“No, I will not go.”
Her face turned to his.
“They'll kill you—and they'll hurt me.” She shivered, folding her rail thin arms over her too-skinny body. Fear was on every line of her.
Merrick pushed her into Jacky's arms, and he held her. She protested, and he shook his head.
“Let Merrick go kick some Reflective ass.”
Jeb gave a grim smile as he mounted his former TCH, disgusted beyond measure.
A non-Reflective female was taking money at the door. Jeb dismissed her, searching for the Reflective who'd called out.
“Merrick,” said Quaker, one of Lance Ryan’s lackeys.
Jeb turned, to find a stabilizer pointed at his chest.
“Here to sample the wares?” he flicked his head toward where Daphne stood against Jacky.
Jeb didn't like enlisting the boy, but desperate measures called for desperate solutions. The justification still didn't sit well with him.
“Looks like you and that Three are ready for some tag team with Daphne.”
Jeb's hands fisted. “You mean the drugged, malnourished female Reflective who is too scared to talk to me?”
Quaker's artificial smile dropped off his face as if it had never been there. The stabilizer notched up a touch.
“If you don't want to play in the sandbox with the females—fuck off.” He adjusted his balls.
“It's no problem if you're not onboard. There's plenty more that want to ride the pony.”
Jeb's anger became visceral. He spotted the scope that rode the top of the stabilizer’s barrel, and it hadn't been shut. The port's reflective edge was exposed.
Dawn broke through the pillars like a salvation Jeb hadn't prayed for.
But he thanked Principle for it regardless.
The sphere-shaped lens glinted in the early morning light, which hit it squarely.
Quaker's mouth made a comical O shape as Jeb saw his own face in the small circle of the stabilizer lens port.
Anger neatened the effort for the jump, as did the three-meter distance. Jeb flashed in a ribbon of iridescent fire.
A sucking pop followed his leap.
Quaker suddenly was nose to nose with Jeb, who grabbed the stabilizer and turned it butt-first, cracking it into Quaker's temple.
“Nobody's riding anyone,” Jeb said and slammed the instep of his boot into Quaker’s foot.
It occurred to Jeb that this group had been waiting for Ryan's eventual return with Beth.
New fire breathed into the boiling pot of his simmering anger.
He stomped Quaker's foot again, and the Reflective socked a solid blow to Jeb's stomach.
It was always a problem when two Reflectives were pitted against each other.
The stabilizer clattered to the ground. The safety was off, and the force of the strike sprayed bullets as the two Reflectives hammered each other.
Screams rose as the bullets embedded in the soft marble. Jeb ignored it, bearing down on Quaker, who was at a disadvantage.
Jeb felt his skin give from the pounding his knuckles gave Quaker.
Quaker was not fighting for honor, for the safety of a soul mate.
Jeb was fighting for the First: bear no injustice.
They would have taken Beth—his Beth—and drugged a combatant warrior of The Cause then raped her.
Unconscionable.
Jeb's hammers of retribution fell until his knees were soaked with Quaker’s blood.
The Reflective groaned, his face a ruin of blood, split lips, swelling cheeks, narrow slits for eyes.
Jeb stood on shaky feet and turned.
Four more Reflectives surrounded Jacky.
In a single instant, Jeb thought it was more of Quaker and Ryan's ilk. But Calvin and Kennet had arrived.
Thank Principle.
He raced down the stairs, and one of them raised a gun. “Hands up dick head.”
His euphoria vanished.
Not them!
Daphne's eyes went wide with an emotion that shredded Jeb's heart.
Inevitability.
***
Beth would break when she landed. Gravity doesn't care, its singular function is to bring things down.
She could try to roll when she landed. She forced her limbs loose and pried open her eyes.
Something blurred past her as the nightlopers grew bigger in her vision.
She had not known what they were exactly and was falling too quickly for fear.
Beth had to survive the landing first then worry about the next mess. She hit hard and bounced, cushioned by strong arms like flesh-covered steel.
Beth opened her eyes to Slade's amused black gaze. He had caught her neatly.
Bastard!
Then the nightlopers were on them.
Slade smoothly tossed her and Beth flung out her arms, only to be caught by another bloodling. It was the young one whom Ryan had taught a lesson.
He seemed to be walking just fine.
Slade fought the nightlopers.
She had thought the Reflective was a fighter of beauty.
They all paled compared to Slade’s fluidity as his fingertips burst with silver talons, his fangs so long he could never close his mouth had he tried.
Nightlopers where like the shifters of Seven, but so much more. They were not animals; they were upright humanoids with animal parts. Beth could make out the wolf of the group, the lion—a bear.
Nightlopers, unlike their cousins on Seven, never shifted form. They hung between humanoid and their animal, captured somewhere in between.
“Let me down,” Beth commanded.
The bloodling denied her request, shaking his head.
“I will not deal with Slade's wrath because you want to enter the fray.”
That was exactly what she'd been thinking. Principle dammit.
Beth gave a disgusted snort, and he smirked.
They take their sarcasm seriously here on One.
The nightloper who had closed in from behind was definitely the wolf. Its snout drove long canines deep into Slade's shoulder as he battled the one in front of him.
