Page 11 of Warrior Enchanted

About to do just that without a word, my focus already on the planet beyond the door, Akri halted me with a single word. “Wait,” he said, his hand holding out a scanner. My eyes dropped down to it, noticing the crude weld on one side, and a few extra wires sprouting from a slot that they normally definitely shouldn’t. “I adapted a scanner for you. It should help you find her,” he explained and I hurried to take the gift.

He leaned in to point out how it worked and my heart started racing at the blue little dot that indicated Meena’s biosignature. It told me nothing about what else was around her, just her direction, but this was much more than I’d had a moment ago. “Thank you, brother,” I said, and I clasped my fist to my chest in a gesture of thanks and respect.

My skin prickled when I left the ship. There were eyes on me, more than just Akri’s. Didn’t matter, I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me from finding her. It didn’t look like anyone planned to try, but when my com beeped with an incoming call from Ziame, I answered with trepidation. I was prepared to listen to him as he gave me a whole shitload of warnings. But all he said was, “Good luck, Jakar, may your hunt be fruitful and satisfying.”

With a ground-eating stride, I followed the path into the city. Meena’s bio-signature told me she was beyond the city now and the quickest path was straight through it. Nobody stopped me at any of the city gates but the guards gave me warning glances at the sight of the weapons strapped to my body. Whatever, if they’d done their job right, I wouldn’t be here.

It didn’t take me long to locate the place where she’d been taken. Several guards were containing the scene with barriers, urging curious bystanders to walk on. Sunder was standing inside, looking down at a spilled bag on the ground. My heart clenched at the sight of it; that was definitely her bag. I could see broken shards of terracotta and the remains of the plant that I’d given her.

I pushed myself through the crowd, all the way up to the barrier, and then I ducked underneath it. Immediately, two Kertinal males in slick gray-blue uniforms barred my way. “This is a restricted area, sir. You can’t be here!” One of the males said haughtily. I leaned around him and caught Sunder’s eye and the older male straightened from his crouch.

“He’s with me. Let him in,” he said, his voice commanding respect. Somehow, he was the one in control of this scene, possibly because it pertained to one of our wards. I didn’t care why the Kertinal guards obeyed; I just pushed past them as soon as they let me. My heart ached from the sight of Meena’s meager belongings spilled out so casually across the cobbled street, there for everyone to see.

“Can I take these?” I asked, not explaining why I wished to take her things. Sunder looked at the backpack hanging from my shoulder, including the rolled-up blankets and the lightweight traveling tent. He had to know what my plan was but he just nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate a fresh change of clothes when you catch up to her,” he agreed, and together we gathered all her things back into her small bag. Then Sunder helpfully tucked her bag with things into my bigger pack. “I’ll rescue the plant. Go.”

He gestured with both arm and wing in the direction of a nearby alley branching off this main road. He said when, not if, as if he had complete faith in my ability to find and rescue Meena. It made me feel a little less frantic, that Sunder, my teacher in all things combat believed I could do it.

Then I spared no further thoughts for the crime scene, my brothers, or the Kertinal guards. I simply followed the blinking blue dot on Akri’s modified scanner, letting it guide my way. It didn’t take long for me to leave the city behind, and while the feeling that eyes were on me never left, I simply ignored it as a problem to solve at a later time. I had other priorities.

Chapter 8

Meena

I woke up with a pounding headache and the desperate need to open my eyes and figure out where I was. It was hard, but I managed to keep them shut and my breathing even though I wanted to panic and hyperventilate. Someone had kidnapped me, again. I’d felt many hands on my body as I’d been dragged away but I couldn’t remember many details, my brain foggy from whatever it was they’d drugged me with.

Using my eyes instead of my ears, I tried to figure out as much as I could before I gave away the fact that I was awake. I could hear voices, male from the sound of it, at least two different voices. At first, my head hurt too much to properly make sense of what they were saying, then the words resolved into clarity.

“Are we sure we got the right one?” one guy asked. He sounded a little younger and he definitely wasn’t the one in charge. I could tell he was to my left and I heard a crackling noise that I thought might be a fire. If I paid attention, it did feel like there was more warmth coming from that side.

“Of course we did. They said the black-haired female. This is the black-haired one. Isn’t it?” a second voice said far more gruffly. I could imagine that he was waving his hands around as he talked, pointing my way. I couldn’t see it, but my skin prickled with awareness. At least now I knew it wasn’t Jakar who’d taken me. I would have recognized his voice, even though I only heard it a few times. I felt a little ashamed for even thinking that it could be him, just because I’d felt more than one pair of hands. Jakar might be a flirt, but he wouldn’t do that.

