by Gregg, Kari
Lore was giving that to him, the only present that meant anything, that meant…everything.
Shane had seen night fall on his final day as a competitor. When darkness crept over the sky, settling on the arena as a blanket, Shane wouldn’t be there. He would be draped over Lore’s back and shoulders, carried as his cat jumped from treetop to treetop. Traveling to the home Shane had longed for but had never known.
That night he would be Lore’s victor, which was only fair. Lore was already his.
They dropped to another branch, so low Shane could make the leap to the ground with no trouble if he wriggled free. He didn’t squirm, though, no matter how tempting the thick bed of pine needles seemed or how the crisp scent maddened him. Lore knew Mariket better, and Shane would be a fool to fail to trust his judgment. The cat would set him loose when he was confident the ground was safe, and not one moment before.
“You didn’t jump.” Sliding Shane from his back to cradle him in front, the cat chuffed. “You are very reasonable when you get your way.”
Shane looped his arms in a circle around Lore’s silky chest, returning the embrace. “Yes. I am.” He tipped his jaw to offer his mouth. “Affectionate too.”
Lore nipped at Shane’s bottom lip, then lapped at the small injury. “Your backpack is below us, and the other human is due east. There’s no need for bribery, Precious.”
Annoyance prickled. “Kiss me.”
“I’ll kiss my victor.” Eyes twinkling, Lore brushed chaste lips on Shane’s chin. “Later.”
Damn cat. Shane scowled.
“Drop down. Dress. Go. Meet the other human.”
“You’ll watch from the trees?”
“Maero and I both.”
Shane climbed down, and indeed his Hunt backpack lay next to the tree trunk. Glancing up at Lore, he fumbled with the pack’s zipper. Though he knew he couldn’t have been with Lore long, wearing clothes again felt weird. The uniform pants issued to competitors were confining, and when he pulled his extra shirt over his head, the slick moisture-wicking fabric couldn’t compare to the silk of Lore’s fur. The material was coarse. Itchy. Especially at the crook of his neck and shoulder where Lore’s mating bite still healed. Maybe mating instincts had sensitized his skin. He was more inclined to believe that covering up the bite just made him nervous.
Either way he didn’t like it.
Nonetheless he pulled on his spare set of Hunt clothes and the moccasins the wardens must have retrieved after the attack by the feral cat. Otherwise, his backpack was empty. Lore had added the personal kit containing Shane’s toothbrush and shaving gel to their den, so those items were in the canopy now. Med techs checked on him daily, bringing the medicines Lore administered to repair Shane’s ruined wrists. His vanished first-aid kit hadn’t included splints or syringes of customized drug cocktails to mend shattered bone, so Shane didn’t miss that. Nor did he care about the camping supplies provided to each competitor—canteen, sleeping bag, rope, flint, mess kit, and cooking pot. Why, when wardens outfitted the dens of mating cats so handsomely?
He still yearned for his flatscreen, though.
Shane was willing to bet his personal items, including his flatscreen, already awaited him at Lore’s home outside the arena. At least he’d recover his things soon.
Rather than slinging the backpack over his shoulder, which ached sometimes from the bite despite his medicines, Shane left the bag. If he wanted it later, his new tribe would see to that. Instead he crouched to study rocks jutting up from the bed of pine needles underfoot. The side moss grew thickest on determined which way was east. Inhaling a deep lungful of pine-scented air, he stood. He headed to the right at a slow but steady clip.
While he walked, a smile curved his lips even as anxiety coiled in his stomach. The ground didn’t give beneath his weight. He squared his shoulders and braced to counter the dip with every step. Just couldn’t stop himself, but that slight bend never happened. Disconcerting. Could he run without swaying drunkenly when his footing didn’t shake anymore?
He could hear better too. When he’d sprinted into the arena, he couldn’t have picked up the quiet rub of twigs in bushes that indicated wildlife far ahead of him, but now, the soft noises were as good as an alarm. Lore had climbed higher in the trees, out of sight, but Shane heard the discreet but comforting clack of his claws on branches. He knew exactly where his cat was—a luxury Shane hadn’t enjoyed when Lore had first chased him.
