Page 1 of Primal Vow

Chapter one

The mining ship was a rustbucket.

No, that was an insult to rustbuckets. This thing looked like it had been slapped together in a junkyard by a drunk toddler. Rhys had seen some desperate mining operations in his time, but this one took the cake.

Ahead of him, the thick, turbulent clouds of Vasz swirled. Lightning flickered within them, a dance of energy that was equal parts beautiful and terrifying. The planet was living up to its fierce reputation.

The ship shook as it hit the upper edges of the atmosphere, and Rhys's stomach lurched. He'd been on enough mining runs to know that they weren't exactly pleasure cruises, but this… This was something else.

"You're new," a voice said.

Rhys tore his gaze away from the impending doom outside the window and looked to his left. A grizzled man was watching him, leaning against the wall. "Yeah," Rhys said, even though it hadn't been a question.

The man who had hired him had been in a rush. He wasn't exactly talkative, but Rhys pieced it together quick enough. On the stations he lived on, he'd seen the exact scenario play out a dozen times.

A crewmember got a little too unwise with their leisure time, and while they were in prison or in hiding — or in the morgue — suddenly a ship found themselves needing an extra pair of hands at the last minute.

Desperate crews were the best kinds. They didn't ask many questions, and they paid well.

But this crew, though…

"Welcome aboard." The man watching him was Jak, according to the patch on his jacket. Rhys hadn't exactly had a meet and greet with the crew. In the dingy, cramped corridors of Station Sittella, someone he'd owed money to had told him that a crew were looking for a good pair of hands and a mouth that could stay shut. Rhys had needed the money. That was that.

And now he was here, above a planet.

Above Vasz.

If Rhys had known that they'd be taking him here, he'd have run in the opposite direction.

Jak grinned at him. "Don't worry, kid. We pull this off, there's plenty of riches to go around for everyone."

It was clearly a line that he'd delivered a dozen times before. Rhys swallowed. The man was offering him reassurance, but the very fact that he felt the need to offer it was unsettling. Rhys might be new to illegal mining, but he wasn't a fool.

Desperation was so thick in the air, you could practically taste it. He needed this. He needed the money, and he needed it fast.

But the deeper he got involved, the more it felt like a trap.

"Trust me, kid," Jak said, leaning over and slapping Rhys on the back hard enough to jolt him. "We'll slip in and out without a single horned bastard knowing a thing, and when we get the good stuff back to human space, you won't regret it."

Rhys only managed a weak smile in response.

The ship shook violently as it punched through the last layers of the atmosphere, and Rhys's teeth clacked together. He was going to have to be careful about not chipping them. He couldn't afford another expense, another thing to worry about.

He was already going to the one place in the universe that a human shouldn't go.

"Lightning out here can reach temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun," another voice said. "It'll flash-fry you in an instant. And that's if the wildlife doesn't get you first."

Rhys turned to see Lila, the ship's medic, in her chair. Unlike the rest of the crew, he had already been introduced to her — she'd looked him over like he was an old spaceship ready for the scrapyard, then had ticked his paperwork with a terse nod.

She was a striking woman, with her sharp cheekbones and sharper eyes. She was speaking coolly, considering the subject matter that she was talking about — and the planet they were plunging towards.

"Once we land, don't do anything stupid," she said, lazily tapping her fingers against the armrest of her seat. It was a casual movement, as if she didn't even realize that she was doing it. "Between the storms, the native predators, and the risk of mining accidents… Don't leave us one man down."

She drawled the words as if she was talking about nothing more serious than the weather, but there was something sharp underneath her nonchalant demeanor.

"You've been there and back before? How?"

She didn't give anything away. "The Borraq aren't omniscient. If you want something bad enough, there's a way."

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