by Viola Grace
Stolen from a life she was settling into, dumped onto an alien landscape and hunted, she has to put her faith in the man she can’t see.
Bree has worked for the agricultural department on Imrahl until this week. She has been identified as a late-blooming Breeder and is now shopping for knickknacks to fill her new apartment.
When her escort turns kidnapper and she is dropped on an alien world, running is her only option.
Arix is a master tracker as well as a Hunter. When one of the precious Breeders is taken, he is assigned to bring her home.
He will hunt her, he will find her and he will bring her home.
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Heart of the Hunted
Copyright © 2016 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0916-6
Cover art by Angela Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Heart of the Hunted
Brace for Humanity Book 2
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
Shopping under guard took some getting used to, but since she was allowed to shop for a few knickknacks to make her apartment in the Breeder quarters feel like home, she was taking advantage of the time out and about.
She picked up a silk throw and stroked it softly, enjoying the texture against her hands. She nodded to the vendor, and he took the silk, wrapped it and marked it for delivery to the Breeders’ compound.
She turned to look for her escort, but they were speaking to another pair of Rrassics. Shrugging, she turned back to her shopping and looked for a vase that would catch the morning light in her new apartment. Having her guards changing shifts wasn’t unusual. She had been warned that they would be on short rounds so that she wouldn’t overwhelm them. Bree didn’t know how she could overwhelm the senses of the Rrassic when they worked a number on her equilibrium when she was near them.
She turned to find her escort when she was finished, but before she could locate them, Bree felt the brush of a Rrassic against her arm. She looked up to see golden skin next to a military collar, and then, the hiss of a hypo injector took her world away.
She jolted awake, feeling the heavy weight of her limbs and fighting it. The air was hot and something soft and vegetable based was close to her face. There was pressure on her from all sides except her feet. Bree felt humidity on her feet, and she hoped that she was about to do the right thing. With care, she wormed her way down until her butt and hips were free. She slid out of the confinement and leaned back. Sweat covered her from head to toe, and her tunic and trousers were all twisted around her torso.
“Holy smokes. It’s a fricking shipment.” Bree blinked in surprise at the stack of goods that were in front of her. She pulled her clothing straight and tried to figure out what was going on.
The humans stolen to work the farms and factories of Imrahl were there to create this kind of shipment. The disturbing part was that on this pallet, the rear section had been sliced off. It had missed her by an inch. The back portion of the pallet was completely missing. So where was it?
She heard voices in the distance and lifted her head to listen. The sounds weren’t human, and if someone had drugged her to take her off Imrahl, she really didn’t want to wait and see what they wanted with her.
She got to her feet and headed in the opposite direction from the voices. The Rrassic would hunt her by scent, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
* * * *
The call came in on Arix’s shift. A Breeder was missing and an unscheduled shipment had been interrupted leaving Imrahl. Arix had to enter the port.
Other Hunters were on site, but they lacked the clearance to pass the security gate. Arix was the Luthin-Rrassic on duty with the necessary clearance. He had to be the one to cross the security barrier.
He scanned his credentials and offered an ocular confirmation along with a blood sample.
The pier manager met him and inclined his head. “Hunter Arix. It is good to see you.”
“Honourable Supervisor Mrtok, it is an honour to serve. You have had an unauthorized shipment?”
Mrtok snorted. “You can say that. Come with me.”
They wove their way into the depths of the port and headed to the affected pier. For a bustling area, things were surprisingly quiet; it was eerie, but the scent of humans was everywhere. No wonder Mrtok was in charge, he was impervious to stirrings of a sexual nature.
“Please, outline the details of the situation.”
“Certainly. The alarm sounded after all the loaders were off shift. I was finishing up the shift dockets and hit the override the moment I heard the gate alarm.”
Arix paused then asked, “Something came in?”
“No. Something was going out, but they couldn’t access the regular equipment, so they had to push it through by hand.”
They entered the shipping area, and jammed in the large archway was a segment of a pallet.
“You cut up the shipment?”
“Yes, but that isn’t why you are here.”
Mrtok led the way to where the gate had severed the packed food and goods. There was the scent of Zjin and Regiz-Rrassic with a slight undertone of human female.
He ran his hand along the surface and steeled his nerve to walk around the gateway and stand in the spot that would project him to a step-down world. One world out of thousands to keep the Voboth from finding them.
“Check the cut side. Look toward the bottom. You will sense what I have.” Mrtok was tense. His scaled features were showing definite nervousness.
