Leaning forward, she picked it up, a loud cry leaving her lips as her ankle flared with pain. “Crap!” she hissed, hopping back on her good ankle while shutting the door. “What is with my ankle? Am I allergic to my anklet?”
That made her freeze. She did not want to be allergic to her jewelry because that would mean she would have to remove it. Hopping into her kitchen, she laid the flower down on the countertop and leaned over to get a vase, sighing in relief as the burn became less intense.
“Maybe it is time to remove it, at least for a few hours,” she tried to convince herself as she poured water into the vase. “At least to check for a rash or something.” Her fingers reached out for the flower and the second they made contact, her ankle once again burst into shards of stinging pain.
Screaming, she dropped the flower and grabbed hold of her ankle, hopping back and forth on her one foot as she tried desperately to unhook the anklet. “Crap, crap, crap,” she hissed as tears ran down her cheeks. Hopping to the closest chair, she sat down and scrambled for the clasp on the anklet. It seemed to take forever as she fiddled around it, trying to find the small item. Finally, when she was about to pull out some ice and pour it over her foot, she found it.
Grasping the small lever, she pulled and screamed.
The lever pulled back, but when she pulled at the metal to pull it off her ankle, it seemed to be adhered to her skin. Yanking at it, she finally made it budge, letting out another scream when her skin tore. “Holy crap! What am I going to do? The thing has become a part of me!” Before she could try to think logically, noise erupted from her doorway.
“Auntie Ari!” three tiny voices called.
“Crap!” Ari looked at her ankle where a thin line of blood visibly trickled down her foot and between her toes. Grabbing the closest hand towel, she shut the lever on the clasp to keep it in place until she could have it removed and wrapped the towel over it.
“Just a minute!” she called back, standing up and limping slightly out to the living room.
Jane was getting the girls settled on the couch so at first she did not notice her sister. When she did look over, her eyes narrowed. “Ari, what’s wrong?”
Shaking her head and putting on a fake smile, Ari smiled at her nieces. “Hey, Kari, Nell, Shasta, guess what I have for you?”
“What Auntie Ari?” they chimed together, making her grin. Who knew identical triplets could be so cute? They all had their father’s coloring with their bright red hair and deep green eyes. Add in their cherubic faces, and she didn’t see how anyone could not fall in love with them on sight.
Grabbing the pigs, she tossed them at the girls. With squeals of delight, they wrestled with them, and before long they were playing quite happily, ignoring the two adults in the room.
“While they are playing, let’s take care of that foot,” Jane said quietly, grabbing Ari’s hand and dragging her into the kitchen. While Ari watched her, Jane efficiently put the flower in the vase and placed it on the counter before wetting down a couple of hand towels. Then she walked past Ari, returning a few minutes later with antibiotic cream and some bandages.
“So, what happened?” she asked, patting the countertop as her way of giving Ari the direction to hop up there.
“Not sure.” Ari winced, hopping over and up onto the fake granite. “I got this anklet about a week ago and it has been just fine, but for the last day I’ve been having some reactions to it. When I tried to remove it, I tore my skin.”
Shaking her head, Jane removed the towel and quickly cleaned up the dried blood. Turning Ari’s ankle this way and that, she asked, “How does it feel now?”
“It is still burning.”
Frowning, Jane looked up at her. “Where’s the clasp?”
“Oh, it’s hard to find. Just a second.” Fumbling around, Ari found the small lever. “Here.” She pulled it up gingerly and left it.
Jane grabbed the lever and lifted it slightly. “Oh dear, I see what you mean.” Letting her fingers trail along the top of the anklet, she tried to get her nails underneath it. “Um, Ari? The whole thing seems stuck to your ankle. What’s it made of?”
“I’m not quite sure.”
Turning, Jane exited the kitchen for a moment, coming back with some hydrogen peroxide. “Place your ankle over the sink.”
Knowing she looked real stupid, Ari moved as quickly as possible to do so. Her ankle still burned and she wanted the thing off…almost as much as she wanted to leave it on. Jane poured the peroxide on top of the jewelry making Ari squeak.