Shane had changed. And would change further still.
The syringes Lore emptied into him at the direction of the med techs weren’t simply nanobots to repair bone and torn muscle, painkillers, and antibiotics.
He’d known. Rather, he’d guessed. Offworld mates didn’t stand a chance in the canopy without genetic modifications, no matter how carefully the cats helped them adapt to the environment. To survive he needed better balance. He also needed a sharper sense of hearing to detect enemies and potential threats. Mariket was too dangerous for humans, too lethal. The cats couldn’t reverse engineer Shane or any other species competing in the Hunt. Shane was human. He would always be human.
But he could be forced to evolve.
Shane had never resisted the shots. He’d never even questioned them. As long as Lore was the one who pushed the needle through his skin. If only his cat touched him, Shane would tolerate almost anything.
He’d been a victor all along.
Curiously, that didn’t worry him anymore.
Furrowed scratches sticky with sap marred trees, signaling Maero’s territory as Shane neared Fallon’s camp, but he would’ve known it by the sounds and smells. Not only the gamy tang of roasting meat hung in the air, but also the yeasty scent of bread. Bread! Shane’s mouth watered as he hurried on, not bothering to smother his hungry sigh. Humming whispered on the breeze, a distinctly human sound interspersed with random words of a half-forgotten song Shane vaguely recognized as an old folk ballad back home on Narone. The regular thwack of an axe striking wood joined the melody, but he pushed through the thick brush anyway. Limited to the forest floor, Fallon was brutally vulnerable, and that couldn’t be understated. If wardens had gifted Fallon with a tool, so what? Hadn’t wardens gifted Shane with the metal spit for roasting over campfires? That could’ve been used as a weapon too.
He was safe. He and Fallon both were.
He wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he slipped through the hedge of shrubs concealing Fallon’s campsite. He froze, heart thumping.
Fallon hadn’t been wounded. He’d been mauled.
The blond who jerked to face him looked nothing like the competitor Shane had shared a feast with what felt like a lifetime ago. Bandages padded the left side of Fallon’s head. Gauze frayed around tufts of yellow hair stained with blood at the roots, bandages hugging his scalp and covering one eye. Medical tape holding the dressing in place skirted the proud line of his nose before angling sharply to just below his ear. Like Shane, Fallon had draped pelts over his shoulders, but the furs didn’t conceal the gleam of white tape and compresses plastered on his chest and abdomen. Despite the sling cradling an arm and a rigid cast that immobilized his leg—the rogue beast’s attack must have devastated Fallon’s entire left side—Fallon crouched on top of his bedroll near the banked fire, axe raised and poised to strike. Which was ridiculous. Any attack by the man was doomed to fail as injured as he was. The tool wardens had allowed Fallon was just a short, blunted hand axe, the blade so dull that harsh language probably would have broken kindling faster.
Fallon stared at him, his unbandaged brown eye glittering with such cold calculation that the memory of the Nambian whom Fallon had gutted at the landing pad teased Shane’s mind.
Belatedly remembering wounded animals could be vicious when cornered, Shane shivered.
“Are you a g-ghost?” Fallon finally stammered.
Shane gulped, trying to control the shaking nerves that hummed through him like that almost forgotten folk ballad. “No, man. I’m alive.”
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The fingers clasping the axe handle tightened, knuckles shining as incongruously white as the dressing covering the man’s injuries. Fallon licked his lips. “Shane?” he asked, voice quavering and raspy.
Shane nodded, but nothing could convince him to walk a single step toward the man he’d hoped would become his friend. He’d wanted to help Fallon, and that desire had been sincere. So much Shane had pushed for the visit that—Lore was correct—probably wasn’t wise. The man before him was dangerous. Weak and damaged, yes. But also potentially lethal.
Not a friend.
As though reading his mind, Fallon lowered the axe by slow, cautious degrees until he placed it on the stack of young branches he’d been cutting to feed his fire. He stared at Shane, hardly blinking. “You aren’t dead.”
The sense of wrongness Shane had struggled to dislodge since the attack of the feral cat, since the beast had torn into Fallon at Shane’s old temporary camp, flared bright. “No.”
