Page 39 of Barbarian Daddies

“Wait, what?”

He smacks me so hard over the head that the pain ripples throughout my skull. I cry out and lose my footing. I fall to the ground, dizzy as hell and having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I manage to look out and see the council meeting disbanding, the Fire Tribe leaders scattering as the Sky Tribe jets get closer and start shooting at them.

My screams are stuck in my throat. I can’t even see Kai and Maur from where I’ve fallen.

Dahlen shoves his hand in my hair and starts dragging me away. I try to fight him off, but I feel weak. My scalp burns, my head hurts—the pain is so sharp it feels like a knife slicing directly across my brain.

“Dahlen, what are you doing?” I manage, my eyesight struggling to focus.

I see fire flowers blooming where mere minutes ago we were all sitting and talking. Smoke rising. Explosions tearing through the red dirt. A few of our people dropping, torn apart by the blasts as the jets pummel the entire area with everything they’ve got.

My heart is crushed.

My soul is shredded.

“I’m taking you back where you belong,” I hear Dahlen say just before I pass out.

18

Kai

The jets are fast, but not fast enough to hit each of us at once. We have the darkness of the night on our side, and we heard them coming early enough to bolt from our position. Unfortunately, some of the envoys were killed, but I saw Binzen and Izzo escaping just in time. Kharo and Helios have taken Alicia closer to the river. Maur and I are trying to figure out how to get across to the river as well. We’re hidden behind a cluster of obsidian boulders, but we can see the Kreek brothers and Jewel zigzagging in different directions to keep the jets busy and split-up.

My heart is racing, but I saw Dahlen running after Cynthia. What happened in Sapphire City finally awakened the side of him we’d been trying to nurture for so long. He’ll take her to safety. Maur and I just need to survive this attack and figure out the next steps.

“Dammit, Kai, they knew we were meeting here!” Maur hisses as one of the jets flies above us. We’re wedged between the obsidian chunks, though. They can’t see us. “They targeted us, specifically.”

“Retaliation for Cynthia’s escape,” I reply.

“Who the fuck told them? Only those of us present knew.”

“I’m not sure, but we’ll have to question everyone. We have to survive first,” I tell my brother. “Thoughts?”

Maur looks out, a grin slitting his face. “Jewel is about to change the game here.”

“What do you mean?”

I poke my head out and follow his gaze to see Jewel quickly climbing atop a tall obsidian rock, agile as a black-tailed deer just as a jet approaches her at a low altitude. The pilot knows he cannot hurt her, so he’s not gunning for her. He’s gunning for the Kreek brothers who are running in the opposite direction, while the other jets fly out and circle back to focus on them as well.

“Oh, shit,” I hear myself whisper as Jewel aims what looks like a slingshot at one of the jets.

I remember her telling us at one point that what we call jets are nothing like the jets on Earth. These are slow, and they’re old. But a small bomb in a slingshot? Doesn’t seem logical.

Maur laughs as we watch her take careful aim at the low-flying plane, waiting for it to fly closer to her. When it’s within range, she fires the bomb, leading the plane just enough that it hits dead center. The plane wobbles in the air as the pilot loses control. It slams into the rocks and explodes in a fiery ball.

This is our chance to bolt out of this spot and get to the river. Yossul and Fadai cheer and rush to join us after Jewel leaps from the top of the rocks into their waiting, braced arms. The five of us run like the mad wind in the middle of a volcanic storm. We jump off the plateau’s edge and slide down the rocky side until we reach the bottom.

“I’m telling you, we could win the war if we let Jewel use her slingshots,” Yossul chuckles then grunts from the pain. She smiles at him, then asks if he’s alright. He took a few tumbles and got a few scrapes along the way, but nothing that won’t heal in a couple of days.

Maur nods in agreement, panting as he carefully surveys the riverside going both north and south. “Imagine if the Sunnaites had the human military’s knowledge, skills, and equipment. By the stars, we’d cream the Sky Tribe altogether. They wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“We have a huge problem!” Kharo shouts from farther up the river.

I can hear the problem. Distant booms and orange lights glowing where our town is supposed to be. I lose my breath as I look up and realize what’s happening. “Oh, no.”

“They targeted the town too,” Maur manages.

Binzen and Izzo are already climbing up the plateau wall on the other side. I glance over and see similar lights blowing up where their territory overlooks the river. My gut tightens into a painful knot as the full picture of what is happening comes into focus.

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