“But, that jerk Ryan reflected all your warriors to the fort, so you don't think he didn't put the kibosh on the consulate and prison he was tortured in?”
That was exactly what Jeb had thought but hadn't said.
“It's likely.”
Jacky stopped walking. “Then what the hell is happening to Maddie?”
Kennet walked to Jacky. “I do not want any Reflective female in harm's way. Take heart that she escaped the drugged flesh trade that Ryan implemented in Papilio.”
“You think your world is the only one who does that?” Jacky asked, his face disdainful. “Hell—we have that back home.”
The Reflectives were silent.
“We must free the Reflectives. With all of us together, we can right these injustices,” Calvin said, keeping watch of their front.
“Once we have them, we return to Papilio and free our females and the other insurgents.”
“But she will be here while you guys figure out all that bullshit. We can't leave her here once we nab the Reflectives.”
Jeb knew Jacky was right.
“Let's see what transpires after liberating my comrades.”
Jacky's face was miserably conflicted. “I guess that's fair.”
Jeb nodded. The whole debacle was not fair, but it was what they had to work with, and it wasn't fair.
*
Ryan stood in the far corner of the wide square mat.
Beth noticed it had once been a light gray; the edges still bore the original color. It was now stained rust with the blood of the Reflectives.
Ryan bounced on the balls of his feet, his massive arms teeming with the vitality of their species, thick veins bulging with the warmth and energy he radiated as he jabbed at the air in front of him.
In absolute opposition to Ryan's coiled agitation, Slade walked to his corner, his large hands on solid hips. His leg muscles bunched with the rolling of his hips as he walked. Streaks of blood, two stripes under each dark eye, decorated high cheekbones. Hair that reached his shoulders when loose was tightly bound at his nape.
Both males wore fitted shorts at mid-thigh length. Slade's were crimson, fitting for his species, and Ryan's were the deep-navy blue that was the uniform color for The Cause.
Ryan didn't deserve to wear the colors of the Reflectives.
The cavernous fighting house also served as the Reflectives’ prison. Beth had presumed they were mistreated, but they looked healthy—if filthy—fit, and well-fed. It told Beth that Dimitri was keeping them in top condition so they could kill one another.
Hundreds of light eyes peered through the bars of the the cage that held Reflective Ryan and Slade, Prince of the Bloodlings.
Beth stood beside Dimitri, assessing continuously for means of escape. She would not—could not—admit that she was worried for Slade.
Beth didn't care for him, but she didn't wish him ill.
He'd saved her, fed her, and allowed her to heal. Still, the bloodlings were true to their namesakes—bloodthirsty.
But Beth had seen a compassionate side in a supposed enemy—hope, came to roost in the recesses of her mind.
Hope was a useless emotion. However, sometimes, it was the only thing that remained.
Many Reflectives had caught sight of Beth, and their hard expressions told her they misinterpreted her presence. Not that she could blame them.
Beth smiled when she recognized the guard whose balls she had almost fashioned into earrings. He banged a gong, announcing that the fight had begun.
Dimitri leaned next to her ear and said in an intimate whisper, “My money's on Ryan.”
Beth turned to look at him and used the two words that never seemed to need translation: “Fuck you.”
Dimitri chortled, his masculine glee abruptly cut off as Slade and Ryan collided in the center of the ring.
Let the games begin.
*
Jeb heard the sharp strike of a deep thrumming gong. Calvin and Kennet had their backs pressed to the stone walls of the fort.
“Showtime,” Jacky said.
Jeb nodded. He hoped they could blend with the other Reflectives once they were released.
Jeb edged along the wall in the absolute dark that was a gift to their penetration of the fort.
They made slow progress to the back of the entrance. The roar of the crowd inside the fort made it impossible for Jeb to locate certain signs, sounds… and Beth.
Finally, his fingers met the stone where it curved to a large door.
He spun to meet whatever guard might be at the rear entrance, and a nightloper greeted him with gnashing teeth inches from his face.
Jeb stepped into their charge, as he'd been trained to do.
Where others fled and gave space, Reflectives were taught to move forward.
Twelfth: embrace fear not, for it leads to death.
His blade was married to his palm, and he used it, his ragged breaths regulated to minimize noise.
Still, when the nightloper’s talons pierced Jeb, he met the strike with his dagger, plunging the serrated edge into his attacker.
Jeb fought the agony of the puncture wounds, and his right hand fisted over his left as he dragged the blade upward, dividing the beast's guts into a neat pile, which fell steaming to the ground.
He kicked the nightloper with his damp boot, and the claws that were sunk deeply in Jeb's flank tore out. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from bellowing.
Jeb swung his head and saw Jacky pinned against the wall with the teeth of a nightloper that was clearly half-rat against his throat.
He leapt, arcing his left hand above his head and embedding the dagger to the hilt in the center of the rat man's head.
“Bad!” Jacky wheezed as though his aura-reading cleared that up.
The nightloper rat froze, momentarily stunned as Jacky slid out from underneath tapered ebony nails and four-inch incisors.
