Page 7 of Guardian’s Heart (Space Guardian’s Mate #1)

ZAAREK

I expected to hear screams, but when I entered the woods and there wasn't a sound to be heard, I expected the worst. I moved as fast as the treacherous terrain allowed, following the signal from my comm.

It was getting dark by the time I reached the place where the signal originated from. Fearing to find her body, I scanned the ground for traces of blood, flesh, and torn pieces of my cloak, but there was nothing. Nothing but undisturbed forest. Well, undisturbed to the casual eye. I noticed small footprints, ripped leaves, and neatly placed on top of a rock: my comm.

Speechless, I stared at it. Looking up into the trees to see if some predator had dragged her up there, even though that wouldn’t have explained the neat placing of my comm. No, for that, there was only one explanation. She had found it and put it there, which made me conclude: A) she was a lot smarter than I had assumed, having realized there was a tracking chip inside the comm, B) she wasn’t familiar with the comm; otherwise, she would have taken it out, and C) that she was here in the forest on her own will, which either pointed to someone very courageous, resourceful, and intelligent or someone very, very stupid. Normally, I would have gone with the last option, but I had already underestimated her twice now, and I wouldn't make the same mistake again.

She could not possibly know this forest, this planet, Morrakbarr. By the starfire, I wasn't familiar with it, so why would she choose the incredible dangers of this place instead of the safety of my ship? And how, by the seven sunsets, was I supposed to find her now?

It was getting darker by the moment. My confidence that I would find her before nighttime went up into smoke. I wished all forms of nebula storms on her, and yet I couldn't deny that I was impressed. Even more so when I noticed her footsteps got bigger and mishappened. She had fashioned some kind of footwear for herself. Her resourcefulness amazed me and filled me with the desire to get to know her better.

First, I had to find her.

Fortunately, her tracks were as easy to spot as a comet's tail. A blind koloch would have been able to pick it up… until I didn't.

She had followed the stream for a little while, but at some point, she had stepped into the water, leaving me to figure out if she went up or downstream.

Darkness had now fully set in. Like it or not, it was time to pitch a camp for the night. Damn female. I hadn't brought any items to set up a camp, and I had given her my cloak, snygging starlight ban that she was. The night would be cold.

At least I had my blaster to light a fire with. As the first flames licked against the wood, I soothed myself that she probably only was half as smart as I was giving her credit for, and she would most likely freeze despite my coat. Pacified that she would be cold and scared, sitting somewhere close by in the dark, I enjoyed the fire and soon roasted a moulaff—small forest critter —over it. I enjoyed the meat even more when I imagined the human's growling stomach.

My comm announced an incoming call request: Possedion. I considered ignoring it, but he most likely already knew where I was, just not why.

"I was just thinking of you." Grinning, I leaned against the tree.

"You are outside. In a forest." Possedion's hologram, which had been projected right over my fire, turned in a circle.

"How observant of you. And here I thought all you were good at was counting the credits I make you," I teased.

He rolled his head heavenward as if someone had forced him to comm me. "It's always about credits with you Space Guardians, isn't it?"

I shrugged as if it didn't matter to me. "It's on one's mind if one never sees one."

"Aren't we giving you everything you need? Is there anything in the universe you want for?"

My freedom ? Came to mind, as surprising to me as it would have been for Possedion had I spoken those words out loud. Where had that come from? Possedion was right. I wanted for nothing. He provided me with fulfilling assignments; assignments I had executed for as long as I could remember. They were my calling. My responsibility in life.

The Ohrurs, the species he belonged to, ensured us Space Guardians were equipped with the latest technology from blasters to spaceships to shielding devices. You name it, we got it. In exchange, we worked for them.

In theory, the credits we earned were being safeguarded by the Ohrurs. The day I retired would be the day they paid me out at least in theory. The problem was that I didn't expect ever to retire. What would I do then? By the same token, I just realized that I had never heard of a retired Space Guardian.

Not that I heard much of my brethren anyway. We tended to work alone. We loved each other, of course; we were a tight brotherhood of only a thousand members, but we didn't play well with each other. Each one of us had been shaped into an alpha male who was solely responsible for himself and the mission we were assigned to. We took charge, which posed a problem when there were more than one of us on a mission. I remembered a lot of fighting between us during our training. Funny that I didn't remember any of the other Space Guardians. A small stinging pain moved through my brain, but before I could follow up with that or my thoughts, Possedion continued, "Since you can't seem to answer my question, I'm taking it as a no. So, again, why are you in a forest, and where are the humans?"

My assignment, and that of three other Space Guardians, was to find humans who had been stolen from their planet and to take them to Astrionis, where they would find refuge until the GTU figured out what to do with them and the Cryons.