“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Jane chided.
“It’s not that,” Ari whined. “Don’t hurt the anklet.”
Jane looked up at her, her mouth partially open. “Don’t hurt the anklet? Ari, this thing is hurting you.”
“I don’t care. I will wear something between the anklet and me if I have to, but I don’t want to lose it.”
Rolling her eyes, once again Jane tried to run her fingernail between the anklet and Ari’s skin. “Shit!” Jane hissed.
“What?” Ari cried out, afraid Jane had broken it.
Lifting her hand, Jane showed off her extremely nice manicured set of nails. Except for one which was now torn.
“Oh.” Ari looked at her sister in surprise. Jane had had long fingernails as long as Ari had remembered; ever since their mother had allowed her to get her first manicure. “What happened?”
“The anklet just severed the nail. How strange.” Not to be deterred, Jane grabbed the peroxide, lifted up the latch, and poured it where the skin had torn.
A hiss escaped Ari’s lips, but that was all the sound she made as the cold liquid met her torn skin.
“Well, there are no bubbles, so at least there is no infection,” Jane said cautiously, as she pulled lightly at the anklet, trying to make it come away from her sister’s body. Finally, she re-latched the clasp and looked up. “Ari, I think you need to go to the emergency room and have that thing removed.”
Groaning, Ari shook her head. She hated doctors and hospitals more than anything in the world. Even if she didn’t, she had the feeling they would be more likely to want to cut it off and she was not about to allow that. “I’m sure it will come off. Later, I will take a nice hot bath, and I bet it releases then.”
Frowning, Jane rinsed Ari’s ankle and wrapped it in gauze. “Well, keep an eye on it. If it looks like it is becoming infected, call me, and I will take you to the emergency room right away.” She stood up and leveled her most motherly gaze at Arwen. “Tomorrow you call your normal doctor and have him remove it. Understand?”
Groaning, Ari whipped her body around and hopped off the counter, only wincing slightly as she landed. “Yes, Mom.”
Smiling, Jane turned to the flower. “Where did you get this? It’s quite beautiful.”
Ari’s eyes settled on the strange flower that had three deep red petals shaped like helicopter blades surrounded by a bevy of white fuzz. The center of the flower was a deep black, deeper than she had seen in any flower before. It was captivating and rather unsettling to look at.
Shaking her head, Ari took the vase, hissing as the burn exploded in her ankle, but tried to ignore it, at least as long as Jane was nearby. “Somebody left it on my doorstep. I’m not even sure what kind of flower it is.”
“It’s gorgeous. When you find out, let me know. I would love to have some in the house.”
After placing the flower on her bedside table, she went back into the living room, glad the burn was settling into just heat. Now it felt like a light sunburn—that she could handle.
For two hours, Ari and her sister talked and played with the triplets while eating the cinnamon rolls Jane brought. It was so nice Ari practically forgot how bossy Jane had been about men lately. Almost as soon as she thought that, Jane ruined it.
“So, any interesting men online?” Jane asked without looking at her sister.
Shaking her head at the irony, she wondered if she hadn’t thought it would Jane have mentione
d anything, Ari nodded. “Well, most of the emails have been from dorks, but I did get a really nice message last night from a guy that sounds…decent.”
Jane whipped her head around so fast, Ari was surprised her sister didn’t get whiplash. Jane beamed. “Oh, do tell.”
Grinning, Ari told her the little she knew. “Well, I’ve just received the one email and sent one back, but he seems nice. He works in a library, too. Terrian also seems to have a great sense of humor.”
“Terrian?” Jane asked with interest. “Oooh, that’s the kind of name for tall, dark, and handsome heroes in romance novels. Is he tall, dark, and handsome?”
Laughing, Ari shrugged. “Well, he seems to be dark and handsome. I don’t know how tall he is. Did I mention, he has a great sense of humor?”
“Ooh!” she said, her eyes bright and wide. “Which site was it from?”
