“Hit a nerve, bud?”
Jeb's eyes snap open. “If you don't prove useful in the next five seconds, I'm throwing you over the rail.”
Jacky’s eyebrows pop, and he glowers.
“Fine.” He leans forward to rest his forearms on his knees, letting his hands dangle between them. “I don't trust the Bloodlings.”
Jeb's lips thin. He doesn't, either. “Agreed.”
“The big dude is crushing on Beth, and I know you've ʻdeclaredʼ her or whatever—so all the more reason to get out of here and fast.”
Jeb rocks back on his heels, folding his arms. “I understand all this. What is your point? You came along because we had no choice in the matter.” What Jeb didn't say was how much he wanted to do a jump to Three and return Jacky and Maddie to where they belonged. They would absolutely be safer on Three than on One. But traveling to One was a necessary detour because of the volatility on Papilio.
“Love your delivery, Merrick.”
Jeb's gaze hardens like a diamond on Jacky. “I'm not a soft man, Jacky. And for that, I apologize.”
Jacky raises his hand. “No problem. But I'm not a soft guy, either. I've been through some shit—Maddie even more. All I'm saying is—I feel responsible for her. I want to get back to earth. I know that place. Sure, there's paranormals, but we don't have night-whatevers, and we sure as hell don't have vamps.”
Jeb doesn't contradict him on that last misinformation, but it's a challenge not to offer clarity. Knowledge makes the tip of his tongue tingle.
“Now Maddie's given blood to freaky Gunnar, who is somehow Beth's dad.” He flings his bangs out of his face, and Jeb is suddenly struck by how ancient his eyes look for one so young. “I just see us getting sucked into this weirdness and don't want to. Promise me you'll get us back to that lake were you can jump us back to earth.”
“Reflectives do not give their word lightly.”
Jacky's lips turn up. “I know. Why do you think I'm askinʼ?”
Jeb sighs in frustration. “I will do my utmost.”
“You trust Kennet and Calvin?” he asks.
Jeb jerks his chin back. “Yes. Why?”
“We might need them.”
“Jacky, Reflective Jasper, Kennet, Calvin, and I must return to Papilio. It is where our destiny lies. Even now, though many might have sought Beth—” Jeb takes two deep breaths to quell his anger. “Order will be restored. We will find Rachett. If we can't, then a new hierarchy will be established so The Cause will not be interrupted any further than it already has been.” He pauses for a moment. “Thirteenth: Forsake not The Cause,” Jeb recites more to himself than for Jacky's benefit.
“Yeah, okay.” Jacky heaves his eyes upward. “So you get us to earth before you go back to Papilio and go all cosmic on the sectors again.”
Jeb works through Jacky's slang quickly. “Yes.”
“Deal?” Jacky asks, his eyes on Jeb's like a hawk's.
“Yes,” he repeats.
A knock lands with a hollow echo at the door. “Come,” Jeb says.
Gunnar walks through. “I've found her.”
Jeb moves forward. “I sensed she wasn't in danger…”
Gunnar flicks his hand in dismissal. “She needed time away from the males.”
Jeb's face flames. He did not endanger his soul mate, though that seems to be what her father implies.
“Her response to Slade is…” He clears his throat delicately. “Natural in a Bloodling female.” His lips twitch. “Though it may have taken our Beth by surprise.”
Jeb's blood rushes hotter, though it makes him feel slightly better that Gunnar seems as offended as he is.
That fucking Bloodling gave Beth an orgasm. He is certain that she would not have volunteered her blood so readily had she understood the outcome.
And Slade had Principledamned known it, the smug bastard.
Gunnar watches Jeb's face, and he clamps down on his impulses with an effort.
Jeb wants to be the male to pleasure Beth—if she ever affords him the opportunity. Slade violated her, but Jeb is sure the Blooding doesn't see it that way. Slade takes. That’s all he's good for.
Jeb deliberately steers the conversation away from the awkward discussion of Beth's sexuality and toward something that will get them back to Papilio. Why Gunnar seems to be so matter-of-fact about delicate discussion escapes Jeb. It must be a Bloodling trait. Still, his face had been tight as he said it.
