Alpha Warriors of The Cause - Tamara Rose Blodgett Page 0,64
them.
But his eyes meet Madeline’s when she turns as though sensing his presence.
He smiles his assurance, yet she does not return it. Instead, she runs to the lake, the edge of which shines in constant invitation to the ones who can jump.
Jump if you will, my little hopper—I shall follow.
*
Beth
“Jasper!” Jacky screams, and Beth whirls to look at what has followed them.
Principle help me.
Gunnar is hot on their trail, but the scene behind him causes her heart to skip a beat.
Enchanted trees toss nightlopers like puppets whose strings have been severed, flinging them up so high in the darkening sky that entrails, blood, sinew, and the finer points of their bodies split like spoiled fruit when they land.
Maddie mewls in open fear behind Beth.
Principle. “Jacky,” Beth says.
His eyes go wide at a sky raining nightloper bodies, but he answers with a steady voice. “Yeah.”
“Get Maddie to the lake.”
The need to reflect itches along Beth's nape.
Jacky's eyes flick to hers. “What about you?”
A high, keening of alarm pierces the air, and the fine hairs on Beth's body rise.
Numbers—they're calling to more nightlopers to descend.
A wave of longing for Jeb overwhelms Beth as her father races toward her.
“Go!” Beth bellows. Her eyes mark his progress as Jacky moves toward the shore.
Gunnar is almost to her when Beth sees the wounds like pockmark scars littering his arms.
Safe passage.
She ignores his encroachment, and the instant Jacky is shin-deep in the undulating water, Beth latches on to the reflection of the crescent of one of three moons in One's starlit sky.
She blinks, and only a soft splash signals her arrival beside Jacky.
“Holy Shee-it!” Jacky shrieks, and Maddie yelps.
“We need to go.”
Gunnar snatches Beth’s wrist.
Principle, he's fast. Beth narrows her eyes. “Don't make me hurt you.”
Nightlopers howl.
They're close.
Gunnar’s eyes snap to hers. “Do your worst, daughter of mine.”
“Don't hurt him,” Maddie begs.
“Oh, God,” Jacky moans.
Gunnar smirks, seemingly unconcerned as enemies encroach from all corners.
Beth glowers.
The first nightloper hits the water. Its roar fills her eardrums.
“Them or me,” Gunnar asks, his hold tightening on her wrist bones. Visions of jabbing, striking, and maiming him shatters her resolve.
She exhales in disgust as water splashes so close that the chilly droplets land on her.
Beth lets her eyes fill with the vision of moonlit water between herself and the thrashing nightloper.
Her gaze captures the shining image of the four of them and flings them all through the reflection with ease. Heat kisses Beth's body like a whip of scorching flame.
Fire and ice assail her everywhere, but Beth is Reflective and made to travel this path. The call of the enchanted forest of Three grows louder, and their war song on One dies away.
Involuntarily, Beth sends them to the magic forest closest to Maddie and Jacky's original quadrant.
Without a locator for return. Without her partner. And without more than the vaguest plan.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Slade
Slade walks out of the cell feeling somehow less for his interaction with Merrick. Merrick still rubs him the wrong way. But as they say on Three: keep your eye on the prize.
Beth is more than a prize—she is his kindred blood. Her blood calls to him like a song. The sweet sounds she made as he gave her pleasure are locked inside his head to replay.
But memories of her pleasure are insufficient.
He wants to live them with her.
Slade strides to the end of the holding-cell block and takes the wide stone steps three at a time. Footsteps of the thousands who’ve come before him have scooped the stone out in the middle.
Dimitri and Ryan glance up as he swings open the solid wood door into a cavernous room perhaps once used as a great commons before the nightlopers’ slaying of the original inhabitants. Now it is a place of holding, war, and nefarious pursuits.
“You have reneged on your word, Bloodling.”
He must tread carefully. Instead portraying his defensiveness, Slade knots his hands behind his back in contemplative false leisure. “Yes, of a sort.”
Dimitri strides to Slade, who maintains his casual posture. Dimitri will not see Slade sweat. And certainly, the corrupt Reflective will not.
“Speak or be at the ready to watch the remainder of your females succumb to whatever my regiment can devise.”
Rape, torture, and maiming before a certain death.
Bloodlings are not apt to perspire. But a fine sheen of sweat slicks his palms. He loosens his hands and rests them with deliberate informality on his hips. He plants his feet wide apart and folds his arms. Slade's fangs throb for release, for bloodshed.
Dimitri cocks his head. “I await