Sold

7: Plan

I close my eyes, trying to ignore the conflicted feelings running through my chest.

Why do I have ANY romantic thoughts about this strange new mysterious Draconian Master of mine? Why do I find him more attractive and compelling than the man I was meant to be with eternally? My dragon mage Master is dangerous and surely he's alone here in this mysterious and beautiful mansion for a reason.

I detest him. He's keeping me here - holding me hostage against my will! This is not the kind of situation to find anyone handsome in, especially not my captor. Or owner. Or whatever he is!

I grab the flour pastry, raise it to my mouth angrily, and take my first bite the soft shell breaks open across my tongue. It's baked to perfection - flaky, dabbed with sugary oil, and filled with a fluffy air pocketed center - with a tinge of woody flavor as if it's been cooked over a fire.

The flour itself has a pleasant nutty flavor, that bleeds into the sugary taste of the cooked herra root. The junaberry sauce tops everything off, spilling a burst of sweet berry flavor down over the mellow aune leaves.

The dish is the best thing I've ever tasted and it melts my negativity away like magick.

A flurry of curious thoughts spark back into my brain, and the same intrigued feeling comes over me that I had when my eyes wandered across Master Synn as he led me through the mansion.

Did Master Synn cook this for me? Does he have a servant who makes meals for him? No, of course, he doesn't if he hadn't had a slave before me. Did he pick it up from somewhere? No explanation seems to make sense. Could he have used magick to make this? Did he make it by hand and summon the ingredients with magick?

If he did actually cook this, he's far more talented than the cooks in my village; they could hardly throw together meat stew, let alone a delicacy of a shelled berry dish. I'm not entirely sure if Draconians can use magick for cooking or summoning food, but it tastes so wonderful I have to assume they must be able to.

I've honestly never seen anything like this dish. And I have no idea what the Draconians actually eat, but it must be far classier than what I'm used to.

Why does this delicious food have to make me so weak? I want to stay mad! I want to hate him!

As the sweetness of the meal tingles my tongue, I hear a familiar sound outside the bedroom window - the crunch of wagon wheels against the stone-paved entryway. I put my half-eaten food down and press my ear against the closest wall. There's nothing else to do here, so perhaps eavesdropping will keep me from thinking any dark, lonesome things.

"Tell me where...is, or..." The voice doesn't belong to Synn, or Fexen, or anyone else I recognize. It is male - raised and frantic - and very hard to fully understand through the thick estate wall. Why couldn't Master Synn have built his estate with very thin, easy-to-listen-through walls, instead?

"Who sent you?" Master Synn's voice is shockingly clear, although he is not screaming like the other man. He must be closer to the house, perhaps even standing right outside of this exact wall. "Which one of them?"

"Vyl-" A sharp, bloodcurdling scream Pierce's the man's words. All the talking stops. I wait for what feels like an eternity with my ear against the wall, but I never hear the wagon pull away.

Eventually, I give in. The wagon is never leaving. I turn toward the table - staring at my half-eaten meal - but I no longer feel hungry. An uncomfortable sinking weight hangs in my stomach, mixed with a buzz of anxiety in my chest.

The scream. The abrupt cutoff. The wagon never leaving. It was almost as if the man was... Almost like Master Synn had...

Visions of Master Synn hurting and killing the man cross through my brain. Would he do something like that? Would he ever kill someone? How dangerous is my new Master, really?

My heart clenches inside my chest, and I press my hand against it to try to calm it back down. It's beating so fast I worry it may give up and stop beating forever.

I try to stay rational but ways to escape this dangerous prison slip through my brain as quickly as I conjure them. Can I find anything to open this locked door? No key, nothing to pry it open, and no small object to try to fit into the lock. There is nothing of any real use that Master Synn left in the room with me.

There is no way out. I'm trapped in this house with a possibly murderous Draconian. I'll either die here from starvation, boredom, a bad escape attempt, or by my Master's own hand. Do Draconians eat meat? His teeth did look a little sharp, a bit pointed...

I was right. He IS evil. I DO hate him. He's terrifying and I have to get out of here. I don't care how handsome he is or how...confused I feel when he's around me. Or the fact that he put me in a beautiful room inside an awe-inspiring house. I don't care how heavenly the food he gives me is, either. He's a killer and I'm trapped in here with him.

I draw in a rattled breath of air and slowly release it through my nose. There has to be some way out of here. Yes, I can't escape through the lock or a window or a wall, but maybe I'm thinking about this wrong.

If I am "well behaved" enough if I could earn special privileges, like going outside of the house or possibly even beyond the barrier? If I put up a good and obedient act, would my Draconian Master fall for that? 

If there's any good in the man at all, surely he would. No one in their right mind would keep someone well behaved on a tight leash eternally. I will prove to him that I deserve privileges and escape when he least expects it.

It isn't like there's any other way out of here.