Chapter 25: Guards and Power

The hours flew by as Jack and I flew towards the pole. Flying so high in the atmosphere made it uncomfortably cold while we were flying which caused me to shiver. Every now and again we took breaks so that we could talk and we found that things really were back to normal. Well almost completely back to normal at least. As soon as I was set down on my feet, Jack would step away from me. Creating room between us. It was unnerving and I constantly felt like it was because I was doing something wrong. During one of our stops, I finally chose to ask him about it. As he set me down and took his step away I asked, "Why do you keep doing that?"

"Doing what?" asked Jack as he tried to play the innocent card.

"Moving away from me like you can't stand to be near me," I said and tried to contain the sadness that the words brought me. I looked down at the forest floor and then back up at Jack. I took his awkward silence as his answer. That he really didn't want to be near me. It caused me to wonder then if he couldn't stand me so much how was he able to fly us around without a problem? I disregarded the thought saying, "Whatever. We should keep moving."

I began walking in the direction that we were meant to be heading and I hand only taken a couple of steps away from the boy when his hand caught my own. I looked at him with a steeled expression but I held his hand regardless. It took him a moment to full catch up to me and for us to keep walking. Jack looked down for a moment and then back up at me before saying, "You want the truth?"

I nodded my head as if to say yes and he took a deep breath before letting it out with a lopsided grin, "You're always shivering when I hold you. I wanted to give you a chance to warm up before we continued flying and because I'm cold I thought it would be best to stay away."

I raised and eyebrow in confusion. Seriously? That's why he's been keeping his distance? "Really? That's it?"

"Yeah. That's it," said Jack with a chuckle, "Well that and your eyes."

"My eyes?" I asked. See, I knew that there was another reason for his strange behaviour.

"Their brighter than the contacts," explained Jack and I rolled said eyes.

"Well, yeah. They are yellow, you know."

"That's not what I meant," said Jack as he squeezed my hand causing me to look up at him instead of the forest ahead. He took a second to stop and held a hand up to cup my cheek with a smile, "I meant that they're more expressive than when you had the contacts in. It's strange, but nice."

I felt a blush run up to my cheeks and I tried to keep my cool by saying, "Jack, um, shouldn't we, uh, keep moving?"

The white haired boy smirked and said, "Are you flustered, Scarlett?"

"Haha, real funny Jack," I said sarcastically in response to his pun as the blush deepened in colour.

"You know that it was funny but I swear that I can see a certain beautiful girl blushing," said Jack with a widening smirk.

"Well, it certainly isn't me who's blushing," I said as I could feel the heat radiating off of my cheeks. Gosh, this is embarrassing.

Jack took a step closer whispering, "Miss Scarlett, I think that you are."

"So what if I am?" I whispered back.

"It's tempting," said Jack as his eyes flickered down to look at my lips.

"Tempting?" I asked.

"Extremely," said Jack before he closed the distance between us and pressed our lips together. I sighed happily as I pressed up against him and wrapped my arms around his neck. Gosh, how I'd missed him. I missed his touch. His taste. His everything and now that I had that back I could really see how much I never wanted to let him go ever again.

His lips were cold on mine like how I remembered they were and it was amazing. His hands slid down and held my waist, bringing me even closer to his beautifully fridged body. I pulled my arms tighter around his neck in an attempt to bring that beautiful coldness closer. He was everything that I had and he was amazing.

We soon found that even as a pair of immortal beings that air's still a necessity and was the cause of us pulling apart panting. One of Jack's hands moved from my waist to my check where he ran his thumb over the skin in a soothing motion causing my smile to widen.

"I've missed you," said Jack as he rested his forehead on mine.

"Me too," I said as I pulled him closer to me so that our chests were touching. In the back of my mind I was nagged by the mission that we were on. I smiled at him one more time before saying, "We should keep going."

Jack groaned, "Why?"

"You know why," I said with a chuckle. He was absolutely adorable and I loved him for it.

"Why don't we stay here for a little bit longer?" he suggested as he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. I pulled away from his arms with a playful smirk and took several steps back.

"How about this? If you catch me we can wait a little longer to meet the other guardians," I suggested. I saw the mischievous smirk cross his features.

"Better start running then," said Jack. The words had barely finished coming out when I had turned around and began running.

I laughed and yelled back, "Catch me if you can!"

