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 the 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 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 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, 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.