The Savage Dream
Author: Tamara Rose Blodgett
Date: 2014-12-19 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Science Fiction; Paranormal; Dystopia; Young Adult
Description: Edwin presses for travel to his home clan of Cape Cod where The Rite of the Select must be performed for Calia. Philip reluctantly travels with the siblings, though his future with Calia is uncertain. Adahy is part-Band but in his heart he is Iroquois. He must accept the horrible sins of necessity in his past and also a passion for a broken female he cannot deny. The legacy of war, protection and survival are all he knows. When Elise finds the only tender part of him, he leaves the sphere before those feelings have a chance to deepen. King Otto has found fertile ground within the Fragment to g

Table of Contents

- Praise for THE SAVAGE SERIES....
- Copyright
- Kindle Edition
- DEDICATION:
- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
- CHAPTER NINETEEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY
- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
- CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
- CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
- CHAPTER THIRTY
- CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
- CHAPTER THRITY-TWO
- Excerpts
- Acknowledgments
- Dear Ones:
- Thank you:
- More Books
- About the Author:

Praise for THE SAVAGE SERIES....

PEARL: “... Blodgett doesn't waste time and paper blabbing away, she creates a complex and well thought-out plot line. If you skim through, you'll just end up frustrated that you wasted your time.... Tamara Rose Blodgett did a fabulous job creating a phenomenal steampunk world with a fancy, lyrical XIX-century-ish language straight from the Victorian era. The setting and the costumes, the characters and the way they express themselves, the sparkling atmosphere and evocative descriptions - all that makes for an exquisite and thoroughly compelling read—evie-bookish.blogspot.com/

BLOOD:“... I read this book in a day...ready for book 3! They are so addicting I cannot explain it with words...” Francesca

PRINCIPLE: “.... I cried, I laughed, my stomach was in knots, I cheered & fist pumped! The intrigue by itself had me enthralled. I think the circumstances of Clara's conception are going to give us some juicy plots in the SAVAGE books still to come, and I for one can not wait...!!!-Skylar Griffin

VENGEANCE:“.... Could not put the book down and as soon as I was done with it, I purchased the next. Afraid I am addicted to this series...” Tony James

PROTECTOR: “....When it comes to detail, drama and a myriad of sub-plots that race past leaving you breathless trying to keep up, Tamara Rose Blodgett has THE GIFT! Her latest, The Savage Protector is done in true TRB style as she deftly shifts from different POVs, different scenes and never misses a beat...”-Dii

Table of Contents

Praise for THE SAVAGE SERIES....

DEDICATION:

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THRITY-TWO

Acknowledgments              204

More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett              205

Books written under the pen name, Marata Eros              206

About the Author:              208

Edwin presses for travel to his home clan of Cape Cod where The Rite of the Select will take place. Philip accompanies the siblings, though his future with Calia is uncertain.

Adahy is part-Band but in his heart he is Iroquois. He must accept the sins of his past and a passion for a broken female he cannot deny. The legacy of war, protection and survival are all he knows. When Elise finds the only tender part of him, he leaves the sphere to escape his own vulnerability.

When a third evil emerges unexpectedly during their journey, and the Travelers devise new methods of interfering with their world, Adahy and Elise come together to survive the new challenge to their survival.

Can Calia and Philip be together? Or will a new scheme introduced by others foil their chance at happiness? Is Adahy strong enough to overcome his perceived guilt to embrace love with someone as fractured as himself....

THE SAVAGE DREAM

Book Six: The Savage Series

Copyright 2014 Tamara Rose Blodgett

Kindle Edition

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.

Editing suggestions provided by Red Adept Editing

DEDICATION:

For my Savage fans~

CHAPTER ONE

Adahy

In February there was no mercy from the wind. It swept through the open plains, settling into the deepness of Adahy's bones with sharpened teeth.

Elise traveled in the shadow of his stride, he breaking the wind for her. She had oft traveled with the Fragment and had been Outside in the bowels of winter, where a larger person in front was sure to afford cover for her.

Chasing Hawk and the other Iroquois warriors moved like they were part of the wind, employing snowshoes in the trenches and gullies between swaths of iced and frigid branches which no longer held snow. The wind howled and wept its intent through the valley they currently traversed. They would pause each mile, taking stock of directions. The conditions were nearing a whiteout, and Adahy made his way to the knot of warriors.

Adahy gave a circumspect glance at Elise, checking her posture and hoping that she did not digress into the sleeping sickness so prevalent amongst those who were unaccustomed to wandering the vastness of the prairies in the grip of winter's depth.

Her dark eyes slid to his own, and Adahy quickly looked away.

“I talk—Chasing Hawk,” he told Elise in his frustrating English, pointing to the chief. She nodded, pulling the hood of her cloak further around her face. He noticed the tip of her nose was quite pink and tore his eyes away lest he become fascinated by this female in the middle of a snowstorm.

He and Chasing Hawk were arguing.

Adahy was grateful for the language barrier because the words of his chief were blunt.

“They are women, they have no right to be in this storm. The wind takes our breath. It is a sign.”

Adahy frowned. Chasing Hawk was an intuitive leader. Unease unfurled like the wings of a raven inside Adahy's breastbone.

Elise understood some of their language—he saw that from her expression. “Is he—will we be punished?” she asked. Adahy struggled to understand her words, especially the last one.

She interpreted his expression. “Hurt?” She put a hand on her chest.

Adahy gave an emphatic shake of his head. “Iroquois honor. No hurt females.”

Adahy was disgusted by her shoulders slumping in relief. Her unconscious gesture made him hate the Fragment with a fire that could not be put out. Adahy was not fond of the tomahawk as his brethren were, but he might free his daggers and tame the scalps of many, if the Fragment's members were to present themselves.

His mouth fairly salivated at the idea. Adahy's desire for revenge was a keen thing.

Elise's soft hand on his arm caused him to turn just as he was nearing the tight group of warriors. “You be well,” he said.

She nodded but stayed close to him.

Adahy shifted back, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the hammering wind, and the sharpened snow hitting his skin felt like small knives. It was too cold for snow, it was a mix of strangled and frozen rain, beating them sideways. A quarter mile behind their party, the Band brought up the rear.

Edwin and his female kin Calia kept their distance from each other. Adahy frowned. It was a most odd interaction. The largest male Adahy had ever encountered, Band or otherwise, held the lead, the female staying at his side much as Elise was doing with Adahy. Where Elise was soft around the edges, this female warrior of the Band was hard. That she had never been taken by the marauding Fragment was a noteworthy feat.

“We are not waiting for the white giants,” Chasing Hawk announced, looking back at the Band. His eyes narrowed at Adahy who simply shrugged.

“We do not need to travel with the Band,” Adahy conceded. “They simply ask that we stay with them until we reach our tribe.”

Adahy knew from murmured conversations with his chief that tensions were running high. The small scouting party wished to be reunited with their tribeswomen. The fire of their home called its warm blessing to them.

Adahy knew they were very near the fork that would take them away from the eastern path that three of the Band would follow to get to the sea they endlessly spoke of.

Actually, it was Edwin who would not stop speaking of it. His sister did not seem so intent on going. He had put forth such a speech of accusation at one point of the journey that the men had grown uneasy the sibling pair would come to blows. If it had not been for Philip's interjections, they might have.

Perhaps the clansmen of the Band were as different as the tribes. There had been great prejudice against Adahy when he'd met the new tribe. He was not pleasing to the eye. Instead of the lithe, fine-honed, and nimble warrior so typical of the Iroquois, he moved differently, was built big of bone and fought in a manner not in keeping with the others. He had learned that where there was difference, others felt threatened.

Philip approached the circle of warriors. There were only four, excluding Adahy. “What say you?” he asked Chasing Hawk.

Adahy stifled a groan.

He knew that Chasing Hawk would feel instantly insulted by the English words, finding them crude and useless.

Much the same as the Band probably found his own native tongue.

“Tell him I do not wish to travel with their party any longer. That our tribe is near,” said Chasing Hawk.

Adahy sighed. He was a poor choice of interpreter. His English was terrible, his Iroquois excellent. If he spoke, the chance of misinterpretation was high.

He spoke, “Chasing Hawk say tribe be close.”

Philip's eyebrow rose. Calia sneezed beside him, and his brows drew together in obvious concern.

“Calia is sick.”

Adahy knew he'd said something about the female.

His eyes slid to Elise, and she shook her head. “I cannot heal sickness.”

Chasing Hawk stabbed his snow stick into the slight hill that separated the Band from his own group and moved within range of Calia.

Philip growled low, and Chasing Hawk's eyes went to his, narrowing.

“He no hurt Calia,” Adahy said.

Philip looked at him.

“He is ascertaining how sick she is,” Elise said.

Adahy got the gist of what she had said but the nuances were lost on him.

He folded his arms against the weather, casting a glance at the deep pewter sky.

They needed to find shelter. Now.

Chasing Hawk was the same height as the female, Calia. He lifted his hand, and she seemed to understand he was not there for harm.

She nodded and he placed his forearm against the flesh above her eyes. He instantly jerked his arm back.

He looked at Adahy and pursed his lips. “She is ill.”

Adahy came forward. “What is it?”

Chasing Hawk shook his head. “She is not healthy enough to have tried this journey. She does not have enough meat on her body, does not take enough food, not enough rest.” He gave a disgusted snort and stepped away.

Philip gathered Calia closer.

Edwin spoke up. “What seems to be the trouble?

“The trouble is the Red Men do not wish to travel with us, Calia is sicker now than she was in the morn, and we need to find shelter in the middle of this blizzard,” Philip said.

Philip gazed at Edwin, his expression weighted with accusation.

To Adahy it looked as though Philip would like to use the tomahawk on that one. If the circumstances had not been so severe, it would have amused him. As it were, nothing could be further from the truth.

Elise shivered, too proud to move closer to him. He wrapped his cloak around her, and she nestled against his chest, fitting against him perfectly. Adahy was not fooled. She did not offer a tender intimacy, but was only warming her body so she might live.

Survival was not love.

Philip was speaking again, “We must seek shelter with their tribe. Calia is too sick to go on, and the storm has stolen nearly all visibility.”

“It has,” Calia said, coughing into her hand. Philip's frown deepened.

“Fine,” Chasing Hawk said in a tone of disgust. Adahy's brows drew together. It was somewhat out of character for their chief to be so inhospitable. His disquiet deepened.

Edwin said, “We shall use them for the moment. For when this storm passes, we will be gone.” He spoke quickly, and Adahy found it difficult to understand.

Philip faced Edwin. “I will not forget the press of this journey. That it was your agenda that put your own blood in danger. Calia is not well, we are not out of danger, and yet you speak of exploits.” Philip made a sound of disgust.

“You do not understand,” Edwin stated, his chin hitching up.

Adahy felt that Philip understood the situation very well.

“What I do understand is that things will be very different when we reach the Clan of Massachusetts.”

Chasing Hawk turned away from their arguing, and Adahy followed with Elise against his body.

Let the clan argue amongst themselves. He would seek shelter for Elise.

She slowed, struggling with the deep drifts of snow, and Adahy picked her up. Elise did not protest. Adahy felt the burn of her face against his arm.

Her flesh was on fire.

No longer hearing the white English words of anger behind him, his eyes met those of Philip. Concern for the women lay unmasked in his face, mirroring Adahy's own worries.

They continued in haste, following Adahy's leader toward the place where food, fire, and safety waited.

CHAPTER TWO

Elise

Adahy put Elise gently on her feet. Her arm shot out to halt her drop into the snow but he steadied her.

He stared down at her with concern. “Sick?” he asked in his halting English, already knowing the answer.

She nodded. It was a hateful situation as it were. She was a rare Healer due to the blood of the Band, which ran in her veins. Many had a touch of the supernatural if they also possessed the blood of the Band. But not all.

Yet she did. It was as if there was a force greater than her that deemed that all the tragedy of her life should be offset by something of worth. Unfortunately, she was a healer not of illness but of injury.

Whatever she and Calia were afflicted with would need to run its course of burning flesh, yet the cause remained a mystery. What Elise did know was they needed water, and judging by Calia's thinness, food would help as well. Calia appeared to be starved.

Adahy made a terrible noise from the well of his throat, and it pierced Elise's thoughts like a knife. Her head jerked up, and she saw the animal-skin tents—or teepees, as she had heard the Red Men call their dwellings.

She blanched at the sight that greeted them.

Stranded triangles of teepees sprouted in the womb of a small grove of trees, a natural shelter from the wind. But the silence was eerie, as though a reverse wind tunnel had been employed.

Chasing Hawk tore his snowshoes off and ran along the slick, matted prairie grass that sprang up from a grave of ice and trampled snow.

Blood lay everywhere in a spatter pattern like rain burst from below instead of above. There was not a bare spot of white that lay unsullied by the crimson color.

The warriors followed closely. Arrows were nocked. They threw each teepee flap open, nosing arrowheads inside as though a hidden enemy would spring forth.

After the third doorway had been opened and breached, Chasing Hawk sank to his knees on the ground and wept as if his soul was being shredded.

Adahy towed Elise after him as the wailing of the Red Men sounded louder than the wind.

Elise hardly noticed when flesh that burned as hot as her own slipped inside her hand. She turned and saw an expression on Calia's face.

Resignation.

Adahy left Elise with Calia while he, Philip and Edwin went to each teepee.

Their faces became grimmer with each one they checked inside.

A large fire pit stood in the middle of the carnage.

Philip strode to the spent fire, sinking to his haunches as his hand hovered over the coals. “Still hot.”

“There is fresh food inside of some of the empty dwellings,” Edwin added, spreading his palms.

“Aye,” Philip said, standing.

He walked to the grieving chief. His hand landed on Chasing Hawk's shoulder. There was an intense silence as the chief's head bowed to the empty well of his sadness while Philip of the Band offered quiet solace.

“Fragment,” was all that Philip said as he stood. Elise shuddered, knowing all of what that one word entailed.

“It is my fault,” Chasing Hawk said, in his own tongue, and Elise translated his words. Though Philip certainly did not comprehend Red Men speech, the chief's mournful comment was universally understood even without translation.

“Your numbers would have been insufficient,” Philip said in somber consolation. He scanned the surrounding area, seeming to tally the footprints. “Their number was at twenty.”

Elise stepped forward. Though she was dizzy, hungry, and thirsty, she still struggled to interpret.

The chief stared at her then repeated the number.

She nodded.

He rose.

“The women,” Chasing Hawk lamented.

“Gone,” Adahy said in Iroquois.

“And the men are dead,” Edwin stated. The men's bodies were beginning to freeze where they had been indifferently stowed inside the teepees.

The hot hand slipped out of Elise's as Calia began to slump face-first into the snow. Philip rushed to her side, halting her forward progress. He felt her neck with two large fingers. “She breathes shallowly. We must—I am sorry for your loss, but I cannot lose her,” he said frantically.

Philip scooped Calia up in his arms, carrying her to a teepee that was larger than the others, and moved inside the door flap.

Chasing Hawk removed a dagger.

“No, please,” Elise said.

Chasing Hawk turned.

Elise implored, “She is too sick. He must save her.”

“While our women be held by the white skin heathens?”

Elise searched his eyes in the beat of awkward silence, as quiet as the snow that now fell.

She understood that Chasing Hawk wished to chase the Fragment down, like the vermin they were, and rescue the few Iroquois women.

However, at present, a sick vertigo climbed like a tide of nausea and settled in her head.

She could only nod stupidly and answer, “Yes.”

Then she joined her fellow female in a dead faint.

Never feeling the arms that rescued her from the frozen claim at her feet.

*

Elise was hot—so warm she kicked out, endeavoring to throw off whatever was on top of her.

It would not budge.

Her eyes snapped open, and she found Adahy inches from her body. She gasped, struggling to get away, sleep clinging to her like the blanket of his body.

With a languid pull, his large arm reached around and scooped her back against him.

“No hurt,” he said, and she whimpered.

His intent was not the point. How many times had she awoken to a hand over her mouth and another rape to live through?

Too many times.

Had it not been the Fragment who had so often taken her when she was too young? It was they who had stolen her ability to bear children.

Her mind hissed an emphatic reply. Yes.

She did not take to waking suddenly beside a male.

It was not a casual gesture but one that preceded violence. It was all Elise knew.

CHAPTER THREE

Adahy

Adahy grunted as Elise elbowed him in the gut, and he rolled away before she lost all of her sense and went for an eye or such.

He had been with her for hours, as Philip had with Calia. The women were ill, and giving her the warmth of his warrior body had been a pragmatic choice. At least these females were not those of the sphere, who had societal notions about sleeping with males.

An odd culture, Adahy thought, giving an internal shrug.

“Unhand me!” Elise cried, and he moved away, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. His stomach gave an appreciative roar, and instantly Adahy's mind was on the procuring of meat. He and Chasing Hawk would need to forage… unless supplies of dried meat were still on hand. Adahy was thinking about this when Elise swatted him on the arm.

His brows knitted together. “What problem?”

“You are sleeping with me!” she raged.

“You sick. Adahy help,” he said plainly.

Elise rolled her eyes, and though he was not yet adept at English, facial cues were easy for him to interpret.

“It—I don't want to sleep next to a male—any male.” Her voice squeezed down to a low whisper.

Adahy thought about her actions.

She had awoken in a startled fright. It was not about him per se. It was caused by her experience amongst the Fragment, he was sure. She had not expressly confessed their treatment of her, but Adahy could guess what they would have done with a female past ten and eight years. She would be too old to sell at one of their flesh auctions.

The Iroquois kept their women safe by splitting their groups to a minimal number. If the Fragment came too close, a community would simply pull up stakes and go to the next location. The Fragment were the newcomers to their land. The Iroquois and other tribesmen were the natural people and knew the land.

And the land knew them.

Adahy reached out, and Elise flinched and pulled away. He scowled, and Elise folded her arms and huffed.

“No hurt,” he said for the thousandth time. When would she know this? How many stolen kisses and intimate moments would they need to share before Elise would trust that he was not Fragment, but Iroquois?

Adahy strove for patience in all situations, for an emotional warrior lived a short life.

Elise cast her eyes to the swept floor of dirt beneath the woven and brightly colored rugs.

Many seconds of silence collected as Adahy waited for her to explain. He did not expect what she finally confessed.

“I know.” Elise sighed and knee-walked to Adahy. His heart roared like a fire without water to dampen it.

His mouth dried instantly.

When her knees touched his, a little sound escaped. He was male, and a female whom he cared for and found attractive stood before him, her dark eyes sucking him closer.

“I am sorry. I awoke, and this large male was caging me.” Her hands fluttered around her like wounded birds, and Adahy captured one.

“I am Adahy,” he said in perfect English, and she smiled.

“I know,” she said a second time with a small shiver, wiping her brow. “I am thirsty—so thirsty, and physically defeated by this illness.”

Adahy could stand it no longer. He gathered her up and set her on his lap. Elise did not fight him, but the tension in her body was mighty.

He could feel the fever eat at her skin and brushed his lips against her cheek. “I will get water. I will feed you. No harm will come to you as long as I live.”

Elise stayed still in his arms. “Intend understand me?” she asked in broken Iroquois.

Adahy knew that what she meant was, Did you mean for me to understand that?

He chuckled.

Her face closed, and she frowned. That struck Adahy as very funny, and he laughed hard, from his belly.

It was good. It had been too long since Adahy had had tears of joy instead of sadness.

“Okay? What?” she asked.

“You speak funny.”

“Oh?” Elise huffed, pushing a strand of hair out of her face with a violent swipe. “And you do not, sir?”

He nodded. “I do not understand English.”

“Really? I had not noticed.”

He pressed his lips to her temple. “Yes, you have.”

He mixed the English and Iroquois together.

Her eyes widened. “I knew exactly what you said.”

He nodded. “It was my intention that you do.”

“Speak thusly—that half-English and half-Iroquois. Then all might understand.”

He shook his head. “Perhaps Daniel of the Fragment and you—but those who understand only English or Iroquois, they will not ken to it.”

Elise nodded. “Perhaps.” The deepness of her eyes caressed him as though his heart lay transparent before her vision. “But I will, Adahy.”

He cupped her chin. “Then it will be our language.” He stroked her delicate chin, finding a small scar even there. His hand dropped as though burned. “However, I find I understand you without any words, very well.” He left his eyes on hers until Elise dropped her gaze and a faint pink tinged her high cheekbones.

Adahy wrapped his arms around her head. Her heated flesh burned through his tunic.

Wordlessly, he released her and stood, stretching his fingertips to the apex of the teepee. The hides of the bison were perfect for the weatherproofing of the structure. Adahy was pleased that it stopped the winds from reaching them.

He would have dressed and braved the frigid winter in a time when they were living off the dried fruits and meat of summer's bounty and men gathered firewood and the occasional fresh meat of a starving deer.

But today a fire might alert their enemy, and there were two females with a mysterious illness that stole the health in the heat of their internal fires.

Water would cool this new stealthy enemy.

Adahy would seek it.

His arms dropped to his sides and he rotated his neck, loosening his shoulders and moving into a series of stretches that readied his body, warming it for the shock of exiting the teepee.

Elise watched all of it closely, a deep pink tinting her cheeks—not the pale of before. Her coloring troubled Adahy, and he felt himself frown.

She was pale for a female of the tribe. She was mixed—but the raven's wing of her hair was proof of tribal ancestry. None of the sphere-dwellers or those of the clan boasted the color of night for hair.

“What—what are you doing?” she asked in a breathy voice.

“I prepare to gather sustenance.”

“A fire?” Elise asked hopefully.

“No,” he stated more sharply then he intended.

She flinched at the harsh word, and he knelt before her, taking both of her slender, hot hands in his own. “The Fragment would see it as an invitation to attack again.”

His eyes searched hers.

Elise nodded. “I am cold.”

He placed his forearm against the smooth, flushed skin of her forehead.

It burned. He shook his head. “No, the fires of your body are lit.”

Elise gave a slight smile.

Adahy lifted an eyebrow in question.

“You—you speak like a poet,” she said.

“What is poet?” he asked.

“A person who manages words that flow like a river.”

Adahy smiled and nodded. “Your words are good.”

The flush that coated her cheeks that time was one of embarrassment.

Adahy frowned. Elise does not accept kindnesses easily.

Much would change. Adahy would make sure.

The flap of the teepee flipped open, and Adahy's dagger was in his hand before animal hide hit the exterior.

“Rest easy, warrior.” Philip put up an inoffensive hand, and Adahy relaxed his posture. If it had not been a male he knew, even now his knife would have found a new home inside flesh—embedded in the forehead of whoever thought to charge within.

Adahy was not a merciless killer. Yet he was not wont to dally with indecision.

Philip's face was grave. “Elise?” he asked.

Adahy sheathed his dagger and shook his head. “Sick.”

“Calia as well.”

“Has she awoken, Philip?” Elise asked, rising to her feet. Adahy could not help comparing their sizes and finding the disparity shocking.

Is that what people saw when he and Elise stood beside each another? Philip dwarfed her, yet she seemed to not be afraid of him.

It was the blood of the Band, Adahy presumed. As those in the Band had made mention of it enough.

Philip's lips thinned. “She has not. She is fitful, moving in and out of rest. However, water—and food will be given. Even if I must force it down her throat.”

Elise's hand fluttered to her own neck, and Philip frowned. “I do not pretend to be tender when the female I vowed to protect, who I am bound to, clings to life.” As Philip spoke, Adahy leaned forward, trying to capture and translate the words as best he could. “No, there is a time to be soft with a female and a time to save her, even if she is more stubborn then the sun rising and setting each day.”

Elise smiled. “I will stay with Calia. I am not as sick as she. You and…” Elise's gaze found Adahy, and he struggled not to wrap her in his arms. He knew it would be too much for their tenuous bond. “You and Adahy can retrieve the supplies you need.”

“What of Chasing Hawk?” Adahy asked.

“He prepares to leave.”

Adahy palmed his chin. It did not seem wise to go after the few females that had been taken. The Fragment's numbers would be large. Their men were dead, and their own scouting party was small.

Adahy remembered vividly the scene he had come upon when his own wife had been taken. The image would never leave him. It was forever etched in his memory—his soul.

He saw the Fragment raping his dying wife in the memory of his mind's eye, her womb like a cap of gore on his head as a ravenous male plunged into her broken body. He heard the cries of their infant, not yet ready to be outside the cocoon of his mate, waning to a breathy wheezing as the cold began to claim him.

Adahy would never forget her gaze as it found him over the shoulder of her rapist. Rapt. Alert.

Entreating.

As her eyes began to glaze and the attacker's scalp came off in Adahy's hand, he remedied her suffering in an efficient slash of his dagger.

He turned to his infant son too late.

The small body no longer flailed from fright and cold, in the absence of his mother's womb, a quick death fell like a shroud of silence.

Fragment came to investigate the lack of screaming and had fallen to their deaths.

The only bit of Adahy not covered in the blood of war and tragedy had been his eyeballs. Even his lashes had been stuck together with the glue of othersʼ blood.

He had wept when the fires of the pyre took his wife and son forever.

Adahy would weep no more.

He would not lose another female to the hands of the Fragment. That was why he would not join Chasing Hawk in seeking their enemy:

Adahy would never leave Elise.

“I stay,” he answered Philip. In his peripheral vision, Elise's shoulders relaxed, and Philip simply nodded.

The two men walked out of the teepee together and into the unknown.

CHAPTER FOUR

Elise

“There is no river for obtaining water,” Calia said from underneath her forearm.

Elise should have felt happier that Calia had awoken from her feverish false sleep just as the men had gone to gather water and food.

However, the disposition of Calia was an obstinate one.

Elise stifled a sigh of frustration. “If water flows, Adahy will find it,” she remarked neutrally and with a degree of loyalty and hope she had never possessed for anyone.

Being part of the Fragment since before she could recollect did not give her a point of reference for such emotions.

Calia peeked out from under her stick-like arm and studied Elise.

Elise flushed before the scrutiny.

“You find Adahy fair?” Calia asked knowingly, trying to sit up. She groaned.

Elise ignored the question. “Lie still. Wait until the men return and take respite now, while you can. Who knows what peril awaits us in the future?”

Calia gave a snort and flopped back down against the warm blankets. They were in one of the three teepees that remained free of carnage. Only the frigid weather kept the reek of death at bay. Elise knew from experience they would not be there overly long. The Red Men were as nomadic as the Fragment.

Calia shattered her thoughts with a brief, light touch on her arm. Elise fought not to snatch her arm away from the contact. Calia ignored her reaction or was unaware of it. “It is fine if you care for the Red Warrior. He is of Band blood—we all know it, even if he does not.” She raised her eyebrows.

“He knows,” Elise answered in a low voice.

“And you? From where do you hail?”

Elise heard the dry click of her throat and longed for water. “I know not.”

Calia nodded as if that made sense, staring up at the small opening at the top of the teepee. Sticks connected in a tight joining burst through to the outside. The wind could be heard outside and buckled the sides of the teepee but did not tear it asunder.

It is beautifully constructed, Elise thought, noting the deliberate and well-spaced stitching.

“And you?” she asked boldly.

Calia met her eyes. “I have lived for many years Outside.”

Calia glanced away, then her eyes moved back to Elise's. “I was discovered by my kin in a coincidence of circumstance, and now we travel to the eastern land which borders the sea.”

Elise frowned, knowing she referred to the Band male named Edwin. The two did not appear close and Elise was too polite to ask the reason behind their lack of it.

“Ask,” Calia said in a rasp.

“You should rest,” Elise tried.

“You should talk more. Your voice—it soothes.”

Elise found her hand floating nervously at her throat. Calia watched her like a cat after a mouse. It was disconcerting.

But her eyes were wise, and in them Elise found compassion. It lay heavy upon her heart.

“How long were you with the Fragment?”

Elise lifted a shoulder. “I do not know. I remember not my birth family.”

“Aye.”

Elise looked down at her fingers.

“I cannot bear children.”

The comment lay between them like a digging thorn. Elise had never confessed her knowledge to anyone. Really—who would have lent an ear? Elise automatically stifled a sad chuckle.

Calia said no words for a time then asked, “Was it the rapes, then?”

Elise felt the heat of tears on her face, running with abandon like an unchecked stream of fire nothing could ever put out.

Calia leaned toward her intently. “Is that why you keep the warrior at arm's length? That you feel your worth is in your womb?”

Her hard voice caused Elise to raise her head and stare at this woman she did not know.

“Yes,” Elise finally hissed, pressed into reluctant admittance.

“Ah,” Calia said, and did sit up.

Elise was silent.

“Let me speak plainly.”

As though there were another way with this woman.

“From the very little I understand about Adahy, it seems he had a mate—and a child. I do not fully understand or am privy to the circumstances of their deaths. They are gone, and he does not seem to long for more children. And the Band cannot help who they cleave to, Elise.”

Elise's eyes shifted away from the penetrating stare of Calia. Her eyes were the most vital things about her. They glowed like amber dipped in gold, matching her brother Edwin's almost exactly. But where he had hair so dark brown it was a soft black, Calia's was the same shade as her eyes. The uniformity of her coloring was striking.

She blinked at Calia, tears drying on her cold cheeks. “I did not begin to manifest my… talent until I had my menses. By then, they had decided to keep me as a breeding female. Sometimes mixed-bloods do not show their blood…”

“Until after puberty,” Calia finished for her.

Elise gave an unhappy nod. “If the Fragment had known I had blood of the Band, they would have left me alone to ransom me at auction to the highest bidder. But,” she shook her head, “with my strange looks and lack of proof of my blood, I was a common woman, needed only to breed, not for monetary value.”

“So they used you,” Calia said with clear disgust dripping from her words.

Elise nodded. “You lived Outside—you know the way of it. None of the men wait until a young woman is even consenting age. They take females barely more than children.”

“I know very well.”

Elise's head whipped in Calia's direction. “How?” Her heart sped. Elise did not desire the commiseration of another abused woman. Camaraderie was one thing, but she would not wish her past on even an enemy, so horrible was it to have endured.

“You presumed I lived Outside long enough to get the lay of the land, yes?”

Elise's answer lay in her silence.

“I made it my daily task”—Calia's eyes flicked to her knotted fingers—“to rescue as many women as I could. I took many lives of the Fragment. Yet they are like the maggots that birth themselves in filth. There are more than even a determined warrior bent on vengeance can manage.” Calia wore a crooked grin.

“Yet”—her chin kicked up defiantly—“I did not leave the tender mercy of the Fragment until I was nearly ten and three.”

Elise gasped underneath her palm. “No!” She spoke through her fingers, and her words came out muffled.

“Yes.” Calia's gaze did not fall from Elise's. “I took the prick of the one who would have stolen my virginity on the eve of the auction.”

Elise gave a nervous laugh at the image which, though gruesome, held a certain appeal.

“Then two more fell to my dagger. They should have had more guards upon me.” Calia commented in a droll voice.

“I dare say.” Elise thought of a terrible question. She could not repress her giggle, and it shamed her.

Calia searched her eyes. “What—what say you? I see nothing funny in the recollection of this.” Calia frowned.

Elise leaned forward earnestly, and Calia did as well.

“What did you do with it?” Elise asked in a whisper, pointing to her own crotch, and Calia's brows shot up.

“His prick?”

Elise gave a slow horrified nod.

“I believe it smacked the next guard between the eyes as he came to investigate the sound of his comrade gurgling blood upon the ground.”

The women smiled at each other.

An unlikely friendship was borne.

*

“I am bored,” Calia said into the silence suddenly.

Elise turned her head with a sigh. “Agreed.”

“Where is Edwin?” Calia asked.

“He is where he has been for the last two hours.” Elise jerked her thumb toward the entrance.

“Yes,” Calia said in a morose tone.

“Be of cheer, Calia. We are feeling better moment by moment. The men will return with water and provisions, and we shall leave this place.”

Calia stood and shuddered. Elise jumped to her feet. Both women swayed from lack of food and lingering fever. Yet Elise knew stir-crazy when she felt it, and the cooped-up feeling was almost worse than the lethargy of whatever had sunk its teeth into their constitution.

She peeked out of the flap, spreading the natural but heavy gap of the overlapping skins.

Edwin, who was standing vigil outside the teepee, turned. He gave a tight smile upon seeing Elise, and she stomped on the flutter in her chest. Anxiety when a man looked upon her was as natural a response as breathing.

“Are you well?” he asked.

Elise gave a brief nod. “Yes, better. Calia and I would like to explore some of the tents.”

He frowned. “The dead are inside the tents, Elise.”

She gave him a schooled expression of neutrality, one that had been second nature during her lengthy time amongst the Fragment. “Yes. Mayhap we look for the provisions Adahy spoke of.”

“I have looked in each tent, and only small things remain—very little food.”

Elise shrugged and turned to see Calia coming out of the teepee in a staggering huff. “Edwin, stop being a dour taskmaster. Let us look about. You are, after all, the very reason I am Outside, freezing my arse off, with no more water in my canteen and not a crumb of food—yes?”

Edwin opened his mouth to retort, but Calia had already breezed past. He stomped after her.

Oh dear—the apples fell very close to that family tree.

Calia gave a shout of alarm upon entering the first teepee, and Elise lifted her head to look in that direction. Lifting her long skirts, Elise raced to the tent, weakness dragging upon her.

She arrived beside the tent. Calia and Edwin stood outside of it.

“Look,” Calia said, and Elise ducked her head inside the gloomy interior. At first she saw nothing.

Once her eyes adjusted, she saw much.

Several packages of a substance she was unfamiliar with were scattered about.

She had never seen any foodstuffs wrapped thus, and the words on the outside were confounding:

Trail Mix.

A mixed path? Elise puzzled at the wording.

But it did not matter at the moment. What struck her were the wounds against the men. They were not right.

Her eyes shot around. Elise had seen every wound of every type. She knew them all. Had healed them all.

And these were not from the violence of the Fragment.

“Elise?” Calia said as Elise retreated from the gap in the teepee and the sight of those mortal wounds.

“What say you?” Edwin asked and touched her shoulder.

Elise yelped and sprang away from him.

Then she spoke to them both. “This is not the work of Fragment.”

Calia and Edwin looked at each other in confusion.

“It be the Travelers. They have returned.”

“The Evil Ones?” Edwin queried.

Elise nodded. “Perhaps what they be called to Clan. I know them as Travelers.”

“What do they do?” Calia asked with a searching look.

Elise gave a painful swallow.

“They bring more Fragment.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Adahy

“Stop,” Adahy said quietly. The accent on top of the English made the one-syllable word sound like a slap in the too quiet of the woods.

He turned in a slow circle, his many animal-skin flasks, filled with water, swinging heavily at his hips. Adahy had not instructed Philip how to tie off his flasks and to what height, but he had battled many times and knew not to encumber his movements any lower than hip height.

Pheasant that was not plump, but would fill their empty stomachs, was strung and heavy along the backs of both men.

“Aye?” Philip answered quietly.

Adahy paused in a frustrated moment of boiling silence. He loathed his inability to be articulate in English. It mattered not that Elise complimented his swiftly gaining recall. He was impatient. As was typical.

“Woods too quiet,” Adahy spoke in a soft rumble.

Philip's eyes slimmed as he scanned the open prairie. Frigid wind lifted the wisps of hair not caught in the leather tie-back at his nape. His prominent brow furrowed.

“Aye,” he repeated. This time, the word was spoken with weighted caution.

Adahy knew this area intimately. The sounds, though quieter in winter with life sleeping, were not utterly absent.

There was a sense that he vaguely remembered from many years ago. He could not quite identify it, but it smacked of recognition.

“Get back,” Adahy struggled, then the word came to him. “Camp.”

Philip gave a tight nod, stepping back with his load of food and water. His hand flickered above the sheath of his dagger. The large stone in the hilt winked at Adahy in the low light of the sun—that orb had ridden the horizon the entire day as though not bothering to wake up against the season.

Adahy saw them the instant before Philip, and tensed.

The warriors yanked out their daggers in an athletic and practiced unsheathing.

Adahy was alert and puzzled at the same time.

They were Fragment, he was sure—yet, not.

Philip did not look at Adahy, but his quick blink told Adahy he had noticed the sameness of the men—and the otherness, as well.

“Get a load of these two, Hank.”

Adahy did not understand a word. However, he did not need to. Bodies telegraphed intent very well.

The five males spread out in front of them in a loose triangle with the male named Hank at its point.

Adahy crouched defensively, hating the load of provisions he carried.  However, it would not be the first time he had fought with extra weight.

Instinctively, he knew that these new Fragment were different—and in a terrible way.

When Hank raised a strange weapon with a circle of black metal at its tip, Adahy paused.

He and Philip lifted their noses into the air, scenting hard. It was instinctive. Adahy could not identify the scent—it was new. It was also unnatural. Foreboding slid over his countenance like a cloak.

“Animals. I told you, doofus.” One of the males cackled at Adahy and Philip as their chins dropped from trying to scent the new weapon.

The other men shook their heads with smug grins.

The leader, Hank, gave a look of disdain to the one who had spoken. “Don't linger. You've been instructed to nail anything bigger than a gnat and gather samples. Don't fuck off—do it.”

Adahy heard a twig snap, and he and Philip instinctively ducked and looked.

A horrible noise cracked above their heads, as though lightning had struck a tree.

Adahy lifted his head.

Acrid smoke filled the air, singeing his delicate olfactory passages.

Adahy recoiled.

“No!” Philip bellowed and Adahy looked at what had caused Philip to break his silence.

Calia and Elise had moved in from opposite positions.

Adahy noted their weapons, and his stomach dropped. The women were walking into danger. Through every protective fiber Adahy laid claim to, admiration floated to the top.

A stone, flat and solid, shot through the head of one of the males. Brain and shattered skull blasted out the side of his temple in a spray of gore that smacked his comrade with a sound of rain hitting a bare tree.

The women advanced with silent beauty.

Elise moved with deliberately paced strides, never breaking rhythm. Her hand plucked a second stone and it was loaded and flying before the male could turn to her with the terrible weapon.

