An Unauthorized Field Guide to the Hunt (12 page)

“Lore. Is that your cat?”

Shane nodded, never taking his eyes off Fallon.

“You call him by name,” the blond said, eyebrow arching so much like that of the Fallon that Shane had met over his own campfire before the Hunt sank into chaos. “You must be his victor, then.”

There was no longer any point in refusing Lore or denying it. “Yes,” Shane said and grinned.

Fallon’s eyes widened, brow disappearing into the hairline not hidden behind gauze and medical tape. “You’re pleased about it.”

Was he happy? Mostly Shane felt horny. And confused. “I think I am.”

Lips curling to a slight bow, Fallon glanced at the dying campfire. A hunk of meat roasted above it. “You still vegetarian?” He shifted in his cloak of furs to nudge a bag. “I should’ve known when Maero brought pine nuts.”

“You’re calling your cat by name too.” Good sign. Maybe Shane would gain a friend after all.

“
But
my relatives aren’t as bloodthirsty as yours. Just poor.” Snorting a laugh, Fallon shrugged his uninjured shoulder. “C’mon. Sit. Eat with me.”

Shoving off his unease, Shane sat. He didn’t enjoy Fallon’s thick nest of pelts, but the campfire had been built next to a stretch of fallen tree trunk, fresh cut marks showing where Fallon had stripped twigs and skinny branches for fuel. Someone—Maero, perhaps—had draped the section of log nearest the fire with cushioning fur that Shane perched on. “Word is you want an immediate evac. You no longer trust the cats.”

Scowling, Fallon pried a chunk of meat from the haunch roasting over the fire. “And you do?”

“I trust Lore. He’s a cat.”

Fallon grunted. “You’re thinking with your dick.”

That might’ve been true when Lore first mated Shane. It was likely still the case when Shane had first woken in the canopy, but his cock hadn’t pushed Lore for the trip to the forest floor. Hormones hadn’t convinced Shane to open up to his cat either. “Wardens are monitoring cats in the arenas. One slipped through their screening, but only one.” He nodded to his injured wrists. “They don’t want to hurt us.” He stiffened his spine. “Maero won’t hurt you.”

“He won’t be able to stop it. None of them can.” Fallon stared into the forest overgrowth, gaze distant. “Predators are stalking the arena.”

“The animal that attacked you is dead.”

“Who knows how many others are in here,” Fallon mumbled.

Foreboding pebbled Shane’s skin, the chill freezing him to his core. “Wardens and cats sweep the territory every day. There haven’t been signs of—”

A deafening roar thundered from the woods far behind Shane, raising hair at his nape and tripping his pulse. Fear, raw and basic, dumped adrenaline into him. When he whipped around to stare into the forest, he saw only trees. Leaves. Nothing was out of place…except the ensuing silence. Once the roar died, no animals scampered through the vegetation, rustling greenery. The birds had stopped singing.

Oh shit.

“You were saying?” Fallon asked, voice droll and a little smug.

The high, piercing yowl of a cat ripped through the unnatural quiet, rocketing Shane’s panic. Not his cat. Shane would know Lore’s voice anywhere. The feline shrieks rang out, angry, aggressive, harmonizing with guttural, knee-jellying snarls that shredded Shane’s nerves. “We need to get off the forest floor.” He didn’t know where Lore was, likely racing to Maero’s aid to fight whatever beast had invaded the arena this time, but he and Fallon were as good as dead on the ground he’d craved. He glanced around them, searching frantically for branches low enough. “We’ll climb.”

Throwing his bandaged head back, Fallon barked with snide laughter. “Climb?” he asked, thumping the cast immobilizing his left leg from thigh to toe. “I can barely crawl.”

“I’ll help you.” Shane wasn’t sure how. Fallon was bigger, and with his injuries probably dead weight. He’d drag Fallon if he had to, though. Why hadn’t he listened to Lore when the cat had cautioned him about the threats on the ground, the risks Shane would take? Now that they’d fully mated, the chances he was taking with Lore’s happiness too?

The only safe place was up in the trees.

He spotted a branch he might be able to grab at the same moment Lore’s furious snarls echoed through the forest, ratcheting Shane’s terror up another notch. What would he do if Lore was hurt? Killed? His fault. If Lore was taken from him, injured, the blame was Shane’s. No one else’s.

