Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (19 page)

“Yield,” he repeated more forcefully, pressing his blade closer.

She slid her tongue slowly across her bloody lips, as though she relished in the thought of being skewered by him. “I yield,” she finally said.

Jason released his hold and walked over to Cameron and Isis to reclaim his other weapons.

“Perhaps you would consider a rematch?” the queen suggested, a hopeful gleam in her eyes.

Jason had only just finished beating her bloody, her hand was hideously burnt, and she already wanted more? She was sick.

“Some other time,” Jason replied, turning his back to Isis so she could secure the last of his straps.

Isis gave the back of his head an agitated glare but buckled the belt across his back.

“Of course.” Queen Gale nodded, giving his body a penetrating once-over that would have made anyone but Jason flush.

His face remained blank. “Please show us to our rooms.”

The delighted cackle that burst from her lips threatened to split Cameron’s skull open.

“Oh, no. You’re not getting away that easily,” she purred. “You will dine with us tonight at a banquet in your honor, Jason Chanz, Elite Phantom.”

Somehow, Cameron didn’t think attendance was optional.

CHAPTER TWENTY

~
Protocols of Everlast ~

526AX August 23, Ice Palace

THE BANQUET IN the great hall lasted late into the night. Every time Isis thought it was nearly over, Queen Gale called for another course to be brought to the tables. By midnight, Isis was very full and many hours overdue for her appointment with her pillow. She swallowed her yawns and suffered her exhaustion. She couldn’t leave yet. The Everlast Elitions were sticklers for protocol, and they would take such an action as an insult. Even more importantly, Isis refused to leave Jason alone with the queen, who looked like she wanted to devour him much more than she did the offering on her plate. All night, she had nibbled only small morsels from her supper, foregoing eating in favor of hitting him with an unceasing barrage of chatter. Since Jason was a sparse conversationalist at best—as a rule, he responded to questions with stony-faced silence—the queen was doing most of the talking for the both of them. She didn’t seem to mind.

Isis did. Queen Gale was strong, stunningly beautiful, and a superb fighter. She wore power around her like that luxurious red cloak, oozing tendrils of Phantom energy behind her as she moved. While not equal to Jason, she was good. Too good. She was certainly more than skilled enough to make Isis look like an utter fool should it come to a fight between them. Which it would if Isis didn’t stop fantasizing about leaping over the table to stab the queen in the hand with her fork. A Phantom might just take that as a challenge.

Finally, Jason stood, peeling off the hand Queen Gale had kept glued to his arm the whole night. “Now we must rest. Tomorrow we leave early.”

Expelling a woeful sigh, the queen nodded to one of her guards, and he led them into the hallway. Queen Gale gave Jason a little flirtatious wave—and Isis a smug smirk—as they left the great hall.

The guard stopped in a dead-end hallway. Without a word, he pointed out three adjoining rooms, then left.

* * *

526AX August 23, Ice Palace

As soon as Isis’s head hit the pillow, she was wide awake. She tossed and turned for half an hour, hoping to ease into a sufficiently languorous position. Eventually, she gave up on that idea. She slipped on her boots and opened the door into the hallway. The howling chorus of the snowstorm pounded on outside. Inside, it was hardly warmer. Her breath puffed out in frozen clouds, and she shivered in her black tank top and hip-hugging shorts. Perhaps trotting around the freezing halls in her sleepwear in the dead of night hadn’t been such a brilliant idea after all, though it had hardly seemed worth pulling on the coldsuit again. It took a good five minutes of tugging—and preferably the assistance of another person—to get the thing on or off. Before going to bed, she and Cameron had helped each other unzip, but there was no need to bother him again.

Jason had stalked off to his own room. Apparently, he didn’t need help getting out of his suit. Or maybe he was just going to sleep in it. He did believe in maintaining a constant state of battle readiness. For all Isis knew, he slept with his boots on. She felt her cheeks go warm. She shouldn’t be thinking about how Jason slept.

A stream of light crept out from under his door. Isis stood in front of his room for several minutes, her eyes following the twirling engravings. It didn’t take long for the cold to penetrate her core, freezing her from the inside. Her teeth began to chatter, and she decided she should either just knock already or try to find sleep in her bed. She was turning to leave when the door creaked open, and Jason’s head popped out.