The metal weapon swung, long and lethal in its black sleekness, toward Elise, sighting her as Adahy would the pheasant he had killed today with his arrow. Adahy sprang while the females were distracting this new and unknown enemy.

Elise's next stone hit the weapon holder in the mouth. Adahy hit him square in the back a moment later. They spun together, and the weapon flew to the frozen ground.

It discharged a projectile, too fast for Adahy to track, that embedded itself in a nearby tree, bark flying.

Adahy tore the male around. The stone was lodged in the back of his throat. It had not evacuated his body but split a tunnel through his four front teeth, shattering them in a neat punch, causing a trench of soft tissue that bled even as he tried to breathe.

He would not breathe for long.

The Fragment's broken teeth hung from gristle, as his mouth tried to open and close. Adahy grunted as he twisted the male's head severely to the left, cracking the final bone the stone had missed. He dumped the male to the ground then whipped around to find Elise.

Calia's last stone became a third eye in the one male left standing, embedded and unblinking at the center of his forehead.

He stood, swaying, as Calia watched with a face devoid of expression. Then he toppled over like a great tree. His head bounced once on the frozen ground as his eyes gazed sightlessly above him.

Edwin dragged the struggling leader, Hank, to Adahy and Philip.

Adahy longed to speak better Fragment or English. Yet he could not. He looked at Elise and noticed that she seemed much better.

She ran to him, and he opened his arms to receive her.

“No do again,” he said against her hair.

Elise gave a smile of pride. Adahy admitted the stone throwing was no small skill. It was well known that women were best at it.

“Let me go, fucker!” Hank bellowed into the still air.

“Elise?” Adahy asked.

Her eyes found his, and she sighed, as though she knew what he might ask.

“You speak Fragment.”

She shook her head. “He is not the Fragment of Outside.”

Adahy's brows came together.

Philip came forward, his eyes searching hers. “What say you?”

Elise cast a glance at Hank, and he spit in her direction. Edwin casually cuffed him, and his face obligingly opened.

A slap from Band was much more than the strike from a Fragment.

“Fuck me!” Hank glowered up at the huge Band and scowled, blood cascading in ribbons down his ugly face.

“What does he say?” Calia asked, and Adahy noted she looked not much improved. But her thin body was hard and ready. A true warrior.

Adahy shrugged, and Philip sidled closer to Calia.

“The Fragment sometimes spoke thus,” Elise said slowly. “They call it cursing.”

Hank gave her a narrow look, and she met his stare without flinching. His lips rolled to reveal his unsightly smile, tightening as though he would speak no more.

Adahy knew the smile that claimed Hank's face was cruel. He had no love for the Fragment—new, old, or other.

Edwin kicked Hank in the gut, and he cried out, rolling over on his side.

Adahy gripped the loop near the rear of the weapon and got caught inside the narrowness of it.

Another discharge rang forth, so loud he felt his eardrums would burst, and everyone fell flat on the ground.

“It's a gun, you dumb fuck.”

Elise rose first, walking to the Fragment.

Adahy sprang to his feet and ran after her.

“Is that the only word you know, Traveler?” she asked.

A slow smile curled his bloodied lips. “Wouldn't you like to know?” He spit a stream of mucous and blood to the side. It congealed instantly in the frozen environ.

Calia backed away. “He is of a crude persuasion.”

Elise glanced at Calia. “As are they all.”

“We let him live why?” Philip asked, toeing the man at his feet.

Hank moved away from the encroaching possible weapon that was Philip, his gaze traveling his tall form.

“He has a gun,” Elise said.

“Gun?” Adahy tried the word. It was easier than some of the English.

She nodded. “They are few and far between, and the bullets must be replaced once dispatched. This one is a special gun, one that can move through the Pathway.”

The pieces came together for Adahy. Pathway. That was what the people his tribesmen had rescued many years ago used to escape.

Rowenna of the Band. She had been a young woman with a small babe in her arms—Clara. And Adahy had been very young in his cycles. Ten and three? Ten and four? He was not entirely sure. Memories escaped the sharpness of recollection, becoming like the mists of the morn that dissipated as the sun burned them to nothing.

“It has been two or three years past since the Pathway has allowed more Fragment to enter.” Elise's face was sad as she recounted that fact.

“Travelers?” Philip asked, and she nodded.

“And it would have gone fine, except for the stone-chucking bitches.”

Edwin kicked Hank in the ribs and jerked him to his feet by his hair. He shrieked. “My ribs!”

“I understood that.” Philip looked at Hank. “It shall be more than your ribs if you do not speak of whence you came.”

Edwin curled his hands into mighty fists. “I will not show you civility if you do not speak of your intentions. It is obvious that your group ravaged the camp of the Red Men.”

“This is civil?” Hank laughed, spitting out more blood.

Edwin inclined his head. “Yes.”

Philip and Adahy moved closer, and Hank's eyes bounced back and forth between the three. “Okay—okay, chill out, huge fuckers.”

“There is that abominable word again.” Calia narrowed her eyes at him.

“Oh, yeah? You peg my guys with stones and worry about my language?” He barked out a laugh. “That's choice, bitch.”

Adahy longed for Daniel. He would have been able to glean much of this vagrant's conversation. Although there were other ways to extract information.

“I make Fragment talk.”

All eyes turned to Adahy.

Philip studied him for a long moment. “I ken you speak of torture?”

Adahy translated Philip's words slowly. Understanding bloomed inside his mind like a black flower of degradation and design—unique and perfect.

He nodded once.

“I need…” Adahy glanced at Elise.

She gave a tentative nod of acquiescence.

“Women need food and water,” Adahy said, knowing their illness still lingered.

Elise shook her head. “Water now. Food later.”

Her eyes found Hank. “An empty stomach is better.”

Hank's eyebrows shot up. “No! There's no torture. It's not allowed.”

Calia walked toward him, and Philip stayed her with a hand. “Yet your murder of the Red Men is justified.” A playful smile curved her full lips. “I think not. All methods are within the bounds we find acceptable.” Her eyes went to each face.

When none objected, her gaze fell on Hank once again. “You will speak.”

“Beg,” Elise added with finality.

Adahy reassessed the women. He found them to be as much blood of his blood as the Iroquois, their delicate packaging belying the hardness within.

CHAPTER SIX

Elise

Elise's stomach gave a great heaving roll and she was quite glad she had elected to eat nothing before the torture of the Traveler named Hank began in earnest.

She rose on shaky feet, Adahy's hand at her elbow.

Hank lay in a heap on the ground. Entrails glistened wetly like a batch of heaped worms as they steamed upon the sparkling snow, now littered with blood and globs of strewn flesh.

Elise turned away from the sight. Try as she might, the memory of Adahy's proficiency in his work on Hank made her shiver. How could a man who had shown her such great tenderness, do what he had?

How could I have helped?

It was simple, really. Hank had meant their death. The task retrieving bits of their flesh for monetary reward, and taking them to a planet she and Adahy could only imagine, had been a great motivator.

Hank and his men had been but one of six groups of scouting Travelers. With a singular task, much had been left unsaid.

They had been let loose on a world they deemed primitive, Elise intuited. Instead of getting what they needed in the least obtrusive fashion, they had ransacked, pillaged, murdered and raped their way from tribe to tribe, the groups retrieving samples from the living and taking the women. Precious children had been lost—and worse.

Their children were enslaved for what Hank had whistled out through broken teeth: genetics.

By the not entirely lucid recounting of Hank, children had been murdered along with the men—however, some had been taken, stolen by a world that wished to poke and prod them. It was medical slavery.

Hank had not wished to expound on “genetics” or “medical.” After he had explained sufficiently, Elise had translated its convoluted meaning to Adahy.

Adahy had ended Hank.

“I wash,” Adahy stated. His grating use of English punched through her thoughts, and she nodded, following behind him to the creek where the men had retrieved their water.

The water she had consumed sloshed inside her stomach in a hot wave that threatened to surface. She gulped the bitterness down and bit her lip, shivering despite her heavy cloak.

Elise leaned against a tree as Adahy rinsed the blood and flesh remnants off to his elbows—and the rest of his body. He splashed icy water through a broken hole in the ice to grab at the bits that clung to his face.

The ice turned muddy with the evidence of death by Adahy's hands. The pristine white faded into a rust-colored paste of slush that met the waterway.

Elise could hold back no more.

She turned away from the sight, fingertips gripping the furrowed bark, and retched into a bush, hugging the tree she had leaned against.

Suddenly, Adahy was there, lifting her from the ground. Elise was mercifully thankful it was his bare flesh meeting her cheek as he curled her protectively against his chest. He had the wherewithal to strip his gore-soaked tunic off before touching her. Vomit edged her lips and she shook within his embrace.

Adahy softly brushed the stray hairs away from her face. “No hurt.”

Elise gave the barest of nods, so spent by the violence of her life she had no words in which to respond. Robbed of speech, she cuddled against the huge warrior and dozed as he carried her back to the Red Men's encampment.

*

It was hours later when Elise roused herself. Her stomach had woken her. A glorious smell filled the air, and she sat up, rubbing at her eyes, her mouth in a vile state. It felt as though she had slept for days, but it had only been hours.

The sun that had been at its zenith during the torture of the Traveler now sunk low in the sky, a ball of blood spilling across the midnight horizon.

Elise wrapped her arms around her body and valiantly shook off the misgivings creeping at the edges of her mind. Stepping all the way outside the teepee, she caught sight of the low flame of a fire, a rotisserie of sorts cooked a string of pheasants. Calia turned it slowly from her hard seat of stone.

A pail of water had been left outside the tent. Elise stooped to cup her hand, scooping water to rinse the inside of her mouth. It was deliciously cool and rid her of the foulness.

Calia seemed to have eyes at the back of her head, and when she turned, her gaze unerringly found Elise in the shadowed gloom of twilight. Elise raised her hand in greeting. Neither woman spoke of their ambush of the Travelers. Calia had simply said that if there was a new threat, Philip and Adahy were not aware.

Elise had known the new wounds were those of bullets, though she had never treated them before—she'd only seen the weapon responsible. The one she had seen had not the projectiles necessary to fire. Elise had kept her suspicions of what had caused the deaths of the Red Men to herself, only to have them confirmed when she came across men who had both bullet and weapon.

Adahy had been fascinated and, after much study, had finally ascertained how to extract the bullets without killing any of them, though it had been a tense few minutes. It appeared he had taken apart the entire weapon. It lay in pieces on a small cloth between him and Philip.

Calia motioned her over silently, and Adahy also rose, moving with swift strides to Elise.

She contained her fear with great effort, reminding herself that Adahy had never done her harm.

Elise had managed quite bravely through her time with the sphere-dwellers, learning the way of a new people.

She had even agreed to travel to the sea with this despite whatever uncertainty lay there. But it was Adahy—or rather, her relationship with him—she wished to explore.

And he could not abide the sphere.

Elise could not let her fears of the past dissuade her from returning Outside.

So there they were—having tortured together.

She had observed his face while he did the act. Rapturous joy had filled it.

It had been so disturbing, Elise had thought to flee. Yet she had not. And she did not now.

But Adahy studied her expression and slowed. “What?” he asked then switched to the strange mix of English and Iroquois they both seemed to understand so well.

“I am—I remember the life we took today, Adahy.”

“I do as well.” His beautiful language rolled off his tongue as smooth as freshly churned butter, full and succulent.

If only she could have tasted that without the bitterness of his savagery.

Adahy moved closer. “He must die.” His eyes, dark as her own, latched onto hers.

“I know,” Elise said, her voice trembling.

“They hurt you,” he hastened to add, and the blend of Iroquois and English balanced perfectly for her understanding.

Elise took a deep, sucking breath. “I heal.” The gift of healing was what she was meant to do. It had felt terrible to help him—healing Hank partway to extract more information, only to have Adahy inch him closer to his inevitable death.

Elise had never had a choice to do so before. She had always been under coercion to use her ability for wrongdoing. She had presumed that was over.

He gave a single solemn head dip of acknowledgment at those two words.

“I cannot do that again, Adahy—not for anyone, even you.”

“Adahy knows.” His grave agreement held understanding and an emotion that made her look away from.

Starting to turn, she met him halfway. His arms came around her, and Elise cried into his chest, wracking sobs threatening to break what little heart she had left.

The others did not breach their union.

Even after minutes grew into an hour of holding each other.

When a growl from Elise's stomach rose like a roaring lion, Adahy stepped back with a grin that was a touch solemn. He laid his huge hand over her concave belly and said, “Elise hungry.”

She was. Taking his hand, they walked to the fire together. Talk of torture, war, and safety was put aside.

But unrest had found fertile soil in her mind, and it worried at her subconscious like a dog with a bone.

Would more Travelers try to steal them and kill them?

What of Chasing Hawk and the other warriors? Had they found safety and recovered any who were lost?

Or was this the beginning of a new siege?

The questions were a coming plague in her mind, and as with the illness that still leaked from her pores, she was not sure there was a cure for what ailed her.

It was not of the body, but of the mind.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Adahy

Adahy studied the small package, turning it over in every conceivable position. He had never held anything with the texture of what he held now. It was unnaturally smooth and made an odd crinkling sound with the slightest of movement.

“Trail mix,” Elise told him in her perfect English.

He shook his head, mystified. “It evil.” He gave a single-minded nod. Had not Chasing Hawk, their wise leader of forty and five years, cautioned the tribesmen time and again that foodstuffs that one had not killed with one's own hands were suspect?

Adahy sniffed deeply at the item, moving to toss the strangely wrapped foodstuffs onto the pile of goods to be burned—along with the fallen.

It was Calia who caught the package, plucking it from the air with ease. “I hunger, and though strange to the greatest degree, it appeals.”

Brightly colored circular bead-shapes could be seen through the clear packaging, along with what were obviously nuts of some kind—and even an assortment of what appeared to be dried fruit.

“Calia!” Philip called but too late.

With her teeth, Calia tore off the strange, clear wrapping. It made a crackling sound unlike anything Adahy had ever heard. He scowled at her.

But Adahy remained silent. She was not his woman, and he had a fair idea she would listen not.

Calia popped one of the brightly colored circular foods into her mouth.

“Oh!” she said upon biting into it. “Elise, come hither and taste this ambrosia.”

Elise gave Adahy a look and began to walk toward Calia.

“Wait—hurt?” Adahy said.

Elise shook her head. “I long to have food. Though I be grateful for the pheasant, this has piqued my curiosity.” She spoke to Adahy in their particular language mix.

Calia's eyebrow popped in question. “What language is that? I say English, and I do not ken it.”

Elise smiled. “It is the only way I can convey my full expressions to Adahy.”

Calia motioned her head in Adahy's direction. “It seems he conveys much without words.”

Elise glanced back at Adahy, who did not hide his scowl.

She smiled shyly. “He worries overly.”

Calia dismissed everyone but Elise. “Do have one, and tell me it is not the finest food you have ever tasted.”

“What if it is foul?”

Calia shook her head. “The wrapping is of an unnatural substance, but look.” Calia picked up a new, unopened package. “It is though air cannot penetrate to spoil what is inside, yet we can see it perfectly well.”

Elise gnawed at her lip.

Calia sighed, shoving the morsel between Elise's lips.

Elise gasped then sucked the piece between her tongue and the roof of her mouth.

Flavors exploded within.

Her eyes popped open, and she made a sound much like a lascivious groan.

It was simply delectable. Nothing else came close.

The men had gathered close, looking uncomfortable. Both women began to have an uncontrollable fit of giggling.

“What say you? Calia!” Edwin said, and she shoved a piece in his mouth.

Edwin spit it out. “Are you mad?”

Adahy could not help but notice Calia seemed to take great pleasure in inciting her kin.

“Calia,” Philip began, giving the male Band Edwin a look of disdain.

Calia moved into the front of Philip's body tightly and laid a hand on the nape of the great male. Adahy noted the deep red flush that overtook his face and neck with her sudden proximity.

“Taste from my hand, Philip.”

He grunted and made a face that bordered on rage. Then Calia stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth. It startled Philip so badly he snapped his arms around her reactively.

She smiled against his mouth and crammed a small bright-orange sphere inside.

“Kiss me back.”

Philip seemed to give up and bent his head to Calia's.

If the kiss were any indicator, the two were close to being joined. But one glance at Edwin told Adahy it was that male, her brother, who kept the two from the consummation they so badly wanted.

Philip pulled away from her, his embarrassment painfully etched on his face. But another expression was there as well: surprise.

“This is quite good.” His mouth was in a little crooked grin as he reached for another—yellow this time.

“What taste like?” Adahy asked, finally giving in to his own curiosity. He would have done much to have Elise let him sample a piece of the foreign snack in the way Calia had. However, he knew that his torture of the murderous Traveler had set them back from the direction of intimacy they had been on.

“Go on—try it, Adahy,” Philip said.

Adahy's eyes searched the package. He plucked a nut, a dried berry —cranberry, his mind supplied—and one of the small, colorful discs. He popped the three things in his mouth and sat there with them on his tongue for seconds before he began to chew.

“He is so serious,” Calia said, having plowed through half of one bag. Her brother had stalked off in disgust.

It was wonderful. The nut was fresh as though newly harvested, and the berry burst with spongy, moist, rich flavor.

The colorful disc had a hard outer shell of some unknown ingredient but the sweet and slightly bitter taste inside was worth much on his palate. He salivated for more.

Reaching out his hand, Adahy said. “More.”

Calia raised an eyebrow. “What do we say?”

Elise gave him a simple translation and he felt his face become tight with embarrassment over his lack of manners.

“Please,” he said in Iroquois. And though Adahy was sure Calia could not understand it, the meaning was clear.

She gave him the rest of her bag, and his eyes swept her skinny body. He slowly shook his head. “I no take from you.”

Calia opened her rucksack, where ten more of the packages were neatly stuffed. Her eyebrows rose.

He laughed as they grinned at each other like fools. Levity eased their group.

When Philip, Elise, and he had taken every last package, dividing them amongst themselves, they threw dirt on the fire and, after consulting with one another, began to make their way out of the encampment.

Adahy turned around once, the site of their temporary village giving him a sharp pang of sadness.

Chasing Hawk and the other warriors of his tribe had left to search nearby villages for survivors or to warn those who might not have encountered the Travelers.

Adahy hoped it was not too late.

As his gaze touched on the narrow shoulders of Elise, he knew where his loyalty lay—even if she did not.

*

Travelers

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jim muttered, smacking the binoculars against his thigh.

Simon grabbed them from his limp fingers and pressed his forehead to the hard ridge. “Wow, he's—even for me, it's pretty savage, boss.”

“Yes, moron, that's what these guys are—Savages. We're here in the sphere world, and that's what we get.”

“They didn't pay me enough to sign up for this.”

Jim made a disgusted noise. “Yeah, they did. If Hank hadn't acted the part of murderer and rapist, we could have been in and out like shit through a goose. Now, we've got to manage this little debacle.”

“We don't have enough ammo for this bull hockey.”

Jim nodded his head. Simon was right. Only nonmetal items could travel the Pathway. Newly revitalized, after the forced shortage because of that miserable Mark “Jonesy” Jones. He'd fried shit six ways to Sunday, so here they were, away from their world on a borrowed pass, to suck up some more samples.

The problem with the entire enterprise was the motley crew of “specialists.” Jim gave an involuntary snort at that.

What he'd asked for and what he'd been given were two vastly different things.

He was a lab geek with a For Your Eyes Only clearance—secretly compartmentalized. That and his PhD in genetics had landed his ass here.

The others were varying degrees of ex-CIA, down to the lowliest scum-sucking bug of a con.

Hank was one of the latter.

The powers that be should have been a little more specific on the collection of skin grafts and DNA core plugs.

But it didn't work that way. Instead of arguing it out like he should have, he'd allowed the sheer violence of the creep to intimidate him into agreeing.

Now he and Simon were watching Hank's slow, but thorough, torture by a huge Native American dude and a young woman of indeterminate race.

“Nobody can live through that. Sweet Jesus,” Simon said almost reverently, “there goes another tooth. What the hell is that girl doing?”

Jim raked a hand through his hair. “Healer, five point, from what it looks like.” They had been briefed that some paranormals would be present in this world but not in the numbers that were in his own.

Simon leaked a colorless whistle from between his teeth. “Now that's worth it. Let's go nail her.”

Jim winced at the thought. Already there was going to be hell to pay for not interfering with Hank getting his body parts peeled back one by one.

They were far enough away that the screaming was mercifully quiet, but too close not to be intimately aware of the agony.

“Listen, Jim. We don't have to hurt the girl. But if we can get a sample from one of those manifesters, one of the pure ones, none of the bullshit that happened here will matter.”

Jim turned on Simon, who just didn't get it. “No!” he seethed, “Hank's group killed, Simon—raped, stole children and tossed them inside the Pathway. There's no forgiveness for that.”

Simon shook his head. “Yeah, there is.”

He held up his gun, and Jim backed away, hands by his ears. “What are you doing, Simon? Put the gun away.”

“Quality control, Doctor Toronto. You're expendable. That's what they told me.” Simon nodded a touch frantically. “If one of those high points were found, like a four or five, I had instructions.”

Clearly, ones Jim had been unaware of.

“The one for the many, Jim-bo. If you don't cooperate, it's off with your head. Mary Queen of Scotts style. Capisce?”

Jim did understand, but it was too late.

He had a hole where his shoulder used to be. Fallen, he wheezed through the gunsmoke as Simon knelt beside him, the echo of the shot still ringing.

“Sorry, Jim, just following orders.”

Jim closed his eyes, asking for forgiveness that'd never come.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Adahy

“Smell blood,” Adahy said, and the party stopped. The two of the Band cocked their heads at the same moment, and Adahy would have smiled at the sight if his humor had not been in such short supply.

“Aye, I do as well.” Philip's great body moved in front of Calia, but it was Elise who shouldered past the men and followed the scent.

They had been only two short miles from the camp of the Red Men when Adahy stopped.

“No—hurt you.” Adahy stayed her with a large hand wrapped around her forearm.

She gave a light shake of her head. “I heal.”

His eyebrows shot up, and with great surprise, he followed.

They snaked through thick trees that led to a small bluff. As Adahy made his way down the treacherously steep ravine, he spotted the view of the river far beyond.

His excellent eyesight, courtesy of his blood of the Band, immediately perceived the area where he had tortured and left the Fragment. Already turkey vultures made short work of the carcass—an ample supply of carrion during an unusual time of year to have it.

He smiled grimly and marched onward, his hand keeping a steady position around Elise's upper arm. Navigating the rough stones and ice-covered undergrowth in the forest was challenging and required concentration to the minutest degree.

The others followed behind with quiet footsteps that were practiced and sure. Edwin was the loudest, and Adahy was unsurprised.

However, surprise waited for him around the next slope where they found one of the Fragment dying in a pool of blood.

Adahy knew the type of weapon that had been used, as did the Band. Elise had made them aware.

At seemingly the same time, they all crouched except Elise, who gathered her skirts and rushed to the fallen Fragment's side.

Of course, her footing was not as sure as his own, and she slipped, landing hard and sliding in a direct collision course with the Fragment.

*

Jim

Jim could have been no more surprised if the President of the United States had showed up for a beer.

The young woman, for whom Simon had shot him and left to die, had just made a jack-in-the-box like appearance on the steep rock bluff above his head.

His shoulder throbbed without mercy, like a tooth in need of excising, and the blood loss was tremendous, yet he was still alive.

Jim knew his options were limited. In the unforgiving winter of the midwest of this world, somewhere roughly in the Pennsylvania region, his goose was cooked.

There he went again with the fucking bird metaphors.

His sloppy thinking was halted when the girl caught his gaze, a look of concern on her face.

Then he watched in horror as she slipped on the partially frozen moss that in spring would have been a spongy floor of traction, but in winter was a carpet of sliding death.

She fell hard on her ass, and began to slide toward where he lay prone below.

Jim was not brave.

He was just a science guy pegged to go on a scavenger hunt that had been explained just enough to be understood, while the dark underbelly had remained unknown. He'd been shot for his ignorance and naiveté.

But somewhere, in the deep primal recesses of his brain, a sluggish instinct, which had never been called to task before, rose.

He rolled on his good shoulder and staggered to a standing position. The world tilted as the girl began to tumble off the edge of the rock then latched on with one thin hand and hung above him.

Jim could almost touch her animal-skin boots.

A large man, like a big-time WWE Wrestler, rose like his own mountain above her.

His eyes were death on Jim.

Oh fuck, Jim stuttered in his mind, this ain't good.

Then, just as her toes almost kissed his fingertips, the girl fell.

She landed into Jim, and he spun, wrapping her against him to protect her from landing.

Blood soaked whatever she wore as they did a stumbling dance of regaining balance on the top of the ridge.

Jim had been a mountain climber before he was a scientist, and at the last, quaking moment, he forced his numb, injured arm to grab a stone shelf, hardly more than foot sized.

For a frozen, horrible moment, both he and the girl were suspended, tipped just over the narrow ledge he and that asshole Simon had perched on to scout the indigenous peoples without being seen.

People landed like giant hailstones on the small cliff around the pair. All of them carried daggers, naked in their sure hands.

To kill him, Jim was certain.

Shit just gets better and better.

He pushed with all his might and planted both feet firmly on the rock. He swung the girl around until he was against the tree that sprung out of the side of the rock in an awkward arch, as though seeking sustenance from its stunted position to an indifferent sky.

Vertigo surged through Jim in a sickening rush that left his extremities in a numb, dull, unmovable mess.

He held onto the girl as the others, a wild looking young woman and three men—obviously clansmen—circled around them.

They would get the girl then kill him. Dumping Jim's body off the cliff for good measure.

He clenched his eyes closed, feeling the racing beat of the girl's heart underneath his hand.

Then she spoke and Jim didn't know if he should shit or go blind.

“I heal.”

*

Elise

He had saved her.

Yet it might not be enough for Edwin, Philip, Adahy, and Calia to stop their disposal of a bloodied Fragment that had his hands on her.

Adahy moved toward their precarious position when Elise said the two words that stopped him.

“Fragment,” Adahy said.

Elise nodded. Yes, he was Fragment, but he was also other. A Traveler, she was sure.

“No, Adahy,” Elise said loudly, quickly.

Their eyes met, his dagger low and by his side, knuckles tight against the hilt.

Ready.

“He be a Traveler.”

The man who held her was taller than she, but not enormous like the males of the Band and Fragment. He also had lovely, almond-shaped eyes of such a deep brown they looked like melted chocolate. His black hair was short and very straight, and skin that looked tan had paled unnaturally from blood loss.

“Do not kill him as he sickens and we will not get the answers we seek,” Elise said quickly.

Philip and Edwin slowed. Adahy moved forward. “No hurt first,” he said in mixed Iroquois.

“I have a minor in Native American language,” the man who held her said in a random way.

He spoke strangely, like the Traveler Elise had kissed only months ago in the meadow. He must have hailed from the same world.

Adahy laid a large hand on her arm and jerked her from the man's loose embrace.

He fell on his buttocks so hard Elise winced as his teeth slammed together.

Edwin and Philip moved toward him.

“No!” Elise yelled as Adahy tried to drag her to a perceived safe distance.

Edwin whipped his head in her direction.

“Allow me to heal this one. We will learn where the others are, what he pursues here.” Elise pleaded with her eyes. “He saved me,” she added in a fierce whisper.

The men of the Band exhaled in abbreviated defeat.

Calia's eyes glittered with intent.

“Calia,” Elise implored in a low voice.

She gave an exhausted exhale and stomped off. She moved to the edge of the cliff, folding her arms, her back to Elise.

“I will kill him like swine if he is not of use to us.”

Elise blanched. She believed Calia would.

“Please, Adahy,” Elise said, her eyes moving to where his hand gripped her.

“I go too,” he said but he released her.

She hastened to the Traveler's side.

His eyes fluttered open and he moaned.

“This will hurt quite badly, and for that, I do apologize.”

His eyes flew open and he screamed as she dug her fingers into the hole the bullet had made.

“Hold him,” Elise said in a dreamy voice of concentration.

Edwin and Philip clamped strong hands on his arms as Adahy pushed his legs down.

Elise leaned over his prone body.

She did not know what happened to her fingers once they entered the body. She only knew that blood welled as though fresh cuts sawed their way through him.

His screams were piteous and loud.

Her hands were deft and exacting. She found the bullet and with a pincer grip of two fingers, she extracted it, tossing the mangled bit away with gore-slicked fingers.

“Your fingers,” Calia whispered, having moved closer to their position.

“Yes,” Elise replied, still deep into the operation of healing.

She inserted her fingers again and closed her eyes. Elise's senses came alive. She could smell the flat, metallic taste of his blood. Her fingers separated the thick cords that had been torn and shredded but still hung tenaciously to the bone.

Her fingers caressed the sinew and it knitted. Delicate pathways of blood reconnected with a sigh.

The Traveler thrashed under the hard hands of the Band. He gasped as the strings of his body became plump and strong again.

Elise thought blood, and what surrounded the wound birthed more. A knick on the bone the size of half her thumbnail filled underneath her fingertip. She exhaled softly as the innards of his body righted themselves.

No endeavor felt more right to Elise than the art of healing.

Elise became clearheaded again, and her fingertips were pushed out of a crevice of flesh that joined quickly into scar tissue.

She spread her bloodied fingertips over the rapidly healing hole and smoothed them across the top once, twice, and then rolled her palm flat against the hot pink scar tissue. She blew on it. Heating her breath, Elise exhaled against the battered flesh, her palm cupping the area so all her breath bathed the wound with the heat of her healing.

The Traveler no longer gasped and panted but stared at her.

“That's—amazing,” he said, blinking up at her from the sea of hands holding his limbs down.

Elise smiled then fainted.

Had she been awake, she would have tended him further. However, it was well-known that healing came with a price to those who did so.

*

Adahy

Adahy had watched Elise as she healed Traveler. The more vicious the injury, the more it appeared to siphon her reserves.

He caught her as she landed. Her lashes lay like a smearing of lacy soot against her pale cheeks.

His eyes met those of the Band and the lone female warrior.

“Up,” he said, jerking his head toward the cliff above them.

The Fragment gave Adahy wide eyes.

“You go,” Adahy said to him.

The Fragment narrowed his eyes. “I'll come willingly—just don't kill me.”

Adahy leaned forward in surprise. “You speak the tongue of my people. Though strangely.”

The Fragment gave a weary nod. “Yes.”

“Let us get off this edge. A fine place for an ambush, should any of his  kind stumble across us,” Philip said, scanning the area.

Edwin nodded, and the Band made their way up the footholds in the ten-foot sheer rock wall to the woods above.

Adahy came last, handing Elise off to Philip.

He gave a final, lingering glance at the barren meadow at the base of the cliff and the river beyond.

Where there was one Fragment, there were surely more.

CHAPTER NINE

Elise

Elise's eyes flew open, and she did what all people do when they are disoriented: she fought awake, arms flailing, trying to sit up.

Something held her down, and her panic deepened.

“Elise!” a familiar voice said firmly.

Adahy came into focus, and she began taking deep, calming breaths. Icy air filled her lungs and caused her to cough.

“Traveler?” she sputtered.

“He fine.”

Elise relaxed in Adahy's hold.

Then she noticed where they were. Her eyes roamed the vast cave. It was dark and near a water source, reeking of the dankness of water that did not flow swiftly.

Elise took in the glare at the yawning mouth of the entrance. Snow swirled, high winds scattering it like brilliant, glittering sand. They could not have journeyed in it.

Suddenly Elise remembered the male Traveler again and sat straight up. “The male…”

Had they hurt him?

Adahy centered his palm over her chest, between her breasts. The gesture should have caused her discomfort. Instead, it was a reassuring.

“He safe.” Adahy's expression became hard with irritation.

Elise's brows drew together. All she could wonder was why? She had healed an enemy of the clan, and he should have been dead for his existence alone. Elise had asked that they not kill him. The Band had been witness to his healing by her hand. However, because of the exhausting process of repairing a wound as grievous as his, there was nothing to keep her wakeful. Her own body needed to rejuvenate through deep sleep.

Now she was awake, wondering what had happened to the key to unlocking the puzzle of why these new Travelers were here and why the tribes of Red Men were being exterminated.

“Where is he?” she asked Adahy.

He smiled.

“He safe.”

Wonderful. She captured one of his hands as he lifted it off her chest and brushed a stray hair from her face.

Adahy turned away from her searching gaze, and she followed where his eyes took her.

There lay the Traveler in a deeply shadowed crevice, a thin blanket covering him.

Opposite him sat Philip, sharpening his blade with a honing stone. The sounds were large inside the cave, which amplified it into a grating echo.

Edwin sat next to a disgruntled-looking Calia.

A merry group.

Adahy helped Elise stand and the attention of the group turned to her.

Including the newcomer.

“Jim speaks Iroquois,” Adahy told her in their mixed language.

The stranger used the wall to stand, looking weak but better. His naturally darker complexion no longer held an ashen undertone.

He was on the mend. Elise's shoulders released their tension.

“That's like Spanglish or something,” the man said, and Elise cocked her head. Spanglish? A nonsensical word if she had ever heard one.

The slight smile on his face disappeared. “I guess my words aren't always understood here.” He gave a nervous chuckle.

They all looked at him.

“They think you are strange,” Adahy said in Iroquois.

Jim grimaced through a shrug that obviously tweaked his healing shoulder. “Well, I am—to them.”

“Jim?” Elise said, the odd name rolling off her tongue.

He smiled and moved forward with his hand outstretched.

Calia was behind him in an instant and had his hand jammed up between his shoulder blades.

He rose to his toes. “Hey! I wasn't going to do anything!”

“Vagrant!” Calia said, hiking the arm up higher and Jim squealed like a captured animal. “Adahy! Tell her!”

“He no hurt,” Adahy said in English.

Calia's eyes became slits. “How do we know ye do not intend to harm the one who made you well, eh?”

“How dumb do you think I am?” he yelled back at her.

“Calia, I think it was a means of greeting,” Elise explained.

Calia thrust him forward, and he spun around to face her.

Her dagger lay between them, glinting softly in the ambient light intruding from the open cave. “Do not think it.” Her voice low with warning.

“Aye,” Philip said.

“God, you're a huge sucker,” Jim breathed, backing away.

“What say you?” Edwin said from alongside his sister.

“Clearly, not nearly enough.” Jim turned back to Elise. “Are you—can you understand me? Because this guy,” he pointed to Adahy, “knows what I'm saying in my crappy Iroquois, but he doesn't speak English well enough to tell these guys I don't need to, like—die today.”

Elise nodded. He was very difficult to comprehend. He had some of the cadence of the Fragment but not exactly. His words were clipped and sloppy on some of the vowels. She had not gotten the rhythm of it entirely but hoped to understand him better soon.

With a nervous glance at the Band, Elise realized his life might depend on that understanding.

“I am Elise.”

“Nice to meet ya,” he said. “I'm Jim.”

“Exotic of face,” Calia said, moving slowly around him.

Jim watched her with wary eyes.

“I'm Asian.” His face grew slightly red under their intense scrutiny.

Calia's brow rose. “What did he say?” she directed the question at Elise.

“I believe he tells us the people from which he hails.”

“A-si-an,” Calia said slowly.

“No—Asian.”

Calia lifted a shoulder. “I do not know the word.” She stepped closer, and Jim retreated a step. They were nearly the same height. Elise thought Calia tall for a woman, but not compared with those of the Band. The males of the Band were never shorter than six and a half feet. The females oftentimes, when there was a rare one about, measured nearly six feet.

“Touch her, and I will remove your skin,” Philip said.

“I got it,” Jim said, eyes flicking to the largest male of the Band that Elise had ever seen. Jim gave Elise a look she could not read—though if she were to guess his expression, it would be confusion.

Elise understood his consternation. She had healed him into the middle of this distrusting group.

Calia reached out a hand, and Jim twitched in a suppressed flinch. She touched the corner of one dark eye where it swept to a soft point then ran her hand down the dark hair, feeling it between her fingers. “I have never seen one such as you,” she said, stepping away.

Philip circled his arms around her body. Her head fit underneath his chin.

“Now that we have show-and-tell, check-out-the-Asian-dude under control, why don't you guys tell me what's going on? Why have I been saved?”

Elise stepped forward. “I do not understand all of what you are saying. But I healed you because your wounds called to me. All wounds do. I could no more leave you to die if I had wished it.”

“I guess thanks are in order, but I have to say, kind of a dangerous compulsion. The other guys I was with? They'd have done you all in.”

Adahy and Philip frowned.

Edwin said, “They would have tried.”

Elise turned to Edwin. “You understand him?”

“He speaks somewhat like Daniel.”

“Aye,” Philip agreed.

“I do not converse with Daniel overly,” Calia admitted.

“Who's Daniel?” Jim asked.

“He is blood of the Band but raised Fragment,” Elise replied. She knew this detail, but was not intimately acquainted with him.

“Ah,” Jim said, stretching. He grimaced from the movement.

Elise frowned. He was still not whole.

“Explain why you are here. Why your party left you for dead. Why your people killed the Iroquois.” Adahy folded his arms as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Elise.

*

Jim

Jim opened his mouth then closed it.  There was no way to explain to this group what he was doing here. Though he'd been given some background information about the indigenous cultures here, he'd been a lab boy. Scientist cum consultant.

He simply didn't know dick that'd be practical enough to save his ass. And the only guy that really knew what he was saying couldn't speak English well enough to translate. The woman who'd healed him was sympathetic, obviously, but the other members of the group—the clansmen and the woman—not so much. Especially the woman. God, she was like some Zena type. She'd cut off his nuts and wear them for earrings. Yeah, he'd have to use kid gloves with these guys.

“I'm a scientist. And the other guys—”

“Fragment? Travelers?” Elise asked.

Jim shrugged. “I know who the Fragment are. And I'm not them.”

The group visibly relaxed.

Well, that was lucky. “Traveler? I guess that's as good a name as any.”

“Do you come through the portal?” Elise asked.

Jim felt his scowl. “How do you know about that?” Jim instantly thought Pathway. Were they talking about the same thing?

