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Beth
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Angry eyes languidly revolve inside a strong face.
He is not handsome, but Beth finds the features he possesses interesting. Taken separately, they aren't special.
Together, they arrest her.
Which, in turn, makes her wary and suspicious.
High cheekbones abut eyes that are deeply set and wickedly sunlit, though Beth senses it's night in the sector of spheres.
Shivering, she hikes the scratchy blanket up to her neck and winces.
That's right, I committed suicide.
Beth shelves what she's done for later recollection. Right now, she's in a confined room with a large male of an alien species.
She continues to study his form. A large brow ridge shadows his warm eyes. A strong Roman nose anchors a face with lips almost too full to belong to a male. His square jaw saves him from appearing too feminine. In addition, a light coating of dark hair covers his body.
“You stare, female?” His derisive tone shocks Beth from her observation.
“Yes,” she answers, hiking her chin, prickling at his tone. “You are the only being in the room. There isn't much to look at.”
“How true,” he says, as though being in the same four-meter space as her is a horrible circumstance.
Vague memories crowd her mind. Things he said to her as he fed her blood.
Beth's face flames, and she touches her stomach. Slade had fed me. “Thank you,” she says with obligatory stiffness.
His face turns to her in profile, and the barest bit of moonlight hits the part she can see perfectly, causing his expression to appear cut in half.
“Do not thank me”—he gives a disdainful chuckle—“thank Ulric.” His disconcerting stare meets her eyes. “He commanded me to feed you—heal you.”
Beth frowns. “I did what I must.”
Sector Thirteen is barbaric. Beth made a severe choice based on what she knew. Beth did not know this species roamed Sector Thirteen. That they were capable of showing mercy.
He whirls, hissing, and Beth doesn't flinch. Neither his size nor his nearness intimidates her. She is unafraid of death.
“You do not know what you are, life bearer. That you could take your own life and rob—” He turns his back to her, clearly disgusted with his perception of her actions, his long-fingered hands fisting. “No matter. It is worthless to discuss subjects of value with the valueless.”
Beth's offended despite herself. “You do not know me. I couldn't heal what had happened to me. And—I thanked you. Don't worry. You won't have to deal with me for much longer.”
He turns to face her once more, narrowing his eyes at her. “You go nowhere. You have healing to do.”
Beth lifts a shoulder. “I understand what still needs to mend. Another jump in less than a day will right the remainder.”
The corner of his full lips turns up. “You were paralyzed from a weapon used against you as well as the wound you carelessly gave yourself.”
Beth tosses off the covers and stands. Every bit of her aches, but she can feel. She wiggles her toes.
This creature gave her that. Beth should be grateful. She is.
She's also mad as a hornet.
Beth strides to him, hiding the wince of pain.
He watches her come, unmoving.
She pokes him in the chest, and his eyes widen. “Listen, whatever your name may be, I was deliberate in wounding myself and not a bit”—she jabs her finger against his chest again, and he captures it—“careless,” she ends on a hiss.
They stare at each other. “I might hate you, traveler, but I am not immune to your femaleness.”
Beth blinks. Hates me?
Femaleness?
He abruptly releases her hand, dropping it as though her touch burns him.
“You don't know anything about me,” Beth seethes.
His lips twist, his eyes darkening to deep gold, and he lifts his chin. “I know enough. As soon as Ulric says you are sufficiently healed to travel to wherever you came from, I will be happy to assist your departure.”
She crosses her arms, and they glare at each other. “Where are my friends?”
He folds his arms, mirroring her, and Beth can't help but notice the breadth of his chest, the corded muscles of his legs and arms. She's accustomed to large men, warriors. All Reflective males are much larger than the typical men of other sectors. But this male's sheer size should intimidate, especially considering how weak she finds herself.
Beth won't let his attempt to bully her succeed.
“They are not dead—yet,” he comments in a dry voice.
What an idiot. Beth decides right then that she doesn't care that he healed her.
But she swallows her pride. “May I see them?”
“Are they both your lovers?” His smirk is smug.
Beth slaps him. Hard. And judging by the backward stagger, he was not anticipating what she could mete.
She has a moment's fierce satisfaction before he grips her and shakes her once, so hard her teeth click together.
Beth gasps as pain like a barbed whip strikes through her body, and her head tilts back. Searing agony tears through her insides, and she moans.
He captures the back of her skull. “Do not strike me again, female.” His eyes are molten gold, blazing into her brain.
She attempts to assess him but gets nothing. Beth changes tactics. “Why can't a female travel with males and not have a sexual tie?”
