"I'm sure Matera will the first chance she gets."
"Then why am I here?"
Folding her arms over her chest, she shrugged. "Curiosity. I want to understand where my powers come from and how to better channel them. I know I didn't get them from my mother. . . . She was psychic, but she didn't have the ability to summon the things I can."
Her words intrigued him. What exactly were his daughter's powers? "What kind of things?"
Me. He heard Jared's voice in his head.
Medea turned toward Jared and shot a blast into his chest. He hissed in pain as a black circle smoldered and burned his flesh. His entire body drew tense and taut.
"Stay out of this."
Stryker ground his teeth as a single red tear of pain slid down Jared's cheek. How strange that he cried blood. Stryker had never heard of such a creature. But regardless of what he was, Jared didn't deserve this.
Stryker glared at his daughter. "You know, as coldblooded as I am, I've never been one for torture. Either kill him or free him."
She shook her head. "My mother would never allow that."
"Then leave him alone."
"You really don't care for torture, do you?"
"No, I don't. It's one thing to strike out in anger, another to cause agony for the hell of it. I'm a soldier, not a coward."
"Are you calling me a coward?"
He looked back at Jared, who was panting to cope with the agony of his wound. His chest was still smoldering as the blast continued to burn his skin. "You should always give your opponent a fighting chance. Let the best fighter win, and if it's not you, then die with dignity."
She arched a brow at him before she turned toward the other prisoner. "Jared? Is he lying to me?" She held her hand up and the leather muzzle vanished.
"No," he said, his voice strained and weak. "He lives by a very screwed-up moral code."
The creature and his powers intrigued Stryker. "What is he? Your personal lie detector?"
She gave him a flippant smile. "Something like that."
Jared scoffed. "Why don't you tell him the truth? I'm your pet dog you keep chained up so he won't piss on your floor."
She threw her hand out again and his muzzle returned to cover his face. "Why do you push me so?"
Jared jerked at his restraints as he shouted something indecipherable.
His strength was admirable. Stryker even noted the light of respect for the creature in his daughter's eyes.
"You two lovebirds fight like this all the time?" Stryker asked her.
She snorted. "I don't fight with him at all. He's merely a tool I use."
"Use how?"
She didn't respond. "Matera says I should let her kill you for abandoning us."
"But?"
"I want to understand how it is that you could leave the woman you loved and never once look back or regret it. I find that kind of selfishness baffling."
Stryker froze as her accusation stung him deep inside. Not regret it? He'd regretted the loss of Zephyra every day of his life. But he'd been raised to believe that duty came before love.