Page 55 of Treasured By the Hunter

“I don’t know. Tell him the truth, I guess.”

It wasn’t fair for me to just up and go, but I hadn’t been thinking straight. I imagined the sweet, funny, protective hunter finding out I couldn’t give him the family he’d always wanted and ran like a coward.

I’d had plenty of time to think over the last few days. Harb’k deserved to know all the information so he could make an informed decision. If he decided I wasn’t the right woman for him, then so be it. But if he still wanted me, then you betcha I was going to do everything in my power to make things work.

I’d all but given up on love since the bugs arrived. Friendship, yes. But romantic love? I never in a million years would’ve dreamt I’d meet and fall for a Xarc’n warrior.

“Holy shit,” I exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?”

Love. That was what was wrong. I wasn’t falling for him; I’d already fallen.

The sudden blaring of horns from the watchtowers sent panic through me.

I looked to the sky, expecting to see the scorpion-like flyers. But what I saw had my blood running cold. The bugs flying toward us didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen.

My initial reaction was: wasp! But the only thing wasp-like was the large abdomen and a tiny wasp-like waist; everything else was different. Their bodies weren’t striped or yellow but bright red, the same as I’d seen on those mutants with Harb’k. Instead of stingers, long whiplike tails stretched out behind them. I was willing to bet the tails were covered in scuttler toxin, the stuff that made fighting the bugs so dangerous.

“Quick! Close the cold frames! Secure the greenhouses!” someone cried.

That was the thing about the bugs. If just one of the nasty creatures died in the crops, the harvest was lost. Bug guts were teeming with the deadly fungus, and it stayed in the soil for months.

Riley and I ran to help someone spread a tarp over the nearest open garden bed but realized that there was no way we would be able to run back to the buildings in time. We decided to hide underneath the tarp.

Sasha called out an order from one of the watchtowers, and moments later two rockets flew out from the roof of the gatehouse. They hit their marks, and two of the creatures tumbled to the ground somewhere outside the walls. That didn’t stop the rest, though. There were almost a dozen of them flying toward us.

“Load them up! Again!” Sasha shouted.

But before they could shoot again, the nearest wasp thing whipped its tail around, aiming it at the roof of the gatehouse. There was a scream, and a man fell from it in a streak of red.

They managed to bring down one more of the creatures before they were too close to use the rocket launcher, lest they hit the buildings. The guards shot at them with armor-piercing rounds, aiming for the wings like they usually did for the flyers. Grounded flyers were much easier to deal with.

One of the creatures fell, but as it did, its tail swept out in a wide arc, sweeping several guards off their feet. I couldn’t see what had happened from my angle, but there was a lot of screaming. It was chaos.

Suddenly, one of the creatures just exploded in the sky. Then another, and another. Everyone went to hide under something so they wouldn’t be rained on by bug guts. Something was killing the bugs. Then we saw them: Xarc’n shuttles. Not one or two, but more than a dozen. They dropped their cloaks as they zoomed around, picking off what was left of the strange creatures.

When there was nothing else to kill, a loud voice announced in English that they’d be landing in the courtyard, and any hostility would be met with the same.

Clark and Gabe ran out from the main building, and Sasha came to join them, still carrying a rocket launcher. Farther behind them, milling by the door, were Clark’s advisors. I recognized the lady who was Sanctuary’s trade advisor.

“I say we shoot them purple motherfuckers,” said one of the guards.

“Hold your fire!” Clark bellowed. “These shuttles just came to our rescue.”

“How do we know they didn’t send those bastards here to begin with?”

“You still believe in that shit?” a woman asked loudly. “I don’t care what you think, but they saved our hides by showing up when they did.”

“Shooting now is an act of war. Anyone who does so will be immediately exiled,” Clark announced loudly. He turned to the guard who had made the remark. “We are not going to make enemies because you can’t hold in your hate for a few minutes. So hold your fire, or I’ll feed you to the bugs myself.”

That got the message across, and anyone who was jonesing to pull the trigger lowered their weapons.

There was movement from the shuttle that had landed closest to us, and the door slid open. It wasn’t a purple Xarc’n hunter who stepped out, but Mo. A Xarc’n warrior—I couldn’t tell who from where I hid—stepped out after him, his arms crossed over his chest.

More doors opened, and more people, humans and Xarc’n, stepped out. A buzz of conversation filled the courtyard. Everyone was surprised to see so many humans stepping out of the Xarc’n shuttles.

I couldn’t pay attention to it because my eyes were now on the warrior who stepped out of the shuttle to the far right. Harb’k’s eyes seemed to glow in the late afternoon sun.

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