“You aren’t hurt.”
“Just this.” Shane lifted his wrists, which weren’t strapped together anymore but still sported splints. “And a few cuts on my hip.”
Fallon studied Shane from the crown of his head to the toes of his mocs. “I thought— I heard—”
“A cat went feral.” Shane tried to ignore the trepidation that skittered up his spine. “Lore killed him.”
“Lore. Is that your cat?”
Shane nodded, never taking his eyes off Fallon.
“You call him by name,” the blond said, eyebrow arching so much like that of the Fallon that Shane had met over his own campfire before the Hunt sank into chaos. “You must be his victor, then.”
There was no longer any point in refusing Lore or denying it. “Yes,” Shane said and grinned.
Fallon’s eyes widened, brow disappearing into the hairline not hidden behind gauze and medical tape. “You’re pleased about it.”
Was he happy? Mostly Shane felt horny. And confused. “I think I am.”
Lips curling to a slight bow, Fallon glanced at the dying campfire. A hunk of meat roasted above it. “You still vegetarian?” He shifted in his cloak of furs to nudge a bag. “I should’ve known when Maero brought pine nuts.”
“You’re calling your cat by name too.” Good sign. Maybe Shane would gain a friend after all.
“But my relatives aren’t as bloodthirsty as yours. Just poor.” Snorting a laugh, Fallon shrugged his uninjured shoulder. “C’mon. Sit. Eat with me.”
Shoving off his unease, Shane sat. He didn’t enjoy Fallon’s thick nest of pelts, but the campfire had been built next to a stretch of fallen tree trunk, fresh cut marks showing where Fallon had stripped twigs and skinny branches for fuel. Someone—Maero, perhaps—had draped the section of log nearest the fire with cushioning fur that Shane perched on. “Word is you want an immediate evac. You no longer trust the cats.”
Scowling, Fallon pried a chunk of meat from the haunch roasting over the fire. “And you do?”
“I trust Lore. He’s a cat.”
Fallon grunted. “You’re thinking with your dick.”
That might’ve been true when Lore first mated Shane. It was likely still the case when Shane had first woken in the canopy, but his cock hadn’t pushed Lore for the trip to the forest floor. Hormones hadn’t convinced Shane to open up to his cat either. “Wardens are monitoring cats in the arenas. One slipped through their screening, but only one.” He nodded to his injured wrists. “They don’t want to hurt us.” He stiffened his spine. “Maero won’t hurt you.”
“He won’t be able to stop it. None of them can.” Fallon stared into the forest overgrowth, gaze distant. “Predators are stalking the arena.”
“The animal that attacked you is dead.”
“Who knows how many others are in here,” Fallon mumbled.
Foreboding pebbled Shane’s skin, the chill freezing him to his core. “Wardens and cats sweep the territory every day. There haven’t been signs of—”
A deafening roar thundered from the woods far behind Shane, raising hair at his nape and tripping his pulse. Fear, raw and basic, dumped adrenaline into him. When he whipped around to stare into the forest, he saw only trees. Leaves. Nothing was out of place…except the ensuing silence. Once the roar died, no animals scampered through the vegetation, rustling greenery. The birds had stopped singing.
Oh shit.
“You were saying?” Fallon asked, voice droll and a little smug.
The high, piercing yowl of a cat ripped through the unnatural quiet, rocketing Shane’s panic. Not his cat. Shane would know Lore’s voice anywhere. The feline shrieks rang out, angry, aggressive, harmonizing with guttural, knee-jellying snarls that shredded Shane’s nerves. “We need to get off the forest floor.” He didn’t know where Lore was, likely racing to Maero’s aid to fight whatever beast had invaded the arena this time, but he and Fallon were as good as dead on the ground he’d craved. He glanced around them, searching frantically for branches low enough. “We’ll climb.”
Throwing his bandaged head back, Fallon barked with snide laughter. “Climb?” he asked, thumping the cast immobilizing his left leg from thigh to toe. “I can barely crawl.”
