Page 24 of Heart's Keeper

"We didn't mean to frighten you. But I'm glad we could convince you to talk."

Lana could see Elise looked uncomfortable. "Honestly, it took more to convince him," she placed a hand on her mate's arm, "than me. And it was only because you told me who you were that I made the quick decision to trust you. Even when your guy was attacking mine. I was afraid at first maybe you'd turned against your own kind after the whole Lazris incident."

Lana felt a lump settle in her throat and swallowed hard. "Well I can tell you now that's not true, and I don't wish any harm."

Elise glanced at the others again and tipped her head toward them. "And these guys will do what you say, I'm guessing?"

"More or less."

Elise patted the hunter's arm, whose eyes hadn't left Lana or the vrisha around her. "Sorry, just have to be sure. We had a bad run-in with one of them. Figured they were hostile."

Lana's brow furrowed. "Who did you—"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Risa," Xilya cut her off. "But by chance could we make use of a few translators? It might be good to have us in on the conversation."

Lana stiffened, her neck and face heating, realizing no one but her and Elise could understand each other. "Of course," she said.

Xilya took out two translators from one of her thigh pockets—two small, crescent-shaped devices that could be secured to the side of one's throat. "These are of my own making, based off Xolian tech." She tossed them to the pair. The hunter grabbed them first and said something in an odd language to which Elise replied back in the same tongue. They argued quietly at first until Elise seemingly convinced the hunter to secure the device to his neck.

Once the translators were fixed properly, taking less than a second to configure, Lana asked again, "Who did you run into?"

Elise glanced at her hunter and said, "I don't remember his name..."

"Ryxok," the hunter hissed.

Lana and her team looked at each other. She'd heard of the exiled assassin only once briefly at a council meeting. None knew where he'd gone. He'd been sentenced to death. But someone—a brother perhaps—had taken the punishment in his place, and in turn, Ryxok had been banished.

"Where did you find him? Lana asked.

"That's a long story," Elise replied.

"Tell us."

Elise let out a short laugh. "This is going to be a long night then."

"You can spare the details," Lana said.

Elise looked again to her hunter, then cleared her throat and began with, "I was tasked with my squad by the Grayhart organization to travel to a distant planet called Irosa to find one of their missing team..."

She explained to them about her mission to save this team who had disappeared in the under-levels of a vast city, run by a race called the drogin; about the gangs over-running the undercity and a crime organization known as the Red Blades taking over and spreading across the lower levels. She told of the attack that nearly killed her team and how she ended up alone with her hunter, who had been tasked to aid them in their mission. How they had fought their way through the city and of their fight to free the humans stolen by a woman named Pyra and her second in command, Ryxok.

"So this explains why Nihl Ryziel had not heard of any humans returning to Xolis," Xilya said to her. "They'd been found as feared, but they had been saved before a trade could be made." Xilya then turned a sharp eye to the hunter, who met her glare. "And your group of bounty hunters just so happened to be there to help them, hm? A group traveling in a Xolis-made ship."

Lana returned her gaze to Elise, then back to the hunter with suspicion, and Elise's eyes looked everywhere but at her.

"There...may be some things I left out," she said

"And they are?" Lana asked.

"I was one of the hunters tasked with taking back the humans to Xolis," the hunter confessed.

The team went deathly still as they each gave him a menacing glare.

"As predicted." Xilya hissed. "And with that, you can confirm my suspicions. Are you the infamous hunter Nezka I was warned of?"

The hunter's orange eyes shined in the firelight as he gave her a mean smile. "I am."

"And you went with him...willingly?" Lana asked Elise, barely able to keep her surprise.

---