It was one of the most unusual assignments I had ever received, but not utterly unheard of. Normally, I was called out to hunt down a criminal that had escaped the GTU. Or, in some cases, the being I was tracking down was untouchable because their crimes couldn’t be proven. Hiring a Space Guardian through the Ohrur was expensive. Hiring four for an open-ended assignment had to cost the Pandraxian Emperor a lot of credits. A lot, a billion per mission per Space Guardian. I suspected that was why my minder suddenly changed to Possedion. He must be the one in charge of all four Space Guardians to keep the mission overseen.

"Why is he collecting humans anyway?" I questioned Possedion.

"How would I know? And why do you want to know? Since when are you asking questions about your assignments?"

I liked Moddekdum, my previous minder, much more—or at least a little more—than Possedion. Moddekdum actually answered my questions without delivering a condescending lecture.

"Since they are vital to my mission," I retorted.

"Does that have anything to do with you being in a forest?"

He wasn't going to let go of that. "Yes. One of the humans I freed ran away. So again, why is the Emperor so interested in such an obnoxious group of people?"

"I don't see why one thing has anything to do with the other." Possedion sighed, and I entertained myself by watching the flames go up his holographic robe. "What can I say? The Pandraxian Emperor Daryus likes provoking the Cyrons. They've been burning to go to war with them for years." Possedion shrugged the Emperor's interest off.

That didn't make any sense. If the emperor wanted to pick a fight with the Cryons, he could have done so without spending a small fortune on rescuing humans. Interestingly, Possedion had chosen not to give me the one information that would have actually made sense—the emperor wanted to find as many mekarry bonds for his people as possible.

I wondered why Possedion had left that out but figured it was probably just one of his many powerplays. Still, the idea of the mekarry bond intrigued me.

Not that I had ever given a mate bond a second thought before. Or mating period. I liked to work, and I liked to work alone. A female, or family, had no room in this kind of life. Strangely, at that moment, a wave of sadness ran through me, one I couldn't quite place, accompanied by another small pain in my head. To stop myself from thinking too much about either, I rubbed my chin and said, "I still don't understand why she would run away,"

"A human ran away?" Possedion cursed at the news.

"Don't worry, I'll find her and the others are safe. But they seem to be an obstinate species. Where did they come from?"

Possedion didn’t seem thrilled to provide me with more details, but he probably didn’t see a reason not to, considering I could have easily retrieved the information from my comm anyway.

"The Cryons discovered them and have been harvesting a planet called Earth ever since. The new Empress of the Pandraxians is a human female and has been using all her influence to get the Emperor to help her people."

"Still, to spend that much money on a female?" I mused, baiting him further. This wasn't new information to me, but again, he had skirted the mention of the mekarry bond—the reason the Emperor had taken a human mate—which I found quite perplexing.

Possedion became a little bit more animated. It seemed he liked rumors and intrigue. I made a mental note of it. "From what I heard, there was a major conspiracy in the Empire. The human female was kidnapped from the palace, and Emperor Daryus went crazy and nearly burned the entire city down to get her back. Many people in high positions were arrested."

Everybody in the universe knew that the Emperor had an extremely volatile temper, so his reaction to having his mate taken sounded like something I might do, if, and that was a big if, I would ever allow myself to get attached to a female like that.

I mulled it over until another of the emperor's motivations became clear to me. The Pandraxian Empire was as powerful as the Cryons. While nobody liked the Cryons, everyone traded with them because they consistently introduced new technologies and rare delicacies to the market—humans being among them. If Daryus overthrew the Cryons, the Pandraxians would become the most powerful species in the universe. However, the only way for him to usurp the Cryons was with the GTU's blessing, which he could only secure by proving they were involved in highly illegal activities, such as exterminating a sentient, intelligent species. The more witnesses he brought forward, namely humans, the more the GTU would be willing to listen. I wasn't involved in universe politics, but I liked to keep up with them because on occasions, they did interfere with my mission.

"The reason why I commed you is a different matter." Possedion's image stepped out of the flames and hovered over the gnarly roots of the trees.

Here it comes , I thought, preparing myself to be chastised.

"You had orders not to harm Monrag and yet you terminated him."

"My orders were to collect the human prisoners and punish the ones holding them against their will. That's what I did." I stretched the truth, hiding the fact of how irrationally enraged I had been at Monrag for touching the female who ran away from me.

Possedion's expression didn't change, he didn't believe me and rightfully so. "I specifically told you not to harm Monrag."

"My bad. I must have misunderstood." I apologized, sure this wasn't going to be the last I heard about this.

"Get that female back and take those humans to Astrionis," Possedion snarked, ending the comm.

"Yes, sir," I pressed out, staring at the space where he had last hovered. How hard can it be to find a human female in an alien forest?