Page 1 of The Last Hunt

Chapter 1

Bounty Alert

Maeve

Maeve Bladesbearer slams Pen Judd - minor thief, low level bounty, all around idiot - onto the gleaming bar, upending three drinks and cracking the wooden surface. Patrons scatter, leaving their spilled drinks behind.

“Hey!” the bartender shouts. “Bladesbearer! You know how rare this wood is! Shit don’t even grow on Earth anymore!”

Maeve ignores him, pinning Pen to the bar - slippery with beer. In a rare fit of inspiration, Pen takes advantage of the slick surface, twists one arm out of Maeve’s grasp and grabs a glass. He cracks it on the edge of the bar and jams it under her chin.

“Let me go or I gut you!” Pen growls.

Maeve clenches her teeth and heaves in a breath. She tries to remember what her short-lived therapist told her about how to emotionally regulate herself in violent situations, but all she can think about is how this idiot has somehow one upped her in this fight. His bounty isn’t even worth the spilled beer. “You wouldn’t gut me, you moron,” she says. “You’d bleed me.”

“Let me go!” Pen shouts again. Maeve feels the glass tremble at her throat.

“Despite her focus on semantics, Bladesbearer is correct,” an irritatingly familiar voice says from Maeve’s right.

“Shit,” she grunts.

Aethon Trell leans on the bar, three feet away from Maeve and Pen. Though the bar is dim, Maeve can clearly see that his stupid square-jawed face is set in a shit-eating grin.

“Boy, Pen, you really are brainless,” Trell says. “You hid in the Green Bottle? Don’t you know this is a Two Roses bar?” His whisky colored eyes rove over the scene before him and he twirls a silver knife through his fingers. “Need some help, Bladesy?”

Maeve takes the opportunity to jerk her neck away from danger, but Pen snarls and Maeve sees the jagged edge of the broken glass heading straight for her face. Then Trell is there, restraining Pen’s arm. He cracks the thief’s wrist down hard on the bar, forcing him to release his makeshift weapon.

“I’m not splitting the bounty with you,” Maeve grits out as she hauls Pen up and quickly slaps a pair of mag-cuffs on him. She flings her braid over her shoulder, and flicks beer droplets off her hand.

“Oh, is that right?” Trell says. He slides his knife into a sheath on his bandolier and crosses his arms. His Two Roses crest gleams on his collar - a gold shield with a pair of crossed roses - the same as hers. Their guild motto, Et Cor Venari Est - The Hunt is the Heart - is etched along the bottom. The Guild of Two Roses is the largest employer of bounty hunters in this sector. “It seems like you’d be lying in a pool of your own blood right now if I hadn’t been here to save you,” Trell adds.

“Please,” Maeve scoffs. “I had him. You being here was pure luck. I’ve been tracking him all day, unlike you - sitting here on your ass.”

“But see, Bladesy,” Trell says, leaning forward. “It doesn’t matter how long the chase takes. It’s bringing home the prize that counts.” He gives her a crooked smile, arching one brow.

“That’s such bullshit,” Maeve says with a laugh. “Sounds like you’ve never had a good chase.”

“Will you two take this verbal foreplay somewhere else?” the bartender says. “You’ve made enough of a mess here already.”

“What?!” Maeve snaps.

“Believe me,” the bartender mutters. “I’ve seen enough foreplay - verbal and other - to know it when I see it.” He starts cleaning up the glass from the top of the bar. “And I’ll be sending Two Roses a bill for the damage.”

Trell looks at Maeve with raised brows. “Guess we’d better take this elsewhere before things get… messy.”

Maeve rolls her eyes and drags Pen up, but stops when she feels a light vibration in her jacket pocket. Her tab. Trell pulls his own tab out of his pocket. Maeve watches as his eyes light up as he examines whatever is on the screen. He looks up, his long, angular nose scrunching as he grins at her.

“What is it?” Maeve asks.

Trell purses his lips and taps the screen of his tab a few times before returning it to his pocket.

“You know what -'' He taps her lightly on the nose. Maeve restrains herself from biting him. “I’m feeling generous today. I won’t fight you for a piece of Pen.”

“What? Trell - what is it? A bounty alert?”

“You’ll see,” he says, backing away from her. He leaves the bar with a jaunty wave. Several other bounty hunters in the bar are looking at their tabs and murmuring excitedly. Maeve spots Turik - another Two Roses hunter - sitting near her tapping furiously on his tab, his bulbous nose almost pressed to the screen. She hauls Pen over.

“What’s the bounty?” she asks Turik. The thin man looks up with a frown which immediately morphs into a weak smile as he sees that it’s her.

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