Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) - By Paula Flumerfelt Page 0,53
to set you free…” She made no moves to do so.
They started at each other for a few moments. “Then do it already!” Mathieu finally blurted out.
“You’re very rude, Mr. Mathieu.” She said, tossing her straight hair over her shoulders.
Rolling his eyes, he sighed “Fine. Hello mystery female. I’m Mathieu. Would you politely untie me?” Her voice was rather high pitched and his headache didn’t appreciate it.
Grinning, she patted his head like he was pet. “I am Kiev DeLandy. And why yes, I will.” She reached her hand out and dragged them along the glowing bonds, which slowly unraveled themselves and fell to the floor, harmless. “There you go. Now, Princess Avian is requesting you. Come.”
Standing was an excruciatingly painful task. He was about halfway out of the chair when his wounds decided that it was time to start protesting. So he stood there, half-hunched over, in pain that was threatening to cause a black out.
Seemingly taking pity on him, Kiev leaned down and helped slowly pull him to a fully standing position. “Better? I’ll get Adele to finish healing those…” She said, gently poking at his wounds.
Nodding numbly, he took a tentative step forward and found that he was okay with her help once he was fully standing. The place that he was being held was in the cellar or basement of a large manor. It was a well-cared for building, made almost entirely out of glass except for the few shiny metal support beams. He found this to be an odd feature, but kept his decorative comments to himself. Even to his untrained eyes, the place was clearly lived in. Mathieu vaguely wondered if Kiev lived here.
The room that they ended in was a long room with a heavy stone table set in its center. Avian was sitting on its edge, looking at some sort of schematic. Nathan was also there, as was the blond man, two girls he’d never seen, one blonde and one raven, Elise, and Mina. Mina and the blond man were seated beside each other and it struck Mathieu how similar they looked. Elise was chatting animatedly to Nathan, who was in turn paying attention to Avian, and the two girls stood off from the rest.
“Avian!” His voice cut through the room like a knife.
The woman turned and when she saw him, she beamed. “Mathieu!” She half-tossed the sheet of paper aside, jumping off the table and running to him.
He caught her up, hugging her tightly. “Are you okay? What’s going on? Who are all these people? Did they hurt you?” The urgency in his voice didn’t go unnoticed by her.
“No, I’m fine. Goodness what happened to your hair?” She said, wiggling to be put down and tugging on his uneven strands of hair. “Let me introduce you around. Let’s see, you already know Elise and Mina. I believe you met Nathan, you’ve been acquainted to Kiev so that just leaves…” Avian’s eyes swept to the two girls, “Adele and Josette. Adele is the blonde, she’s a healer, whereas Josette is a firestarter.” Adele peered over at him with a seductive grin, her blonde hair pulled over her shoulder in a shortish braid. Josette had a mass of curly black hair and she wrapped an arm protectively Adele’s waist.
Smiling at them, he raised a hand in greeting. Adele grinned and waved back energetically while Josette gave him a cold look that made him wish he was back in his little room.
“You’ve forgotten about me…” The blond man’s hands rested on the arms of his chair, eyelids lowered.
Mathieu’s gaze was captured by Solomon, and a weird tightening feeling spread across his chest. He broke the eye contact first, instead turning to look at Avian. “What’s going on here?”
“Well!” She hopped up to sit on the edge of the table again. “When Nathan’s men found us, he contacted Elise. She vouched for me and asked that we all talk.”
“Okay, so why are the rest of them here?” Mathieu said, staying protectively close to Avian.
She rolled her eyes. “Now who’s jumping at shadows? Mina and Elise came to see how I was doing, the girls live here, Solomon is Nathan’s right hand and Kiev is his left.” Her voice softened, “We’re among friends, okay?”
“How long has it been since…” Mathieu said, looking around at all of them except for Solomon.
Nathan cleared his throat. “ You’ve been here a week.”
“Oi…This is horrible.” Mathieu sat beside Avian, speaking directly to her. “Tesla