“Help him!” Beth said.
If they finished off Slade, then she would have to face the three of them.
“No. He is a bloodling. We do not interfere in this test.”
Males! Regardless of the sector, they were all so sure of their superiority.
“What damn test?” Beth screamed over the fighting as the lion nightloper broke away, leaving the wolf and bear to tear Slade to pieces.
Great. Beth was there with a barely-out-of-adolescent bloodling.
“Give me the female, bloodling—and your death will be swift. Or fight me, and it shall be creative.”
Beth didn't like the sound of that raspy voice giving choices that were both bad.
“Okay, let me down.”
He let Beth slide to the ground and put her behind him protectively.
“She is a bloodling… of no interest to you, nightloper.”
Watching him nod was comical. A golden mane surrounded a face with a light covering of fur. His amber eyes were like fire.
On Beth.
He snuffled and gave her a hard glance. “No, I smell many things. But she is desirable because she is Reflective. They are neutral, as well you know.”
Well finally, someone noticed. The neutral part wasn't good. It meant that she could be with any subspecies on One. Beth knew that in theory, but to have it dumped at her doorstep in the middle of an engagement was entirely different.
“Stay back or die,” the young bloodling said.
He sounded unwavering, confident.
Beth could feel the racing pulse at his back.
Short tortoise-colored talons sprang from the lion’s stubby fingers, and with a roar that hurt Beth's ears, he swung forward, burying all ten claws inside the bloodlings chest and heaving him aside in a practiced toss.
A bloodling of Jeb's size.
It left Beth vulnerable, w
ith a seven-foot full-fledged monster in front of her. He swooped in to grab her, and she did the opposite of what he thought she would.
Beth charged, punching out with her fist into his considerable groin.
Another roar and shout followed.
But he was down, and Beth leapt over him.
His hand caught her ankle, and she fell like a dead bird from the sky.
She hit the ground hard, her teeth coming together painfully. His panting breath was hot on her face.
“Female.”
Beth twisted her elbow and smashed it into that snub-nose snout. Blood burst like a geyser to join the blood that soaked her clothes.
Claws punched to either side of her head, and Beth screamed—he had effectively caged her.
She rolled, ducking under one of his powerful arms, and was plucked off the ground.
Beth swung her head to meet the forehead of whoever had captured her and was dumped.
Of course.
She opened her eyes, and Slade stood above her, wounds decorating every surface of his body.
His blood was black.
*
“Nice reception here, Merrick,” Jacky quipped.
“Shut up, Three.”
“Fuck off, ya turd.”
Another inductee Reflective, Iver, hit Jacky in the back of the head with his gun.
He fell to his hands and knees, and Jeb bellowed, moving forward.
“Don't do it, Reflective.”
Jeb met his eyes. “I will see your bones turn to dust.”
He smirked.
“No you won't. You and your little pet Three will do as we say. I didn't like that you worked over Quaker. He runs a tight ship here.”
Jeb gave looks of disgust to Calvin and Kennet. He couldn't believe they would partake in this.
Iver sank his fingers into Daphne's pale hair and jerked her back against him, groping at her breast, and a low sound of shame burst out of her mouth.
Jeb could abide it no longer. His eyes scanned everything and caught on a surface that winked at him.
Calvin lifted a mirror the size of a female's make-up compact behind Iver's back.
Jeb's thoughts came together like a jigsaw puzzle of hope.
Jacky caught his eye from the ground, a shining understanding running between them.
Jeb felt like crying for the first time in his life. His gratefulness was so acute that it manifested physically.
The tears ached to fall, burning and stinging his eyelids.
He jumped.
It was the fastest reflection he'd ever executed.
Iver had taken one lascivious breath, his foulness all over the female. And in the next, Jeb had broken the wrist that would touch a female Reflective against her will.
Jeb drove his elbow into Iver’s nose while he ripped the stabilizer out of his hands and slammed the barrel into his belly.
Blood poured out of Iver’s nose. His eyes were wide, with the stabilizer barrel pressed against his guts.
“Go ahead,” Jeb ground out. “I only need one word, one movement to splatter your worthless entrails all over the steps of our once-great Cause.”
Iver tensed.
“If you reflect, I shall follow.”
Jeb punched him in the jaw, and he slumped.
Jeb's eyes went to Calvin and Kennet.
“Report.”
“Let's get out of the whole”—Jacky looped his hand around—“fucking middle of everything. Kinda exposed!”
Jeb hoisted the Three up.
Jacky kicked Iver.
“Dick. Ya don't treat chicks like that.”
Daphne stood shaking like a leaf.
“I need more opium.”
Jeb's head hung.
He wanted Beth; his entire being knew that if he could have just a few minutes in her presence, everything would right itself.
However, there was so much wrong in the here and now that Jeb didn't know when he would be with her again.
His comrades faces bore a grimness he knew matched his own.
“What is this?”
“We thought you'd been deported with the others,” Calvin said.
Jeb stared blankly at the two.
“Newsflash, guys—we've been gone for five years,” Jacky said.
