Alpha Warriors of The Cause - Tamara Rose Blodgett Page 0,63

Slade.

Speak of the demon… In walks Slade. The Bloodling fills the jagged stone opening. The corners of the doorway have been softened by time and wear. He folds his arms and stares at Jeb.

“Come to gloat, Bloodling?” Jeb manages, despite his parched throat.

“No. I've come to relieve your mind.”

Jeb tries to laugh but only accomplishes a hoarse cough.

Slade moves forward, and Jeb tenses, though he knows he can't defend himself.

“I will not harm an injured, bound male,” Slade says with clear insult in his voice.

Jeb says nothing, choosing a glare as his answer.

Slade moves in closer, and Jeb readies himself for abuse. Then a cup touches his lips.

“Poison?” Jeb asks without reproach.

Slade smirks. “Just water, Reflective.”

“Why?”

Slade's eyes shift away, and he speaks to the window cut in the stone, where ceramic-coated dulled metal bars bisect the opening. “I am not without mercy.”

“Right.” But Jeb gulps the offered water. Cool relief sings through his system like a balm. He wets his lips. “Where's Rachett?”

Slade's face goes blank.

Instantly, Jeb intuits that the answer is terrible.

“Tell me,” Jeb says, clenching his teeth.

Stepping away, Slade doesn't meet Jeb's gaze. “He cannot be saved.”

What has Ryan done?

“He has been given to the nightlopers.”

Jeb shuts his eyes, trying to keep raw defeat at bay. If he kept them open, there would be no way to hide the emotion from Slade.

He would see it all. Jeb's hate and his love—all of it.

Slade doesn't deserve the knowledge.

*

Gunnar

Gunnar lowers his head and charges into the enchanted forest. Many years have passed since he’s entered this forest. He does not make the choice lightly.

However, safe passage to the lake is his—for a price.

And his daughter and kindred blood have gone this way. Their fragrance permeates the air.

Gunnar races ahead, the nightlopers closing in behind him.

The trees awaken, and their many eyes follow his progress as he tears through the underbrush.

“Blood passage!” Gunnar bellows. He sails into the air, arms raised toward the heavens.

Immediately, branches wrap him, lifting him off the ground and piercing his forearms as his feet leave the forest floor.

Gunnar sets his teeth against the pain, and his fangs punch out of his gums in response to what his body deems as an attack. Venom drips as barbs bite inside his flesh.

“Gunnar,” the trees course together in instant recognition. They have tasted him before.

Then the pulling begins.

“Safe passage,” he whispers as the pulse of blood leaving his body electrifies his system with their essence exchange.

“Safe passage,” their feminine voices reply as one.

Seconds pass, and Gunnar opens his eyes.

“Enough!” he bellows. They get only a taste, not a bloodletting.

They drop him, and he rolls expertly to a standing position, orienting himself again.

He tenses, catching sight of Nightlopers flying through the air, long arms poised to take him down, talons extended like deadly knives of bone.

The tree nearest to Gunnar casually bats the closest golden nightloper, hurling it into another. Both are tossed to the forest's edge, where they smash against the trunk of a mundane tree.

Gunnar grabs the next nightloper and sinks his fangs into whatever body part is nearest.

Blood pours into his mouth, and Gunnar tears out his victim’s jugular. He tosses aside the esophagus with a jerk of his head. It falls against the base of an enchanted tree like a discarded slick worm. Gunnar falls against the nightloper, sucking the blood from the rest of its body until its skin shrivels.

He whirls, ready to take on more, but the enchanted trees release themselves from the bed of the forest, moving with steps that pierce and shovel out the ground as they walk toward the incoming nightlopers.

Gunnar changes direction and races for the border of the forest. He throws his arms wide, and a tree catches him and heaves him to the next as though he is the baton in a relay race.

Gunnar's stomach rolls with nightloper blood and the essence of enchantment as his body swings from one tree to the next.

He has no time to contemplate, for the last tree throws him out of the woods, and Gunnar lands smoothly in a center glade just as the largest of One’s two suns sets behind the mountains.

He bounds to his feet, and his chin snaps in the direction of the scent of his blood.

It does not matter that Beth eschews his protection. She is his daughter, and she shall have it, consent or no. It is his gift to her mother and to himself.

Gunnar does not bother to glance over his shoulder as he races toward