“Here,” Shane said, darting to Fallon to drag him to his feet. He’d trust Lore to defend himself. No one was more capable or better equipped to fight the vicious animals that inhabited Mariket, and Lore would rely on Shane to take any and all necessary precautions until the danger was gone. The cat wouldn’t easily forgive Shane for taking chances. “Just hang on to me and—”

The blow landed so suddenly, so unexpectedly Shane didn’t have time to blink before the axe blade split the meat of his chest. He stared at the surrealistic handle, refusing to believe what his eyes told him. Reeling in shock, he stumbled a step in retreat, legs wooden. Clumsy.

When Fallon jerked the blade from Shane’s body, Shane screamed.

Black dots danced in his vision.

Blood sheeted down his destroyed shirt. The left side of his wounded chest.

The axe swung again, glancing off Shane’s shoulder. It ripped his shirt, shaving away skin, but didn’t sink into muscle. He wheezed for breath at the pain that exploded from his rib cage and tried to scream. “Lore!”

“—is far from here, fighting the rogue predator Maero lured into the arena,” Fallon said, looming over Shane. He clasped the evil-looking axe in his steely grip.

When had Shane dropped to the earth?

Gods, he couldn’t think. The agony consumed everything.

“He isn’t coming, Shane. No one is. They’ve all rushed to protect us weak humans by slaying the beast that slipped past their defenses. Wardens think I’m crazy, that we’re helpless.” Fallon bent, beaming at him. “I don’t need an arsenal to fulfill a contract. Not one with a reward this lucrative.”

Shane gaped at Fallon, tried to speak. To yell out his misery. No sounds emerged from his throat, just the sucking gasps that pushed beyond blood bubbling from his mouth.

“This is a shitty weapon.” Fallon glared at the crude hand axe. “But I do believe,” he said on a slow, wondering drawl, “the first hit may have broken ribs that pierced and are now collapsing your lung.” He didn’t lift the axe to strike Shane again, though. He stooped lower and slapped Shane’s jaw. “Pay attention. I’ll earn a bonus if you know why you’re dying.”

Light-headed, woozy, Shane writhed with the pain that mushroomed from his chest down to his stomach to the far ends of his fingertips. Even his hair hurt. “My brothers.”

“You think your brothers ordered this?” Fallon snorted. “All they’ve ever cared about was testing you to ensure you were the strongest and most capable of assuming control of your family. After you gave up your birthright and left Narone, you didn’t exist to them anymore. I doubt your brothers remember your name.” Fallon twisted his shoulder, shrugging off the sling that cradled his injured, useless arm, then proved how
un
useless that arm was by reaching for Shane. He knotted Shane’s hair in his fist and yanked his upper body off the soft earth. “Why would they waste money on you?”

Why?

It was a good question—a puzzle Shane was in no condition to untangle. Blood poured from his chest. His legs twitched, refusing to obey the commands his mind frantically sent them. His arms flopped numbly. He shivered too, the cold of shock settling into his bones.

He was dying.

“Don’t pass out. Not yet.” Fallon shook him, rattling Shane’s teeth. “Think. Do you believe an operation like this comes cheap? I had to identify an ally among the cats to help me, convince him to trade a half share of my reward to sneak predators intelligent enough to follow your scent trail into the arena. What good would the rogue beasts do if they slaughtered indiscriminately? They’d satisfy their hunger on easier prey, and wardens would’ve shut down this arena before I fulfilled my mission. You would’ve survived! And when the beasts couldn’t find you, I had to pay my cat ally to attack you himself. No cat would betray his tribe and people without a small fortune to bankroll him off Mariket. Do your brothers have that much money?”

Shane managed to shift his hands to his chest while Fallon ranted at him. Gods, the blood. He’d already lost too much. Where was Lore? The arena’s wardens? Fighting the rogue beast, by the crashes and yowls resounding from the forest. Too far away. Shane wouldn’t last if he didn’t stem the flow of blood pumping his life from him. He pressed flattened palms over the chest wound, groaning at the weak pressure he exerted on the gash, yet grateful the man’s aim hadn’t been better. A little to the right would’ve pierced his heart.

“Concentrate, Shane!” Fallon slapped him again, rocking Shane’s head back with the force of the blow. “Do your brothers have the wealth to persuade a cat to betray his tribe, his home world?”

Slick, hot wet streaming between Shane’s fingers, he stared at Fallon. Stupidly.

No.

His brothers didn’t possess such wealth.

