Jacky came to stand beside him. He lifted a foot. “Dry as a bone.”
Jeb smirked, clapping him on the back, and he lurched forward a step. “Clothes fit a mite better, too.”
Jeb was pissed he hadn’t been able to keep the trajectory of the land better focused. Some of them had landed in shallow water.
Not Jacky. “Yeah, thanks. Keep your hands to yourself—hell.”
Jeb gave him the once-over: pants too long and big around the waist, cinched with a Reflective utility belt—all matte black—and a Reflective sparring top. The shirt fit loose on Jacky, but was meant to be worn tight to the body so the fabric didn't get in the way of movement and jabs. Jacky’s muscle structure wasn't quite a man's yet.
The faint outline of a butterfly was still visible on the old sparring shirt. Though it had been washed many times, the vaguest touch of unfurled wings and multi-colored shimmer remained at the breast.
It made Jeb's heart heavy.
Kennet spoke up, his eyes the most common color of a Papiliones—lagoon green, pale with streaks of muddied gray. “My pulse indicates we're in the Zimmer Quadrant.”
Jeb put his hands on his hips, thinking. “And intel says?”
“That this… ‘illegal fighting’ is in the York Quadrant.”
“Of course,” Jeb said bitterly.
“Okay, this means dick to me. What are all these places?” Jacky asked.
“Is he normally this…”
“Yes,” Jeb answered curtly.
“Principle, it's annoying,” Calvin said.
Jacky frowned, rubbing the spot where Jeb had thumped him. “Yeah? Try this on for size. What's annoying is being the Papilio bitch. I get to be a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed shit. Yeah—like I'm so for that program?” Jacky delivered the tirade so matter-of-factly that Kennet barked out a laugh.
“Stupid, this Three is not.”
“Yes,” Jeb agreed.
“God, you guys catch on fast.”
They frowned at Jacky.
Calvin put the strap of his all-ceramic stabilizer on his shoulder, hefting the weight until it hung perfectly, with a practiced motion.
“What we have here is a ten-kilometer click to find the center of the illegal cage fighting. The bulk of our Reflectives are housed there. Beth Jasper is key.”
“Why?” Jacky asked.
The men shifted their weight, then Jeb finally spoke. “She is a jumper for whom there is no comparison. Whatever she cannot do as well as her male counterparts, she makes up for in unparallelled reflection functionality.”
Jacky grinned, laughing.
“I can see that just twists your noodles, guys. A mere female”—he waggled his brows—“trumps ya on the old jumpathon. Yeah, that rankles.”
Calvin glared at him, his hands fisting.
“I want to strike him.”
“Feeling's mutual,” Kennet agreed smoothly.
“He speaks true,” Jeb said.
“Why is it such a big deal—” He made a whoo-hoo sound in his throat. “That Beth is better? Is it all because she's a chick?”
He searched their faces, and Jeb dropped his gaze.
“God! You guys are supposed to be so advanced, but you slave out your women—not dealing with liberation here.”
“This isn't helping,” Jeb commented.
“Which part? The part where ten percent of the ʽgreatʼ Reflectives did the moral dunce cap and took leave of their senses, ruined Papilio, and nabbed the rest of you guys? Or the part where you beat a good woman down who could have helped?” Jacky gave them steady eyes.
“’Cause I gotta say, I'm confused dudes.”
Calvin stalked off, and Kennet came to within kissing distance of Jacky. “I am sorry that your family has been murdered.”
Jacky held his tongue, though his eyes sparked with anger.
“However”—Kennet's finger went to Jacky's chest—“do not think my empathy is boundless. You are a foul-mouthed, impudent adolescent that needs a swift kick in the head to make you a man.”
“Yeah?” Jacky leaned forward into that pressing digit, apparently unintimidated by the five-inch-height and forty-pound-weight difference. “You need this foul-mouthed Three, Reflective Kennet.”
