Queen of the Magnetland (The Elemental Phases Book 5)

by Cassandra Gannon

  If fact, he wanted her even more.

  She glared up at him, her amazing eyes glowing. Not a polite ‘I’d-rather-be-in-the-Light-Kingdom-but-I-have-to-make-the-best-of-this’ smile or a look of well-mannered interest as they discussed pleasant topics over dinner. All the aloofness was gone, burned away and replaced with life. This woman was really pissed off and scowling at him as if she wanted to punch him in the stomach.

  Chason’s body leapt to attention as she jabbed a finger at his chest.

  “What do I want from you?” Genuine passion roiled under her normally serene surface, flushing her cheeks. “I want the same thing I’ve wanted for the past sixty some years. I want you to be my fucking Match! If you find that it’s just too tough a job for you –If you’d prefer to pine for the perfect, enshrined, dead me-- fine.” She gestured towards the fortress. “Go sit in our dirty, decimated home and sulk because my survival has screwed-up your plans to make it even more dirty and decimated.”

  She had never been more stunning than she was in that moment. Like someone had taken Mara and lit her up from the inside. She looked so alive. So vibrant and bright. And all of it was aimed at him.

  She looked “real.”

  And she’d called the Magnet Fortress “our home.” His emotions were still in turmoil, but that alone calmed him.

  Chason stepped even closer to her, his blood thickening in his veins. “You’re swearing at me.” He pointed out.

  “No shit, I’m swearing at you.” She glowered up at him, standing her ground. “I was raised by Kahn, of the Light House. You have no idea the words I know. And if I’m not Mara, anymore, then I don’t need to be a proper Magnet House queen, do I? I can say and do whatever the hell I want!”

  What did that mean? “You could always say and do whatever you wanted.” Who would dare to try and stop her?

  His words seemed to make her even angrier. “Could I, Chason? Really? Because it seems to me that all I was ever supposed to do was be perfect. The perfect Match to the perfect officer and king. And I’m not perfect. And I’m tired of pretending.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. “Alright.”

  “Alright what?”

  “Alright, so stop pretending!” All that he wanted was for the woman to drop this act and stop being so much like his Match. “The other Chason –the officer and king-- is dead.” He’d never even existed, in the first place. No matter how hard Chason tried, he’d never been perfect, either. “All that’s left is this shell.”

  “Well, the Mara who would’ve put up with you being a shell is dead, too. I don’t care how pretty that epitaph is or if you let me sleep in your bed, I won’t tolerate this kind of attitude from any you. You and I are in this for the long haul, so you might as well get used to it. Either that or just renounce me.”

  This time when she went to jab his chest, Chason was ready. He grabbed hold of her wrist and yanked her forward. She gave a surprise gasp as he pinned her hand behind her back and pulled her up against his body. She automatically tried to jerk free, but he didn’t release her.

  “What are you doing?” She gaped up at him, breathing hard.

  The old Chason would have loosened his grip and apologized. Hell, the old Chason never would have treated her like this, at all. The new Chason kept her wrist shackled in his grip. “Do you really think I’d let you go?”

  “A gentleman would.” She blurted out as if she really thought he might have forgotten.

  “Do I look like a fucking gentleman?” His arousal was pushing against her and he didn’t care. In fact, he liked it.

  “No.” It was a breathless whisper. “You look like Chason.”

  He leaned down, so his face was inches from hers. “And Chason is completely insane, with obsessive tendencies and shit load of time on his hands. Which means there is nowhere you could go that I wouldn’t find you. For better or worse, yeah… we’re stuck with each other, princess.”

  It took him a moment to realize she wasn’t struggling against his hold. Mara would have. She never would have allowed him to manhandle her like this. She would have been horrified if he touched her with anything more than apologetic courtesy.

  This woman just stared at him wide eyed. “You want me even though you don’t think I’m your Match?”

  “Yes.”

