Page 33 of Hunted

Because of Quinn. Because he accepted me as I was. Desired me without even knowing a thing about me. Wanted me. He’d hunted me.

And for the first time in my life, I was hunting with a true purpose of my own. I had someone to protect. Someone I cared about.

Someone I loved. Quinn.

This time, it was personal.

That blue bastard was mine.

9

Quinn, Latiri 4 Subterranean Base, Level Two

The Nexus crouched opposite me, his dull, black eyes impossible to read. There was no expression there, no response to pain. He did not telegraph his movements, the claws protruding from his fingertips long, curved and sharp as any blade. He was nearly as fast as I, an Elite Hunter.

But not quite.

Which was why a cut on his cheek bled dark blue, the color bringing a smile to my face as we slowly circled one another. I’d drawn first blood, and I was in no hurry to finish him. This kill was mine and I’d take my time with it, just as he’d taken his time with me. He’d tortured the Hunters under my command and made me watch, forced me to listen to their screams, kept me weak and helpless in my cell while he killed good warriors that I’d grown up with. Trained with.

They’d been brothers in truth, if not in blood. My brothers. My family.

A circle of silent warriors surrounded us. There was no cheering, no taunting from the other fighters who had transported here with me. Not only had I personally survived torture at his hands, but my mate had set us all free. Not literally, but if not for my mate, my female, Commander Karter would not have known the Hive had overrun this base, and every warrior we’d come back to rescue would have been lost forever.

My mate had bought me the right to this moment and the warriors surrounding me would not deny me this kill. Nor would they try to stop me, despite our orders. They knew. They understood.

This fucker had tortured our friends, our family.

We’d been here less than an hour. The attack had been swift, the plan having gone perfectly. We’d all come together, fighters from different backgrounds but with one purpose. The mission was considered a success. Every contaminated, integrated, captured Coalition fighter had been transported off this rock to The Colony, or to a medical station on board the Karter. I didn’t envy the doctors their jobs, deciding who to try to save, and who was too far gone. Watching warriors’ bodies disintegrate on the table when their Hive implants were removed. Or telling their loved ones that they could never return, that they’d been banished to live out the remainder of their lives on a rocky planet far from home.

Why some survived the removal of their Hive implants and some did not was, as far as I knew, a mystery.

This blue bastard in front of me probably knew, but I wasn’t interested in talking to him, only in making him bleed. Die.

I heard the elevator doors slide open, followed by murmurs as the fighters who’d been on the other levels continued to arrive. At least a dozen Atlans stood surrounding us now, silent statues with one purpose—to make sure the Nexus never left this circle.

If I didn’t kill him, they would tear him to pieces.

I.C. wanted him alive. We all knew it.

But this was personal. He was ours right now. And he would be ended.

“Why do you waste time, Everian? Your games are inefficient.” The Nexus questioned me with a voice void of all emotion. I doubted he understood taunting, but that’s what it was. His dark blue patchwork flesh appeared to be held together by strands of silver, a monster bound by shimmering thread. Except that thread moved like living serpents winding and twisting through his flesh. The movement was slight, slow, measured. I doubted any but a Hunter would see the subtle shifts between the assortment of blues that created the appearance of a face, but the effect took any hope of normalcy from him. Did he even have a face? Or was that patchwork created for this galaxy, just for us? What was he beneath the uniform and metal and strange blue flesh?

Whatever the Nexus might be, he was not one of us, a living, breathing entity with a soul. He was other.

The oddity increased when I observed that, despite the past five minutes of intense sparring with an Elite hunter, the Nexus was neither winded nor showing signs of pain. He

bled, but did he feel? Did he care if he lived or died? Did he have any emotions under that hideous blue skull?

“I’m going to kill you.” I stated my intent as calmly as I could. A fact. Nothing more.

“Repeating threats is also inefficient.” He truly did not seem to care whether he lived or died, which only made me want to make him suffer. But would he suffer? I didn’t know, but it was definitely going to happen.

“And all the integrated fighters you lost today?” I asked.

If he could shrug, he would have. “Easily replaced. Water-based organisms of your type and size are plentiful in this part of the universe.”

This part of the universe? Fuck. Were the Hive not just in our galaxy, but others? Just how far did their threat spread? Every planet had a different name for our galaxy. The Coalition Fleet assigned our galaxy a number. But to fighters like me, to the innocents living on the planets we protected, this galaxy was simply home. Coalition space.

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