Blood Reign (#4): Alpha Warriors of the Blood (The Blood Series) (22 page)

Jasper swung her head back and forth as though clearing it.

Blood from the blow she'd taken fell like scarlet rain beneath her position.

Ryan smiled, his hands curling into abusive fists of presumed victory.

He spoke so quietly for only her to hear, though Jeb leaned forward to try and catch his words, as did everyone.

The roar of the crowd made it impossible.

“This ends here, Jasper.”

A cruel smile overtook his face. “The Reflective doesn't have room for mongrel females.”

Jeb's eyes sharpened on her utter stillness.

Her form began to waver, shimmering on top of the bloody mat.

Jeb squinted at her, maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him.

The noise of the crowd- it was disorientating.

Ryan flicked the switchblade as smoothly as they'd been trained to do. Training blades were all ceramic.

Jasper wore the scars to attest to that.

But reflective blades could still be had on the black market for the right price.

It looked like Ryan had paid.

Jeb watched the shining metal, his innate ability instantly online around a reflection and it hummed with want. His eyes met Kennet's and all went to Rachett, wondering what he would do Ryan producing an illegal weapon.

Its mirrored surface shimmered in the low lights that bathed the interior of the coliseum.

Holy fuck.

Jeb began to push through the people. This was going to get ugly.

No,
check that
, gruesome.

Ryan planned to murder Beth Jasper, maybe he always had.

Jeb could let a inductee take licks, abuse and unfairness. But death by another Reflective would not happen on his watch.

Why for the love of the Principle had Rachett not interfered?

“Hey!” a man protested as Jeb pushed him aside.

Then he saw Jeb's uniform and silently moved aside, as did everyone.

It was like the Earth's fabled Red Sea parting; Reflectives had that effect.

Jeb grabbed the ropes that surrounded the perimeter, hesitating as Rachett bellowed too late, “No blades!”

His voice was on a note of high keening fear. Jeb swung his face to his Commander's.

He had never seen or heard fear from Rachett. When all inequalities of the fight had been dismissed: Ryan's size against Beth, her gender, he finally took notice when an illegal weapon was produced.

It was beyond bizarre. None of it made sense from where Jeb stood.

Jeb saw the white's of Jasper's eyes, the inky tail of her braid wet with her blood as the blade swung so close to her face, the breeze lifted wisps of her hair. She crab walked backward in an awkward scuttle of escape.

Ryan braced himself as his commander screamed for Ryan to stop and he ignored the directive.

Rachett stepped forward too late to stop his best inductee from gutting another recruit as a justified elimination tactic and grabbed Ryan's arm.

But the knife was gone.

It sung through the air in an expert trajectory toward Beth.

The blade spun in the combustable silence of the coliseum, the crowd's collective breath held.

Jeb strode toward Jasper but she seemed unaware as her dark eyes tracked it seamlessly.

His eye's hadn't lied. One moment she was solid, the next she became opaque.

Then was gone.

Jeb had seen many jumps, but never a female's, and never into something of that size. The crowd watched as what appeared to be a glittering rope of iridescent white, like a pearl with a rainbow wash, slammed into the blade.

Jasper's body appeared to disappear, then reappear in the thin reflective ribbon of the jump as it collided with the metal.

As she meant to.

The knife landed in the mat, its tip sunk deeply into the soft surface with a twang.

The silence was deafening.

Beth Jasper had vanished. Only her blood remained as grim testimony to her presence moments before.

Rachett fisted Ryan's tunic in his hand, jerking him close.

“You dumb fuck,” he began with the quiet menace he was known for. “All you had to accomplish was keeping weapons out of it. You could have pummeled her into the mat in a fair spar.”

His eyes pegged Ryan's in blatant disgust.

“Now,” his flat eyes locked with Ryan's, “She's jumped. She
won
because you couldn't contain your shit
.
”

Jeb's eyes connected with Kennet across the ring from where he stood and he was just as stunned. Jeb glanced at the embedded blade in the mat and shook his head in disbelief.

“There's no way!” one of the Reflective recruits said quietly, “that's a six inch surface. She's a half-breed... nobody can jump that,” he scoffed.

But somebody had: Beth Jasper, female, half-breed... had just shown her hand.

It looked like aces high.

The crowd began to disperse, eyes roving for the missing Reflective female who had just made history.

There would be no jeering in her future, only jealousy.

Rachett reiterated what they'd always known, though a few had chosen to ignore.

“The Principle chooses who they will. There is no logic. That's why when we have an opponent, we do not underestimate their skills. Let this be a lesson to all who fight,” Rachett expounded, spinning in a slow, deliberate circle, his eyes falling on the inductee recruits, the Reflectives and the lesser audience who remained.

“Be ready,” he finished, landing a leaden glance on Ryan a final time before he stalked out of the coliseum. Guards moved up beside Ryan. His infraction would land him on Sector One for a certainty. A sector no Reflective wished to jump.

This was an epic clusterfuck if there had ever been one.

Jeb groaned.

The recruits filtered out, Ryan's defiant gaze challenging all that dared look his way as he was cuffed with non-reflective cuffs. One of the guards jerked the blade out of the map, giving Ryan narrow eyes.

