Read Online Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) by Ella Summers - Free Book Online Page B

‘loosening up’. There was a reason Phantoms kept a careful check on their emotions. Their tempers were far too volatile to risk inciting.
    “Sit back, drink your tea, and eat your cracker.” Lana tossed him a second cracker. “In fact, have two.”
    Really not a good idea. Jason took a bite out of the cracker anyway. Lana nodded in approval. Jason decided that sticking his tongue out at his sister was not in line with the deadly assassin image he was trying to maintain, so he settled for a seething glare. Lana was unfazed.
    Isis released Jason’s hand to lift her teacup, but subtly shifted her weight to be closer to him. Trying not to think about how her thigh was pressed against his, he decided this was a good time to get them back on track.
    “Isis, if you are ready, could you tell us why you’ve come here?” he prompted her.
    She tried to look calm, but Jason could make out the wince she contained half a second too late.
    “The Selpes told me you stole the Book of Memory from Orion,” she said.
    “I did.”
    “Until they confronted me with this, I didn’t even know they had it.”
    “Did they say how they got it in the first place?”
    She shook her head. “No. But apparently they have experts on Elition lore working for them.”
    “What kind of experts?”
    “I’m uncertain. Perhaps scholars who have studied our texts and history. Perhaps just a few humans who have dyed their hair blue and sit around all day smoking dandelions.”
    Cameron snorted in appreciation of her description. They all knew the sort. Some humans thought if they just made themselves look Elition and consumed enough of the right plants, they would become Elition. Fortunately, magic didn’t work that way, else Elitia would have been plagued by a plethora of fools.
    “Whoever their experts are, they figured out the significance of the Recovery Scrolls. And the Selpes want them,” said Isis.
    “Were the Recovery Scrolls to fall into the hands of the Selpes or the Avans, they could use them to track down every last Elition,” Lana commented.
    “Right,” Isis replied. “I imagine they’d hunt down the most powerful Elitions. They would try to form their own version of Vib’s menagerie.”
    The encounter with Vib’s odd Elitions had left Jason unsettled. Absolutely obedient and trained to attack as a swarm of perfectly coordinated killers, there was nothing natural about them.
    “No, not nearly so harmless. The Selpes would create their own Elition killing squad, perfectly brainwashed to obey their every whim,” commented Jason.
    “I thought Elitions were resistant to brainwashing and, um…” Everett tried not to look at Isis. “Torture.”
    She looked down at her hands in her lap. Jason stroked a finger across her palm and felt a pleasant spark, like a bolt of energy had rippled through his body. She must have felt it as well because her back straightened. He took a second to consider what the strange phenomenon was. He’d never felt its likes before.
    “Resistant, yes, but not immune. We’re quite susceptible to drugs — or even basic foods, as Lana has shown here. They could be used to weaken our mental resistance. Theoretically,” Jason added as Isis gripped to his hand like a drowning woman.
    He didn’t know if she’d spilled any information while the Selpes had strung her up on stimulants and tortured her, and there was no point in bringing it up now. Her mind was shattered enough as it was.
    Isis took a deep breath and continued. “Now the Selpes no longer hold the Book of Vision, something they are quite sour about.”
    Her hand drifted up to her neck. She left it there for a few silent seconds before dropping it.
    “They’ve employed the services of the Crescent Order to retrieve the pieces of the Recovery Scrolls.”
    “Assassins?” Everett asked, looking significantly at Jason.
    “They are foremost assassins, but they can also be hired for other perilous tasks. The more dangerous and challenging