| |
Cyrn
Cyrn growls as he leaps after the female, his hand grasping onto a tether not strong enough for his size.
He swings hard, anyway—Cyrn knows he can manage the fall. Thankfully, they were on the first platform.
It's the female he's worried about.
He did not like the look in her dark brown eyes. She fears this Reflective Ryan.
And any female brave enough to attack Cyrn the way she did, and with the skill Beth employed, would not be quick to feel fear.
Ulric will be told. And the Reflective will not be given any more latitude. He pushed the female off the platform after Cyrn expressly told him not to.
First Species do not harm females. They are the life bearers.
Beth tumbles beneath him, and the tether burns his flesh as he uses it to zip down in an inelegant fall of necessity. At the last moment of the plunge, he grips the tether while grabbing the female.
The twisted vegetation snaps tight, and Cyrn tenses, sure the too-small vine will snap with the momentum and weight of their combined load.
Her helpless body folds over his arm, dangling in a limp swing of limbs.
Cyrn smiles. She is a tiny female, but while in motion, she appears like the spinning cyclones of earth that tear through the open prairies outside their clan in the trees.
Carefully, he turns her over, keeping some distance in case the stillness drug wears and she attacks him again.
Wide, deep brown eyes caress his face with a relief so profound he feels moved. Then Cyrn remembers that she held his balls in her delicately capable hands.
His lips flatten. Cyrn will not hurt her, but he will not treat her with the same respect afforded females who do not batter a male who has fed them his very essence.
Perhaps this Reflective is correct—she and Jeb Merrick are dissenters and subject to their world's laws of crime.
Beth's eyes grow wide, and she says something.
With one arm, Cyrn lowers himself in a slow spin to the ground.
Jeb Merrick faces the ground, drool pooling underneath him as the net bites into the flesh of his face and neck.
“What?” Cyrn asks quietly.
“Murderer,” Beth says, and her fingers twitch.
Cyrn feels his face scrunch; the stillness drug is already waning. “I would never harm a female. Even you.” He scowls at her.
Ryan dumps to his feet close by. And Cyrn instinctively moves Beth out of the Reflective's reach.
“Ulric will not condone your treatment of the female.” Cyrn flares his nostrils. First Speciesʼ sense of smell is extremely sensitive.
He smells the female's desolation and fear, and it burns his nostrils. Cyrn also smells this male Reflective's smug triumph.
Cyrn understands that if these two travelers—Reflectives—are truly criminals that were difficult to apprehend, then yes, there is a valid justice to having finally captured them.
But somehow, Cyrn senses something is off.
“Cyrn,” Natasha calls from above them.
Damn. In all the trouble to protect this ungrateful female, he had left his Alpha's woman on the platform.
What is it about Beth that scrambles his otherwise cool thought processes?
He doesn't have time to process it all as First Species bleed out of the woods, including Ulric. “What has happened?” His eyes sweep to the first platform and see that his mate is unharmed and well, and his shoulders lower minutely.
Cyrn does not wish to discuss everything that just transpired. Not in front of Reflective Ryan.
“Everything is as it should be, except...” Cyrn glances down at the female Reflective, Beth. Her head is tucked inside the crook of his arm. She is so small he can almost hold her entire body in one arm.
Cyrn clamps his teeth together. He does not want to let her go, regardless of her lack of will to live. Her transgression in trying to unman him. There is something indefinable that causes him to tighten his hold.
He does not let on this subtle change of heart.
Beth's fingers curl around his arm, and he stares at them. Birdlike and slim, these are the digits that injured him.
She grips his arm. Cyrn watches her walk those fingers up to the neckline of his tunic. She clenches it.
“He,” she breathes, swallowing hard.
At that moment, her partner rolls over so his face is toward the sky rather than smashed into the netting.
Jeb Merrick shouts, and the one word is enough to cause the First Species to spread wide and far.
“Traitor!”
Cyrn whirls too late as Ryan's hand buries in the female's hair. Fisting it tightly, Ryan pulls, jumping simultaneously.
A ribbon of iridescence slices the air, whipping particles of sparkling matter like a breakwater of floating dust motes.
Cyrn leaps forward, his arms swinging wildly through the tail of that glittering swath.
Merrick's hands rip the netting, and he falls through the tear face-first. Using only his hands to brace his fall, he lands hard, knocking the wind out of himself.
“Cyrn!” Ulric roars. “What is this?”
“The Reflective—he's taken the female.”
Ulric sights Natasha again, ascertaining her well-being, and nods. “I gave him permission. He said she and the male were wanted for crimes against the government of their world.”
Cyrn's desperate eyes seek Beth. She's vanished.
The male she is terrified of has her. And Beth can move only her hands—use her voice. She is helpless.
Merrick rolls over, groaning. “Can't let him take her,” he wheezes, struggling through the relentless effects of the drug.
“Proof is not something I need. We rescued the female, and my Beta saw to her needs, giving her his essence. We need do no more,” Ulric says reasonably.
“Follow her.”
Merrick's eyes meet Cyrn.
“Will I die as the Bloodling?”
“I don't know. But if she is in Ryan's care for much longer, she will wish for death.”
Cyrn's body tightens. He should have listened to his instincts. Maybe the words she attempted to utter were not for him but for Ryan.
Murderer.
Maybe he is the murderer. Or part of this so-called Reflective Dissent. Perhaps she was fleeing him and not the male who lies on the forest floor, regaining the feeling they robbed from him.
Perhaps they've misunderstood everything from the beginning.
Shame floods Cyrn. He did not listen to anything the female said. Assuming too much and ascertaining too little.