Jeb's gaze squared off with Ryan until he dropped his gaze and was escorted out.

Jeb stared after his retreating back. He ran a frustrated hand through his cropped hair.

He knew what this disturbing mess meant for him.

Jeb would be tasked to locate Jasper. His primary task was retrieval. He was meant to be reassigned momentarily.

However, it seemed like it would be longer than a moment.

The crowd thinned and Jeb stared at the drying blood on the mat, the comments of those around him the same.

Awe mixed with fear. It was a bad combination. It could be a recipe for many things. The main one would be when Beth returned, what reception would she find waiting?

He knew that the people would forget the transgressions made against her by Ryan.

All they would remember was her jump.

He'd never forget it.

Jeb lifted his head at a small noise. Daphne, a beautiful Reflective, came toward him, her hips swaying so he would notice.

He did.

But even as her lush body moved toward him like water finding a crack in a stone, his mind was on another female, the newest member of The Cause.

Beth Jasper, a jumper without compare.

His new partner.

Love
THE REFLECTIVE
preview?
Download
HERE

Read on for an exciting excerpt from the New York Times bestseller,
A TERRIBLE LOVE
, written under the pen name, Marata Eros

A TERRIBLE

LOVE

A novel

Marata Eros

Copyright © 2013 Marata Eros

http://marataeroseroticaauthor.blogspot.com/

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to a legitimate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

You're Mine:

I took your everything

took it for myself

my enjoyment and no one else

you're mine...

Prologue

The solid wooden doors of the closet shake as he pounds them. “I’ll hurt her, Jewell,” he says in a voice thickened by his usual rage. Thwack, punch, rattle. “And there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it!”

I clench my eyes, arms wrapped around my knees; if I ignore him he’ll go away. He always used to.

But it’s different this time. Faith came. She knew something was wrong and she came.

I listen to her wail in the background, sweat beading on the tender part of my upper lip as I roll it in my mouth to keep from crying out. I thought I could hide.

I thought it would end if I ignored it.

I kept the secret, but now, as my stepbrother assaults the only friend I’ve ever had, I squeeze my head between my knees and shake with my silent sobbing.

It’s me he wants to hurt. It’s me he’ll punish in this horrible moment of suspended time; Faith is merely the vehicle.

Faith is in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.

Her arguing got Thaddeus to notice her. However, Faith will never submit.

Her pleas go unheeded. I bear witness in a dark locked closet; shamed, terrified and soaking in my own sweat and tears, I hear what he does and I can’t stop it.

Faith saved me, and my apathy is murdering her.

Black

Black is everywhere; it’s in the sky, the ground, the pounding rain that pings off the casket.

It’s on my dress.

My shoes. The umbrellas are a sea of it, rolling endlessly on and on.

But there is one spot that’s red. The flare of my mother’s dress I can see from just beyond the polished lip of the wood.

My stepbrother meets my eyes with the deep gray of his own and I shudder with keen revulsion.

I count backward silently, the tears that scald my face chilling as the rain meets them, mingling with them in a dance of sadness that washes my face. Though it doesn’t cleanse the guilt. It never will.

He gives me a little smirk and I cast my eyes down so he can’t see the burning hatred in my gaze.

Thad thinks he’s home free. His crime buried beneath the prestige of his standing in the community.

He hasn’t counted on how far I’ll go to secure his future destruction. And my own survival. I’d do it all.

For Faith.

I suck in a shuddering breath, my plan firmly in place, my fear as well.

I drop a single deep-cream rose on Faith’s casket. It spins in slow motion, making a soft thump as it connects with the mirrored finish, and I turn to leave, the good-bye caught in my heart for eternity.

The reporters are already here.

I flee, my high heels stabbing the sodden earth beneath my feet. When the limousine driver opens the door for me I slide inside, breathing a sigh of relief when I see I share it with no one. My vacant mother and stepfather will dutifully stay and shore up my best friend’s parents against the tragic loss of their daughter. For duty’s sake, not empathy’s.

Thaddeus MacLeod stands watching my limo, the closing glass of my window beginning to shield me from him. As the reporters gather around him he has eyes only for me. I shiver at that quiet look of contained menace, despairing. I gather my resolve like fragile collected blossoms.

I can do this.

“Thaddeus!” I hear a woman reporter yell. “What does Senator MacLeod think of your attempted rescue of your dear family friend?” She heaves a microphone above her head and toward Thad’s face, skimming the heads of reporters who stand in front of her.

He turns his face away from mine and even in the dim light of the outside I can see his one-hundred-watt smile come online, dazzling the reporter who posed the question. It makes me want to hurl. There’s no food in my stomach but my body goes through the motions nonetheless.

I let the glass swallow the view, turning away and sinking into the plush leather as I allow my tears to come.

Our limo driver flicks his eyes to my wet face in the rearview mirror, then discreetly away.

I hit the
up
button on the divider and the glass partition slides up.

It is the last moment of grief I’ll allow myself. Soon I will run.

Toward anonymity, freedom. And maybe someday, absolution.