Elise looked at her feet, and suddenly Jim knew he'd touched on a sore spot.

“Some young Travelers entered our world months back and they—they came through a hole of…” Elise shrugged, seeming to lose the ability to quantify what the exact method of travel was.

Jim shook his head, thinking. That had to be some of the paranormal teens of his world breaking through. He'd missed that boat entirely. The first of the teens who were gifted, with their paranormal talents manifesting, were a year behind Jim. No one much older than twenty-five was showing abilities. But if a Dimensional had jumped here? Those who were powerful enough could have brought more than just themselves, creating their own Pathway of sorts.

That certainly would have fucked up the time continuum six ways to Sunday.

“The other—Travelers,” Jim began lamely, “are scouts to take samples of the people here for study,” exploitation, use and disservice, his mind supplied.

Their disbelief blanketed their expressions.

Tough group.

Noting their tense postures, Jim thought it'd be best to explain his role before they sliced and diced him. “I'm here because I understand the science behind the samples, and I speak five different languages.” But not Clan. Their strange way of talking was a little like antiquated English. Medieval?

Jim could tell Elise was puzzled. “Did you know when you arrived here to gather ʻsamples,ʼ” her frown deepened, “that those men would hurt, murder, and capture the people they were supposed to take from?”

Jim's shame was a blowtorch inside him. He shook his head. “I knew the HC was a hush-hush government operation. I didn't know how deep the corruption went.”

Adahy tapped his shoulder and he jumped a foot. “Talk to me.”

Jim repeated that last part.

“Government?” Adahy said in a rough accent.

Jim had worked with enough linguists to know Adahy had learned the sphere-world's version of English first, the Iroquois last.

“Government is like a group of people who rule everyone.” Jim brought his hands together with a lacing of fingers.

A look of understanding came over the clansman named Philip. “President Bowen.”

“What say you?” Edwin addressed Philip.

“We have a commander, if you will. He leads the midwestern clans. When there are decisions of magnitude, we consult with him and determine a course of action.”

Jim was excited. Somebody got it!

“Chasing Hawk,” Adahy said with thoughtful understanding.

Elise nodded. “Queen Clara.”

“And King Matthew,” Calia said, chin cupped in her hand as she wore a pensive expression.

Jim was nodding. They were not as primitive as the Helix Complex believed. But wasn't that typical of large entities? They'd start with lots of presumptions and send out the little guys to take the hits, while they sat behind their safe desks and called the shots for the expendables—like Jim.

And what would happen when the HC's mad scientist didn't return with samples and intel because the soldiers they'd chosen were little more than convicts?

Jim didn't know, but it scared the shit out of him.

CHAPTER TEN

Adahy

They waited out the storm. He and Elise fitted together perfectly. Adahy realized the thin female could never warm herself adequately.

Though Adahy was well acclimated to the austere, unforgiving temperature, the female was not.

And the odd one, Jim, was certainly not hardy.

He was a skinny male, not tall of stature, with strange features, and skin that was neither the pale cream of the sphere-dwellers nor the bronzed skin of his Iroquois brothers.

Adahy's spirit was fitful. He could not settle it no matter how many times he turned over the information that Jim had told them.

Scientist—a strange term for a person who studied things for their own sake—had been the most difficult concept to grasp. But after a solid hour of conversation, Jim had revealed what he was and his purpose for being here.

Fifteen seasons past, a similar group had trespassed with ill intent into Adahy's world. He had assisted a young woman of the Band against the interlopers. Iroquois had died but they had saved the woman and the newborn babe. It had been a small triumph of sorts.

Now there were new marauders, returning for something even more insidious.

Would Chasing Hawk and his brothers stand strong against weapons that flew twice as fast as the eagle—and that tore the heart and put a hole in the body?

No.

Adahy curled a muscled arm around Elise, and she rested her head against his shoulder. His loyalty was to his tribesmen.

But first, it was to Elise.

Adahy knew she had chosen to come with him—had been convinced to do it. It might not have been the best course of action—the sphere would have been safer.

He was selfish. Adahy wanted Elise. He could not remain inside the sphere where a little bit of his spirit withered each day. Adahy's whole being longed for the freedom of a home without walls.

Adahy studied the Traveler, Jim.

He sat by himself, knees bent, hands dangling between them. Adahy felt a crooked smile lift one corner of his mouth. Jim sat as far as he could from the members of the Band.

They huddled in their own loose group. Calia defiantly remained glued to Philip. Edwin glowered at the pair.

“What is the problem with them?” Adahy asked Elise softly in Iroquois.

She seemed to be increasingly fluent in his native tongue—or rather, the language he spoke with ease. Adahy had primal memories of a much different language—a different early life of white words. All of the memories were dipped in blood.

Adahy felt the images circling the edges of remembering. A part of him resisted dwelling on them. He knew that no good could come of knowing from whence he came.

Chasing Hawk had told him he'd been found in the middle of a massacre. He had been missed. He was balling so loudly, Chasing Hawk had said, the spirits rose from their graves to hear his squalling.

He had been but four. Chasing Hawk said he made the white words. When they traded intermittently with the Clans, it was Adahy who had struggled through a few words. The clansmen had always looked at him strangely.

He had a foot in each world, but stood steady in neither.

Elise turned in further, pushing the warmth of her breath onto his chest. “There is a ritual each mate-able woman of the Band must go through. Calia is now found and has kin who require her presence.”

Adahy frowned. Calia had lived many years Outside, separated from her original clan, not unlike Adahy. His attention went to the hulking male at her side.

It was clear by the set of their bodies that they belonged together. Yet Edwin, as her kin, was forcing a tradition that meant nothing to Calia.

“She will not conform to their ideals,” Adahy said with certainty.

Elise's eyebrows puckered. He tried again, mixing English and Iroquois, and her forehead smoothed.

“Yes, she is… most independent.”

“You are, too,” Adahy said, for he saw her spirit, trapped within her body.

Elise gave a sad little sigh and shook her head, allowing her dark hair to fall forward. “Aye, that might have been, had another life been for me. But the Fragment found me and…”

She did not finish.

Adahy turned her to face him, his large hands gripping her shoulders. He ignored the storm and the stranger whose eyes lay on the Band.

“And?” he asked, searching her eyes.

A lone tear struggled down her face. More fought their way out of her eyes.

“Tell me,” Adahy whispered fiercely.

“I am ashamed.”

“No,” he said in a short word like a slap.

Her chin jerked up, the sadness of her life leaking onto her face. “I cannot bear children, Adahy. Yours—or any other male's.”

A horrible idea bloomed inside Adahy's mind. A carnal, diseased plant took root, and stamens like poison touched into the furthest reaches of terrible speculation.

“The males… they took me when I was too young for it. I have a ruined womb,” Elise whispered, placing a fist so tight it was a white bony clutch of flesh atop her lower stomach.

Adahy's rage was visceral, tempered only by her presence. That men of the Fragment would rape a child so badly and so often they would render her barren was more than Adahy could stand to think of.

Yet he thought about it.

Her bravery in telling him was a trust she deserved to have respected.

“Adahy,” Elise said softly, cupping the side of his face. “I know it is—I am not worthy.” Her words dropped out of her mouth like hollow sorrow.

He placed his palm over her own. Adahy had not wanted to ever be with another female for this reason: if he loved, he could lose. He had lost his wife in a most tragic way.

Why had he not thought the Fragment capable of every atrocity? They had ripped his son from his wife's womb, raped her as she bled, and she had died by his hand. That they would rape a defenseless child was within the parameters, yet…

“The Fragment trade females.” Adahy scowled. “Harming you would have been foolish.” There—he had said it. Why would they wreck something that had more value at auction pure and whole?

She cast her eyes at twisted hands. He put his hands over her icy skin, rubbing her fingers to heat them.

“When my ability was discovered, I was worth more to the Fragment to keep. At that point, I think they thought there was no reason to leave me untried for auction. Yet, it is well-known that a female taken before menses is not old enough.”

“Yes,” Adahy said in a clipped tone. “They should never have taken what was not theirs.”

“The Fragment rape,” Elise stated in a forlorn voice.

Adahy tipped her chin up with a finger. The murmurs of the others could be heard but did not interfere with their moment. He captured her gaze with his own.

“I killed Onatah.”

Elise's eyes widened at the revelation, but whatever she saw in his eyes caused her to still instead of flee.

He caressed Elise's fine jawbone, wondering how many times it had been held as one of the Fragment forced her to submit—struck her so she would.

“She was a good wife. Had she lived, I would have a son.”

Adahy's hand dropped, and Elise covered her mouth. “Your wife?” she asked from between her fingers, and he nodded.

Adahy told her of the sounds.

He knew what he would find when he came upon them raping Onatah. He told her of his son screaming as the cold silenced him forever.

“What did you do?” she asked in a whisper. It seemed important for Elise to know what had come next.

“I killed them.”

Elise gave a little gasp. “All?”

Adahy nodded. “When it was finished, only my eyes were free of the blood of mine enemies.”

Elise clasped Adahy's hands, scooping them together she lay them against her heart.

“Good,” was her fierce reply.

Adahy studied her face for a span of the quiet pulses of her life and heat beneath his fingers.

He saw only her pride in the justice he had meted in that horrific time.

Adahy pulled her close, their entwined hands between them.

“No leave,” he said in perfect English.

Elise snuggled closer.

“You,” he finished, stroking the back of her hair.

No Fragment would ever touch her again. Adahy finally had something to live for, worth dying for.

All would die who threatened what Adahy had found.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Elise

Elise felt as though a burden had been lifted. All the time Adahy had gently pursued her, in the back of her mind, she had believed that once he knew she could never conceive, he would discard her.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

His initial harsh treatment of her made more sense after his recounting of his wife's demise. Adahy was also burdened with shame, and memories that had made hope only a distant possibility.

Now, the two of them might have a chance to transcend the harshness of their past.

Elise bit her lip, looking at the lone Traveler and the snow falling more slowly beyond where he perched. She did not like their trapped position. Though it was true there would have been no way for her to travel—or Jim for that matter—it was not safe here. Due to their nomadic existence, the Fragment were near impervious to all sorts of inclement weather. It was their sheer numbers and tenacity that had made them the reigning people of the vast openness of Outside.

Her stomach growled, and Adahy laughed, rising from their cramped position. The body heat of the six of them helped somewhat with the internal temperature of the cave, whose insulating properties were somewhat negated by the hole that allowed the outside air to filter through with cold, sharp teeth that bit along their skin. Though the Band seemed to stand it, she and Jim were just shy of having chattering teeth.

“It's cold as hell here,” Jim lamented, folding his arms as he began to pace the area, which was perhaps four horse lengths by four. He vigorously rubbed his arms, trying to establish warmth.

Elise knew that the healing would not help him stay warm. His body continued to mend the damage. It could not provide warmth as well as continue healing. Jim was vulnerable.

“Do you have a winter covering?” Elise asked from beside Adahy, who was currently rummaging through the rucksack for food, she presumed.

“I did—that stupe I was with took it with him—all my provisions, gone. God damn.”

Elise did not know stupe, but she guessed it was similar to imbecile.

Adahy rose from his crouch, and there the trail mix was.

“Oh man, great!” Jim said, rushing over to take one of the small food packets.

“Nary so fast,” Calia said.

Jim turned on her. “You know, I'm really sick of you. If you really want me dead, stop waving that short sword around and just do me. In the meantime, I'm so hungry I could eat the ass out of a pig.” Jim's eyebrows shot up.

Edwin laughed. “Yes, I do say he reminds me more and more of Daniel.”

Adahy gave one packet of the trail mix to Jim, who tore the top off with a practiced swipe of the teeth. He tipped his head back, pouring half the contents into his mouth. “Awesome,” he said, chewing and talking at the same time.

Calia scowled at him.

Through a mouthful of the strange snack, Jim mumbled, “You're unhappy about me being here—I get it. But I'm not really the enemy.”

A lone nut fell from his mouth, and he picked it up from the floor of the cave and tossed it between his lips.

“Yet, you travel with our enemy,” Edwin said with indisputable logic.

“Different roles,” Jim said. He began licking each finger.

“Those whom war brings together are allies,” Philip said, giving Jim the weight of his eyes.

“True!” Jim flipped the short fringe of black bangs from his forehead. It tumbled down the next moment. “However, you can see where my different agenda got me shot. No, they've deviated from the plan. I'm their witness—and now I'm gone. They're free to rape, pillage, and plunder, and there's no one to know the difference. They'll return with the samples, and the only tale they'll tell is that I succumbed to—I don't know, whatever they choose to make up.”

Elise was reeling from all the words, the accent so heavy and different. She stood stupidly, translating in her head.

“He speaks gibberish,” Calia stated. She sheathed her dagger, looking at Elise. “What says he?”

Elise shook her head. “I cannot be certain, for many of his words are shortened and he speaks so…quickly.”

Elise caught Jim rolling his eyes.

“But?” Calia asked.

“The new Fragment, or Travelers,” Elise began, “they are using means which are against the rules of Jim's world.”

Jim nodded, throwing up a palm as though to say, Yes, go on.

“Without him to see their acts of mistreatment,”—Elise swallowed over that last word—“there is no one to bring them to justice.”

Edwin frowned. “That is a horrendous plight.”

All eyes went to Jim. Edwin spoke again, and by his expression, Elise was certain he wanted to damage something.

“Yet, our journey and motivations remain unchanged. My sister—”

Calia rolled her eyes and partially showed him her back.

Edwin ignored her and continued, “—is partway to her home clan and will partake in a Rite of the Select and reunite with our family.”

Calia pivoted and strode the short gap between them. “And I long to meet our parents, Edwin. But you have made this journey in the worst season, under the greatest duress. Why?” Calia paced away then turned back and faced Edwin. “Why?”

Her tone had a mournful quality to it, and Elise began to see that Calia was more than what she presented on the surface.

Calia had shown she was a skilled warrior in every way and without an abundance of warmth toward other women. Calia kept herself apart for a purpose.

“Because, had we tarried inside the sphere, you would have mated with Philip… and he is not the one for you.”

“Wait a moment,” Calia said, prowling toward her brother.

“Oh boy, this can't be good,” Jim muttered underneath his breath.

“Cease and desist, Traveler,” Philip said, watching Edwin and Calia closely.

Calia's eyeballs were at Edwin's chin, but her lack of height did not diminish her.

“You have someone you wish me to mate with.”

A dull brick-red flush climbed up Edwin's neck, landing on his cheekbones in an unflattering spattering of rust-colored dots.

Philip marched over to Edwin. “Speak.”

“I am not a dog,” Edwin said.

Philip barked out a laugh. “The only reason I have not beat you until I am tired is because you are the kin of Calia. If it were not for that, my knuckles would have found purchase on your flesh long ago.”

Edwin's lips thinned. “Fine. I also do not wish to fight amongst ourselves when the enemy is everywhere around us.”

Philip nodded. “Go on.”

“The Clan of Massachusetts is large. Our Band is average, mayhap twelve strong.”

Calia shrugged.

Elise knew a dozen of the Band was typical for a clan of perhaps one hundred. However, she listened avidly as she was not familiar with the seafaring clans.

Her eyes found the throat slits of the three, and she wondered if the myths were true. Could they swim in water so deep there was no bottom?

Elise's thoughts scattered with Edwin's next words, “I have a Bandmate who is a good male.”

“And this is my concern?” Calia asked, clearly frustrated.

“He was to be your mate. It was decided at your infancy.”

“No,” Calia interjected loudly, throwing her hands up toward the roof of the cave. “Then why trouble me with the Rite of the Select? You make no sense. You say I must reunite with our family, partake of the Rite, yet—you then say I am promised to a male I have never met. I do not need to listen to one more of your convoluted words.”

“You will go through the Rite, but our Prophet has never been wrong. Not once. He pairs infants, female Band to male. The Rite occurs and the same pairings unite, time and again.”

Elise shivered. A foreteller. A myth come to reality.

“There are not enough females for this,” Philip said through clenched teeth. Calia reached out and laid her fingers upon his arm. Her touch appeared to relax the mighty warrior.

Jim began to move away from the arguing siblings, coming to stand beside Adahy and Elise.

Edwin shook his head, and even from where Elise stood, looking through the gloom, she could see his sadness as he spoke.

“That is why it is most important to unite those lost. If even one female of the Band were to mate with her chosen, it would greatly benefit the perpetuation of our clan. Do you not see, Calia?”

Calia gave a sharp nod of her head. “Yes, I do. I see that you will stop at nothing until you have seen this agenda of yours through. You lied by omission, brother. Telling me half-truths. Now, Philip—who I wish to be with”—Philip took that as invitation and gathered her against him, his eyes challenging Edwin to say anything contrary—“travels beside me, knowing I have been given to another. I will not allow it. I understand I must partake of the Rite. But my heart is my own.” Calia turned into Philip's ready embrace as he locked gazes with Edwin in challenge.

For all the Fragment's violence and crime against females or those they would exploit, there was also much rage inside the clans—and much control.

Elise did not think she wished to reunite with her clan if what awaited her was a prison without bars.

No, she would take her chances Outside with Adahy and be free in body and spirit.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jim

Jim was practically salivating. The scientist in him could not believe the genetic bounty that was all around him.

Clan.

Band.

Iroquois.

Some were mixed. Some were not. If the Helix Complex could have just been a little more aboveboard, it would have felt like a cultural milestone. Jim could have brought back samples from willing indigenous peoples. They could have been examined—as they should have been. Jim had watched the healing abilities of the men that called themselves Band. That alone would have been worth all the tea in China.

He chuckled. There was nothing like making fun of your own race. Of course, Jim didn't have a Chinese last name. That was because his mother had been Chinese, but his dad was completely European. He couldn't have had a more Anglo name if he'd tried.

Jim Chan Toronto. Jim didn't have a middle name. His mom's surname had been used instead. It was stupid as hell, but Mom still called him Chan-Chan. He was a big shot geneticist, spoke five languages, but people from the old country called him Chan-Chan. Perfect.

But here in the sphere world, he was Jim. And the genetic clusters of this region could take him a lifetime to study and identify.

For instance, he understood Adahy, and the Iroquois he spoke was not too hard to make sense of. But it was very different from the language of the tribes that remained in Jim's current year 2027. Here, it was as though the language of the tribes had remained unchanged with time. Contractions weren't used, and the speech was more formal, with many additions that would have been dropped in modern-day speech.

The language of the clans was even more difficult, some antiquated mix of old English, dark-age euphemisms, and vernacular that didn't sound remotely American. It was a fact that America, his world, had had an influx of immigrants from foreign countries at the time this place was destroyed by meteors. If this world's time line was indefinitely paused sometime in the last decade of the nineteenth century, it would explain why everyone spoke so strangely.

Language had simply never evolved since then. However, some other shit had, and that was why Jim was hired as a freelance observer, collector and, in the end, coconspirator. The HC had seemed so legit. He'd signed fifty pulse-signatures for nondisclosure. He'd taken a full slate of exams for placement of expertise. He'd manifested no paranormal talent.

When he was catalogued, weighed, and measured, the last pulse form had been doled out.

Jim's mouth twisted into a smile of contempt and shame. He'd never forget that last line:

“Jim Chan Toronto holds the Helix Complex Corporation not liable for damage, injury, or death during the term of employment with the aforementioned.”

Yeah, maybe I should've paid more attention to the fine print.

The death bit should have given him pause. But he'd been so excited to do the adventure, to travel the Pathway to origins unknown—essentially, he'd be time traveling.

Inter-dimensional travel was no small feat. He'd experience a technology not yet made public in a voyage to a parallel world where time stood still in the 1890s.

Then he'd collect samples, speak the languages, blend in, and get the genetic material necessary to eradicate diseases such as cancer.

But that's not what happened. Jim was put with a group of mercenaries. And when he began to question their methods, they felt his science was second to their plan—which had been to harm first and collect later.

“What say you?” Elise asked from beside him.

He turned to her with a smile. She was the one thing—besides getting his skin saved—that made this bearable. Jim tried not to think about the unlikelihood of getting out of there.

He just might be stuck here.

Damn.

“Just thinking about things,” Jim replied as quietly as possible. It was important, because the Band would give him the stink eye if he made too much noise.

The big lug, Philip, had said so when they were about a mile behind their present position. “Any louder, and I believe you were part of a herd of horses.”

Edwin had agreed, “Or the entire herd.”

They'd laughed together at his expense. Jim wasn't a fan. If he'd been born in another era, raised without the ethos of being politically correct, he might have entertained kicking their huge asses.

His eyes measured their bodies.

Nah. He couldn't have done it. But there was always that seed of a thought inside every guy's mind: Could I take them?

Edwin's eyes had narrowed when they'd caught sight of Jim's expression. “What say you?” he'd asked.

It had sounded a hell of a lot like, Wanna go? to Jim.

“Nothing,” Jim had bit out. But he'd made the one word sound like something else entirely. Philip had graced him with a speculative look.

The Iroquois warrior sure as shit wasn't congenial by any stretch. But he was civil and quietly gracious—and just as mean as the Band. The four of them had teeth, the woman Band just as hard as the men.

Jim didn't miss Elise's wounded eyes, the compassion she was quick to disguise.

“Your thoughts are not good ones, I say.” Elise studied him.

I have to get better at blank face. He sucked at it. “You'd be right.”

“Voices too loud,” Adahy said in a clipped whisper.

Jim looked around. His buddies from his world were nowhere to be seen. Probably decimating another tribe.

Jim plucked a compass out of his pocket, a relic from a great uncle's garage stash.

Adahy tried unsuccessfully to quarantine his surprise and couldn't manage it.

Jim chuckled.

“What is that?” Adahy asked in his elegant Iroquois.

Jim was getting the hang of translation and found it was somewhat easier than navigating the minefield of modern-day slang from his world.

“A compass.”

Adahy smirked. “I do not know that word.”

Jim explained and Adahy backed away.

“That is an evil device.”

“No.” Jim moved forward. “It will help us find our way.”

Adahy's brows dropped above eyes suddenly smoldering with anger. “Adahy know way,” he replied in mixed English.

Fabulous. Piss the big guy off. Jim whipped his head to the rest of the Band.

Great. They were making their way to him through the deep snow. Snowshoes were tied to everyone's feet, and the Band picked their feet up toe first, looking almost comical.

Jim knew if he laughed, none of them would find him funny. Just a feeling.

“The implements of the Travelers are not coveted but looked upon with suspicion.”

“You think?” Jim asked Elise sarcastically.

Her eyebrows came together in confusion. “I do think it.”

Jim felt like an ass and raked his hair back nervously, his eyes sliding to the approaching Band. They'd back tracked when their second little group had stopped to examine the compass.

“Sorry—what I meant is you guys really like the trail mix.”

Elise nodded slowly.

“And, just because the other Fragment—Travelers are murdering psychos, doesn't mean some of our gear isn't cool.”

Elise blinked.

Damn, damn, damn. This language thing was frustrating the shit out of Jim. And the thought of not getting home was freaking him the hell out.

Eating and surviving this cold and these hard Roman soldier types was the cherry on top of the other world cake.

“We tarry—why?” Philip said.

These guys. So cheery.

Calia wiped her nose and Jim noticed a small group of dots on her face.

He stared openly at her until a horrible possibility occurred to him.

Jim grabbed Elise's arm and pushed up the sleeve on her woolen shawl.

A forearm came around his neck like a vice.

Airway. Not. Working.

“Ah!” he gurgle-shouted.

“Adahy!” The sound of Elise's fear slapped back at them from the cavernous open. “Let him down,” she said in a blend of Iroquois and English.

“Jim hurt!”

“No!” she said, “Jim looks!”

Jim wasn't hurting or looking at anything. Stars burst in the black tunnel of his vision.

Calia sneezed then strode toward them.

Funtastic—that's what this was.

Jim was suddenly dumped, and landed on his back like a fish chucked from the safety of water.

His mouth opened and closed.

Elise leaned over him. “What is it, Jim?”

He tried to say it.

Then he watched her dig up the cuff of her winter cape. Red dots like mosquito bites covered the pale flesh.

Her eyes met Jim's.

He needed oxygen badly, but even more, Jim needed to warn them.

“Pox,” he croaked from his abused throat.

“Which?” Calia said, absently itching her face.

Jim violently shook his head. “Chicken pox.”

Calia's hand dropped. She and the other Band looked at one another in confusion.

Elise's eyes went wide, and she shivered, dropping her sleeve.

They wouldn't be confused much longer.

They'd be dead.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Elise

“Chicken pox?” Elise asked. She looked down at her arm, where tiny purplish-pink bumps littered the once-smooth skin.

There had been rumors of such a disease. However, Elise had dismissed them as the casual ramblings of the Fragment. Unless it pertained to avoidance of them, or survival, her interest was nil.

“Please, help him stand, Adahy,” Elise said.

Adahy gave a long look at Jim, who was clutching his chest, and hauled him to his feet.

“Talk,” Adahy said.

Jim's eyes went first to Elise, who tried to look encouraging, then to Calia.

Elise saw dots that matched her own on Calia's face. She remembered how sick they had been only a day ago and how they had shrugged it off. After all, they were fine.

But now… they might not be.

Jim inhaled deeply. “I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.”

The Band crept nearer. Jim's throat convulsed in a hard punch of flesh, and he went on quickly. “Do you guys know what chicken pox is?”

Elise had not heard of it called after any sort of fowl. Yet the last word somehow evoked the elusive memory again.

Philip looked between the two women. Then, apparently seeing the same thing that troubled Elise, he slowly took Calia's chin and turned it to face him. His thumb went over the bumps. “What manner of lesion is this?”

“Don't touch her!” Jim surged forward.

Adahy grabbed him before he was two steps away.

“Let me go!” Jim struggled. It was as though Jim was tied to a tree for all the good it appeared to do him.

“Adahy, he has proven he means no harm.” Adahy gave a low growl and released Jim.

Elise sensed the Traveler's frustration. And although his next words were spoken plainly—and though she would have known what he said even without her knowledge of Fragment and the speech of the Red Men—Jim did not make friends with his actions or words.

“They might die. Hell—you guys might die. Even though you have super-genes and all. Chicken pox, or whatever the Travelers brought, is bad news.”

“Bad what?” Calia asked, the hint of fear making her voice tremble.

“Too horrible to overcome or to endure,” Jim said with deliberate clarity. His eyes traveled their group and implored them to understand their plight.

Elise understood. The word death always made sense. It could only be uttered in one way—with finality.

The party turned somber. Philip cupped Calia's face, his huge palm covering the entire side, temple to chin. “Illness will not win.”

Jim gave a rough exhalation. “It's not about winning, big guy. It's about surviving.”

Elise watched the males frown. Methinks they understand survival.

“Have you guys already been sick?” He looked between Elise and Calia.

It sounded like: Haveya gahyz alrhedy been sick?

Elise had put entirely too much weight on any kind of separation of the words. The way he ran words together was partly why Jim was so difficult to comprehend.

She nodded her slow understanding. “Yes. Illness claimed us two days past.”

Jim's expression darkened. “Okay… so maybe this is just simple chicken pox, and you girls will just look miserable for about two weeks.”

“Is this a common illness from whence you come?” Elise asked.

Jim nodded. “Yeah. Everyone gets it, and gets over it.” His eyes grow serious. “But it's new here.”

Elise shook her head. “Not new. I have never heard of chicken pox. Only pox.”

A moment of heavy silence moved between them.

Elise could see the pulse of Jim's heartbeat inside his throat. “Tell me it's chicken pox. That we're talking the same thing here.”

“No,” Elise admitted, “just pox.”

“That's bad.”

“Why?” Philip asked, listening closely.

“Because—dude, pox was eradicated back in the middle ages. The last known case was in Africa in the 1970s.”

Perhaps Jim was insane, it occurred to Elise. She retreated a step.

“God!” Jim spun in a loose circle. “I'm not crazy. This is serious. The girls could die.”

“How do you know it is this… pox?” Edwin asked, looking at his sister with concern.

“The mouth,” Jim answered. “Check out the mouth.”

Edwin came to stand in front of Calia. “Show me your mouth.”

Calia sighed and opened her mouth.

And Elise covered her own as she saw what lay inside Calia's.

Sores stood like bright, angry dots.

Calia backed away from everyone's horrified faces.

“What see you?” she asked, but Elise could tell by her expression she knew what they had seen.

Elise knew what must be in her own mouth and hung her head. To come all this way, live a haggard existence—only to be killed by a disease she could not heal. The irony was not lost on her.

Adahy came to her side and asked no questions. His eyes, however—his eyes told her much.

Her lips parted, and he looked inside, his fingers gentle on her mouth.

Adahy did not speak, but his arms gathered her against him.

Elise noticed his skin felt cool beneath the fire of her own.

*

Jim

“What must we do?” Philip asked, his frustration clear. Adahy wore a similar expression.

“There isn't anything to be done. We have a vaccination for this in some lab down in the bowels of the earth, just in case a black plague gets its groove on, but here?” Jim laughed. Remorse covered his expression.

My people caused this.

Jim held up a palm. “I'm sorry. I don't think this is funny, not one bit. But there's…” He flipped his palms skyward. “This is a virulent strain of disease. Unbeatable without the proper meds.”

Edwin gave a shake of his head. “Yet, it is the females who are afflicted.”

Elise stood so quickly she became dizzy.

“I remember,” she said ominously.

They all looked to her.

“I know where I have heard the word—small. It is small. The first word is small and the second is pox.” Jim's face fell into solemn lines of defeat. “That is so bad. It just confirms what I speculated.”

“No,” Elise said. “The worst part of the disease is not the name, or what it does. It is who it kills. The Fragment have discussed the topic of limited numbers of females ever since I came to be a part of their group.”

“You are no longer part of their group,” Calia reminded her.

Elise smiled at the comment. “Yes.”

Her good humor faded. “But the word ‘disease,’ in conjunction with smallpox, was used. For reasons unknown, they believe that this illness, for which there is no cure, swept through many years ago—decades, before my time here. It stole the life of females and the occasional male. It decimated the females so severely, women could not spring back from the onslaught.”

“What of the sphere?” Edwin asked.

Jim had been cupping his chin. His hand fell as his face rose, his gaze directed at Edwin. “Their home environment would be a natural insulator. That is why there are women and men in equal numbers. It makes perfect sense, except that where I come from, smallpox took everyone—women, children, and men.”

Jim snapped his fingers, and Elise gave a little jump. “Can you heal yourself? Or her?” he asked hopefully.

Elise gave a slight shake of her head. “Nay. Regretfully, I can only heal injury, not illness.”

Edwin released what appeared to be a held breath. “We have a Healer at our clan.”

Elise's insides vibrated with a tiny flutter of hope.

“Is she like…?” She put her hand to her chest, indicating herself.

“No. It is not a she but a he. And he heals illness. Yet disease of this type is unknown to us. I am not sure what he can do, if anything.”

“We cannot allow Elise and Calia to fall sick and die,” Philip said plainly, as only the Band could.

Adahy raised a muscular shoulder in apparent disregard. “We go. Find male healer. He make right.”

Elise's heart swelled. Adahy's bravery and purity of thought was such a relief. It also made her sad. From what he had said—if she was his second chance at joy—what would occur if Elise did not survive their journey but instead, succumbed to a disease from an alien world?

Or worse, what if she became a victim again under Fragment rule?

She hid her shudder badly. Adahy saw it and brought her against him more tightly.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jim

So, it was a world of cavemen, sphere-dwellers, and the felon Fragment population, but people were still people.

And they liked to argue.

Jim knew arguing resolved nothing—not that, as the newest untrusted member of the group, they'd listen to him. No-oh.

“We cannot just carry on without warning Clara, Matthew—our clan!” Calia said, flustered and angry.

Jim noticed the high color in her face and swallowed his fear. Out in the elements as they were, it was unlikely they could take shelter. And the women would sicken. The disease's progress was well documented. He might be a geneticist, but he'd had all the rudimentary bio courses required to become a specialist in his field of study.

He'd had to learn all kinds of shit he didn't care about.

Ancient diseases had been kind of interesting in a distant recounting, far removed from his modern, comfy existence. Now Jim was in an ancient type of world, and if his presumptions were correct, they were up shit creek without a paddle.

And what? They'd head to the east coast and hope whatever witch doctor was there would stir his cauldron and the girls would be okay? What about everyone else?

A thought occurred to Jim, the worst yet.

“She's right,” he blurted into the middle of their heated conversation.

All eyes turned to him.

Jim was used to being one of the taller guys around, a hairsbreadth under six foot one.

But not here.

He felt positively short compared to the clansmen of the Band.

He swallowed again and plowed forward, “They're safe as long as they stay inside the sphere—as long as no one enters until this thing runs its course.”

They stared blankly at him. God.

He tried again, slowing his speech. “The disease must be defeated. It lives for only so long then dies naturally.”

Jim could see from their expressions they understood him better. No contractions or slang.

Check.

“No one should go inside the sphere.”

Calia blanched. “Never? We may never enter again?”

Jim raked a hand through his hair. “Not never. Just not right now.”

Then he said the worst thing. “I think this might have been a plan to kill everyone off.”

Elise stepped forward, which confirmed Jim's thoughts that she understood him the best.

“Please—Jim,” she began tentatively, “explain what this could mean.”

But it was Adahy who put the facts together. “No females, no people.”

“Oh no,” Calia said. “Of course, it makes sense. If enough females die, then eventually, there will be no one.”

Jim nodded. “Within two generations, there would be no children born. It would go from one coast to the other, sweeping everyone, killing everyone. It's much more effective than bombs—weapons. A good old-fashioned plague is a one-step deal.”

It made a terrible sense to Jim. They were sent on a basic reconnaissance. Procure genetic samples. Make off with them. Give the populace smallpox because—damn—that would take care of that little Fragment problem.

In effect, the criminals from his world could then still funnel here to die of old age. Actually, from a completely scientific standpoint, it bordered on brilliant, although absolutely unethical.

If what Elise said was true—that there had already been a plague, and that was the reason for the low women-to-men ratio—a second round would do the trick.

“Calia,” Philip said, grabbing her arms and pulling her close, “we are two-thirds deep on our trek. To turn and go back, when illness threatens both you and Elise—it is foolhardy.”

“It'd condemn them to death,” Jim said.

“I find I do not like you overly,” Edwin commented to Jim.

Jim shrugged. “Don't kill the messenger, pal.”

Edwin advanced toward Jim, whose bowels performed a little hop as he advanced.

“No.” Adahy stayed him with a swipe of his arm. “Need Traveler.”

Edwin gave Jim a look of consideration. “I dare say we do. However, at the point we do not....”

Jim didn't care for the casual implication of his death. Not one bit.

“And if I didn't lay it out for you, the women would die and everything would slide down the mountain. You'd chase it but never catch the solution.”

Edwin's eyes glittered at Jim darkly.

These guys.

“I know you speak true,” Calia said as Philip's forehead touched hers. “I hate that there is no way to warn the sphere.”

“We will send a courier pigeon upon arriving at the clan,” Philip said.

“In the dead of winter?” Jim was impressed they had a communication system of any kind.

“They are bred for the weather,” Edwin replied.

Interesting. “How many days until we get to The Clan of Massachusetts?”

Edwin sighed. “Three nights hence.”

“And a day,” Philip said.

Adahy nodded his agreement.

Jim tilted his head, gazing at the sky. It was a scooped-out bowl of pewter.

It didn't just threaten snowfall—it promised it.

Dammit.

“What about food?” Jim asked.

Adahy untied his rucksack. Frozen pieces of pheasant were stacked neatly inside.

“Ah—eating that how?” The pheasant pieces looked like bird-sicles.

“There be a hot spring a day's hike hence. When we reach it, we shall fill a pot and light a fire. We eat meat in the morrow,” Edwin said.

“The women can bathe, mayhap the fever will burn its way out?” Philip said, pressing his forehead against Calia's once more.

Philip spoke, “Her skin is fevered.”

Edwin's face closed down.

Jim reined in his expression and was quick enough on the draw that he intuited the siblings weren't that chummy. It was clear Calia liked the big guy and had not wanted to leave the “sphere” they referenced. Also obvious was Edwin's game plan to hustle her back to the east coast, meet the mom and dad, and marry her off to some buddy of his.

She's not having any of that noise.

It was the perfect situation for tempers to flare. Then you tossed in the illness threat, and everyone was just so fucking pleasant.

Jim covertly glanced at Elise.

Flushed skin, just like Calia.

Great.

Everyone needed food. “I'm starved. How much trail mix do we have left?”

Jim looked from one male to the next. And he was thirsty. The stupid canteen things the Band and women used were like bricks of ice.

Edwin's eyes narrowed on Jim. “You are akin to the leech. You take. What have you offered but a ridiculous hypothesis.”

Enough of this bullshittery. “Listen, I don't know what your deal is. But I know what I'm talking about.” Jim gave a regretful glance at Elise and Calia then gave Edwin his attention again. “The girls will die. The females of your—your clan—will, too. And you'll have your high-handed principles to sleep with.”

Edwin came after Jim, and he stood frozen in a moment of what felt like exquisitely slow motion.

Then Jim ducked as Edwin's arms came around him. He staggered from the glancing bear hug, swiveling to avoid it.

“Edwin—stop!” Calia yelled.

Yes, Edwin… asshat.

A hand brushed against the back of his borrowed winter cloak and was gone. But when Jim looked up from his knees, a different sight than the anticipated fist of Edwin's anger greeted him.

Fragment dotted the knoll behind them.

Only a steep ravine separated the two groups.

These were not the guys Jim had traveled with through the Pathway.

This group was the closest thing to men from his world, but their evolution in this one had not been as kind.

Jim got roughly to his feet, Edwin forgotten.

The Fragment were a group of fifteen plus.

In Jim's group were two of the Band. Then there was Adahy, who looked like he could handle himself pretty well, and Calia, who—even though she was a chick—seemed tough as nails.

He glanced her way. When she isn't sick, that is.

Right now, both the women appeared to be in robust health. Deep pink bloomed on their cheeks. Only Jim knew it was a parody of health. The spots came first, then the fever, then the malaise.

