Page 4 of Hunter’s Harvest

There was a stash of our vitamin mix too. Something I really needed. Surviving on foraged food was a challenge, especially since the nonperishable items humans created often lacked essential nutrients. Fresh food was difficult to find, especially protein.

I did not wish to hunt in a world where the scourge had already endangered every species. As a result, I’d started “fish-ing,” something I’d learned by watching the humans. Except instead of fishing the inland lakes, I traveled to the big salty water. Hunting was more dangerous there, but the spoils were more abundant. While there were swimming scourge by the coast, they did not stray into the deep blue, and the ecosystem there was the least affected.

The only problem was that the smell of smoked and dried water creatures was strong and drew the scourge. I stored my smelly food underground in a small premade hole behind my hideout.

I gathered all the supplies, and using a large tarp from one of the crates, created a makeshift carrying bag. The crates held more of the pungent fruits. I emptied as many as I could into my tarp bag and secured it tightly. I’d tried these fruits before when they were still green, and they had been bitter and indigestible. Perhaps they would be better at this stage.

I returned to the female and released her from the harness. She still didn’t wake, and that worried me. I needed to get her back to my hideout now. My medical unit wasn’t programmed for human bodies, but it should still work.

I draped her carefully over my shoulder, being as gentle as possible. Human bodies were fragile compared to ours, though their minds were remarkably quick and adaptable. With one arm securing her legs against my chest, I grabbed the makeshift supply bag and began the journey back to my home.

The female’s scent surrounded me, making it difficult to focus on anything else. My chest, which had been silent until now, started to rumble. It was an odd feeling, not uncomfortable, but it felt like it would hurt if I forced it to stop.

As I carried her through the dense vegetation, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this encounter had changed everything. The scent, my chest rumbling, the overwhelming need to protect her. This female might be my mate. And if that were the case, I would do whatever it took to keep her safe and make her mine.

Chapter 3: Nellie

The first thing I noticed was just how freaking warm it was. Heat seeped all the way through me, chasing away the cold that should have been there. Then I felt the thick muscular arms wrapped around me, holding me against something solid and warm and faintly vibrating. Over the vibration was a heartbeat.

Thud-thud, thud-thud.

Slow, deep, and powerful. And most definitely not mine!

I shoved away so fast I put my shoulder into something hard and made it a few feet before my back hit a wall of fur. The world spun, and I closed my eyes, grabbing my head.

“Stop, female. You are safe.”

The tiny device in my ear translated the Xarc’n words for me.

I stopped, and slowly the world stopped spinning.

The alien warrior was no longer lying down. Instead, the seven feet of Xarc’n hunter was now in a crouch, angling toward me like I was the wild animal about to balk. Like the others of his kind, he had a set of ram-like horns curling back from above his temples. Fangs poked out from his lips, and he held his massive hands out in front of him like he was trying to show me he was unarmed.

I relaxed. This hunter was a stranger, but he wasn’t a danger to me.

He wore a leather loincloth and nothing else, which was pretty standard as far as Xarc’n hunters went. What wasn’t standard was his particular shade of purple. All the hunters who worked with our survivor group had mauvish-purple skin. His was a deep purple-blue.

Did that mean he was from the third contingent, the one that wasn’t supposed to be on Earth at all?

I looked around. We weren’t inside his shuttle like I first thought, but in a cabin.

It took me a second to see it, because he’d pushed all of the furniture against one wall. A sofa, a dining table on its side, a hutch, several chairs, a coffee table, a bookshelf with the books still in it, all of it stacked and wedged into the far end of the one-room cabin. The rest of the floor was bare boards and hides. Hides covered the windows. More hides over the front door. And there was fur on the bed I was still kneeling on.

There was a fire pit where the fireplace already was, which at least made sense, and a stack of handwoven baskets that looked like they were made by an eight-year-old.

The place looked lived-in. This was his home. Which meant he had to be one of the hunters who’d gone into hiding. It had been six years! Had he been alone all this time? I thought most of the third contingent hunters had come out of the woodwork and had joined existing hunter groups.

“You’re from the third contingent!” I hadn’t meant for it to sound like an accusation.

He frowned at my words, then said. “You are safe. I will not harm you.”

“I know. I trust you.”

I took a better look at him. He was thinner than the others I’d known. But he smelled incredible: clean, warm, and masculine. I wanted to roll around in it, which was an odd thought.

But why was I even here?

Then it came back. The shuttle breaking apart, the oranges flying into the air, Marisol being torn away.