him with anxiety.
It could be because Slade has plans to figuratively fuck his daughter. No matter how much he justifies the cause as a noble one, Slade is ashamed.
“Gunnar,” Slade begins with quiet respect.
The warrior bounces up from his prone position on the stone floor, dusting off his hands and strides to the bars.
His gray skin is so fair, it mimics the palest stone. Gunnar is intimidating, for he is the largest of Bloodling kind. Almost seven feet of hardened warrior with nothing but time to hone his body and ravage his intellect with vengeful grief makes a formidable presence.
Slade stays out of reach, his heart galloping. He knows what he must do and hates the thought of torturing this warrior further.
In this moment, Slade deeply loathes his life.
Eyes like black water regard him. Hair of a matching color is bound in a tight band not unlike Slade's. He looks so much like the masculine version of Beth, it tightens Slade's guts.
Gunnar cocks his head, nostrils flaring. “Slade, speak.”
“I must—” Slade swallows against his shame. “I must ask that you jump me to Sector Ten.”
Gunnar flinches, his hands clenching into fists. “Do not mention Ten to me again if you want to live.”
Slade nods, holding his breath.
What he does now he does for his people.
An exhale rushes out of him. “I have news.”
“News that makes your pulse race, your pupils dilate, and cold sweat form on your body, Slade?” Gunnar's voice has dropped to mercenary levels.
“Yes,” Slade answers.
Gunnar's dark eyes narrow with pure distrust, his crazed features constantly scanning for anything reflective.
He would need only the finest particle of reflective material to escape. Gunnar's talent makes the Reflectives of Sector Ten look like toddlers.
“What news?” he asks slowly. He crosses his arms, inky eyebrows jerk in disbelief.
“Your daughter,” Slade says softly.
Gunnar's face screws up in lines of hate. “I have none, fool. My mate was murdered. Do you not remember!?” he roars, sending spittle flying. The ceramic bars are poisoned, but he grabs them with his powerful hands anyway, forcing his face between the bars. His flesh begins to burn as though touching acid in reaction to the poisonous coating.
Slade sighs, pulling out a small circle of coated elastic, and brings it up between their faces.
Gunnar releases the bars with a hiss, flinging his smoking hands. “What is this?”
Slade places it between Gunnar’s two fingers.
An inky hair clings to the figure eight of the twisted material. Gunnar snatches it from between Slade's fingers.
Never looking away, he brings it to his nose and scents of it deeply.
Gunnar's face slips to rage as his fingers close around Beth's hair band.
“Where. Is. She?” he roars, grabbing the bars once more.
Slade hangs his head. “She is at Ten—Beth Jasper is a Reflective.”
Gunnar backs away from the bars and sits hard on the foldaway cot fixed against the wall.
His head droops into the palm not gripping the hair band. “As Lucinda was.”
Slade nods solemnly.
Gunnar leaps up, heading for the bars of his cell.
His mouth opens, teeth snapping. Venom from mature and lethal fangs drips, sizzling like acid as it falls.
“I want to claim my child.”
Of course he does.
That's what Dimitri's counting on to force his cooperation.
“I have been chosen to acquire her, and return her to her rightful sector.”
Gunnar’s fangs slide away, and he studies Slade. “You want me to reflect you to Ten?”
Slade nods.
Gunnar shakes his head. “Give me a drop of water, and I will seek my own blood.”
The lie comes with difficulty, made easier by the threat against the Bloodlingsʼ womankind. “Dimitri will kill her if I do not do this in secret. If you go, he will see your leaving as invitation for her death.”
He has my mother and sisters. Slade feels helpless. The nightlopers number three times as many and breed as litters. There are no better options than this terrible one.
Gunnar nods, palming the hairless skin of his jaw.
“Will you?” Slade asks, his held breath like fire.
Gunnar lifts his chin. “I shall.”
Slade walks away, taking the image of Gunnar's violence and his exploit with him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Merrick
Jeb watches Beth's joy overtake her from the simple fact that Maddie is alive.
It's no small thing that the papiliones have somehow managed to survive.
The lights attached to the huge hand-hewn wooden beams bisecting Beth's ceiling no longer glow. Electricity fueled by solar power doesn't appear to be regulated any longer.
But the butterflies don't mind the dark, and they swarm to greet their disheveled and haggard group.
An especially large butterfly swoops down as Beth