Queen of the Magnetland (The Elemental Phases Book 5) (27 page)

He’d
had no idea that she was
that
strong.  He’d never felt that kind of
power when their energies combined.  How could she hide so much power from him?

Matches
should automatically share all their energy once they Phazed.  She’d given him
some
. 
Enough that he’d never considered that there might be so much more inside of
her.  But, to achieve a jump like this at her age, she’d have to be one of the
most powerful Phases alive.

Powerful
enough to hold back, during their Phazing.

Chason
realized he couldn’t breathe properly.

Mara
had held back from him.

That
was the gap.

Chewing
on her lower lip, Mara glanced up and down the street, then back to the
newspaper in her hand.

“Looking
for something, Miss?”  A man came up next to her, tipping his hat.  “Seem a bit
lost there.”  He was an older man for a human, nothing but helpfulness in his
gaze.

Chason
still snarled at him.

“Um…
yes.  Thank you.”  Mara looked briefly thrown.  She’d probably never spoken to
a human before.  “I would like to see this picture.”  She unfolded the
newspaper and held up the ad for
My Fair Lady
.  “All the human…”  She
coughed to cover the slip.  “All of
our
magazines say it’s just
wonderful.  I would like to see it for myself.”

Chason’s
jaw clenched at the wistfulness in her tone.  It took such small things to make
her happy and he couldn’t even give her that.

“Sure,
darlin’.  Head right up Main and you’ll find the theater.”  The stranger
smiled.  “Awful pretty to be goin’ to the film by yourself.  Where’s your
fella?”

If
the human wasn’t probably long dead, Chason would have happily beheaded him.

Mara
seemed disconcerted, now.  She edged away from the human, apparently not sure
what to make of his question.  In the Elemental realm, everyone knew she was the
Magnet Queen.  It was common knowledge who she belonged to and Chason
liked
it that way.

“Well,
I have a… husband.”  She said, carefully using the human word, which wasn’t
nearly clear enough in its meaning for Chason. 

“She
has a
Match.
”  Chason moved to stand between Mara and human, like that
could possibly make a difference.

“Shame.
 I got a son who needs a pretty girl like you.”  The human shook his head. 
“Never mind.  You from around here?  I haven’t seen you before.  What’s your
husband do? Maybe I know him.”

“Well,
he sort of… plans defenses for… Houses… and he goes to meetings and things.  He
has a very important job.  Many people depend on him.”  She nodded earnestly,
as if she really believed all that.

“Real
bigwig, huh?  Too busy to take out his girl on a Friday night?”

Chason
hated that old man.

“Oh,
he wouldn’t want come to a movie with me.”  He and I,” she shrugged, “well, we
don’t have that sort of relationship.”  With a quick smile at the human, she
headed off down the street to find her movie theater, black hair bouncing.

We
don’t have that sort of relationship
.

She’d
given up on him.  Chason saw it clearly as she walked away from him.  She didn’t
trust him to be a real Match.  He’d screwed up so badly that she just stopped
fighting and gone her own way.  He’d realized his mistakes too late.

She
was leaving him alone in the darkness.

Chason
pressed a hand to his temple, trying to stop the sick pounding, as more scenes
came and went, years passing over that breakfast table.  Always one of them
asking about the other’s plans for day and always the same generic responses.

He
now understood those torn ticket stubs he’d found around the house after she
“died.”  He’d never been able to make sense of them in his fractured mind, but
now it all seemed so obvious.  God only knew how many films she’d seen over the
decades.

Sometime
in the 1980s, Mara was nearly hit by a truck dashing through the rain to see
Flashdance
. 
Chason’s heart stopped as he watched her tumble out of the way, tumbling to the
pavement and breathing hard.

If
she’d been killed, he never would have even found her body.  He’d had no idea
where she was all those times she went to the human realm.  No one would have
thought to look for her there.  She would have just disappeared without a
trace.

When
she came back to the Magnet Kingdom that night, both of her legs were bruised
from the fall.  She sat at her dressing table, dabbing antiseptic on them.

Chason
watched, his heart like a frozen, shrunken ball in his chest, as his past self
came into her room and gave her a chaste kiss.

“How
was your day?”  Old him asked politely, removing his jacket.

“Fine.” 
She dropped her nightgown over her knees to hide the scrapes and smiled her
distant smile.  “How was yours?”

“Fine.” 
He looked at her and Chason could see himself wishing that she’d say more. 
That she’d
talk
to him.  “Anything unusual happen in the Light Kingdom?”

“Not
that I noticed.”

Real-Chason
scowled at her.

Of
course, not.  How
could
she notice, when she hadn’t gone there, at all? 
Occasionally Mara lied outright, but those were always accompanied by blushing
and eye shifting and reluctant words.  She clearly didn’t like to lie.  Most of
the time, she just misled.  Careful phrasing and generalizations.  Past-Chason
assumed she was in the Light Kingdom and she just let him think that.

Why
the fuck wasn’t she yelling at him?  Throwing things at his skull?  The Mara he
had now would’ve
told
him exactly what she was doing and, if he didn’t
approved, she would’ve called him an idiot and done it anyway.  How could they
ever be better if she stayed behind her pleasant mask and…?

The
final scene shifted into focus and Chason’s morose thoughts skidded to a halt.

Mara
was sitting in another movie theater… but this time she wasn’t watching a
musical.

“Holy
shit.”  Chason whispered, transfixed by what he was seeing on the worn screen.

Two
humans were having sex in an incredibly fake looking forest.  With cardboard
palm fronds surrounding them, a large shaved male shoved a naked blonde against
a tree.  The woman’s breasts and lips were freakishly large and plastic
looking.  She let out a sensual whimper as the man tied her hands with “vines”
made of cheap luau leis.