Jeb walked to the pair before they came to blows. It would be Jacky for whom it would end fatally. It was not the role of the Reflective to mete out life lessons to people from other sectors, no matter how enticing.
“Kennet,” Jeb began.
The Reflective's hands flexed. Then he backed away, expelling a disgusted noise.
“You need me,” Jacky repeated, crossing his arms.
“Yeah? Explain,” Kennet said, clearly disbelieving.
“I know the bad from the good.”
Jeb and Kennet stared at him as Calvin strode back. “Tell us.”
“You guys call me a ʽSensitiveʼ.” His gaze locked on them. “On Three, I'm an Aura Reader. I can always nail the butt munches from the cool people.”
Jeb cocked his brow.
“And?” Kennet asked.
“I'll know who we can trust, bright one.”
“Jacky,” Jeb warned.
“Well—God, he's the most stubborn listener on the planet.” Jacky’s eyes bounced around the general vicinity.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I'm gonna go there—on all the sectors.”
Calvin's chin jerked back, his hand on his hips. “And you presume it will work here? This is Sector One. Abilities don't always transfer.”
“Yeah?” Jacky asked, undaunted. “What if they have more traction instead of less?”
Silence met his statement.
Jeb turned from the group without a word, beginning the trek to the York Quadrant.
Blisters would tear his feet apart as his socks and boots worked against each other in the damp muck of his shoes.
He heard the other follow.
They were an unlikely group but necessary.
Jeb tried to keep The Cause firmly trenched in his psyche, but it warred constantly with his soul, which was bound to Beth.
That compulsion was even stronger than The Cause. Jeb knew that was why no Reflective could ever serve both The Cause and a soul mate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Slade handed Beth into the arms of another bloodling.
“You again,” she said, and the young male smiled. Not a hint of scarring remained from his encounter with the nightloper lion.
“Be still, hopper.”
Dimitri went nose-to-nose with Slade, and they were evenly matched in size. “Do not make this your war, bloodling. She is one female.”
Slade’s smile looked more like bared teeth than any bid for humor.
“I found her first,” Slade replied neutrally.
Beth wanted to laugh, except the serious faces gave her pause. Is there some arcane sense to this?
“You claim first rights?” Dimitri asked.
“No fucking way!” Ryan burst in, plowing through the guards as if they were cornstalks. “I brought Beth Jasper here as payment for my debt.”
Dimitri raised a deep-gold brow. “Yes, thank you, hopper, but you also lost her.”
There was a significant pause.
Beth stirred against the young bloodling, and his arms tightened around her like steel bands. Though he was not nearly as big as Slade, he was still a foot taller than Beth, and he weighed more than she cared to contemplate.
Beth would have to be willing to hurt him to escape.
And for what? To gain of a handful of meters before one of the groups took her down again? Beth's body ached, and her reserves were at such a low level that she was light-headed. Reflectives were efficient fuel burners, and she was running on empty.
Beth unwillingly settled and watched Dimitri and Slade barter.
“What recompense is required?” Slade asked carefully.
Dimitri knotted his hands behind his back and walked a short distance away, feigning thought.
Beth recognized theatrics when she saw them.
He spun around as though struck by a sudden logical course of action. “My colleague speaks true that he was returning her as payment for his debts.”
Colleague now.
Beth's eyes narrowed.
Ryan's face went from pained anger to smug satisfaction. Beth wanted to kick him in the chops again. Even though her entire instep was swollen and bruised, she knew it would be worth it.
“How much is the debt?” Slade asked.
Ryan glanced at Beth. “Much.”
“I was not speaking to you, toad.”
Beth understood the insult immediately, as did Ryan, whose upper lip curled back.
Slade beat his own chest, which appeared light gray in the moonlight. Beth saw that it was actually a pale ivory—not unlike her own.
His eyes had not changed; the dark-obsidian pockets of secrets stared at Ryan, challenging him.