It was a matter of time before the illness reached its peak.

In the meantime, the men of the Fragment who had obviously tracked them had sighted them.

Or more accurately, they had seen the women. Jim guessed that the Fragment had already tallied his little group and dismissed the four men. If what he'd been briefed on before was accurate—and no doubt, the Helix Complex had conveyed a lot of truth by omission—the ratio in groups of Fragment was fifteen men to one woman. Those were horrible odds.

Desperate ones.

And that was just what this group looked like to Jim: desperate.

A groan sounded behind him and Jim turned.

Elise's false coloring had lightened beneath her skin so the pink stood like too-bright spots on her otherwise pale face.

“I cannot go back.” Elise fought to remain calm, but Jim knew the signs of a panic attack when he saw them.

“No.” Adahy tried to soothe her. But his eyes were on the advancing Fragment.

Uneasy glances were exchanged among the men.

The Band looked at Jim. “Do you know war, Traveler?”

Jim had been trying for incognito but he saw that he'd have to come clean. He shook his head. “No. I don't know war. But I know martial arts.”

Jim chuckled at their faces.

Elise's expression morphed to one of guarded hope. “Tell me you add to our numbers.”

Jim lifted his shoulders. “I don't know for sure. But in my world, my skills are considered a deadly weapon. I can get tossed in jail if I defend myself.”

Philip spoke, but never took his eyes off the party as they made their way into the depths of the ravine, “Then why do you propose to help us?”

Jim was impressed. The Band were beginning to understand him. “Because I'm not in my world. These guys are criminals. If I want to live, I'll fight.”

Philip turned to stare at him. “Yes.”

Edwin's face was stark with anger. “You told us not that you had fighting skills.”

Jim gave a bitter laugh. “Like that would have mattered? You were about ready to kick my ass because I wasn't agreeing with your every thought—or because I was a liability for not pulling my own weight. Give a guy a break.”

“I will break you,” Edwin said with menacing deliberation.

I'm tired of this guy. “Yeah? Maybe. But right now you need me. It's all about the numbers. And ours are crap. They have what—ten?”

“Thirteen,” Adahy interjected.

“And there's four of us. So—yeah. You have to put up with me.”

Edwin turned away without a word.

Elise drew closer to Adahy. He pressed his lips to her temple. “Keep away.”

She retreated, and Jim knew why Adahy had requested it.

The men would need room to fight.

Calia stepped beside Philip, and he gave her a grim smile. She would fight.

Being sick and female didn't get her off the hook.

Calia had heart. Jim admired that in a person. He watched as the first of the Fragment crested the hill.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Elise

Elise clamped her teeth together to keep them from chattering. She did not become ill often. Perhaps her partial immunity came from the little bit of Band blood she laid claim to.

Her view was partially blocked by Adahy's broad back but not enough to stop her from seeing the first of the Fragment make the top of the hill.

She stifled a whimper as memories rushed back.

Once Elise embraced panic and fear, her intellect would follow in a slide of defeat. She would cease to think, becoming like a cornered animal. And it had been proven over and over again she was no physical match for the men of the Fragment.

Instead, she straightened her shoulders and ignored the creeping illness that ate at the edges of her mind and her gnawing unease about the outcome of the inevitable altercation.

Elise would survive.

Adahy wasted a glance at her and nodded.

She knew he would fight to protect her—a novel concept from a man.

No matter what occurred, Elise would not forget the gesture. She had saved his life before, in battle. And now he was ready to sacrifice his for hers. It was that very thing that had carried weight in her decision to accompany Adahy Outside.

The Fragment filled the top of the hill in a mismatched unit of soldiering. None looked alike, and these were not the Fragment of her enslavement. Of course, that would have been nigh on impossible as most had been slaughtered in the siege from before. But Elise knew that the Fragment were a resilient group. Like rodents and scuttle bugs, they survived anything.

Even as she thought it, they began to spread out. As Adahy had said, there were thirteen, some as young as ten and nine, others aged in years of thirty or more.

All wore the expression typical of the Fragment: greed.

“Hand over the women, and we let you go,” the apparent leader stated. His legs were planted far apart, arms loose and ready for whatever would occur. The wind whistled in the open, high and sleek, reminding Elise of their hostile environment.

Elise closed her eyes against the cadence of speech she remembered so well. Being nomadic, each Fragment group had a slightly different rhythm to their way of speaking. This one did not sound like the Fragment she was familiar with.

It was Jim who seemed to understand his comment most readily. “Suck it. You're not taking the women.”

The leader's eyebrows shot up, and he threw his head back, laughing. “Suck it? Suck this,” he advised in a crude leer, grabbing his nethers in an unappealing, grimy fist.

He stroked himself, and Elise could not repress her shudder. Revolting cretin.

“Not on a bet,” Jim said, and the leader stepped forward.

“You a Fragment?” he asked in a near taunt, his eyes narrowing at Jim. “You're associating with them.” He flung his hand out to encompass the Band and grunted. “Join us in the spoils. Or stay with them and be outnumbered. Use your noggin.”

Jim narrowed his eyes. “I'm not like you.”

“Yeah, we noticed.” The leader put his fingers on the corners of his eyes, making jest of the exotic shape of Jim's eyes.

The group of Fragment laughed.

Philip took a short stick out of his rucksack, to which a hard metal sphere was affixed with jagged spikes.

Gravity took the ball down to his side. It swung with slow menace.

The leader of the Fragment followed the motion with his eyes.

Edwin's dagger lay naked in his hand. The stone embedded in the hilt was like a small, glittering boulder.

Elise knew it was for balance. A thread of memory flashed and was gone. She had seen one like it when she was very young, from before.

Jim had no weapons save his hands, which lay loose at his sides.

Calia had readied her sling, though Elise knew the female warrior's stone load was depleted.

Adahy nocked his arrow.

The Fragment came forward, two men cleaving to each other as they sighted in on a target and broke apart from the main group.

Adahy inched back to take better aim, and his arrow flew true, burying inside the thickest part of the leader's shoulder.

Instead of falling, the leader staggered and righted himself.

“That won't work, Red Man.”

Adahy's frown was fierce as he nocked a second arrow, swinging it to follow whatever Fragment drew nearest.

The leader tore his shirt asunder, and Elise gasped as she saw what lay beneath.

It was a vest of unknown material, deep blue with a slight sheen to it. The arrow tip was only partially embedded.

Elise backed up further. What matter of armor is this?

Vertigo assailed her, and she reached out, blindly smacking her palm on a tree. The bark bit against her thin mittens. Elise wrapped her arms around the tree and hung on, resting the side of her cheek against the deeply furrowed bark.

If Calia even felt half as bad as Elise, she would also be vulnerable to the Fragment.

Philip and Edwin looked at each other, and Adahy dropped the bow where he stood. Adahy wore a belt of sorts for his weaponry. He threw his wool cape aside, jerking the dual daggers out of their sheaths.

In the fading light, the metal from his tomahawk gleamed from his left hip.

Elise closed her eyes as the world spun around her. She knew she needed food and water. Right now, it was all she could do to stay upright.

She clung to the tree, opening her eyes as the sound of battle ensued. What she witnessed arrested her breath.

All who moved toward the men of the Band wore the strange armor, which could not be pierced with any form of weapon.

Philip howled in frustration and swung the chained sphere, bringing it in a crushing blow against the nearest Fragment's temple.

The sound was terrible, like an overripe cantaloupe splitting. Elise groaned, covering the ear not smashed against the rough tree bark. Her eyes widened as brain matter and bits of scalp clung to the heavy spiked ball.

Philip planted an agile foot against the man's torso and tore the weapon backward. It dislodged with a sucking pop as the Fragment crumpled to the ground.

Blood spread like a pool of crimson ink, rivulets running away from the corpse.

Edwin walked through the slow-moving waters of death and found the forehead of another Fragment with his short blade. A strike of torn meat filled the air, and another body met the ground.

Calia twirled her arm, kicking her wrist in a swivel from the elbow—as Elise might have done, were she not clinging to consciousness by a thread.

Mouth dry, Elise watched the impossible as Jim the Traveler stood tall and lithe, perfectly centered. His knees were slightly bent with hands hanging loosely by his hips.

Two Fragment came at the same time, and he appeared to hug them as they reached for him. Then their bodies flew behind him, and he turned, racing to where they landed. One was already off the ground and Jim was ready, swinging a leg up in a graceful arc that circled and struck the Fragment in the temple. He convulsed and fell where he'd stood.

“Jim!” Elise screamed, and she glanced over his shoulder.

He interpreted her eye motion, and his hands waited for the assault from behind. The Fragment landed. Jim rotated his hips and took the weight of the Fragment from his back. Using his own momentum, he tossed the Fragment over his shoulder. He fell into the other Fragment, who had just stood up from the last throw.

Elise's vision narrowed as she counted the bodies.

Four down. No—five.

Then instinct—or a sense she was unaware of—alerted her to danger.

She let go of the tree and dropped to the ground and felt a breeze from arms that just missed purchase.

Elise crawled away.

She used her elbows to maneuver across the snow-encrusted ground. Her feverish body heat melted the ice as she moved and the dampness bled through the cloth at her elbows, chilling her.

Her vision narrowed to a darkened tunnel.

A hand grabbed her ankle, and a memory like a lit fuse began at the uninvited touch.

Elise opened her mouth to scream as she was flipped over.

A male of the Fragment looked down at her, his expression victorious.

And in that moment, a deep rage welled up inside Elise. For every wound imposed upon her body, her psyche screamed out for justice.

Elise used the last of her energy and kicked out. She was not yet held down, and that assisted her mightily.

Her foot hit the male square in the crotch, and he gave a sickening shout of agony.

It was cut short as the tip of a triangular weapon sunk into the top of his skull.

Eyes bulged in his evil face, and his body began to shake.

A low grunt sounded and the body was shoved away. It landed with a resounding thud next to her own.

Adahy stood proud and tall above her, his tomahawk dripping blood upon the once-pristine snow.

He sank down on his haunches and lifted her off the ice. The sounds of battle dwindled to an eery silence.

Adahy put his cheek against hers.

“Adahy heal.”

A breath of profound relief slid out of Elise, and she quieted, sleep sweeping in where consciousness had been before.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jim

Jim didn't live in a time when defense skills were coveted or honed. But his mother had been traditionally Chinese.

He had never been more thankful for his heritage than in this lonely stretch of open meadow where criminals as desperate as anyone he'd ever encountered fought hard to kill him.

He was literally fighting for his life.

Jim had always considered himself to be a pacifist. His mother had insisted he learn and understand the basic fundamentals of Kung Fu.

His martial-arts practice had been a source of problems in school. In an attempt to deflect the criticism that he was pursuing self-defense in an evolving pacifist society, Jim threw himself into the sciences. He'd only been partially successful. Bullies loved to bait him, and popular kids didn't want anything to do with a geek hothead they couldn't quantify.

It had been a lonely upbringing. All the work and tradition felt empty to Jim.

But Jim had actualized his manhood in an unlikely place and time. Here, in what would be the modern Pennsylvania of his world, when faced with a life-or-death situation, his body had answered all the questions for him.

Jim—or whatever made up his intellect—had been alarmingly absent. The enemy had come with weapons and armor-proof vests that were not of this world, and his body had moved with an unconscious grace in response.

Jim's eyes found the three men of the Fragment he'd killed.

Two had throat wounds that crushed their esophagi. He fought to feel something—anything.

Guilt.

Remorse.

Shame.

But all Jim could rouse was a sense of reluctant justice. And on the heels of that, he felt relief.

Glad to be alive.

His eyes met those of the other men. Their faces wore expressions Jim assumed matched his own.

Edwin nodded. “It was them or us.” His eyes went to Calia, who was leaning against Philip, shivering uncontrollably. “Or our females.”

Jim was thinking the “females” were looking a little worse for wear.

“How much longer until we get to Massachusetts?” he asked again.

Philip wrapped his arms around Calia and moved carefully between the dead of the Fragment. He'd sheathed and latched the flail. It hung to his side in a partial leather holder.

Bad ass. Yup, no doubt about it.

Blood covered Philip head to toe in a fine spatter pattern. Edwin and Adahy appeared similarly stained, but Calia not so much. Of course, she had the slingshot of stones, so distance had kept her clean. The guys had gotten up close and personal.

Two of the Fragment had eyes that never closed, looking into the eternal sky. Their lives had ended with stones embedded in their skulls—that had done the job.

“Four days.”

Jim blinked. “No. Not buying that. We're—how many miles from there?”

“We use bridges,” Adahy said, and the others looked at him expectantly.

Could he be talking about the folding Pathways—the small inter-dimensional Pathways?

Calia looked frightened. “I do not wish to use the bridges. The myths say each time they are used, they sicken the host.”

Yeah, that was the Pathway.

Jim dug into the pocket of his pants and withdrew the last of his “magic pills,” as he liked to call them. Actually, they were renal inhibitors. It meant his kidneys would actually do the job they were meant to do as he traveled the Pathway.

The Band wouldn't need them. Whatever damage they sustained would—in theory—be repairable. But for Jim, they were essential. Traveling the Pathway was a little like putting his organ through a meat grinder and expecting to live to the next month. If he didn't have that genetic component in his blood, then he was screwed.

He wasn't taking the chance.

“What have you?” Philip asked, practically holding Calia up. Jim saw Adahy clutch Elise closer.

“Are these bridges partially invisible?” Jim asked, avoiding the question of renal stability for the moment.

Edwin palmed his chin. “Yes.”

“They allow you to travel great distances quickly?”

Edwin and Philip nodded.

“They are tunnels of endless falling through ice and fire,” Edwin said.

“Evil spirits rule there, in the tunnels of fire,” Adahy said in his strange, mixed language.

“So, the trip takes four days because you're planning to use a Pathway?”

Edwin's brows came together. “I do not know that word. The people of my clan call it a bridge.” His throat slits flared as though the thought of using that mode of travel caused anxiety.

It should.

Jim checked out Adahy and Elise. He wasn't sure they had enough of that rare blood to qualify for a safe trip. Their kidneys might take a hit—a permanent one.

Jim held up one of his two pills. He worded the next sentence carefully. “After I consume one of these, they will negate the affect of the travel through… the bridge.”

He sighed, thrusting his fingers through his hair then realizing too late they were full of other people's blood. Disgusting. He let his dominant hand fall and held the one pill in his semi-clean fingers.

Adahy scoffed, “Man is not meant to travel the evil road.”

He was right. But there was no way they'd survive another two weeks of hard travel in the dead of winter with Fragment popping up whenever they felt like it.

And if the women had smallpox, their chances would go from slim to none.

They had to make the Pathway.

There was really no other choice.

“I don't know if Adahy and Elise can go that way.”

“Give one of those to them,” Philip replied quickly, eyeing the pills.

Jim shook his head. “Yeah, you want to be the one who chooses who gets one and who doesn't. And the chicks are sick. Anyone can see that.”

The men looked at a weary Calia and a semi-conscious Elise.

Then they scanned their environment. The light had fled, twilight settling in with barbs of deep shadows. Like burrs, the night took hold, and the borders of forests bled into the mountains of Pennsylvania.

Jim shivered from the cold—and from the wild animals, whose eyes glowed as they waited impatiently for the living to vacate the area so they could consume the dead.

*

Jim had just about given up hope. They had traveled for a day. All the food and much of the water had gone to the women. The men of the Band trudged on, though their cheekbones began to show even more prominently, and their muscles beneath the tunics and capes of leather were striated in painful ridges against their skin.

They needed food, and fast.

It was the dead of winter, and the nearest Pathway intersect was still half a day's walk away.

Jim didn't honestly know if they'd make it.

Adahy and Philip carried the women against their backs, stopping only to remove snowshoes and strap them against rucksacks that now listed to one side.

Deep forest took over from the last of the midwestern meadows. The stands of trees had become more frequent, the meadows narrower. Suddenly, Jim realized there hadn't been a meadow for ten miles. They were in foothills. He wracked his brain for geography but came up blank. Not really an area of interest. Jim gave an internal snort.

He shot a look at Edwin, licking parched lips. It was so strange to be thirsty when he was cold, but he was. Jim might as well be in a desert for all the water available.

“What say you?” Edwin snapped.

Jim gave a rough exhalation. Philip and Adahy were amicable enough. Especially considering everybody was hungry enough to eat a rhino's ass if it presented itself. But Edwin? Kind of a prick.

“We need some food and shelter. We can't go on.” Jim thought his words made some sense. Maybe these dudes could just do the Gestapo march, but he was dizzy with hunger, and his tongue felt like he'd been licking sandpaper.

Edwin laughed derisively. “You delay us with your needs.”

Elise raised her head off Adahy's back. “He is not Band.”

Edwin gave her a considering look. “Truly. Yet, he does not contribute.” He lifted his shoulders in a dismissive shrug.

“This isn't about contribution, you horse's ass—it's about survival and the girls. You're so hung up on your sister marrying your buddy. Newsflash—corpses don't get married.”

Jim thought about the zombies of his world. Well, not usually, anyway.

But not wanting to confuse the issue, he stayed quiet, letting Edwin chew on his comments.

When Edwin didn't respond, Adahy said, “We can go on, but the Traveler's words hold wisdom.”

“I will scout for food. You will stay with the women and the Band,” Edwin said. He walked to where Calia was bound in a kind of handmade sling against Philip's broad back. The guy was a mountain of muscle.

“I will return, sister.” He stroked her cheek, and Calia turned her head, sweaty hair matted against her flushed face. She simply nodded, too sick to give a smart ass response. Jim took the canteens from everyone after the women had forced a few more sips down their cracked lips.

“Water, too.”

Edwin snagged the canteens from Jim and stalked off.

Jim watched him go, relieved and concerned in equal parts. There was something really shitty about any of them separating.

The Fragment were lurking around like assholes.

The women were a liability because they were so sick. The trail mix and dried strips of bird were gone—Jim guessed it was pheasant, though it had tasted like chicken to him, an observation that caused a chuckling hiccup to escape his throat.

The big guy gave Jim a sharp look.

He lifted his chin back at Philip with a little wave.

If he survived the Band, he'd be doing well.

Then there was the Pathway trip and the question of who to give the pill to—if there was even time.

And add to that the fun of a possible plague. It seemed that it affected only females, but with Jim's luck, it'd take his ass out.

And there was nobody here to give a shit.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Elise

Elise came to the surface of consciousness several times, only to drown in what could only be described as a twilight sleep. She was partially numb. Though Adahy made every effort to keep her warm, the lack of food and water had not helped her ability to fight the pox.

She could feel the insidious progression of it.

Whenever she glanced at Calia, taking the measure of her health, she appeared as sick as Elise. Elise inhaled deeply, and the rattle on exhalation alarmed her.

It got Adahy's attention, as well.

He unwrapped her—swaddled as she was, like an infant—brought her around to his front, and sat her on his lap. Adahy touched his forehead to her own. “Hot.”

Elise nodded. So hot. He was right. Elise felt like she was burning up, yet the cold made her shiver. Nothing was right. Edwin had gone after a clear goading from Jim. She thought they would come to blows. But that would not have been smart. Everyone's reserves were depleted. Wasting energy on conflict within their party would have been akin to suicide.

“Adahy sorry,” he said softly against her temple.

She shook her head, wincing at the pain, then cupped his cheek. It was rough from a few daysʼ stubble. He clasped his hand over hers and leaned into the embrace.

“I would have come regardless,” she said. His eyes found hers. “When you asked if I would be with you, and you said the sphere was not to your liking…”

He smiled inside her palm, and she gave a little smile in return. “What I said was that my spirit lay elsewhere.”

Elise nodded. That was what he had said. The culture of the Red Men was more circular than what she was accustomed to. The Fragment saw everything as linear. It began at a definitive point then went on in a straight line to end somewhere indefinite. With the Red Men, or Iroquois, as Adahy's tribe was named, it was an unending loop. What they did at any particular moment affected everything, small to large. The Iroquois believed they would be held accountable for something bigger than they were, so every action mattered.

“Now that you are ill, it is Adahy's wish that you had remained in the sphere-dwellersʼ tribe.”

Elise shook her head and sucked in with a pained noise. Adahy was very aware and cupped her chin, gently holding her face still so she had to look into his. “I was selfish.”

Elise nodded. “As I was.”

His brows screwed into a frown, and she laughed quietly. “Adahy, it was your gentle courtship of me that became everything to me.”

Adahy opened his mouth, and she put a finger over his lips. “I know you had a wife.”

His gaze darkened at the mention of her.

“And that you do not want another.”

Elise knew she played with fire and that a male warrior, whether Band or Iroquois, was not a person to trifle with.

Adahy said, “My sorrow is as deep as the river that runs swift, never stopping, always changing—yet it continues to flow.”

That was what Elise had been afraid of. Adahy could not get past the atrocity of his past to move on with her. Yet she had thought if they could but be together longer, some attachment might develop. She had sacrificed her safety for the potential.

“You misunderstand me, Elise of the Band—of the tribe.”

Both her hands went to his face, her eyes searching the clean emerald of his. “Tell me then. What is it that I do not know?”

“That though the river of my sorrow carries my grief, it empties into the ocean of my love.”

Elise felt her heart rate—sluggish and mute with sickness these past two days—quicken.

“It is you that quenches that sorrow. It is you, Elise, who has given me a hope I thought had perished along with Onatah.”

Hot tears came. They slipped out of Elise's eyes though she squeezed them shut to try to keep the wet hurt of her heart from escaping.

She was ill, hungry, tired… and in love.

So in love.

She had forbidden hope—bound it with chains and hoisted it into the depths of her soul where it had lain dormant.

Then Adahy had come.

He had searched for that forgotten part of her, coaxing it into trembling life.

“Do not,” Elise said as his mouth hovered over her own. “You may sicken.”

Adahy shook his head, his lips hardly touching her fevered skin. “I will not.”

Then he was kissing her in front of Philip, Calia, and Jim. The audience did not matter.

Her illness receded, malaise replaced with passion. Her arms wound around his neck, and she pulled him against her more tightly. When Adahy tore her away from him, placing her at arm's length, Elise gave a little moan. She had wanted more.

The food and water that Edwin gathered were unnecessary. She fed on Adahy. He sustained her, watched over her.

Protected her.

“You are sick. I will not—I do not wish to take you like this.”

Had he been talking about intimacy? And where was her constant fear? It was somewhere other than lodged in her chest in a tight knot of terror.

However, kissing had been all that Elise had committed to.

Adahy, his expression as serious as ever, had wanted more. He studied her expression, and a crooked smile hooked one side of his mouth. “I wish for a private audience of one,” he said. “And I wish for my new bride to be well and whole.”

Elise dipped her chin. She could never give Adahy a child. His seed would not find fertile ground within the ruin of her womb.

“Do not, Elise.” He wiped the tears from her face.

Philip walked toward them and Adahy broke apart from Elise. She stared at her hands, embarrassed.

When she looked up through her eyelashes, she gasped at the sight of Calia. Fine dots ran from her hairline to a sliver of bare ankle, revealed by a hiked-up pant leg.

“She worsens,” Elise whispered.

“Aye,” Philip said and gave a guttural curse. “And Edwin tarries.”

“I doubt that it is of a purpose,” Elise said quietly.

Philip sank down beside them. Calia's head lolled into the crook of his shoulder. They sat in heavy silence for more than a minute.

Jim stood up from his perch against a lone tree and walked over to where they sat.

“Where's Edwin?”

Philip shrugged.

Elise determined they could not wait much longer. They might have to get their own sustenance, and Edwin would need to track them to catch up.

“We hunt,” Adahy said suddenly, standing.

Philip shook his head, carefully laying Calia on a blanket from his rucksack. Elise moved to Calia and lay down beside her. She barely stirred. The pox seemed to attack Calia more strongly. Yet it was those of the Band who were most robust. It was a contrary development.

It seemed as though the very design of the illness hit the people of her world exactly where it hurt their perpetuation the hardest.

An epiphany struck Elise speechless.

Jim saw her expression. “What is it?”

“I have just thought of the strangest notion.”

“Lay it on us,” Jim said.

Elise ignored his odd phrasing. “What if this—pox—” Jim nodded his head at her use of the disease's name, “—were engineered of a purpose to cull only a select group.”

The men were quiet.

Finally, Jim asked, “What group?”

Elise was horrified and excited at the same time. “That it kill females but, most importantly, eliminates the women of the Band.”

Philip's face closed down. “That would leave Outside unprotected. The Fragment would have no predator, save themselves.”

Elise nodded. “Their spheres would be vulnerable for certain. Yet, without any women of the Band, its warriors would soon die out. And what few women survived the plague would be scooped up by the Fragment to increase their numbers—while leaving the others decimated.”

“She's right,” Jim said slowly.

Adahy shook his head, understanding just enough to be deeply disturbed. “You no—have to…”

Elise nodded. “I am aware that my value is negated due to my infertility.”

Philip and Adahy looked at Elise.

Jim said, “Why are you infertile?”

“Do not ask it,” Adahy said in Iroquois.

Elise watched his face as he took in the serious expressions of the others.

“I was used quite badly… when I was very young.”

Jim's expression of horrified disgust was the best validation Elise had ever received.

Compassion flooded his face. “I'm sorry. Those bastards.”

Everyone understood that word perfectly.

They were quiet for a time after that declaration. Then Elise said, “So you see, I am not important to the Fragment except as a Healer.”

Jim's head jerked back. “You're not going back to those guys, ever. Right, guys?”

Adahy nodded, though Elise could not be sure how much he actually had understood. But some communication was universally understood.

They all wanted Elise to be protected.

In that, there was perfect agreement.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jim

This wasn't going to fly.

Philip and Adahy argued because Edwin had been MIA for going on six hours.

What none of them would say was that maybe Edwin hadn't made it back because he'd run into some Fragment and it hadn't ended well.

Now the men were tasking Jim with keeping an eye on the women while they went out and played hunter-gatherer.

It scared the shit out of him.

When there'd been the four of them, with crap odds against the last group of Fragment, that'd been different. Everything had just happened to go off without a hitch. But this time was different.

Jim was navigating uncharted waters. He was a geeker, a scientist and quad-lingual tech guy. It had been that diversity that had got him noticed and recruited to work for the HC in a supposed seek and collect.

What a crock of shit that had turned out to be.

Jim was not a he-man type. Now he was responsible for a couple of women, just out of their teens, who were sick with an extinct virus brought from his home world to—what? Exterminate their world. It was the only motive that made sense. Of course, Jim was expendable in that theoretical landscape.

“It shall work, Jim.” Philip turned the argument to him. “We will hide you and the females in a nearby shelter, gather food and water, and return in a few hours hence. We can wait for Edwin no longer.” He shrugged his massive shoulders in dismissal of the missing Band. These guys go hard. Maybe Edwin was alive or whatever, but they would go on regardless. Jim had the distinct feeling there was no love lost between Edwin and Philip.

And Philip had a point. Edwin had skipped town, even though his reasons were solid.

Jim was pretty sure his body was digesting its own spine at this point. He couldn't remember ever having been this hungry. The women fared better because all the group's food had gone to them. But even they would be desperate soon. If there was even a small chance of survival for them, they had to eat. They were in no shape to travel, though Elise seemed to be in better shape than Calia. There must have been some significance to the amount of Band blood each one had. In this one aspect, it sucked to be Band.

His thoughts tore through his mind like a freight train without a depot. “I can stay, but if the Fragment comes, we're screwed.” Loosely translated, that meant, I'm dead.

Philip scowled, and Jim got the feeling he was vaguely insulted. “They will find you not. They do not roam often in this weather.”

Jim's lips quirked at Philip's comment. “Yeah, like two days ago? They were on it out there, guys.”

“We go, he stays,” Adahy said, pointing decisively at Jim.

Great.

“We are without choice. Someone must stay with the women. You know the disease. You are a Healer.”

“Scientist,” Jim corrected.

Philip waved the difference away with a massive palm. “It matters not. You have identified this pox, and they are both safer with someone who knows what ails them than if we were to remain and fret over them while everyone starves. These are difficult choices. Choices I am reluctant to make. Leaving Calia feels like a kind of death, Jim.”

Jim studied Philip's expression—dark eyes that were hard and resolute in a face of sculpted and unyielding lines. Jim wouldn't be able to say dick to change their minds. Swell.

The truth was, he didn't know anything about hunting. The girls were too sick to travel so that left him. It was logical, but still felt like a bad fit. Jim could tell the Band was used to delegating and prioritizing in the midst of chaos and unrest.

They packed up the gear. Elise was okay to walk—barely—but Adahy picked her up anyway, and Philip carried Calia. Jim hauled three of the backpacks they called “rucksacks.”

The air grew thick and moist as they wove deeper through the forest. When the ground grew spongy, Jim looked at his feet. Mud bled through the short layer of moss. He frowned.

What in the blue blazes is this?

When he strained to see between branches, he saw why the terrain had softened to muck.

A body of water no larger than an Olympic-sized pool was positioned at the base of the small ravine they were traversing. Jim guessed they'd hiked about half a mile in, and already the canopy of trees closed around them.

The heat from the water rose in lazy spirals and mist constantly skated along the surface like greedy fog. He towed the gear up to where water lapped.

At the “shore,” his worse-for-wear boots sunk in an inch.

Philip turned to him and pointed to a stone outcropping across the spring.

Jim stared hard, squinting his eyes, full of questions

“Do you see the shadow inside that crevice?” Philip pointed.

Jim looked again. He studied a dark line that appeared to split the rock. And there, toward the bottom, was a murky slit, maybe two meters long by one meter deep.

“Really?” Jim asked, disbelieving. The ledge that led to the indent in the rock was about half a meter wide. Two people couldn't walk side by side and make it. It was a tightrope of stone.

Philip nodded. “You will have to be careful on the ledge—”

No shit.

“—that surrounds the stone, but it is a place you and the women can hide until our return.”

They turned as Elise made a sound of pure contentment. “I have missed the springs.”

She was kneeling at the edge, her heavy skirts getting soaked at the knees—not that she seemed to mind. Her hand swirled in the heated water, and she smiled. Her hair was damp against her temple, her skin flushed from fever.

Small dots had begun to appear on her neck and face.

Jim gulped hard as guilt bit at him. It was jerks from his world who had done this. He didn't have the skill to fix it. And what good was it to identify what disease the women had if he was helpless to cure it? It was bullshit.

Jim found he wasn't much of a fan of Edwin, either. He understood the cultural precedence that made the male of a clan family responsible for the care of the female family members. But the way Edwin had discounted the years that Calia had suffered and survived in the harsh environment was obtuse as fuck. She'd somehow managed without his domineering ass for years, thank you very much.

Jim didn't explain his misgivings about his lack of skill to resolve the disease, and how Edwin couldn't catch a clue if it lit his ass on fire. He stifled a chuckle at the idea of how unpopular his thoughts would be if he voiced them. They wouldn't be received well—understatement of the year. The Band dudes were going to pursue the food angle, and that was all there was to it.

“Fine,” Jim consented. “But I can't promise a great defense.” And that was really the crux of his unease. He didn't want to deepen his guilt by screwing up with Calia and Elise. His kind had already done plenty of damage.

“You defend well,” Adahy said in Iroquois, and though Jim was rusty as hell, he managed to understand the formal use of the language.

Jim gave him a weak smile.

“Thanks.” He clapped the huge Iroquois on the back. Adahy's face drew into a puzzled frown.

Maybe no touching.

Jim slowly backed away, and the two Band men began to slide through the dense forest, back in the direction they'd come from.

Philip and Adahy had already loaded the girls up at one end of the ledge. Jim took Elise's hand, and together they shuffled along what seemed like too narrow a space to maneuver. They made their way to the small slit that led to a deeper recess.

Jim went first, crawling to enter, then found he could stand once inside.

He'd never wished for an LED handheld light more in his life.

Ambient light filtered through the opening, but it wasn't enough to fully illuminate the entire cave, which on initial inspection seemed shallow.

He turned and headed back to the entrance and saw Elise, stripped down to her undergarments and sunk into the pool.

Goddammit.

Jim tried not to notice every line of her body as the water sucked the thin clothing against her like a second skin. It was sort of a challenge. But he wasn't a perv, so he tried to ignore her shape. It kind of went against the biological imperative.

“That's not good for the fever,” Jim said, exasperated.

“I am chilled to my marrow. I only try to warm myself.”

Right. “I'm going to get these backpacks inside the cave.”

Her eyebrows drew together.

“The gear?” Jim held the gear up for her inspection.

Elise's elbows rested on the ledge as her body swayed inside the hot spring water.

Beside him, on the widest part of the stone ledge, Calia groaned.

“The rucksacks?” Elise asked, and he nodded.

His eyes ran the length of her bare arms. Spots covered every square centimeter.

Jim raked his fingers through his hair. “Okay, rucksacks in the cave, then Calia.”

Elise shook her head. “Let us get her warm. She is probably as chilled as I.”

Mucho awkward.

Jim stilled. “Nah, let's just hustle her inside the cave. Then I can swaddle her in blankets.” He nodded his head vigorously as if to say, Please see reason.

“No. Be reasonable, Jim—she needs warmth.”

Jim felt his cheeks heat. “Listen—maybe. But you have to understand how uncomfortable it is for me to, you know, take off her clothes and stuff.”

Elise nodded, a neutral expression on her face. “Yes, just as uncomfortable as it is for me to use my hands to heal near places that are private.”

She didn't look at his crotch, but Jim felt naked right then. Yup.

God. “Okay,” Jim scrubbed his face again. “I'll help, but if Adahy and Philip come back, and you guys are in your underwear, they're going to kick my ass. Just saying.”

“You are just saying what?” Elise asked, clearly puzzled.

It was so difficult to drop his slang to get his point across. “I'm restating that the Band guys will hurt me if I'm left responsible for you both, and they return and you're naked. With me.” He splayed his fingers against his chest.

“You are not naked,” she pointed out.

They stared at each other. “Fine.”

“I shall help,” Elise said, beginning to get out of the water.

“No!”

Elise halted, and Jim put up his hands in a warding-off gesture.

This is going to be so dumb. His breaths were plumes of frost as he slowly removed the cape thing, the tunic, and the pants that Calia wore.

They were damp with her sweat. That meant she'd been sitting in semi-wet clothes. Not good.

Maybe there was a dry set in the gear bag.

He removed all the outer clothing to reveal bright-red undergarments. It was a little shocking after all the drab colors of Outside.

Her skin pilled into tight gooseflesh. But that's not what caught his attention—nor the scarlet underwear, which ordinarily would have been riveting, nor the pockmarks of scarring from what he assumed was some old abuse. What caught his attention were the dots. They swarmed her legs in a blanket of red.

Chicken pox usually dominated the torso.

Smallpox wasn't picky and would erupt in the mouth and all over the body, including the legs. The confirmation of his amateur diagnosis was disheartening.

“What say you?” Elise asked, seeing his expression.

“It's definitely smallpox.”

“Yes, as you said.”

He looked into her dark-brown eyes.

“But now I'm sure.”

Elise didn't ask, and Jim didn't expound. Things were not looking good for Calia. Historically, the survival rate was bad. She was full Band, and that seemed to accelerate the disease instead of dampening it. His gaze swept her body a second time.

She was too thin—almost malnourished, which was also bad. If there was not enough fat on the body, it cannibalized its own resources, and she didn't appear to have enough.

With another defeated exhale, Jim inched his arms underneath her and slowly slid Calia, with a gentle roll, into the heated pool.

Her eyes snapped open and she tried to struggle out of his embrace, frightened and disoriented.

“Don't,” Jim said too loudly. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

Calia groaned, her fingers gripping the ledge as her body floated behind her. “I hurt.” It was an honest admission that came out of her in what appeared to be a forced way. He didn't know Calia—or any of them, really. But she didn't strike Jim as a whiner.

Jim closed his eyes, wishing for a miracle that went beyond the guys coming back with a dead pheasant and a few liters of water.

No, they need that bridge Pathway, and to get someplace where the women could be properly nursed. They didn't need to be in some hole in the woods with a mid-twenties other worlder with zero doctoring skills and who played Dungeons and Dragons as a hobby.

Jim clutched Calia's forearms to keep her from drowning, his spirits sinking.

Calia's eyes remained barely open slits as she curled her fingers around his arms.

He gave her a small smile of encouragement that he didn't feel, and her eyes closed in exhaustion.

Jim would do his best.

But would his best be good enough?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Vaughn

“Are you sure about the communiqué?”

Alanna's golden eyes drilled into his gaze, penetrating and accusing.

“Yes. There is no mistaking the seal of Edwin.” Vaughn flicked his fingertip against the deeply embedded wax cast of the family seal of Edwin. Crimson flakes floated to the floor like lost snowflakes.

Vaughn lifted his head a notch, careful to show no disrespect. He needed to offer perfect clarity.

“Edwin returns to us—with Calia.”

Tears filled Alanna's eyes at the good tidings, and that sun-kissed gaze appearing to melt. Vaughn reached out with his free hand.

Alanna—Calia's mother—took his in both of hers.

“Bring her back to us, Vaughn.”

“I shall.” Vaughn felt the noose of pressure tighten. It was unlike any he had ever known. He read Edwin's words a second time.

Dearest friend,

Great news finds you this day. Calia, my long-lost sister and your betrothed, has been discovered and journeys with me even as this dispatch has been sent.

We anticipate arriving through the bridge nearest our clan before February is through.

Yours,

Edwin

The note was tantalizingly vague. Vaughn was not one to entertain imbecilic speculation. Filling in the gaps of the missive would have made his anxiety more acute. He kept his mind on the facts:

Calia was coming.

Her impending arrival should have filled him with joy. Yet the Rite would need to be fulfilled as usual. A betrothal was not an absolute guarantee of mating. The arranged match amounted to two wishful families with the same aspirations—to align the largest clan families with one another.

Many families did it that way. The foreteller had even said that Calia would be his match, if she lived.

And now it was clear that she did.

The news was more than Vaughn could stand. He must move through the bridge himself and meet them.

He could not wait idly by as Calia made her way to him during the darkest and most treacherous part of the year.