Now she is gone.
“How?” Cyrn asks, his long fingers moving into tight fists and staring at the male Reflective.
Ulric steps in front of him. “Are you considering interfering with their business when we have more than we can cope with here, in our own clan?”
Cyrn feels his Alpha's power wash over him, attempting to soothe his raw nerves.
Nothing works. His guts roil.
Cyrn is unmated. Beth Jasper is a foreign female who tried to take her own life. She attacked him. He reminds himself of all the points of why he should not interfere—care.
Beth moves him. Profoundly. He can't deny that. “The female is in danger.”
“Cyrn,” Ulric begins, sweeping his hand toward Merrick, “let the traveler—jumper, whatever they call themselves—deal with their own issues. We did our part.”
Yes, they saved the Reflective female. True. But now she is gone, and the male who supposedly needed to be returned to their world writhes at their feet—forgotten.
“Ulric,” Natasha calls from the platform.
His Alpha swiftly moves to the edge. “Come.”
Natasha walks to the edge, her toes overhanging. Jumps.
Merrick's eyes widen as Ulric catches his mate with ease. First Species live in trees, and their limbs are aptly suited to maneuver all kinds of physical challenges.
And Cyrn's arms ache for the small female. But only to protect her, Cyrn tells himself. Once he is assured of her protection, he will release her.
“Time is wasting. Ryan could be doing anything,” the Reflective says from the ground, though he attempts to stand.
Cyrn stares at the male. “How did he jump out of here?”
“We removed anything mirrored once we understood your capabilities.”
Merrick stands. Falls. Tries again. Cyrn's exhale is impatient, and he strides to the shorter man and hauls him to his feet. They twist beneath him, and he begins to go down again.
Natasha is set on her feet, and she comes to them. “How long will this stillness last?”
She lifts a shoulder, her darkly kinked hair sliding over it. “Remember what Jim said?”
Cyrn did not, or he wouldn't be asking.
“That it depended on metabolism and race—gender—many factors,” Ulric begins slowly.
Jim was a traveler from a world of thieves and debauchery. He had been a brave male to return to such a place. He had also left behind an assortment of useful items. The stillness drug was one. He had instructed them that if killing wasn't desired but incapacitation was—this was the trick. His words still rang in Cyrn's brain.
“The jumper—Reflective—he is worthless.” Cyrn stares at Merrick.
“No,” Merrick answers, his grip surprisingly strong at Cyrn's shoulder. “I can jump you in his tail, but you will have to help Beth. I am still too weak from this injection.”
“She will kick my nuts in again.” Cyrn feels the ghost of a smile form.
Merrick looks up at him, licking his parched lips. “I think she grabbed them.” A faint smile creases his mouth, but his pale gray eyes have darkened with worry.
“This Reflective”—he swallows, coughs, continues—“he will hurt Beth first—then he will destroy our world.”
Cyrn's brows meet, and a low growl breaks the seal of his lips.
Ulric touches his shoulder. “I cannot leave—this is you, Cyrn, and what you do next goes far beyond what even I would ask of you.”
Cyrn nods and hauls the Reflective against him easily.
“What do you need?” Cyrn asks abruptly.
“Blade,” Merrick gasps.
Ulric unsheathes a shining blade. Because dawn is so near, vague light seeks the metal, and a dull reflection sinks into the surface.
Cyrn sees very well at night, as most of the First Species cannot go out during daylight unless they are in full gorillan form. Gold and gray eyes pair on the dull surface.
Actually, Cyrn can make out only smears of color from their irises—no detail appears at all to his sight.
The Reflective takes a deep inhale. Releases.
Without warning, heat bursts from Cyrn's middle torso. Flames and ice bite down upon his arms and legs, bursting into a teeth-clenching sensation of being burned alive while simultaneously chilled to the bone.
The vision of Ulric before him narrows, and with an audible pop, he disappears. Cyrn twirls with the male Reflective, falling and spinning in a nauseating whirlpool sensation.
Whatever the magic is that allows the travel releases them, and Cyrn holds the Reflective tightly, reflexively throwing his arm out for a tether.
Finding none.
Cyrn tumbles in a free fall through trees. Branches tear at his sides, and with only one arm available, he grabs what he can.
A large branch slaps his ribs, breaking one. He grits his teeth and hits the branch with his arm.
The Reflective begins to slip, and with a shout of pain, Cyrn wraps his arm around the branch.
They bounce against the tree, and Cyrn's arm comes out of its socket.
Merrick and he swing on the branch, and Cyrn's pain is so great he doesn't waste breath with words.
The Reflective blinks, and they're suddenly sitting on the branch that broke Cyrn's rib and tore his shoulder out. Cyrn grabs the trunk with his good arm and locks his ankles around Merrick's torso.
“How,” Cyrn gasps around the agony.
“Reflected us here.”
Cyrn's eyes move up to where Jeb's gaze moves and see a mirror embedded in the tree above their heads.
“Ryan dropped it. Had to. It's how they got out of Thirteen.”
Cyrn frowns.
“Your world.”
Merrick stands, and Cyrn tenses. This is where the Reflective will kick him off the branch, and he will be helpless to do anything but die from the fall. There are no tethers wherever they've jumped to.
Instead he disappears and reappears within seconds.
With the small mirror in hand.
“We can go anywhere now.”
“Do you still need me, Reflective?” Cyrn hates being at his mercy.
“No.”
Then he grins, as though he knew exactly what Cyrn's thought process was. “Beth does.”
Cyrn does not scream when the Reflective sets the joint of his arm.
