Jacob x Raphael (4)

"Being my ally, I can guarantee your escape and safety, but on one condition." Jacob spoke to Grace and she asked curiously:

"What condition?"

"You will do everything I say, without questioning my decisions and without asking questions about me and..." Suddenly, Jacob stopped dancing, pulled Grace to his chest and whispered in her ear:

"Under no circumstances are you to read my mind, do you understand?"

"Yes... I will make sure I meet all the conditions."

"Perfect." Jacob pulled away and went back to dancing with grace.

.

.

.

Astrid and raphael made their way to the dance floor and began to dance to the beat of the music. As they danced, raphael asked:

"Where did you learn to dance? Since you are a general, I don't think you had much time to practice."

"I learned from someone..." Astrid was giving a brief reply that piqued raphael's curiosity:

"Oh? Did the great Astrid have a dance partner?"

"Yes... But changing the subject, what do you think of princess ysabel?"

"What do I think of her? Why is that now?"

"I'm curious, so tell me." She slowed the pace of her dance and passed both arms around raphael's neck as she waited for the answer.

"Let's see... She's strong."

"Please raphael! I know you and I know that the first thing you notice about a girl is her beauty."

"Haha..." He gave a few ungracious laughs and told the truth:

"She is a beautiful elf, honestly I have never seen an elf as beautiful as she is."

"What else?" Discreetly, astrid began coordinating the dance towards zed and ysabel, so they could hear.

"Hm, she is also someone interesting, I feel like I could learn several things from her."

"And do you feel any sexual desire for her?"

"What? No! She is married and I respect her husband."

"Uhum, that's cute, but you know you can't fool me, right?" Astrid and raphael, were only 10 feet away from ysabel and zed.

"Sigh... I only have a few fantasies about her, but nothing that makes me lose my logic."

"Oh? So you mean you have erotic fantasies about princess ysabel?"

Suddenly ysabel and zed were listening to that, but ysabel didn't care one bit and became even more curious about raphael, but zed who was her husband, felt extreme anger and quickly let go of ysabel and walked over to raphael as he spoke:

"How dare you say such things and mention my wife's name?" After saying this, everyone's attention was turned to them and raphael quickly tried to apologize:

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"It was not your intention? You think you can get away with it just because you're a hero? Put yourself in your place, human!"

"I already apologized... is there really nothing I can do to make you apologize to me?"

Suddenly, Astrid entered the fray and made a suggestion:

"What do you think about you two fighting a friendly match? It would just be to settle the score between you two."

"What, why would I do that?" Zed said irritated at that suggestion, but to his misfortune, ysabel entered the conversation and spoke:

"Yes, fight him and defend my honor." She wasn't caring about zed at the moment, she just wanted to know raphael's power level.

"Ysabel... Okay! I will fight this bastard and restore his honor!"

The hall was vibrating and celebrating as they saw what was going to happen, but one person in particular, was not liking this at all.

"Are they really going to fight?" Sindar spoke disbelievingly and lagertha replied excitedly:

"Isn't it amazing? Now we'll be able to see the power level of the hero raphael."

"Yes... Really quite amazing..." Suddenly sindar would stop talking as he saw someone moving towards zed....

Moving past everyone, jacob stopped in front of raphael and said confidently.

"I will fight the hero."

Everyone present was shocked by that statement, even rodric who was bored, quickly became excited and smiling for what was going to happen.

"What? Why you?" zed asked confused, but jacob didn't even make a point of answering him and said while looking at ysabel:

"What do you think? Is it okay being me?"

"Fine with me."

Jacob just smiled in response and said to raphael:

"How about it? You didn't want to know me?"

"I didn't want to know you in a fight." Raphael replied smiling, he was excited inside because that was exactly what he wanted.

Lagertha smiled and snapped her fingers and in an instant, a huge barrier was summoned around raphael and jacob. The barrier expelled all but the two of them.

After being driven away from the two, Astrid was shocked to see that her plan had failed, why her goal was to get raphael to defeat zed and soon after to get ysabel to fall in love with his strength, but now her whole plan went down the drain, all because of him.

"Jacob voss!" Astrid whispered angrily and quickly ran up to ysabel and said:

"Why did you allow a stranger to defend your honor instead of your husband?"

"Stranger? He is under the protection of varda elentarí, what person would be more suitable than him?"

"What?" Astrid was shaken by that information, it never crossed her mind that jacob was under such protection.

"And I'm curious to know who is the strongest, because the handsomest I already know who is."

Astrid gritted her teeth as she realized that the only thing she could do, was to watch the outcome of that fight.

A battle between a blessed and a cursed was about to take place...