The Kroid squirmed, then said, “Honor your word, Qon.”
Ved pulled out his plasma dirk but made no move to use it. “Who is the qon of Clan Rax?”
“We never dealt with the qon directly. I have no name to give you.”
Ved had suspected that would be the case. “Why attack the human female?” The Kroid didn’t deserve to know her name. “Once you saw that I was alive, you could have tried to retreat.”Tried, because Ved would have hunted every single one of them down.
The Kroid’s depthless black eyes studied Ved as if weighing his options. “She smelled like you. She could have been useful.” His thin tongue wiped across his mandibles, smearing blood as his gaze narrowed. “I tasted her. She’d make a delicious meal with all that soft flesh.”
Ved growled—a feral sound that clawed out from deep in his chest. The Kroid was trying to goad him into killing him faster. But Ved was not a merciful Xaal. Rising, he left him there to slowly drown in his own blood.
It didn’t take long for Ved to find their vessel, which was cloaked and hovering in the direction the Kroid had been crawling in. The only thing that marked its location was their thick-roped ladder trailing down. The ship was one of their smaller ones—the type that could more easily glide past the Authority’s watchful gaze with whatever black-market technology they used. Yet, somehow, they’d managed to pack eight Kroids in it.
It reeked of them.
“Remind me to never work with Kroids,” Exxo said, as if he could smell it himself.
Ved was looking for anything that could tell him about Clan Rax. Who was its qon? Did Ved know him? Many qons had their minds set on conquering Clan Cleave. That, in itself, wasn’t surprising. It was the lengths that Clan Rax was willing to go to—and so dishonorably—in order to do so. Something about it nagged at him.
It felt personal.
Ved had made plenty of enemies for plenty of reasons, especially in his rampaging youth. The stronger he became, the more others wanted to challenge him. To beat him in a blood challenge would be a meaningful victory. And his clan had everything Xaal needed to survive and thrive. There were fertile lands that were rich in minerals and metals and drew big game for hunting. There were well-placed mountains for defense and control. And from Cleave, they could easily manipulate the trade routes that ran through Runus like veins.
But what really made other clans envious was the ixom running deep within their mountains. It was a rare metal that they used ineverything from their vessels to their clothing. The technology that could be made from it was far beyond what most Xaal had. A supply of ixom would give any qon power that reached far beyond his own clan. Far beyond Runus. Xaal, after all, weren’t the only ones who wanted such a metal.
Exxo was able to hack into the Kroid ship’s system while Ved finished inspecting the interior. There was nothing of use there.
“Think you could fly it?” Ved asked as he entered the cockpit. If Exxo could operate the ship, it could be a way off the planet. And away from Isobel Nott. He pushed the thought of her, and whatever strange emotion that went with her, down.
“Their systems are deeply encrypted. They would take me approximately fifty-three hours to circumvent. After which, there is no guarantee that I would be compatible with it.”
Ved wasn’t shocked. It was exactly how they bypassed Authority detection more often than not. By the time Exxo figured out how to operate the ship, the Blood Vultures would have already disposed of it.
“I did, however, find something of interest, Qon,”Exxo said.
On the ship’s secondary screen, Exxo brought up a recording of a security feed.
“Watch the corner of the screen.”
The corner looked like it held a crate or cage, and Ved could only make out the shadow of something moving in it. Then, suddenly, the container’s door creaked open. The Kroids didn’t seem to notice until a pale, undefined body skittered out of it straight toward them.
Recognition dawned on Ved as he leaned closer to peer at the thing. It lunged for one of the Kroids while the others tried to restrain it. Something happened offscreen, and the Kroids turned toward it at the same time the creature loped out of view.
He knew what it was and what it did. By all accounts, it shouldn’t be alive—the Authority had hunted its kind down long ago and exterminated them. “I want this footage, and any others related to it. Then erase it from their databank.”
Exxo had just found what the Blood Vultures were looking for.
Chapter 17
Ved
It took the Blood Vultures until the next night to investigate the Kroids. They didn’t, however, feel the need to interrogate him again. When their presence dissipated and the surrounding forest picked up its chattering, Ved pulled himself from the engine compartment where he’d been working.
He forewent sleep most nights to repair his ship. A Xaal could go entire weeks without resting if need be, and returning to his clan and avenging Kravis was motivation enough to stay awake.
Not that he could have slept if he wanted to. In the quiet of his ship, his mind kept returning to one thing. To one curly-haired, curious, and beautiful female—Isobel Nott. The Kroids, he hated to admit, had taken him by surprise. The wind that day hadn’t worked in his favor, blowing their scent away from him, and he’d been solely focused on the thrusters. Such complacency meant death on Runus. He’d noticed them at the same time Exxo had, which was to say, when they were nearly upon him.
The fact that Isobel had suffered from his failure sat heavy on his shoulders. He shouldn’t see her again. She needed to stay away. Fromhis ship, from him. Clan Rax could send others after him. Or the Blood Vultures could decide he was worth their attention.
