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Little did they know, he would be doing quite the opposite of them, not relaxing, but rather digging for information.

And, best of all, he would be using them as a disguise of sorts, their arrival allowing him to visit the workers’ area to get a bite, relax, and chat with the staff of the retreat.

He was one of them, for all they knew. A worker servicing the elite.

And as such, they would talk more freely with him.

He took his time, chatting casually and getting to know the staff without any hint of pressure or ulterior motive. Within just a few hours he was accepted into the fold and treated as a welcome guest to their private “behind the scenes” areas.

While the Oraku were tight-lipped, and for good reason, thanks to Flagro’s obnoxious superiority complex, the staff were a cheerful and friendly bunch, and over the course of the day he ever so gently steered conversation to different visitors, what sorts of services they sought out, and other such information a newcomer unfamiliar with the retreat might ask.

He was enjoying flexing this rarely used muscle, playing a role, and doing a damn good job of it.

So good, that no one thought twice when it was mentioned that a woman fitting Maria’s description had been there.

And she’d been with an Oraku male, just as he’d suspected.

What he didn’t expect was their description of the pair.

While the male said they were only friends when they arrived, it was clear to anyone with a pair of eyes that they were attracted to one another, and by the time they left the retreat, it seemed a romance was blazing between them, much to the delight of everyone who met them.

They were kind people, warm and courteous, ready to talk to any of the staff, not just fellow guests.

It rubbed the workers the right way. These weren’t stuck-up people of privilege, but more common folk who just happened to be friends of a Nimenni prince.

But they didn’t act that way. There were no airs of superiority whatsoever.

In fact, they were so grateful and gracious it almost made a few of the workers uncomfortable at how considerate they were.

And they tipped on comped services, no less.

All of this news and the way people spoke of the pair made Maddix’s mind churn with conflict. He was starting to not just respect, but actually like these two. Hell, he was almost rooting for them, even though it was his task to find them. But his job was his job.

Maddix enjoyed the rest of the day with the staff once he’d been informed the two elites were sampling the spa’s offerings and having a wonderful time of it.

He had a bit of slow time, and he made the most of it, but finally, as evening approached, he made his way back to his ship and called up the powerful intelligence system’s files.

“Run a scan of the area surrounding the Oraku village,” he directed it, inputting the start date from which it was to begin.

The date the Oraku—a man named Zepharos, he’d been informed—and the human, had flown there.

“Pull up all logs of all ships in the region from that day forward and apply a filter of their onboard scans tracking any and all heat and motion signatures.”

It was a ridiculous amount of data, he knew, and accessing some of those private logs would be very restricted.

In this instance, however, being the chancellor’s underling had its benefits, and he would be able to access far more than the average person.

Still, as the scans began to trickle in, he realized it was a lot of information even with those basic parameters.

“Add some filters to that search. Refine to only include traces large enough to be people. No small animals.”

The data was culled and parsed, but it was still a lot.

And despite the computer’s power, this was something that would require his particular expertise and unusual way of looking at things.

And so it was he personally spent hours poring over the images until his eyes hurt, zooming in, zooming out, and digging through more still and video footage than he ever wanted to, and all of it seemingly benign and normal.

It was looking like nothing was out of the ordinary.

Almost nothing .

It was getting pretty late when he saw something. A tiny blip that caught his eye.

“Gotcha,” he said, a smile creeping onto his lips as he replayed the image over and over.

It was undeniable. Something had broken off from a group of Oraku hunters as they walked under some trees.

It was almost impossible to see thanks to the canopy, but he had been layering visual, heat, and motion together, allowing the computer to fabricate a more complex and complete picture of what was happening than from any of the individual scans alone.

“Damn, Maddix, you’re good,” he muttered to himself with a happy grin. “Anyone else would have totally missed this.”

He double-checked the data, cross-referenced it with other files and extrapolated their direction from that mountain of information.

A path was shown in bright red on the screen.

It was still incomplete at the moment, but this was them.

It had to be. And yet he felt conflicted.

After so long searching, he should have been elated.

But he’d grown to like these people he didn’t know.

To respect their skills and appreciate the bond they had apparently developed.

And as a result, a wild thought crossed his mind.

It would look bad if he didn’t find them, obviously, but no worse than it would for the rest of the trackers sent on this task. And he was quite confident that none of the others’ minds worked the way his did. No one else would find this data. The trail was cold for all but him and him alone.

Should I? he wondered. Do I delete this intel?

It was a crazy thought, but the idea of these two somehow making a clean break from Chancellor Vinchi’s indenture actually brought a little smile to his lips.

He considered it a long moment, his decision becoming clearer by the moment, and the cheer in his heart growing as it did.

He was going to do the unthinkable. He would let them go .

“He found them!” Galla blurted, the woman’s voice so close behind him startling the hunter. “Flagro! He found them!”

Maddix chided himself for not hearing her coming.

He was a damn hunter, after all. But he turned and saw she was barefoot from her spa experience, walking on the balls of her feet, though out of a bouncy relaxation more than any attempt at stealth.

Still, it had been quiet enough, and he’d been deep in thought.

And now his choice had been taken from him. Interrupted by the Vinchi heirs yet again.

“You found them? That’s marvelous. We should leave at once!” Flagro said as he followed his sister in, the two of them crowding over his shoulders far too close for his liking.

“It is night, sir, and part of this will require daylight to track properly. We should rest while we can and begin in the morning,” Maddix replied.

Flagro thought on it a moment. “Good point. But we leave first thing.”

Maddix nodded, his enormous decision having now been made for him. Any thoughts of his disobedience were gone. Had he not hesitated, he would have gotten away with it. But now? Now there was a job to do, and that was all there was to it.