The Taming

Nice Try

Elsabet was furious at being a captive. Frantic in her desperation to cling to her defiance and looking for a way out.

And even more upset that I had her melting with wanting for me with a single, simple dream.

The vision he'd injected into her of things he wished to do to her beautiful body. In response she'd shouted threats of her escape.

She still doesn't realize what she's dealing with.

"Get comfortable." His breath sighed through the empty corridors like an eerie echo. "You'll be here as long as I desire it..."

"No." Eyes shooting through the darkness, she found him gone, yet somehow still here. Filling these walls. She was beginning to realize that in one way or another Sebastian was everywhere here.

***

Hours crept by, as Elsabet clawed for a way out.

Sebastian watched from the next room, feeling her movements through the wall.

Nothing had been built before that could hold her. It amused him.

She was beginning to look like a pet railing against domestication.

"Why am I here?" She called, inspecting every corner of the dim room for weakness.

She was thinking someone boasting a shapeshifting gold dragon in his arsenal of beasties certainly didn't need a valkyrie watching over his gates...

Elsabet pried boards from the shutters and revealed the window slit. Finding his magic sealing each.

Nice try.

"How is your magic everywhere?" She whispered in frustration.

It's not all my magic. It was the bond of a hundred immortal knights feeding it constantly.

***

Eventually, she sat on the ledge of the window slit and look down on the bailey below.

Go ahead and consider jumping. He knew he had a barrier over it that wouldn't let her out. He'd no intention of letting her go so easily.

Lifting her hand, she pushed on the invisible wall blocking her exit. It was relentless. Sending out a sparkling gold spiral that rippled from the window opening and over the walls. Like being inside a bubble.

As the hours lengthened, her stomach spoke louder. Objecting strenuously to her earlier pride.

I'd feed you if you'd tell me what you eat. He was beginning to worry.

Chavias' cautioning echoing in his mind. Warning him that a valkyrie needed plenty of food to sustain a bird's metabolism.

***

Sebastian kept Elsabet in WaterRose that first day, then another. Quite enjoying himself as he sat in his library or his chamber in the servant's quarters under the platform of the stairs.

Mardichi, a large redheaded barbarian and one of Bast's closest friends, arrived the following evening. Half-heartedly stomping off his boots in the foyer.

"Where are your magical cleaning elves at?" He peered around the corner into the parlor. His booming voice rattling the walls.

And my nerves.

"Probably hiding. You know they don't much like the look of you." Bast watched the barbarian strolling the foyer, dwarfing the entryway in his padded blue tunic and brown leather breeches. His mammoth size only rivalled by Acharius.

"That's because I'm large and they're," He pinched his finger and thumb together and raised his voice to depict their tininess. "wee little people."

Everyone is smaller than you.

Bast laughed and shook his head. "Certainly, it couldn't be your cheery disposition that drives them off."

"Most definitively not." He feigned appall. Striding toward the library behind Bast.

Sebastian recognized the familiar sound of a cask opening and the red barbarian taking a heady dram.

"So, I hear things were quite eventful at that wretched ball the other night?" Mardichi gave a satisfied smack. As he dropped into the blue chair near the fire making it creak in objection. He tossed his boots out in-front of him. Thick chunks of mud dropping to the floor from them.

Charming.

"Where were you?"

"I've been keeping my time on Lucien's Isle of Wight but it gets dreadful boring. The country is quite pleasant. But the women are so droll and boring."

"Don't they still sell slaves there."

"Aye." Mardichi agreed. "I'm considering taking one for my own."

"A woman?" Bast's voice rose. Clear disapproval on his face.

"Of course. Would you have me wandering ceaselessly all the time like ye?"

"With a slave, Mardichi?"

"I'll be kind to her. Better than the others that buy those women."

Bast glowered. Disdain written over his face.

"Don't look at me that way." Mardichi dismissed his disgust with a wave of his hand. "Remember what I am."

"What you were."

"Same. Enough talk of slaves." Mardichi shrugged. "So, tell me of these interesting events at the Ball? Quite amusing?"

"They were for me." Bast was still looking rather annoyed as he headed into the library. "I acquired a captive."

An enchanting one I've yet to figure out.

"Careful with those." Mardichi cautioned. "Taking women captive tends to be the downfall of our kind."

Forever Knights.

"I dearly hope so. She's stunning." Bast remarked off handedly as he stirred through his jar of roasted nuts to find a few he preferred.

"You're enamored?" Mardichi blinked huge blue eyes.

"I'm fascinated." Bast corrected as he slumped into his favorite red chair pushing over the glass jar of exotic nuts for Mardichi to partake.

"So tell me, Old Friend, what truly is the difference between a maid as a slave and a captive you intend to bed?"

Bast's lip curled. "I won't force her."

"Neither will I." Mardichi examined a large walnut. "Where do you get these?"

"From InnerCircle City. I regularly buy them from a man there."

A pleasant commoner there.

"Mane Country." Mardichi's eyes narrowed knowingly. "As an excuse to give him a bit o' coin, no doubt. He gives you information?"

"He's quite pleasant."

"That's rare." Mardichi grunted.

Shaking his head, he returned to the former topic with feigned sorrow. "I pity the woman."

"You should." Bast said. "I plan to find out everything about her, then woo her."

"That shouldn't take much. Look directly at her." Mardichi snorted. Stirring through the glass bowl for another walnut. "That usually works for ye."

"Is that bitterness in your voice?"

"Jealousy. Flat envy." Surrendering, Mardichi grabbed a handful from the dish between them, popping them in his mouth. "If women fell at me feet the way they stumble to bow at yers, I'd never leave me bed chamber." He grumbled. "I'd simply line them up and stay preoccupied."

A glance at Bast verified he no longer listened. "You're watching her, aren't ye?"