“What about me? My price?” Fallon’s mouth curved to a malicious bow. “The pay for killing you had to be high enough to risk a Hunt and fund the steep bribe I needed to offer a cat…two cats! Your damn lover killed the first, so I was forced to find another. Crazy, lust-mad cats aren’t as thick on the ground as you might believe either. I promised Maero the dead feral cat’s share of my reward
and
swore to become his victor just to convince him to lure you here.”

Shane gaped in horror. If Maero was involved, then Lore was in danger.

Lore could
die
.

As his blood trickled away, his body weakening, Shane realized he’d known long ago that he might not—probably wouldn’t—survive. The odds against him living through the Hunt and his family’s murderous intent should he fail to perform well in the arena had been slim. Shane hadn’t expected to see his next birthday. He’d resolved to try. He wouldn’t submit helplessly to his fate. He’d fight to stay alive. But he hadn’t believed he’d be successful.

He’d accepted his likely death.

But he could not—would
not
—accept Lore’s.

“Who has the resources, Shane? Who possesses the money, great heaps of it? Who has connections to get us both through screening on the Seskeran moon and placed on a hovercraft for transport to the same arena? Who urged, guided, and aided your escape from Narone to Mariket in the first place?”

He lowered his eyelashes, shutting Fallon out, the betrayal the assassin spoke of almost as excruciating as the gaping wound in his chest. How could he have been so blind?

He opened his eyes again only when Fallon laughed. “Ah. Now you understand,” Fallon said, fingering the hand axe as he regarded Shane with smug satisfaction burning in his stare. “Or think you do.”

Mind racing, willing himself to ignore the pain, to shove it away, Shane gulped. Time. He needed time. And opportunity. “M-my grandmother,” he mumbled.

Fallon nodded. “But do you know why?”

Shane swallowed the blood pooling in his mouth. “Because she’s a crazy bitch?”

When Fallon abruptly released his hold on Shane’s hair, Shane let his head fall back, striking a rock on the ground beneath him. He didn’t brace for the punch either. Pain exploded in his nose as the fragile bones shattered and blood spurted from it.

“She’s not crazy.”

No. Just evil.

“Your grandfather competed in the Hunt. Did he ever talk about it with you before your father murdered him?” Fallon’s wide grin showed he already knew the answer. “He actually fell for one of the cats. He wasn’t the cat’s mate, his victor, so the coupling failed, but your grandfather never forgot his lover. Even after he returned to Narone, he loved that cat. Your family’s business benefited from your grandfather’s unrequited devotion. Too bad he couldn’t let his lover go when he married your grandmother.”

Shane’s grandmother had done this. She’d borne his grandfather many children and doted on the man tirelessly. Shane remembered that. He also remembered her bitter fury when Shane’s father had arranged the murder that had allowed him to assume control of the family business. He recalled his grandfather had hardly provided for his wife upon his death, and that Shane’s grandmother had been forced to become the mistress of a generous aristocrat to retain her social status and regain her former wealth. Regain? Gran had surpassed it. The woman now shared her bed with Narone’s prime chancellor.

She’d never forgotten her clan, though. Especially Shane.

“You look like him, your grandfather,” Fallon said, fingers curling on the hand axe. “She always hated that.”

The blow fell, crushing Shane’s injured hip but thank gods not breaking the flesh wide to spill more blood. Shane shouted, the pain unbearable. He nearly fainted, the seducing black clouding his vision for scary moments.

He couldn’t faint. Couldn’t die.

Lore was in danger.

He inhaled as much as his devastated chest would allow and willed his eyes to focus. He tried to stay awake instead of surrendering to the maw of unconsciousness and death. To live. Just a little longer.

“They’ll execute her for this,” he finally managed to gasp.

Fallon shook his head. “The money trail traces back to your brothers and your father, Shane. Your
entire family
will be punished. Executed.” He smiled. “And the cats. The star systems turn a blind eye to competitor deaths since fighting among one another causes most fatalities, but feral cats? Rogue predators? Assassins in the arena? They’ll shut the Hunt down and invade Mariket if the cats won’t trade with offworlders without their Hunt to test negotiators.” Fallon glanced around the campsite, at the forest. “This will all be gone.”

Shane saw stars when Fallon crouched and tapped the end of the axe handle against his shattered hip, but that was the chance Shane had been waiting for.

“The cats will die,” Fallon said, still flashing his gloating smile even as Shane steeled himself against the pain and twisted beneath Fallon.