as you are, Bloodling.”
Gunnar spreads his palms inoffensively away from his body. “This is not the reunion I would have anticipated.” A smile ghosts his lips.
Beth dismisses her father’s attempt at humor. “I didn't know until three seconds ago that you existed.”
Gunnar's lips turn up in a sideways smile of contemplation. “Ah yes, I see. Immaculate conception.”
“Hmm, a comedian. Wonderful.” Beth tosses a look Slade's way. However, he can't respond; he's busy holding up a tree trunk.
“Slade, is he—why are you here?”
For you. “Reconnaissance.”
Beth splits her gaze between Slade and Gunnar. “Bullshit.”
It's only a moment's diversion, and Gunnar is suddenly there in front of her.
What did he reflect with—or is he just that fast?
She moves into his charge, bringing the hilt of the ceramic blade underneath his chin with jaw-dropping hardness.
Gunnar drops, and as he falls, he grabs her wrist, yanking her down on top of him.
Beth releases the blade and slaps his face. His flesh rings in the deadness of their surroundings.
She leaps into a somersault and rolls away from him then springs to a stand.
He's instantly in front of her, fangs bared. “I mean you no harm!” he roars into her face.
Slade's lips curl. Gunnar looks as though he means a great deal of harm.
“Then back the fuck off, Bloodling!” she shouts back.
Gunnar steps away, working his jaw back and forth with his large hand.
Slade grins. Tiny frog.
“Thanks for the help, Slade,” Beth shoots his way.
He shrugs. “He won't hurt you—he is your sire.” No Bloodling would ever hurt his female kin. It is not done.
“Pfft. The manhandling is a deal breaker.”
“Three slang,” Gunnar says with a slight sneer as mild irritation finally begins to bleed through his jovial exterior.
Beth frowns, keeping a close eye on him. “What of it? It is my job, you know—to jump.”
Gunnar smiles, pacing a circle around her. “And what else is your job?”
She turns with his movements as she answers automatically, “To uphold The Cause.”
“Your mother held the Thirteenth in the highest regard.”
Beth swallows hard, and Slade feels a wave of pity for her that is so strong, it staggers him.
“Forsake not The Cause,” she recites softly.
“Yes,” Gunnar hisses in obvious resentment.
Beth's curiosity is an ill-fitting mask that covers all other emotions. Yet she stays the course. Slade's admiration for her swells. Beth has the heart of a lioness nightloper.
Her chin rises. “In the end, it is all we have.”
Gunnar waves away her words. “Yes, yes, yes. The precious Cause—the murderer of your mother.”
Beth pales, and the hand holding the blade, which she snatched off the ground, trembles ever so slightly.
“Murdered?” she whispers. “By you?”
Gunnar throws back his head and howls into the sky.
Beth drops the weapon to cover her ears. The call of a Bloodling is a beautiful thing, and it restores Slade at the primal level. For a partial-blood like Beth, with her acute Reflective hearing, it would be a discordant scream.
Gunnar strides to Beth, and she backs away, hands still over her ears, forgetting her weapon in the trampled grass.
He jerks her hands from her ears and holds them against her sides.
Beth doesn't struggle.
Nothing in the known thirteen sectors is stronger than a Bloodling. They're nearly unstoppable.
Slade does not believe Beth's aware of the tears that trace down a face so filled with loss, the scene etches his mind as her grief unfolds before him.
“No,” Gunnar says in a tight voice of raw agony, “I loved her—with the blood that pumps within my veins, with the thoughts of my mind, with each breath that entered and left my body. I loved her.”
His fangs gleam as he hisses his anguish.
The Bloodling towers over his small Reflective daughter, but they are somehow a match, their genetics more alike than not.
“Then who killed her?” Beth’s tears soak her Reflective uniform. “Who. Killed. My. Mother? If not you, then who?”
Slade sees thoughts of vengeance wash over her face like water sheeting off glass.
“So many, my little hopper.” He thumbs away her tears, and Beth shivers. “But ultimately, it was your own Commander Rachett who ended my Lucinda.”
“No!” Beth backs away, hands covering her mouth, shock widening her eyes.
Gunnar holds up a palm, stalking her. “It was mercy, not murder. Lucinda was too damaged to heal herself.”
Surprise momentarily blanks her face. “Who?” Beth repeats.
His hand falls. “Nightlopers.”
Extreme emotions do battle across her features as seconds transform into a full minute. Slade watches her regain hard-won composure. “Why didn't you come for me?”
“Come?” Gunnar's eyebrows hike.
“Yes!” Beth says, spinning, her laughter holding a slight edge