Chapter One
"Your condition is unacceptable, fugitive." Zeta glared
at the dried torso pinned under a twisted piece of black
panel, the male's flight suit shredded and faded, his head
and limbs missing. "I need you alive."
Currents of scorching hot air wafted up from the
reddish–brown sand, Chamele 4 barely inhabitable, its
extreme temperatures legendary. An anonymous tip had led
Zeta to the arid planet. The highly visible scattered
remains of the single–manned ship had narrowed her search.
"I must be mistaken. You can't be him. Fate isn't that
cruel," Zeta muttered, knowing first–hand that it was.
She jabbed the tester deep into the male's chest and the
brittle skin cracked on impact, all moisture long evaporated
from the corpse.
She squinted at the tiny screen. A trickle of
perspiration ran down her spine, her shirt sticking to her
torso, the heat absorbed from the leather straps holding her
daggers and guns burning through the coarse fabric.
"Target confirmed," the machine chirped happily.
"Son of a Palavian whore." Anxiety twisted Zeta's stomach
into tight little knots. The client required the
intergalactic jewel thief retrieved alive.
"I traveled across two galaxies for nothing, no thief, no
bounty." She tilted her head back and stared at the giant
blood–red sun, finding no solution to their precarious
financial situation there, the rent for their
bounty–hunter school due in fifteen universal days. "I
can't go back empty handed. I can't disappoint the girls."
Rough fingers drifted across her forearm, sending waves
of sweet sensation rippling over her body, the caress
tightening her nipples and lighting flames of desire deep
within her.
"Touch me again and I'll shoot your invisible ass," Zeta
warned, her inappropriate arousal irking her. Since her
arrival on the planet, the male had tracked and tormented
her. At every opportunity, he'd stroked her skin and fondled
her curves, building a need she couldn't tend to, her
personal time limited.
Her yet–to–be identified stalker chuckled,
the sound low and pussy–moistening deep.
She turned slowly, surveying the landscape, searching for
signs of him. No shadows fell upon the viewscreen lodged in
the sand to her right, the clear surface cracked, feathered
with fine fractures. Behind her, only a single set of
footprints marred the otherwise untouched sand dunes. The
fossilized remains of what might have once been a tree
loomed to her left, as dead and lifeless as the planet it
inhabited.
"Spirits," Zeta grumbled as she trudged toward her ship,
the wind biting at her back. She hunched her shoulders in
defeat, leaving the headless corpse of her target to
disintegrate to dust, baked by the relentless sun.
"Behind you, Zeta," her mysterious male urged, his gruff
words spoken in the universal language.
She extracted a dagger from her waist sheath and pivoted.
A giant featherless creature swooped silently downward, the
weather–worn hide on its wings stretched tight. Its
talons reached out for her, its prey. Its huge beak opened,
revealing multiple rows of sharp teeth, the beast designed
for killing.
Zeta snapped her wrist, releasing her favorite dagger,
the action as natural to her as breathing. The weapon
whistled through the air and lodged with a juicy smack in
the creature's right eye socket, bursting the eyeball. The
beast screeched and reared upward, flapping its great wings.
Zeta grabbed another dagger and carefully aimed. The
creature rolled in the cloudless sky, spinning away from
her, its velocity too fast for her to lock upon.
"Your hide is mine." She ran after the predator,
determined to down her attacker and retrieve her mother's
dagger, that last gift from her now–dead parent having
once served as her only protection.
You have to look after yourself now, Zeta. Her mother's
final words echoed in her ears as she sprinted, her gaze
fixed on the creature's fading silhouette, its monstrous
form etched against the bright sun.
With three more beats of its great wings, the animal
surged out of range, and Zeta skidded to a stop, sand
spraying her ugly black boots, her clothes soaked with
perspiration.
"No thief, no bounty and now, one less dagger." She
kicked a large red boulder, its varying shades of color
delineating centuries of soil settlement. "This day couldn't
get any worse." Zeta sheathed her remaining dagger,
disgusted by her failure.
"It could have been worse. You could have been eaten by
the rock vulture."
Him again. "Is that what happened to you?" She cocked her
head, her hair sliding over her shoulders, hanging loose,
her fastener also lost during the assault. "Are you a
spirit, destined to walk the sands of Chamele 4, warning
others of your mistake?"
"I'm no spirit, little hunter. And I don't make
mistakes." A muscled form materialized from the nearby wall
of rock, his skin turning from red to tan, his long hair
darkening to black. He was dauntingly large, his biceps huge
and defined, his broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow
waist and then disappearing into nothing.
"You have no legs." Zeta frowned, meeting his midnight
gaze, his face as hard as the stone he faded into. "What are
you?"
His lips quirked upward. "I have legs." A long silver
scar slashed down his cheek from his left eye to the corner
of his mouth. "My invisibility, as you call it, is for your
benefit. I'm in hunting mode and Chameles hunt naked." He
spread his fingers and long, deadly claws extended from his
knuckles.
"Oh." Zeta's face heated, the urge to see him, all of
him, tremendous. Is he as big all over? A pulse throbbed
deep in her womb, her starved sex drive demanding her
attention, too much of her life spent alone, untouched,
emotionally safe.
I don't need him. She bit the inside of her cheek,
smothering her arousal with pain. I don't need anyone.
He breathed deeply, his nostrils flaring, his chest
rising and falling, the sun's rays casting shadows over his
muscles. "This isn't the time nor place for rutting, gerel."