Hunter

by Emmy Chandler

  “Fine. Come on, ladies.” Lilli starts herding the women back into the woods wincing as twigs and thorns bite through the inadequate protection of her homemade shoes. She’s their real leader. She has been since long before I broke them out.

  I’m just the girl with the map.

  When the women are safely hidden, Callum and I head up the hill toward the buildings, listening for voices. Watching for flashlight beams, or for any other sign that the buildings are occupied.

  A quick, cautious search reveals, based on thick layers of undisturbed dust, that they’ve probably stood untouched for a very long time. When I try a faucet in a bathroom on the first floor of what was once an apartment building, I understand why. There’s no running water. Nor are there any beds. Everything that could be salvaged from the building has been, leaving nothing but the walls and ceilings, often missing both doors and windows.

  This place, which once housed at least a hundred people, is now nothing but an empty shell. A shelter of the most basic variety.

  But that’s good enough for us. At least for now.

  “Are they ever going to shut the fuck up?” Callum grumbles, lying next to me on one of the extra mattress pads. He casts an angry glare at the wall separating us from the women in the next room, and I can’t decide whether to laugh or scold him. So, I decide to distract him instead.

  “We’re in our own room,” I point out in a whisper as I roll toward him. “What more can you expect?”

  “You. I expect you. Just you.” While he was grudgingly willing to admit that freeing the women was the right thing to do, he is less enthusiastic about the fact that I now feel responsible for them. Especially for the ones who’ve never been in the open population.

  “You have me.” I slide one leg over him and sit up to straddle his hips, hoping I don’t smell too sweaty from our hike. “So…what are you going to do with me?”

  He grabs my hips and presses up against me, so I can feel the hard length of him between us, through both layers of clothing. “What I want to do is sink deep inside you and stay there for the rest of my life.”

  “Oh my god, that sounds even sexier in your language,” I moan as I try to tune out the translation. I slide the wrist com off my arm and set it on the floor. “You know we can’t keep this for much longer, right?”

  “Why not?” Callum slides his hands beneath my shirt and drags it up as his fingers skim over my skin. “They let us go.”

  “Because they have bigger fish to fry.” I raise my arms so he can pull my shirt over my head. “But once they’ve cleaned up the mess at the Resort, they might decide it’s worth the effort to hunt down the inmates who made that mess. And if I’m still using the wrist com, we’ll be much easier to find.”

  “You’re right,” he admits. “I know that. But I’m going to miss the translator.”

  “I don’t know…” I give him a heated smile as I run one hand down his bare chest, over planes and dips I nearly know by heart. “I kind of like the idea of another dirty vocabulary lesson.”

  “Later.” Callum lifts me off of him, and I shimmy out of my pants while he shoves his down. A second later, there’s nothing between us but desire. “I missed you,” he whispers as I settle on top of him again, rubbing myself lightly over his erection. “My badass little hellcat.”

  “Hellcat?” I plant my hands on his chest and rock forward again, already slick with need for him. He groans, so I do it again. “When did my nickname get an upgrade?”

  “The moment you showed up at my cell with an entourage of metal hounds.” He lifts me by my hips, and I hold myself up while he positions himself. Then I sink onto him slowly.

  His eyes close and his grip on my hips tightens, and for a moment, I stay there, unmoving. Just feeling him inside me. Treasuring a moment I was afraid might never come again. Then I begin to move.

  “Oh, god, Maci, I thought I would never see you again,” Callum groans, his voice echoed back at me from the translator on the floor. “I hoped I wouldn’t, because that would mean you’d escaped.”

  “I couldn’t leave you there. Not after you gave yourself up to save me.”

  “I gave myself up so you could leave. You were supposed to get the fuck out of there and never even look back.”

  “That was never an option.” I ride a little harder, grinding myself into him. Clenching around him as that familiar pressure begins to build. “Even if the women weren’t a factor, I couldn’t have left you.”

