Page 58 of Fated to the Hunter
I didn’t find him creepy anymore, now that he was more than just a pair of glowing eyes and horns outside my window. In fact, he was kind of hot. No, that was a lie. He was scorching. According to the media, these Xarc’n warriors had been engineered to be the perfect fighters; they sure had the bodies for it.
Why? Why did he have to open his mouth? If he wasn’t such a domineering prick who thought he could tell me what to do, I might be interested.
I doubted he was interested in me like that anyway. The way he ordered me around, he probably thought of me as some idiot he had to care for because of a sworn duty to protect the planet and its inhabitants from the bugs.
“No,” Rhaz’k finally said. “You are not desperate, but you have not been successful with your hunting and fishing today.”
It was true I hadn’t been successful today, but I still had some of the supplies I’d picked up last time I was in town and a cellar full of food he didn’t know about. My previous trip to town had been early last spring, right before things got bad. The stores had been having trouble keeping their shelves stocked, but I still came back with a decent haul, including a bunch of food storage supplies and a truckload of perishables.
I’d spent a fortune that day and hadn’t regretted it. Money after that point had been useless. The next few weeks had been spent processing everything for storage, until the grid went down.
The only thing I was low on now was meat. Unfortunately, it was also the only thing the bugs were interested in.
“So, you’ve been stalking me again? I thought we had an agreement.” I put my hands on my hips. “We share the mountain, but you stop creeping on me. It’s not that hard.”
He frowned. “You are mine to protect.”
Oh no. We werenothaving this conversation again.
Ignoring him, I released the dead bug from my trap. The trap would need to be disinfected with fire before I could useit again. I didn’t know exactly what pathogens the bugs carried, but everything they touched reeked of death.
On the survival forums I’d once been a part of, they’d suggested disinfecting everything that came into contact with the alien creatures, and then burning the carcasses after. The hunters did the same, and they must have good reason.
Rhaz’k carried the two dead bugs to a flat rock and set them on fire.
“Give me the trap,” he demanded.
“No. I’ll disinfect it when I get home.” If he threw it into the flames now, I wouldn’t be able to pick it up until it cooled. The sun was setting, and unlike him with his exceptional night vision, I needed light to get home.
He put a small device in a nearby tree, a surveillance camera, and aimed it at the burning pile. Then he snatched the trap from my hand before I could stop him and tossed it into the fire.
“Hey!”
Fuck this. I threw my hands up into the air and turned toward my home. I was done with his crap.
Then he found the other trap tied to my pack and ripped that off my bag as well.
I whipped back around. “What the fu—”
Before I could finish my sentence, I found myself lifted up into the air and tossed over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Oof! Why was his shoulder so damn hard?
“Let me down!” I pounded my fists against his back, but he didn’t even flinch. All I was doing was hurting my hands.
He didn’t reply. Instead, he just marched silently through the woods.
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