Table of Contents
Copyright
Foreword
Chapter One – Tamzin
Chapter Two – Garth
Chapter Three – Tamzin
Chapter Four – Garth
Chapter Five – Tamzin
Chapter Six – Garth
Chapter Seven – Tamzin
Chapter Eight – Garth
Chapter Nine – Tamzin
Chapter Ten – Garth
Chapter Eleven – Tamzin
Chapter Twelve – Garth
Chapter Thirteen – Tamzin
Chapter Fourteen – Garth
Chapter Fifteen – Tamzin
Chapter Sixteen – Garth
Chapter Seventeen – Tamzin
Chapter Eighteen – Garth
Chapter Nineteen – Tamzin
Chapter Twenty – Garth
Chapter Twenty-One – Tamzin
Chapter Twenty-Two – Garth
Chapter Twenty-Three – Tamzin
Chapter Twenty-Four – Garth
Get In Touch
Also By Harmony Raines
Hunted
(Warriors of Karal)
(Book Four)
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Note from the author: My books are written, produced and edited in the UK where spellings and word usage can vary from U.S. English. The use of quotes in dialogue and other punctuation can also differ.
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All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written consent of the author or publisher.
This is a work of fiction and is intended for mature audiences only. All characters within are eighteen years of age or older. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, actual events or places is purely coincidental.
© 2016 Harmony Raines
Kindle Edition
Foreword
Garth is intent on filling the hours aboard the fourth deep space mission with pleasure, in the form of his curvy human female, Tamzin. With his prime upon him, he knows he as to breed a son with Tamzin soon. So what better way to pass the time? Yet soon he learns another side of himself, a softer side, and he begins to feel less like a primal hunter, as his love for his female grows.
Tamzin has had a tough life on Earth, and is relieved when she wins the lottery, and is given to Garth, although the shock of being told they are only stopping on Karal for two days, before going into deep space, is not welcome. But she sees it as her duty to help find a new home for the human race.
Their journey takes them to a new world, a perfect world, but the world hides a secret, which means it will not be suitable for humans to colonize. Disappointed, they leave the planet, only to receive a distress call from another Karalian cruiser. When they go to investigate, they discover that the Karal are no longer the hunter, but the hunted.
Can they outsmart the slavers and return to Karal? And when they do, will the Karal close their defences, or stand up and fight?
Chapter - One – Tamzin
Tamzin looked out over the dirty landscape and sighed, there were definitely better places to work than in the middle of a desert. At least she had a job: that was what she told herself every day that she had to come out here and shovel dust. The money she made was enough to live on, but what damage she was doing to her lungs she couldn’t imagine.
No, scratch that. She had seen the other workers, those who had been working out here, trying to find scraps of iron in the sand where buildings once stood. Two years and you were fucked, that’s what she had heard. Tamzin had been working this job for fourteen months; time was running out.
She laughed to herself. What time? If the dust didn’t kill her, then something else would, like lack of good food, no real sunlight—the list was endless. Damn, she wanted out. She didn’t want to decay in front of the mirror every morning as she had watched her mom do for the last six months of her sorry miserable life.
Slowly, everything had failed, shutting down: her lungs, her kidneys, her whole body wrapped in paperlike skin until even that fell apart. Sores caused from too much exposure to the acid air out here in the deserts had covered her body, leaving her in constant pain, but all Tamzin remembered of her mom was her smile: bright, happy despite everything.
A large boom sounded through the hot air. They were blasting over in the next dry valley, trying to find minerals. The Earth was littered by these pockmarks. She shook her head and went back to work. Next month she was going to take the small amount of coin she was paid and go to where green grass grew and the air didn’t scour your skin.
Tamzin had been saying the same thing to herself for the last eight months, but she still hadn’t found the courage to go. A woman alone was vulnerable. But at least the road inland gave her some hope, where here there was none.
“Water?” The old woman on bent legs came around with the casket every hour, a continual circuit keeping everyone hydrated.
“Thanks, Mary,” Tamzin said as she took the casket from the old woman. The air was cool on her face as she tipped her head back and took a long drink. Putting the stopper back on, she noted the worried look on Mary’s face. “Everything all right?”
“Air feels strange,” Mary said.
Tamzin let her senses take in her surroundings: the hot air, the sand shifting under her feet, making her calf muscles ache, and the cool breeze. The breeze was never cool.
“What is it?” Tamzin asked, her voice mirroring Mary’s concern.
“We should move.” Mary took the water casket back from Tamzin and began to hobble away. Tamzin had never seen her move so fast, and that worried her more than the unnatural breeze.
“Sandstorm?” she asked Mary’s back as the old woman moved, her hip hitching up to get her arthritic legs moving faster. From behind she saw Mary shake her head, but she didn’t stop, didn’t turn.
In two steps Tamzin was alongside her, taking the water casket from her hands and hooking her arm under the scrawny arm of the old woman, propelling them both forward as fast as she could. The breeze, now stronger, was pushing them along, but not as fast as the fear that was seeping into Tamzin’s bones.