The sooner they return and establish order, the better.
“She will awake on her own in a few hours. Giving of blood is tiring for a female, and she must take time to replenish her stores. I am sure Slade appreciates her gift.”
Jeb's eyes lock with his.
Interesting. Those black eyes glitter with anger, confirming Jeb's suspicion of Gunnar's discontent. So Daddy Dearest isn't happy Slade took Beth's blood, either. Perhaps Slade committed some kind of social faux pas.
Gunnar suddenly straightens, wiping unease from his face. “Slade will make recompense. As any decent male Bloodling should.”
Jacky looks between the two of them, missing nothing.
That's just what Jeb needs, a thousand questions from the inquisitive Three.
“A sloth will come and get you when Beth awakes.”
Jeb gives a curt nod in both thanks and salutation, but the great Bloodling lingers, his light-gray skin shimmering slightly in the fading light of the day, though direct sunlight doesn't pierce the dense canopy of trees.
Jacky's eyebrows slowly rise.
Jeb waits.
“I have a question of you, Jeb Merrick.”
Clearly. “Speak, Gunnar of the Bloodlings,” Jeb replies formally.
“I-I inquire after the young hop—Three.”
Jeb stands in stunned silence.
Jacky jumps up like he's on fire. “Maddie?”
Gunnar reluctantly gives Jacky his attention. “Yes. Madeline.”
“Why? ʼCause you're into her?”
Jeb's brows come together, and his loosely folded arms fall to his sides. He quickly glances at Jacky, whose eyes say so much. Jeb is a believer in clarity. “Is this true?” Jeb asks Gunnar, his mind has been consumed with other things, “Do you wish for something between you and Madeline? Because she is technically a Reflective… though she is from Three.”
“She's kinda young for you, ya old pervert.” Jacky plants his feet wide, challenging the dangerous Bloodling with his stance and his unflinching stare.
“Technically, Bloodlings age very slowly. I am nearing thirty of your earth years. We only age ten years for every one hundred of yours on Three.”
“What?” Jacky asks in a choked voice. “So you're like three hundred?”
“Or so…” Gunnar replies in a bored tone, waffling his palm.
“Okay.” Jacky sounds sick.
“I will determine this, Jacky,” Jeb says
He winks, and just like that, he hands the verbal reins to Jeb, who is profoundly grateful.
“What interest do you have in the girl?” Jeb asks.
“So any claim I might have for the girl is void because you don't have enough females in your world?” Gunnar heaves a disgusted exhale. “That is a weak excuse. No sector has adequate women, aside from Three and maybe two others. I have as much right as the next. But I endeavored to ask after her family. Perhaps if her sire was to meet with me…”
He let the sentence hang there.
“There's no dad.” Jacky glances at Jeb, and Jeb favors him with a frown of warning, which the Three promptly ignores. “In fact, Jeb and Beth went back and did old Chuck in.”
“ʻOld Chuck’?” Gunnar puts his hands on his hips.
“Yeah. Reflectives don't mess around, Gunnar. Chuck was beating the hell out of Maddie and her mom, so when Jeb and Beth went back, he got what was coming to him.”
Gunnar swings his face to Jeb, regarding him. “I thank you for that, Merrick.”
Jeb hangs his head, embarrassed that
Reflective business is being bandied about for everyone to hear. Principle.
Yet he meets Gunnar's ominous stare with the truth. “It was my pleasure.”
Gunnar nods. “So there is no family to impede my courtship.”
“No, not in the classical sense, but the timing—” Jeb throws up his hands. “And as far as we know, she has no Bloodling heritage.”
A faint smile hovers over Gunnar's lips. “Though her blood calls to me, Merrick.”
“That kindred blood crap?” Jacky asks.
Gunnar stares at Jacky until the Three's eyes fall.
“It is not ʻcrap,ʼ but a rare marker of compatibility. Beth's mother has been gone almost two decades.”
“Did you have this kindred thing with her?” Jacky asks.
He's so far out of turn, Jeb doesn't even know where to begin.
