Free elemental 01 - whirlwind by Larissa Ladd Page A

bitterly, taking refuge in anger to avoid the fear bubbling under the surface. The meeting had been concluding, everything had seemed more or less normal. She stood to shake hands with the new client and leave. The very next moment, she felt herself suddenly crippled, pain shooting through her body. Alarmed, she had looked down to see an iron bracelet locked onto her wrist. The pain was intense, rocking Aira’s body from head to toe. She saw Dylan start to stand when another person—one who hadn’t been in the room before—came up behind him and murmured something before knocking him unconscious with some form of magic. The “new client” locked another iron bracelet on Aira’s other wrist, intensifying the pain. She fell to her knees, groaning in helpless misery. It was a dirty trick, she thought, fuming as the two men gathered her and Dylan and carried them out. Aira’s old client had left the room halfway through the meeting, saying he needed to attend to a business matter, but he trusted they would come to an agreement.
    Aira quickly remembered Aiden had put his number as a speed-contact into her phone. She suspected he would have a way to track her, but didn’t know how. She managed to gather enough energy to dial out, and saw it connect. Her anger overcame her at that point and, as they took her and Dylan outside, she screamed to be let go, kicking and twisting in spite of the terrible pain that shot through her body every time the iron bracelets brushed against her skin. It was magic of an ancient sort—a type Aira had learned about, but had never had occasion to use. She managed one good kick at her assailant before he bundled her into the cleared back area of an unmarked van, reaching out for a pair of iron shackles. She kicked more vigorously. Her phone fell from her hands onto the floor of the van. Her assailant saw it and threw it out through the open door before falling on her and holding her down while he locked the shackles around her ankles.
    Aira had time to reflect on her situation while the two strangers drove them away from her client’s office, silent in the front seats of the van. Dylan still had not recovered, but Aira hoped he had managed to get word out to his brother. Even if he didn’t, she thought angrily, she would find a way out of her predicament. Glancing at Dylan’s unconscious form nearby, Aira knew she was responsible for him as well. The iron bracelets made her ache bone deep, their ancient magic sapping away at her strength. For a while, she knew, anger would remain useful to her, would keep her energy up, but long enough in the restraints and she would fall into an utterly helpless exhaustion. Iron, an earth-aligned metal, quintessentially associated with that element, had the power to “ground” any air elemental. The magic came from the magical associations that each element, and elemental, had. Since earth was in almost all ways opposed to air as an element, it pulled air down in a sense, the magical items associated with it carried the power to sap the abilities and strength of air elementals. The pain was a side-effect, a particularly galling one in Aira’s current situation. She tried to lie as still as possible, tried to push her sleeves down between her skin and the iron bracelets on her wrists, but it was no use.
    As long as the restraints were on her, she wouldn’t have access to her elemental abilities. Her mind would be the last thing to go. She would maintain her intelligence and her willpower the longest, since that was so central to her being. But she couldn’t call the wind, she couldn’t call for any of the animals she had dominion over, she couldn’t do any air-related magic while she was trapped in the iron. Aira’s fear rose to greater prominence than her anger, and she felt a sharp panic. She didn’t know the men who had taken her and Dylan, or what they wanted. She only knew they were elementals, or at least familiar with magic associated with