Doomsday: My Fortress levels up when I bond with heroines3 / 3

Chapter 3 : The Ice Queen's Price

The Whitmore Tower looked like a giant glass tombstone sticking out of the ruins of the city.

Jax crouched behind a rusted-out bus across the street, watching the building through his rifle scope. It was forty stories of mirrored glass-most of it smashed now. The ground floors were choked with vines that hadn't been there yesterday. The Aether worked fast; overnight, weeds as thick as a man's arm had crawled up the marble walls, their leaves shot through with deep red veins.

Down on the plaza, the Shamblers were starting to bunch up.

Sixty, maybe seventy of them. They were circling the revolving doors in a slow, hungry wave, drawn by something inside.

(Appraisal Eye: Awakened signature detected. Whitmore Tower, 31st floor.)

(Elena Whitmore | Rank: S (Unstable) | Affinity: Ice)

(HP: 41% | Aether Reserve: 8%)

(Status: Barricaded. Cornered.)

Eight percent.

She was almost out of gas. The S-Rank "Ice Queen," the woman everyone in the wasteland talked about in whispers, was running on fumes.

Jax lowered his rifle and let a small smile touch his lips.

Perfect.

It took him forty minutes to get up to the thirty-first floor.

The front doors were a death trap, so he went through the parking garage-a concrete cave that smelled like wet rot. He stayed low and quiet, only killing when he absolutely had to, using a piece of rebar to crush skulls so he wouldn't have to make noise with a gun. Twice, he had to freeze in the dark while Shamblers shuffled right past him, close enough that he could smell the decay.

The stairwell was even worse. Bodies were piled up on every landing; some were in expensive suits, others in black tactical gear. Their rifles were scattered across the steps, all of them empty.

Her bodyguards, Jax thought.

He stepped over a man whose throat had been ripped out and grabbed an unspent pistol from the floor. He checked the chamber, loaded it, and kept moving.

Then he heard it-faint, coming from above. A woman's voice, low and angry.

"Stay back."

There was a crackle of frost, then a wet, shattering crunch.

Jax started climbing faster.

The thirty-first floor used to be a corporate lounge. Leather sofas, a mahogany bar, and a wall of windows overlooking the dead city.

Now it was a fortress, and the walls were closing in.

Elena Whitmore stood in the middle of the room, her back against a pillar of ice.

She was taller than he'd imagined, and more beautiful than any of the stories had prepared him for. Her platinum hair was loose, though streaked with blood and grime. Her white silk blouse was torn at the collar, revealing a pale collarbone and a fresh gash across her ribs. Her tailored pants were caked in dust. A single glove of ice covered her right hand, jagged and trembling.

She held it out like a sword.

Eight Shamblers stood between her and the door, frozen mid-leap in blocks of crystal. A ninth was creeping toward her along the wall, its jaw hanging open, dragging one ruined leg.

Elena's eyes-a pale, glacial blue-tracked the creature without fear. Only contempt.

"I said," she whispered, "stay back."

A spear of ice shot from her palm, punching straight through the creature's chest. It staggered, fell, and shattered on the marble floor.

Then Elena swayed.

Jax saw it-the tiny slip in her stance, the way her knees almost gave out. The ice glove on her hand cracked and dissolved into mist.

She was done.

And as three more Shamblers lurched into the room from the stairwell, Jax decided it was time to make an entrance.

Jax raised the pistol and fired three times.

Three heads snapped back. Three bodies hit the floor.

Elena spun around, her eyes wide. Her hand started to lift, but nothing happened. Her power was gone; her fingers just shook in the empty air.

She saw him.

A stranger. Dirt-streaked, rifle across his back, blood drying on his sleeves. He stood in the doorway like a man who'd just walked in from a different world.

"Who are you?" Her voice was still razor-sharp. "If you're another one of Garrett's men, I'll kill you. I swear, I'll-"

"You can't."