“Yes,” Gunnar answers, his chin hiking slightly. “That time with Lucinda was the happiest I've ever been.”
Jacky snorts. “Listen, good for you. But Maddie might say, ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ What then? Last I heard, she likes the idea of getting the hell out of here and getting back to earth. Doing you a good turn on a little blood bank won't change that.”
Gunnar is silent for a full minute.
When he speaks, it's with absolute conviction. “I believe I can make her an offer she cannot refuse.”
Jeb would like very much to know what that is, but Gunnar gives him a nod and leaves before he can ask.
After a tense silence, Jacky says, “I think we have bigger fish to fry than the Reflectives chasing our tails.”
Jeb can only nod his agreement.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Slade
Slade leans against the window frame outside Beth's borrowed loft. He stares into the far distance, where the forest meets the desert. The wide, hot plains of sand are the only buffer between the Bloodlings and Dimitri's fortress.
Slade exhales in frustration. He's purposefully placed Beth in the most defensible place. With a lesser female—a weaker one—it would not be as critical. A weaker female would have no means of defense if the male Bloodlings were to fall to invasion. The females would be helpless against the inevitable nightloper onslaught.
But not Beth Jasper.
Beth does have means, resourceful ones.
Slade steps away from his study of the great forest and turns that scrutiny to Beth. His eyes trace each line of her delicate face, marveling at the violent skill set contained within such a fragile-looking package.
His tiny frog can jump, fight—and respond. Slade's tongue darts out, wetting lips gone suddenly dry from the memory of their blood share.
Slade allows himself the fantasy of killing Dimitri. And therein lies the problem. It is fantasy. The nightlopers outnumber the Bloodlings three to one.
Everyone knows that Bloodlings are first species to originate on One. Just because the nightlopers’ numbers are higher, that fact is not indicative of superiority.
Interspecies mating is rare, though Slade is sure, judging by the broken females who were returned, that the nightlopers tried.
In ancient times, vampires and Singers had shapeshifting abilities. If a nightloper had a small amount of lineage belonging to one or the other, a throwback offspring could occur between a nightloper and Bloodling—if the female could survive the mating.
Slade represses a shudder and completely misses Merrick's approach until the Reflective is almost upon him.
Slade whirls, and Merrick tenses. There is no love lost between them. They are both aware of the other's feelings for tiny frog, sleeping most gently inside a room of Slade's choosing.
“She still sleeps?” Merrick inquires softly.
Slade nods.
Their mutual postures relax, and Merrick motions for Slade to step away from the window. Though he wants to, Slade doesn't cast a last glance at Beth. Merrick already ascertains more of his true feelings than he would like.
Merrick drops silently to the lower platform, then Slade swings his arm to a vine and slides down behind him.
“What?” Slade asks.
“Do you know of our soul mate history?” Merrick asks.
Slade does.
However, he doesn't care. If Merrick is in the throes of heart-sickening agony because he has claimed Beth, it's of no concern to Slade.
He has a world of responsibility on his shoulders. His sire is gone, and his father's former first is unstable, while Beth's natural father is sniffing around a female from another sector.
Bloodlings are not at their best once their sights are pinned on a potential mate.
Gunnar has unexpectedly become a potential problem.
Only Slade can save the remaining Bloodling females, and the biggest consideration is his growing and undeniable feelings for Beth Jasper.
His task would be much simpler if he could just hand her over to Dimitri, reacquire the Bloodling females, and dust off his hands of their acquaintance.
But a mating with Dimitri would break Beth.
Though he is a nightloper of mixed origin, his sheer physicality might kill her.
Slade can't stand the idea of another male's hands touching Beth. That realization was the first nail in the coffin of his heart.
He remembers when she dragged herself out of the lake that fateful day, the huge Reflective sprinting after her. She was like a small drenched mouse escaping a cat.
His smile dissolves as he contemplates how quickly that changed when she ran into him.
Beth would have bounced off him and into the arms of Lance Ryan. But in that moment, Slade felt the call of more than just kindred blood. As much as Jeb Merrick believed Beth to be his other half, Slade knows there could be more than one half in the sectors that fit perfectly with another.
