Frost and Frontiers
By Jessica Payseur
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2017 Jessica Payseur
ISBN 9781634865272
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
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Frost and Frontiers
By Jessica Payseur
Frost and Ice
Unexpected Dilemmas
Orbits
Frost and Ice
Isolde pulled back the gray clouds with a flick of her wrists, the better to view the damage by the pink-orange light of the morning. Another entire field claimed, stretching from an abandoned traveler’s hut deep into a forest at the edge of the horizon. Isolde frowned, bubbling with rage as new sunlight caught the complex curls of frost, the chill spirals and frills parading over the land. Her land.
“Jaq,” she hissed under her breath.
“You called, Highness?” asked a voice behind her, smug, with the last word frigid.
Isolde turned slowly, hooking tendrils of magic into the ice crystals under her feet. She wasn’t surprised Jaq had been waiting here, though she had been expecting something more. A trap, perhaps.
She tilted up her head as she took in the cocky figure. Jaq lounged against the side of the traveler’s hut, arms crossed lightly as though relaxed, but Isolde would not be fooled. Jaq had something up her sleeve. Well, something up her vest—she wasn’t actually wearing any sleeves. Tight, skimpy leather pieces were Jaq’s preferred clothing choice, probably for the thrill of the cold. Everything was for the thrill with her, from her ice blue hair, short and spiked, to her pale grey eyes, the color of a hint of snowstorm. Isolde caught herself spending too much time considering Jaq’s blue lips, a pop of color on her pale face. Isolde shook herself; next she would be examining Jaq’s ass.
“This is my land, Jaq.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Jaq, eyes glittering like new snow. “It’s my frost all over it.”
Jaq leaned forward and tipped herself off the side of the crumbling shack. Immediately Isolde made a twisting motion with her fingers and a short wall of pointed icicles, tips outward, sprung up. It was only about ankle-high, but she wanted to send a message. Jaq shuffled down to her as though not even noticing the action, circling.
Isolde got the feeling Jaq was checking her out, appraising her, and it irritated her further. She stiffened her posture, self-conscious. She was curvier where Jaq was scrawnier, a fact she played up with tight dresses that displayed her hourglass figure. Today she wore a long dress the color of hardened snow, sprinkled with diamonds in flake patterns. The fabric dipped low over her chest, dangled long at her wrists. In preparation for a confrontation, she had twisted her long, silver-white hair up and fixed it in a knot on her head with an icicle. She was so pale, she always had to put color back on her face—lips red today, cheeks dusted pink, though she wondered if it was necessary with how she felt the heat rise in her as Jaq circled back around to view her backside again.
“This is the third time this month you’ve attempted to take my land,” said Isolde, unmoving, forcing Jaq to come around to face her.
Jaq did, amusement pulling her blue lips upward. “And you hurry right out every time. It’s like you’re hoping to see me.”
“Don’t think so much of yourself,” snapped Isolde, rotating slightly as Jaq went back to circling. “You think I could keep an entire kingdom running without handling any…incidents that occur?”
“You don’t handle every incident in person, I hear.”
“Most people don’t steal huge stretches of land—stand still.”
“Why?” asked Jaq, but she stopped stalking. “Do you have difficulty hitting a moving target, Highness?” She grinned as Isolde scowled.
“Remove your frost magic from my land.”
Jaq leaned closer.
“Or what?” she asked.
Isolde narrowed her eyes, pulled the cloud cover back with a flick of her wrists. She and Jaq had danced around this the last two times they met, but this time she knew there would be a fight.
“I won’t ask you again.”
Jaq retreated some, into the field where her thick frost had made the tall grasses into fronds of delicate ice, thick sculptures of curving abstraction. She waved a hand.
“My realm is too small. I need the space to expand.”
“Renegade,” hissed Isolde. “You already carved out your space. Alone. That’s where you wanted to be, remember? I allowed it.”
Jaq shrugged. Isolde only noticed she was gathering wind to her when her vest flapped up, nearly revealing the left half of her chest. Isolde’s eyes were drawn to the movement, to the bare flesh, the smooth stomach. Jaq lifted an arm, the winds curling around her hand like thread on a spool.
“And I’m telling you, I need more. You have plenty. Will you really make me fight you for it?”
“You’re the instigator here, Jaq,” said Isolde, returning the icicles around her into crystals. When she pulled on them, they danced up around her, a shimmering wall of ice shards. “That’s your preferred role, if you’ve forgotten.”
Jaq laughed.
“You keep telling yourself that, Highness. Here, catch.”
She launched a ball of wind at Isolde’s face; Isolde stepped to the side rather than engage it. The wind whooshed back around, rattling her ice shards on its way to Jaq.
“You’re out of practice,” said Jaq, making an exaggerated disappointed face.
“I’m not here to play,” snapped Isolde.
“Then why haven’t you ended this already?” Jaq made a lazy motion with a hand, pulling up a frost-encrusted length of grass with her magic and hardening the ice into a javelin. “We both know you’re the more powerful.”
