Then they’d triggered the blast.
His hands curled into fists. This wasn’t sabotage. This was attempted murder.
Instinct made him reach for his drakeen. For years, he’d carried the combat robot’s presence in the back of his mind, always there, always ready, waiting for the thought that would send it hunting. He could have had the draanthic coward pinned within the hour, tracked them to whatever hole they’d crawled into and?—
Nothing. Just the phantom ache of a connection long severed.
He wasn’t a hunter anymore. Now he was just a rancher standing in a field with burned casings and boot prints and cold fury in his heart.
Tarex.
The name rose like bile, and his jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
They’d trained together as children and sparred until they were both bloody. Watched each other’s backs in the early years.
That was before. Then Goraath had followed his mother into service and he hadn’t seen his oldest friend until he’d returned.
Now all he could see was Tarex in the supply depot. The way his jaw had worked when he’d looked at Juni through the window and the bitterness twisting his voice.
“Soft too. Those curves. Not built for this life, is she? Probably won’t last the winter.”
“Might be better for everyone if she did.”
Leave. He’d meant leave. But standing here with three blast casings and boot prints and the image of Juni’s face as thirty tons of panicked muscle bore down on her?—
Would Tarex do this? They’d been brothers once. But Tarex had wanted to enter the lottery, had argued for it, and then lost while Goraath won without even trying.
Could Tarex stand at this fence and watch a female walk into the kill zone?
Someone had.
Gathering the casings, he wrapped them in a rag from his pocket.
Should he tell her?
He shoved the thought down. She had a right to know but she was already shaken… he’d felt it in the way she’d trembled in his arms, could still hear the broken sounds she’d made when she finally let herself cry.
Should he tell Kaalden?
The colony leader would investigate. Would ask questions. Would poke at this until whoever did it knew they were being watched. And then what? They’d be more careful next time. Smarter.
And there would be a next time. He knew that with bone-deep certainty. Whoever had done this wasn’t finished.
Someone had watched his ranch and tried to kill the female under his protection.
His fence. His ranch. His?—
He cut off the thought before it could finish.
The equipment shed sat near the krulaati enclosure. Stashing the wrapped casings behind a stack of feed containers where Juni wouldn’t think to look, he stood there with his hands braced against rough wood, head hanging between his shoulders. Breathing.
The wood grain pressed into his palms. Rough. Real. Something to hold on to while the fury howled inside him.
Evidence. He’d need it later, when he knew who. When he was certain.
The walk back to the house felt longer than it should. His boots crunched on frost-hardened grass, and his breath fogged in the cold air.
He slowed before he reached the back door, spotting her in the main room through the kitchen window. She was on her knees beside the box of decorations, pulling out string lights, her face lit up as she discovered the carved ornaments underneath.