“The dimension one.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” Jane responded eagerly. “Erica and Danielle both met their husbands through there and said they knew there was something special about the guy with the first message.” Squealing she jumped up and hugged Ari, embarrassing her little sister. “Oh, I know you are going to meet someone wonderful, Arwen.” Clapping her hands just like her daughters, she turned her attention back to them.
By the time they left thirty minutes later, Ari felt really good about Terrian’s message and decided to check for a new one. The burn in her ankle was negligible now, so she turned on the computer and sat back. Once her email program was up and running, she waited impatiently for the messages to find their folders. Out of thirty new messages, two dropped into the IDS folder. Deleting all the others without even looking at them, she opened up IDS.
Immediately disappointment and annoyance hit her. Neither message was from CuriousityLemmings, but one was from AttractivelyAgile. “This guy just won’t give up!” Shaking her head, she deleted his message without looking at it. The other message was from some guy called DaringlyGauche. Upset, she closed down the computer. She would look at his message and profile later. Looking at it right now, he really did not stand a chance. She was frustrated at herself for being disappointed because Terrian had not written back yet and bothered that Agile, or Orion as he had called himself, had.
Leaning back, she looked down at her ankle, frowning as all she could see was the gauze her sister had wrapped around it. “Oh please be an easy fix,” she sighed. “I don’t want to have to lose you.”
The rest of the day, she did not feel like doing much. Putting any weight on her left foot made it achy, plus she felt continuously nauseated. After downing some leftovers, she decided a nap was in order. Closing her blackout curtains, she settled into her bed, wincing as the burn came back slightly. Even with the pain, her eyes began to close the second her head hit the pillow. The last thing she saw before she fell asleep was the strange little flower that seemed to be watching her.
Blinking her eyes open, Ari stared around her. Where was she? She knew she had pulled her blackout curtains, but her room had never been this dark before. Also, it was cold, so cold she felt it clear through to her bones. Shivering, she reached out for her covers, but found none. “What the—” Her exclamation was cut off as her hand went to lean on her bed but instead touched something cold and hard. Stone.
Sitting up, she started to feel around her. She wasn’t on her bed, but was lying on a cold, hard floor. As she got used to the darkness, she expected to see something, but so far everything was pitch black. “Hello?” she called out, afraid, and yet feeling stupid for being afraid. This could not be real, could it?
At first there was no response, but then she heard a c-clap, c-clap, c-clap sound that reminded her of boots walking along a cobblestone walkway. They became louder and she knew they were coming closer. Gulping, she gazed in the direction she thought they were coming from. “Ah,” said a smooth cold voice, “my pet has awakened.” A loud squeak jarred her mind, making her body shudder. It sounded like an old iron gate that needed oiling.
The quick sound of a match being lit and the flicker of fire and candle coming together met her senses. The light wasn’t much, as it was still quite a ways away from her, but it allowed her to see a man in dark pants and a dark shirt walking toward her, the candle in his hand. Her eyes darted to where his face would be, but it was in shadow.
Everything within her started to shiver as she stared at the man holding the candle as he came closer and closer. When he was a few feet away, he stopped. “Has my pet come to terms with her enslavement?” he purred softly.
She gulped. “Who-who are you?”
He chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound. “Ah, pet, I am your master. I have been since before I found you.” He reached out a hand to touch her, and she shrunk back reflexively. “Do not move away!” he snapped, his voice colder than ice. Moving quicker than she expected, his hand grabbed her jaw, and he turned her face toward him. It must have been her nerves, but she could have sworn the instant he touched her, a strange thrum went through her body. His voice became a low rumbling purr again that made her relax. “Now, pet, again I ask, are you willing to accept your enslavement?”
For some reason unknown to her, she wanted to say yes, but a pain started in her ankle, and it was quickly gaining in intensity and moving up her leg. “Let me go!” she cried out in a whisper.
“Go where, pet? You are in my dungeon, on my estate. There is nowhere for you to go until I am finished with you, and I have no intention of finishing with you for years. “ His words were still spoken in that slow, hypnotic purr, and unconsciously she leaned in toward him. The change in her position allowed her to see his face, and she quickly flashed to his eyes. Their bright red irises caused a terror that made the hair on her arms stand on end.