Isolde was unsure of that. True, she had been better adept at twisting the cold to her desires, but that was before Jaq had demanded her own space, gone off on her own. Who knew how many hours a day she spent playing with the forces of the winter? How many of Isolde’s own tricks and techniques she’d perfected in all the months since she had left? Isolde scowled, silently cursing herself. She should have never gotten close to Jaq. But then, Jaq had been the only person who had ever come close to being her equal. She’d been too tempting to resist then.
And too tempting now, she realized. Jaq didn’t want more land—she wanted Isolde’s attention. And Isolde couldn’t resist giving it to her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “But you need to back off, Jaq.”
“I don’t remember you giving that bearded man who burned a couple of your scra
ggly villages any chances. You just froze him like that,” said Jaq, snapping her fingers. “Don’t go soft on me now.”
Isolde fixed Jaq’s smug face with her best frosty glare. In response, Jaq hefted the javelin and threw it. Isolde brought her ice crystals up to form a shield like mail; it buckled but caught the frost weapon, devouring it into itself. Isolde struggled to not react to the feel of Jaq’s magic as she peeled it away with her own and let the long strand of grass fall to the ground.
“I don’t go soft,” said Isolde, trying not to remember. Jaq had been a guest in her icy castle for only a few weeks before her advances caused turmoil. She hadn’t accepted Isolde’s desire to remain unattached, although Isolde supposed she could have been somewhat misleading—she’d once allowed herself the pleasure of making out with Jaq after a particularly harrowing day.
“Good,” said Jaq. “Because you might have a problem otherwise. I don’t plan on holding back.”
“That’s why you’re standing here chatting, is it?” asked Isolde.
Jaq’s eyes seemed to glitter a little less at that, and Isolde was heartened something could affect her.
Isolde decide to run with it. If Jaq deflated at her coldness, then let her be cold. She shrugged.
“Very well. I gave you enough of a chance,” said Isolde, then turned a hand palm up. It would have almost looked like a gesture of goodwill, except for the fact her ice shards began to hum. It was a high-pitched noise Jaq couldn’t fail to recognize. And indeed, Isolde could see some of the satisfaction creep back into Jaq’s expression, her fingers twitching as though playing an invisible instrument, causing her winds to howl.
If Jaq wanted a fight, then she’d get one. Isolde had no intention of going easy on her just because she was once interested in the woman.
Jaq cast her winds forward again, a strong, stubborn first attack. Too strong, too typical of Jaq to take a hard offensive. As Isolde was shielding it from striking her, she tried to figure out what exactly Jaq was holding back—it had to be something. Striking too hard immediately was what had cost her many of the times she and Isolde had sparred in the past. Isolde wasn’t about to wait to find out, though, so she let loose a barrage of hail from her clouds.
It pinged harmlessly off a canopy of tightly swirling winds over Jaq’s head, and her blue lips twisted into a satisfied smirk. Isolde couldn’t have heard the whirring of the winds protecting Jaq with the rush of so many winds around her. They tightened like a tornado constricting; Isolde could do very little against them without trying to wrest away Jaq’s magic with her own. Her tiny ice shards, while effective should she want to shred Jaq to bits, would only be swept away and used to slice her apart instead if she tried to press them upon the wind. And so she pulled them in closer, to her body.
“Really,” said Jaq, disappointed. The wind pulled back. “You can’t be trying.” When the wind retreated, Jaq stood right in front of Isolde, eyes locked. She looked irritated.
“I told you I don’t want to hurt you,” said Isolde. And she could. Any number of things she could do with her magic would end Jaq—her ice shards could rip the flesh from Jaq’s bones, or she could command the clouds to strike Jaq down with a bolt of lightning, or, like she had with the bearded man, she could freeze every cell in Jaq’s body. But as much of a nuisance as Jaq was, Isolde wanted to do no such thing to her.
“It’s too late for that.” Frowning, Jaq made a motion with her hand and the frost beneath Isolde’s feet surged like writhing snakes over her feet, up her ankles and legs. The sudden chill took Isolde’s breath away and she reacted without thinking, sending her ice crystals out in a long chain and restraining Jaq’s hands behind her back.
Jaq grinned at that.
“Knew you were holding back,” she said, staring directly into Isolde’s eyes. With her arms firmly behind her, her vest pulled open even wider, showing more than just the few inches of flesh from neck to navel that had been visible before. Isolde struggled to meet Jaq’s eyes, to glare her down, to not allow Jaq to see her gaze straying. A breeze flapped the edge of the vest.
Jaq’s fingers were still free; with them, she must have decided to continue her attack. Isolde felt the tendrils of frost snake higher, up her thighs, caressing her in chills. Her skin prickled; water dripped down her inner thighs as she began to heat up, melting the edges of the curling feathers of ice. She told herself it was rage.
“Jaq,” she hissed.
Jaq took a step closer. “Looks like we both have each other exactly where we want. Are you going to take me home and throw me in your dungeon?”
