Page 5 of Monstrous Hunt
“So they meant to fucking assassinate us before we even got here.”
Snryx shook his head. “Or they were the contingency plan. They didn’t receive extermination orders until Axxol broke the squad up. But why? What did he know?”
No one had an answer.
We’d left the house on the lake an hour ago, taking cover back in the jungle. Though the dyni corpses would have decomposed quickly, we decided to haul the bodies into the house and set it ablaze. I might have been seen in the air, and we didn’t want human authorities discovering any physical evidence of our presence. HQ already knew their hit had failed. They had our location. We had to assume another squad would be dispatched quickly.
“Do they know about Natalie?” Kroktl asked.
He didn’t look at me, only staring out aimlessly through the trees, his red eyes glowing. Scanning. Constantly searching for any sign of our mate. A futile attempt, not that any of us would dare tell him so. He didn’t need Lohr to compute the probability that we’d find her again if Axxol didn’t bring her back, or at least make connection, to know our chances were nil.
“There’s nothing in the orders that mentions a human,” I replied. “I also scanned the YRR’s footage as soon as he emerged from the jump in case he had immediate upload. He did a quick scan of the area, individually marking our locations for his squad. She’s slightly visible behind Lohr’s foreleg in one shot, here.” I paused the feed, zooming in on the shadow hunched behind his thick leg. “I was already jamming his signal, so I don’t think this got through. But if it did, there’s still not much to go on. You’d have to know what you were looking for to identify her.”
“Then why the big show as they jumped?” Lohr asked. “The explosion wouldn’t hurt any of us unless we were standing on top of the ring as it materialized. They knew our location but not enough to jump on top of the biggest threat and knock him out first. Yet they came in hard and fast.”
“Maybe they were a distraction,” Snryx replied. “Get us busy so Axxol could slide in fast, take Natalie, and then get out before we could react.”
“So you’re suggesting he not only stranded us here but is also working with another squad with the goal of killing us.” I shook my head, though my feathers stood in a ruff around my neck. “If that was his goal, he would have made sure to take Kroktl out first.”
Kroktl’s head whipped around, his eyes so hot I could almost feel the sizzle. “Why?”
I cocked my head. “Because you found her first.”
“Bullshit. He’s alpha. I might have grown exponentially bigger since mating her, but he’s still the Big Rig.”
Big Rig was the slang nickname we used to call Axxol—before he betrayed us. Technically his designation was BGR+, with a heavy emphasis on the plus. Sometimes I didn’t think even he knew what all he was capable of. Or maybe he did know all along, and he’d been hiding some of his enhancements. Not just from us but from HQ. Maybe that was why we’d been designated for decommissioning.
They were fucking scared of what they’d created. If so, we were fucked. If he wanted us dead…
“Exactly,” Kroktl breathed out, shaking his head. “Which means we’re not going to know what the fuck is going on until we find him.”
“You think he’s still here,” I said. “Earth side.”
He nodded. “He could have jumped anywhere after he damaged Lohr and the squad broke up. But he stayed. He could have waited half a second longer and decapitated me before he took Natalie. Rid himself of any competition whatsoever. But he didn’t. I think he’s still here. I just don’t know why. I feel…” His head swung back to the north. “I can’t see her. I can’t smell her. But something is tugging deep in my gut, insisting she’s that way.”
Lohr immediately started trudging to the north, moving as fast as his squat legs could go. “Then what the fuck are we waiting here for?”
* * *
NATALIE
I jerked awake,and then immediately whimpered at the pain movement caused. My entire arm throbbed, radiating through my shoulder blade. My knee was hot, tight, and swollen. Dislocated? Or merely sprained? I wasn’t sure.
My stomach cramped with the kind of queasy hunger that warned me whatever I ate might come back up. What I wouldn’t give for Snryx’s calm assessment right now. His gentle touch soothing away the pain and fixing whatever was wrong, while Kroktl held me and called me baby. A sob tried to escape my throat but I fought it back down, swallowing hard. I didn’t know where Axxol was, and I trusted him about as far as I could throw him.
He’d taken me away from Kroktl and the rest of the squad, and I had no idea why.
My first guess made me feel conceited and full of myself. Maybe he wanted me as his mate too? But he’d made no effort in that regard, and I was no big catch. Which only made me sadder, because I knew Kroktl wouldn’t like me saying negative things about myself.
Without moving, I turned my awareness outward. I wasn’t on the ground any longer. I lay on something soft enough I couldn’t feel the packed earth beneath me. I had a rough albeit warm blanket pulled over me. I felt grimy and my hair was clumped together with dried slobbers and god only knew what else. Shuddering only hurt my shoulder. I slowly slid my good hand out across the padding, trying to see how big the area was. My fingers closed over a hard metal cylinder. I traced up and down its length and finally realized that it was a flashlight.
Grateful tears made my vision swim. A light would help me feel so much better. I flipped the light on and immediately breathed out a sigh of relief that I hadn’t tried to sit up. I would’ve conked my head on a low rocky shelf that hung over the pallet. I rolled slightly onto my side and scanned the chamber quickly, looking for Axxol, but no one else was here.
Relaxing my guard a teensy bit, I scanned the room more slowly. Other than some crates against the opposite wall, there wasn’t much to see. The space was roughly five or six feet long and not even that wide. I had enough room to walk between the mattress and the crates but that was it. A dark hole marked the opening to the rest of the cave, but it was blocked by what looked to be a six-foot-tall boulder. No way I could move that by myself.
At least the walls were dry, but claustrophobia tightened my chest. It felt deep. Like thousands of tons of stone hung above me.
Then it dawned on me. Cave. A deep cave.
