“Or maybe you can tell me what the hell you have against my town and those innocent people?” I started, slightly more irate.
“Or… I don’t know… maybe we can have a chat about what the fuck you are doing here???” I scowled, surprising even myself. I wasn’t one to curse. I had always considered it a sign of lack of emotional intelligence. Of a person who couldn’t express their feelings and thoughts without resorting to curses and insults. But this man brought me to such a state that I couldn’t even get hold of my own ideas, and the word simply snapped out of my mouth. Not that it mattered, it had absolutely no effect on the man who seemed to be using my voice as background noise to help him sleep better.
So, I continued talking through the night, asking question after question and when it became clear that all my attempts at conversation would be ignored, I even started reciting passages from textbooks and other documentation that I had to memorise for my thesis.
Sleep caught up with me late into the night and I fell into it so deeply that I almost missed Dahr’s departure in the morning. Luckily, he poured himself a glass of water from the jar that had been moved onto a chair and within my reach and the sound of liquid dropping woke me up. I immediately realised his plans to leave for the day and demanded my release.
Once more, he ignored me and made a move towards the exit, forcing me to shout at him and beg for his attention.
“Not my problem…” he finally addressed me after what seemed like an eternity.
“Do you honestly plan to leave me here, tied to the bed, for the entire day?” I shrieked and lifted my arm to attest the situation he planned to leave me in.
“Do I have any other option?” Dahr turned to me and took a step back inside. Closing the distance in between us just slightly.It was a small show of intent, and his interest might vanish in a split second, so I immediately jumped into action.
“I can’t spend the entire day tied to a bed frame,” I made sure to pose the affirmation as a simple observation and let him take the initiative. Or at least try to plant the idea inside his mind. Yet, like many of my conversations with this man, it failed to lift his interest.
“Why not?” he barely replied. Grunted was a more accurate description of what he did.
His question took me aback.
Was he seriously asking why I didn’t deserve to be left on my own for an entire day, ensnarled in a faerie camp?
“Because I am a person!” my voice elevated, and I wasn’t able to control it. “I have needs and feelings. Apart from just the physiological. I want to explore, I want to connect, I want to—”
“Escape!” he shouted, his voice so deep that it raised goosebumps all across my skin and the entire tent reverberated with his power. My skin felt ablaze, the entire room’s temperature rising to boiling levels, to the point where the air burnt my breath.
What was happening?
I had been in this tent for almost a week now and I never suffered from such a heat stroke before. It came instantly and settled deep within the skeleton of this tent.
“I apologise,” Dahr said as he took a breath in and, as soon as he did, the heat levels returned to a comfortable spring day.
“What just happened?” my tone came out low, hushed. Scared.
He stopped for a few moments and continued taking deep breaths, as if to calm himself. For once, I didn’t feel the need to interject and offered him space.
Had he been responsible for this rise in temperature? It happened when he’d shouted at me, showing me anger for thevery first time. Did he hold some sort of power over the climate? Was that why they were travelling up North?
“I would like to end our conversation here,” Dahr replied and moved to turn away from me once again, giving me a view of his naked back and…
“The flames!” I cried. “They…” I couldn’t believe my eyes. Yet I was sure of it. I had so many hours to study them and knew every single design from his back. “They moved…” I blinked in wonder, my words halting his steps, once again.
“You are too observant for your own good, March,” Dahr noted but did not look at me before he opened the tent flaps and made himself disappear into the day.
I cooked in a stew of my own rage throughout the day and thought about nothing but ways to get back at him.
The two women that refused to speak to me, Mira and Slatanya, brought me breakfast, lunch and dinner and they also picked up the necessities pot twice. They even brought me water to clean myself and towels to wipe my skin, as though to make an extra effort to compensate for my situation for the day.
Part of me expected Karisha to visit too, but when lunch passed and she hadn't arrived, I started thinking that she may have been in a little bit of trouble herself.
I felt bad for it, especially if I had done something to cause her a rough day. Amongst all of them, she had been the only one who spoke to me as a person and had tried to befriend me, even though she wasn’t a hundred percent truthful to me either.
Needless to say, I had nothing but time to plan my next conversation with Dahr. I thought about the precise words to say to him, putting extra care into not triggering anything that might spark his anger towards me. I even dared to take a seat on the side of the mattress and wait for him, making myself look more presentable and not wanting to give the impression that I was accepting my fate as a prisoner.
When the tent flaps opened however, all my plans fell into a crumble because Dahr arrived with a deep grimace and was covered in blood.
“Are you alright?” I wanted to walk towards him but managed to only stray away from the bed for a few steps before my binding pulled me back. “Argh…” I snarled and started pulling at it with anger, sick of this silliness. “Can you free me already?” I sighed and stopped wiggling my hand as my wrist started to hurt and the tie around it pressed on my veins.