That would not do.

Fragment were at large, as well as the Red Men who, though they were not their express enemies, were not their allies.

And there were the whispers of another people. As the forest had grown depleted through needs of fire and shelter, a new threat had been gaining ground.

There had been the sphere-dwellers of the central region as well as clans sparsely populating both coasts of the continent and the central region.

Fragment and Red Men had been bountiful—both were nomadic by course.

But now a new people were revealing themselves from the forests.

They were creatures of legend. From whence did they come?

There were those who lived in the deepest part of the woods. And it appeared the use of the wood had awakened them.

Edwin had left the sphere before the Clan of Massachusetts could send a returning pigeon's cautionary reply.

Edwin and Calia traveled unawares, and Vaughn must be assured he got to them before any other.

*

Jim

Jim started with a jerk.

He'd fallen into a doze. Calia's fingers still lightly cupped his arms as she floated.

Elise was totally pruning out, her fingers so deeply wrinkled they looked like flesh-colored fruit.

He shook his head, trying to shed his drowsiness, and scanned the water. The heat immediately evaporated as it met the cold air that kissed the surface—a cycle that kept the very closest part of the perimeter ten degrees warmer.

Jim hadn't realized he was so beat on his feet. Just the stress of worrying about his effed-up future had worn him out. Add to that the fact that they had one trail-mix bag between them and a half a canteen of water. Things were shaping up in grim fashion.

“Time to get in our cave,” Jim said softly. Back in box.

Elise, her head resting on the cradle of her arms and her body floating behind her, opened her eyes and looked at him. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

She'd been in the hot water too long. Fever and heat were siphoning what little energy she had left. “Let's get in the cave and see if we have some dry stuff.”

Elise nodded. “We packed quite thoroughly. We have all that we need.”

Jim thought of Taco Bell and a hot shower.

Not quite all we need.

He'd have given his left nut for a burrito.

Elise's lips curled as she studied his expression. “You wear your thoughts very plainly.”

Jim had been told that. It fried his noodle. Not a cool trait.

He ignored her observation and tightened his grip on Calia, Jim pulled her out of the water. Calia groaned, her chin touching her chest. Her red undergarments steamed, the color bleeding into rivulets that ran off her like diluted blood.

Jim gathered her up, getting soaked himself, then squatted down and knee walked into the mouth of the cave. He cleared the short ceiling inside the entrance and stood then strode with Calia in his arms to the nearest gear sack and extracted a blanket with one hand.

After spreading it out, he gently arranged her on it.

“There,” he muttered to himself. One down, one to go.

He turned. Elise was already crawling in much like he had. She stood closer to the entrance than he had as he was much taller.

“There is my rucksack.” Elise pointed to the gear pile.

Jim turned and eyed a smaller sack. He plucked it off the top of the heap and walked it to her.

“Please turn around.”

Jim's Adam's apple did a painful slide. Thank God for small mercies.  He listened to the rustle of cloth for a minute or so as he faced the cave entrance. Then Elise said, “You may turn.”

She'd put on fresh clothes that were dry and held the wet undergarments in one hand.

“Shall I spread these on the rock above the entrance to dry them?”

Jim nodded. Good plan.

He glanced down at Calia, who was pale as a ghost. Her stillness scooped his guts. She wasn't going to make it.

She breathed shallowly, flailing.

Jim dropped to his haunches.

“Calia.”

Her eyes flew open.

“It's okay, I'm here.”

She looked at him without recognition. All Jim could think of was she'd die here with virtual strangers. Her brother was traipsing around wherever, and Philip had entrusted Jim to her care.

He didn't have to be a doctor to figure out that she was dying.

Jim wasn't one of those guys who cried easily. But the thought of this virile woman dying of smallpox made his eyes sting. The injustice was a horrible reality.

Elise came back inside, saw the situation and, with a little noise of alarm, sank to her knees at Calia's side with a her gear sack. “Please turn again, Jim.”

He stared at the mouth of the cave a second time while Elise dressed Calia. Unshed tears of frustration and sadness made his eyelids feel as though they were on fire.

“You may turn.”

As Jim began to pivot, a shadow fell over the entrance. He dismissed it as a trick of the light.

He finished turning, and Calia was sitting up, held in Elise's arms as she leaned against her. A dry blanket covered her completely.

The cave felt warm to Jim, the steam holding them prisoner, which also felt good.

He tried to smile at Elise but her eyes were not on him, but a point behind him. Her eyes were wide with terror.

I don't want to turn.

That's the way shit worked. And here he'd thought there wasn't a primal impulse inside him any more. Jim was from a modern world of political correctness and little violence. But being in an environment in which instinct was not ignored had already changed Jim in ways he couldn't fathom.

What he did understand was he had seen something and had ignored the trigger of alarm.

And Jim would not ignore that again—if there were second chances.

His epiphany took seconds.

Jim turned in a graceful pivot, his training on the dojo as automatically falling into place as the qì that centered inside him.

Figures crowded inside, blocking out the light.

They were not clan, sphere or Band. They were certainly not Fragment.

They were other, and Jim didn't know what that was.

Jim realized he wasn't as much the pacifist as he'd believed, and with a roar, he charged the newcomers, the safety of the females beating inside his brain in an instinctive pulse.

Protect.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Adahy

Adahy slung the seven knotted pheasants over his shoulder, their brightly colored feathers in sharp contrast to the snow-covered hills and forest that surrounded the pair as they headed back to the hot spring.

Philip led the way, his own truss of pheasant swinging back and forth with his gait.

They had stopped at a river and filled the six canteens. Adahy felt the weight of the gathered supplies. Sometimes, it was a burden to carry his hunt. Today was not one of those times.

Every step brought him nearer to Elise. The bridge that Edwin had spoken of was the key to a possible cure for her. The Band woman, Calia, was in even more desperate straits.

Adahy was deep in thoughts of cleaning the pheasant as quickly as possible and getting the water distributed to the females, when Philip abruptly stopped.

Adahy stalled, very accustomed to stealth and body language. No voices were needed for him to see there was something grave enough to halt Philip's progress to his own female.

Philip sank to his haunches. Adahy strode the five paces to his side and slid down as well.

Both men stared at the prints.

They made no sense.

A series of large footprints—mostly pad with short, slim toes—headed into the deepest part of the woods.

Adahy stood quickly, gooseflesh riding his skin in waves, and said “Otneyarhed.”

Philip stood as well, his hand hovering above the hilt of his dagger. “What say you?”

Adahy struggled for the translation. Finally, he arrived at an approximate one. “Stone Giant.”

Philip stared then gave a single blink of understanding. “Forest Devil.”

Adahy shook his head. “I do not know, ʻForest Devil.ʼ”

“It matters not. They are here, and they might find the females. Jim will not be sufficient defense.”

Adahy knew it had been wrong to leave Elise. But what choice did they have? They were without food and water—and had been for nearly two days. They could not move on without sustenance. The females were sick with this pox.

Philip jerked his chin toward the footprints. “We will move fast. It might be that they have missed them, hidden inside the crevice of stone.”

Adahy nodded once.

But his mind ran wildly through the legends. If the Stone Giants were real, and not the myth of his childhood, they would be formidable adversaries.

All the tales said the same thing: they never left the forest, preferring to dwell in the trees. Game was plentiful outside the woods and as Iroquois, Adahy's tribe had no need to venture inside. A highly superstitious people, the Iroquois had great respect for peoples who claimed a unique part of the world, and were not inclined to intrude on it. In addition, a few disemboweled tribesmen every twenty years or so had served as sufficient warning.

What could make the Stone Giants leave the safety of the woods?

When Philip and Adahy had left the meadow behind, Adahy gave an uneasy glance at the stumps that rimmed the great forest. An idea took shape.

Perhaps the encroachment of the plains people and Fragment had done something to make them desperate enough.

Adahy did not like this new, faceless enemy—a people who were part animal and scaled the tallest trees with an ease that would make Philip and him vulnerable to attack from above.

The gloom of the deep woods surrounded them. A squall from a nearby bird pierced the silence of dripping greenery. It was all Adahy could do to not jump at the noise.

Philip's gaze went upward, and Adahy's followed.

There was no one overhead—
for now.

The men moved forward, jogging toward the hot springs. Neither spoke of what they might find.

*

Jim

Jim landed flat on his back, the air knocked out of him.

It was an amateur mistake.

And this is planet of the fucking apes.

Jim blinked, his mouth opening for oxygen that wouldn't come.

The words that came out of the creature's mouth were guttural but understood.

“You die.”

Nope. Jim wasn't ready to call it quits just yet.

He sprung to his feet, still without air, and the ape-like leader came for him.

Easily six and a half feet tall, its long arms swung with a lithe grace. Their reach was easily one-and-a-half times his own.

Jim swallowed against the burn of his lungs.

Air came like a punch, and the creature took advantage of Jim while he stood there sputtering like a drowning man.

That paw-like hand whipped out in a graceful arc of swiping accuracy—at Jim's throat.

He blocked the strike as automatically as the breath he couldn't take, and the creature's eyes grew round then narrowed in a human face.

The other arm swung, and Jim latched his hands opposite each other, and using the momentum, he twisted and pulled.

The big creature tried for balance, but his land legs were not as good as Jim's, and he went careening forward.

Two more came, and Jim knew he'd die in that cave. But he'd make it good if he was going to go.

He crouched, letting out his breath, centering his qì. The creatures hesitated, backing away, and Jim straightened, arms loose, body straight, mind blank as he'd been taught.

There was no rancor in Jim. His life was held in the center of his body, his mind controlling his every action, his every breath.

Jim was ready.

The ape guys sniffed the air.

Then, like candles, their apeness melted away, and they looked as though their animal nature had been shed like snakeskins.

They were normal men, yet—not.

Jim immediately saw the resemblance to the Band—and what he thought might be a streak of gorilla.

The combination was so ridiculous he stifled a hysterical bubble of laughter.

“Jim!” Elise said from behind him.

He sank instinctively as wind passed over his head. He grabbed whatever was above him and tossed hard.

The ape leader whirled and stumbled backward. Instantly regaining his balance, he faced Jim.

The odds weren't good. There were five of them and one of him.

The girls were too far gone with the pox to offer Jim any assistance except something to worry about. If Calia had been well, they might have stood a chance—but only if the big-foot guys stayed in their present form. Right now, they looked like Cro-Magnon Band with their beef sticks hanging in the wind.

Or in the cave.

When the leader spoke, Jim listened, getting the biggest surprise of his life.

“Who are you?”

Jim made a noise of disbelief. “Listen, you came in here…”

“You attacked us.”

Jim hesitated. The leader had a point.

“You don't want to kill us?”

“No. But we will defend ourselves. And, we could smell the illness from a mile away.”

They spoke in a modern way. This was too weird.

“You can't talk when you're…” Jim didn't know how to say it without getting his ass handed to him.

“When we are in our mixed form—no. Our mouths are not highly enough evolved for the complex speech functions.”

Oh brother. Jim held up a hand. “Listen. You're right, we have sick women here.”

“One of the Pure Ones. She is dying.”

Pure ones. So that's what these guys call the Band.

Jim couldn't refute Calia's grim state. “Yeah, she's not doing so good.”

“We can heal her.”

“There's no cure for small pox,” Jim said in a bald voice.

He stared at Jim, his eyes flicking once to Calia. “Please, let me help the Pure One.”

Though the man spoke well, they were primitive to the max. One of the guys behind Jim handed the head guy a sort of loincloth.

Jim couldn't believe it was happening.

With a strike of flint to stone, the torch was lit.

Maybe they weren't so primitive.

“I'm Jim.”

The leader grunted, already moving forward, and Jim grabbed his muscular arm. “I don't care if I die trying to protect her. Don't hurt her.”

The man looked down at Jim, his eyes narrowing. “That is not what the Tree Men do—Jim.”

There was something dignified about his words and his manner that made Jim feel small for assuming he'd hurt Calia. But he didn't know him. Now Jim was going to let this strange ape guy—a Tree Man—play doctor with a woman he was supposed to be protecting.

Better yet, he was going to cure Calia of smallpox.

Yeah right. And pigs were going to fly out of his ass.

Jim followed him to the darkest recesses of the cave. There, Elise held Calia, the whites of her eyes yellowed.

Kidney failure.

She needed water, food, and a hell of a lot more care than Jim could have provided.

Philip would come back to find a group of half-naked ape guys huddled around Calia. Elise gave a yelp when she saw them and scooted backward, pressing as close to the back of the cave as she could.

Nice, Jim. Solid work.

But what Jim saw next utterly changed his mind.

The nameless Tree Man carefully gathered Calia against him, and when Jim thought the situation couldn't get any weirder, the guy bit his own wrist with a practiced slash of sharp, nonhuman teeth.

He bled.

Then he closed a strong hand around Calia's jaw. The deliberately applied pressure forced her mouth open. He gently tipped her head back and let his blood drop inside her puckered lips.

Fuck this weirdness. Jim moved forward and his eyes met the Tree Man's.

“Hold him.”

Two strong Tree Men came forward.

Jim screamed when they pretzeled his arms. The creatures looked human, but their arms had morphed into the long ape arms.

There was no moving. The vise hold remained as Calia began to swallow the blood—or drown.

Her eyes opened and landed on Jim. They moved to the Tree Man.

Jim thought she'd fight. He would have. And he remembered her from before the pox had gotten its hold on her.

Calia was a warrior of the Band and the toughest woman he'd ever met.

But instead of fighting, she mewled like a kitten before a bowl of cream and snuggled closer to the huge Tree Man. He cinched her tighter against him.

Jim hung his head.

He'd failed.

When Philip and Adahy burst inside, Jim knew that all hell would break loose.

And it did, but not in a way he could have anticipated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Adahy

Adahy recognized the legendary Stone Giants when he saw them.

He also felt a low-lying kinship recognition that told him he was indeed connected to them on a basic level.

When Philip lost control, Adahy understood why.

Blood covered the lips of his intended, and in the low light, it looked very bad—as though violence had been inflicted on her.

With a roar, Philip shoved two of the Giants aside, and they hit the wall with a resounding crack.

Jim gave him wide eyes and bellowed in Iroquois, “Wait!”

His shout cautioned Adahy but did not slow the progress of Philip as he made the two-horse-length distance to Calia.

“Philip!” Adahy yelled, seeing the scene as something utterly different than what Philip presumed.

Philip did not turn, his hand reaching for the one who held Calia. He jerked the Giant to his feet, and Elise crawled to catch Calia as she crumpled into her lap.

The Giant instantly morphed, features melting together and reconstructing before Adahy's eyes.

His brow ridge became more prominent, eyes sinking deeply below cheekbones that now shadowed his jawline.

Most alarming was his match for size to Philip's own.

Philip clutched and shook the Giant, who responded by wrapping impossibly long arms around Philip and squeezing.

Philip was the biggest warrior Adahy had encountered on this bizarre journey—fierce and hard, war torn and buffeted.

Yet Philip's expression slimmed down to planes of disbelief and astonishment.

He was losing a battle for the first time. It was not hand-to-hand-combat with one of his own, but a fight with a creature who was blood of their blood yet somehow more.

He was as large as Philip, but with greater extension of limbs and more flexibility, and pound for pound—it looked to Adahy—stronger.

“Not enemy,” the creature said in a tone like raw stone being crushed. Adahy could see the struggle the words cost him. Yet, he did not offer assistance. It was a delicate outcome, and he would not tip the scales in either direction.

Philip jerked his elbows up abruptly like flapping wings, causing the hold of the creature to loosen, but not release.

Philip shoved with all his might and they broke apart.

Then Calia was between them, threads of red between her teeth like peppermint candy.

Blood.

She staggered against the creature—or better, fell against him—and he caught her as she clung.

“He—has helped me. Do not,” she gasped, trying to speak. “Do not engage him, Philip.”

“He has hurt you,” Philip rumbled, and Adahy scanned the cave for Elise.

Finding her quickly, he strode to her position and helped her up. Adahy put his back to the wall where he could see all therein. He would not be taken unawares.

Calia steadied herself, standing away from the Giant. “These are the Tree Men. They have not hurt me, but healed me from the illness.”

Jim spoke out of the corner where two creatures held him. “You can let me go. Obviously, the threat's over.”

The Tree Men released Jim, and he stepped away from them, shaking his arms and shooting them a glare.

Adahy watched as they became more man-like, more human. Skin slid and bones shifted into subtle lines of humanity. Gone was the animalistic countenance. In their human form, they appeared most like Band.

Philip opened his arms and Calia walked into his embrace. His eyes never left the Giant as he folded her against his body.

The male who had almost ended Philip melted down to his human form, leaving the ape-like, half-human side behind.

He shuddered, the pre-change image superimposed over the new one for a half a minute. “I am Ulric.”

Philip stroked Calia's hair, seeming to deliberate.

“I am Philip of the Band.”

“You are a Pure One?” Ulric lifted his chin, eyebrows rising in question.

Philip inclined his head. “I am Band.”

Ulric nodded then turned to the other Giants and gave a series of commands in a tongue that was unintelligible to Adahy.

Philip cupped Calia's face and asked, “Are you well—truly?”

Calia shook her head. “Not yet, but I know that if I have food and water—and rest—I will be.” She looked over at Ulric, adding, “Thanks be to this male's blood, I am recovering.”

Jim scanned the dim interior of the cave. “Listen. I want out. Right now. I think it was a five-butt cave, and we're all a little too tight right now. Too many asses, too little space.” Jim spread his hands away from his body.

Adahy frowned. All he understood from all Jim's strange jargon was he wanted to be out of the cave.

It sounded like a very good idea to Adahy, who did not like being in close quarters with strangers, whatever the reason. He also wanted to get a good look at Elise and provide food and water.

He studied the Giants.

They did not seem violent. In all, they had not attacked him or Philip. Even Ulric had only endeavored to subdue Philip rather than bring him harm.

Jim's comment about space had everyone filing out on the narrow ledge of rock.

The men took turns, all wary of one another.

Adahy cared not. It was Elise whom he protected. He would see her safely to the shore across the spring, and then they would eat and drink.

Could the legends of the Forest Devils and the Stone Giants be exaggerated? Perhaps they were actually a peaceable people, distant relatives who had adapted to living only in the forests. Adahy did not know. But his tribe, the Iroquois, found it prudent to know everything they could about everyone in their environment. Ignorance was a recipe for foolhardiness and death.

Incompetence was not the way of the Iroquois.

*

Elise

The Tree Men assisted Philip and Adahy in plucking the feathers from the birds and gutting and cleaning them.

A spit was erected, and the Tree Men had a fire going with flint and twigs before Elise could say two words. Their skill and proficiency in the face of the most primitive needs was vast. They appeared to be at the same level as Philip and Adahy.

Now that they were in their human form, the men seemed to be no different than the Band—on the surface and without the throat slits of their kind.

Elise's eyes strayed to Ulric, and she noticed he did not have a scar from his healing of Calia. No proof of where he had scored it marred his wrist.

Elise gave a hard gulp.

I shall be next.

Though no one had thought to mention it, for she had not been as far along in her sickness, Elise would be next in her consumption of blood.

It was unnatural. But it might be necessary. She gave a resigned sigh.

“It is not as bad as you suppose,” Calia said from beside her, intuiting her thoughts.

Elise turned to look at her, taking in the gills that were now restored to a healthy bright pink. They flared slightly with her deep, even breathing.

“Aye, you are becoming well and whole before my eyes.” Elise's eyes narrowed, her fingers trembling at the base of her throat. “But at what cost, Calia?”

“What cost?” Calia made a derisive noise in her throat. “My life! Methinks living another day above ground is not too high a price.” Her eyes strayed to Philip as she said that last.

Thoughtful in her silence, Elise folded her arms.

The bumps that had covered Calia hours ago were beginning to scab over.

“What say you?” Calia asked more softly than her harsh words of moments ago.

Elise did not know the reason for her unease.

Mayhap it was that this was yet another group of unknown agenda. Elise could not help but notice the obvious: there were no women.

She and Calia were the sole members of the fairer gender present. Adahy was principled and cared deeply for her—he might even truly love her. Though trust did not come easy for Elise, his background and the murder of his wife made trusting him a unique case. But these new tree dwellers were of such a different ilk that she could only guess whether she should trust them.

Elise's thoughts were selfish ones.

She wanted to be back in the sphere with Adahy, where Fragment, clan, and Tree Men were not present. She wanted a life of rules, propriety, and safety—perceived or real, it was all the same to her psyche.

Elise was worn thin from peril. She was sickened with the pox, and she did not know if the future held the most important part for her—Adahy.

Calia interrupted her thoughts. “Listen.”

Elise did. With each word that was spoken by Ulric, she grew more troubled. When Ulric's words ended, Elise understood more—and less.

They were all related in some way.

Out of the natural disaster that had transpired a century and a half before the present, many subcultures of peoples had risen from the wasteland of this world.

Some had flourished, while others had perished.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Jim

For the love of… “So—what you're saying here is, you guys were ʻpure onesʼ but now you're what—Big Foot?”

Ulric's brow furrowed, and Jim realized he might have sounded a little—or very—insulting.

He raked his hair back again. This was getting convoluted.

Let's try for simplicity. “Okay. You're related to them”—Jim pointed to Calia and Philip—“and kind of to Adahy.” He then flipped a palm toward the big Native American, or Red Man, as they referred to him here.

“Yes, but they are ancient ties.”

Jim leaned forward. “How ancient?” He was thinking of the scant history he'd been fed from the HC, and wondered if it would jive with actual events. Somehow, with each day, as he learned more from being here and existing with these people, the less “honest” the Helix Complex appeared.

“Over one hundred years,” Ulric replied.

One of the other ape dudes said something that was absolutely Greek to Jim.

“What'd he say?”

The slightest of smiles ghosted Ulric's mouth. “Brom has corrected me. It is more than one hundred and forty years since the time of rocks.”

So their history did correspond with what he'd been told. Asteroids had shaped this world. Genetic mutations of humans from before that event survived. From what Ulric had said, Jim guessed that his people had found refuge in the graveyard of destroyed forests and caves, waiting out the worst of it.

They ate animals that survived “the shroud over the sun”—the ash. If Jim's hypothesis were correct, there would have to have been a fast evolutionary shift—similar to the unusual gills on the throats of Philip and Calia, a holdover from a time when there wasn't enough oxygen to survive without them.

Further, Jim surmised the Tree Men had been stuck in the forest for so long their biology would have evolved to adapt to life in the woods. Initially annihilated, as the forest grew back to heights of livability, cover, and shelter, so too would its inhabitants have changed.

It made a beautiful sense to Jim, who loved how humanity had adapted to a challenge of life and death. From what Jim understood, the people of the spheres were just like him, with no physical manifestation of these traits. Of course, their environment had not necessitated change, so they had remained as they were.

When had the Fragment appeared? Were they Band? Tree guys? Jim didn't know.

Fascinating. “Are you guys carnivorous?”

Ulric appeared to understand the word and grinned, his sharp teeth not those of a human but resembling an animal's.

Jim had never seen monkey teeth before, but he was betting these were not like them. They weren't clubby at all. Jim felt the first tingle of sweat on his palms.

Jim took note of the healing wounds on Calia's body and mused aloud. “So, yeah. And your immunity to the pox was transferred to Calia through blood consumption.”

Amazing.

Jim felt himself frown as he took in Elise. She was doing better than Calia but would have to do the vamp with Ulric. A trickle of disquiet threaded through Jim at the vampiric idea.

Elise's eyes widened at his expression as though putting two and two together. “I do not wish to…”

Jim nodded. “Doesn't matter. If Ulric will let you do the vampire routine on him, then you can beat this thing. Who knows how long it'll take us to make the bridge, or whether the healer can figure this out. After all”—Jim maintained eye contact with the group—“the pox was brought here for a reason.”

“It is the killer of women,” Ulric interjected.

Knew it.

“Do you have females?” Adahy asked.

Ulric's eyes narrowed at the Iroquois.

Tension became thick as pea soup.

Jim spoke into the middle of the testosterone fog. “I don't think they're looking to poach your women.”

Only the slow drip of water struggling underneath the ice of a nearby creek could be heard. “We have women. They are guarded,” was Ulric's cagey reply.

So women were a rare commodity across the board. But now Jim knew why there were too few—and why Ulric and his kind were immune to the pox. It had already swept the area, and immunity had been handed down through the generations like blue eyes and height.

But it had not been inherited by the women. Maybe the tree girls could just suck up the blood from the guys and keep disease at bay. Jim scrubbed his face. He had lots of questions.

And he needed to ask the right one to get the answers he wanted.

“Do you know the Fragment?” Philip asked suddenly, keeping Calia close to him.

Ulric's lip curled in distaste, and the other tree guy, Brom, said, “The marauders.”

As monikers went, it was an apt one.

“We are not quick to pick up our weapons,” Ulric answered cryptically and in smooth evasion of the original question.

“But you'll make an exception in their case,” Jim pressed.

Ulric gave a curt nod. “Every time.”

“What do they think about your apeness?” Jim asked.

His question caused a flurry of chatter between the five of them in what he assumed was their native tongue.

Ulric nodded several times, adding another comment. Finally, they settled down and he turned to Jim. “We do not have their opinion.” That vague smile rode his lips.

Jim frowned.

“We attack from above. We leave only the Pure Ones alone for they harm for a reason.”

“Common enemy,” Jim said and Calia nodded.

“I'm just—a little blown away by the entire shape-shifting thing.”

Ulric directed one of his small smiles at Jim again. “It is normal for us. It is how we survive, defend.”

“Our quiet lifestyle has prevented detection,” Brom added. Jim glanced at his huge body, which was muscled but not in the way of the Band. He had powerful upper-body strength and legs shaped by tree hopping.

Jim's fingers plowed through his hair. Full of static, it lit up under the touch. “So why come out of the trees, boys? There are some who are less than pure here.” Jim touched his own chest then gave a significant look at Adahy and Elise.

“We knew there was a problem. We could smell the disease on the women. If it had been men, we would have let death claim them.”

A rough exhalation escaped Jim. “I see.” Compassionate dude. “The women—it always comes back to them.”

Ulric didn't bother to defend his methods. “Yes,” he agreed simply.

“But Calia and Elise belong to the Band—and Adahy,” Jim argued.

“They belong to who they choose,” Ulric said neutrally.

Oh boy.

Philip growled. “Calia is mine to protect.”

“She was also very close to death, Pure One. And could you have protected her from the Yellow Death?”

Philip's expression became troubled.

“Smallpox,” Jim clarified.

Ulric shrugged a dismissal. Tomato, Tomahto—it's all the same. Women get the disease and die, his expression seemed to say.

Philip gave a heavy sigh of pure frustration. “Nay, I could not. Gathering food and water had to be accomplished. If it were not for that, I would have remained.”

“Yes, I am certain you would have. No one, aside from our tribe, honor the virtue of a woman's life as those of the Tree Clan.”

“You call yourselves Clan?” Philip asked incredulously.

Jim hoped the tree guys didn't hear any disdain in his voice.

“Did you listen to our leader when he explained that we were of one clan a century before?” Brom asked curtly.

Yup, heard it.

Philip left Calia and started to do the rooster dance with Brom—the whole puffy-chest routine. Great.

We don't have time for this. “Philip, calm down. He's asking a question. Is it possible that you could have all been Band? That maybe the Tree Guys here are actually Band who evolved to live only in the forests?”

Philip's fists unclenched, his eyes like slits of hate on Ulric. “I concede it is possible.”

Jim walked up to Philip and clapped him on the back. “That's all you have to think about, big guy. They're not trying to lay claim to anything. I think you could align with a worse group. They hate the Fragment—you hate the Fragment. They're badasses—so are you. I say make friends and move on.”

“Bad asses?” Philip asked, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Yeah!” Jim said, doing a roundhouse-kick demo. “Bad.” He whipped it an inch away from Philip's face. “Ass!”

Philip caught his foot and twisted.

Jim spun, jerking his foot out of Philip's grip as he did. Jim landed on his feet like a cat.

Philip's eyes twinkled. “Bad ass,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Methinks some of your words are interesting.”

Jim smirked, giving a shallow bow. “All. My. Words.”

“We make friends later,” Adahy said, bringing an unconscious Elise forward. “She weak.”

Jim embraced his new role of peacemaker.

He put his hands on Ulric's shoulders. The other man was at least a tenth of a meter taller than Jim. Jim looked up into an open face. Intelligence and kindness held equal parts in Ulric's expression.

“Time for the blood-letting, pal.”

Ulric turned and gave a serious look to Adahy. “Let me have her so my life force might heal her of the Yellow Death.”

Adahy didn't have that believer look.

“What of your women?” Jim asked.

Adahy scowled but allowed Ulric to take Elise carefully as his eyes met Jim's. “The men of our clan all carry the blood magic. There is no disease that can take us from this place.”

Jim was taken aback. “Really?” he replied with a small snort.

Brom was the one who answered for Ulric. “We are only the second of our kind.”

Jim's mind reeled second?

Oh shit—he meant the second generation.

Jim wasn't the only one who put it together. Philip took an urgent forward stride. “How many years are you?”

Jim assessed Ulric physically. He looked to be in his mid-thirties.

“Those who stand before you are over one hundred years. Our parents still live, though they do not possess… the transformation abilities we do.”

“Where are they?” Jim asked.

“Our elders dwell at our feet—they are scouts for the safety of the clan.”

The wheels of Jim's mind were a blur. “You have a system of protection. Your ancestors—living ancestors,” Jim corrected, and Ulric and Brom nodded, “alert you of intruders, and you fall from the trees and nail them.”

“We do,” Brom immediately answered. Jim looked him over, deciding he wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, Kung Fu or not.

Adahy didn't look very happy to hand over Elise to Ulric—especially since Ulric looked so happy to help.

Too happy.

Maybe the Tree Men were too good to be true.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Elise

In all of Elise's life, she had never partaken of anything as revolting as the act she was about to perform.

She would consume someone's blood.

Elise did not at first know the word vampire, yet Jim's explanation had made her wish she had never learned it.

Adahy had listened intently, his features darkening, as Jim spoke. Then he'd stalked off.

Calia had whispered that only a small amount of Band blood was necessary for the males to become enraged whenever another male “handled” their mates.

“I am not his mate,” Elise had explained to Calia, not quite able to keep the sadness out of her voice.

Calia had nodded, ignoring the catch in Elise's voice at the admission. “I do not think he is aware. To him, it is but a formality.”

Elise had dozed off only to be roused from her fevered sleep, hair plastered against her temple and found herself in unfamiliar arms.

Of course, it had provoked a fight-or-flight response. She struggled until the first drop of blood hit her lips.

Ambrosia.

It was every good thing she had ever eaten—or drunk. It had not the metallic smell of battle and torture she had anticipated but was like a smooth, thick wine. It funneled down her throat and burst into living fire, warming her from the inside out. Elise was a healer and, therefore, was acutely aware of her own body.

She could almost feel Ulric's borrowed blood fighting the disease from the minutest parts of her.

Then something remarkable happened. A terrible pain claimed a spot above her pubic bone and underneath her stomach.

Her eyes flipped open, and a low moan escaped her as she drank.

Ulric's gentle gaze found her own.

Adahy appeared, rage on his face. “You hurt?” His fists were curled into balled hammers of anger.

Elise quickly shook her head, a drop of blood leaking from her mouth.

Ulric never looked away from Elise but instead put his wrist against her lips. “She is more damaged than just the Yellow Death.” Elise paused in her suckling, seeing the thunderous expression Ulric directed at Adahy.

“Are you the one responsible for these wounds?”

Adahy's expression was blank, then slow understanding dawned. He shook his head. “No. Fragment hurt Elise—before.”

They looked at each other in mute communion.

Ulric redirected his gaze to Elise. “Just a little more. It will hurt, for much was done and in need of repair.”

The pain made Elise cry out. Stabbing knives carved her insides and she thrashed.

Ulric kept her bound to his wrist. “Feed, and my blood will repair you.”

Adahy stepped forward.

“Stop.”

Ulric glanced at him.

“No. Have patience, red warrior.”

Elise watched Brom kick off from the base of a huge tree and stride to Adahy.

The two squared off, taking each other's measure.

“My leader heals her. Do not interfere.”

Adahy said something disparaging in Iroquois.

“I am not an imbecile,” Brom countered quietly.

This does not go well, Elise thought. But the blood took her, and she purred like a contented animal at Ulric's wrist while Adahy flirted with exchanging blows with his compatriot.

Elise felt as drunk as when the Fragment had confiscated cups of grapes.

“You speak Iroquois,” she heard Adahy say in a nonplussed voice.

“I do,” Brom said.

“Why?”

“I do not know. We speak all languages. Maunder, Band, sphere-dweller and Clan—all.”

Elise could hear the sarcasm of Brom, who was most likely Ulric's second in command.

What had they got themselves into? Elise was afraid—or should have been. But the more she drank from Ulric's wrist, the less she found she cared.

With a groan so quiet she might have imagined it, Ulric pulled away. The pain that had been so horribly intense minutes ago had settled into a deep, throbbing ache in her womb.

Ulric gathered her against him, and she watched his self-inflicted wound that had seeped blood moments before now begin to close, repairing before her eyes.

He gave her a soft smile and she sighed, letting the weight of her head rest against his arm. “You are a healer of mortality?”

Elise gave a dreamy nod in response.

“I cannot heal the sick,” she replied

“But the injured? Those who are near death?”

Elise nodded. It had seemed so pleasant and right to be sitting there drinking the blood of a stranger.

“Then you might be of our kind. If you were not, I could not have healed old wounds—old hurts.”

Our kind.

That made Elise wake up in a start. She dove upright then cringed as pain lanced her yet again. Elise gave a huge burp.

She slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified.

Ulric chuckled and placed his hand lightly on her back.

“It is a compliment to me that you drunk so deeply of my essence.”

Elise felt nothing but an abiding awkwardness. How could it have felt so right moments before, and now she felt like a skittish colt?

Terrible.

Adahy's hand was suddenly there, and she took it with great relief. He snatched her to him. But unlike Philip's grudging gratefulness, Adahy wore a serious expression of gratitude.

“Thank you,” he said, though she could see they were not easy words for him to utter.

“You are most welcome, tribesman of the Iroquois—and Band.”

Adahy flushed a deep red. He had been summarily identified and spoken to in his native language by a people who they had all heard about as only legend.

No matter what their name—Forest Devils, Stone Giants, what had Jim said? Big Feet, or some such—they were like her, yet different.

Elise looked into Ulric's eyes and shivered. They glowed like a cat's in the cover of gloom the canopy of trees provided.

Elise broke her gaze and looked up.

There, high in the trees, were structures, ropes dangling down partway to the ground.

The more Elise looked, the more she found they took shape as her eyes adjusted to the light.

Wait. Her eyes squinted. The shapes were not platforms—but houses.

Her chin came down quickly, her eyes locking with Ulric's.

“You live in the trees.”

Ulric nodded.

“How many are there of you?”

“Dozens and dozens.”

Elise swallowed. “Jim told me that you were a vampire. But you cannot be. You,” she drew her palm to follow the line of his massive body, “change your form at will to something between man and ape.”

Ulric cocked his head, and Brom laughed, walking off to stand again at the trunk of the tree. “I do not know the term vampire.”

Jim walked to where they stood. “I was joking. Him donating some blood because he has super-impressive healing properties doesn't make him a vamp.” Jim laughed.

Ulric did not.

Jim's expression grew sharp. “Wait. Let's run down the list. Now,” he said in a light tone, “in my world, there's all kinds of paranormal types.”

Ulric gave him a quizzical brow.

Elise's sense of unease grew.

A terrible understanding hovered at the edges of her mind, wings unfurling to be unseen but felt.

“But we don't have any werewolves or vampires. Those are just a fable.” Jim shrugged with a small chuckle.

“A myth?” Ulric asked.

Jim smiled in relief. “Exactly.”

“Ah,” Ulric said, knotting his hands behind his back, a vague smirk affixed.

Jim's brows drew together. “Why do I get the feeling that this is somehow funny to you?”

Elise backed into Adahy's body tighter. Some lingering instinct, as primitive as fear of the dark, kicked into motion as her disquiet deepened.

Ulric's reflective eyes found her again—as though he sensed her fear, tasted it, and found it good.

He turned toward Jim once again, and Elise's tension lessened. Just being out of his piercing scrutiny eased her.

Ten minutes ago, I was lapping blood at his wrist.

Elise shuddered.

Lifting her arm, she saw that the pox marks had become flat, crusting at the edges. She had healed.

What else has healed? Automatically, her hand sought her lower abdomen.

Old hurts, Ulric had said.

No—could it be? A seed of hope dug deep.

She tried to wrench it free, but it clung to the tenderest part of her mind.

“You're carnivorous?” Jim asked again.

Ulric nodded.

“Of a sort.”

Jim backed up a step. Ulric smiled.

His teeth were now different. Longer.

Adahy drew Elise tight against him, and they retreated a step.

Ulric tracked their movements like a hawk.

Jim ignored them. “Do you leave the cover of woods?”

“Never,” Ulric said.

Jim's entire body was a thick line of tension. Elise saw him circling some enigmatic answer. What had he called himself? Elise dragged her lip between her teeth, gnawing on the tender flesh. Ah yes—scientist. A finder of facts. This was what Jim was, and what he endeavored to be in this moment.

“The sun?” Jim asked, and Elise wondered anew where his questions led. They felt like more than mere curiosity. They were akin to an interrogation.

“The sun is death to Men of the Tree.”

“Oh, God.” Jim said. “Do you feed on humans?”

Ulric's pale eyes glittered. “Only our enemies,” he answered softly. His incisors became fangs, and he opened his mouth, emitting a hiss like a cobra.

Jim stumbled back. “Holy shit, we've got the real deal here.”

Calia and Philip came to stand beside Adahy and Elise. Jim was in  front.

“What ʻreal dealʼ?” Adahy asked. Elise felt his heart beat faster between them, his voice strong.

Jim kept his eyes on Ulric. “Real, live, shape-shifting vampires.”