“Fuuuuckk me!” Jacky screeched.
“Quiet!” Calvin hissed, cleanly taking off the head of the nightloper he and Kennet had killed.
“God—what are those things?”
“Nightloper,” Jeb said, but he was already moving. If three were guarding this entrance, he felt confident there would be more elsewhere.
They moved quietly through the large arched door.
Jeb knew very little about the illegal fighting. Reflectives didn't police primitive sectors as that was not a duty of The Cause.
He did understand prisons. And what Jeb needed to free the Reflective regime while the distraction of the fight was in full swing.
What he saw made him hesitate and stand riveted, his eyes sweeping over the tops of males who roared for the victor.
A bloodling and Reflective Ryan had beaten each other into bloody bodies of blurred motion. Jeb could hardly track the fists, then the blood spray misted from a chop to Ryan's jaw with his retaliatory kick causing the crack of bloodling bone.
Jeb tore his eyes away, finding Calvin and Kennet.
They lifted their chins in acknowledgment. Jacky pointed to a narrow corridor that flanked steep stone steps.
His face was turned to the backs of the males enraptured in the fight. He glanced back at the steep dark staircase. Jeb believed the mechanicals which operated everything to do with the prison, lay just ahead.
The small group took the steps three at a time. When they reached the zenith, Jeb stalked forward on silent feet.
The controls operator never knew he'd passed from this life to the next.
Jeb stepped over the body, sat down, and gazed at the controls.
Damn, they are too primitive. All of it was pre-pulse. A flutter of panic began in his chest.
“Scoot over, big dude. I got this,” Jacky said with a confidence Jeb didn't feel.
Jeb's eyes scanned the crowd through the control window and snagged on Beth, so small and dark next to what must be the slaver.
Jeb's hands gripped each other. It was all he could do to stay rooted to the spot.
“My grandpa was great on all this mechanical shit and used to let me play with all his gadgetry! I'm a pro!” Jacky chirped.
Jeb wanted to hit him.
Equally irritated, Calvin and Kennet came to stand behind the boy. “Release the Reflectives.”
Their eyes moved to the fighters. One lay on the ground unmoving.
“Huh, that's easy!” Jacky moved a few levers and hit a button.
Nothing happened at first.
Then a great churning of gears began, and the cell doors that had imprisoned the Reflectives opened slowly.
“See?” Jacky said, leaning back in the chair and lacing his hands behind his head.
“Come at me, guys.”
*
Slade dropped to his knees. Ryan delivered a final kick that landed on his chin.
Beth rushed to the cage as Slade toppled like an old-growth tree.
“Hopper!” Dimitri screamed.
Beth hit the cage, her fingers sliding through the metal links. She gripped and tossed herself over the three-and-a-half-meter-tall cage, spinning as she did.
Beth landed on her feet in front of Ryan, who was beaten but not finished.
He attacked in the way of the Reflective: brutal, instant, and merciless.
Beth’s only chance was that Ryan was worn from the fight with Slade. When his strikes connected with Beth, they held all the strength of his body.
It was mighty.
Beth danced away from his limbs.
His fist came for her jaw, and she captured it in both her hands, twisting viciously against the forward momentum.
His wrist broke, and she stepped into his body, her knee sailing up to his groin.
He deflected and she held tight to the broken wrist, swinging Ryan over her shoulder as he moved with her, flipping with her momentum and landing on his back.
She'd attached herself to him and he used it, giving a painful roar as he used his own broken wrist and jerked her tight, punching her in the jaw as she fell into him.
It was a glancing blow because she'd been in motion and too close for him to strike properly.
It still blurred her vision.
Beth brought it all, biting his bad hand like a snake striking.
Ryan howled and tossed her away from him.
Beth lay on her back, trying for air and finding none.
Then Jeb moved into her vision.
They shared a heart beat of silent communication while tears rolled out of her eyes and wet the mat underneath her.
She had never been so grateful for anything as she was for him in that moment.
Jeb turned as Ryan came at him. He used all his momentum, delivering a skull-cracking blow that dropped Ryan where he stood.
Jeb held out his hand as the human mayhem swirled around them.
Beth took it, and he lifted her to her feet. She could hardly stand, her vision tripling.
“Let's go.”
Jeb led her away. Reflectives Calvin and Kennet flanked him with the primitive weapons of One they’d picked up along the way.
“Wait,” Beth said weakly.
She turned to look for Slade.
Only a bloodied outline of his body remained.
THE END
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The Reflective Cause, Book #2
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THE PEARL SAVAGE
A Savage Series Novel
Book 1
New York Times Bestselling Author
TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2010-11 Tamara Rose Blodgett
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
www.tamararoseblodgett.com
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Prologue
1890
Samuel lay on his back, gasping for air like a fish out of the sea. They had done all they could. Now the burden rested with their descendants. His gaze lingered on the house he loved, covered in ash, the sun no longer a bright orb in the sky, but shrouded in gray. A hush fell over the pewter wasteland. Cold seeped into his marrow inch by insidious inch. Many would enter the spheres constructed by the Guardians. Their saviors spoke of selective population, which rang false to Samuel, or true, as the case might be. His grandchildren were safe and beyond the pale of this time, this world he was leaving.
