Chapter 8 #2
The reality of it crashed over her all at once. The lead krulaati rearing up, hooves like dinner plates about to crush her skull. The sound they’d made hitting his back instead. How his body had curved over hers, taking every strike meant for her.
Her vision blurred and the cloth fell from her numb fingers.
“You… you could have died.” The words were a broken murmur. “You almost—because of me—”
“Juni.”
Her name in that low rumble undid her. The tears came hard and sudden, shaking loose something she’d been holding since she’d stepped off that transport.
Since before. Since the morning she’d been fired, since her mother’s funeral, since everything fell apart and she’d had to keep smiling, keep being cheerful, keep pretending she was fine.
She wasn’t fine. She was so far from fine it was unreal.
She felt herself breaking apart, ugly sobs tearing from her throat. Then his arms were around her, pulling her up and against his broad chest. She should have been careful of his injuries but she couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop the sounds coming out of her.
His hand cupped the back of her head like before, but this time his hand stroked gently through her hair instead of gripping tight. This time he was comforting, not claiming.
He held her through it. He was so warm. Solid. Real. An anchor while she shattered.
He murmured softly, words her translation matrix didn’t quite pick up but understand anyway. It’s okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.
His fingers stroked through her hair, found a rhythm that matched her breathing. Her sobs eased to hiccups, then to nothing. She stayed pressed against him, her face hidden in the curve of his throat. He smelled like antiseptic and blood and that warm scent that was just him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his skin.
“What did I say about apologizing?”
A small laugh escaped her. “Can’t help it. It’s a character flaw.”
His chest rumbled. Not quite a laugh, but close.
They stayed like that for long moments. Her pressed against his bare chest. His arms around her like he’d forgotten he was supposed to keep his distance.
Finally, she eased back. His arms loosened but didn’t fully let go.
“Thank you.” She met his eyes. “For saving me. For... this.”
Something shifted in his expression. He searched her face like he was memorizing it.
“You should rest.” His voice was gruff again, but his hand swept gently over her back before he let her go. “You’ve had a shock.”
“What about you?”
“I need to check the fence line. See how the Krulaati got spooked.” He stood and grabbed his ruined shirt. “The supplies from town… You could... if you want to decorate. For your Christmas. I won’t stop you.”
Before she could say anything, he was gone.
She slumped against the kitchen counter, bandaged hands pressed to her chest where her heart was doing something complicated and painful and wonderful.
Shit. She was in so much trouble.
Lady’s teeth, he ached.
Good. He needed it. Needed something to cut through the chaos in his head, the taste of her still on his lips, the phantom weight of her body in his arms.
Goraath strode toward the krulaati pasture, the wounds on his back pulling with every swing of his arms. The shoulder was the worst, a deep throb that radiated down into his fingers. He welcomed it. Pain was simple. Pain made sense.
Nothing else did.
The herd had settled in the far pasture, grazing like nothing had happened. Like they hadn’t almost—
Cutting off the thought, he kept walking. The ground sloped upward here, and his calves burned as he pushed through the long grass. Years of ranch work kept him fit, but he’d taken a beating. His body wanted to remind him of that with every step.
The field told its own story. Trampled grass, deep gouges where hooves had torn up the earth, a fence rail splintered where a panicked beast had clipped it. He’d need to fix that before nightfall.
Later. First, answers.
Following the path of destruction backward, past the feeders and the broken rail, he headed toward the northern boundary where his land met scrub. The morning light caught something in the grass up ahead. A glint that didn’t belong.
Crouching, he felt the wound on his lower back scream in protest. His fingers brushed charred earth. A rough circle of blackened grass, and half-buried in the burned patch… Metal. Twisted and melted at the edges.
His hand closed around a piece of casing. Still faintly warm from the blast.
Not military grade. He knew military grade. He’d packed charges like this into krin nests, set them to blow on a timer while he cleared out. This was different. Civilian. The kind the colony used for blasting rock.
Mining equipment. Three casings. Picking through the blast radius, knees grinding into the cold dirt, he found them one by one.
The blood in his veins ran cold.
One wouldn’t have done it. One would have startled the herd, maybe scattered them. But three was thunder and lightning, noise and flash, enough to send even placid krulaati into blind panic.
Whoever did this knew that.
Draanth.
Standing, knees cracking, he scanned the fence line. Old instincts stirred, sharpening his focus. His gaze swept the terrain: elevation, cover, sightlines.
The placement was smart. Far enough from the house that he wouldn’t have heard the blast over the sounds of morning, positioned to drive the herd southwest toward the feeders. Toward where someone doing chores would be standing.
His chest seized, breath locking behind his ribs.
Not him. He knew krulaati, knew their patterns. He’d have been out of that field the instant the ground started shaking. But Juni wasn’t supposed to be in that field at all. She’d gone out on her own, some draanthic impulse to prove herself useful, to haul feed bags she had no business hauling.
The only way someone could have timed this right was if they’d been watching her.
He frowned as he looked down.