Elise had followed the conversation very well, and her fear was a tangible thing—she could reach out and touch it.

She had drunk from this creature who was a human, yet not.

You will never be set free, Ulric's expression seemed to say.

“Jim,” Philip said, his eyes steady on Ulric. “What does this mean?” Philip's eyes traveled the fangs that prevented Ulric from shutting his mouth. Philip's dagger was in his hand.

Elise glanced at Jim and saw his readiness to fight. She did not have to take stock of Adahy to ascertain his readiness.

Jim answered, “I'm not sure about much, Philip, but this revelation isn't good.”

Philip was trying to present the good side of it. “They healed our females, whatever their true origins.”

Jim nodded but said, “And if I know my vamp lore, it's not without a price.”

A maddening smile returned to Ulric's face, and Elise shivered.

“What price?” Philip asked warily, his eyes never leaving Ulric.

“A high one,” Jim replied.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Vaughn

Vaughn and Zaid stood with legs planted far apart, squinting to locate the bridge.

“Aye, perhaps we come at the wrong time,” Zaid said.

Vaughn shook his head, his bound club of hair thumping between his shoulder blades. “No.” Vaughn scanned the sky, the boiling thunderclouds prohibiting the sun's rays from illuminating the portal.

The wind picked up, and the iciness bit at the tender folds of his throat slits. He saw Zaid affected similarly.

“The weather,” Zaid cursed.

“It is unpleasant.”

“Are you insane? It is misery in a cup which overflows.”

True. Vaughn turned to Zaid, smirking. “You are right, and the bridge will be no better.”

They turned to look at the entrance—or where the portal should have appeared. The icons were just as they should be, as they had been described. Yet having two large boulders and a stand of rare trees was not absolute confirmation of location.

The Clan of Massachusetts was not nomadic. For a century, Vaughn's people had lived beside the sea. Some could travel great distances inland and feel none the worse for it. Each of the Band was unique.

Alanna had two children—Edwin and Calia—who could travel without the sea by their sides.

Each time one of the Band used the portal could be their last. It was a chance many were unwilling to take.

The sun broke through Vaughn's morose thoughts, spearing the deep-gray boulders overhead.

Beams struck the ground in patches like the end of a rainbow, and Zaid pointed, his voice full of awed excitement. “There!”

Vaughn scanned the area and saw nothing.

“Look up, Vaughn.”

Vaughn's gaze rose, and there the portal hung. Shimmering in a loose undulating oval, it was as though someone had tied a ribbon of sparkling iridescence a horse length above, suspended in the air. The center was completely see through. Vaughn could view trees, angry skies, and wheaten pastures battered by snow and ice beyond.

“Quickly!” Vaughn said and ran for the portal.

Zaid hesitated a moment longer and chased after him.

Vaughn's hair swung heavily at his back as he sprinted, his daggers tapping his hips in time to his rhythmic strides.

He was half a horse length away when the portal flashed into nothing then immediately returned.

Vaughn did not allow trepidation to rule him.

The sun was gobbled by the oncoming storm.

Vaughn did not hesitate—he leapt.

A streak of lightning hit the ground beside his feet and the hiss of frying pasture grass sounded as his feet left the ground.

He pumped his arms and legs. Airborne, he sailed through the fading oval of color.

At the last moment, Vaughn took his body into a ball and plunged through the middle of the portal as he had been instructed from others who had traveled the bridge before him.

Instantly, ice-like small razors sliced at his body from all sides.

Vaughn bellowed at the pain.

Then the fire began.

*

Jim

Jim reined in thoughts of being dragged off to a coffin. He knew that was a myth, but the TV visual was in his head anyway.

And these guys were actual vampires—and Band, and some kind of weird-ass half monkey.

Jim fairly salivated with wanting a DNA sample. He controlled himself with an effort.

“They are Band,” Philip said as though convincing himself.

“Yup,” Jim said in a conversational tone.

“Yet they are Stone Giants,” Adahy noted.

Jim nodded again. They were so up shit creek. These guys were at the top of the food chain, and now every action was suspect.

Starting with the nip-and-bleed session with the girls.

Jim gave the women a sidelong glance. Their color had returned—not the artificial flushed cheeks of fever but that of robust health.

Pockmarks were partly healed, dead skin flaking off even as he looked.

Moonlight now speckled the forest at their feet like a dirty egg.

Jim had been a little slow.

None of the Tree Men wore many clothes. They were impervious to the elements.

Great, just great. So were they undead? Because Jim had a bit of experience with that. And of course, if his ass hadn't been on the line, Jim would have wondered if the legends of his world had their origins in this one.

Not the tree part though.

Jim gave Philip a pointed look of readiness. Philip tensed.

“I think we'll be taking off now. We have some people to meet.”

Adahy understood Jim's words well enough to gather Elise and move closer to Jim, Philip and Calia. They began to move toward where the forest thinned.

Ulric clucked his tongue, and noise that was words traveled.

Jim heard sounds of stealth.

But Philip and Adahy were already moving, grabbing the girls and pulling them behind them.

More of the Tree Men dropped out of the sky.

Jim looked up. Ropes that looked like discarded vines swung from recent use.

Jim's guts churned at their appearance. They looked alike. If he didn't know better, he'd say they looked like apey Band.

With fangs.

Now their number was fifteen where it had been five. It had happened with one roll of a snapping tongue—or fang click—courtesy of Ulric.

The many reasons why the Tree Men might want to keep them crowded Jim's brain.

Food.

Power.

In the end, Jim asked, and Ulric responded, “The women. We will keep the Pure One and,” he glanced at Elise, “the female of our blood, and you may go—in peace.”

Jim nodded in a numb way. That made sense. They saved the women so as to keep them and let the guys go.

As if that were going to work with the Band.

“Wait,” Calia said in a low voice. “I do not wish to be claimed by a male.”

Ulric shrugged his shoulders. The muscle showed even in the dim light that fed the dark forest. “You lay dying,” Ulric said in the upper-crust speech some of the Band used. “It was I who cured you with my blood. And I will say you have already been claimed.”

Calia shook her head. “I am to journey with my brother to the Clan by the sea.”

Ulric's eyebrow cocked, and he made an exaggerated show of looking around. “And where might he be?”

“Listen, Ulric, we appreciate what you did for the girls...”

“Shut up, Jim,” he said with an accent and cadence so like Jim's own a wave of chicken skin broke over his flesh like tide to shore.

Jim's mouth snapped shut.

This was bad.

“He is lost, hunting for our food,” Calia said. Her voice was strong and untroubled.

Jim thought Calia was the bravest woman he'd ever met. He knew she hadn't been sold on Edwin's pompous ass, but he was still her brother. He saw her clinging to that, denying the fifteen sets of eyes watching the five of them.

“Or not lost as such,” Ulric remarked thoughtfully.

Calia gave a venomous hiss that was almost as impressive as Ulric's.

Then she flew at him, dagger raised.

And then the whole thing went sideways.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Vaughn

Vaughn groaned, rolling over onto his hands and knees on the compacted snow and ice where he had been spit out of the portal.

Though he had been instructed to recognize the subtle change within the bridge and ready himself for a smooth landing, it had not been one.

He had been so consumed with surviving the pain that Vaughn had allowed himself to be ungracefully tossed out, landing hard on his ribs, and even though he had broken no bones, there was not one inch without a bruise.

Vaughn attempted standing, was successful, then heaved his guts into the snow. Last night's meal came up in a rush. He helplessly evacuated what felt like his spine into the snow.

Vaughn stayed upright through sheer grit. He scanned the area and a sinking feeling took hold of his empty gut when he did not immediately locate Zaid.

He stumbled away from the grim mess in a clumsy waltz to a nearby tree and clung for until the world stopped spinning.

Misery of the acutest kind assailed him. Little by little, he was able to come to himself.

Vaughn hated that he was vulnerable for those moments. He could not have fought off anything. It was good that he'd come through the tunnel for Calia and Edwin. She would be weak and in need of protection.

A crunching sound behind him caused Vaughn to spin and crouch. The hilt of his weapon was cold against a bare space where his breeches were tied at his hip.

It was Zaid.

His warrior's body was also brought low by the bridge sickness, as Vaughn was thinking of it.

Normally fair of face, with his clothing in perfect order and battle ready, Zaid's hair club had become unbound, and stray chestnut-colored strands hung in the center of his face. He swung them away and shot a stream of vile looking spit off to the side.

Intense hazel eyes met Vaughn's. “That is not something I wish to repeat with any frequency, my friend.”

Vaughn smirked, giving his face a hard scrub. “Aye. A hell on earth.”

“ ʼTis true.”

“Did you vomit?” Vaughn asked.

“Every bit of my guts,” Zaid admitted. Straightening, Zaid placed a palm flat at his lower back and swiveled from his left to his right, taking care of a back pinched by the landing, Vaughn assumed.

“You?” Zaid asked, coming back to center.

“Aye, and then some.”

“Brutal business, that.”

Vaughn nodded. “Yet, it is important that we make haste to Edwin and Calia—intercept them so they do not travel for the first time without escort in that accursed thing.”

Zaid turned around, eyeing the space where the portal had been.

The two of them stared at the location, marking the surrounding topography to ensure a swift return—not easily done as the night had robbed some of their vision.

Both men lifted their noses to scent the air, throat slits splayed fully. There was a moment of silence, and then their heads snapped down, and their eyes met.

“Do you scent that?”

Vaughn did, though he had no context for it. “I do, yet I know not what I smell.” As far away from the sea as they had ever been, there was bound to be unknown scents.

Zaid lifted his head again, closing his eyes he breathed deeply.

“Band,” he intoned quietly.

“Aye,” Vaughn agreed easily. He had dismissed Band because Edwin and Calia were afoot he assumed. And Fragment were not heavily present in this region. They stayed and traveled in large groups, a number-based nomadic society of ruffians.

“A female of the Select.”

“Yes,” Vaughn said. He had smelled that as well. Calia, he assumed.

“Recently ill.”

I did not scent illness.

Vaughn stepped closer to Zaid. He was the best tracker of their clan and had not been chosen for this excursion randomly.

“And?” Vaughn asked, his voice tense.

“Animal, blood… other.”

“Other what?” Vaughn asked impatiently.

Zaid frowned. “If I knew that which I scented I would identify it immediately. The scents filter in and out.”

“In what way?”

Zaid was clearly frustrated, his brow knotted in concentration. “I get a whiff of Band,” Vaughn nodded, “then it seems to move to an animal I do not recognize.”

“What of the blood?”

Zaid nodded. “That is the most confounding of all.”

Vaughn waited, biting his tongue.

“It is not the blood of battle or Band—or animal—but something I have not scented before.”

“What?”

Zaid looked troubled, his face cast marble in the moonlight, bleached of its normal vibrancy—an uneasy image.

“I do not know.”

Vaughn ground his teeth. He did not like this turn of fortune. “Can it be Fragment?” he asked hopefully, already knowing what the answer would be.

“No. They smell as they should.”

“Derelict.”

Zaid gave a chuckle. “Exactly.”

Vaughn began to speak when a piercing scream slapped their eardrums. A female of the Select was in terror.

It was a very deliberate scream, and the men reacted.

The very fiber of their beings was plucked like an instrument.

Zaid did not look back to see if Vaughn followed but ran toward the sound. Vaughn ran as well but with the distinct feeling of a trap sprung.

*

Elise

Calia gave a warrior's wail and was on Ulric, dagger sunk in his shoulder before he had moved.

Ulric tore the blade out like a toy and tossed it into a nearby tree trunk with a twang as it impaled deeply.

He flipped Calia over, her chest heaving as she struggled.

Philip landed on him next. Elise felt it did not bode well that the other Tree Men did not move in to aid their leader.

Ulric roared, his skin sliding apart like a split fruit. He flung off Philip, who kicked out with a deft foot, cracking a rib as he did. He dragged Calia from underneath Ulric as the Tree Man sloughed his skin like a snake. Great strips of discarded skin fell like vile ribbons upon the earth, unraveling the partial humanity he had clung to moments before. Elise backed away.

Philip grabbed Calia, and they made haste to the border of the woods.

The Tree Men did not follow but watched with narrowed, reflective irises.

Ulric rose, even taller than Philip.

His savage face was severe with brutal lines and bones so prominent they shadowed his eyes. Long arms curled into fists. Short, pointy talons were tipped in black. Ulric spun, lifting his snout, and clucked.

More figures fell in front of Calia and Philip as they were almost free of the forest.

They moved to surround them.

Despair washed into the shores of Elise, flooding her.

Then two figures appeared, and she and Adahy stilled. Jim gave the pair a questioning look, his fear for their uncertain futures plain on his face.

The Tree Men began to wail. The figures, two of the Band, were covered from head to toe in blood like the war paint of Adahy's people. Only the whites of their eyes were apparent in the thickened shadows.

Hands of the Tree Men reached out and were snatched away, the men falling to the ground and writhing in the throes of agony.

“What is this?” Elise whispered.

“Death Bringers,” Adahy replied quietly.

His voice held relief.

*

Minutes Before

“What say you?” Zaid asked.

“They are the thing of legend. People yet not. Blood Bearers.” Vaughn lowered his high-powered spectacles. Made of heated and cured ceramic, they were solely used for the portal travel. Things of metal did not survive the trip. He was thankful for his eyesight in darkness.

It was a matter of seconds before he saw what the creatures were and thought furiously of what he knew of them.

“They are alive but ruled by death.”

“Vaughn,” Zaid said in a fierce voice, “act quickly. A female's life might be at stake.”

Vaughn wanted to tear his hair out. The scream had been a Select's—he knew it. It made his bones ache to hear it. No member of the Band had that reaction except for authentic blood recognition.

Vaughn stood suddenly, a terrible idea taking shape. He turned to tell Zaid and stilled.

A small group of desperate Fragment stood behind Zaid, knives out, one at his back.

Vaughn smiled.

A prayer answered.

There were two large bottles of blood contained within the human body.

Coming from the dead, it would be protection against the Blood Bearers.

Vaughn attacked, and Zaid followed his lead.

*

Their bodies slicked with the newly dead Fragment's blood, Zaid and Vaughn advanced into the forest.

Vaughn held his breath as he prayed they were not too late—and that the legends of his Clan held true. And that Calia and Edwin would be the ones they saved.

The Blood Bearers tried to go for them and fell away in screams of pain.

Zaid looked at Vaughn and nodded.

Then they saw who Vaughn knew to be Calia and a man of the Band—and a creature that dwarfed even them, pushing his kind out of the way without regard.

Vaughn charged.

He was Band and unafraid.

The creature grinned and met him head-on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Jim

Things are getting saucy.

Two of the Band had just entered the forest, weapons out, covered in what smelled like fresh blood.

Their irises flashed in the gloom, the metal of their short swords dimly lit by the filtered moonlight that pierced the canopy of the forest.

The sounds of the Tree Men rose in pitch and intensity. Jim wanted to cover his ears, but worse than that—he wanted the fuck out of Dodge. He was not cut out for this, hadn't signed up for it.

He glanced at Adahy and Elise. Adahy wore an expression of cautious relief. Jim couldn’t understand why.

The Band looked insane with all the total body war paint but… they were taking down the Tree Men, who'd pretty much said they were after the girls. And as for the guys, they'd probably sink their sharp chompers into them and bleed them out—getting all vampy and shit.

In a normal world, Jim would have been all hog to take samples from these guys. But he wasn't willing to forfeit his life. Yet.

Ulric rose like a monster, got a load of the advancing Band, and surged toward them. The other tree guys writhed on the ground, and he ignored his own kind leaping over their prone forms as he moved like a locomotive toward the Band.

Adahy and Philip didn't fool around. They chased after him.

Jim watched, fascinated, as the huge men, with vision that must have been catlike, ran after the two-and-a-half-meter tall Ulric.

Not me. Jim was the shit at defense, but he wasn't taking his chances with Ape Vamp.

Ulric crashed into the first of the Band, and they went down in a heap of blood and limbs.

Here's my chance. Jim grabbed Elise. “Get Calia, and let's get the hell out of here. I think they're weaker outside the forest.”

Just a theory—damn.

“Calia!” Elise said urgently as Calia stood transfixed and still weak, watching Philip join the fray. “Let us go—escape!”

Calia seemed to wake up and jogged to their position. She gasped and gulped, hands at her sides. “I am still not strong. I have taken that creature's blood yet I feel I am just well enough not to knock at death's door.”

It was probably true. She'd really been on the border of recovery.

Jim didn't ask permission. He grabbed Calia around the waist in a modified fireman's hold and dumped her over his shoulder.

They ran. Or rather, Jim walked quickly with Calia over his shoulder and Elise by his side. At least, while the Band and Adahy were fighting Ulric, he could get the girls out. Then, if the Band beat Ulric's fang ass, Jim would be outside the woods and moving toward that bridge Pathway.

Jim was sure only he knew the pulse sensor and how to activate it for the yoke that would take him back to his earth—the sane earth.

They moved with slow and steady progress to the forest's edge. Jim could make out the strangled shadows of pasture grass beaten and abused by the unforgiving winds and temperatures outside the safety of the woods and kept his gaze locked on that. Just a few more steps.

Then Jim felt eyes at his back.

He turned, and Calia's dead weight shifted, threatening to topple them both. He pinwheeled then righted himself. Fuck.

She groaned at the jerkiness of his movements, and Jim ignored the stab of guilt—which was easy to do as he caught Ulric's eyes following their progress even though he fought three of the Band simultaneously.

Ulric seemed impervious to whatever the Band had done, while all of his kind lay sick on the forest floor. Time to go. Faster.

He heard crashing all around him.

“Jim!” Elise screamed in a panic.

“Run!” he screamed back at her, and she did, outdistancing him easily.

Jim picked up speed, using his underdeveloped senses as best he could. But they'd been bred out of the men of Jim's world and weren't close to the surface. Did he even still possess those instinctive traits?

The answer was Yes. Jim slung his body low, reacting to a trace of some smell, movement, or sound, and a hand missed him by centimeters. The air from its passing left a wave of pressure above Jim's head.

He burst from the woods, frantically looking around for Elise.

Jim whirled to face the border of the forest, chest heaving and Calia threatening to roll off her perch. He grabbed the back of her thighs, pinning them more securely with his arm.

Jim about dropped her when he saw Elise.

She was trying to crawl onto the meadow. But it was as though the forest had hooked her and was reeling her in like a fish.

“What? Elise—get out of there!” Jim took a hesitant step forward. His motions were stymied by Calia's presence in his arms.

Maybe… Jim threw his coat on the hard snow and gently laid Calia down.

He jogged to Elise's position and met dozens of eyes, glaring from two meters away.

Great.

But they didn't venture out. Jim had an overwhelmingly childish urge to flip them off.

He restrained himself, ignoring the sounds of a fight that would have put the UFC to shame and dragged Elise farther from the forest.

She cried out, “Hurts! Jim—no!” Elise clutched at her guts like someone was scooping them out with a spoon.

“What? What hurts?” Jim asked frantically, his eyes searching for injury.

Behind him, Calia made sounds of agony.

What the fuck is going on?

*

Adahy

Adahy did not stop until every bone in Ulric's body was broken. He stomped on the collarbone.

Ribs.

Legs and arms.

His foot rose to finish the creature's face, and Philip commanded against it. His low voice resonated with fear and alarm.

Philip's tone arrested Adahy's attempt to squish this male like a bug, for though he had made Elise well, Ulric's hidden motivation was now revealed: He had made the females well only to enslave them.

Unforgivable.

Adahy turned suddenly as Jim came running through the woods. His young eyes were wide with shock and horror.

Tree Men split to let him through, making no move to grab him. He ran through them without fear.

The females were not with him and a thrill of fear tore through Adahy.

He straightened, moving to meet Jim.

Philip and he followed with the two of the Band whom they did not know. They were not foe, having engineered a sound beating of Ulric.

They were the Death Bearers and had come to release them from their imprisonment with the Stone Giants.

“The women,” Jim gasped. “They're—something's wrong.”

Adahy scrambled to understand. He heard “women” and “wrong.”

He put together that something additional had occurred. Maybe the healing of Ulric was a temporary measure?

None of it made sense.

As Adahy thought it, he was immediately remorseful. He should have culled his wanderlust and kept to the sphere, eschewing Outside for Elise and the safety provided therein.

He looked behind him, and Ulric was gone. No time to waste. With healing abilities like that, Ulric would sweep his Giants to him and reconvene to attack once more.

Adahy and the three of the Band ran past the Giants. They shied away from the blood of the dead.

The screaming of the women brought Adahy from a jog to a sprint. He and the other males tore through the forest like an arrow pulled through stubborn flesh.

The tree branches gave way and they were suddenly on the open, snow-covered meadow.

Blood was sprayed as if someone had thrown it from a distance. It was smeared as though…

The women had crawled.

They had tried to make their way back to the forest.

Adahy ran to Elise, turning her over.

Bubbles of blood burst their thin spheres and she said, so softly Adahy had to lean next to her mouth to hear it, “Ulric.”

Jim rushed up. “See? God, what's with this effing blood?”

Adahy understood nothing. What was clear was Elise was now suffering something other than the strange illness Jim had identified.

He hauled Elise into his arms, and she was limp. Slipping away.

Adahy groaned, tightening his arms around her.

I cannot lose her.

Adahy would not survive it.

He raised his head and searched the forest.

There, in the center of Giants, stood Ulric—unmarked. Broken bones healed. A wide grin broke the face Adahy had almost stomped.

“Bring them,” he called, indicating the women.

Commanding them.

Adahy shook his head. Philip held Calia beside him, just as obstinate.

Calia's pale hand floated up to land softly on Philip's chest. “Take me to him, Philip. His blood… has done something.”

“Do not go near them!” one of the Death Bringers shouted. “We have endeavored to save the females, not hand them to the Blood Bearers!”

Adahy looked at the male who had spoken. Immediately, Adahy sensed he was of the clan of Edwin.

“It is too late. He has shared his blood with them both.”

The other male stepped forward. “Do not.” His eyelashes were stuck together with the blood of others.

Adahy understood now what he must do and was grief stricken. “We are without choice.”

The males did not understand Iroquois. And Adahy was too overcome to censor his language.

What language could not explain was that by taking the blood of the Stone Giant, the females were now inexplicably tethered to Ulric.

If they chose life, they chose the leader.

There was no room for Adahy or the Band.

His feet were frozen in place for a space of moments, his heart bleeding for Elise.

Then Adahy walked toward Ulric.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jim

“Whoa—no, guys. Let's just wait a sec. Ulric is a bad dude.”

He watched the men of the Band keep walking.

Okay, nobody's listening.

Swell.

Jim put his fingers at the corners of his mouth and whistled so shrilly birds rose from their roosts.

Philip and Adahy stopped, looking at him. “Hey guys, he wants the girls—alive. Negotiate.”

Philip blinked.

Must be some kind of thrall state. Everyone was working without all cylinders running.

But the Band covered in blood weren't.

Jim jogged to them, and their daggers were suddenly exposed and deadly. Jim choked down his fear.

“Calm down, guys.” He pointed at Adahy and said in Iroquois, “Hold on.”

Adahy stopped but didn't look happy about it.

“You make the Red Men words?” one of the foreign Band asked.

“Badly.” Jim studied them for a heartbeat. “So, tell me you have a plan.”

His expression told Jim he struggled with Jim's way of speaking. It was not a time for finesse, though, with Fragment on the left, ape vamps on the right. They were kind of desperate.

“I am Vaughn, and this is Zaid. We have come to meet with Calia and Edwin to return with them to the Clan of Massachusetts.”

Jim waved a hand in dismissal. “Edwin split.”

Zaid said, “What say you?”

“Bring the women!” Ulric commanded, and Adahy and Philip moved as though jerked.

“What?” Jim peeled off a shout. “Nuh-uh, guys.”

Ignoring Jim, they drew two meters away from giving up Elise and Calia.

Shit.

Jim looked at the new Band. “How come you two aren't puppets?”

Zaid seemed to understand him better than Vaughn and answered first, “We wear the blood of the dead. It is protection against Blood Bearer's.”

“Oh yeah?” Jim swiveled his head, Adahy and Philip were almost to Ulric. “Have any more?”

Vaughn produced an animal-skin flask.

Jim grabbed the kidney-shaped container and sprinted to where Adahy and Philip walked.

He prayed he was in time and that his hypothesis was correct.

The blood sloshed inside of the flask as Ulric—unsuspecting—watched Jim come.

Jim didn't know why he was immune to vamp boy, only that it was awesome that he was.

He moved in front of the Band.

Man, they are big dudes.

He uncorked the flask, and the stopper popped off the top, dangling from a braided string of leather.

Jim flung the mouth of the flask at the girls. First Calia, then Elise.

Nothing happened.

Then Elise sat up as though awakened. “Stop!”

Adahy didn't change.

Fuck me.

Jim tossed some of the blood at Adahy. It hit his forehead like a slap and he flinched.

Then his feet stilled.

Jim whirled to see that Philip was at the border of the woods.

Ulric leaned out to take Calia. Philip's eyes were blank, devoid of expression.

Jim didn't have time to overthink stuff.

He threw the blood between Calia and Ulric.

Steam rose where it hit Ulric's flesh.

In the next instant, Calia sat up and was hugging Philip, who immediately regained expression on his face.

It was a pretty good bet Ulric was pissed off, judging by a baring of teeth and narrowed eyes. A bulging vein in his forehead beat in time to his heart.

“Yeah!” Jim shouted, dancing in the snow as he shook the empty flask in the sky, spare blood falling like false rain around him. “Take that, asswipes!”

Then the Fragment showed up.

*

“Edwin!” Calia tried to slip from Philip's embrace.

“No,” Philip said. “Look at them.”

Yeah, look at them.

This was really beginning to suck.

Fragment lumbered up the hill, carrying a beaten-beyond-recognition Band.

It was Edwin. The only way Jim knew was the black hair. The face that lifted to meet their stunned gazes had one eye swollen shut, but the other was a glaring orb of borrowed sun.

Jim's throat tightened at the sight. He couldn't—Jim didn't think anyone could be beaten that badly and live.

Apparently, the Band were very hardy stock.

Jim turned around slowly.

Ulric hissed at him, his fangs elongating, unnaturally long arms hanging by his side.

His wrist looked like acid had carved designs on it.

The dead man's blood would leave a scar. Fresh like that, it'd been eating a pathway into his skin—keeping him from Calia.

But now the Fragment had her brother.

And what did they want?

Well, as it turned out, they were a consistent bunch of fuckers.

They wanted the women.

It seemed like everybody did.

*

Elise

As she saw things, it was a choice between the evil she knew and the evil she did not. Especially in the case of the Fragment. They would confiscate her and use her for the cycle of torturing and healing of their enemies. And rape her for sport. It was a vile existence—if one could call it such.

Elise shuddered at the potential. She turned and met Ulric's eyes, blood like acid smoking against his flesh where Jim had thrown it. His kind stayed at the edge of the forest.

Then she looked at Adahy. “I cannot, Adahy.” Grief filled her like a cup, running over and spilling everywhere her thoughts touched.

His grave face studied hers, seeing all that Elise did not say etched upon it. “I know.”

Her gaze fell on the twenty of the Fragment, then the four of the Band and Jim.

They would overwhelm them with numbers.

It was the Fragment way.

Elise did not stay as Edwin's body was dumped on the snow between the Band and Fragment.

She made her way to Ulric.

*

Jim

Things were so way out of hand.

Elise apparently made a decision to face Ulric and the Tree Men rather than deal with the Fragment.

Adahy left the Band and went after Elise.

He wouldn't live—there was no way the Big Feet would let him. They wanted the women.

Jim was prized as one of the most innovative men of his field of study, renowned for leaps of logic.

MacGyver-ing shit to death.

Maybe he could pull something out of his ass that would save them all.

And just like that, in the simmering cauldron of chaos, Jim had a tight idea.

Get one enemy to fight the other.

*

The Frag was a bunch of pervs. So—not a smart group overall. He'd just use the girls as bait.

Jim ran to Elise.

She tried to shake him off, making a beeline for Ulric, who wore a shit-eating grin like a uniform. That guy. Elise told Jim she'd made up her mind, that there was no other way.

Tears ran their course down a resigned face.

Jim whispered sweet nothings in her ear—tales of waging war with feminine wiles.

“It is perverted.”

Jim nodded. Hell yes, but probably it'd work.

Her eyes were cautiously hopeful.

They rushed back to Calia as the leader of the Fragment toed Edwin's body and Calia groaned.

Jim ran up to her. Clearly, she was still weak from pox and the separation weirdness of Ulric's blood magic, and now seeing her brother near death was a real stressor.

Jim took her by the shoulders, and Philip looked ready to kick his ass. “Hang on, big guy.” Jim leaned close to Calia, a woman who'd nearly torn off his balls mere days ago. Now it seemed like forever.

Her eyes got big as he told her his plan.

Grumbling and tension rose all around them. The Fragment were going to make their move against them. Jim could feel it in his bones and was startled by how much more instinctive he became every minute he stayed in this world.

Surprise was their biggest asset.

“Now?” Calia asked, searching his eyes like he'd just lost his marbles.

Jim said, “No time like the present.”

She frowned.

He rephrased. “It is to our greatest advantage to use the ploy momentarily.” Jim used that slightly crusty way of speaking, and it must have hit home because both girls took off their tunics in the single-digit weather.

Now we're talking.

The leader had been trumpeting something about an exchange, but at the sight of the girlsʼ breasts, barely contained by corset-type underwear, a silence like the tomb shrouded the meadow.

Calia's undergarments were a screaming red, a flame against skin grown pale from the onset of winter. Elise's looked like an extension of her flesh. The illusion of nudity with clothes on was striking.

Jim had seen all manner of half-naked chicks in his time. There wasn't a shred of modesty left in the first third of the twenty-first century. But somehow, seeing the women this way was shocking. Jim figured if he felt a little taken aback by all that female skin showing, it'd do what he needed it to for the Fragment.

Snow began to fall in big, slow-moving flakes as the Fragment charged forward.

Jim knew that lust and greed drove that car, not intellect.

The Band roared to their defense but Jim whistled like a bird and they stopped, staring.

The women ran—straight for Ulric.

He couldn't have been completely ignorant of their plan, but everyone was winning with this. Unless Ulric had an assload of reinforcements, he'd have his hands full.

Across the last patch of midwestern prairie and the hills that heralded the sea beyond, Ulric's eyes met Jim's.

And what Jim saw there wasn't good.

Challenge accepted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Adahy

Elise took her tunic off and threw it to the ground.

Adahy frowned, moving after her.

He knew his death waited. Adahy also understood that Elise could not be under the rule of the Fragment and the brand of cruelty they would mete.

If Adahy could not love her in this life, he would meet her in the next.

Jim had awoken Philip and him as though from a terrible dream—a living nightmare in which they had almost handed the women over to Ulric—only to have the Fragment appear and complicate a possible escape.

Now Jim, who Adahy had assumed was well intended, had somehow convinced the females to unclothe themselves.

The action had stirred the Fragment up like a hornet's nest, and they'd chased the women.

Adahy cut the throats of two before they could take a step.

He watched indifferently as they drowned in their own blood, then he raced off to stop Elise's slavery to Ulric.

Adahy had not lost one wife just to have another potential mate snatched away.

He moved toward the women, he and Philip slashing the back lines of the Fragment.

They killed five in moments.

When Adahy heard movement behind him, he glanced over his shoulder, and his guts sank like a stone.

Another contingent came behind the first.

There were now over forty of the Fragment.

Adahy slowed, keeping one eye on Elise as she moved purposely toward the forest. Then he observed the advancing Fragment, oblivious to their foil.

Finally, his eyes found Jim.

They looked at each other across the sea of people.

Jim smiled.

Adahy grinned back.

Jim was very clever for an other.

*

Elise was so nervous she wasn't cold at first.

Calia jogged beside her and shivered in her crimson underwear. Elise could feel her eyes bugging at the next ploy.

“More Fragment,” Calia croaked.

Elise did not turn. “Yes.” She had not bothered telling Jim there would be more. It was absolutely typical of the Fragment to have two groups. The Band should have anticipated it.

Ulric was in front of her and beckoned with his hand. His fingers were long.

Strong.

When he had held her and she took blood, the fingers had been gentle, but Elise knew they contained strength—violence.

Ulric had that in abundance.

Ropes dangled, swinging from midway up the trees, and more of the Tree Men filled the gaps between trunks.

With the Fragment swarming around them, Elise reached her hand into the forest.

A shadow fell over her wrist from a branch that blocked the moonlight.

Ulric seized her limb and jerked her to him.

He crushed her much smaller body against his, and when the Fragment tried to tear her from him… they died.

The Fragment filled the woods and began to war with the Tree Men.

Ulric guided Elise to the base of a tree too wide to wrap five linked men around its perimeter.

She fell to her knees.

“Stay there,” Ulric said, his face already changing shape.

A Fragment screamed and came for him. He had his skull crushed by the very hands that had settled her against the trunk of the mighty tree.

Elise saw his eyes and clamped her hands over her ears as she frantically searched for Calia.

There.

Calia was also at a tree a few horse lengths away.

Their eyes met, and while Ulric was engaged with the Fragment, Elise alternately ran and crawled to Calia.

They met in the middle and clasped hands.

“What say you?”

Elise hiccupped back a sob. Her terror was so large she felt physically ill. “Jim said we must leave the forest behind the battle.”

Elise gave a hysterical laugh when Calia rolled her eyes.

“Yes, but clothing… we do not have it.”

Calia's eyes scanned their immediate area and, seeing nothing but fighting, gave up.

“Escape now, and we shall worry about clothing hence.”

Calia grabbed Elise's hand, and they ran paces, stopping behind trunks then running a few more.

The sounds of battle grew dim, and Elise's spirits rose.

They were to the edge of the forest when three of the Tree Men surrounded them.

Calia prowled in front of Elise. “I am not too sick to not slit your throats.”

She stood before them, golden hair silvered like shattered alabaster, illuminated by scattered moonlight that had managed to break through the forest canopy.

“We have no quarrel with you, Pure One.”

Elise did not wish to trade the Tree Men for the Fragment. Her heart belonged only to Adahy. If she could not have him, she would rather not be.

A terrible idea began to take shape in her mind, and Elise knew what she must do.

The first Tree Man came at Calia, and even Elise could see he thought to take her easily without risking injury.

He lost his arm.

Calia's blade came away black in the moonlight attached gore from his body. She flicked the mess to the ground.

Bloodied sinew made a wet splat as she stabbed upward and next charged with a gale of clucking sounds that raised Elise's hackles.

The noise of the fallen Tree Man brought others. Before long, Calia's knife was buried to the hilt inside of the second Tree Man, and she grunted, shoving it harder.

The urge to heal brought Elise to her knees.

Oh no, I cannot.

It appeared that Ulric had been right about that. She was truly mixed, and all mortal injury of those she shared blood with called to her.

Weakened her.

Elise wound an arm around her stomach. She had to escape.

Calia kicked away the attacker as a third slapped her face so hard it spun her head.

Elise grasped Calia's ankle and healed the damage instantly. Her touch repaired the fractured vertebrae, and Elise clung as Calia drew strength from her at her feet.

Elise watched Calia fight the third attacker.

Calia was no match for him. He was stronger, faster, bigger. Yet Elise healed all the damage he did against Calia.

And more.

Elise grimly held onto Calia. Each blow from her expert hands was much harder than Calia could have delivered.

The attacker fell on his side, eyes rolling from head trauma.

“Witch,” he breathed as Elise hugged Calia's shin, her cheek resting against the other woman's knee.

Elise felt his life slip away and released the breath she had been holding.

Calia lifted her by the armpits. “What have you done?”

“I have made you well,” Elise whispered.

“It is more than that,” Calia's eyes roamed her face. “You have made me perfect, strong—I was invincible.”

Ulric's blood, Elise thought a little incoherently.

There was more noise.

The women turned, and the Tree Men came. Others were getting the best of the Fragment, their superior numbers not enough to overcome them.

There would be none who lived this day.

Calia took Elise's hand and dragged her out of the forest.

Neither woman looked behind them as the noises of approaching footfalls grew louder.

They ran for freedom.

*

Elise and Calia burst through the edge of the woods like a reluctant birthing.

They hugged their sides, gasping.

No clothing warmed their bodies. They were free of the Tree Men yet had minutes before the cold would kill them.

Elise turned and saw the Tree Men in their environmental prison of thick branches and skyward trunks.

They appeared to bide their time in the shadows.

Elise and Calia exchanged an uneasy look and moved closer, putting their arms around each other for warmth. Elise tucked her head underneath Calia's chin, marveling at how tall she was.

On Elise's side, the closeness was for more than body heat. It was comfort.

The blood of the dead had broken the call of Ulric.

Then they had escaped the woods only to succumb to the elements.

As though she could read Elise's thoughts, Calia said, “Do not despair. We shall prevail over even this.”

“I fear not.”

“That is why we do not fear, but aspire. Fear is a robbery of the morrow, and hope is the harbinger of our future.”

The music of battle continued as if in the inescapable clutches of a nightmare, a savage dream.

Elise and Calia listened to the familiar sounds of men beating each other to death.

It was more silent than dying ought to have been.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Adahy

Slowly, Adahy swiped his first finger and middle fingers across his cheekbones in a deft, practiced motion.

Stripes of the slain's blood decorated both sides of his face.

It blocked evil spirits who would suck his soul from his body and should protect him against the Giants.

If legend held true, dead men's blood was protection against the Giants. The new Band came wearing the blood of others, and the Giants had bowed before it—all except Ulric.

Adahy tore through the woods, branches clawing at him as though entreating him to stay as he shoved aside Giants and Fragment alike, searching frantically for Elise and hoping he was not too late to thwart Ulric's agenda.

The Giants were not loftier than the Fragment—they simply had a different method of capture. They used blood and the magic of enthrallment to assist them in the capture of women. Would they abuse them as the Fragment had? Adahy did not know.

But a thief of freedom was as much a criminal as one who stole treasure. And there was no greater value than the women of this world. Without them, there would be no more people.

