other people on the property?
Because they could probably detain us.” Aira felt comfortable in Dylan’s strong arms, though she would never admit it as he carried her toward the car.
“Oh, they’ve run off.” Aiden said, gesturing in the direction of the gate the van had brought them through.
Aira looked in the direction he had pointed and saw that, just like the door, it was smoldering wreckage. She nodded, satisfied.
“We could have handled ourselves, you know.” She said tartly, not wanting to admit Aiden’s presence had been helpful, or that he had been right about her safety. If Dylan hadn’t been there, if Aiden hadn’t been on their heels, she would have been in trouble. Her pride didn’t allow her to admit to them she might not have been able to get out of the situation.
Aiden snorted. “You could, you know, thank me.”
Aira rolled her eyes. “Please. We’d have figured it out without you blowing everything up.”
Dylan chuckled, his arms shaking as they held her. He got her into the passenger seat and climbed into the back while Aiden climbed into the driver’s side. Aira shifted in the seat and shuddered at the pain still affecting her from the iron that held her ankles. She also felt intensely embarrassed at kissing Aiden the way she had. What had come over her?
“Yes.” Aiden said sarcastically, starting the car. “I’m sure my brother would have been able to carry you all the way to civilization and you’d have found a welder or something to cut those things off of you.”
Aira crossed her arms over her chest, scowling at Aiden. “I didn’t say WHAT we would have done, just that we would have figured it out. You could have taken the actual shackles off of me, you know.” Aira couldn’t take her mind off of the kiss she and Aiden had shared; it was seared into her memory, as it were. His hands had glided along the curves of her body with ease, his touch hot even through her clothes, his lips and tongue intense, awakening a sudden lust inside of her Aira knew she would have easily given in to if Dylan hadn’t interrupted them. She wondered what Aiden thought about what had happened—if he was even thinking about it at all.