He licks his lips. Doesn't answer. It's the first moment she may have caught him slightly nervous. “Not possible, female.”
“My name is Beth.”
He releases her, and Beth falls on her rear end, unable to catch herself. She yelps, and he clenches his hands, regret flashing across his expression then leaving as quickly as it appeared.
As Jacky would say, fuck him twice.
Beth flat palms the floor and pushes herself up—tears well from the pain. She ignores it. Her hand whips out and hits the rough wood wall, and she uses the surface to slowly walk herself back to the narrow bed she was lying on. Her breaths are measured, deliberate. Every bit of her hurts from taking on the male. From healing more than she can and still not being whole.
Without turning around, Beth stretches out, her back facing the male. Let him kill her or beat her to a pulp. At this point, she doesn't care which.
A scalding tear slips out from beneath her clenched eyes. For an excruciating moment, Beth longs for her death, to end the unbearable pain and uncertainty.
Papilio is in ruins, Jeb and Slade are Principle knows where, and she's got an insane male from an undetermined species and who loathes her existence laughing at her every misfortune.
Yes. As the Threes would say, where is the silver lining in this mess?
Ah. That's right. Ryan hasn't caught up with her yet! But there's time. Oh Principle yes, plenty of time for that. And here she lies, ready and waiting for him to see her death through. Why couldn't she finish him? Is The Cause the only thing that matters? Really?
His voice breaks into her thoughts. “I smell your tears.”
Something else for him to laugh at. Beth squeezes her lids more tightly and doesn't reply.
The quiet lasts so long that Beth's sure that he's left. She begins to drift, her body's forced healing causing her drowsiness.
“My name is Cyrn.”
Beth's eyelids slam open, her heart hammering. She rolls over, seeking him. But he's gone.
As though he never was.
Cyrn
Cyrn swings from the tethered vegetation ropes that the few females of their clan make for silent transport through the tall canopies of forest.
The cogs of his mind lumber through what transpired with the female.
Beth.
A pang of guilt pierces him so strongly he almost misses the next platform. He corrects his sloppiness and swings upward, landing smoothly on his leader's railed porch.
Cyrn is a hundred feet above the ground and glances at the forest floor indifferently. He has been using tethers since infancy. First with his mother and then as a young male who hunted.
Now their species dwindles while the Fragment swells.
Gingerly he touches his cheek where the female—Beth—hit him with her tiny hand. He chuckles low in his throat. She struck true.
Why she is an adept fighter is puzzling to Cyrn.
More disturbing is how easily Beth would toss away her own life. What terrible burden must she carry that would decide her fate by her own hand? Cyrn posted guards at his platform, in the happenstance she would try again.
Cyrn looks to the ground. It would be a killing fall from this distance were she to pitch herself over the rail.
After a few moments of morose contemplation, he shakes his thoughts away like cobwebs. The female Beth will leave this place. With her males.
Rage burns like wildfire inside Cyrn. He scented the lust from the other males. Why she denies their connection, he cannot answer. Cyrn shrugs at his own musings. Obviously, any female who would kill herself doesn't know her own mind. A type of lunacy.
“Cyrn?”
He spins, crouching low, his arms swinging in arcs at his side.
Ulric grins, his teeth very bright in the soft nighttime that's moving toward dawn. “It's not easy to surprise you, my friend.”
Cyrn straightens, a spontaneous smile spreading on his face. Cyrn adheres to strict hierarchy when others are present, but in private, he and Ulric have been close comrades since birth.
“How fares the female?” he asks softly.
Cyrn shakes his head. “Why, Ulric?”
Ulric casts a circumspect look at Cyrn. “You are unmated.”
Cyrn slowly nods, remembering. “I was not lucky enough to be part of the communal mating that occurred a few moons past.”
Not long ago, dissenters within neighboring clans tried to break away, and after a battle, lust descended. Not an untypical outcome but one that Cyrn had inadvertently been omitted from as he was guarding the clan.
Now many of his clanmates were mated to women who had been the spoils of that war. Though they were all willing.
First Species have no need of raping or coercing females. They bear life and must be protected at all costs.
Even Beth, as pathetic as she is.
“They are not travelers, you know,” Ulric says, tilting his face to Cyrn.
Cyrn perches on a low stool made of wood and bisected tethers from the organic material of the forest.
He leans back, lacing his fingers and resting his spine against one of the tree house poles. The little chair creaks under his weight.
Ulric's domain is the highest platform in the clan, with a thatched roof of mud and the strong, dried stalks of the fields. Roughly octagon, it circles a large evergreen tree, spanning to a twin beside it. The two great trees reek of the freshness of the forest and the bodies within.