“Isis? What are you doing here?”

“You mean, besides freezing? I really don’t know. Sorry to bother you.”

His hand caught her wrist. “You’re unsettled.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted.

He studied her face for a moment, then spread the door wider. “Come in.”

“What?”

“Sleep is evading you, and you’re going to get sick wandering the halls dressed like that.”

She blushed. She hadn’t thought she’d actually be talking to Jason in the middle of the night dressed in little more than her underwear. Before she could squirm away in embarrassment, he tightened his hold on her wrist and pulled her inside, shutting the door quickly behind her.

A fire was blazing in the corner of his room, warming the air to a tolerable temperature. Isis darted to it, rubbing her hands over the flames. A warm hand tapped her shoulder and she turned to find Jason there. Her eyes widened as she noticed for the first time that he was wearing hardly more clothing than she was. He was pretty well covered on the bottom with black pants that hung loosely down, brushing the tops of his bare feet. On top was another matter. His upper body was completely bare, and Isis couldn’t help but stare at the contoured muscle of his chest, a masterpiece of athletic prowess. She curtailed the urge to trace her finger down along the lines. He probably wouldn’t appreciate such audacity.

“Drink this,” he said, handing her a steaming mug. “Queen Gale had it sent over for me, but you look like you need it more than I do.”

Isis realized that maybe he was still awake—and half-naked—because he was anticipating a nighttime visit from the queen. She tried not to shatter the mug as she took it from him.

“It’s spiced honey,” she said. The mixture was a stimulant for Phantoms. “She’s hoping to drug you.”

“I noticed.” His lip twitched. “But honey is a soother for you. Maybe it will help you sleep.”

Suddenly, Isis didn’t feel a whole lot like sleeping. More like charging into the queen’s chamber and throwing the mug at her face.

“Careful there.” He pried her fingers from the mug, which had already split a few hair-thin cracks.

“I don’t like her,” she declared, glaring at him.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Was that supposed to be a joke? She couldn’t tell. Jason’s face had remained neutral, his mask perfectly in place. It made her want to throw the stupid mug at him too.

“Did you notice that she
does
like you?”

He inclined his head. “Naturally. Queen Gale is not a subtle woman.”

Isis wondered if Jason liked that. For all she knew, he had a thing for blunt and domineering women. Women who could blow holes in solid rock with their minds were not easy to come by.

“I don’t like her.”

“You mentioned that already,” said Jason.

Isis began to pace. “She’s pushy and overbearing and…” She swiveled to face him. “Are you on a first name basis with her?”

It shouldn’t have really bothered her, but it did. The Selpes and Avans referred to him as ‘Jason Chanz’, but they didn’t understand Elition ways. Elitions all called him by his power name, Magus—all but those few close to him. Isis was glad to be counted among them. Queen Gale’s address to him was too intimate. It didn’t sit well with her.

“She seems to think so,” Jason replied. “I didn’t think it prudent to point out her breach of etiquette. Not to an Elition of Everlast. You know how sensitive they are to the slightest misstep in protocol. She would be most offended to hear that she herself had erred.”

Isis continued to pace, his words doing little to soothe her rage. “Since we got here, she’s been doing nothing but strutting around you, pushing her damn perky breasts and shapely butt in your face at every opportunity.”

“I had no idea you were so diligently cataloging her physical attributes.” His eyes pulsed in what could have been amusement. “Perhaps you were hoping to be the recipient of her lavish advances yourself.”

Isis stopped to punch him hard in the arm. He didn’t even wince. Her hand, on the other hand, felt as though it had hit a boulder. Ouch.

“This isn’t funny, Jason,” she growled, shaking out her throbbing hand. That would teach her to punch him. He was surely made of granite.

“You’re jealous.”

She glared at him. “Yes.”

“She is nothing to me.”

“Oh.” Isis slouched with embarrassment. “Ok, now that that’s cleared up, I’ll just…”

She started to turn toward the door, hoping to leave with some scrap of dignity, but Jason locked his hand around her arm. She struggled to pull away from him—and failed to move a single millimeter. Damn. She’d already forgotten he was a granite rock.

“Let me go.”

“No.”

“Jason, I’ve already humiliated myself enough for one night. Please, just let me go,” she pleaded.

