Page 42 of Barbarian Daddies

She gives me a half-smile, warmth flickering in her gray eyes. “Don’t sweat it, Maur. We’re not just friends or allies anymore. We’re family.”

I watch her leave, while the Kreek brothers stay with us. The Tallas crew and Alicia are down by the river, staying close to Amber and the children. The children of the Fire Tribe need the most comforting. They’re scared. They’ve seen some truly horrible things. I don’t know how they’ll ever get over the events of tonight, but I will avenge their suffering. I will make it right. One way or another, the Sky Tribe will pay for what they’ve done here.

“We cannot let this stand,” Yossul says, his gaze following Jewel as she makes her way down to the river. “The other clans won’t sit back either, especially once they hear their envoys, their brethren were murdered.”

“We cannot go in blind. We have to find the traitor first. Jewel is right. It was one of ours. But who?”

“I’m disturbed by something else,” Kai says. He keeps staring at Cynthia’s study at the far end of what used to be the main street of our town. “I think the Sky Tribe don’t want us developing a cure for the plague. They destroyed all of her research, all of the work she had in there. The traitor told them where she kept it, otherwise they wouldn’t have targeted that house. From the outside, it looked like any other house. They knew what was in there when they trained their weapons on it.”

Fadai nods in agreement. “They don’t want to develop a cure for the plague because they want the Sunnaites as we know them to die out. They want a new race to come forth, the human hybrids. You heard Cynthia’s accounts from inside the city. They’re forcing the Sunnaite women to breed with those they consider top specimens of the Sky Tribe, solely for the purpose of raising and conditioning them to serve the incoming hybrids.”

“They will send more starships to Earth soon enough,” Kai says.

“Which means we have to destroy them before they do that,” I reply.

Kai gives me a pained look. “You were right, brother. Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Kai. It’s okay. We’re all doing the best we can here.”

“We’re behind now, because I didn’t trust you enough.” He shakes his head slowly, then looks to the Kreek brothers. “You’ve got your Yellow Squad in place, right?”

Yossul smiles. “We do. And Jewel will join them as soon as we’ve got everything we need in place for the operation. The starship they’re keeping near Emerald City will not take off. That, I can promise you.”

“Until then, however, you have us all,” Fadai tells me. “We need to take Sapphire City. Now. Yesterday. As soon as possible. Before anything else, we need to take Sapphire City and show those Sky Tribe pricks their jets and their weapons cannot bring us down. Retaliation is imperative at this point.”

“I agree,” Kai replies. “But we need to find Cynthia first.”

She’s carrying our child. Dahlen is missing, too. I don’t like this one bit. Something feels off, and I think my brother senses it as well. We exchange glances and agree to form a search party. The Kreek brothers join us while some of our lieutenants are dispatched around town to help with whatever is necessary. The Tallas crew have already sent word up the river for reinforcements and assistance. By evening tomorrow, barges loaded with supplies and medical kits will be tied to our jetty. By evening tomorrow, our people will suffer less and our dead will be buried.

Until then, however, I need to find Cynthia.

21

Cynthia

As a doctor, I quickly learned to accept the prospect of death and everything that leads to it. I understood the value of a life and how easy it can be to take one. I also understood the guilt and the restlessness that follows such an act. Ever since I came to Sunna, however, I’ve been exposed to so much death and violence I can no longer not see myself taking a life if I have to. I’ve been pushed beyond my limits, and I have come to know the monster that lives inside me.

We all have one.

We are all capable of cruelty.

And as Dahlen drags me across the purple fields and up the hills dressed in wild orchards, the prospect of taking a life becomes clearer with each step I take. I am not going back to Sapphire City as a prisoner. I would rather die than become their child-bearing slave. The baby growing inside me demands a particular course of action—doing something I didn’t think I could before.

“We’ll camp here for the night,” Dahlen says, yanking the rope tied to my wrists to force me into a sitting position beneath a plum tree. “You will stay right here, and I’ll get a fire going. If you’re hungry, there’s plenty of fruit here.”

“Fuck you, Dahlen,” I reply bluntly.

My words sting. My rejection hurts him deeply. Good. I want him to suffer. Yet he keeps a straight face as he points at my belly. “Your child needs sustenance. The plums are filled with nutrients. Vitamins and minerals. You said so yourself.”

“I’m cold.”

Dahlen nods once and starts combing through the orchard, collecting wood along the way—some dried twigs he finds on the ground, while others he tears off the sick trees, consumed by disease and no longer able to bear fruit. I watch him in silence while I keep twisting and turning my wrists to loosen the rope slightly. I need a better range of motion.

Dahlen was never on the bright side, otherwise he wouldn’t have left his satchel so close to me. He keeps a couple of knives in there. A larger blade for hunting, and a smaller one for skinning whatever he catches. Slowly but surely, I scoot over, inch by inch, until the bag is within my reach.

“You’ll enjoy living with me,” he says as he comes back with an armful of sticks. “You’ll be well taken care of. Selina promised that you won’t be taken to the breeding center with the others.”

“And you believed her,” I chuckle dryly, leaning back against the tree.

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