Isolde couldn’t do it. She couldn’t keep eye contact with this woman. She’d glared down all sorts of dangerous people and creatures, stared unafraid at magicians more powerful than she was, hadn’t blinked at an oncoming fire demon once years back. But she could not meet Jaq’s cloudy eyes. She liked the storm too much, and she was afraid Jaq would be able to see that.
Instead she focused on tightening Jaq’s bonds. She considered coiling more icy rope around Jaq’s ankles, to really keep her in place, but her own dripping legs and Jaq’s words made her think twice. Jaq was already enjoying herself far too much.
“Absolutely not,” said Isolde crisply. “You’d probably enjoy it.”
Jaq leaned closer.
“Isn’t the real problem that you would?” she asked, eyes glittering, this time without any irritation. She really was enjoying herself. Isolde knew she should retreat now, even if it meant giving this piece of land to Jaq. She could restrain Jaq for long enough to get away, easily. And if she stayed…More melted ice dripped down her legs. The cold would make her overheat.
“I used to like your optimism,” she said, trying to stop herself from lingering and failing. She wanted to see something other than smugness on Jaq’s face. “But it gets you into a lot of trouble, doesn’t it?”
Isolde went ahead and bound Jaq’s ankles with her ice chain, too, affixing the ends into a block of solid ice. If the woman wanted to be thrown in a dungeon, then Isolde would give that to her. And, before she left, she would encase Jaq’s fingers in ice. It would take her long enough to get out of that. Maybe she would think twice about confronting Isolde again anytime soon.
“Nothing I don’t like,” said Jaq, leaning forward and trusting the strength of Isolde’s ice chains to bear her weight. Isolde had to keep focus on the spell, though; like the fronds of frost in their cycle of climb and melt up her legs, Jaq’s skin was hot enough to melt her bonds a little. The water dripped over her fingers, flying off in droplets with each flick she made to maintain the churn of the frost growth over Isolde’s skin.
The heat was intense under Isolde’s skin now, burning her from the inside out. Even as she told herself she was allowing this to continue to make Jaq think she had the upper hand, Isolde knew she was drawing this out because it turned her on, because she was wet not just from the melt of delicate ice crystals. The chill curls ensnaring her legs and then melting away caused a tingle to roll all the way up her skin and nestle between her thighs, and she relished drawing out the sensation.
She was using Jaq to tease herself, get her heart pounding. She would have felt bad about it if not for the fact she was sure Jaq was doing the same thing. And when Isolde left her and went home, when she was having a bit of quality alone time with herself and her icicle toys, she could feel guilt-free knowing Jaq was off to do the same the moment she broke free.
“Well, then that explains it. Really, Jaq, I expected you to wise up, increase your skills, lay a trap for me. Not let yourself get caught.”
“Maybe you walked right into my trap and didn’t even know it,” said Jaq, leaning farther forward still, as far as her bonds let her go. Her face was inches from Isolde, and those eyes…Isolde tightened the ice chains, darkened the sky with clouds in warning.
“I very much doubt it. You’re desperate for one thing,” said Isolde, “and I’ve never seen you use any sort of cunning to get it.”
“And I’ve never seen you so eager to allow anyone threatening your kingdom to have their magic on you for any length of time,” said Jaq, eyes flicking to Isolde’s dress, beneath which the frost still wound up her legs and melted away. “You must really be enjoying this encounter.”
“That’s your plan, then? Get yourself tied up, have your wind blow open your top just enough, and see if I’ll go for the bait?”
“Why, Highness, I thought you wouldn’t have noticed,” said Jaq.
Isolde scowled. She’d been trying so hard to not be drawn into looking at the gentle curve of Jaq’s small breasts, of the glimpses of hard nipple revealed with each strong gust of wind. “Your tricks are all overused.”
“Why change what works?” asked Jaq, and Isolde felt the tip of a frost frond just graze the bottom of her ass. She breathed in, distracted, as Jaq twisted and stroked the air with her fingertips. “Why when you stay to see what I’ll do next?”
A trickle of warm wetness ran down the back of Isolde’s neck, followed by several strands of hair. Before she could react, the hair she had twisted up out of her way cascaded down around her face and neck as the icicle melted. Water dribbled down her back. A shiver tensed her shoulders briefly, and Isolde surged forward before she registered what she was doing. With both hands, she pulled Jaq’s face to hers and kissed the woman full on the lips.
Jaq did not pull away, did very little in fact but tilt her head into Isolde’s hands and part her lips. Isolde realized too late what was happening, and when she pulled away and their breaths snaked steamily into the air between them, Jaq looked triumphant.
“That got you to shut up,” said Isolde, trying to sound in control, like she’d meant all along to kiss Jaq. She remembered to reinforce the ice chains, well melted now, though Jaq hadn’t tried to break free. She still couldn’t look Jaq in the eyes, and she was growing less certain about her ability to just turn and leave. Maybe she was enjoying herself a bit too much.
She allowed herself a look at Jaq’s skin under the flapping of the vest. Her nipples were clearly hard, excited; Isolde couldn’t help but think about the chill wind teasing them, about her thumbs circling and warming them. When she looked up at Jaq again, the woman was grinning.
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