“If you feel froggy enough…” Slade whacked his chest again, leaving livid marks of red. “Feel free to jump on the lily pad.”
They love their amphibian metaphors here.
Beth realized Papiliones had been wrong to think One so behind their own. While their technological advancements were limited, that hadn’t hindered their innovation.
It was frightening in its immediacy and volatility.
Ryan stepped forward, and Slade met his charge.
“Males,” Dimitri bellowed, stepping between them.
Beth would have never stepped between a charging Reflective. It was one thing to fight in self-defense and quite another to beg for death.
Dimitri's arms strained against their chests, his elbows locked.
“We shall come to terms, then you may beat each other to pulps with my blessing.”
“I don't need your blessing, slaver.”
Dimitri and Slade locked gazes.
“I am part nightloper, as you know.”
I was right.
“It doesn't matter. You are first and foremost a slaver. You buy and sell flesh. You fight flesh. It is what you do.”
Slade stepped back.
“Coward,” Ryan said under his breath.
Slade's hand swept out, hitting the Reflective in the temple. It had been a casual flick of his wrist, yet Ryan stumbled back a step.
Dimitri held Ryan back. “Do not provoke the bloodling, or I will give him the female, and the debt you owe me will take much more to pay off.”
Ryan's pale-bluish-green eyes lit on Beth with demonic fire.
He stopped fighting Dimitri.
Dimitri turned to Slade. “You will fight Lance Ryan of the Reflective to the death.” His eyes became hooded. “The winner will take the female.”
Like Hades.
Slade said nothing, spreading his legs and crossing his arms.
“No,” Ryan seethed.
“Afraid?” Slade asked, his tone thick with the amusement that was so irritating.
Beth could stand it no more. She moved to Slade's back and the bloodling let her go.
She put her hand against the breadth of him, and Slade didn't move, as though he had felt her approach.
Maybe he did.
“Don't,” she cautioned Slade; she didn't need a champion.
Her eyes met Ryan's.
“I will fight him.”
Ryan smiled. She could see that had been his plan all along. She had no hope of winning.
There was only honor.
Beth thought of the Ninth: forsake not honor, for it is all which remains.
“If you look to murder the female, one of your own kind, it will not happen while I draw breath.”
“That can be arranged, bloodling,” Ryan said.
Dimitri scowled. “I do not condone pitting males against females. I might slave flesh, but I am not stupid.”
Quick like a snake, Dimitri had his hand around Beth's arm and jerked her around Slade, who moved forward to protect her but stayed his charge.
The knife was suddenly at Dimitri’s throat. Beth didn't remember drawing it, but it served her hand just the same.
Dimitri chuckled.
“And what a female she is!” he cawed happily. A drop of blood oozed from the tip of her ceramic blade and she pressed a little deeper.
Beth had seen her face reflected a thousand times, in a thousand different surfaces. She knew what her ebony gaze sparkled with killing intent.
Dimitri gazed into those depthless eyes, and Beth was sure he saw the wish for his death.
He placed his finger against the blade and pushed it away, scraping a line of blood across his throat.
“Now, where was I?” he clapped his hands together as Beth lowered the blade. She could hear his blood drip from the tip.
Dimitri circled her, and she turned with him, careful not to face away from Ryan, who stood just two meters from her.
“She is what? One hundred pounds?” He was deep into the delightful drama he seemed so fond of. “Five feet three?”
“One hundred ten, five feet two,” Beth commented, already growing weary and irritated with his machinations.
Dimitri suddenly spun to Ryan, trusting her at his back.
Beth wanted to kill Dimitri so much that her hand grew moist with her sweat. She felt Slade's hand press against the small of her back, and a sigh escaped.
He pointed at Ryan. “You would come against a female you outweigh by over a hundred pounds and a foot of height…”
“I'll fight him,” Beth repeated, her eyes on Ryan.
“Oh, I know that you will, little frog,” Dimitri tossed behind him. “You have the heart of a nightloper lioness. But you shall not be killed by an honorless male.”
