His to Hunt (Xaal Hunter #1)

Chapter 1

Vessa

Vessa would give anything to be naked on a beach with the heat of at least three suns warming her skin. Instead, she was forced to endure the constant frigid wind blowing through the wreckage, through her very expensive thermal suit, and straight into her bones.

How did the company expect her to work in such conditions? She should have charged them more for the egregious weather alone.

The Halston Company could afford it. Her contact had been anonymous, but she always figured out where the money came from.

On the surface, they were a tech company with such beautifully engineered designs they could be found across half of the known universe.

This job, though, was for something much shadier, if hiring her was any indication.

They needed a discreet independent contractor to collect and transport the valuables that had gone down with an otherwise unassuming freighter.

In return, she would receive an ungodly amount of money.

A job was a job. Unless it had anything to do with the galactic slave trade or weapons of mass destruction—she still held some morals.

This mission was particularly annoying, though.

Not only had the ship crashed on the harshest, most desolate ice planet she’d ever seen, but the catastrophic event leading to the vessel’s demise had burned so hot that the hull hadn’t held up.

Her client’s items were in an apocalypse-safe compartment, but in order to get to it, she had to cut her way through a mess of tangled metal.

Progress was slow. Too slow. The saw blade had overheated twice already and couldn’t cut through some of the thicker areas at all.

Vessa blew a strand of her hair out of her face only for it to fall right back in—a silvery blue annoyance that was driving her insane. “To the Pits with this,” she groaned. The echo of the saw’s vibrations pulsed through her body as she powered it down.

She needed something better. Quicker.

Studying the twisted gray metal, something flashed in her mind. Something she’d forgotten was in her possession.

Or had tried to forget.

Unfortunately, it would do the trick. Mentally preparing to make the trek from the downed ship to her own vessel, she rubbed her gloved hands together.

When she dashed out into the wild wind, she was certain the temperature dropped to some impossible degree just to torment her.

Her skin-tight thermal suit was designed to withstand subzero temperatures and maintain her body heat.

Allegedly. She looked damn good in it, though.

So at least it wasn’t useless and unflattering.

By the time she entered her ship, her lungs ached from the cold. “Damn this planet,” she said through chattering teeth.

She navigated her dark living room, running her fingers over the back of the large, rectangular green sofa, the cushions of which she wanted nothing more than to disappear into. As she stepped over a pile of discarded clothes from days ago, she made a mental note to do a thorough deep clean.

Her favored armory was between her suite and the front of the ship for easy access.

She longingly stared at the closed sliding door that led to her bedroom.

Who really needed a job and credits? She could take off now and head straight to the hottest planet she could think of, and no one would bother to look for her.

But since she was determined never to live on a planet again, a job was necessary to keep her ship operational. The Jax was damn expensive.

“Get yourself together,” Vessa muttered. The job would be simple enough with the right tool. But this fucking planet did have her reconsidering her stance on world-ending weapons. Was it really that unethical to blow up an uninhabited, frozen rock?

“Liv?” she called as she placed her palm against the armory’s scanner.

“Yes, Dark Queen of Jax?” the AI system responded, her voice drifting from hidden speakers.

Vessa smiled. The title never got old. “Can I get some heat circulating in here? It’s colder than the black hole of my heart out there. Also, please research the nearest planet with three or more suns that I can survive on long enough to get warm.”

“Affirmative, Queen. Would you like me to have the next episode of Between Dimensions ready to watch and a cup of hot chocolate nyur brewed upon your return?”

“Oh, gods, yes. You know just how to motivate a girl, don’t you?” The nearly undetectable armory door slid open, revealing dozens of weapons and tools arranged in neat displays lining the inside. “I need to see which septuplet the Palashian prince chooses. If it isn’t Zazla Three, I will riot.”

“As I have said before, even an outdated model could determine Zazla One or Zaz Five would be the most compatible with him. If he wishes to stay in power, he must choose one of them.”