  Her body relaxed, somehow shifting tighter against his. “Because, I look like Mara?”

  “Because… I need you.”

  She gave beautiful smile and Chason lost the capacity for thought.

  “I need you, too.” She whispered. Her slid her free hand up the back of his neck and dragged his mouth down to hers.

  And Chason’s mind went blank.

  She tasted familiar and yet different. The feminine sweetness of his Match mixed with a new wellspring of power. The combination was like nothing he’d ever felt before. Light and heat and connection. It was like Phazing energy only deeper.

  Better.

  The woman felt it, too. She gave a low moan and went up on tiptoe, her lips parting beneath his. The top of Chason’s head nearly blew off at her responsiveness. She was kissing him back. That was all it took to send him over the edge. His mouth plundered, taking without asking further permission. He needed all of her.

  Now.

  Chason let go of her wrist, so he could tug at her clothes. He was being too rough and she didn’t seem to mind. Her lips never left his, even as he peeled off her coat. That wasn’t the way to behave with a lady. In some distant part of himself, he knew that, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He was on fire for this woman.

  There was freedom in their passion that he’d never felt before. This is what he’d fantasized about in cold showers ever since he met Mara. Taking her, with no thought to what was appropriate. Just possessing her perfect body and making her respond just as wildly. Making her beg.

  The kiss wasn’t practiced or neat. Any genteel Magnet Phase would have been appalled at the chaos of it. Chason had always managed the strength to fight against his deviant urges with Mara, so she wouldn’t see how much he wanted to take her. Not “Phaze with” or “make love to.” He’d always wanted to take the Queen of the Magnetland in every goddamn position there was; hard and dirty and without restraint.

  It had always been a secret shame of his. A Magnet House lady endured a man’s touch because it was her duty. His responsibility was to make everything as quick, respectful and hygienic as possible. Everyone said so. What kind of man would even think of doing the things he imagined in his bed at night?

  Not a man Mara would have wanted.

  But this woman was a Magnet Phase and her freed arm wrapped around his neck, arching against him like she wanted to crawl right through his body. Chason’s hair became disheveled as she threaded her fingers through it and he let out a growl of pure lust. One of her shoes fell free as he lifted her off the ground. All he could think of was having her right there on the ground, in an explosion of tangled limbs and warm flesh.

  Chason’s Magnet powers howled for release. His energy wanted to connect with hers, straining the bounds of his control. Everything beyond this woman ceased to exist. It was just her and the throbbing jumbled heat of their passion. His tongue dueled with hers, his arms supporting all her supple undulating weight. He’d never felt anything this good.

  …Not even with Mara.

  The thought was like being plunged into ice water.

  Chason jerked back. Oh Gaia, what was he doing?

  He’d never kissed anyone but Mara. Not ever. Chason belonged to Mara. He always had, even before he met her. His Match was everything to him. This woman wasn’t Mara and he knew that and he’d still kissed her. Touched her. What was wrong with him that he’d let himself be taken in by her lies?

  That he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted his own Match?

  He dropped the woman, scrabbling away from her.

  She stumbled back from him, her clothes in a tempting disarray. “Chason…”

  “No. No
. No. No. No.” His vision swam and he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Oh fuck.”

  “Chason, it’s alright…”

  “No, it’s not! You’re not Mara!”

  “Who am I, then?” She demanded, panting for breath. “Who am I, if I’m not her?!” Black eyes flashed with a different kind of passion, now. “Who am I, Chason?”

  “I don’t know, but you’re not my Match! Kissing you is…” more. Chason stopped short, unwilling to say the damning word out loud. He glared over at the woman, blaming her for making him feel this way. “Your energy is not the same.”

  “My energy’s the same.” She crouched down to gather up her coat and lost shoe. “Yours is different.”

  He didn’t believe that.

