What in the Nine Worlds?
Sumi ground her teeth against the pain and rolled over. But as soon as she realized she wasn’t alone in the tent and her gaze focused on the other occupant, she froze in stark terror.
Holy gods. He was absolutely huge! While she’d seen that on the monitors, seeing it and being close enough to be dwarfed by him was an entirely different experience. He practically took up the entire tent.
No male should ever have shoulders so broad. Nor a scowl so fierce. For that matter, one of those beefy biceps had to be bigger around than her entire waist… and she wasn’t skinny. Dressed in the black and brown leather of an Andarion desert nomad, he made a ferocious sight with his braids pulled back from his face and secured by a leather tie at the nape of his neck. From the short leather epaulettes of his shirt, thick leather straps were wound around both arms and held more weapons than she’d ever seen on a dozen soldiers, never mind one male. His large hands were covered with black leather fingerless gloves, and an ancient Andarion battle sword was sheathed and strapped across his back.
I am so dead…
Another thing the commander had failed to warn her about was how much Dancer Hauk favored his brother Fain.
Every bit as muscled and fierce as Fain, Hauk took second to no one. His dark brows arched over a pair of eerie, piercing white-and-red eyes that glared a hole straight through her. There was no doubt she was on his menu, and he was already barbecuing her butt in his mind.
I am so dead, she repeated again.
Trembling uncontrollably, she did her best not to show her fear. But she was pretty sure he saw it. He’d have to be blind not to.
His gaze followed every move her hands made as if he was waiting for a reason to kill her. And still he didn’t speak. He just watched with a deeply unsettling intensity. If she didn’t win him over fast with guile, she would be a stain on the ground at his feet.
With perfectly sculpted features, he’d be pretty if not for the lethal aura and well-trimmed goatee and mustache. But there was nothing feminine about this gorgeous warrior.
He was simply horrifying and bloodthirsty.
“Before you lie to me,” he finally growled in a low, feral tone that was thickly accented. “I know who and what you are, assassin. Why you’re here.”
She swallowed hard at the underlying threat. “Then why am I still alive?”
“Uncle Hauk? Can you please tell your monkey that —” The female’s voice broke off as she entered the tent with a plate, and saw them. A friendly smile spread across her beautiful, innocent face as she met Sumi’s gaze. “You’re awake! I’m so glad you’re not dead.”
She handed the metal plate to Hauk, who made it look more like a saucer in comparison to the size of his gigantic hands, before she knelt down beside Sumi and felt her forehead. The girl’s concerned kindness stunned her. “Do you remember being injured? Do you know where you are?”
Completely confused, Sumi couldn’t answer at first. She’d been told that Hauk would be alone on some Andarion spiritual quest. No one had mentioned he’d have companions, never mind family with him. This girl, who appeared in her late teens or early twenties, had called him “uncle.” But she was quite human while Hauk was definitely not.
The girl glanced over her shoulder at Hauk, whose gaze threatened Sumi’s life. “Uncle Hauk, stop scowling like that. You’re terrifying the poor woman. She thinks you’re going to eat her.”
She turned back to Sumi with another bright, dimpled smile. “I know he’s huge and scary and a full Andarion, but he won’t hurt you. I promise. I tend to think of him as just a big attack dog, who’s actually quite cuddly once you learn to ignore his growls.”
Arching a brow, Hauk pinned a look of utter disbelief on the back of his niece’s head.
Unaware of his ire, she continued talking. “I’m Thia and he’s Hauk. We found you wounded and brought you back to our camp. Uncle Hauk patched you up. Can I get you something to eat or drink?”
Thia’s tenderness was as startling as it was unexpected.
“W-water?”
Thia patted her hand. “Be right back.” She passed a glower to Hauk. “Try not to scare her to death until I return, okay?”
How could she be so brazen with him? Did she lack all sense? That tone she used with him was tantamount to popping a ravenous, rabid beast on the nose and telling it to shush.
To Sumi’s shock, he actually appeared charmingly sweet as he smiled at the girl and spoke to her in a calm, gentle tone. “Thee? Can you give us a few?”
That seemed to unsettle the girl a bit. “Sure.” Biting her lip, Thia glanced to Sumi as if she realized there was more to Sumi’s appearance in their camp than mere happenstance.
As soon as she was gone, Hauk set his plate aside, and stood to tower over Sumi’s pallet.
She fought the urge to run. While he’d been huge before, up close and in her space, he was gargantuan. And there was no missing the bloodlust in his white-and-red eyes. Something made even more ominous when he opened his lips and ran his tongue down his long canines as if savoring the taste of her blood and bones. “What’s your name and rank?”
“M-m-my what?”
“I saw your League markings, assassin… Name. Rank. Now!” That had to be the fiercest, deadliest bark she’d ever heard.
“Agent Sumi —” She answered immediately, barely catching herself before she spoke a surname that would guarantee her a slow painful death at his humongous hands.
“Sumi, what?”
“Just Sumi.”
Crouching in front of her, he grabbed her arm and pushed her sleeve back to expose the branded words that mocked her every day of her miserable life. “I know you were conscripted into League service. What felony did you commit?”
Sumi stared into the intensity of his cold glare as old memories returned to torment her. Like Hauk, the bastard she’d killed had been merciless and cold. Unyielding. Unforgiving. And his attack on her had been completely unwarranted.
“Murder.”
“Premeditated?”
Without thinking, she shook her head. Then she cursed her stupidity. It was never a good thing to admit to your enemy that you were anything other than ruthless. But then, as now, she’d acted out of fear.
“Who did you kill?”
Trying her best not to return to that horrid night with her thoughts, she snarled the answer. “My boyfriend.”
He arched a brow at that. “For?”
“Breathing.”
One corner of his mouth twitched as if her sarcasm amused him. Then he sobered into a terrifying countenance. “I can well understand the urge to kill someone for breathing. Been known to succumb to it myself from time to time.” He glanced to the opening of the tent. When he looked back at her, she had no doubt that she was only one wrong answer from death. “I also know you’re a mother.”
Stunned at what she thought was a well-kept secret, she sucked her breath in sharply. “How?”
He pulled the covers back to show the bandage over her abdomen where she’d been gored by the tourah’s horns. “I saw the stretch marks when I cleaned your wound. Given the location, there’s only one thing that could have caused them. And by their number and depth, I know you carried to term.”
Damn, he was good. And he was right. Tears filled her eyes as she tried her best not to remember the baby that had been stolen from her before she’d ever had a chance to hold her.
“Where’s your child now?”
A single tear fled past her control. It always did whenever she thought about her daughter. “She was taken from me.”
“By The League?”
She started to lie, but why bother? He obviously wasn’t stupid. And it was standard League procedure to seize custody of any child born to their soldiers. “Yes.”