Page 23 of Hunter’s Harvest

“We still haven’t found Marisol,” Vince said.

“There’s another hunter, one of Var’n’s friends. I sent him to look for you guys. Maybe he found her.”

Var’n’s arms tightened around me like he didn’t want me to keep talking.

“Oh, stop it! These people won’t hurt your friend.”

Mal’k stepped forward. “We are always looking for more to join our group. I work with Koriv’n, Rayk’n and Kan’n often.”

He must’ve said the right name because Var’n was suddenly very interested. “Kan’n! He is alive?”

“He is. A hostile human group stole his shuttle, and another imprisoned him. The group who imprisoned him is no longer hostile. And the ones who took his shuttle are gone. He is now happily mated to one of our Tech Wizards.”

Mal’k had said the word in the Xarc’n language. But I understood exactly what it meant.

Var’n made a sound of surprise.

“I will explain more inside the shuttle.” Mal’k gestured to the door. “You will not be asked to leave Earth. Even if you wanted to, there’s no way for you to leave since your mothership has been grounded. We will recognize your mating and keep your female safe.”

That must’ve been the right thing to say because I found myself being carried toward the shuttle.

I glanced around when I looked inside. “Where’s Charles?” Vince had mentioned that they were still looking for Marisol, so I assumed they must have found Charles. But he was nowhere to be seen.

Vince hesitated. “Charles did not… He did not survive the crash.” His voice cracked. “I tried… I tried to get him hidden before the NEM bastards arrived, but I couldn’t move him. I—”

“Oh.” And that was the only sound I could get out before the tightness in my chest had me mute. I reached out to pat Vince’s shoulder instead.

Charles was gone? No, that couldn’t be. He was our pilot! I cared about him.

I took shallow breaths, worried that if I inhaled any deeper, I’d fall apart completely and be a crying, screaming mess.

This, this was why I couldn’t get close to anyone. I hadn’t even been that close with Charles. But we’d practiced shooting together a few times, and he’d told me how much he enjoyed training new pilots, and how they often reminded him of himself when he was young.

And now, he was gone.

Once inside the shuttle, Mal’k continued speaking, explaining things to Var’n as we lifted off, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore. I couldn’t. Maybe it was the stress, but it felt like I was only around for the ride and was no longer really inside my body.

The shuttle floor disappeared as Mal’k turned on the external display and I stared down, looking for the wreckage.

“Nellie.” It was Meghan who spoke. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Totally fine. Just… just processing.”

“We’ll give you a moment.”

“Thank you.”

But right now, I didn’t need a moment. I needed a stiff drink and a big cry.

Chapter 10: Var’n

The scents of the settlement hit me the moment the shuttle door opened. It surprised me a little, in a good way. I had expected the stench of unwashed humans that tended to accumulate when they were in large groups, and while there was a tiny bit of that, it wasn’t nearly so bad. Mostly I smelled wood smoke and cooking food.

The settlement was a lot bigger than I’d expected. It had been built from the ruins of a town, with humans and hunters moving between large buildings. Much of the space was green and covered in plants. There were greenhouses and strips of tended crops everywhere, even though there were already long fields just outside the settlement.

There were also giant orange fruits, very different from the small ones Nellie and her crew had been transporting in their shuttle. And some of them had strange holes cut into them like faces.

There were also the avian creatures they often kept for meat and ovum wandering under the partially covered spaces and paths between the buildings. One of them was pecking away at the “eye” of an orange face, making it bigger.