He let his head roll limply on its side, where his gaze captured Mae, also prone with a strange contraption with hand-hammered copper and a complex, inky black netting covering the greater part of her nose and mouth. Leather straps braided and wrapped her skull, pushing strands of hair around like lost silver. She made odd, whistling noises as she breathed.
“Samuel, wear it.” Mae’s voice was distorted as she lifted the matching mask the Guardians had fashioned in the preceding months.
“No, Mae. I wish to enjoy this fore-night without the chains of their advances.”
Samuel knew his stubbornness would cost him his life. The Guardians, who were equal part savior and bearer of terrible news, had made concessions for the elders. But those who survived would be the strongest, most virile, agile, and smartest among them. Samuel and Mae both understood at their advanced age of sixty and one years that they would be excluded from the mercies of the sphere.
With blurred vision, Samuel saw a familiar figure approach.
“Father! Why do you not take rest in your own bed?” Stella’s comely face was a salve in his approaching death. Her wool skirts swirled as she knelt and set an illuminated candle, hissing steam from its seams, beside him.
Raising his hand, he cupped the loveliness of her face, knowing the time had come for her to enter the sphere the Guardians had constructed for the select. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Papa, the Guardians have told you that you might survive... All is not lost.”
Samuel put a finger to her lips. “Silence now, child. This is your place now. Do not forget the things you have been taught. Take this, Dear Heart. Hold it safe to your breast. Guard it. It is our history.” Samuel handed her a slim leather book bound with a black silk tie.
Stella pressed it to her chest, tears overflowing down unprotected cheeks. Mae's eyes met hers. “Go now, Stella-girl. Take the opportunity you have been given.”
Her knuckles whitened as Stella clutched the book. Misery etched its path on her countenance. “It will never be the same without you both.”
A clear bell-tone pealed, reminding Stella of duty, her duty to leave her parents behind. The knowledge of her future, the safe environment of the sphere, was a burden on her heart.
Stella turned to look at the sphere shimmering in a watery iridescence like a giant cloche. But people were not plants. Their future safekeeping was a promise of a life with a family fractured by separation.
Stella bent to kiss Samuel and Mae goodbye. Gently unwinding the facemask the Guardians had constructed, she placed a kiss, soft as butterfly wings on the woman who had nurtured her. The skin gave way like tissue-thin silk under the pressure of her lips. Turning to her father, she saw his pale blue eyes watering. She cradled his head while she pressed a kiss to his forehead. She lowered his head and took a last lingering look, knowing this was the final time she would view her parents in this realm.
Lifting her skirts, she pivoted away, dropping them as she walked—no, as she ran—brushing tears from her cheeks, the book clutched tightly in her other hand, the candle hanging from
its copper loop in her squeezed finger. Approaching the doorway to the sphere, she was the last select to be ushered inside. Casting one final glance, she saw her parents’ supine forms, their clasped hands held tightly, her mother's mask forgotten beside her.
Stella whirled toward the entrance, losing hold of the book, dropping it on the ash-laden earth. She picked it up, her last gift from Father. Seeing the title, she peered closer: Asteroid: A History of When the Rocks Fell.
Stella moved forward as the hole closed behind her. A fierce idea bloomed in her consciousness to remember who they had been. An indeterminate future stretched before her.
CHAPTER 1
One Hundred Forty Years Later
Clara beheld the shrouded exterior as she did each morning, her hands pressed against the pliable interior of the sphere. Her fingers sank into its surface, stopped before breaching the Outside. The yearning was the same. She wished to experience the Outside.
Sighing, Clara turned from the misty view outside the molded window. Her petticoats swept together, wrapping her bare legs, as she found the stockings laid out for her on the bed.
Olive knocked on the door. “Mistress, may I enter your chamber?”
“Yes.”
She entered with scads of rich turquoise steam-pressed clothing draped over her arm. Clara hated it, hated it all.
“Princess.” Olive inclined her head.
Clara recognized she was penalizing Olive unfairly. Who truly wished to celebrate her Day of Birth? Utter nonsense.
Olive peered at her Princess from under her lashes. She was a formidable young lady with aquamarine eyes that flashed with energetic temper, deep mahogany hair cascading to her waist—very handsome but uncooperative when it came to dressing.
“Please, Princess, they await your appearance.”
“Does my mother?”
Olive knew that the Queen was deep in her cup, and it was not yet midday. “Our Queen has begun her own celebration.”
No surprise.
Clara’s people wished to see her adorned in her finery (a loathsome pursuit) to be reminded that she was their Princess, the one who saw to their happiness, unlike her mother, the Queen, who failed them at every turn.
The Death Series, Books 1-3 (Dark Dystopian Paranormal Romance): Death Whispers, Death Speaks, and Death Inception Page 100