It was a wonder the Fragment still survived at all.

Adahy's eyes narrowed as he saw the telltale mark that one of the Band had passed this way.

Three Stone Giants lay on the ground, crumpled in a discarded pile of broken and bleeding body parts. One had lost his arm above the shoulder in a vicious downward strike of some leverage.

Adahy slowed, looking first right then left. No one lingered.

He looked up.

The trees were unadorned with ropes.

His eyes took in the surrounding light. Adahy was near the forest's border, and the Giants did not roam or bed down closely to that perimeter.

He sank to his haunches, feeling the cooling skin of the three dead.

It is not cold enough. He snatched his hand away, standing and backing off with an instinctual wariness.

One of the dead opened his eyes. His arm was not attached to his body, but as Adahy watched, the severed appendage crawled to endeavor reattachment.

Adahy retreated farther, creeping unease flooding his bowels.

Their bodies twitched on the ground, and a thread of memory tickled Adahy's brain. He wished he had remembered it earlier, when the knowledge could have assisted them all.

What had Chasing Hawk said as he recounted tales of the Stone Giants? Adahy's mind worked as the surreal presented itself at his feet: the impossibility of the dead coming to macabre life.

Their food is blood.

The sun their enemy.

The trees their sanctuary.

Dare not fight the Stone Giant.

Their power transcends even death.

Adahy could not fight this. Them.

The Giants were as unnatural as the Traveler, yet Adahy's human mind could reconcile itself to Jim and not to the Giants.

Adahy could kill the Giants, but then they would repair what he had destroyed.

As the limb spliced itself back to the arm, and the dead rose, Adahy's nose found Elise's scent.

Relief swept him.

He would not have to ask himself the question of what might happen if he stayed in this dark forest.

The forest of the damned.

*

Adahy wrenched himself free of the desecrated wood. Immediately he caught sight of Elise in the arms of Calia. He did not turn to see if his undead pursuers were close.

He ran to the females.

Elise disentangled herself from Calia and slammed into Adahy.

He crushed her to his body.

Adahy had never felt the need to weep as much as he did in that moment. He had never wept, even when Onatah had lain in his arms gasping her last breaths as he ended her misery.

Elise's skin was ice underneath his fingers, so Adahy tore off his outer wrap of leather and slung it around her shoulders.

It was lined with fur and would warm her.

Adahy gathered her close again, pressing a kiss on the top of her head while his eyes met Calia's.

“We need coats,” Calia said. She shuddered, and her teeth began chattering.

Her bravery was moving. Adahy knew Calia had to think of Edwin, who most likely lay dying by the hand of the Fragment. Philip's whereabouts remained unknown.

And yet, her resilience and will to live she wore as her only covering, even as tight clusters of gooseflesh bumped rose underneath the red of her undergarments.

“Let us reconnoiter to where—my brother—” Adahy watched her breathe slowly, deliberately. She was trying for order, for a stilling of her spirit so she might conquer what lay ahead. Adahy recognized the mark of survived trauma on her. He wore one as well.

Adahy nodded and pulled Elise along.

They moved as quickly as two women recovering from grave illness and almost frozen to death could force themselves to move.

But Calia somehow found the strength to run when she saw the still form of Edwin.

Adahy knew what had happened before the women did.

Calia's sure graceful gait slowed. When she halted at Edwin's body, she dropped to her knees, heedless of the snow and her lack of proper clothing.

“No!” she wailed.

Calia lay her head on Edwin's chest as though listening for a nonexistent heartbeat, then she thumped it with her fist.

“Do not leave me, treacherous man!” she bellowed into the still night air while their enemies watched from the forest.

Her fists rained down on a chest that no longer pushed and pulled the air of this world, but that of the next.

Adahy's head hung at her despair.

*

Jim

Jim staggered around, his ass having been thoroughly handed to him. His fingers bit into his fifteenth tree trunk as he clung, gasping for air from fighting for his life for the second time in the space of days. The furrowed bark was hard and brittle from the winter.

Light entered the forest from the open meadow beyond the woods, and he let go, looking neither right nor left, his eyes searching for the path of escape.

Jim walked forward, tripping over a body. Falling to his hands and knees, he pushed into it, and his palm sank into a fresh wound. He shuddered, pressed harder, and stood.

Jim wiped the gore on his jeans.

He would never come back here—if he could even get out. It was a tough place.

Vamps.

Cave guys.

Motivated Criminals. Not to mention other Travelers who—unlike Jim—were a carload of assholes.

Yeah, this place had it all.

Every part of his body hurt except his big toe. There's still time, he reflected.

Jim reached the border and pushed himself to stride the remaining two paces to exit the hell he'd just survived. He gradually became aware that Calia was beating the shit out of a body.

Jim did a limping run-walk to where she was and tossed himself at her.

They rolled away from the body, and she rose like a zombie, the upper part of her body plank stiff.

She was howling and flailing.

Hysteria.

Jim knew the cure and slapped her across the face.

A handprint appeared on her pale skin.

Guilt swamped Jim like a slow drowning. He was not really a fan of chick beating. But he couldn't have her alerting the media to their location. Jim didn't think he could kick a tick's ass right then.

“Calia!” he yelled, shaking her. Gold hair flew back and forth, and Jim received a kick in the ribs that made him rethink breathing. Ever.

He fell away and landed on his back.

Philip's face met his from above and upside down. “Ye do not lay a hand against a female. Especially this one.”

Jim opened his mouth like a beached whale. Open. Shut.

“Corpse,” Jim croaked illogically.

Philip's eyebrows rose. Then his gaze shifted to Edwin, whose body had begun to stiffen. Maybe he'd have lived if he could have been tended too. But beaten half to death and left in the fun weather of the midwestern winter, there was zero chance for survival.

Philip's expression changed, and he lowered his body enough to scoop up Calia.

She shuddered and sobbed against him.

Jim lay there.

Vaguely, he noticed the stars glittering like chips of mercury in the velvet of a sky without a trace of light pollution.

It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever witnessed.

Jim figured he was dying.

A person at death's door had all kind's of time to be introspective.

He couldn't feel his feet or hands, and his guts felt rearranged.

And for extra fun, breathing wasn't happening because he was pretty sure his ribs had skewered his lungs, courtesy of Philip.

Jim gave a last, gurgling sigh and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Vaughn

How many Blood Bearer's heads had he taken?

Many.

Hair made stringy with sweat had escaped its club and hung in Vaughn's face. He swung it away as another of the Bearers charged.

Immensely powerful, the enemy used his fangs to shred the meat of Vaughn's forearm as it rose to protect his face.

His arm came apart in viscous strings of skin and pain so horrible Vaughn removed his psyche from the tether of his body. Using his hand in a brutal caress, Vaughn drew his damaged arm backward and cupped his adversary's chin. He pulled it to the side with a twist while using his other hand at the back of the Bearer's head. Vaughn was helpless to stop a moan of agony from the pain the move cost him.

Vertebrae snapped, and the head fell without the stem of bony support it had enjoyed moments before.

Vaughn drew his dominant fist back and struck the Bearer's face in a hard punch, further compromising the head.

The head needed to be pulverized, or the Bearer would rise, and Vaughn and Zaid would fight the same enemy again.

Zaid fought beside Vaughn, their whispering strikes echoes of the  other as their backs brushed, making slow progress to the meadow.

Finally, they broke free.

Vaughn's leg was kicked out from beneath him at the last second and he landed hard on his back, half in and half out of the wood.

Except for that dangling leg, Vaughn had made it.

His relief was short-lived. That instant, a Bearer landed on the one appendage that remained inside the cover of forest.

Vaughn tried to crawl out of the woods. His left arm was a useless ruin, so Vaughn tucked and grabbed with his right. Vaughn's forearm dug a path ahead of him and lifted and dragged the rest of him.

The Bearer hung on.

Zaid was ahead. He clutched Vaughn underneath the shoulders and yanked him fully free of the shadows.

Moonlight and open air landed on the Bearer. He screamed, high and piteous in the exposed openness.

Hands released Vaughn and clawed their way through the compacted snow to re-enter the forest—too late.

As the moon cast its silver light on the Bearer, he began to sizzle and blacken. There were no flames, but a state of advanced decay.

The creature rotted from the inside out.

His hate-filled gaze found Vaughn.

Damning him.

Vaughn inhaled deeply and smiled.

Vaughn had won a victory by the slimmest of margins, and this one would suffer true death.

Then his mind sobered.

He and Zaid were there for a purpose, and with an incapacitating injury—and mayhap more Fragment about in the dead of winter—they were vulnerable. They were not truly safe.

Then there was the issue of Edwin.

When he heard a terrible wailing, Vaughn had a sudden portent.

His eyes met those of Zaid, and his warrior friend helped him to his feet.

“It is Calia.”

Vaughn nodded, grimacing at his numb arm and wasting a glance on the black slime of the Bearer's corpse. He turned back to Zaid. “She gives away our location quite freely.”

“Aye. Yet—methinks her reason is sound.”

Vaughn followed Zaid's gaze over the sparkling carpet of white. There, in a pool of blood and other bits lay Edwin.

A man Vaughn did not know struck Calia.

He and Zaid did not exchange words but ran to prevent more harm coming to her by another's hand.

Just as they arrived, a sound kick was administered to the thin, oddly attired young man of indeterminate origin.

“What say you?” Zaid asked. But Vaughn was observing the scene. Calia was hysterical, Edwin dead, and the strange man lay in an apparent unconscious state.

“Jim attacked Calia,” the huge warrior of a foreign Band stated.

A hiss carried across the open pasture, stirring stalks of frozen pasture grass like a secret whisper.

The Band turned. Ulric stood at the edge.

“We will meet again.”

The words were spoken so quietly they should not have carried. Vaughn shuddered.

The Bearers stood shoulder to shoulder at the place where the wood became sparse. A smattering of trees stripped of leaves stood like indifferent toothpicks.

“Evil,” Adahy said in Iroquois. Vaughn recognized some of the Red Men words he had learned through trading. He did not need to know what Adahy said exactly, for the sentiment was clear. He was sure they all felt similarly.

A hand fell on his arm, and he sucked in a breath, jumping like a female at the foreign touch. His eyes had been so consumed by the sight of the leader of the Bearers he had been blind to the nearness of others.

He glanced down. A small female with hair as dark as a raven's wing and skin like alabaster walked her fingers in a slow crawl to where the wound of his arm was located.

“Do not, young female,” Vaughn cautioned, not understanding her intent.

“I shall,” she said in a slightly dreamy voice, “heal your wounds, warrior.”

Without further preamble, her fingers dug into the worst of it, and Vaughn screamed at the brutal intrusion in a low, miserable timbre of agony.

The Red Man held his arms like a vise, and he struggled against the pain. Her fingers sunk deeper, and he yelled for her to stop.

“She heals,” the Red Man said.

As Vaughn's eyes were dryly rolling in his sockets and his stomach starting to rise, heat took the place of where the sickening pain had been.

Vaughn went loose in the arms that held him.

Suddenly, those fingers, which had been so torturous, caressed and stroked the wounded area again and again.

Deeply.

Then they invaded more shallowly.

Minutes later, they were on the surface of his skin.

Vaughn opened his eyes and looked at his arm. It was completely healed.

The Red Man let him go. Vaughn spotted Zaid watching everything from a horse length away.

His inattentiveness angered Vaughn. “Thank you for your assistance,” he said sarcastically.

Zaid smirked. “You did not need what I offer.” His gaze went to the young female.

Vaughn made a low noise of disdain and scanned the immediate area. The place where the leader of the Bearers had been was empty. The threat of the Bearer's had receded. For now.

He sank to his knees beside Edwin and hung his head. Finally, he looked up at Calia.

“You be Calia?”

She nodded, most of her body buried against another of the Band. Vaughn stifled his jealously.

Now was not the time to embrace emotion. They were terribly exposed in their current position.

Calia was his betrothed. Yet her brother had just died, and she had been at the tender mercies of a species he had encountered only once before from a distance.

With a final glance at the woods, where a war had been waged, Vaughn stood.

Vaughn did not feed words of comfort to himself. He would not self-delude.

They had escaped, yet they had not won.

There was no winning against the Blood Bearers, but simply enlisting in a game of avoidance. If the Bearers had been set on having the women, they would be theirs even now.

Something was afoot.

But Vaughn had not come to figure out the problems of the mid-plains, but to escort Edwin and Calia.

He had failed to return both children to their mother, so one would have to suffice. But the reunion would not be a happy one.

It mattered not. He had to fulfill whatever part of his duty he could.

Vaughn regarded the large warrior who had assumed the position of protector of Calia—who by rights was the charge of him and Zaid as she hailed from their home clan. As Vaughn looked into Calia's eyes, he knew she would not be wooed with brute force.

No, he must use skill.

“We are here.” Vaughn cleared his throat and remembered the Healer and turned to her. “Thank you.” His face flushed with shame that he had not acknowledged her earlier.

She seemed unperturbed by his lack of manners and rewarded him with a small smile. She kept her arms locked around the waist of the Iroquois warrior who looked suspiciously of Band.

“You are welcome, Vaughn of the Band.”

His eyebrow lifted.

“I am Elise.” She lightly touched the chest of the male who held her. “This is Adahy.”

He clasped his arms around the free forearm of the Iroquois. “We are well met.”

Adahy nodded, and Vaughn could not help but admire the silent strength he presented.

His gaze fell on Edwin's still body on the snow then went to Calia.

“Let us look after him.”

Calia's face dropped into her palms, and she sobbed. The women held each other while the males began the somber task of burial in full view of the Bearers, for there was no doubt that they watched.

Their proximity did not trouble Vaughn and Zaid. They knew the Bearers could not exit the woods.

It was better to have the enemy in sight. Their party would be in danger when they began to travel to the bridge, and the Bearers used the corridors of woods that connected the large forests with the smaller ones, like intersecting lily pads.

The Bearers would follow the women, for they had been marked through taking blood.

Vaughn would determine why.

Bearers did not choose females not of their kind.

He focused on Calia.

She was a Select. She should not have been chosen—unless something horrible had occurred.

There could only be one answer: The large Bearer, Ulric, had chosen a mate outside of his Clan—without her express knowledge, under cover of falsity. Toward what end?

The legend said that the Bearers had once been Clan. If that were so, both women could technically be claimed.

Vaughn stared into the depths of the forest, his gaze seeking and coming up empty.

He would not allow them to have the Healer or Calia.

He nodded to Zaid, who retrieved the rucksacks they had hidden underneath an outcropping of flat stones that were cream and caramel colored, blending most closely with the snow.

Zaid extracted a short spade.

The men worked to dig a hole. The tone was somber, their enemies on all sides, as they buried one of the Band.

Brother, warrior, kinsman.

Calia's sobs were loud in the stillness as Edwin's body was slowly lowered into the ground.

Elise hugged Calia as the males worked to close the hole with frozen dirt and her grief.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Jim

Jim had regained consciousness when the Band guys were burying Edwin. Calia had calmed down since his beat-down by Philip, and Jim had failed twice to stand on his own. That big bastard had broken his ribs with the kick.

Jim glared at Philip.

Then Elise had come and healed him.

He'd passed out a second time from what she'd done with her fingers. When he woke, the grave was long gone, and he'd been dragged behind the group on some kind of tarp thing erected between two poles.

Jim would have given his eye teeth to be in a lab right about now.

Instead, all he could think about was Team Gut, his stomach letting out a not-so-subtle roar.

“It's frozen solid,” Jim exhaled in disgust as he stared at the frozen haul of pheasant, his ribs throbbing with healing. “And, I don't know about you but I could eat a Hippo's ass.”

Elise's face puckered in confusion and Jim snorted out a laugh. A plume of frosty air smoked out and floated away.

“You speak of eating the buttocks of animals with alarming frequency, my friend,” Philip said good-naturedly, and Jim spared him a second scowl.

Philip chuckled, and Jim restrained the urge to flip him the bird.

The sun had risen and the Big Feet had sunk back into their forest hidey-hole.

Now that the threat of being human pin cushions to the apey vamps had passed for the moment, food was all that mattered.

“We risk notice with a fire,” Vaughn commented thoughtfully, scanning the narrow corridor between two great swaths of trees.

Big flakes of dried blood were still glued to his face like a morbid patchwork quilt. Jim had Fragment blood ground underneath his nails. He was lamenting it wasn't another culture so he could scrape it out and study the DNA with his pulse-finder. The P-F could chart the DNA to pre-Neanderthal dates to a gnat's ass if he had just one flake.

But no one cared about the Fragment, many of whom were modern-day criminals displaced here from when the Pathway had been illegally used.

Jim grumped. He was hungry, thirsty, colder than hell, and sick of all the bullshit of this world.

But they'd escaped the Fragment—for now—and the Forest Devils, Blood Bearers, Stone Giants, or whatever they were, were tucked away for the day in the forest.

They were the scariest things running in these parts, so the woods were off-limits. Vaughn and Zaid, from a clan not too far from here, had encountered the big-feet vamps—as Jim liked to think of them—once before, knew more of the lore, and had scarier shit than this recent fun to recount. It didn't seem possible. Jim thought his ears would ring forever from the pounding he'd received.

Adahy gave a rolling shrug of his massive shoulders and commented, “Heat and food are vital or we all die.”

Jim couldn't argue with that. The decision to down food and get warm at the same time outweighed the fear of a wandering group of Fragment seeing their fire like a smoke signal. He watched as Philip, Adahy, Vaughn and Zaid worked together to build a fire. They built it a good distance from the woods. Yet the two sides of the forest felt chokingly claustrophobic as they rose on either side of their group.

Jim swore he could feel the eyes of the Tree Men on him, though every time his gaze passed over the woods, he saw no one.

Vaughn began speaking. Calia listened but said nothing, listlessly pushing the coals around with a stick. She'd plow the tip into the snow to quench the flame then go back to shoving it into the coals.

Philip sat beside her and watched her closely but didn't interfere.

Jim felt like he'd been plopped into a big relationship mess he had no background information about.

But soon it wouldn't matter. Jim admitted he wanted this group to get to where they were going safely—they were the good guys. But he wanted his ass out of there in the worst way.

He came back from his thoughts when Vaughn said, “If we keep to the bridge, the Blood Bearers will not follow.”

“How do you know?” Jim asked, sitting as close to the fire as he could get. Fat from a defrosting double row of strung pheasants spit in the flames, popping and crackling.

Jim's mouth began to water.

The pheasant were lined up, twenty total. Once they'd been plucked of their feathers, they were actually pretty small. Jim didn't even care there was no other food to go with them.

Fuck the fries. . Jim was starved.

“When we encountered the Bearers before, they seemed afraid of the bridge.”

Jim didn't think Ulric was afraid of anything. He had the distinct feeling that he'd been biding his time. It was what he was biding his time for that made Jim uneasy.

There wasn't a person in this place that wasn't dangerous, and the element of surprise was the norm not the exception.

The food was ready, the canteens having been laid around the perimeter of the hastily created fire pit, and slowly the frozen water had melted.

They ate and drank in consuming silence, their basic need for food, water, and safety keeping idle conversation at a minimum.

*

Jim licked his fingers. Noting that he didn't have a napkin, he licked his lips.

He felt like a million bucks. The bland meat had gone down like heaven on a bone.

Elise laughed softly. “You were beyond hunger?”

Jim nodded then stood. “I thought I'd never eat again.”

“Aye,” Philip said, throwing the bones from his third pheasant in the fire.

Even Calia, so slim she appeared vaguely malnourished, had eaten an entire bird and rested against Philip with eyes half-hooded with fatigue and satiation.

“We do not have to continue to the Clan of Massachusetts, Calia,” Philip suddenly said, holding her chin and directing her gaze to his.

Was it Jim's imagination, or did the new guys tense up?

Nice. Here we go again.

“Calia accompanies us, warrior,” Vaughn said in his distinct and quiet voice.

Philip looked ready to jerk his head off.

“Philip.” Calia turned inside the circle of his arms, and he squeezed her against him. “I do not wish to leave you—or to reside in a clan I do not know.”

Philip's pose relaxed, and Vaughn frowned.

“However,” she went on quietly, “I must meet my mother again. Edwin has…” Her throat convulsed, and with some effort, she met Philip's eyes again. Her own had a sheen of tears. “Died.”

Philip said nothing, but he and Vaughn exchanged a stare while Zaid sat nearby, cleaning his teeth with a small blade.

Jim shook his head. The Band dudes went hard.

“I hear you say you wish to use the bridge Vaughn and Zaid speak of,” Philip replied, “yet mayhap it is your grief giving voice to a plan you would otherwise not consider.”

Calia shook her head. “It is not as though I have a plan to stay there forevermore. It is that—I wish to see where I came from and with my own eyes, the vestige of my past. Perhaps there is something that will trigger a piece of joy that remains. Yet greater than my desire is my mother's need to have something not steeped in the tea of grief. With Edwin gone, she has only me.”

Jim looked at the ground, feeling like a voyeur in intimate discussions. But here in the vast Outside, privacy was moot.

Adahy raised a palm, and in halting English laced with Iroquois, he proposed the best idea Jim had heard—the one plan of action that with any luck would allow him to return home.

Vaughn grasped his chin thoughtfully. “You say that you and Elise seek safety for a time?”

Adahy nodded. “The Iroquois do not stay in one place for long. The life of those in the sphere is not the Iroquois way.”

The silence blew up in the middle of his words.

What Adahy didn't say—but that everyone immediately understood—was that it had been safe in the sphere, and the woman he traveled with was in jeopardy because of his wanderlust.

Jim got it, though. Adahy had felt trapped in a foreign environment.

Just like Jim.

“You are welcome at the Clan of Massachusetts,” Vaughn said.

Philip nodded. “It does make the most sense upon superficial reflection.”

Any reflection, as far as Jim was concerned.

Philip went on, “We are far from the sphere—our clan is no more. Edwin has passed on.” He lay a large palm on the top of her head and stuffed it against his side as she took a hitching breath. “It will be critical for Calia to reclaim her heritage, and further, to recover from having the disease of pox.” He gave Jim a significant glance, and Jim nodded to indicate he was correct. “She will need time to recuperate and reacquaint herself with her rightful clan.”

Jim could tell it pained Philip to make these concessions. Faced with the unknowns of the Pathway and a new clan, he might've chosen differently. He must have really loved Calia because it would have been easier for him to just take off with Calia and not look back.

Edwin had been the one pressuring them to go back to his clan for some kind of Rite. Jim didn't know all the details—things had been so chaotic, and no one had found out much about the other.

Zaid stood. “It is settled then. Adahy and Elise will accompany the rest of the party through the bridge.”

Six sets of eyes turned to Jim.

His palms flew up. “I'm in.” His eyes narrowed on Philip, and he pointed his finger. “No more kicking my ass, big guy.”

“Do not touch my female.”

“Deal,” Jim said.

He palmed one of the anti-sickness tablets, and when no one was looking, dry swallowed it. Its effectiveness would last twenty-four hours.

He kept his plans to take a detour once inside the bridge to himself.

CHAPTER THRITY-TWO

Elise

The group moved on, bolstered by full bellies and a time of gathering warmth and rest. The trek to the place where the mouth of the portal stood was a comparatively happy one.

Elise could not wait until she and Adahy made the uncertain journey through the “bridge” and to a place safe from the Tree Men. Yet there were things that disturbed Elise about the war between their peoples. It had never been made clear that Ulric was trying to kidnap, capture, or in some other way harm Calia and her. What Elise did know was that he had cured them.

She remembered his claim that they were of like blood.

Did that mean, that somewhere—deep in Elise's ancestry, her people had lived in the forests and drunk blood instead of consuming meat for their sustenance? Further, and more troubling, now that she had partaken of Ulric's blood, would she be tied to him? Yes, Jim had broken the tender blood tie with the use of the blood of the murdered Fragment. But how long would that assure the division?

Those thoughts were not ones that Elise outwardly considered but they crouched like hiding animals inside the deepest recesses of her mind.

What was foremost in her thoughts was fragile hope for a life without the daily strife and terror, as hers had been only a month before.

Adahy took her hand and lifted it to his lips.

His breath was warm and full of life against her icy skin.

When the portal shimmered in a loose circle above the frozen ground they smiled at each other.

Their journey was almost through.

*

Adahy

Adahy's relief was great. Abiding guilt had grown larger as the journey had become more treacherous. Picking up the odd Traveler named Jim was the least of the strange occurrences. Adahy thought briefly of Chasing Hawk and wondered if he and his tribesmen were safe.

He did not know, and it would not be something he would easily discover soon. Securing Elise's safety consumed him. He would not give her up to Fragment or to a Giant—she was his, and he was hers.

He kissed the top of her hand and was troubled by its coldness.

He regained his composure, confident that when they arrived, the clan of Edwin would welcome their group due to the presence of Calia, even though Edwin was lost to them.

Calia had been important enough for her home clan to send two warriors to intercept her.

He glanced at Philip as he lifted Calia to his shoulders.

Her fingertips brushed the glittering bottom of the portal.

A low keening portent sunk into Adahy's marrow.

He was not one to dismiss those feelings of intuition. The Iroquois listened to their spirit side.

His spirit whispered a warning—one he did not heed.

His path was set.

Elise had to be protected at all cost.

*

Jim

Jim felt the warm euphoria that came with the pill-popping. Now he wouldn't get Pathway cancer and die wretchedly.

Maybe he'd only puke a little as the Pathway spit him into his world.

Jim dug that. It'd been a long damn haul, and he had some samples in his tote that he'd managed to hang onto the entire way.

And one more pill.

Jim glanced at Adahy and Elise. They were probably enough Band to make it without a pill. Jim only had one left.

He couldn't wait to spill the beans to someone bigger than the HC about what was really going on here in the sphere world.

They weren't collecting samples. Well, Jim had been doing his actual job. Then his job became saving his own ass.

What the “Travelers” of his world had actually been doing was a slow genocide, infecting the females of this world with smallpox, which was absolutely incurable in this desolate and primitive place. Once they died out, the result would be simple: no babies.

Jim had managed to identify the problem but watched helplessly as the two women had succumbed.

It was actually the blood sucker, Ulric, who had given them the gift of some freak immunity and saved them.

But at what cost? What had Ulric wanted in return? They'd avoided the forests all the way to the bridge Pathway, but Jim still felt the presence of the all-seeing tree guys. He couldn't shake it. He was sure it was his science brain, pissed as a tick without a deer, wanting to get a sample of that group.

That would have been a hell of a coup.

Jim strode to the circle just as Vaughn rolled a log. With Zaid helping, he turned it on its side like a step stool.

Everyone was in the Pathway except Jim.

He advanced to the stump and put his foot on the fat stump.

The portal did not activate the travel of an individual until every part of the body was completely inside.

Vaughn hung outside the wide loop of the Pathway entrance, his hand extended toward Jim. His lower body was entombed within the Pathway entrance.

Jim grabbed his hand, and Vaughn jerked him inside then let go and hurtled in a popping suction behind Jim.

Jim's fingers clung to the edge. Ninety-nine percent of his body was inside the Pathway. The buzzing pulse tunnel clawed with magnetization perfectly geared to his body.

Triumph at his survival of this place and excitement to return swelled inside him.

Jim gave the Outside a final glance before he let go—and met Ulric's eyes.

Jim was so startled he prematurely released his hold, and was sucked helplessly backward into the darkness of endlessly falling without landing.

Fire and ice bit along his skin as his mind screamed an unheard alarm.

THE END

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A TERRIBLE

LOVE

A novel

Marata Eros

A TERRIBLE LOVE

Copyright © 2013 Marata Eros

Excerpt

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.

Chapter One

Two years later

“Jess!” Carlie calls, chasing after me. I listen to the rat-tat-tat of her high-heeled boots stabbing the poor hallway behind me.

God, if it is another scheme to get me to go along with some crazy-ass plan  . . . I’m going to be pissed.

“Jess!” she shouts, and I turn.

It’s impossible to stay mad at Carlie; she is too over-the-top ridiculous for words. My eyes take in her customary look, the perfectly coiffed hair, the skinny jeans jammed into second-skin boots that somehow house thinly knit leg warmers. And don’t even get me started on what she rams her boobs into. It is surely a manacle for tits.

How did she get them to look like that? I shake my head and smile despite myself.

“She smiles! Excellent!” Carlie runs and throws her arms around me, saying in an uncharacteristic whisper, “Look what I have, girlfriend.” She waves a paper around in my face like a flag.

I can’t make anything out, it’s just a grayish blur. “Stop that, ya tool!” I say with false rage.

Carlie gives me the bird and holds it steady in front of my face. The words come together in a collision of—no. I'm not going,” I say, beginning to walk away.

“I’m not going,” I say, beginning to walk away.

“You are so going,” Carlie says. Then softly she calls, “Jess.”

I stand with my back to her as other students ram through the hall, jostling and loud, maybe a minute left until class.

“What?” I ask, still not turning.

“It’s ballet,” she says.

“I know,” I whisper. I break out in a light sweat, an automatic response. The opportunity to indulge my passion for dance, my former privileged life’s only oasis, now teases me with its nearness.

“They’re coming here . . . to our school. You could, like . . . audition.”

I could. “No, Carlie.”

She takes me at my word, throwing the paper in the trash and slinging an arm around my neck. Carlie uses me for balance as she totters around on her stilettos. “You have to admit it was a good idea.”

I look up into her face; she’s a damn Amazonian. “Yeah,” I say.

“You can’t run forever, Jess.”

Her words jolt me, but then I realize Carlie is just using an expression. She isn’t being literal.

It seems a little too easy; she’s usually a dog with a bone.

Carlie stops hanging off me like a monkey and we part ways for our respective courses.

I listen to the sound of her heels as they echo down the nearly empty hall.

I take a deep breath and pass through the door for English lit class. Just one of many sophomores in a generic university in the great state of Washington. I like blending in.

My life depends on it.

Ballet was my life—before. I can’t give it up, because it won’t give me up. The music plays in my head night and day. It’s a wonder I ever get anything accomplished. Some of the other students might see a subtle bob of my head and wonder. I smile at the looks and stare off into space during lectures.

I do a similar internal music routine when I work at the coffee shop like a good drone; my partial scholarship at the University of Washington requires a little sideline income. I’m lucky to have it. I had to test out of a bunch of freshman courses, prove proficiency and then cop out as poor. I certainly couldn’t use my former grades and prestigious private school to get the full ride I’d had. That was from before.

It was all worth it. The stress, the work.

Then Carlie wormed her way inside my defenses despite every obstacle I’d thrown up in her way. Declared herself my friend when it went against every promise I’d made to myself. I broke them all with our friendship. What she sees in me I’ll never know.

Carlie knows about the ballet barre I installed in my dorm room, which doesn’t have space for it; it’s pretty tough to hide and it’s my only décor. A huge metal bar driven into studs behind drywall. Yeah, so beautiful. I move my bed every day and go to sleep each night looking at it. Trying to forget. Ballet blanks the pain; it’s the eraser of my memories.

Each day I execute my barre exercises, just as I did every day when I was another girl. Now I am a woman, with woman-sized desires and dreams. My traumatic memories haven’t robbed me of my humanity. No matter what happens there’s a stubborn spark that wants to live.

Carlie has begun something inside me with the whisper of the ballet company visiting the U Dub campus. I ignore that something, beat at it when it appears, reject it, but it refuses to let go and blooms inside me.

Hope.

It’s all Carlie’s fault. I was just fine when I didn’t have any.

Now it’s here and there is no hiding from it.

I open my mouth as I put the blue contact in, blinking once, hoping the damn thing will sit correctly. I’ll never take having perfect vision my whole life for granted again. At the end of the day I can’t wait to tear the suckers out of my eyes; they dry up like popcorn farts and burn like hell.

I stand away from the mirror, applying the barest hint of colored lip gloss, giving my eyeballs time to rest from the abuse of inserting contacts. I brush my teeth, squirt vanilla body spray on all the high points and cover my deep-ginger lashes with chocolate-colored mascara.

I flutter them and decide they look just right. Next, I plait my hair into two thick braids. Even braided my hair is past my breasts; its former deep auburn is now dark blond. Its length is my only concession to my former life. Despite its length, it is nondescript, nearly invisible.

Just like I want it.

I study my hairline for roots. Finding none, I step away from the mirror, then turn back to it and stick my tongue out.

It’s a glaring blue from the Blow Pop I’ve just ruthlessly sucked on.

I need to grow up.

I saunter off just as the knock comes at my door.

Carlie doesn’t wait for an invitation, she just bursts in.

I put my hands on my hips. “Why bother knocking?” I laugh.

She flicks her hair over a shoulder and puckers her lips, giving a dismissive shrug.

I don’t see her stuff my ballet slippers in her backpack.

“Ready?” she asks innocently.

“Yeah, just . . .” I collect a few things, ramming them into my oversized Guess purse, which I swing over my shoulder.

It’s a rare day off and I am really dragging ass. I’m sore from the barre and twirling in the middle of a dorm room with only the walls watching my perfect performance.

Pathetic.

“You wore makeup,” Carlie says, eyeballing my pathetic attempt to look cute.

“Does mascara and lip gloss qualify?” I ask.

“Hell, yeah! Especially for you,” she exclaims vigorously. “Miss au naturel.” She giggles behind her hand.

“Bitch,” I say.

“Sticks and stones and all that happy ho-ho shit,” she replies, completely unperturbed by my shameless name calling.

“Why did you tell me to wear makeup?” I ask, suspicious as I cross my arms underneath my breasts, my eyes narrowing. I slam my dorm door, rattling the knob to ensure it’s locked. It never closes right.

We move away from the door and I impatiently wait for her response.

Carlie’s brows arch and she pouts at me. “Because: you will look attractive to the opposite sex. If it takes my last breath, you will look cute even while we sweat.”

I look down at my yoga pants, the turned band at the top a muted tie-dye pattern, with a tight deep-blue tee and my braided hair rounding out the hippie-chic thing I’ve got going on.

“I think you’ll have to try harder,” I say.

“If you were just sluttier,” Carlie says mournfully, hiding behind her dark curly hair.

I slug her and she yelps, giving me hurt eyes, then she smiles. “I’ll wear ya down, you’ll see.”

“Never!” I stab the air with my fist as we turn the corner and a wall of noise hits me. Everywhere I look there are students, older adults and an odd assortment of people I’ve never seen. It’s too much to take in. I turn to Carlie; obviously, we totally can’t work out today.

“Hey,” I say, looking into the deep auditorium that doubles as a gym. “What’s going on . . . what are all these people doing?”

But Carlie’s already moving and doesn’t hear my question.

An older woman is seated behind a folding desk and Carlie speeds to the desk, her flats making no sound as they whisper across the floor.

She signs in to some ledger and I start taking it in.

A totally hot guy comes to me with a numbered paper and a safety pin. “Hey,” he says, and I stare numbly at him. I can’t think of a thing to say.

“Hi!” Carlie blurts from beside me, fluttering her sooty eyelashes at La Hunk. “This is my friend Jess Mackey.”

Hunk smiles at me and I sink into his pale gray eyes—drown, more like. “I’m Mitch,” he says.

I stare.

Carlie elbows me with a traitorous cackle. God, can she be more obvious? “I’m Jess,” I stick out my hand and he swallows it in his own.

“I know.” He smirks and a dimple flashes into place, disappearing just as quickly. He swings back long dark hair that refuses to stay out of his eyes.

“Right,” I say, heat flooding my face.

He steps into my private bubble and my flush deepens; my heart starts to speed when he reaches for my thin T-shirt and I shrink away from him.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs beside my face, his minty breath tickling the sensitive skin there. “I’m attaching your number.”

What number?

I look around and see about fifty girls with their hair slicked back in tight buns, some high, some on the nape because they’ve been zapped with the unlucky thick-hair gene like yours truly.

Realization slams into me.

The Seattle Pacific Ballet Company has arrived. This is the audition Carlie tried to bully me into attending a few days ago. Heat suffuses my body in a sickening nauseous wave. I turn to leave and Mitch puts a staying hand gently on my arm. He jerks his jaw toward where a mock stage has been set up. “It’s this way, dancing girl.” He smiles, his teeth very white in his face.

“I can’t do it . . . I’m not signed up,” I say, folding my arms again, the paper with my audition number crinkling underneath the gesture.

His smile widens into a grin as he dips his head to look at a clipboard that just magically appears. Mitch runs a long, tapered finger down the assembled names until he reaches midway. He taps it once and I jump slightly. He lifts his chin, a light dusting of dark stubble sprinkled on the slight cleft that bisects it. “There you are,” he says softly. “Mackey, Jess.”

He sweeps his hand in front of me; I give a death glare to Carlie and my traitor friend winks at me.

I can’t not audition without looking like an ass.

My feet are dragging like lead fills my shoes.

My slippers!

Carlie jogs to my side and hands me my ballet slippers. I seethe at her; she smiles sweetly and whispers, “Break a leg.”

I gaze at the stage like it’s the fabled pirate’s plank. My stomach clenches as I move to take my place in line and watch the girl onstage.

She’s perfect . . . breathtaking.

The music ends softly and she moves off the stage. The judges whisper and I know immediately who they’ll choose.

It won’t be me.

I think of Faith and what she would have wanted. I think of how I love her still. Of how this dream of Faith's that I reach my full potential, that I escape the madness of a household ruled by indifferent tyranny and jealousy born of privilege and entitlement come to an end... and a new beginning. Thad can't reach me here, and this is my way to honor Faith, and in so doing- myself.

Then an extraordinary thing happens. When it is my turn I float up the steps and onto the temporary stage as they put on Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven.

It’s from before.

The notes breathe through the auditorium, making the fine hairs of my neck stand at attention. The music robs me of thought, forcing my body to execute moves I forgot I knew. My arms sweep, and I pirouette, spinning and snapping my head to find my corner. The soreness from earlier melts away as my body heats with familiarity. As I whip my leg up, my foot is parallel to my head for a fraction of time and then I land softly, only to immediately rise to the balls of my feet as I approach the judges with their riveted stares. The length of the song and its sad ending beg my  limbs to undulate in a perfectly timed flutter of classic swan arms. I draw nearer still while keeping my elbows level as my arms float in a wavelike pattern and the balls of my feet propel me forward just as the final piano notes fall.