And right now, Beth is Slade’s missing piece. Slade is certain, especially after what transpired during her gift of blood. No other female makes his blood hum with a melody only he can hear.
His brows lower over his eyes as he studies Merrick. Slade has to admit Merrick is the finest example of a Reflective he's ever seen. At first glance, he seems little more than an oversized Three.
But Reflectives are notoriously dangerous. Fast and terribly strong, they're trained to kill and jump. Not always in that order.
Jeb Merrick might be a few inches shorter than Slade is, but every inch of him is hard-won killer. Slade doesn't forget.
“Yes,” he finally answers Merrick's question. “I know enough of your history to understand that your declaration doesn't matter to the tiny frog.”
Merrick grimaces, crossing his arms, and Slade wonders what would happen if he just shoved Merrick over the rail.
Beth will hate me, he decides.
“Go ahead, Bloodling, shove me over the side.”
Slade stifles a chuckle. It's that obvious? “Don't tempt me.”
They stare at each other until Merrick finally gets to the point. “I plan to depart here. I thank you for your… hospitality—”
Merrick’s choice of words makes Slade laugh.
He continues, “However, I intend to take the Threes to their home world first, then circle back around to Papilio. In our absence, I am certain Calvin can restore enough order for us to return. And”—Merrick's eyes meet Slade’s—“I am also certain that many of our females were flung there.” Merrick's face twists in obvious disgust. “If Beth and Kennet were to accompany me to Three, we could jump them back to Papilio and the male Reflectivesʼ anxiety would cool. Right now, they have survived the last five years of a salacious rule. But no more.”
Slade is silent, watching what must pass for passion with Merrick as he makes a sharp slicing gesture across his own throat.
Slade's lips curl as the motion gives him ideas better left unthought.
“Ryan is on the run, Rachett will be found, and order shall be restored.”
Slade blanks his expression. He knows where Rachett is. He doesn't think Rachett will ever be fit for l
eadership again, though.
Merrick's face grows tight and wary as he scrutinizes Slade's expression. “What is it?”
Slade looks out into the dense leaves of the trees, where the breeze whistles between the tight spaces of the thick foliage. It is now or never. Merrick has unwittingly advanced Slade’s motives.
“The slaver has Rachett.”
Merrick's lips part in an almost-sigh. “Why did you not tell me straight away.”
Slade balks at Merrick’s accusation. “Because, believe it or not, there are politics here on One that take precedence over the mess of Papilio, Reflective Merrick.”
Merrick steps in close to Slade's chest. The two of them stand, balanced precariously from the want of beating each other until their blood drips to the circling nightlopers below.
“Nothing,” Merrick grates, “is more important that The Cause. You're foolish if you believe that the equilibrium of the sectors can tolerate any more disruption than they've already suffered at Ryan's misguided hand.”
A thump behind them has them spinning on the landing platform.
Beth stands before them, her black eyes glittering, her cheeks rosy from sleeping.
Slade is struck by her beauty, and a pang of desire washes viciously inside him. He swallows the sensation.
“What's this about Rachett?” Her dark eyes assess Slade with something akin to distrust. The eyes she turns upon Merrick are filled with her feelings for him—trust, deference, and maybe more.
Slade clenches his fists, his talons pulsing for release.
She might not have claimed Merrick because she is unable to until the “timepiece” of their kind has halted its ticking, but there is something there.
Slade would give much to win such favor from her gaze.
As it is, she is unaware of her status as kindred to him. Still, the gift of her blood to him and his ability to give her pleasure could mean only one thing.
He is her kindred blood, as well.
Slade tosses a frozen smile on his face that's so stiff, it makes his face ache.
“Dimitri has Rachett.”
Beth rushes to Merrick's side, and Slade's false smile slips a notch.
“Why are we standing here like idiots? We go get him. We can jump him back to Papilio, and things will be back to the way we were. Ryan had his chance to overthrow and implement his demented chaos. It's time to reassert The Cause.” Beth looks between them.
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