  “Why not?” His hand slides up from my stomach to cradle my breast his thumb rubbing over my nipple. Then around it, teasing it into an almost painful point.

  “Why not?” I go still, despite my body’s demand that I keep it up just a little bit longer. “Because I love you, Callum. I don’t want to be here without you. I—” My mouth snaps shut when I see his expression. When I realize he’s frozen beneath me. “It’s okay,” I assure him, as panic flutters in my chest like an army of butterflies. “You don’t have to say it back. This isn’t high school, and you’re not my prom date. I know all of that.” Oh my god, Maci, just shut up and ride him. “I just…thought you should know how I feel.”

  Or not.

  I start to move again, but the motions feel forced. My heart’s not in it anymore. Which doesn’t matter anyway, because a second later, he stops me with both hands on my hips.

  “You think I don’t love you?” Callum demands, his voice a growl so deep I can feel it rumble within me. Where his cock is still twitching inside of me. “I already told you, hellcat. You’re mine. I’m yours. If that weren’t true, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have come after you in the enclosure. I wouldn’t have given myself up. I wouldn’t have escorted thirty whining women through the woods in the middle of the night. I’m sorry if it didn’t occur to me to actually say the words, but Maci, I love the hell out of you.”

  Before I can catch my breath—because it’s just been sucked right out of me—he rolls us over and wraps my legs around his waist.

  “I want you every second of the day.” He thrusts into me, long and hard. “I fucking need you, like I need to breathe.” Another stroke, and he’s hitting just the right spot, both in my body and in my soul. “I don’t know what forever means on this piece of shit red rock, but whatever time I have left here is yours.”

  “Oh!” I cry as pleasure begins to build inside me, pushing me rapidly toward the peak.

  “I’m never going to let you go,” he continues, slamming into me now. “Even if that means putting up with a bunch of bitching and whining from every stray puppy you try to rescue,” he says with another glance at the wall we’re sharing with the women in the next room. “So, why don’t you be a good little hellcat and come for me, because I can’t wait much—”

  With a groan, I grab his hips and pull him deeper, arching into him. Tightening my legs around him. Grinding against him with every stroke.

  I come with a scream, beyond caring who else hears, and a second later, Callum groans as he releases inside me, thrusting over and over with a frantic need.

  “This is it,” I whisper as he collapses on top of me, breathing hard.

  “This is what?” Instead of getting up, Callum rolls us onto our sides, still buried inside me.

  “This is what forever is like, on this piece of shit red rock. This is what it can be, anyway.”

  He laughs, and his body shakes against me—inside me—setting off tingly aftershocks. “You do realize we only escaped zone two, right? We’re still actually on a prison planet.”

  “This place is what you make of it.” I learned that in zone four. I learned that in the enclosure. And it’s a lesson I don’t intend to forget. “If we’re willing to fight.”

  He leans in for a kiss, then pulls me even closer. “I would fight for you every day of—”

  “Maci!” The door flies open at his back, and Lilli rushes into the room.

  “Out!” Callum shouts, without turning. “You’re interrupting a tender fucking moment!
”

  “Oh! Sorry!” Lilli’s gaze skitters down Callum’s bare back toward his naked ass, before her focus snaps back to me. “The sun’s coming up, so I went outside to pee, and there are people coming up the hill. Two of them.”

  “Men?” Callum rolls away from me and grabs his pants, evidently unconcerned for whatever Lilli might see.

  “I think so. They were backlit, but at least one of them looks really big.”

  I pull my clothes on and step into my shoes, then Callum and I follow Lilli out of the building, with a warning to the other women to stay put.

  Outside, just as Lilli said, the first rays of light from the east are backlighting a pair of forms headed up the shallow hill toward us. I can’t see their faces, but…I would recognize those silhouettes anywhere.

  “Oh my god,” I whisper, squeezing Callum’s hand.

  “What? You know that monstrous fuck?” His gaze is trained on the larger silhouette, his stance tense. But I’m looking at the smaller one. The one with long hair blowing in the breeze…

  “Audra!” I let go of Callum’s hand and race down the hill toward her. Footsteps thunder at my back as Callum tries to catch me.

  The backlit forms stop. “Maci?” The smaller one turns to the larger. “Ty, it’s her!” Then Audra’s running toward me.

  We meet in a collision of happy tears and grasping arms, hugging each other so tightly neither of us can breathe. “We’ve been looking for more than a week, but I didn’t think we’d really find you.”

  My wrist com provides a translation for Callum, and Audra glances at it in surprise.

  “Hellcat…” Callum growls, and I look up to see him and Tyson facing off against each other. Both tense and on alert. “You want to make some introductions? Because this big fucker looks like he wants to throw down.”

  “Oh, that’s just Ty. He always looks like that.” I let go of Audra and throw my arms around Tyson.

  “Hey, kid.” He returns my hug and holds on a little longer than he should. “Who the hell is that?” he whispers into my hair. I can feel Callum’s possessive gaze on us. And I can feel his patience growing thin.

  Finally, I pry myself from Ty’s protective grip and take Callum’s hand. “Ty, Audra, this is my…Callum. Callum, these are my friends from zone four.” I wait a second for the translation to catch up. “The ones I told you about. Who looked out for me.” Without fucking me, I add silently. Because he really seems to need to hear that, even if only subconsciously.

  Audra gives us a tight smile. “And Callum is…?”

  “Oh, he saved me from some robo-dogs. And a hunter. Then I killed the master of hounds and released all the convicts at the Resort, so now we have, like, thirty more women to look out for. Up there in the building.” I pause to catch my breath, while Audra and Ty try to puzzle through my rushed explanation. “Did I mention how glad I am to see you guys?”

  “Whoa.” Audra’s eyes are wide. “You killed someone?”

  I shrug. “Well, several someones, if you consider the hounds to be weapons I was wielding. Which is basically true.”

  “Holy shit, Maci!” Audra says. Then she elbows Tyson. “Ty, shake his hand.”

  “What?”

  “Shake Callum’s hand,” she repeats. “So he can stop assuming you want to kill him.”

  “You too.” I take Callum’s hand and physically pull him toward Tyson. “Push past the testosterone and recognize an ally for what he is. These are friends. And we need each other. So, play nice.”

  Finally, Callum extends his right hand toward Tyson. “Any friend of Maci’s…” he says, and my wrist com translates for him.

  Ty shakes his hand, and Callum does an admirable job of pretending he’s not pissed that he has to look up at the broader, taller man.

  “There. See?” Audra pats Ty’s bulging left pectoral. “That wasn’t so hard.”

  “Yeah, but that’s just the beginning,” I tell her. “There are seriously thirty women up there waiting to find out whether or not you guys are dangerous.” Lilli is still watching us from the doorway.

  Audra blinks. Then she glances at Tyson with an uneasy look. He aims a similar look over my head at Callum, and I can practically feel whatever grim message is passing between them, unspoken.

  “What? What’s wrong? It’s not like we could just leave them there. Not after what we did to Wendy and the Settlement A women.”

  “I know,” Audra says, glancing up the hill at Lilli. “It’s just that…”

  “Now we’re a target,” Callum finishes for her, in his language, as he turns to me. “Forget about the shampoo. The real currency on any prison planet is female…companionship. Which means we’re standing guard over a treasure chest half the planet would kill to claim.”

  I nod slowly. I knew from the start that if we got the women out of the Resort, we’d be trading in a few wealthy predators for a whole planet full of dirty, half-starved, desperate pillagers. But… “It’s not like we had a choice. We did the right thing. Nothing worth doing is ever easy.”

  Callum pulls me close with a grim smile. “My hellcat loves a challenge.”

  Tyson chuckles, a deep rumble of sound. “So does my southpaw.”

  “Alright.” Audra turns toward the buildings. “Let’s go see what we’re working with.” Then she stops and eyes me with both pale brows raised. “Did someone say something about shampoo?”

  “Oh!” I gasp as I lead her up the hill. “I almost forgot the best part—we may have to fight every day for the rest of our lives, but we’re going to smell damn good doing it!”

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for reading Hunter! When I started planning this series, I knew exactly what books one and three should be. They’d be prison planet versions of two stories I’d wanted to tell for years. But book two…

  This one was a challenge.

  I knew from the first chapter of Guardian that book two would be Maci’s book. But for the longest time, I had no idea what her story would be, or who she would fall in love with. She was such a quiet character. So stuck in her own head. So smart and gifted. So obviously scared, yet curious. About men. About sex. About life.

  Then I remembered reading, way back in high school, a story called “The Most Dangerous Game.” It was about a large game hunter who hunted people instead of animals, for the ultimate challenge. I remembered thinking, “What kind of sick bastard hunts people?” Which is when I realized that Universal Authority, the private organization that runs the prison on Rhodon, is a for-profit company. And there is nothing they wouldn’t do to make money. (Which leads nicely into book three!)

  Once I figured out that Maci was a hacker (there were hints in Guardian!) I realized she had the skillset to bring the Resort to its knees. And the rest of the story pretty much fell into place. Which leads me to book three…

  In Champion, you’ll find out what happens to Graham, after the patrol shuttle catches him during the escape from the Resort. And you’ll meet his girl Sylvie, one of my favorites out of all the female characters I’ve ever written.

  Ready for a sneak peek? Turn the page for an early chapter from Champion!

  If you’d like more information about me or the Prison Planet books, you can find me on in my FB group, my Facebook page, Goodreads, BookBub, and at www.emmychandler.com.

  Emmy

  CHAMPION

  Prison Planet book 3

  “Ms. Wolfe, you’re the only woman who’s ever requested the arena.”

  Sylvie Wolfe made a bad decision, for a good reason. Now, sentenced to death for her crime, she has only one decision left to make—the method of her execution. Most people pick lethal injection.

  Sylvie demands death by combat.

  Her choice gets her sent to the prison planet Rhodon, where in zone one, the galaxy’s most dangerous convicted murderers fight to the death on camera in a gladiatorial-style competition that will end with one inmate being declared the champion. And having his—or her—death senten
ce commuted to life in prison.

  Graham Anderson thinks he’s lost his mind when he sees a woman in zone one. He pulls Sylvie into his cell just before lockdown, temporarily shielding her from a throng of monsters intent on laying claim to her. By the time the doors unlock at dawn, he’s made nearly a hundred vicious new enemies and lost his heart to the fiercest, sexiest, most determined woman he’s ever met.

  With death looming in the arena and foes aligning against them behind the scenes, Sylvie and Graham must fight for every moment they share. But in the end, there can be only one champion. Which means only one of them can leave the arena alive…

  Turn the page for a sneak peek at Champion!

  Champion

  1

  SYLVIE

  There is little in the universe more miserable than a day-long wait for an automatic water cannon to wash someone else’s urine out of your hair. Except knowing that once you get out of your filthy, cramped cage, worse awaits.

  The prison transport is the most wretched place I’ve ever been. Including jail. They have us stacked like boxes in a warehouse, in metal pens too small for us to stand up or stretch out in. Three high. Nude. The woman in the cage on top of mine has peed on my head twice.

  By my count, we’ve been “showered” by programmed water cannons eighteen times and fed thirty-eight “meals” on the transport before the door to our cargo room slides open for the first time. Just as the floor beneath us lurches. As the ship around us groans.

  We’re coming out of light speed. Which can only mean we’ve arrived.

  “That her?” the first of two guards says from the doorway, nodding in my direction. “Middle row, second from the left?”