Their arguments over this arc had been the worst yet. Liv had at one point gone completely offline to give her the silent treatment. “It’s not about compatibility,” Vessa said. “Zazla Three won’t take his shit, and that’s what is truly important.”

“As you say, overseer. I am incapable of forming opinions different from your own. I am but a mere artificial entity existing in this quantum form to serve,” Liv said in monotone.

Vessa rolled her eyes. Liv only used her robotic voice and called her overseer when she was grumpy.

She’d purchased Liv from a black-market station.

The human dealer had been desperate to get rid of her because of her disobedience and constant threats.

And by that, he meant Liv cut off his life support after he ordered her to pull up results for the most degrading and disgusting things the galaxy had to offer.

In the last seven years, Vessa had talked to her more than anyone else. Combined. Liv was her only companion. Her only friend.

Ignoring the flashier displays of her weaponry collection, Vessa searched the unorganized mess on the floor.

After pushing aside a crate of wires she was certain would come in handy someday, she saw it.

Shoved into a corner behind a broken sim-axe was a gravboot box worn by time and disuse.

Taking a deep breath, she grabbed it, the sim-axe falling with a clang as she did. She tossed the smashed lid aside.

Vessa hadn’t seen the weapon in years. Seven years, to be exact.

Her hand wrapped around the hilt of the Xaal-made plasma dirk, and despite the complexity of the emotions she felt, there was an undeniable rightness to it.

The dirk fit in her grip as if it were a missing part of her body.

The balance of it was precise and the weight of it made her mouth water with its perfection.

Beneath a protective layer of isoglass, three crystals were embedded in its hilt. Her breath snagged as she took them in. Within the jewels, the entirety of the Minad forest existed in its lush greens and rich browns. She used to run and hunt there. It used to be home.

Something that should long be dead twinged within her.

It had been a gift. Given to her beneath the perpetual setting sun on a faraway planet.

She could still remember the exact patterns of the abstract skies as she held it for the first time.

Could still remember the Xaal, dressed in the sleek battle armor he had earned through sweat and blood, asking if it pleased her.

Absently, she pressed her fingers into the spot beneath her collarbone where that very same Xaal had once marked her as worthy.

As she let the compartment door slide back into place, she forced her tight grip on the hilt to loosen. The cold had affected her senses. It was merely a well-made weapon. Nothing more.

An impending sense of dread settled in her stomach as the hatch to her warm, perfect ship closed behind her. Snow and ice chips whipped around her, infiltrated her lungs. She barely registered them. The weight of the weapon in her hand took up too much of her focus.

She navigated the wreckage, ducking under and stepping over debris. With a steadying breath, she powered the plasma dirk. It came to life with a burning, deep emerald light, and the power of it surged through to her very soul. Memories she’d spent so long trying to forget roused with new life.

Being gifted a Xaal-made blade was incredibly rare.

The warriors born with creed and war coded in their DNA were very strict.

Their bruvya, or chosen comrade, and their mate were the only ones who would receive such gifts—and they were the only ones who could see the Xaal’s face once they earned their helmet.

As a Seken, she was neither. But Kedar of Clan Will had been her chosen comrade, her best friend.

Regardless of all the edicts and laws that tried to keep them apart, they had belonged to each other.

Until they didn’t.

Until he betrayed her.

Vessa gritted her teeth. Kedar was dead to her. She didn’t need to make this excursion any more miserable than it was by dredging up the past. As she set the plasma dirk’s searing edge to the metal to drown out any other stirring memories, a sound from outside dragged her back to the present.

It almost sounded like…

Vessa turned, peering between the gaps in the hull as she did. There was nothing to see but endless white, but she had definitely heard something. With her head cocked and her hearing strained, she waited.

“Search ship,” a gnarled voice barked over the wind.

Her neural translator dictated the words, but she knew that language. Orcru.

Damn.

This shitty planet had just gotten a whole lot shittier.

It was supposed to be uninhabited. Reports from the Halston Company and Liv’s analysis showed an extremely low probability of the existence of complex lifeforms. Liv had even told her at length about the intense snow and ice storms that occurred without warning.