Boot prints in the soft earth at the fence line, partially scuffed by the blast but still visible. There were multiple impressions. Someone had stood here long enough to shift their weight, to get comfortable.
Tracking the sightline from feeders to field to house, he saw it clearly now. Someone had stood right here and watched her leave the house. Watched her cross to the feed shed. Watched her haul those bags into the field, one after another, until she was far enough from safety.
Then they’d triggered the blast.
His hands curled into fists. This wasn’t sabotage. This was attempted murder.
Instinct made him reach for his drakeen.
For years, he’d carried the combat robot’s presence in the back of his mind, always there, always ready, waiting for the thought that would send it hunting.
He could have had the draanthic coward pinned within the hour, tracked them to whatever hole they’d crawled into and—
Nothing. Just the phantom ache of a connection long severed.
He wasn’t a hunter anymore. Now he was just a rancher standing in a field with burned casings and boot prints and cold fury in his heart.
Tarex.
The name rose like bile, and his jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
They’d trained together as children and sparred until they were both bloody. Watched each other’s backs in the early years.
That was before. Then Goraath had followed his mother into service and he hadn’t seen his oldest friend until he’d returned.
Now all he could see was Tarex in the supply depot. The way his jaw had worked when he’d looked at Juni through the window and the bitterness twisting his voice.
“Soft too. Those curves. Not built for this life, is she? Probably won’t last the winter.”
“Might be better for everyone if she did.”
Leave. He’d meant leave. But standing here with three blast casings and boot prints and the image of Juni’s face as thirty tons of panicked muscle bore down on her—
Would Tarex do this? They’d been brothers once. But Tarex had wanted to enter the lottery, had argued for it, and then lost while Goraath won without even trying.
Could Tarex stand at this fence and watch a female walk into the kill zone?
Someone had.
Gathering the casings, he wrapped them in a rag from his pocket.
Should he tell her?
He shoved the thought down. She had a right to know but she was already shaken… he’d felt it in the way she’d trembled in his arms, could still hear the broken sounds she’d made when she finally let herself cry.
Should he tell Kaalden?
The colony leader would investigate. Would ask questions. Would poke at this until whoever did it knew they were being watched. And then what? They’d be more careful next time. Smarter.
And there would be a next time. He knew that with bone-deep certainty. Whoever had done this wasn’t finished.
Someone had watched his ranch and tried to kill the female under his protection.
His fence. His ranch. His—
He cut off the thought before it could finish.
The equipment shed sat near the krulaati enclosure. Stashing the wrapped casings behind a stack of feed containers where Juni wouldn’t think to look, he stood there with his hands braced against rough wood, head hanging between his shoulders. Breathing.
The wood grain pressed into his palms. Rough. Real. Something to hold on to while the fury howled inside him.
Evidence. He’d need it later, when he knew who. When he was certain.
The walk back to the house felt longer than it should. His boots crunched on frost-hardened grass, and his breath fogged in the cold air.
He slowed before he reached the back door, spotting her in the main room through the kitchen window. She was on her knees beside the box of decorations, pulling out string lights, her face lit up as she discovered the carved ornaments underneath.
His hand stopped on the door handle.
She was decorating for Christmas. He’d told her she could, given her permission like it was some gift when really he’d just needed an excuse to run. To put distance between them before he did something stupid…
Like kiss her again.
The sound of her humming drifted through the slight opening in the window, something soft and unfamiliar. His house had been silent for years. Just him and the wind and the animals. He’d gotten used to it. Told himself he preferred it.
But now she was in there filling the silence with rustling and humming and life, and she had no idea that someone had tried to kill her this morning. His grip tightened on the door handle until the metal bit into his fingers.
If he walked in now, she’d see it on his face. The fury. The fear. Everything he was trying not to feel.
She’d ask questions.
He wasn’t ready to lie. Wasn’t good at it.
He waited, watching through the window. She turned away, reaching deeper into the box, her back to the kitchen doorway.
Now.
He slipped through the back door, weight on the balls of his feet, moving the way he’d moved through krin nests when a single sound meant death.
Through the kitchen. Past the doorway. Into the hall.
She never looked up, never heard him, her humming covering the whisper of his footsteps on stone.
The bathing room door closed behind him with a soft click and he sighed in relief. Then snorted at himself. Big, mean warrior hiding from a tiny little female. What had his life come to?
Turning toward the shower, he cranked it up to full.
His back screamed as he stripped off his ruined shirt, bandages pulling away with the fabric. The wounds tore open again, all her careful work undone and blood trickled down his spine. Good. Let them bleed.
The water ran cold before it ran hot. Stepping under the spray, he let it pound against torn skin, hands pressed flat to the tile wall, head bowed. Steam rose around him. The heat sank into his muscles, loosening knots he hadn’t realized he was carrying.
Someone had hunted her like prey. Someone had stood at his fence and watched her and waited, then tried to kill her.
His hands curled into fists.
And when he found out who there wouldn’t be enough left of them to bury.
He’d make sure of it.