Cyrn closes his eyes, inhaling deeply. He's always appreciated natural smells. Loving the forest where their clan dwells is a deep-seated joy inside his heart.
Nothing spoils that. Until this dimwit female arrived.
He feels his expression sour, and Cyrn pops forward, dangling his hands between his spread knees. He opens his eyes, staring at his alpha and friend. “What are they?”
“The male—”
“Who, the fanged one or the pretty one?” Cyrn smirks.
Ulric chuckles. “He's almost too handsome, yes?”
Cyrn thinks of the tall, hard male. Pale hair and eyes like cloud cover. “Not by our standards.” First Species males are judged by a different standard entirely. One not just of looks but of prowess, fighting—power.
They look at each other, and finally Ulric nods. “Yes.”
“He says his kind are called ʻReflectives.ʼ Natural-born jumpers.”
Cyrn pulls a confused face. “What?”
“You saw the female, how one minute she lay helpless and disabled on the field.”
He nods, giving a significant glance to Ulric. “And the next she dangled off your weapon's belt... and committed the atrocity.”
They are silent for a moment.
“Jeb Merrick is his name. He says they are soldiers.”
“The woman also?” Cyrn asks, but he thinks he already knows the answer, judging by the throbbing of his face.
Ulric nods.
Cyrn lightly touches where she slapped him. Still stings. Perhaps. “She is so small.” Cyrn has never seen a female so slight. But the look in her eyes is not delicate. It is hard.
Ulric's expression bleeds to neutrality, and he meets Cyrn's gaze. “Deadly.”
He folds his arms, relaxing back in his seat. “Why are they here?”
“This Merrick claims they followed Beth Jasper here, because she was injured in a jump between one world to their world of origin.”
“This is not where they are from.”
“True”—Ulric chuckles at the ridiculousness of that—“but Merrick claims that to save her a second wound, he slowed the process of their transfer and, in so doing, lost control of the route.”
“Very confusing, all of that. Give me a solid tether and the moon at my back anytime over this Pathway—”
“It is not a Pathway travel. Essentially, these Reflectives make their own pathway through objects that reflect. You remember the loot we've taken from the Fragment who dare enter our clan?”
Cyrn does. Very interesting artifacts.
“The items that show reflection—images. They're called mirrors. They are portals, of a sort, to these people.”
Cyrn says suddenly, “The female threatens to leave before she is fully healed.”
Ulric's grin flashes into existence again. “Merrick believes her violent act was a way to disallow our torture, harm, or imparting permanent damage on her person.”
He laughs at Cyrn's expression. “I know, my friend—we would never harm a female. However, from what Merrick tells me, these Reflectives face extreme danger whenever they move through these mirrored surfaces and travel to another world.”
“They can leave. We have nothing interesting to offer.” The sooner Beth leaves, the better.
Ulric's shrewd eyes scan him. “She is not what you think. Beth was here by accident, paralyzed from a bullet remnant.”
“Bullet?” Cyrn's brows meet, then he remembers the Fragment. “Ah yes, the small projectiles that fly out of the smoking weapons.”
Ulric nods. “Yes. But these were specialized. They explode upon impact.”
Cyrn scowls harder. “What deplorable male shot a female?”
“Not all believe as we do.”
Cyrn's exhale is pure disgust. He is aware. Though the Band who live peaceably in their fortresses of wood are a fine example of males who do treat females well. Though their alliance with the First Species is uneasy, there is mutual respect. If only they could act together, perhaps they could extinguish the flame of the Fragment's existence forever.
“Merrick has not spoken with her yet.” Ulric smirks, and Cyrn does as well. The male would have much to heal after they subdued him. “But he insists she acted to protect something they call The Cause, and whatever pathetic way of life they maintain in their home world. He didn't expound, though it sounds like harsh realities have hit their world hard, and they want to leave here safely, find their leader, then return to where they came from.”
Something doesn't make sense. “Where is their leader?” Cyrn asks slowly.
Ulric swipes a palm over his head, and Cyrn notes he's in his human form, though it is harder to maintain than gorillan, which is the half form all First Species can maintain effortlessly.
“Merrick is keeping some things from me.”
Cyrn gives a sage nod.
“But this much is sure. They are a ragged group who have not bathed, eaten, or rested in a handful of days. We can see them as guests, then they leave.”
“Even the female?” Cyrn's voice is sharper than he intended, for he knows how Ulric's mind works.
Ulric slowly shakes his head, saying in a low voice, “Never the female.”
Cyrn smiles.