Jax stepped forward, his boots crunching on broken glass. "You have eight percent Aether left. You couldn't freeze a glass of water right now."

Her face went completely still.

"How do you know that?"

"I know a lot of things."

He crossed the room slowly and stopped three paces from her. He could see the tiny tremor in her lip and the pulse flickering in her throat. Up close, she smelled like cold air and expensive perfume, with a faint metallic tang of blood underneath.

Elena lifted her chin.

"I am Elena Whitmore," she said coldly. "My family owns forty percent of this city. Whatever you want, I can pay triple. Name your price."

Jax almost laughed.

"Your family is dead, Miss Whitmore. Your bank is dead. Your accounts are ash. Out there..." He tipped his head toward the shattered windows. "...there is no money. There's only who can kill, and who can't."

For the first time, something flickered across her face.

Fear.

She hid it quickly, but he'd seen it.

"My security team will return," she insisted. "They were only-"

"They left you," he said flatly. "Twelve armed men. Eleven are dead in the stairwell. The twelfth ran the second things got bad. His name was Garrett."

Her mouth parted slightly. Her blue eyes searched his face, and he watched the truth settle in.

"He took the helicopter," Jax said. "Fled the roof an hour ago. You can hear it if you listen."

She didn't have to listen. She already knew.

Her hand fell slowly to her side.

The silence stretched between them.

Below, the horde roared against the barricaded doors. The tower groaned. Somewhere, a window shattered and fell forty stories.

Elena Whitmore, the heir to a business empire, the woman who had never been told "no," stood in the ruins of her penthouse and looked at a stranger as if she were measuring the edge of a cliff.

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Jax let the pause hang there.

Don't beg. Don't soften. She respects strength. Give her a deal.

"A contract," he said.

"A contract?"

"I have a sanctuary. Sealed, defensible, stocked. I can keep you alive while this city burns." He held her gaze. "In exchange, I want something only you can give me."

Her eyes narrowed. She glanced down his body, then back to his face, a slow flush of color touching her cheekbones.

"If you think-"

"Not like that." A faint, cold smile. "Not yet."

Her breath caught at the yet.

"There's a system," Jax went on, calm as stone. "Call it a bond. It lets two Awakened people share power. You'd become stronger. Your rank would rise. You'd be immune to the Aether, and no one could touch you." He paused. "And I would gain a piece of your ice."

Elena stared at him.

"You're insane."

"Probably."

(Bond Compatibility: 97%.)

(Mutual consent required. Awaiting response.)

He didn't need the system to tell him what he saw. A woman who wanted to refuse but couldn't. A queen without a kingdom, hunting for a reason to say no and finding none.

Her gaze drifted to the window, to the dead city and the blood-red sunrise.

She was shaking, he realized. Very slightly. Not from the cold.

"And if I say no?" she asked.

"Then I walk out of here," Jax said, "and you die in this room by nightfall."

The honesty of it hung in the air.

Elena closed her eyes.

One breath. Two.

When she opened them again, the arrogance was gone. What remained was something sharper, harder: a survivor's calculation.

"Say I accept," she said softly. "What would you require? Specifically."

Jax stepped closer. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. Close enough that her breath brushed his throat.

"Not here," he murmured. "Not like this. When we reach the sanctuary, when you're fed and warm and you've had time to think, I'll explain everything. And if you still choose it..." His voice dropped. "...it will be your choice. Freely made."

Her lips parted. A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the cold.

"And until then?"

"Until then, you walk beside me. You do as I say in the field. And you don't ask me to explain myself."

Something stirred in her eyes-pride, resentment, and underneath both, a dangerous curiosity.

"You are," Elena said slowly, "the most arrogant man I have ever met."

"Yes."

"I could ruin you."

"You could try."

A long moment passed.

Then, very slowly, the heir to the Whitmore fortune extended her hand.

"Elena Whitmore," she said, her voice perfectly steady. "Not yet your anything."

Jax took her hand. It was ice-cold, and softer than he'd expected.