  Like most Phases, Chason had seen his powers grow since the Fall. With fewer Phases to share the Elements, all the survivors got stronger. That combined with his spiraling madness had increased his Magnet energy. He’d had to practice far more control since he went nuts. It took concentration to keep his powers contained and that build up his sensitivity towards them.

  That wouldn’t change his energy, though.

  Chason knew that he and Mara hadn’t had a conventional Match. They’d Phazed and he’d felt their energies combine, but it had never been… enough. Their powers should have formed one perfect whole, but there had always been some small piece that didn’t quite come together.

  He’d accepted that.

  But, the small separation between him and Mara was nothing compared to the gulf he felt, now. If this woman was Mara, they shouldn’t have any jagged edges were their energies didn’t meet properly. There shouldn’t be a distance. The only logical, rational, sane explanation was this woman was an imposter.

  “The difference in our powers isn’t coming from me.” He said with absolute certainty. “Maybe my energy grew, but that wouldn’t alter a Phazing. If anything, I’d feel more, not less. Right now, all I feel now is you holding back.”

  She paused for a small telling moment before busying herself by putting her shoe on. “Holding back?”

  In that second, she looked more like his Match than she ever had. There had been a mysterious part of Mara that he could never touch and he’d fucking hated when she slipped behind it. Now, this woman looked at him with the exact same tepid, guarded pleasantness. It fell over her face like a mask and her eyes stopped sparking.

  Chason nearly bellowed in frustration.

  His teeth ground together at the loss and at her deceit. “Holding back.” He snarled. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  She clearly wasn’t accustomed to being confronted. Her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. “I don’t appreciate the tone.”

  “You’re lying.”

  She yanked her coat back into place, buttoning it with more force than necessary. “About your tone? No, I’m really not…”

  He interrupted her. “You’re fucking lying to me. You’re holding back.”

  “Really, Chason, there’s no call to be rude.”

  “Mara would never have lied.”

  “Oh for God’s sake! Everyone lies! Even your precious pristine Match.”

  “If you knew Mara…”

  This time she cut him off with a sound of sheer aggravation. “If I knew her? I am her! The first time I ever kissed you, I was ninety-two. We were over there!” She pointed towards the side of the fortress with an emphatic gesture. “It was the end of my visit here for that year. The next time I saw you, it was a month or so later, on our Phazing Day. And on the morning I was supposed to leave, I kissed you. You stopped me, but that was the first time we kissed.”

  Chason stared at her.

  Her eyebrows rose in challenge. “Who else but me knows that?”

  No one.

  No one knew it, because it had been a mortifying lapse in every code of honorable conduct there was. Mara might have started the kiss and Chason might have ended it, but for ten seconds right in the middle, they’d both been willing parties.

  He’d kissed her back.

  Mara had been completely blameless, obviously. She’d been too young. Chason was the one who should’ve had the strength to resist her. It didn’t matter that she’d be ninety-three in less than two months, she hadn’t been of ninety-three yet. She’d been underage by six weeks and he’d known it was wrong. But he’d wanted her, anyway.

  It was a disgraceful moment in his past, made all the more so because he wasn’t ashamed of it.

  He’d finally pushed her back and blathered out some bullshit about duty and respect and the importance of being a proper Match. All the upright and responsible reasons he should have stopped the kiss before it even began. Everything he tried to be and that she deserved.

  But all that meant exactly nothing compared to how much he’d wanted to drag her back into the house and tell the Council to go fuck themselves. Tell them that she was his and he was hers and that, at the very least, she should be staying in his kingdom. He wouldn’t touch her, if that was the law, but she should at least be able to stay with him until the Phazing ceremony.

  Six weeks and he’d had to give her back to the Light Phases?

  Six goddamn weeks?!

  “I’m sorry, Chason.” Mara had said at the time. “The kiss was my fault. I was out of line. But, I promise –I promise-- I can be such a good Match to you.”

  “I know you will.” Sexual frustration had seethed inside of him and he’d barely processed her words. He’d tried to smile. “Everything will be perfect. We just have to wait for the ceremony.”