“I’ll help you.” Shane wasn’t sure how. Fallon was bigger, and with his injuries probably dead weight. He’d drag Fallon if he had to, though. Why hadn’t he listened to Lore when the cat had cautioned him about the threats on the ground, the risks Shane would take? Now that they’d fully mated, the chances he was taking with Lore’s happiness too?
The only safe place was up in the trees.
He spotted a branch he might be able to grab at the same moment Lore’s furious snarls echoed through the forest, ratcheting Shane’s terror up another notch. What would he do if Lore was hurt? Killed? His fault. If Lore was taken from him, injured, the blame was Shane’s. No one else’s.
“Here,” Shane said, darting to Fallon to drag him to his feet. He’d trust Lore to defend himself. No one was more capable or better equipped to fight the vicious animals that inhabited Mariket, and Lore would rely on Shane to take any and all necessary precautions until the danger was gone. The cat wouldn’t easily forgive Shane for taking chances. “Just hang on to me and—”
The blow landed so suddenly, so unexpectedly Shane didn’t have time to blink before the axe blade split the meat of his chest. He stared at the surrealistic handle, refusing to believe what his eyes told him. Reeling in shock, he stumbled a step in retreat, legs wooden. Clumsy.
When Fallon jerked the blade from Shane’s body, Shane screamed.
Black dots danced in his vision.
Blood sheeted down his destroyed shirt. The left side of his wounded chest.
The axe swung again, glancing off Shane’s shoulder. It ripped his shirt, shaving away skin, but didn’t sink into muscle. He wheezed for breath at the pain that exploded from his rib cage and tried to scream. “Lore!”
“—is far from here, fighting the rogue predator Maero lured into the arena,” Fallon said, looming over Shane. He clasped the evil-looking axe in his steely grip.
When had Shane dropped to the earth?
Gods, he couldn’t think. The agony consumed everything.
“He isn’t coming, Shane. No one is. They’ve all rushed to protect us weak humans by slaying the beast that slipped past their defenses. Wardens think I’m crazy, that we’re helpless.” Fallon bent, beaming at him. “I don’t need an arsenal to fulfill a contract. Not one with a reward this lucrative.”
Shane gaped at Fallon, tried to speak. To yell out his misery. No sounds emerged from his throat, just the sucking gasps that pushed beyond blood bubbling from his mouth.
“This is a shitty weapon.” Fallon glared at the crude hand axe. “But I do believe,” he said on a slow, wondering drawl, “the first hit may have broken ribs that pierced and are now collapsing your lung.” He didn’t lift the axe to strike Shane again, though. He stooped lower and slapped Shane’s jaw. “Pay attention. I’ll earn a bonus if
you know why you’re dying.”
Light-headed, woozy, Shane writhed with the pain that mushroomed from his chest down to his stomach to the far ends of his fingertips. Even his hair hurt. “My brothers.”
“You think your brothers ordered this?” Fallon snorted. “All they’ve ever cared about was testing you to ensure you were the strongest and most capable of assuming control of your family. After you gave up your birthright and left Narone, you didn’t exist to them anymore. I doubt your brothers remember your name.” Fallon twisted his shoulder, shrugging off the sling that cradled his injured, useless arm, then proved how unuseless that arm was by reaching for Shane. He knotted Shane’s hair in his fist and yanked his upper body off the soft earth. “Why would they waste money on you?”
Why?
It was a good question—a puzzle Shane was in no condition to untangle. Blood poured from his chest. His legs twitched, refusing to obey the commands his mind frantically sent them. His arms flopped numbly. He shivered too, the cold of shock settling into his bones.
He was dying.
“Don’t pass out. Not yet.” Fallon shook him, rattling Shane’s teeth. “Think. Do you believe an operation like this comes cheap? I had to identify an ally among the cats to help me, convince him to trade a half share of my reward to sneak predators intelligent enough to follow your scent trail into the arena. What good would the rogue beasts do if they slaughtered indiscriminately? They’d satisfy their hunger on easier prey, and wardens would’ve shut down this arena before I fulfilled my mission. You would’ve survived! And when the beasts couldn’t find you, I had to pay my cat ally to attack you himself. No cat would betray his tribe and people without a small fortune to bankroll him off Mariket. Do your brothers have that much money?”