She wanted to ask what was happening, and why the sand beneath her feet was shifting more than normal. Risking a look back, she saw why.
“We need to move faster.” Using what little strength she had left, she half lifted the old woman, running now, not looking back, not wanting to see the abyss that was opening up behind them. All she knew was the sand was starting to drag at her feet, ensnaring her ankles as it tried to claim her.
“Leave me,” Mary said, her voice a whisper as her ruined lungs gasped for air.
“Not a chance,” Tamzin said, hauling her along.
“If you don’t, we’ll both die.”
Tamzin heard her words but wouldn’t believe them. “I’ve had enough of people dying,” she said her teeth gritted, as she strained forward, her limbs aching so badly her muscles were cramping.
Mary tugged back away from Tamzin. Falling back, the old woman slipped out of her arms. Tamzin stopped, turning to reach out for Mary, but the old woman was already half covered by sand.
She took one step back towards her before realising it was useless. The old woman had made her choice, allowing Tamzin to run without the added weight of her frail body, or the weight on her conscience, of having to be the one to make the decision to let the old woman die. But Tamzin knew the weight would always be there, just like the weight of her
mom’s death, and her father’s and…
“Stop it,” she said as she redoubled her effort to escape the sand slide. She had heard of these landslides, but never experienced one. The blast had unearthed an old mine pocket, and now the sand was filling it, taking everything with it, suffocating anything that didn’t get out of it’s way. The blast team would have been first. More deaths.
On and on, one foot in front of the other, one draw on the air, filling her lungs with the sand that rose up as she ran, resisting the temptation to erupt into a fit of coughing that would end in her death.
Tears wanted to spill down her cheeks, to leave tracks in the dust coating her skin, as the sand tried to suffocate her any way it could. She wouldn’t cry, she didn’t have the energy.
And then her foot hit solid ground. She ran forward, one step, two steps and then she hit sand again. Should she stay on the hard ground or run on? Each decision was life or death. Turning, she saw she had bought herself some time. Without the old woman she was outrunning the deathly slide, and she chose to go on, seeing a group of people ahead of her, they were heading for the rocky outcrop, one of the only landmarks in this godforsaken desert.
Changing direction slightly she followed them, knowing it had to be their best bet, and needing to be with other people. It was how they survived out here; they worked together.
“Tam, run,” Sybil called, beckoning her.
What do you think I’m doing? But she couldn’t afford the air to speak the words.
“Come on, Tam, nearly there.” More voices called her, drawing her on when her lungs wanted to explode and her heart beat so loud it thundered in her ears.
Then she was close, hands touched her, reaching for her, pulling her, helping her as she had tried to help Mary. Her knees grazed the surface of the rough stone, and she scrambled upwards, until she was standing in amongst the others as the sand whispered past them, dropping twenty foot, leaving them standing on the rocky outcrop like an island in the ocean.
Each one wore the same stunned expression: the look of people who had cheated death on one hand, but knew that their job was gone along with the sand, and death would soon have its fingers on them again as they faced starvation, faced watching their families’ haunted look as they all packed their belongings and walked the Earth in search of hope that had abandoned them.
“Well. That’s that, then,” Sybil said, her arm around Tamzin. “Come on, it’s stopped. Let’s go and eat and then we can decide what to do.” So matter of fact, so Sybil.
Tamzin moved with the group. The sorrow they all felt was tangible, and yet their voices were light, hiding their true feelings. Was death so common, almost expected, out here that they simply covered it up, papered it over like old, decaying skin?
Squeezing her eyes together, she blocked out those thoughts. There would be a time to let them in and reflect, but that time was not now.
“What you need, girl, is to win that lottery,” Thomsk said, nudging her and looking up at the sky as he helped her climb down from the rock.
“Chance would be a fine thing, but they don’t pick us scrubs, no matter how many times we enter,” Sybil said, landing in the sand and nearly sinking up to her knees. “But if ever there was a time for one of us to be lucky. This is it.”
“Just think, clean air, while you all shovel dirt from dawn to dusk,” Tamzin said, shaking off her sadness and joining in with the light-hearted humour that they used to keep themselves going.
Chapter Two – Garth
“Here, have another drink of fetu,” Trumin said, filling Garth’s cup. “You might need it, this time tomorrow you’ll be on Earth picking up your lottery winner.”
“Why would I need courage from a cup of fetu?” Garth took his drink and sipped it slowly, savouring the taste, in no mood to be teased over his mission. “You may think you had a lucky escape, Trumin. But I aim to enjoy my female. I hear they are more pleasurable than the sim.”
“If you like her. Or else you might have to spend the rest of your life listening to the incessant blabbering of a woman. Mate with her and then send her to the breeding house. That will be the fate of my female. I believe I was lucky to be taken off the last mission.”
