"Warfare disguised as sport," Zeke said, moving closer until his warmth seeped through her damp clothes. "Teams hunt each other through hostile terrain."
"Fighting for a weighted sphere," Raaze added with savage pride. "Forty kilos of dead weight."
"So... rugby with hunting?"
"And significantly more violence," Raaze's grin showed too many teeth. "The other team is trying to break every bone in your body while you carry it. Tracking was my specialty."
"Which is why you know those tracks include females," she said, understanding clicking into place.
"Exactly. The pelvis structure affects gait, changes the angle of foot placement. Females carry weight differently, have different momentum patterns." He tapped the notebook. "Kraath knows it too. Has to, if he's been documenting them."
Footsteps sounded nearby and Raaze shoved the notebook back into the pack, arranging everything exactly as it had been. By the time the garrison commander emerged from the trees, they'd spread out around the hollow, looking like they'd been resting the entire time.
Her mind raced as Kraath checked his equipment, acting like nothing had changed. Female ferals shouldn't exist. Everyone knew all Latharian women died in the plague.
Yet here was proof Kraath had been keeping detailed notes in a language that supposedly died with Earth's last technological dark age.
She caught Zeke's eye, saw her own questions reflected in that yellow gaze. Whatever Kraath was hiding, they had to find out, along with whatever else was in that notebook.
Chapter 13
An hour later, the campfire popped, sending sparks spiraling into the darkening canyon.
Michelle watched them rise and disappear into the blackness of the sky, tiredness weighing her down like a lead blanket. Raaze had hunted earlier, so at least her stomach was full for the first time in days. Zeke’s arm curved around her waist, his thumb tracing lazy patterns against her hip through the leather.
Across the fire, Kraath looked to be asleep leaning against a fallen log and Raaze was sprawled against a boulder, running a whetstone along one of his blades. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. The rhythmic sound filled the silence between crackling wood. It was the same blade he’d been working on for ten minutes, even though his claws could probably slice through steel without breaking a sweat.
“Three days in the swamps,” Raaze said suddenly, not looking up. “That’s how long we tracked the Kotanian team during the championship semifinals.”
She shifted against Zeke’s side, trying to find a position that didn’t make her leg throb like a son of a bitch. The legion cast helped, but the bone-deep ache remained. She’d kill for some of those painkillers back at the garrison.
“They thought they were clever, doubling back through their own tracks, laying false trails.” Raaze tested the blade’s edge with his thumb. “But they moved like all Kota do… heavy on their heels, compensating for their bulk. Even in mud three feet deep, the impressions told the story.”
“Did you win?” Michelle asked, more to fill the silence than from real interest.
Raaze’s lips curved in a smile that was all sharp edges. “We crushed them. Forty-three to six. They never saw us coming through the marsh grass.” His gaze lifted to her, red eyes reflecting the firelight. “Though we almost lost when they tried to use their females as bait.”
The whetstone stopped moving.
“Human females are joining the leagues now. Can you imagine?” He laughed. “Weak little things, barely able to carry the s’krav for ten meters before collapsing. The human males are disadvantaged enough, but to burden themselves with females they have to protect?” He shook his head. “It’s like deliberately breaking your own legs before a race.”
Heat flashed through Michelle’s chest. “Strength isn’t just physical.”
“Out here it is.” Raaze’s eyes narrowed, tracking over her torn pants where the legion cast gleamed. “Your broken leg puts all of us at risk. Slows us down. Forces him—” he jerked his chin at Zeke. “to waste energy on you instead of focusing on real threats."
She forced her chin up to meet his gaze. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
Raaze resumed sharpening, the scrape of stone on steel loud in the sudden silence. “Without your protector there, you’d be feral food. Or frozen. Or drowned. Take your pick.”
She turned to Zeke, voice tight. “Is he right? Is that how you feel as well?”
Zeke’s jaw worked, muscle bunching under his skin. The silence stretched, broken only by the fire’s crackle. When he finally met her eyes, his voice was rough.
“You are human. You do need protection.”
Cold shock went through her. She pulled away, the few inches of space suddenly a desperate need. “I survived ferals. A storm. A flood. A broken leg.” Her voice rose with each word. “I left you a trail to follow even while being dragged through the forest.”
“You barely survived.” Zeke’s hand reached for her, then dropped when she shifted further away. “I tracked those ferals and killed them, then the krevasta led us to the cabin. The infection in your leg would have killed you within hours if I hadn’t treated it.”