Arix leaned over and followed the scent of human. There was sweat and a little something medicinal in her aura. They had drugged whomever they had taken.
“Do you know who she is?”
“I know she is lucky. She is whole on the other side of that transport. There was no sign of blood, but she was moved off Imrahl.”
“Do you have the coordinates?”
“I do.”
“Good. I will grab a kit and be back in twenty minutes.”
Mrtok shook his head. “We have go bags for just this kind of incident in my office. If it meets with your approval, you can go now.”
“Is it Luthin compatible?”
“There is one, yes.”
“Excellent. Can you bring me the destination specs? I want to know how fast I have to move.”
“I am getting it.” Mrtok lifted his wrist to display the tech band.
“Don’t you have the records?”
“When I disconnected it, they scrambled the codes. It might take a few more hours to unravel the path that she travelled.”
A
rix sighed and let the adrenalin drain from his system. He had been ready to leave, but going through a gate without a positive destination would put him on the other side of the universe, in a different time, and could kill him. A step-down world would narrow the possibilities to a few thousand, but waiting for the information, he could just study the woman he was looking for.
If the transport was aborted and she barely got through in one piece, she would be decidedly nervous. He needed to know if she had survival skills and the results of her psych profile. All he needed was to put a name to the scent.
In Supervisor Mrtok’s office, he sat and called up the location of all the registered Breeders on Imrahl. Once he had them on display, he reversed the chronological tracking until the blip of one of the signals was surrounded by Rrassic. That was the moment when they grabbed her. He could see the slight fluctuation in the band before it resumed a slow and steady heartbeat.
They had taken the band off her and put it on one of their own as the other two carried her to the port. He could tell by the movements. They were slower than they should be as they made their way through town and stopped at the port.
“Mrtok, you are investigating your security?”
“Oh, yes. They seemed to have used a virus, and then, they used the staffing gate for their exit. Other Hunters are looking into it. We are secure now, and there are plenty of living beings watching the port.”
“Good. This has the hallmarks of an inside job, so it was orchestrated by someone with working knowledge of the ports.”
“I agree. Just the way they snugged the load together indicates knowledge of our procedures. It was a tight assembly that had to be prepped before they arrived with their cargo.”
Arix glanced at him. “How could they do it without you noticing?”
“We had an early day. My best loader managed to clear the docket, so all departures were complete. My office faces the loaders, not the dock.”
Arix pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right. And they would know that as well. I think we may need to look into the architects. This movement of colonists knows every nook and cranny of the outposts. Imrahl is not the only one hit.”
Mrtok nodded. “I know the overseer is working on it, but things have to become more obvious before he can root them out.”
Arix sighed and checked his chronometer. “Do you have the location?”
“Let me check.” Mrtok checked his wrist unit, and he nodded. “Got it. Skekt. Based on the time delay, you should arrive an hour after she did. Stats from her detail just came in. They thought they were getting shift relief, but the escorts who arrived were not the ones scheduled. The schedule was tampered with. She had an hour undefended, and that is when they struck.”
“So, you know exactly who she is. Give me her file.”
Arix checked the ocular display as he authorized the upload, and he smiled. “Bree Agerson. I will have her back within the week.”
He grabbed the data on Skekt, slipped on his pack and headed to the portal.
Skekt was a biologically active world, and there would be plenty to eat, but shelter was always at a premium in the wilderness. The pack he carried contained shelter, lightless heat, water and compressed rations. It was enough for a month, but he wouldn’t need it.
He had never failed in the hunt before, and he wouldn’t start now.
Chapter Two
Bree blessed and cursed the trees that she ran into. They hid her from those following, but they were mean to her limbs. Being slapped by wood wasn’t her idea of a fun afternoon.
She didn’t know where she was or where she was going, but away seemed like the best option. If they were actually Rrassic, they would find her eventually, but for now, she needed to put enough distance between them to have time to think.
Bree ran as far and as fast as she could until she stumbled out of the forest and came to an abrupt halt.
The large beasts that were grazing around and drinking in the stream looked at her with blank curiosity. Bree moved upstream from them and drank from the water.
She lay on the grass and scooped water into her mouth, pausing warily when she was nudged from the side. Bree turned to see a huge, wet nose attached to one of the giant multi-horned bison.
“Oh, hello.”
The beast snuffled a slime trail from her shoulder to her ankles.
“Thanks for that.”
Another one of the creatures stepped over her and did the same thing.
