Chapter 4
Vessa
The mysterious newcomer was not an Orcru.
Vessa couldn’t see his face beneath the dark hood he wore, but what she could see of his body was clearly designed for combat.
He was taller than the Orcru with broad shoulders.
Abdominals carved into blocks sat below a defined shelf of a chest. But her attention caught on his thick, muscled thighs flexing beneath the fight suit that fit him like a second skin.
Who was he?
Gor Lug and Bargo came out of their stupor just as the stranger crouched down. He slit the downed Orcru’s throat. Blood crackled against the plasma. When he stood, reaching his full intimidating height, he beckoned the four others forward with two fingers.
The idiots fighting over her dropped her at the same time in favor of their weapons. She slammed back against the pole so hard it knocked the air out of her.
For fuck’s sake, she was getting real tired of this shit.
Gor Lug let out a roar of a battle cry. Bargo motioned for the others to move forward with him, but one of them was knocked back immediately by a casual slice of the plasma dirk.
The Orcru’s club swung wide as he tried to keep his balance.
She knew what was going to happen before it did, as if given the gift of Sight.
Both Orcru and club careened toward one wall of the tent. The wall with the single helo-lamp swinging precariously from it. The light shattered into pieces.
Darkness descended. The emerald glow of her plasma dirk was the only light.
Chaos erupted around her.
She couldn’t see anything except shadows of shadows torn by the movement of the blade.
But what she heard was the familiar and soothing sounds of bloodshed.
More of the horde responded to Gor Lug’s call and flooded the tent.
They had night vision, and all she had to go by was the burning path of the plasma dirk.
A flash of the warrior burying the searing edge into Bargo’s neck. A flash of an Orcru head flying. A flash as the stranger headbutted then stabbed an opponent.
And then Gor Lug—stalking toward her.
Shit. Calling on all her strength, she curled her legs up to protect her stomach. Her abs and hips protested the simple movement.
Another flash. But now Gor Lug’s back was to her as he narrowly dodged a club flying toward his head. He was only three spans away.
Finally.
Her legs obeyed her as she kicked up and out. Her boots met Gor Lug’s shoulders, but his momentum carried him back just enough…
She hooked her knees over his shoulders, pulled him into her.
Then, with her thighs pressed on either side of his neck, she locked her legs and squeezed.
“It’s a shame,” she growled while Gor Lug attempted to pry her legs apart.
“I would have preferred to split you open, but I guess this will have to do.”
He struggled and snorted, beat at her legs, but he couldn’t fully dislodge her. Eventually, he weakened from the lack of blood to his small brain. His body sagged against the pole.
Thick thighs truly saved lives.
Her shoulders were screaming at her, but she felt much better about things now that she had a kill.
It was then she realized the fighting had stopped. The only sound was the wind battering the tent. Had the stranger left? After all of that?
No, that wasn’t right. She could feel him.
Somewhere in the dark, he stood and watched her. Something unfamiliar slithered down her spine.
Gor Lug’s body made a convenient seat for her, but she felt exposed. Trussed up for the true predator. He could see her, but she couldn’t see him. She licked her lips and was just about to speak when he finally made a sound. Rustling, too close for comfort. Then a single click.
Her arms came free from the anchor in the pole.
The unexpected freedom caused her to shift, tilting dangerously.
She couldn’t catch herself because her damn wrists were still cuffed together.
Just as she entered freefall, she was caught.
Effortlessly, the stranger lifted her by her hips, powerful hands sinking into the top of her ass.
Had she just been rescued? Like a damn damsel?
Liv could never find out.
Though he set her carefully on her feet, the stranger kept his hands on her.
He held her upright as she tried to put the full weight of herself on her abused legs for the first time in hours.
She hated being weak. She hated not being able to see a damn thing, and she really hated that she didn’t have her raze sword in hand.
“If you’re going to feel me up,” she ground out, “you could at least tell me who you are.”
His grasp only tightened.
Friend or foe? The question flickered through her head. Then she decided she didn’t much care who he was or what his intentions were. “Let me go, or I swear I will break each of your damn fingers, then cut them off and shove them so far down your throat you could braid your own intestines.”
A low, dark laugh reverberated through her. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
His warm hands left her waist. “Do you always threaten those who save you?”
The voice was modulated with an unaffected dullness that suggested he was bored. She only knew one type of person who would go through the trouble of raiding an Orcru encampment to save her while hiding their identity.
A bounty hunter.
But who had sent him? The Lunaris pirates, who still held a grudge for that time she stole one of their ships? Or Cavlone? She’d had the displeasure of interacting with the Authority Blood Vulture turned galactic crime lord on more than one occasion.
Whoever it was, they were damn good if they’d found her here. “Who do you work for?”
“In less than two minutes, an entire horde of Orcru are going to have us surrounded.”
Over the gusts of wind hitting the tent, she heard their war cries. By the sound of it, there were hundreds.
Great.