He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t let go. Instead, he raised his other hand to her. She winced in anticipation, but he only traced it slowly up her arm, searing a trail of fire into her skin.

“You’re cold,” he said softly.

Isis closed her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing herself to remain completely still. Jason followed her contours over her shoulder and up her neck to her hair. As he brushed loose strands from her face, she opened her eyes to two smoldering pools of deep obsidian. His body was pressed against hers, so close that she could feel the pop of his racing pulse—from multiple places. He held out a hand, and she timidly intertwined her fingers with his. As their skins met, she felt that usual spark, the pleasantly violent jolt that tingled through her body whenever they touched. Isis arched her back, pulling away. He pulled her back to him.

“Isis,” he whispered, their lips nearly brushing.

Her heart was pounding so hard in her ears, and she struggled to catch her breath. “Jason, I have to tell you—”

“Shh.” He stroked his hand down her neck and along her collarbone. “No talking.” His lips graced her jawbone, burning his brand into her skin.

Isis struggled to think, to push past the haze of her distracted mind, but all she wanted was to pull him in closer. She brushed her finger across his lips—lips that should be kissing her. Jason’s eyes pulsed pure black, and she felt his hand slip round her hip and slide down her thigh.

Three resounding knocks thumped on the door. Jason ignored them, his lips moving in to kiss her once, ever so lightly.

The knocks sounded again, this time louder. Jason swore under his breath and released her. Cold flooded back to Isis’s bare skin, chilling her to her very bones. She wandered toward the fire as Jason opened the door. Isis didn’t bother to listen in; she didn’t care who was there or what they wanted.

“Get dressed,” Jason said brusquely as he walked up to her. “We need to go to the great hall. It seems Cameron has offended our hosts, and we now have to convince them not to kill him.”

Fear hit Isis like a sheet of ice. “What happened?”

“Apparently, he snuck into the kitchen and pilfered a plate of cookies. Our hosts feel insulted at the breach of protocol. He should have asked them to be served. To do otherwise is to suggest that they are inadequate hosts who cannot sufficiently feed their guests. He knew this, and still he did it, all because he wanted to satisfy his craving for a midnight snack.”

Isis shook her head, her hair bouncing across her shoulders. “No, this is all my fault,” she told him.

“How? You didn’t sneak into the kitchen. You were here the whole time with me.”

As he spoke, Jason began to pull off his night clothing and slip into the coldsuit. Isis turned away, blushing both at his reminder of their time together and the utterly casual way he was stripping in front of her, as though it meant nothing.

“Before I went to bed, I was praising the cookies we’d eaten earlier this evening, saying I wished I could have more of them before they whisked them away,” she said over her shoulder. “I should have known Cameron would sneak into the kitchen to get me some.”

“It’s not your fault that Cameron cannot follow instructions and behave himself,” Jason replied.

He set his hands on her shoulders to turn her around to face him. Isis was surprised to see he already had his coldsuit on. It hadn’t taken him five minutes or anyone else’s help for that.

“All right, let’s get your suit on, then hurry to the great hall,” he said, strapping on his weapons.

“So, you don’t think the queen will appreciate my outfit?” Isis asked. She’d tried to be funny, but her voice just came out flat. She didn’t feel much like joking at the moment.

“No,” was his blank response.

* * *

526AX August 23, Ice Palace

Isis and Jason walked down the hallway side-by-side, suited up against the cold and loaded down with steel against the Phantoms. They were flanked by six Everlast guards, who spread before the double doors of the great halls and opened them to allow Isis and Jason to enter. As the guards followed close upon their heels, Isis saw Jason’s finger twitch. He hated to have anyone at his back—most especially armed men who had every reason to be angry with them at the moment.

The tables brought in for the evening banquet had been cleared away, an effortless task for a castle full of Phantoms. Queen Gale lounged once again with her legs swung over one arm of her twisted throne, her cloak draped over her body like a curtain of blood. Cameron stood a few steps away on the raised platform, shivering in his thin pajamas. At least he had a top and a bottom and both were long. In his hands, he held a silver platter with a sparse arrangement of three cookies atop a bed of crumbs and tiny chocolate chunks. So, they’d made him stand there with evidence in hand, for all to see. Queen Gale did love making a big show of things.