The Fire Immortal-Book 5

Chapter 4

Here's the next chapter! :D Sorry for the delay, but I had my mock school exams which literally just ended, thankfully. Please vote and comment for it! I really hope you guys like this chapter. :D Picture of Dahlia McLean on the side. 

Chapter 4

                      Dahlia stared at Varmer, her blue eyes wide with horror and shock. Varmer felt a smile slide across his face at the power he had over her. Right now, she was just where he wanted her to be: completely under his control and wanting information that only he could provide.

                      Dahlia struggled to sit up, tugging her hands at the iron cuffs that chained her hands to the bed. They burned against her wrists when she tried; she winced but didn't cry out. She didn't want to give Varmer the satisfaction of him seeing her in pain. Glancing down at her wrists, she struggled to keep her face neutral as she saw the forming blisters and burns on her skin.

                     But as much as Dahlia didn't want to show Varmer that he had gotten through to her, she still desperately needed to know what he meant. She knew that her parents had been on opposite sides in the war and that her father, Philip, had basically been a replacement for her mother's first love, Ellis, but she didn't know that Varmer had sent him. It made sense though for Philip had been Varmer's minion when he had been alive. But Dahlia had harboured the hope, a secret one, that her parents had genuinely fallen in love and that her father hadn't been forced into creating her. But now it seemed like Varmer was behind even that.

                   She warred inside her for a moment, desperate not to seem needy of Varmer's information and yet simply dying to know what he meant. Varmer waited patiently, knowing that he had caught Dahlia in a trap.

                   "Tell me," Dahlia said- almost begged- in a strangled voice, despite her eagerness not to sound exactly as desperate as she was feeling.

                     Varmer's lips curled into a smile, a sinister expression that made Dahlia's skin crawl. Like other people were happy about being with friends or winning fights, all Varmer seemed to be pleased about was having power; whether it was magical abilities, physical strength or information over others, it didn't matter, as long as it was there.

                    "I don't see why I should," Varmer mused. "You've got nothing to give me in exchange for information."

                   Of course she did, but she didn't know what it was. Varmer felt smug inside... but then his confidence started to crumble as Dahlia started smirking. Maybe she did know. But how? Yes, he had given orders to his army to capture her and Troy, not kill them, but had she figured out on her own exactly what Varmer needed from her?

                   "You need me alive," Dahlia told him, smirking. "You can force-feed me, torture me for information even, but whatever happens, you cannot threaten to kill me. I know you need me alive."

                     Varmer challenged her; maybe he could bluff it out. "Why would I possibly need you alive? You have an inflated sense of your own importance."

                     Dahlia raised an eyebrow sceptically. "Excuse me, you're a fine one to talk," she retorted. "You told your army not to kill Troy and me; they were only allowed to capture us. When I was here the first time, you charmed Troy and you tortured me, after you had claimed him, but didn't kill us. Later, when we had escaped from here and my father had kidnapped us, he kept us in cells and left us alive. I may not know why you want me alive, but you do."