Then once more their sorrowful notes swell and fill the auditorium in melancholy triumph.

I stop, dipping into a graceful plié, and assume first position.

My hands are cupped slightly and I tilt my head, looking off to the right of my position.

The utter lack of noise causes me to look at the judges as I relax my shoulders and my hands drop gracefully to my sides.

They have stood and every eye is on me. Including the gray gaze of a certain hunk named Mitch.

When the applause breaks out I don’t know whether to cry or run.

In the end, I stay.

My eyes scan the crowd and notice the one person who does not clap.

A man leans against the back of the cavernous gym auditorium, his black eyes seeming to attack me, and I take an involuntary step backward from the burning intensity of his gaze.

Carlie interrupts the moment, throwing herself at me.

“I knew you could,” she whispers, strangling me in an epic hug that cuts off my airway.

I gently push her away and look for that disconcerting male presence. Hostile.

But he is gone.

Just like he was never there.

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THE TOKEN

Volume One

Copyright © 2013 Marata Eros

Kindle Edition

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.

“Love sears the heart immortal

The embers burnt down to the token which remains ....”

~ Prologue ~

“You're dying,” Dr. Matthews says.

Two words.

Final.

Complete.

Desolate.

I feel my fingers clench the armrests of the chair underneath me, but the rest of my body remains numb.

If his words aren't enough to convince me, I see my silence is a prevailing annoyance in his day.

Dr. Matthews walks stiffly, making his way to the softly glowing X-ray reader.

I flinch when he slaps the photo of the soft tissue of my brain against the magnetic tabs of the lit surface.

The light glows around the tumor, immortalizing the end of my life like an emblazoned tool of disregard.

Just the facts, ma’am.

I sway as I stand, gripping the solid oak of his desk. It's very large, an anchor in the middle of his prestigious office full of the affectations of his career.

I walk toward Matthews. His hard face is edged by what might be sympathy. After all, it's not every day he tells a twenty-two-year-old woman she's got moments to live.

Actually, I do have time—months.

It's just not enough.

I look at the mess that's my brain, at the damning half a golf ball buried in a spot that will make me a vegetable if they operate. My eyes slide to the name at the bottom. For a split second, I hope to see another name there. But my own greets me.

Mitchell, Faren.

I back up and Matthews reaches to steady me.

But it's too late.

I spin and run out of his office as his voice calls after me. The corners of my coat sail behind me as I slap the metal hospital door open and take the cement steps two at a time.

I see my car parked across the street and race to it. My escape, my despair, is a thundering initiative I can't deny.

I miss the hit as if it happens to someone else. Only the noise permeates my senses as light flashes in my peripheral vision, mirrors against sunlight. I tumble in a slow spin of limbs. My body heaves and rolls, hitting the asphalt with a breath-stealing slap.

I lie against the rough black road. My lungs beg for air, burning for oxygen, and finally I take a sucking inhale that tears through my lungs.

The wet road feels cool against my face as I watch someone come into my line of sight. My body burns and my head aches. My arm is a slim exclamation point from my body, my fingers twitching. I can't make them stop. I can't make anything stop.

Powerless.

The doctor is too late with his condemning words. I've already died. I know this because the man who approaches is an angel. A helmet comes off hair so deep auburn it's a low-burning lick of flame. He swims toward me like a mirage, walking in a surreal slow motion. I blink, and my vision blurs. I try to raise my arm to wipe my eyes and whimper when it disobeys my command.

My angel crouches down, his eyes a deep brown, belying the dark bronze of his hair. “Shhh... I got you.” His voice is a deep melody.

I sigh. Safe.

I try to focus on him but the helmet he parks next to his boots becomes three as my vision triples.

There's a scuffle and I try to move to see what all the commotion's about. The angel wraps his warm large hand around my smaller one and  smiles. “It's going to be okay.”

That's when I know I'm not in heaven.

That's what people say when nothing is okay.

~ 1 ~

One month prior

I flex my hand, grab my isometric handgrip, and do my hundred reps. So fun—a little like flossing my teeth. I put on the kettle with my good hand and turn the burner on high.

Flex, squeeze, release, flex again.

I get to a hundred and switch hands. As I go through my daily ritual, I flip open my Mac and browse my emails.

Faren, can you cover my shift? Faren, can you come in a half hour early? Faren, can you bring the main dish for the office pot luck?

Delete, delete, delete.

I'll say yes because it's hard for me to say no. Tough lessons in life have taught me that.

I put my handgrip on the corner of the end table, glancing at my left pinky and frowning. It's almost straight. Almost. No one can tell unless they're looking for it. No one ever looks that hard. Humanity glosses over shit.

I leave my laptop open and walk back to the stove. Depression-era jadeite salt and pepper shakers stand dead in the middle of a 1950s pink stove. The combo reminds me of an Easter egg. The kettle insists it's ready, bleating like a sheep. I lift it carefully, deliberately, using all the muscles of my hands as I've been taught.

As I teach others to do.

I pour the hot water over the tea bag and sigh, forcing my bad hand to thread through the loop of the tea cup handle. My dexterity is returning. I've pushed myself so hard that my hand rebels, willfully abandoning its hold on the cup.

The porcelain shatters, and shards fly on the wood floor of my tiny apartment above the main street where I live in deep anonymity. The pieces splinter in all directions, and I sigh. I want to chop off my hand.

I want to cradle it against my chest because it still works. Just not perfectly.

Like my life.

*

“Another headache?” Sue asks.

I nod, my hands falling away from my temples as I reach for my patient folder. I grip it with both hands and scan who's up first.

Bryce Collins. Pain. In. My. Ass.

I grin. I love the tough nuts to crack. They make it all worth it. I stride to my torture chamber, pushing the door open with my hip and search through the sea of work out equipment and hand held physical therapy implements to meet the sullen gaze of a seventeen-year old athletic prodigy.

A prodigy with a chip on his shoulder so wide I could drive a truck through it. Well I have my own dings and dents. We can compare later.

Right now, it's all about the work.

“Hi, Bryce.”

He mumbles a reply as I hand him the first merciless task. The huge rubber band fits around the pole in the center of the room. Mirrors line the wall and toss back our struggles.

And our triumphs.

I watch as he half-heartedly goes through the motions of his straight leg kicks. When he reaches twenty I scoop my hand down and latch onto his hamstring and he groans at my touch. “Bend your knee a little,” he does while giving me a look that could kill. I stare neutrally back until his gaze drops and he finally digs in.

An hour later, shaking and sweating, Bryce's huge and muscled body lumbers outside my door. He pauses as he opens it, looking at me with pissed off brown eyes.

“I hate you, Miss Mitchell,” he says and means it.

I smile back. I totally get it. Bryce needs to hate me to get better. It beats hating himself. I nod. “I know.”

He walks out, and I run my finger down the patient appointments for the day. Kiki makes her loud entrance, and my lips twist. She balances chai tea in both hands, staggering in too-tall heels that sink into the nearly bald carpet.

“Gawd!” she huffs as she winds her way through the ellipticals, weight machines, and treadmills. She leans against the walking bars that run like railroad tracks for those with dual injuries. Like both legs not working.

I swallow and force my smile back in place.

“Take your tea, you ungrateful bitch,” she squeals, handing me my tea.

I blow on it. A touch of honey and ginger rise through the vapor, and I grin over the rim of the cup as I sip through the little slot.

“So?” I ask in a purr.

Kiki is pure drama. It's only Monday, so we have the entire week to build up to a crescendo. Mondays are usually sedate, so I brace myself. I have thirty minutes until my next client arrives to be tortured into wellness. Kiki smirks, sets down her tea, and moves to the pole. I give a furtive glance around the gym, hoping no one comes in.

“Got a…” She wraps around the pole and slides down it seductively, letting her butt cheeks split as she wiggles and bounces at the bottom. She springs up, the front of her hoohah a hairsbreadth from the cool metal. “Ginormous tip this weekend from a richie!”

She thrusts forward, wrapping one slender leg around the pole, and I groan. She does a little mock-hump against it and grins at me.

Kiki is so inappropriate I could die. But she's my drug and I'm hers. We fit together because we're so different. She's an exotic dancer who's also a senior at Northwestern State.

She makes great money, and she also does serious gym time, packing in an hour six days a week. It's important to not look too striated, Kiki claims. No “guy-look.” Just tits, ass, and curves with definition. I designed the workout for her because I’m intimately familiar with the human body. I didn't set out to be, but life had other plans.

The sins of the past become the direction of our future.

Kiki pouts, leaves the pole, and saunters toward me. “You're no fun.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay... I know I've got to ask the burning question or we'll get nowhere.”

She perks up. “You got it, sister.”

“Who was it?”

Kiki always takes stock of clients. Men think they know so much, but women could rule the world if we came together. I sigh. Kiki notices regulars, high tippers, newcomers and flags the creeps. She's scary uncanny. I came to watch a set at the prestigious strip club, Black Rose, and went away shocked.

Shocked by the clientele, shocked that Kiki could dance that well for such a short time, and shocked by the moolah.

“The owner,” Kiki whispers as if we have a secret.

I shrug. “So?”

“It's Jared-effing-McKenna, baby!” Kiki is offended by my deliberate ignorance. Her brows rise to her hairline, and her dark eyes are wide with clear disdain.

Mine are steady with indifference.

The wheels of my memory spin. Oh yes. Jared McKenna. The Jared McKenna. Greek god. Adonis incarnate. Hercules. Playboy, womanizer, money mogul.

I slowly nod. Let's add “strip club owner” to the repertoire. I remember the detail of why he has so much money and want to forget as soon as I do.

Kiki pouts and tears off the lid of her tea. “Anywho... he was with someone, and his pal tipped me big time.” She sips her cooling tea, gazing at me with “cat that ate the canary” eyes.

“Okay, the foreplay is killing me. How much?” I take a small slurp of tea, and she tells me. The tea sprays out of my mouth, and Kiki grins at my klutzy-ass move.

“Five hundred dollars!?” I choke some more, and tea dribbles down my chin.

“It's okay, baby... it is a mind-blower. I mean,” her hands go to her ample chest in patent disbelief, “my nipples got hard and he didn't even touch me,” she says sincerely and I burst out laughing. My headache is gone for the moment, my Monday morning lethargy lifting.

Five hundred bucks is an assload of cash, especially for one night of dancing half naked. It's more than I take home every week. Just one tip. My schooling is done, my career path set partly because of circumstance. Kiki is high on drama, but doesn't always say things without a purpose and I narrow my eyes at her.

“Spill it,” I demand.

Kiki's lips twitch and she chucks her empty cup in the trash. “This type of gig could be the thing to get you out of that dump in downtown.”

I scowl. I like my downtown dump.

“Faren!” she wails.

I shush her before Sue comes in thinking someone died. Of course, with all the sounds of torment she's heard since I began working here last year, nothing should faze her.

Kiki relents and switches to a softer tone. “You could own something. Something nice.”

I know this. I've been to her condo overlooking Pike Place and Puget Sound. Her view of downtown is magnificent. And expensive. It had to set her back five hundred K. I rent my death trap for nine hundred per month, and it's a studio in one of the tortuously small cobblestone-lined alleys of Seattle. At least it's on the fifth floor. The stairs are murder, but if I want two windows that actually face outside, that's what I can afford. Sometimes the freight elevator works; otherwise, it's exercise. The location allows me to walk to my upper-scale rehabilitation clinic. No need to use my beater car. That much.

“You don't have to give this up,” Kiki says quietly. She knows I won't budge on that, and she of all people knows why.

Rehab’s not a well-paying profession. But there's more than money, sometimes the soul needs edification.

I look at what Kiki has and what I don't. I shove those thoughts away. She's my best friend. She's seen me through everything. Dark shadows press in, and my headache returns with a throbbing vengeance.

Kiki frowns. “Another headache?”

“Yeah.”

“I don't want to argue, Faren. You've got to know that.” Her root beer eyes peg me to the spot. The sweep of her dark hair lays like chocolate silk past her full breasts. “But with your looks”—she throws her manicured hands in the air—“you could shake your booty a little and work a side job. Get a place in your same area... you could own something.”

It's an old argument. Her penthouse is nearly paid for while mine's a rental with a landlord that cares more about the rent than maintenance.

Her eyes swim with knowledge, and I set down my tea. It's too cold to drink anyway. Her words put the last nail in the coffin of my resistance. “Something secure,” she adds in a whisper and I let her hug me. I cling to her and try to believe my financial troubles and dark secret can be erased by taking off my clothes for strangers

Kiki loves me more than I love myself.

She loves me enough for us both.

*

Sue glances up when I click off the light off. The sky is darkening as I slide my last patient folder through the glass partition. She has that look in her eyes and pushes a business card through the slot.

It bears a doctor's name: Dr. Clive Matthews.

I give Sue a sharp look, and she shrugs, giving my hand a maternal pat. My eyes burn with tears from the spontaneous gesture.

Sue notices my emotional struggle and ignores it. “He got rid of my migraines. Miracle worker, I say.” She nods and glances at the card significantly.

I notice the appointment time and sigh.

Sue doesn’t drop her gaze. “How much longer are you going to struggle through those bone crushers?”

I don't answer, and she nods in her knowing way. “That's what I thought, Miss Mitchell. You'd have just come in suffering worse than your own patients.”

Sue’s right. She knows it, and I do too.

I take the card and stuff it in the pocket of my smock, Dr. Seuss cats cover it in a smear of red and blue.

“Thanks,” I say grudgingly while I grab my coat.

“Welcome,” she shoots back in triumph as I hear the door whisper closed behind me.

I look at the card again as the cars, people, and city noise encapsulate me in the comforting rhythm of downtown. The smell of fish, food, and sea mingle, and I begin the short trek to the dank alley with the entrance to my apartment.

I have two weeks to prepare myself to go back into a hospital. I hate hospitals. They're all about death.

The thought of returning is almost enough to get a proper panic attack going.

Almost.

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THE REFLECTIVE

Book One: The Reflection Series

Copyright © 2013-14 Tamara Rose Blodgett

Kindle Edition

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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.

THE CAUSE

First: Right the Wrong

Second: Bear No Injustice

Third: Change Not What Must Be

Prologue
twenty years before

The midwife made her way along ancient cobblestoned streets, her shoes catching in the crevices though Principle knew, her shoes were as sensible as they come.

As was her occupation.

She would arrive in the birthing ward at exactly eight a.m. for her twelve-hour shift. Of course, it would not be twelve hours—it would be for however long the woman labored.

And if a Reflective were born ....

Just the thought of the potential for that caused a nervous thrill to flutter deep within Florence, as it did each time she worked.

The Reflective newborns must be swaddled in special non-reflective blankets. A baby would not be lost on her shift because it was a prodigy who jumped at a mirror or other reflective surface left uncovered.

Dear Principle. She shuddered, thinking about what the punishment would be for that. As it was, midwives couldn't use any surgical instruments that were not brushed stainless steel, and since the last unfortunate incident, the midwives had since moved to an all-ceramic surgical unit.

Florence swept up the massive steps. The rise of the treads was so low the stairs felt more like a gentle slope than true steps.

The sparkling flakes of charcoal that clung to the thick white granite reminded her that the sun still shone brightly, though their version of autumn would soon be here.

A shadow fell over Florence, and she twisted to look at the sky, her foot on the top step, her hand on the solid brass door handle that opened to the birthing center.

A swarm of butterflies, so thick it blocked the cerulean of the sky, dropped false night all around her as they flew through the rectangular vents that fed the ventilation system in warmer months.

The ports were a deliberate architectural feature that allowed entry to the only creature in their world that could identify a Reflective

So many.

Florence stood in stunned wonder. She had witnessed butterflies come to mark the birth of a Reflective, but never in such a great number.

Their importance was such that her world was named in their honor: Papilio, Sector Ten.

Their path created a rainbow of iridescent color, which poured like water through the narrow vents that had been carved in the solid stone of the birthing center.

All who lived in their world were born in similar structures.

However, Florence was one of few birthing center workers who had seen the highest incidence of Reflective births. She had requested placement to this one. After a five-year waiting period, she’d been assigned to the most prestigious.

She snapped out of her reverie as the last of the mingling kaleidoscope of insects funneled through the slits underneath the eaves of a copper roof, now aged a deep verdigris.

Florence tore open the heavy door.

She didn't hear it clank behind her as she ran the length of the corridor to the floor that housed laboring mothers.

*

Florence burst through the swinging doors as a man and a woman stood over a cradle.

Confused, Florence skidded to a stop.

What is this?

This... appeared to be the parents in front of a babe so new that some of the vernix still coated the wee one, her arms swinging as she howled.

Two nurses, one at the end of her shift and one in training, hung back.

Oh, for the love of all that is good. She stalked over to the newborn.

Florence halted as the sight overtook them all.

Their breath.

Their thoughts.

Everything but the scene itself melted away for those who witnessed the post-birth spectacle.

The butterflies descended, floating in a lazy spiral as the opalescent sunlight washed over their multicolored wings.

The chubby arms of the baby girl swirled and pumped, slowing as the butterflies drew nearer, and her echoing screams gradually grew quiet.

The insects lighted on the rails of the basinet in a portentous group, their wings moving in a steady sweep to maintain balance.

Their appearance froze the parents’ breath in their throats.

The moment swelled and grew in the stillness of the nursery, where rows upon rows of cradles pressed against the other. The parents watched the butterflies flutter precariously on the polished sides of the newborn's bed, landing only on hers and no other.

Their appearance was beautiful… final.

Florence strained to hear the mother's voice.

“She is Reflective,” she said in a sorrowful tone.

Her mate squeezed her hand so tightly her knuckles turned white.

“Yes,” he replied, just as gravely.

Their gaze met in perfect understanding of what the future held for their daughter: a life as mercenary, hunter and hunted.

This was an honor and privilege among their people.

Florence closed her eyes in sympathy. A female Reflective—every parents dream… and nightmare.

*
five years later

Beth shot the plain glass marble across the stretch of earth, watching the glass orb tumble and spin as it met the others she’d shot in a smack of hardened glass. It swerved at the last moment, ricocheting off a shooter, and came to stand where she'd intended.

All the other children her age could play with any marble they chose, but she possessed no mercury-coated marbles.

Beth Jasper was a solitary girl.

But not one who lacked intelligence. Beth had felt the sadness from Papa and Mama and knew she would soon leave for the building that had a big shining silver papilio above the entrance.

Mama and Papa had taken her there the previous week to meet with a man who had a nose like the water birds that gathered near her family's pond.

His nose made it very difficult for her not to giggle. Beth sometimes had a problem with laughing when she shouldn’t.

Beth had observed and stood watch over her new surroundings, remembering what her adoptive parents had told her.

Beth, you must let us do the talking. Under no circumstances should you volunteer to train for a combative role. There are alternative roles for female Reflectives.

Beth crinkled her face at the memory. She understood all of what they wanted of her, and she would not shuffle papers and sit behind a desk, looking like the dolls she had given up playing with.

All Reflectives were far more mature than their human counterparts from the other twelve sectors.

Beth spoke like a teen, though she was five cycles. She puzzled through things that confounded adults.

She was faster, stronger, and brighter.

Beth was female.

When Commander Rachett of the Reflective Militia who operated under The Cause leaned forward and delved deep, he tried to pierce young Beth's very soul, she met him halfway.

Her small body leaned boldly toward his, unafraid.

In their people's ancient language of Latin, he posed the question: What role will you fill within The Cause, young Beth?

Beth narrowed her eyes, and Rachett's brows raised slowly.

He had studied her, no doubt because she was a half-breed, and female besides. She had met his stare with an unwavering gaze.

“A combative role, of course,” Beth said in her childlike voice, though the meaning was very adult, because she understood and communicated like one.

“No! Beth…” her mama said.

Beth swung her legs back and forth underneath the chair. Her eyes drifted to the candy dish poised at the edge of the desk before returning to the commander's.

Beth's stare matched Rachett's.

Rachett had to know what she was: a warrior. The attribute was either present, or it wasn’t.

Her papa stood.

“We can't have her fight. She is female… and not big for her gender.” Her father's face pleaded with Rachett to see reason.

Commander Rachett wasn't known as a reasonable man.

Rachett steepled his fingers underneath his chin, looking at Beth’s adoptive parents. Good people, common folk who were loyal to The Cause, believers in the Principle.

Rachett's gaze shifted to Beth. He scrutinized her face: eyes like crushed brown velvet; hair like a raven's wing; and skin like polished marble, pale but not pasty.

She is too beautiful to fight, he must have thought with regret.

Beth saw that future remorse on his face.

Then he looked at her hands, long-fingered and limber.

His eyes shifted back to hers.

“Beth?” he asked softly.

“Yes, Commander Rachett?” Her small fingers held something.

He frowned, obviously distracted from his planned comment.

“What do you have in your hand?”

She opened her palm, revealing a large reflective marble—a shooter coated with hard-laced mercury.

Rachett sucked in his breath.

“That's a locator.”

Her parents looked at each other.

“Where did you get that, Beth?” her papa asked carefully.

Beth's eyes touched on the worry that each face held, and she felt her face scrunch.

“They hand them out at the front entrance…” Rachett said thoughtfully before Beth could answer.

Beth nodded carefully. The nice lady had given it to her to entertain herself with.

“Do you know what those are for?” Rachett asked her.

She nodded again.

Beth knew. She liked the feeling of the smooth glossy surface. Her fingers worked over the cylindrical perfection delicately, with reverence.

“It is for those Reflectives who need to find their sector,” Rachett explained neutrally.

He smiled down at her.

Beth was certain he understood she wasn't a regular five cycle.

Then his smile faded as he no doubt recalled her gender. Beth was weary of being thought of as lesser because she was a girl.

She'd heard the whispers of the bullying that was so commonplace within the ranks of the Reflectives.

Though, of course, everyone had heard the story of the swarm that had descended on her day of birth.

Papiliones did not lie.

Rachett shook his head, obviously having made his decision. It was safer—for everyone.

Beth narrowed her eyes on the vision of his soft thoughts of her future role.

Rachett stood. As did Beth and the parents who were not of her blood.

“I'm sorry. Beth will be placed in… inter-dimensional communication training. An excellent program and critical calling for the female Reflective,” Rachett stated, lacing his hands together, effectively closing the meeting.

“Thank Principle,” Beth's mother murmured. She shot Beth a look that let her know she had been naughty for sharing her crazy intentions after being instructed to remain silent.

Heat began to build in Beth's chest. She recognized it immediately: anger.

It began at the core of her body and swam out like molten lava, lashing through her circulatory system in defiance of being contained.

Beth did not want to be a weak female.

She was not.

Then Beth did what all children do—she threw a tantrum.

Beth threw the marble at Commander Rachett.

“No!” she shouted in a clear, bell-like voice that stung the ears and raised the hair on the back of his neck.

Beth's body reacted to her emotions and the spinning ball of glass coated by the forbidden mercury.

It spun, and Beth tracked it automatically, as if it were as natural as taking her next breath. It was part and parcel of being Reflective.

The heat inside her body coalesced, bursting painfully and beautifully, and she gasped as the ball moved toward her, then slammed into her in midair.

Her small body morphed into the narrow strip of shimmering ribbon that all Reflectives become when they jump.

Beth allowed all of it to happen in an instinctual slide of circumstance and raw emotion. Her new form lashed like a shining whip, absorbing into the shell of the spinning glass as it sailed in the air for its two seconds of flight.

Coolness washed away the heat, and she spun with the ball… and went somewhere else, in a falling stream of fire bathed by ice.

Rachett stilled, dazed, as the ball that Beth Jasper had used for transport shattered at his feet.

He and Beth’s parents stood stock-still, their bearings gone.

Commander Rachett picked up a shard, and one of his eyes caught in the mirror-like image. He didn't like what he saw there—fear.

His own, and that of Beth Jasper's future within The Cause.

CHAPTER ONE

Jeb Merrick
present day

Jeb strolled dead center into the group of Reflectives who’d come to attend the finals of the new class of Reflective trainees.

The entire coliseum was packed nut to butt, and the ground beside the ring was standing room only.

It was the female, Jeb determined easily—she was the draw for the day. If he were honest with himself, he would have admitted the same. After all, the last female combative had been killed in action over a decade ago. Jeb had heard of it, but it had been before his time.

This one was different.

For one, she bore the scars of their calling. Her elegant limbs were littered with pockmarking and wounds in various stages of healing. Even with the advanced recuperative powers of a Reflective, Jasper was a mess.

It was such a shame; she was a beautiful female, if not the Papilio ideal. She’d refused to become the he-she that many assumed she would and had retained her femininity, despite the brutal calling of the Reflective. He supposed her gender could be to some advantage in a mission to one of the other sectors.

Jeb found a corner and put his back to it, watching the small group of inductees warm their bodies inside the practice area before the final sparring.

Jeb liked to possess a vantage point that allowed him to see everyone coming through the portals, windows, and otherwise. His height put Jeb at further advantage. With his six-feet-four frame, he skimmed most of the heads in his line of sight.

The ones he couldn't see over were of his kind, Reflective warriors of The Cause.

His eyes instinctively scanned the vast interior of the coliseum. He took in the stands filled with the government of his world. English was not their first language, but it was used in more than three quarters of the worlds they policed. Latin was primary and native language of Papilio.

All Reflectives were fluent in the primary languages of the thirteen sectors they held as their responsibility. Latin was spoken exclusively by Papiliones.

Jeb stood up straighter, gaining another couple of inches of precious visual real estate and caught sight of his own team. At age twenty-three, they were three years past their own graduations.

His team began taking up the remaining corners of the main floor surrounding the ring, while the civilian population moved upward in soaring floor-to-ceiling tiers with marble benches.

The thousands of people who’d sat there before this crowd had worn broad divots in the soft cream-and-peach-veined marble. Centuries worth of observers had witnessed the annual ceremony.

All welcomed the newest recruits. The civilians did not want to know how they were protected. They wanted to know only that they were.

Jeb felt a smirk form.

Sometimes he wondered why he jumped.

He grew solemn as he waited, and then he saw her—Beth Jasper.

He'd seen her about in the Barringer Quadrant, shopping for sundries and such things—but he’d never been so close. A different woman seemed to have inhabited her body today.

Gone was her softness he’d seen in his earlier observances. Instead, he saw a woman with nothing but hard angles and planes. An indifferent and cool stare met those of her team and those that she would fight.

Not a one had softness for her.

Beth stood alone.

Jeb looked at the five others—all male—and a slight furrow tied his brows together.

She was sorely outmatched physically, though the recruits were all equal in years. Recruits graduated each year in small groups, all at twenty cycles of age, as was tradition.

Jeb studied Jasper, assessing her as all Reflectives could. She stood at five feet two, and curves she couldn't mask, even beneath the bland Reflective uniform, stood in stark relief. Her tight black braid stopped at her waist. An unusual length for a woman of his people, it was an unheard of length for a Reflective..

Perhaps it was a bid for femininity in a role that was exclusively male?

Jeb reluctantly moved his gaze to the other five in turn, searching for his new partner. Jeb found babysitting loathsome but necessary. Otherwise, they would have a troupe of Reflectives bouncing from one world to the next, where they shouldn't land.

Jeb felt his lips twitch. He had been the same when he was twenty cycles: an ignorant hot head. His former mentor had seen fit to beat him into understanding. The Cause did not tolerate ignorance

It was Jeb's turn to mentor a new recruit since his three-year first partnering was at an end.

The interior lights of the coliseum switched on, spreading the solar-powered illumination to every corner. It washed the faces of the Reflective inductees in an eerie mockery of false illness, casting a sickly yellow over their flesh.

Reflective Kennet stood in the far corner, exactly opposite of Jeb's position, and lifted his chin in greeting then received one in return. Kennet was wearing his dress uniform. He was on duty. That meant his ass could be snatched to one of the other twelve sectors at any time.

Yet, he was here.

Jeb allowed his eyes to run over his compatriots dress uniform, noting the deep navy, which looked black from a distance. The Reflective crest was the only striking addition.

The butterfly rode high against his left breast, standing vigil over his heart. The iridescent rendering had been executed with real gold and silver, and microscopic jewels were used in the multicolored threading. Only a small shift of movement was necessary for the crest to alert passersby that the uniformed people were Reflective.

They were the slaves of protection for Papilio.

Jeb's musing was cut short as the chime donged six times for the six candidates.

All would fight and be judged in various degrees of worthiness. The illegal betting had been deep and vicious.

Beth Jasper was the underdog.

Humanity had come to see the female fall.

There were only two rules: no blades and no death.

He studied the graceful Jasper as she warmed up. Had he been a betting man, he would have bet on her.

Jeb Merrick understood much could be accomplished without death as an end result. He was profoundly happy that he was not standing in that ring, preparing to beat a female into the mat. Jeb wasn't sure he could have done it.

He understood it for the weakness it was.

Jeb's eyes fell on the favored male in the class, Lance Ryan.

Lance could do it.

Jeb took in the young man’s predatory eyes, which were trained on Jasper, tensed without being aware. The idea had seemed fine when he'd entertained attending the ritualistic Reflective ceremony. It was a bloodthirsty hold-over from centuries past. Yet, like many traditions that were no longer necessary, it had flourished.

Jeb unconsciously leaned forward as the first recruit stepped forward and bumped fists with the well-known Ryan. Well-known for being a jack ass, Jeb thought.

No one truly liked Ryan, yet he had garnered the respect of many through brute force and jumping prowess.

Respect earned through fear instead of deeds is not truly respect.

Ryan was ferocious in sparring and the martial arts. A keen jumper, he was rumored to be able to jump through reflections as small as a fist—but not while they were in motion.

That was a rare skill.

He had heard of only one Reflective who could jump as a drop of rain fell from the sky. Jeb shook his head in disbelief. Legend… yet, he wished he could have been there to witness such a thing.

The men raised their fists from the greeting then placed them over the plain insignia of their sparring tunics.

They stepped away from one another.

A huge gong sounded, making Jeb's teeth thrum, and the two recruits burst into each other with a smack of flesh and bone.

Jeb couldn't help but be riveted.

Ryan's beauty as a fighter was an awesome thing to behold. He landed punch after punch—all organ strikes—into his opponent.

The other man—Jude Calvin was Kennet's new partner, Jeb vaguely remembered—came in close and took away Ryan's considerable strike advantage.

Calvin wrapped his substantial arms around Ryan's torso, swinging a man that weighed two hundred fifty pounds as if he weighed an ounce, and pile drove him into the mat.

Spectators felt the impact as a reverberating punch.

Ryan's shot out his arm and smashed his flat palm into Calvin's nose. Ryan ignored the low boo from the crowd.

Blood burst from the offense, shooting like a bright-red geyser as Ryan leapt off the mat, smearing the mess he'd made of his equal.

Jeb's head swiveled toward a female voice rising above the crowd's noise.

“Shoot, Calvin… shoot!”

A small fist swung above her head for emphasis, and the crowd hissed their displeasure at Jasper's coaching from the sidelines.

Calvin shot, taking Ryan's long legs out from underneath him as he sprang forward, his nose bleeding like a sieve.

Commander Rachett stood in the corner of the ring in typical stoic silence, his body tense like a snake before it strikes, as Ryan’s body smacked the mat then took a hard bounce, making an echoing slap that silenced the crowd.

Jeb heard the oohs and aahs of low-grade fear all around him.

This time, Ryan rolled Calvin over and twisted his arm into an unnatural pretzel position. Shit, Jeb thought, he's got him in an arm bar. He’d picked up the classic move from a jump to Sector Three, Earth.

A place he should not have visited yet, Jeb thought with unease. The class-seven world was for partnered jumps only.

Calvin tapped out, hitting Ryan lightly on the leg behind his own.

Beth Jasper told Jeb what would happen next. Like a cat losing its balance, she moved forward as Ryan snapped the arm he had locked behind Calvin. He roared in agony, holding his injured limb as Ryan's boot came high over his head to smash his face.

Jeb stilled.

Surely Rachett will disallow this?

Beth moved behind Ryan, like a shimmer of water on a sheet of glass.. She executed a spinning kick that knocked the standing man on his ass. Beth bounced away in avoidance, her fists riding beside her jaw, fear swimming in her eyes.

Calm in its economical movements, her body belied the windows to her soul.

Rachett stepped away as medics pulled the moaning and shocked Calvin away.

He would heal.

But that’s not the fucking point, is it?

Ryan lacked integrity—a critical component of the militia that comprised the Reflective.

Ryan stood, his eyes nailing Beth. Her timely intervention had screwed the order.

They circled each other cautiously.

Jeb knew Jasper had no friends within the trainees circle. However, she'd moved almost compulsively to help Calvin.

While every other recruit had observed another being cut down unfairly, Jasper had acted.

And she would pay.

Principle, this will not end well.

Jeb’s guts churned. He wasn't easily affected by fights and blood, but as they said on Sector Three: this was wrong on a hundred different levels.

Jasper backed up, neatly outside of Ryan's long reach, which was easily twice her own. She appeared to be following her training, relying on a drumbeat that was part of every Reflective's internal clock.

It wasn't enough, though. Ryan caught Jasper before she had a chance to block his assault. He nailed her gut in a sucker punch then landed a subsequent fist into her jaw.

Beth was already moving evasively, thank Principle, or she would have been out and at his mercy.

Ryan showed no mercy.

Jasper fell in a spinning backward arc, landing with her palms splayed behind her to arrest her fall. Blood from her cut lip splattered the mat.

Ryan stalked toward her, hatred leaking from his every pore. Their final match played out in a sick parody. Unforgiving eyes watched Jasper from every corner of the mat.

Rachett's tense voice rumbled from a distance, “Get the fuck up, Jasper.”

Jeb's felt his face tighten into a scowl, though Rachett had been just as tough when Jeb was a recruit.

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

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

Ryan smiled, his hands curling into abusive fists of presumed victory. He spoke quietly so only Jasper heard, though Jeb leaned forward to try to catch his words, as did everyone else.

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, thinking maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him.

The noise of the crowd was disorientating.

Ryan flicked the switchblade as smoothly as he’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.

Looks like Ryan paid.

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

The blade’s mirrored surface shimmered in the low lights that bathed the interior of the coliseum.

Holy fuck.

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

No, check that—gruesome.

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

Jeb could let an inductee take licks, abuse, and unfairness. But one Reflective would not kill another on his watch.

Why, for the love of the Principle, has 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 else in his path.

The crowd parted like the Earth's fabled Red Sea parting; Reflectives had that effect.

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

His voice carried a note of high-keening fear.

Jeb swung to face his Commander.

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

It was beyond bizarre. None of it made sense.

Jeb saw the whites of Jasper's eyes. The inky tail of her braid was wet with her blood. Ryan’s blade swung so close to her face that its 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, but 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 was already singing through the air in an expert trajectory aimed at Beth.

The blade spun in the combustible silence of the coliseum as the crowd held a collective breath.

Jeb strode toward Jasper, but she seemed unaware as her dark eyes tracked the knife.

Jeb’s eye's hadn't lied. One moment, she was solid. The next, she became opaque.

Then she was gone.

Jeb had seen many jumps, but never a female's—and never into something so small. The crowd watched as a glittering rope of iridescent white, like a pearl with a rainbow wash, slammed into the blade.

Jasper's body disappeared then reappeared in the thin reflective ribbon of the jump as it collided with the metal, as she’d meant to.

When the knife landed in the mat, its tip sank deep 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, 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, who was across the ring from where he stood, and the other man was just as stunned. Jeb glanced at the blade embedded 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, their 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 it 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 final, leaden glance on Ryan before he stalked out of the coliseum. Guards moved up beside Ryan. His infraction would land him on Sector One, for certain. No Reflective wished to jump there.

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

Jeb groaned.

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

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

Jeb stared after Ryan’s back. He ran a frustrated hand through his cropped hair.

He knew what this disturbing mess meant for him. Jeb would be tasked with locating Jasper. His primary task was retrieval. He was meant to be reassigned momentarily.

However, it seemed that it would take 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 was a bad combination. It could be a recipe for many things. When Beth returned, what reception would she find waiting?

He knew the people would forget Ryan’s transgressions against her. All they would remember was her jump.

He would 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. And 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—and his new partner.

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Acknowledgments

It's been since March 2011, when my first book, Death Whispers, was published. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of my readers. Without you, I would not have an audience for my work. Your support, recommendations, encouragement, and critical feedback have allowed my improvement as a writer and as a human being. Ironically, words are inadequate for expressing the depth of my gratitude. Please know how much your support has meant and will continue to mean in the future.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Dear Ones:

Danny

Cameren: Without you, there would be no books.

Thank you:

My Readers

Sarah, from Red Adept Editing.

Linda Palomera-Terpe, my proof reader.

Special thanks to the following: Ange, Beth Dean Hoover, Dii, Lori and Shana B. for all your help and support.

More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett

Death Series:

Death Whispers

Death Speaks

Death Inception

Death Screams

Death Weeps

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The Savage Blood

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The Blood Series:

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The Reflection Series:

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Books written under the pen name, Marata Eros

***18+ audience***

Dark Paranormal Erotica

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The Siren Series:

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*

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The Token Serial:

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The Token 4

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The Token 6

The Token 7- Thorn

The Token 8- Kiki

The Token 9- Chet Sinclair (pre-order)

The Token 10: Shepard- 2015

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The Dara Nichols Series:

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The Zoe Scott Series:

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About the Author:

Tamara Rose Blodgett is the author of over forty-five titles, including the NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling novel, A Terrible Love, written under the pen name Marata Eros. Tamara writes a variety of dark fiction in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, romance and erotica. She lives in South Dakota with her family and enjoys interacting with her readers.

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Table of Contents

Praise for THE SAVAGE SERIES....

Copyright

Kindle Edition

DEDICATION:

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THRITY-TWO

Excerpts

Acknowledgments

Dear Ones:

Thank you:

More Books

About the Author: