Darice scooted away and left Hauk alone to tend the woman.
He cleaned the obvious wounds first then looked for more torn clothing to show him others. As he pushed the sleeve back on her arm to wipe off a scratch there, he froze at the words that had been viciously branded into her flesh.
Kill or be killed.
Shit. He knew that mark. Intimately.
Clenching his teeth, he pulled at the neck of her poncho until he had her left shoulder blade exposed. Sure enough, there was her League dagger tattoo. He cursed again.
The harita is an assassin.
Fury darkened his mood. She must have been caught unawares by a wild animal while sighting him. But for a freak accident, she’d have killed him, and left Thia and Darice alone to fend for themselves in the harsh wilderness.
What kind of woman could do such a thing?
An assassin, dumbass.
So much for human compassion. Darice had been right. They should have left her out to die.
Just kill her and get it over with.
It was so tempting. But he’d never murdered anyone. Killing a fully armed soldier who was fighting him was one thing. Cutting the throat of an injured, unconscious woman, even an assassin, was another. That, he couldn’t quite manage.
His mother would be so disappointed in him for that mercy, especially given that the spared female was human.
Nothing new about that. He’d been disappointing her since he popped out of her womb as an underweight preemie and almost killed her.
If he wasn’t the last of his prestigious military line, his parents would have disinherited him when he’d been dishonorably discharged from The League during training.
Hauk winced as he remembered his father’s sneer the day he’d found out. He’d slammed his fist straight into Hauk’s chest and spat in his face. You disgust me, and you dishonor your noble ancestors. It should have been you who died on Oksana. Not my one, true son you killed with your incompetence. How dare you humiliate our bloodlines so!
Even now those words cut him soul deep. Neither of his parents, Darice, nor Dariana ever let him forget the fact that he, the lesser son, had survived by a miracle of twisted fate, and not by any skill he possessed. They used every opportunity to throw it in his face.
But it wasn’t his fault Keris had died. He’d done his best to prevent it, and had almost been killed himself trying to save his brother’s life.
Shaking his head to silence their condemnation and the memories that tore him apart, Hauk forced his thoughts away from the past. No need to dwell there. He couldn’t change it.
And right now, he had something a lot more important to focus on. This was a trained assassin who had been sent to kill him. One who’d almost succeeded, and she wouldn’t stop coming for him so long as he breathed. While assassins usually worked alone, they didn’t always. If there were more League assassins behind her, he needed to know. They still had four more weeks before they were in satellite range again and he could call for a pickup.
The whole point of Endurance was to survive as if they’d crashed on the planet and had nothing save one survival pack of minimal supplies to sustain them. There was no one to call for help. No backup.
Completely alone, they were supposed to climb to the top of Mount Grenalyn, pluck a feather or bone from the nest of a sparn, and return to their drop site. It was a bonding experience that was usually shared between parent and child. A once-in-a-lifetime adventure designed to teach the teen confidence, self-reliance, and everything he or she needed to know in the event they should ever be on their own in a hostile environment.
And it didn’t get any more hostile than to have an assassin on your ass.
How had she found him? No one knew where they were. That, too, was part of the training. The only one who was supposed to have their coordinates was the pilot who dropped them off – the primary reason why it was always a trusted family member.
Chayden would die before he gave them up. As would Fain.
It made no sense.
And that, too, concerned him.
Hauk narrowed his gaze on the woman. “You better live.” He had to have answers from her. And if she was here to kill him, she had a ship nearby. One he might be able to use to get the kids to safety before anyone else came after him.
“Are you all right?”
He looked up as Thia returned to the tent. “What?”
“That expression on your face… it’s terrifying, Uncle Hauk. I’m used to my dad looking like he’s about to kill someone all the time, but not you.”
He softened his features for her and smiled. “Better?”
“Kind of. But I think I’ve been emotionally scarred. For life.”
He lovingly scoffed at her words. “I hope it takes more than my grimace to emotionally scar you, little one.”
“Says the male who has no idea just how bloodthirsty and cruel he appeared a minute ago. It’s one thing to be told your beloved uncle is a fierce warrior, it’s another one to see it firsthand.”
That was true. Because of his massive size, especially compared to Thia, he’d always gone out of his way to smile and be gentle and soft-spoken around her. When she’d first moved in with her father, she’d been absolutely traumatized by her violent stepfather, and the lunatic animals who’d worked for him. Animals Aksel had had around Thia since the moment of her birth. Not to mention the fact that the sadistic bastard had beaten Thia to the brink of death, and then brutally murdered her mother in a fit of rage.
Back then, understandably, the girl had been terrified of her own shadow.
The first time she’d officially met Hauk, Thia had burst into tears and run off to a closet to hide. It’d been a good three months before she’d finally stopped trembling in his presence. Almost a year before he could hug her.
And he’d sworn to her that he would die for her protection.
He held his hand out toward her to reassure her that his anger was under control, and would never be directed at her. “You know I’d never hurt you, baby.”
She moved to hug him. “I know.” She gave him a fierce squeeze. “Love you, Uncle Hauk.”
“Love you, too, precious.” He kissed her cheek. “Why don’t you go oversee Darice while he attempts to poison us?”
She laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone more inept at food preparation. It’s really quite impressive… in a very sad sort of way.”
“Yes, it is.” He watched as she left him alone with his hostage.
And while he would never say or do anything to hurt or scare Thia, this assassin didn’t fall under his protection. Wounded or not, she would answer his questions or feel the full wrath of the warrior who wouldn’t hesitate to make her bleed until she spilled her guts to him, or he spilled them at her feet.
CHAPTER 5
Sumi came awake to the sound of female laughter. For a mere instant, she was again a girl at home with her sister, lying on her bed while they traded stories of hopes and dreams.
But as her gaze focused on a tan cloth wall, she realized that she wasn’t at home. She was in a strange tent. And that wasn’t the sound of her older sister’s voice.
Omira was long dead, and she…
Her eyes widened as the pain in her body hit her and she remembered what she’d been ordered to do. Why she was here.
She’d been assigned a target, and had been attacked by something huge.
The laughter outside ended in a fierce curse. “I swear, Darice, if you don’t learn to pick up your dirty underwear and stow it properly, I’m going to choke you with it! I mean it! You’re so disgusting! Ugh!”