Calvin's face wore a stunned expression. “I—when so many of us were taken, I assumed you'd been one of them. We never dreamed that you were on a mission that lasted that long.”
Jeb dismissed their surprise.
He drew the shaking Daphne into his arms, turning his body to watch what others might be doing. It was the earliest part of the morning. He'd taken out three Reflectives, and aside from the girl who took the brothel money—they were alone.
It was a stroke of sheer luck, and he knew it. The stabilizer fire should have alerted people.
That it hadn’t spoke of the frequency of its use.
“Leave them. Let us return to my dwelling.”
Calvin and Kennet wore identical expressions, their eyebrows cocked.
Jeb was not asking.
Daphne huddled against him as they marched swiftly back the way they'd come.
Jeb would get fast answers, then he would seek Beth.
His body thrummed with the need.
*
Beth threw a forearm over her eyes.
“Okay, I give up.”
“Excellent,” Slade said and offered a hand.
Beth flattened her palms on the ground and pushed to her feet, ignoring his hand. He took it back.
Beth heard a sucking sound, and the young bloodling who'd been wounded by the lion nightloper was struggling to breathe through his perforated lungs.
She ran to him and got down on her haunches. Beth was greeted by frantic eyes.
She turned to Slade, a question on her lips, but he had just beheaded the nightloper.
The entire head, its mane matted with blood, rolled over and over again until it landed at her feet.
Beth shook with rage.
She stepped over the head and stalked over to Slade. A maddening smile on his brutally handsome face, he wore the nightlopers’ blood like war paint.
Beth never broke her stride; she slapped his face as hard as she could.
It was a hard strike.
Though Beth was female, ultimately, she was Reflective.
His face rocked back, and he staggered from the blow.
“I will not take your hand so you can drop me like garbage. I will not aid you in anything while you murder those that couldn't get to me—or abide how cavalier you are with the safety of your own people.” Her voice had grown lower with her fury, the last word etched in a vibrating intensity that was wrung out of her.
Beth's chest heaved, and she held her ground when every instinct told her to run.
He was the biggest male she'd ever encountered, but she readied her fists to the sides of her jaw.
“Do you think that bee sting of a swat you just delivered hurts me?”
Beth's hands dropped. “Yes.”
Of course it had; she'd given it everything she had. It would have broken a Three male's jaw like brittle glass.
“No!” he bellowed, and spittle and the loose hot blood of his enemies flew as he strode to her.
“I am bloodling, female! Not some weak Reflective.”
“Yeah?” Beth asked.
She kicked him square in his inflated testicles.
He crumpled where he stood.
Worked like a charm. All males had the same parts, regardless of the sector.
It had not been a glancing blow. She turned to run, and a fist met her temple.
“Thank you, Jasper—you just made things much easier.”
Beth made a small sound as she fell.
It sounded like regret to her ears.
She wanted to fight Ryan, just as she had the nightloper—she had just disabled her only protector.
Slade, her mind whispered miserably.
Beth's pride had
endangered her.
Ryan had hit her soundly, and she remained in that state of weary consciousness, vaguely aware of the motion as Ryan scooped her from the ground and squired her away.
Her mind was in abject denial of her future.
She would be payment for Ryan's foibles.
*
They sat in a loose circle in the middle of Jeb's living room. He couldn't believe his ears, so Kennet was repeating the debacle.
“Inductee Ryan worked in collusion with another dissenting faction. Between the two of them, they produced a mass inoculation to induce twenty-four-hour comas. In pairs, they managed to reflect all of us out of Papilio.”
“And you?” Jeb asked, swinging his finger from one to the other.
“We professed to agree with their regime, knowing that we could infiltrate and take the entire thing apart piece by piece.”
“Five years?” Jeb asked.
“It is the two of us against a dozen of them. And we are the law in this sector, Jeb. The hidden corruption of Papilio has found its place,” Kennet said.
“And they are many,” Calvin added.
Jeb scrubbed his face, chancing a glance at Daphne, who was racked with cold sweat and shivering, though she lay covered with three blankets.
“Withdrawals. She's all hooked on drugs,” Jacky said.
Jeb paced, ignoring Jacky’s comment. “You say they're on Sector One.”
Calvin nodded. “And without jumping…”
Jeb nodded. It was like a slow death. Reflectives were meant to jump. Not jumping was a special torture.
“Ryan has some kind of gambling ring going on. I don't know what it is, but we suspect that it involves Reflectives being pitted one against the other.”
Jeb sucked in a breath.
Jacky stood. “You mean like cock fighting?”
The three males gave him frowns. “God, nimrods, not penises—like roosters. Pit bulls?” His brows hiked. “Yeah, and you're all so smart from Sector Ten.”
Calvin and Kennet stood, six and a half feet of finely honed warrior Reflective muscle.
“Okay, eff me. Chill your shit out. What I'm saying is—we have the same crap in American.”
“Is it sanctioned?” Calvin asked.
Jacky made a disbelieving noise. “Hell, no.”
“This isn't, either. If it is fighting to the death…”
“It'd be bad,” Kennet gave Calvin a significant glance.
Jeb stared at them both. “Ryan took Beth to Sector One.”
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