Damn it.She’d done it again. Fear had put her in a mental tailspin, and she’d let it happen. Now, someone had fired a blaster, and she had no idea why because she was cowering in a corner instead of doing somethinguseful.
That thought propelled her into action. Staying low, she crawled toward the main console.
Stars, she hated the woman her ex had turned her into. He’d stripped away her confidence with every act of cruelty. Now, she was like one of the rabbits she’d read about in a childhood story. When fear took hold, she froze. When she’d explained it to Loris, her friend called it a trauma response.
“You’ve been through so much that sometimes your brain just taps out and leaves for a while.”
An accurate description, but knowing why it happened was not enough to make it stop.
She kneeled by the pilot’s chair and scanned thecontrols until she found what she needed to activate the shuttle’s exterior cameras. While the ship’s engines were locked down, some of its other functions were still accessible.
Taking action made her feel better. More in control. She’d never be as focused and cool under pressure as Loris, but that was fine. She just wanted to be more like the woman she’d been before her marriage. If that wasn’t possible, she’d strive to be someone she could be proud of. Anything would be better than living like a frightened rabbit.
Images appeared on the monitors, showing several views of what was happening outside. The cameras captured three figures, too large to be human, and too furry…her brain stuttered as she stared at the screens. She was familiar with every species in this part of space, and none of them looked anything like the three new arrivals.
One of them lurked near the tree line, another stood in the center of the camp, and the third… she stared at the monitor. The third male looked on with casual confidence, as if he didn’t have a blaster pointed at him right now. He didn’t swagger like the one in the center. He simply stood his ground and waited for something to happen.
“Do you understand me?” Loris called out.
The one she’d been watching spoke first. His voice was low and rough but absolutely calm as he answered Loris.
“We do. We have translators. I’m Havoc.” He nodded toward the larger male. “That’s Vengeance. You must be from theBountiful Harvest.”
Maddison blinked in surprise. Had he mentioned theHarvest? And what language had he spoken? She took a moment to activate an advanced feature on her translator. She’d had it implanted before the wedding and paid for it herself. Donny had tried to demand it be extracted and returned, but she’d kept the receipt.
The answer surprised her. The language was Verexi, but there was no way that huge, fur-covered beast was a member of that species.
Out in the cabin, her companions were talking.
“How the fuck does he know that?” Loris hissed.
“Ask him,” Joy said.
Maddison wanted to know the answer to that question, too.
“How do you know about theHarvest?” Loris asked.
One of the monitors showed the male, who had stayed back until now, finally moving. She watched him for a moment, but her gaze slid back to the screen that showed the one called Havoc.
Without thinking, she tapped the console so she could see his face better.
His heavy-lidded eyes seemed to stare back at her, their golden depths gleaming in the fading light. His long hair fell past his shoulders. It was dark near the roots but faded to blond along its length. A jagged scarran from the corner of one eye to the middle of his cheek. The end of the injury vanished into the close-cropped beard that covered his lower jaw. Then, there were his horns. They swept back from his face and then curled down and upward again in a spiral. She’d never seen anything like him before.
What species was he? Where did they come from? Was this their homeworld? If so, why did they speak Verexi?
While she considered him, she listened to the conversation going on outside.
The one called Risk explained that they’d met other survivors, including someone named Hope. Maddison couldn’t recall her face, but she did remember that it was the name of one of the passengers still on board at the time of the incident.
A small bit of the guilt she carried fell away as she realized there were other survivors. She hadn’t been responsible for the death of everyone on board.
“Hope made it? Where is she?” Joy asked.
“We saw her this morning. Her escape pod came down much closer to our home. She was rescued by one of our brothers. We were on our way to the main crash site to assist when we saw your shuttle.”
Maddison zoomed the camera out again. Was she ogling the alien? Absolutely not. She was simply getting a better look at a new species and trying to learn more about them.
The first thing she noticed was the tawny fur stripedwith black that covered his body. She knew it covered him because he wasn’t wearing much clothing. A leather kilt hung from his hips and fell to the middle of his powerful thighs, and he had some kind of pads on his shins that were secured with thick straps. She couldn’t see any weapons, but that didn’t matter. Armed or not, Havoc lookeddangerous.