The ground shook with their approach. “Then why are my wrists bound still? I need to get out of these, get my sword, and... Where’s that bag?”
Her plasma dirk lit the space between them. When her eyes adjusted, she found her raze sword’s hilt in his hand.
“How did you…?” She trailed off as she took it. There wasn’t time. Holding it with bound wrists was awkward, but she already felt better for having it in her possession again. A warrior without her raze sword, her father used to say, was like a nuo tiger without its claws. All bite.
The stranger then handed her the bag of devices. The Orcru must have stolen the entire stock of maglocks from a Federation prison ship with how many were in there.
There wasn’t enough time to go through them before the horde got there.
Making a snap decision, Vessa tied the fastener of the leather bag together before hooking it on her suit.
Without another word, her bounty hunter cut an opening into the back of the tent and ducked outside. Frigid and violent wind assaulted her immediately. It howled and raged through the makeshift exit as if its only goal was to get to her. It was a gods damn blizzard.
But she had no other choice but to follow him into it.
She extended her raze sword as she peered into the winter-made dark. Jumping down from the raised platform, she landed in an unsteady crouch in the snow. Pain racked through her entire exhausted body, but she ignored it. This was no time to be weak.
A faint green glow was her only guide. She pushed against the force threatening to blow her back. Vessa was no small woman, and she usually had impeccable balance, but each step was a struggle.
Fuck. She refused to die here.
An Orcru roared. Grunts and snorts sounded from all directions. Shadows swayed and loomed in the storm, playing tricks on her. There was no telling if she were walking into the open arms of a thousand Orcru or not.
The glow of the plasma dirk disappeared. She was alone.
What a piss-poor bounty hunter. Squinting through the snow and ice collecting on her eyelashes, she couldn’t see a damn thing.
An axe sliced through the storm, and she was forced to throw herself to the side sloppily to avoid it cracking her skull open.
The Orcru appeared out of nowhere, his gray skin giving him an advantage in the white chaos.
Using his momentum against him, she brought her blade slicing against his back.
He fell to a knee. Twisting her sword in her hands, she struck him down.
The only way she survived this was if she could get out of the encampment, but trying to orient herself was near impossible.
And fighting with bound wrists doubly so.
Before she could move, two more Orcru were on her.
Shit. Maneuvering her sword awkwardly in her cuffed hands, she managed to kill one almost instantly by thrusting her blade up through his chin.
But then her stranger appeared, cutting the last Orcru’s head off with the plasma dirk. He let out an annoyed snarl and picked her up, throwing her over his broad shoulder with an arm banded around her hips.
Vessa’s immediate reaction was to slam her cuffed hands against his back. “Have you lost your mind? You’re going to get me killed,” she hissed.
“I think you were doing a fine job of that yourself.”
“I didn’t need your help,” Vessa snapped. “That kill was mine.” She was jerked violently as the bounty hunter reacted to another Orcru. Her grip on the hilt of her raze sword slipped, but she caught it at the last second, retracting it and holding it so tightly her palms ached.
The stranger dispatched three Orcru in quick succession as they flung themselves out of the storm into their path.
Begrudgingly, she had to admit his skill was impressive.
But there were so many of them. While he battled, another came from behind him.
Vessa let a female Orcru, who was far more intimidating than her male counterparts, draw dangerously close before extending the blade of her raze sword through her torso and out again.
She killed two more in a similar manner, narrowly dodging having her back split in two while she was at it.
He only grunted when he saw her handiwork. Bastard.
Her bounty hunter, who was both savior and captor at this point, traversed the maze of tents expertly.
Whatever he was, his senses were far superior to hers, as he only had to kill a handful more of the Orcru on their route before he’d taken them completely out of the horde’s encampment.
With no tents to block the wind, the storm only became more violent.
Chunks of ice as large as the nail of her smallest finger mixed with the snow and stung on impact.
Deep regret mixed with the sheer exhaustion in her bones.
If only she had bailed in favor of her multi-sun planet when she had the chance.
It only took minutes for Vessa to grow so numb that she barely felt anything at all. “I hope your bounty is for dead or alive,” she rasped over the wind.
He didn’t respond, but she swore his pace quickened until they were practically jogging.
Vessa didn’t know how much time passed. Her mind was as blurry as the world around her.
She was just contemplating closing her eyes and letting fate decide what happened next when she was sat down on her feet suddenly.
“For fuck’s sake,” she growled as she swayed on frozen legs. “You could have warned me, you thick-skulled y’ak.”
The plasma dirk’s green glow was the only light between them. The stranger tilted his head, his face still hidden in the darkness of the hood. “That pretty mouth of yours always did come with venom.”
This time, there was no modulation. The voice was deep and gravelly. Resonant like the waterfalls of her home. As familiar to her as her own heartbeat.
She could be withered with age, her own name forgotten, but she would still know the sound and shape of that voice—and who it belonged to.
Kedar.