Slade grunted in discontent behind her.
Beth wasn't sure if that was because Dimitri had called her a little frog or because he’d compared her to the nightlopers. Either way, he wasn't happy.
“Slade has offered challenge for this Reflective. He is a good match for you, Lance Ryan.”
“Or,” Dimitri said offhandedly, “we could release the Reflectives you traded to me, back into Papilio.”
True fear marked Ryan's face, and Beth smiled.
Let him sweat.
“Fine.” His hands went to his hips. “I accept.”
He moved forward, and Beth retreated into Slade, though she meant to hold her ground, but he stood in it.
“Remember, mongrel, if the bloodling seeks death so badly, and the reaper comes to claim him, you will be my plaything. Mine to do whatever I wish with.”
Beth's heart thumped against her chest, and she opened her mouth to reply, but Slade said, “Save your empty threats to the female. You call yourself male, but you are an abuser of the defenseless.”
Ryan's eyes met Slade's, far above her head.
Then his eyes went to her, driving down her body in a repugnant sexual scan.
He was so unworthy to be called Reflective.
“My plaything in every way,” Ryan promised.
“You've had your fun. Now go,” Dimitri said.
Ryan's lips curled. She knew that he was as handsome as Jeb, but his black interior made him ugly outside.
He stalked off, and Beth couldn't help her partial slump against Slade.
“I'm not defenseless,” Beth said.
“No.”
Dimitri threw a palm at Beth, raking his fingers through his short gold hair. “Her hunger beats at me. Feed her and return at midnight.”
Every face turned to the sun, rising and strong above the mountains that stood at every corner of this quadrant.
“Fine.”
Slade began to turn away.
“Keep your word bloodling or we know where to find you... and your females.”
“I am not like that one,” Slade said.
Ryan was not around to hear his disparaging comparison.
Slade guided Beth away as they left the complex together.
She stumbled and fell.
Slade paused.
Bending down, he slid his arms under the back of her knees and her upper back.
“Let me down,” Beth said, her head lolling with fatigue.
“No,” he replied simply.
“I am not different than Dimitri in that way. He has a bit of bloodling in him. It allows him to feel a female's hunger, fatigue—need.”
“Only a little,” Beth said groggily, tucking her abused hands underneath her jaw.
Slade gave a single dip of his chin. “He feels it gnaw at him.” He narrowed his eyes at her and lowered his voice. “I feel that you have not slept in fifty hours. That your last meal was in a sector that is foreign to this one, and most of it was expelled after a male beat you badly.”
He lifted a brow, and Beth sighed, soft and long.
“You don't deny it?”
Beth didn't answer.
She'd fallen asleep in his arms.
She didn't feel his eyes on her or the trees he jumped into and swung through like a monkey to get her to safety. Nor did she feel the soft bed Slade laid her into after stripping her of her filthy clothing.
Beth slept like the dead, her body's rapid healing so needy that she had fallen into a light coma.
Slade watched her while she slept.
*
Jeb crawled on his belly with Calvin and Kennet beside and slightly behind him.
Jacky kept to the rear.
“I see the fort.” Jeb handed the pulse viewers to Calvin, who squinted through them, nodded, and passed them to Kennet.
Kennet pressed his thumb to the pad, and the lenses folded out from a hidden compartment. He pressed the forehead bridge between his eyes and took in the nearly square stone structure. Barred windows lined the top.
“Well that's grim to penetrate,” Kennet commented.
“I don't get it,” Jacky complained quietly. “Can't you just bust in there and beat the hell out of all of them?”
Calvin sighed. “This is the most violent sector. We've got a bunch of humanoids who've migrated here from Seven. They've evolved into a barbaric group of part-humanoid, part-animals.”
“Nightlopers?” Jacky guessed.
“Yes,” Jeb said. “We don't know much, except that their distant relatives on Seven can shift between human and animal forms.”
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