“NO!” she screamed as the pain in her ankle exploded.
Sitting straight up, Ari looked around her bedroom, breathing in short desperate gasps. “It was a dream, just a dream,” she whimpered as she clutched her ankle, which was searing like crazy.
Reaching up to her face, she felt the tears leaking from her eyes. “That was the scariest dream I have ever had. Why would Orion appear in my nightmares?”
Pulling herself out of the mess she had made of the blankets, Ari stumbled her way into her bathroom, wincing at the pain in her leg. “Need to get this off,” she whimpered as she started her bath. Quickly stripping, she slowly unwrapped the gauze from around her ankle and slipped into the bath before it was even a quarter-way filled. She still shivered from her nightmare and needed the warmth the bath could and would provide.
Leaning back, she tried to breathe through the leftover anxiety as the water slowly engulfed her body. “It was a dream, only a dream,” she whispered to herself.
It was a nightmare!
Thinking back on what her dream mind had created, she wasn’t surprised her psyche had placed the man at the coffee shop and Orion as the same person, what with the last message of his that she’d read.
“Maybe I need to stop online dating,” she whispered as the burning in her ankle became negligible and the heat of the water slowly relaxed her tense muscles. Sighing, she turned the water off and leaned back against the tub. She knew she should start trying to remove the jewelry, but convinced herself it would be best to let it soak as long as possible. After all, she did not want to tear her skin again.
Closing her eyes, she tried to focus on Terrian, but found it difficult to do so. Every time she would pull the image of his photo into her mind, it would quickly be replaced with Orion’s. Frustrated, she elected to think of something, anything else, and before she knew it, she fell asleep.
Arwen! Wake up!
The sound of someone calling her name had her blinking her eyes open. “In the bathroom!” she called out, wondering who had called out to her. Nobody responded, and when she shivered, she realized she was lying in cold water. “How long have I been in here?”
Groaning, she stood up and got out, quickly drying herself and thr
owing on her robe. Yanking out the stopper on the tub, she trotted out of the bathroom and into her living room. “Hello!” she called out. No reply. “Who’s there?” she called again, looking around.
Still no reply.
Confused, she checked her front door, only to find it locked and dead-bolted. How strange.
Shaking her head to rid herself of the fluff that still seemed to linger from her impromptu nap, she went into the kitchen and poured some milk into a pan on the stove. “I think I need some hot chocolate.”
As she turned to pour out the hot chocolate, a low thrumming in her ankle made her look down. “No!” The anklet was gone. In its place were raised criss-crossed welts exactly where the metal had been. “No, no, no!” Running back into the bathroom, she checked the tub. The water was gone and at first she didn’t see anything. Then, she spotted it. Sitting near the stopper, was a piece of golden metal. Grasping it, she yanked it up and stared, knowing immediately that it was the clasp of the anklet.
“It dissolved?” she gasped, looking at it. She had showered every day with it on and would never have guessed that the metal would disintegrate like that. Whimpering at the loss of such a beautiful piece of jewelry, she placed the clasp, the only part of it left, on the counter and went back to fix her drink. Once the chocolate was mixed with the milk, she added an equal amount of vodka.
Slouching into her chair, she sipped at the drink. When had this day gone wrong? It had started out okay, but somewhere along the way, it went all wonky. Sighing, she gulped the last of her hot chocolate and stared across the room at her computer. A long thrum settled through her ankle and she stared at it absentmindedly. She supposed her ankle would have some aftereffects of her allergy. Looking back up at the computer, next thing she knew she was in front of it, turning it on.
A small voice in the back of her head said this was not like her, but while she acknowledged that was true, she could not stop herself. “Twenty-two new emails,” she muttered as she watched them fall into folders. IDS had seven. Her eyes lit up and she quickly clicked the folder.
You have a new message from AttractivelyAgile
Your Dimension Or Mine? Page 6
