She reclined into the cool bark as best she could and closed her eyes, hoping she might get at least a few hours of rest. As it turned out, her exhausted body knew what it wanted and had no problem whatsoever obliging, and it wasn’t until the first rays of sun crested the horizon that she stirred.
“Oh, my ass,” she grumbled, realizing just how much different sleeping rough was without some sort of pad beneath her. “Lesson learned.”
She climbed down from the tree and foraged her own breakfast in the early light, filling her pockets with an interesting assortment, separated and safely tucked away. After all, one never knew what might come in handy.
By the sound of it, the camp had only just started to rouse themselves. She had time. She ran her hand over her Infala, the rune tingling at her touch, reminding her that her mate was out there somewhere. And somehow she would find her way back to him.
“Gotta be strong to do that,” she reiterated to herself as she gathered up a pretty healthy selection of fruits, mostly for herself, but also for Floxxia and the others.
She’d have to be cautious sneaking them to the cages, of course, but she felt that with the whole day ahead of her, it was just a matter of patience, but at least she’d accumulated a respectable amount. Margot headed back into the camp where she quietly stashed her haul before heading to the mess tent.
“Can I have more?” she asked when the cook put her breakfast on her tray.
“No.”
“But it looks like there’s more than enough for?—”
“I said no. I heard ‘bout you. Gromm’s plaything. You want more, you go askhimfor it.”
With that the man turned and served one of the heavily bandaged crew who hadn’t left on the morning’s missions, leaving her to eat her meager meal alone. She hurried outside and handed it off to Floxxia then returned to drop off her tray. As she walked, she noted that all of the ships had flown out, and it looked like every able-bodied man was aboard them. Only the injured and a small handful of guards tasked with maintaining the perimeter remained in camp. It was those that she heard talking through the tent wall as she approached.
“I tell ya, it was massive. A fucking beast with glowing eyes,” someone said. “Killed Stimmo in a flash. Just ripped his head clean off.”
“Fuck me. Seriously?” another voice gasped.
“I’m not exaggerating. I mean, we’d started out on a retrieval mission when we ran into those Dohrags?—”
“I hate Dohrags. Those bastards are always trying to snatch up our bounties.”
“I know. And they’re damn good at it, I’m sad to say. But we gave ‘em a good run for their money.”
“Good thing you had the ships with you. If you didn’t have those cannons…”
“For real. We were outgunned otherwise. Fucking Dohrags. You know they’ve got a supply platform here?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. But these were different. Not part of that group, but a hunting crew jumping the systems for quick profit.”
“They still here?”
“We’ll know soon enough. Gromm sent every last man back there today to either mop up or confirm they left. But truth be told, I’d rather face Dohrags any day over that thing out there.”
“Rylinn’s been trying to catch it for ages, you know. And that guy’s pretty legendary in tracking circles. If he can’t find it, I seriously doubt the Dohrags can.”
“I think they were after our bounty targets. From their reaction when it started tearing into them, I don’t think they had any idea it lived in those woods. They didn’t know what hit them.”
He laughed, a pained sound, likely as a result of the damage his body had incurred on that fated mission. But he’d provided Margot with more information in just those few sentences than she’d been able to dig up in her entire time here.
Dohrags. That’s what they were called. And it seemed that Braxxos was never their target. Surprise, surprise. Target or not, when his woman was in trouble,anyonein the way was fair game, and as a result that clusterfuck of a battle was the definition of a rude awakening if ever she’d seen one.
“I don’t know how that thing moves so quietly,” the man continued. “It’s huge. But we had no idea it was there.”
“Bad terrain for scans. You know that.”
“Yeah, but even on the ground, it avoids all our traps like it was child’s play. I’m starting to think we should just give up on it and cut our losses.”
“Don’t let Gromm hear you say that. You know how he gets.”