“That isn’t weird at all.” She pushed herself up on shaking arms. It took four tries to get back on her feet. Her legs had had enough.
She didn’t know if it was bravery or stupidity that made her hang onto the creature nearest her. To her surprise, it knelt. It was an invitation she didn’t want to ignore.
Bree hauled herself onto the animal’s back and draped her body across it. The herd started to move with slow, lumbering steps, and it took her along for the ride.
She knotted her fingers in the thick fur and held on as the beast rocked under her. She was going to have to find a treat for it when they stopped walking.
The herd moseyed along, and she tried to remember what had happened right before everything went black.
Her escort had changed. It was now a Regiz and a Zjin. Lions and tigers, all she had been missing was bears. There weren’t any bear Rrassic that she could recall, but she had only met four species in the six months that she had been working out harvest schedules for Imrahl. She knew what would grow where, how large a yield and the frequency. She was a master of Imrahl, and now, she was on another world with two suns and a moon that must play havoc on the tides.
The fur under her cheek was a thousand shades of green and resembled lush grass. The softness was that of a fluffy kitten. She flexed her fingers in it as they moved, forgetting for a moment that she was being hunted.
They had gone through three meadows and were on a wide plain when she heard the feline roar. Instead of continuing their lumbering pace, the creature she was riding started to run, but it wasn’t away from the sound. The entire herd made a slow turn and powered toward the sound. Bree’s eyes teared as they headed toward the Rrassic who were in a pack on the plain.
Without any hesitation, the herd ran them down. Six men were pounded to paste in a matter of minutes before the herd wheeled and headed back to the calm expanse of the plain.
They did the whole thing at top speed until they reached a still pool fed by a small stream. The fifty beasts calmly munched and drank as if nothing had happened.
By the time Bree had managed to unclench her hands, her buddy was standing knee deep in the pool. She slid right off and landed with a splash.
The beasts snuffled around her and rolled her in the water. Bree gasped and splashed around in the water as she fought for purchase on the sandy bottom of the pool.
The beasts carefully nudged her until she was completely soaked and only then did they help her out of the pool with small motions of their heads.
Bree shivered as she left the pool, and she stood in the fading light of both suns, hoping that her clothing would dry before night fell. The rubber-soled slippers that she had worn on the day she was abducted were cloth and would dry as soon as she got her wrinkly, sand-covered feet out of them.
The beasts grazed far and wide as the sun went down, but when night fell, they gathered together in a clump.
Her escort herded Bree into the centre, and as they all dropped to their bellies, she cozied up against her ride and listened to the breathing and inhaled in the sweet smell of grass.
She wrapped her arms around her knees, leaned back and let the slow breathing lull her to sleep.
* * * *
Arix came through the portal near dusk, his camouflage active and hiding him from the camp. There was no one around.
He looked to the left and right, but there was no one. That wasn’t right. The portal outpost should have at least half a dozen men. The la
rger colony would have greater defenses and be a distance away. That was if Skekt had a colony. This might just be a holding area or another step-down world.
He used his wrist monitor to track the pallet and saw the marks of her escape. Her scent was strongest at the edge, and small bits of black fibre were caught in the bales of greens. She was wearing practical clothing and not the frivolous stuff that the Breeders tended to favour.
The trackers that had followed her had left a wide trail. He simply followed them.
His prey had moved quickly, but they had gone on foot. Arix tracked them through the woods and noted the skark tracks. The trail just kept getting easier.
He loped down the path, keeping his senses alert for returning trackers with their prey. To his amazement, the small human footprints disappeared with the skark tracks, but the trackers kept after them, so he followed.
When he reached the edge of the hills where the plains began, the stench of blood was thick in the air.
It took him a few hundred metres to find the remains, but thankfully, there wasn’t a human amongst them.
Skarks did a lovely job of trampling anything they considered a threat to one of the herd. The original idea had been to use them as food sources, but they were far too violent when defending their own. Fortunately, they didn’t over breed, so they were good at clearing land wherever they were put.
The sweet-hot scent of the human was now mixed in with that of the skark. It was not a conflicting mix. He grinned and realized what had probably happened. Her scent was close enough to theirs that they took her in.
He just had to creep up to the herd and get her away without her guardians noticing. No problem.
* * * *
A hand clamped over her mouth, and she opened her eyes wide. She grabbed for it and found a wrist, but her captor had slid a hand behind her and was lifting her off her feet. He moved silently. Only the rustle of fabric made any noise in the darkness. She couldn’t even see him.