“You are only saying that because you have to wait longer for your own female, now you are no longer a deep space pilot,” Garth said.
Trumin sighed. “You might be right. I was ready to take a woman to my bed, to live with her out among the stars, but now I have to wait until the missions are over and I am free to go back home.” He drank his cup of fetu and set it down on the table. “Good luck, friend. I hope you are successful in your mission.”
“Thank you, Trumin. I will see you on my return.” Garth got up, leaving his half-full cup on the table. “I have no wish to have a bad head tomorrow, so excuse me for not finishing my fetu.”
“I will drink it for you, Garth.” Trumin picked up Garth’s cup and drained it in one, his colours skimming his skin as the fermented liquor hit his nervous system. “That is my limit.”
Garth laughed. “I didn't know you had a limit.”
“Neither did I.” Trumin looked up. “You have a visitor, I should go.”
Trumin got up, his legs a little unsteady, but he managed to keep his colours under control as he walked away from the table. “Okil.”
“Trumin, good to see you relaxing in your downtime,” Okil, the Karalian in charge of the deep space missions, said.
“Okil, what can I do for you?” Garth sat up. Although Okil wasn’t a warrior, he had some kind of rank over them, although no one could figure out what. The general view was that he was here to spy on the warriors for the Hier Council. And it didn’t pay to get on the wrong side of the Council.
“I wanted to check in, see if everything was OK?” Okil sat down at the table, instantly making Garth wary. He had never sat down with Okil, never spoken to him except in passing.
“Is there a reason it wouldn’t be?” Garth asked, thinking back to how Trumin had his mission taken away at the last minute because the woman he was supposed to have as a mate was taken ill.
“No, not at all.” Okil looked around the mess hall, and then at his hands.
“Speak, Okil, what you say in here is private. Unless we are talking treason, of course.” The warriors were private people, independent, but their oath was sworn to the Council.
“I will be coming with you to Earth tomorrow. You will leave an hour earlier than planned, pick up your lottery bride, and then wait for me to return,” Okil said quickly, before looking around the room once more.
Garth took a sip of his fetu, more to give his brain a chance to process what Okil was saying and gauge whether he was acting outside of the Council’s rule.
“Is this against the Council’s wishes?” Garth asked, at last.
“No. Well, the Hier Ruler knows, the rest of the Council do not.”
“The Hier Commander? Does he know?”
“No.” Okil shook his head. “It is not what you think. This is a personal task. One that the Hier Ruler has asked me to keep quiet. It is not treason, or against the Council’s wishes. It is more … well, it is not important … yet.” His voice faded off as he finished, piquing Garth’s interest. However, from Okil’s behaviour, he knew it was fruitless to ask.
“I will be ready an hour before schedule.” He got up, not wanting to be part of anything that might tarnish his name within the warriors. “I should sleep; tomorrow is the start of a long mission.”
“Good night, Garth. Thank you.” Okil stood too, and then turned abruptly and walked away. He looked tired, and once more, Garth felt the urge to ask him what was wrong, but didn’t want to know—it was best not to know. But Garth liked puzzles, and this was one he would like to know the answer to.
Waiting a moment before following Okil out of the mess hall, he headed for what served as his home here in the old breeding house. It wasn’t much: a small set of rooms, comprising a bed-sitting room, a bathroom, and a kitche
n dining room. Everything he needed was there, small, compact, and easy to maintain. Yet he had begun to miss his home, miss the peace and quiet of the slopes of Mushta. The mountain gave him peace, it was so still, unchanging, as he wished the planet of Karal could be.
Yet he knew as much as every other Karalian that things had to change; the females had to come here so that the new generation could be born. It was the same for every generation, but still he wished the search for females wasn’t necessary, that he didn’t have to have a female chosen for him.
But those were the times they lived in.
Tearing himself away from those thoughts, he turned instead to Okil’s secret mission, but try as he might, he could not fathom what the Hier Ruler could be up to. What information was he keeping hidden from the rest of the Council, and yet he trusted Okil with?
Undressing, he slipped into bed, the cool sheets soothing him; and in the way of a warrior, he switched off those thoughts that tumbled around and around in his head, and went to sleep, knowing he would need his strength tomorrow, when his life would change forever with the arrival of his female.
Chapter Three – Tamzin
“Where are we heading to?” Tamzin asked Sybil. They’d packed up all their belongings and headed out of the small town where all the sand shifters were based. It wasn’t much of a town, not much apart from a bar, which was only ever full on payday when some of the men spent a coin on a drink of simulated beer, that they swallowed down because it was cold and gave them a temporary buzz, which blocked out the pain of the truth that their coins would never be enough to provide a decent standard of living for their family.
There was also a supply shop, where hard-wearing clothes were sold, the kind that took months to wear in, and chafed your skin terribly, but kept out the worst of the sand, and a food store, which also housed the lottery terminal. It was probably the busiest store, because every eligible woman in town visited the store everyday just to enter the lottery in a bid to escape their living hell.
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