Page 2 of Hunter’s Valentine (Xarc’n Warriors)

I realized my carefully laid plans were all for nothing the moment the scourge started veering away from my strategically placed traps. I’d spent all yesterday evening setting them up and had then run around with a lure at dawn, trying to gather as many of the infernal creatures as possible so I could burn them all to a crisp at once. But while the first part had gone as planned, the scourge had started down the wrong road only two intersections away from their demise.

That could only mean one thing: something had caught their attention, something alive and edible. I scented the air, but all I could smell were the scourge and their blasted fungus.

I backed up and made a running jump onto the next roof to see if there was anything I had missed. I’d chosen this area in particular to set my traps because of how close together the buildings were and how easy it was to maneuver from building to building without ever setting foot on the ground. It meant I could take my time destroying the flyers methodically without having to worry about the scuttlers or spitters.

I finally detected it two roofs over—something delicious and delicate. Human, but not like any of the ones I’d scented before. I knew there was a small group of survivors living in this area. I’d seen them earlier in the winter, but they’d been exploring as a group, and it was clear that whoever had messed up my traps had come alone. Strange. It was rare for humans to forage by themselves.

There was the smell of something else as well, something putrid. Rotting meat. The human must have thrown it to distract the scourge, and that was what the scuttlers were now investigating.

I inhaled again, trying to isolate the human scent. Female, for sure. Any other hunter would be excited to rescue a female and bring her back to his shuttle, but not me. I wasn’t interested in a mate. I did, however, want to see who’d messed up my hunt. I’d spent a good deal of time setting it up, and I was more than a little annoyed that she’d wrecked it.

This hunt was supposed to beat my personal best. And now it was ruined.

The sudden sound of gunfire rang out from one of the buildings below. That must be her, though what her weapon could possibly do against this many scourge, I didn’t know.

I sighed. The human might have ruined my hunt, but I wasn’t going to let her die, not when she smelled so utterly delicious.

Usually, I preferred to fight the flyers melee-style for a fun challenge, but time was of the essence here, so I used my blaster instead. I grounded them by shooting them in the wings; those were large, easy targets. Then I got close enough to get in two headshots—one for each of the flyers. Now all I had to do was get the scourge’s attention away from the little human.

I was glad I’d decided to trade with the hunters living in New Franklin. The hunters there worked and lived with a large group of humans, and they had this wonderful invention called a repellent. It only cost me a few dozen useless “phone batteries.”

The repellent worked much the same way our lures did, using sound. But while our lures sent out a frequency that sounded like a distressed queen to draw the creatures near, the human-made repellent emitted a noise the creatures couldn’t stand. I hated it too. It was the most obnoxious thing I’d ever heard and it hurt my ears, but it worked to get rid of the scourge when I didn’t want to hunt anymore. The combination of the repellent, my lure, a series of well-placed traps, and fire meant that I’d been more successful than ever in my hunts.

I turned off the lure that I’d been using to draw the scourge in and switched on the deterrent. A high-pitched whirring that made my head want to burst had me immediately clenching my jaw. The scourge heard it, too, and the majority of them scrambled away, trying to get as far away from it as possible. A few particularly hungry ones stayed, deciding that food was worth rupturing their tympanic membranes.

My eardrums weren’t faring any better, so I waited just long enough for the retreating scourge to put some distance between us before I turned the repellent off. With luck, the creatures would’ve already forgotten why they were here. I was just glad there weren’t any of those long, centicreep creatures in this batch.

Now, to locate the little female who had ruined my carefully planned hunt.

That wasn’t hard at all because the handful of scourge that remained were all hovering around the entrance to one building. I jumped off the roof, axe drawn, and let out a battle cry, catching the attention of the scourge.

They’d broken through the store’s window, and there was spitter acid sizzling in a puddle just outside the door. The acid would soon eat through the door, and although that would take some time, it told me there was a spitter in the mix.

Death by spitter was one of the worst ways to go. We could regenerate lost muscle and skin, and even nerves and sometimes bone. But there was nothing to regenerate if we melted into a puddle of goo.

I scanned the surroundings and found the spitter off to the side. With its one and only attack already spent, it would take some time for it to re-arm, so I ignored it for now.

Another loud gunshot came from inside the store. The female had pulled down several shelves in an attempt to stop the scourge. Two dead scuttlers lay twitching on the floor. She must have gotten them in the head. Only a few Earth weapons commonly carried by civilians were strong enough to pierce through the main body carapace, and hers hadn’t been loud enough to be one of them. A third scuttler lay trapped under a fallen shelf.

The female looked up and our eyes met through the broken store front for a split second. There was recognition in her gray eyes. I might not have noticed her because I was so engrossed with the scourge, but she’d known I was here. But there was no time to marvel that her eyes were the color of storm clouds because the first scuttler was already on me.

Years of training took over as my body effortlessly went through the movements of a deadly dance, slashing until there was nothing left but severed, twitching limbs, and headless scourge. As I moved, I could feel the female’s eyes on me. I sure hoped she wouldn’t turn that weapon on me now that the scourge were no longer attacking her. She seemed to know exactly how to use it, which was incredibly sexy.

I approached my last adversary, the spitter. Knowing it couldn’t attack me without its acid, it turned tail and fled. But I didn’t let it get away. I threw my battle axe. The edge of it glowed with plasma energy as it spun through the air and arced toward the creature. Then it sank into its thick skull with a satisfying thud.

Another loud crack had me turning to see the female landing a heavy iron bar into the head of the scourge trapped under the shelving. She tossed the iron away, then pushed the hair that had fallen out of her braid back from her face before leveling her gaze at me.

She looked ready to fight me too.

Krux! That was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

But I reminded myself that she was the one who’d ruined my hunt. And now, I’d saved her . I should be the angry one!

Unlike other warriors who were eager to find their mates, I just wanted to hunt. I didn’t need a human female dragging me down. We hadn’t known the humans were mating compatible with us until we’d already arrived on Earth. Having never found such a species before, we hadn’t thought it was even possible.

We were the only ones left of our species, and we technically weren’t even the original Xarc’n race. We were genetically modified soldiers, clones of the ten thousand Original Hunters created to fight the scourge. And until we found Earth, we’d thought we’d eventually die off from clonal decay since there were no females left.

Still, a mate and a family were the dreams of other hunters, not mine. I was happy to spend the rest of my life hunting the scourge.

“What are you doing here, female?” The translator at my belt repeated my words aloud.

She didn’t reply at first, and I wondered if perhaps I had my translator set to Mandarin again. When I first arrived on the continent, my translator had been set to the wrong language, and it had taken an embarrassingly long time before I figured out why none of the humans could understand me. That was another thing the survivors at New Franklin had helped me with. But I double checked, and it was set to American English.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded again. “You ruined my hunt.”

She narrowed her eyes at me and spoke. “What am I doing here? I’m trying to survive. And what the hell do you mean, ruined your hunt?”

“I was luring the scourge to the traps I’d set.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stood in front of the broken window, blocking the only way out. The acid was still eating through the door and giving off noxious fumes. “Then you got in the way and drew their attention instead. You owe me a hunt.”

To my surprise, the female didn’t shy away. Instead, she swung her weapon, which was on a strap, over her back and picked her way over the broken glass, her eyes bright with determination. She tried to hide a limp, but I noticed it anyway. She nudged over a piece of debris and stepped on top of it so that we were almost eye to eye.

“Listen here, buddy.” She jabbed me in the chest so hard with her finger that it almost hurt. Almost . “I owe you nothing.”