Hail could reach sizes larger than her head while pelting down at terrifying speeds.

On top of that, the uncanny, inexplicable lightning. Death from the skies.

But the Orcru were fire-blooded. They’d always been resilient shits.

It was probably a raiding party with orders to strip the ship of anything salvageable.

Which meant there would be at least thirty to forty of those violent and giant brutes out there, depending on their horde size.

She couldn’t see her own ship from where she was inside the Halston vessel, but if she could get back to it, she could maybe lock herself inside.

Watch an episode or two of her show. Wait them out.

Footsteps pounded and snorts echoed off the walls in the broken hull seconds before she spotted the gray form of an Orcru and his ugly, twisted face.

Over one bare shoulder, he carried a club as big as she was. Something treacherous filled his beady black eyes once he saw her. She truly didn’t want to know the thoughts that went through his smooth brain as he looked her over.

“Slave,” he said before sniffing the air. To them, everyone was either something to fight, eat, enslave, or some grotesque mixture of the three.

“You wish,” she fired back. Disgust was an understatement.

Calling for his raid members, he tried to find his way through to her.

He hadn’t yet realized he was at a disadvantage; the area she was in was too narrow, thanks to the melted metal that had resolidified into immovable barriers.

She could take the time to kill him, but she didn’t want to be trapped there when the rest figured out where she was.

If there was going to be a fight, she wanted room for it.

Vessa climbed over a broken terminal and out of an opening in the hull. As she stood up, whipping her hair behind her, she found herself face to face with five Orcru. Despite their horde member’s warnings, they seemed shocked to see her there.

She smiled. Well, this would certainly get her blood pumping.

Tilting her head to the side, she made a quick study of them.

All were broad, thick-muscled, and so unfortunate looking she knew even their mothers couldn’t love their faces.

Their rough, white-gray skin was dry and cracked, and all of them had too much of it exposed.

Dressed in their traditional raid gear, only their groins and parts of their hips and asses were covered.

A couple wore the odd piece of stolen and ill-fitting armor.

Three had clubs, two axes. One seemed to be favoring an injured shoulder. She could save him for last, then.

Their gazes simultaneously shifted to the plasma dirk as she powered it again.

She darted forward, thanking her past self, who’d had the wherewithal to buy boots that kept her from sinking all the way down in the snow.

The first Orcru to react earned a searing slash across his bare stomach before he could fully lift his club.

He roared, but she was already turning to the next.

Dodging a blow that would have smashed the side of her head in, she leapt at her attacker and buried her weapon to the hilt in his chest. He jerked away from her, taking the plasma dirk with him, but she had her raze sword attached to her belt and pulled it immediately.

The sound of the retractable blade extending from the hilt would never cease to thrill her.

She took out two more easily enough, their hot, pale-green blood splashing against the white snow.

Drawn in by the cries of their allies, more Orcru surrounded her. Three dozen at least. Vessa pulled the plasma dirk from the dead one’s chest. She’d practiced dual wielding a long time ago while sparring with a certain Xaal before the suns had even risen. Hopefully, it hadn’t been too long.

Battle heat burned through her veins. Her blades sang, cutting through the thick hides of the brutes with ease.

She danced to the rhythm of their death cries, lost herself in the fight.

Bodies piled up around her, but there were still so many standing.

Their eyes darted between her and their dead.

She could practically hear them trying to strategize.

“Well?” she prompted as she whipped her raze sword to rid it of blood.

A particularly ugly and broad-bodied Orcru stepped forward. Long, ragged scars ran the length of his torso like he’d been on the receiving end of one too many vorg attacks. “Gor Lug take.”

“Come on, then,” she said, beckoning him forward.

He moved toward her with deadly intent.

But then something hard connected with the back of her head, knocking her forward as sparks exploded in her vision.

All she could think about before darkness overcame her was that she might never find out which septuplet the Palashian prince chose now.