I had a sinking feeling I knew who they’d really come here for, and it wasn’t me. Katja had black hair and she was far prettier than me. I’d learned that, like me, they had sold her and her brother from the auction house. In their case, their buyer had been filthy rich, and he’d locked them up in his private apartments, letting them dine on his good food. Katja hadn’t been touched by the time Fierce and his animal had broken in to rescue them.

Their buyer hadn’t been there during the rescue, so he was still alive, unlike mine. It was far more likely that Katja’s owner was the one who wanted her back. He was not only alive to wish for it but he also had the funds to pay for bounty hunters to make an attempt. Clearly, this inept pair of goons had mistaken me for her, figures.

I was without my knife or any of my other things and with a pang of sadness; I imagined them lying on the cobblestones back in Rakex City. Would anyone have noticed that I was missing by now? Would they have gone back to collect my things, or would they have been stolen, snatched up by someone else?

The plant was probably a write-off. The pot had broken into pieces, sad, but it was the thought of someone else wearing my handcrafted jewelry that pissed me off. Jakar had made those, at least I thought he had. I didn’t care if they hadn’t been made especially for me. It was something precious, my only frivolous item, and now it was gone. God, I was such a mess of contradictions. Why was I so hung up on some silly beads? It made no sense at all.

Opening my eyelashes a tiny bit, I tried to make sense of what little I could see. Definitely saw the flickering of a campfire and two big silhouettes. One of them, the older one, spoke, “Dar’kol will meet us tomorrow with the bikes. Let’s just get some rest. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us if we want to make it to Exka.”

I had no idea what any of that meant, but because darkness was only just kept at bay by the fire, I thought it meant I had an entire night to try to escape. I wriggled experimentally with my hands, but they were tied behind my back with some kind of thin wire. It hurt and I was scared that the scent of blood would attract predators if I caused myself to bleed.

I’d read the pamphlet about Rakex, or rather I’d listened to Abby’s rundown about the pros and cons of staying on this planet. There were large predators in the woods, that was the main takeaway. The city was safe; the woods were not. It hadn’t deterred any of the humans from wishing to settle down here; it seemed they were all extremely eager to feel land beneath their feet again. I didn’t really understand that desire.

At some point, one of the men near the fire got up and I spotted spiraling antelope horns jutting proudly from his forehead. The crackle effect of his skin was black with fine pale blue lines that matched the pale blue of his eyes as he scanned my form. “She’s still asleep. Are you sure we didn’t give her too high a dose? We won’t get paid if she’s dead.”

It was the younger one of the two again. He didn’t seem the confident sort but when he squatted down near my head, I could see odd little notches carved into his horns. They were visible against the light from the campfire, even through my eyelashes. I was pretty sure he was of the alien species that was native to this planet, the Kert-somethings but I didn’t know what the weird notches in his horns meant.

It was unnerving as hell to have this guy hover over me, looking at me while I was pretending to be completely vulnerable. Was he going to touch me, shake me awake, hurt me? My stomach was completely empty and my mouth parched from thirst, but I still didn’t want him to offer me any kind of sustenance. I wouldn’t touch anything they offered me. They might very well try to drug me again and I couldn’t have that if I wanted to try to escape.

“Stop staring, we don’t get paid if we mess her up,” the other one said sharply, and finally the guy turned his back on me. They argued about who was going to stand guard while I tried to figure out where they were keeping their weapons. If I could cut off my restraints, I could make a run for it. My legs weren’t tied, but I would be helpless in these woods if I ran without my hands free; I had to find a way to cut the wire.

I opened my eyes a little wider when I hadn’t heard any noise for a while. There was one man rolled up in a blanket near the fire, boot-clad feet sticking out from beneath the fabric at one end, and a pair of spiral horns on the other. It was the younger, blue-tinted male that was sitting on a wooden log across the fire from me, supposedly keeping guard but he was immersed in a tablet he was holding, not paying any kind of attention at all.

A little more daring, I scanned the campsite in the hopes of finding something I could use. I could see two bags piled against each other nearby. One had the flap open so I could see the promising shape of a flask of water. If I could, I’d have to snatch that up before I ran; I was pretty sure getting my hands on safe drinking water was the most essential part of surviving in the wild. That’s also where my knowledge ran out, so I didn’t know what else to do. I just had to hope for the best; I certainly wasn’t going to expect a rescue.