“Now,
Jane, let’s see if you can yell as loud as Tarzan.”  The man ground out.  He
ripped of his leopard print loincloth and guided his erection into her eager
body.

“Yes! 
Take me, now!  Please!”

“Holy
shit
.”  Chason’s eyebrows soared in disbelief at the thumping music and
stereophonic moaning that followed.

There
were movies like this?  His Match
watched
movies like this?

Mara
usually kept most of her clothes on when they were Phazing, for Gaia’s sake. 
She was… a lady.  Whenever he touched her, Chason had always felt so awkward
and boorish.  Always believed that all the things he instinctively wanted to do
to her perfect body were just
wrong
.  Evidence that he was never quite
the gentleman that he tried so hard to be.

All
his life, Chason had been taught that Magnet Phases didn’t throw themselves
into Phazing the way the less evolved Houses did.  They were a people who
respected their Matches too much to do any of the depraved things that –for
instance-- a barbaric Fire Phase might do.  The Magnet Phase males knew not to
impose on their Matches more often than necessary and their Matches appreciated
their restraint.

That
was true, right?

So
much of what he’d believed turned out to be lies.

In
school, his teachers had pulled the boys aside and very clearly explained that
well- bred Magnet Phase women didn’t like Phazing.  They did it because it was
their biological duty and men should be grateful that their Matches were
willing to go through such a degrading process.  Chason learned that speech
verbatim.  He’d gotten an “A” in his manners and hygiene class.  He got “As” in
all
his classes.  He’d done –or rather
hadn’t
done-- everything
they told him about.  He’d always tried his best to be considerate of his
Match.  He’d never been with anyone except Mara.  He never even wanted to.

Until,
he’d met the new Mara he had now, anyway.

In
bed, he’d been respectful and undemanding.  He’d lived half his life in a
fucking cold shower, because he was so God damn respectful and undemanding. 
And Mara had never even said the word “Phazing” to him, so he assumed that she
was happy with that arrangement.  Mara was so pure and delicate, it would just
be
wrong
to take her the ways he occasionally fantasized about.

More
than occasionally fantasized about.

She
would never allow him to…

Chason’s
eyes nearly crossed as the blonde woman somehow found herself bent over a tree
limb, while the jungle man pounded into her from behind.

“Holy…
shit.”  He wheezed out, again.

No
wonder so many Phases had once lined up to take Tharsis’ Human Culture classes
at the university.  Suddenly, it all made sense.  The humans apparently
produced some incredibly educational films.  Who
wouldn’t
want to study
this?  Why the hell had no one told him that it was possible to even
do
some of these things?

Chason
glanced over at Mara to see how she was reacting to this spectacle.

His
Match was slouched down in the third row, a pensive look on her face.  In her
hand was that familiar little notebook and she was apparently… taking notes?

Chason
squinted in confusion.  What in Gaia’s name was she
doing
in this place? 
Glancing around the dark and musty theater, it was pretty clear that she was
the only woman in the audience.  Two rows back a dirty looking man was passed
out and snoring.  Several other shadowy figures were staring fixedly at the
screen.  Across the aisle, a guy in a baseball cap had his hand lodged down his
pants.

Jesus.

He
didn’t want Mara here.  It couldn’t possibly be safe.  At this point, it was a
toss-up over whether Chason was more concerned about the patrons or the germs. 
Elementals didn’t even catch human diseases, but he was still worried about her
touching anything.

The
blonde woman in the film climaxed with a supersonic shriek.

Chason
frowned over at her, even as the sound traveled straight to his loins.  That
kind of screaming couldn’t possibly be normal, right?  Mara had never sounded
like that in bed.  She rarely made any noise at all, except to sigh when it was
over.

He
looked down at his Match again and saw she was still concentrating on the film
with grim focus.  She leaned forward as the blonde woman straightened and
looked up at the man.

“Oh,
you are the King of the Jungle.”  The woman slid down to her knees and took his
straining erection into her mouth.

The
man let out a hiss of pleasure.

Moldy
theater or not, Chason was
completely
ready to give this film an Oscar.

He
actually cursed out loud when the memory shifted and he found himself back in
the Magnet Kingdom.  Damn.  Now he would never know how the movie ended.  Well,
he could guess, but…

Wait.

Chason
felt his heartbeat speed up as he looked around and suddenly remembered this
day.  Mara was striding across the grey rocks of the courtyard, headed for
where Chason saw his former self talking with several of his men.  She was
dressed in the same lavender dress she’d been wearing in that theater.  Its
demure skirt swung like a bell when she walked.

This
had happened a week before the Fall.  It was scorched into his mind forever.

“Chason.” 
She called sweetly.  “Might I borrow with you for a few moments?”

Chason
saw himself turn.  Saw his expression fill with surprise and pleasure, because
Mara had sought him out.  It was such a rare thing.  “Yes, of course.”  He
nodded in dismissal at the men and started forward to meet her.  “Did you need
something?”

He’d
been training that day, so he was in his full uniform.  Looking at them both
from the outside, Chason could see how very small Mara looked next to his
former self.  How delicate and soft.

He
wasn’t sure how it was physically possible, but suddenly he was rock hard even
in this dreamscape.  If he could’ve touched Mara, everything he’d ever been
taught about treating his Match gently would’ve been forgotten.

Please
Gaia… I know I don’t believe in you…but, just let this one memory stay as good
as I remember.

Mara
daintily cleared her throat.  “Yes, I’m in need you.  Chason...”  She trailed
off and Chason recalled how he’d felt how tight her energy was.  Now, he
realized that he only felt it because she
let
him feel it.