I heard Jack laugh and I sprinted north away from him. I felt the adrenalin in my veins and laughed as I ran. I could hear Jack catching up to me as my feet moved me away from him. I panted as I continued running through the forest with a smile on my face. I took a moment to look behind me to see Jack was only a couple steps behind. I smiled and put up an extra burst of speed, but the effect was short lived as Jack wrapped his arms around my stomach and pulled us into a stop.

We were still panting hard when Jack whispered in my ear, "I caught you."

I turned around in his arms so that I could face him and said, "That you did."

I leaned in to kiss him when I heard the neigh of a guard in the distance. Jack heard it too and he froze on the spot. I brought my hand down to my hip slowly, cautiously and found nothing there. That's when I remembered that my axe was up at the pole with North. I pulled away from Jack to pat down my pockets before I remembered that we had left the knife that I took back in the cave. Crap. I looked up at Jack with worry.

"I don't have a weapon," I said in a shaky voice.

"I know, I know," said Jack, "I'll hold them off, you run."

It was in that moment that the guards came into view and pawed at the ground aggressively. The came in on all sides and left no room for me to escape.

"Too late now," I said as I took a step back and fell into a fighting stance with my fists balled, ready to fight. The horses walked closer making their circle even tighter. I scanned the forest floor quickly for something that I could use as a make shift weapon. When it comes to resourcefulness in battle forest and ruins are just about the greatest thing possible when a weapon is lost or in my case left behind.

I saw a rock about ten feet away from me that looked like it would be sharp enough to cut through the sand holding the guards together. The guards continued to take another step closer to us and I found myself itching to get closer to that rock and get away when a thought occurred to me.

"We can't let any get away," I told Jack as I realised the gravity of the situation, "they'll report it back to father and then we'd both be dead."

I pretty sure that Jack nodded response because he said nothing. Time seemed to slow down as I casted him a quick glance over and the guards moved forward. They came at us in a gallop and I felt the air around Jack and I become considerably cooler as Jack threw ice at the guards.

I moved out of the way of an on coming guard and saw that it continued to run at full speed at Jack. So that whom they were after. I sprinted out of the way of guards and worked my way towards the rock. The guards soon began coming in from all directions and Jack was in the air trying to take out as many as possible. The guards didn't let up in the slightest as Jack blasted more and more of them with his ice. If anything their attacks were even more desperate and harder to dodge.

By the time I had finally reached the rock I was panting hard and had multiple small cut on my arms and legs. I bent down just as a guard rushed me and I picked up the rock and stepped out of the way of its attack, bringing my hand down at the same time and letting the rock collide with its head. However, as I attacked this guard another one came up behind me and as I finished my own attack it bit down on the back of my jacket and lifted me off of my feet and into the air.

"Jack!" I yelled out as I struggled to get out of it's grasp. The hold that the guard had on me was sturdy and the front of my jacket was pressing up against my throat and almost choking me. I was absolutely terrified. I could see Jack struggling with the guards attacking him so in a desperate attempt to get free I craned my neck to look at the guard as I spoke angrily, "Put me down this instant!"

The guard looked terrified for a moment and surprisingly let me down. Once I was back on my feet, I looked wide eyed at the guard who seemed to almost be cowering in my presence. This had never happened before. The guards are only suppose to listen to father. I got an idea in my head and turned to a guard that was coming at me at full speed. I looked at it dead in the eye with anger still coursing through my veins because of the last guard trying to take me away.

"Stand down," I yelled at it and the guard stopped in its tracks and seemed to also be cowering just like the other guard. I noticed that several other guards had stopped and were looking around almost unsurely. Jack finished off the last of the guards that were in the air and flew down beside me. Without looking at him and without an ounce of mercy in my voice I spoke quietly to Jack, "Freeze 'em."

Jack complied and with in a moment all of the guards that had attacked us were no more than black sand and ice. I let out a breath that I hadn't realised that I had been holding and I found myself standing on shaky legs. I turned to face Jack with a relieved smile and he dropped his staff to give me a tight hug.

"Are you okay?" he asked in my ear. I nodded my head as I clung to him. He was my rock and was probably actually the only thing keeping me from falling over right now because I was shaking so bad.

"Yeah. Are you?" I asked. In truth I felt a bit dizzy and nauseous but I wasn't sure if it was from the fight or if it was from the concussion.

"Yeah," he breathed. He pulled back a bit and looked me over as I did the same to him. Blood trickled down from a scratch above his left eye brow. I raised a hand up to catch the droplets of blood as they streamed down his face.

With I smile I said, "Let's get you cleaned up."