  A ceremony that wouldn’t make her his Match any more than she already was, but no one had asked his opinion.

  Kahn had come to return her to the Light Kingdom and Chason had let her go. Mara had glanced back at him before she left and Chason had lifted his hand in polite farewell.

  …Then, he’d gone up to his room and smashed the nearest breakable object. It hadn’t helped much. He’d braced his palms on the wall and dropped his head, focusing on the only thing that could’ve possibly calmed him down: “Six weeks and no one will ever take her from me, again.”

  Only that hadn’t been true, either.

  Chason had no idea how anyone could have known about that day except him and Mara.

  The woman honest to Gaia smirked at his stunned expression. Smirked!

  “Hard to believe your saint of a Match would try and seduce you like that, huh? Thank God you pushed her away. We can always count on you to resist me, though.” She turned on her dainty heel and marched back towards the fortress.

  Chason gave his head a clearing shake. “How did you know about that? Did Mara tell you?”

  “Why in the world would I tell anyone a story like that?” She scoffed. “It was mortifying enough for me the first time through, without sharing it.”

  “Mortifying?” He echoed blankly. Why would Mara be mortified over his lapse?

  “I halfway think that you’re deliberately pretending to think I’m a phony, at this point.” She called over her shoulder. “That you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to get rid of me, so you can finally have an appropriate Match. That’s why you’re stubbornly clinging to the memory of some make-believe saint you’ve created in my image. She doesn’t rock the boat!”

  It was like being dropped into the Twilight Zone.

  He was certifiable and he even he made more sense than this woman.

  “What the hell are you talking about?!” Chason threw up his hands. “Why are you doing this to me? What’s the point? To drive me even crazier? Isn’t it pretty fucking obvious that I’m already defeated? You should leave, actually. If you were Mara, I’d want you to get away from me, before I killed you all over, again!”

  That stopped her. She turned back to him with a frown. “You didn’t kill me.”

  “I did.” His voice broke. “God, I didn’t think of the right things or find the right doctor. You died alone, because of me.”

  “Chason, I’m not dead!�
�� She cried. “Are you really that blinded by her that you can’t see me?” She pointed at the crypt, again. “I was never made of marble. Do you not remember me, except as a statue on a tomb? Flawless and cold?”

  Chason didn’t know what to say to that.

  She shook her in defeat and turned back to the fortress. Black hair bounced just the way it always had when she left him to go back to the Light Kingdom.

  She always left him.

  “Wait.” Chason dashed after, afraid that if she got away he might never see her again. Even knowing that it was all fake, he still had to be near her. This more beautiful version of his Match was the only thing the universe who anchored him and he couldn’t let her go. “Seventy years.”

  She kept walking. “What?”

  “Earlier, you said it had been ‘sixty-some’ years since Mara and I Phazed. It was seventy years yesterday.” He lengthened his stride, jogging to catch up with her. He really would die if he lost her, too. “It was our anniversary.”

  “Was it?” She frowned as he reached her side, getting herself back under control. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know the date.”

  Chason shrugged. “I doubt anyone remembered except me.” He hesitated. “And Isaacs.”

  “Well, Isaacs was always very thoughtful.”

  His teeth ground together. Mara had loved to defend that bastard, too. “Isaacs was always trying to seduce my Match away.” Everyone who came in contact with Mara fell under her spell.

  “That’s ridiculous.” She chided. “Isaacs was a total gentleman towards me. He never made one inappropriate remark. He even sent us flowers on our anniversary, every year.”

  “He sent Mara flowers and it was just to piss me off. In fact,” Chason took a deep breath, “here’s a question you should know if you’re her: What was that song?”

  “What song?”

  Was she being deliberately obtuse? “The one Mara and Isaacs sang at our fifty-third anniversary party. The party I didn’t even want to invite him to.”