"Yeah. He was my League ATA, and he took offense to the number of times I face-planted him on the mat during training. Then once I befriended Mari, it became all-out war."
Her scowl deepened at that. "Why?"
"Mari's his little brother. Whenever Kyr feels the need to lip off about Mari's lifestyle, I'm possessed by the need to beat his ass for it."
That explained a lot.
However, she pointed to the bodies around them and spoke the most obvious fact. "But these aren't League assassins."
"Which puts me back to my overwhelming list of enemies."
"And the first runner-up is?"
"Jullien eton Anatole."
She choked on the last name she'd expected to come out of his mouth. "The Andarion prince and heir?"
"Was. He's still royal, but he's been removed from the line of succession and direct lineage."
"Because of you?"
He rose slowly and in an almost bashful, boyish gesture rubbed at his cheek. "I helped a little."
"Sheez, Dancer," she breathed, "you do not pick your enemies wisely, do you?"
"What can I say? Sometimes you have to put your foot down. Sometimes you have to put it up their asses."
She rolled her eyes at his dry tone.
Darice and Thia poked their heads around the rocks near their cave.
"Dancer? You alive?" Darice called.
Unamused, Hauk stared at him. "No. Much like your common sense, I'm upright and dead."
Sumi shook her head as she tucked surplus ammo into her belt. "I swear you have an advanced degree in sarcasm."
He actually laughed at that while he latched his shirt shut before the kids saw it open.
When they joined them, he handed his primary blaster to Sumi and his secondary to Thia, who scowled up at him.
Hauk cupped her cheek in his massive paw of a hand. "They have me tagged and are coming for me, kisa. I need you to lead Sumi and Darice to Aksel's base and call your father. Can you do that?"
Tears welled in her eyes, but to her credit, Thia blinked them away. "How are you tagged?"
"It's embedded in his spine."
Thia winced then nodded. "I will get the whole army here for you, Uncle."
He kissed her brow. "And I will keep them away from you. Tell Fain that I'll be at Canyon Point. He'll know where that is."
Darice stepped forward. "I will come with you."
Hauk pulled him into a tight hug. "You're not a warrior yet, mi tana. And I need you to guard the taras for me. Since the dawn of our civilization, War Hauks have protected the eton Anatoles. Respect our princess. Let no harm come to her, especially not the poison that drips from your tongue."
Darice made a rude sound before his gaze turned deadly serious. "Take care, Dancer."
"And you." He went to retrieve the packs for them.
Sumi frowned as he only took the haul bag and a small portion of water for himself. "You'll need more than that."
He flashed a fanged grin at her. "I'll be fine. Scrounging supplies is what I do best." He jerked his chin. "Now go. All of you."
Thia hugged him.
By the way he braced himself, Sumi realized that Thia must be pressing on his wounds. But he didn't say a word.
As they started walking forward, she turned back to say one last good-bye.
Dancer had already vanished into the desert.
"He'll be all right," Thia assured her. "My father has always said there's no one he'd rather have at his back than Uncle Hauk. And coming from my dad, that's the highest endorsement and compliment."
"Tactical assault monkey," Sumi breathed, more to remind herself of his fighting skill than them.
Thia nodded before she picked up speed. "All right, soldiers. Double time. We have to get help, and fast."
Hauk had been walking for hours. His side was absolutely killing him. But for wanting to put as much distance between himself and his family as possible, he'd have sat down and let the bastards come for a fight. It'd never been in his nature to dodge any battle. Busting heads was his favorite pastime.
But his family came first.
He opened a bottle of water and sipped at it. Then he took a moment to rummage through the electronics he'd scavenged from the assassins. If he could rig a strong enough booster, he might be able to reach The Sentella.
Or make a jammer to block the transmitter in his back.
As he worked on it, he tried to figure out when and how he'd been implanted. It defied logic. No one ever touched him that intimately.
No one except Sumi.
It wasn't her, dumbass. He'd have known had she done it. Not to mention, she hadn't touched his back until after the first group had attacked.
Mark one suspect off the list. Only a million and two more to go.
Hauk wiped at the sweat on his brow as he continued mulling over his infinite number of enemies. How long had the device been there? Honestly, he might have had it for years.
At home, assassination attempts were so common that he was only surprised when he went a week without someone trying to end him. It was just par for his life.
He raked his hand down his pants before he opened the back of a radio and started rewiring it.
"Why are you messing with those stupid electronics again, Dancer? You should be training and building your muscle mass. That shit won't ever help you as much as fighting strength."
Shaking his head to clear it, he tried to get Keris's disdainful voice out of his mind. There was still enough of the poison in his system that it was playing havoc with his senses.
And he was mad as hell at himself about that. He should have known to check for poison after he'd been stabbed. It was a common practice for the Partinie to taint their blades. Bastards were callous that way.
Andarions viewed such tactics as cheating and cowardly, which was why he hadn't thought about it. If you weren't strong enough to kill with your hands or standard weapons, then you should perish with honor. That was how his people lived and died.
But Partinie, for all their knife skills, were basic cowards. They wanted easy kills they didn't have to work for.
Hauk opened his shirt to check his throbbing side. The blisters where he'd cauterized the front wound had opened and were festering from his sweat. Curling his lip at the sight, he tore open an antiseptic pack to clean it.
Something rustled to the north of his position.
He dropped his hand to the blaster he'd confiscated from one of the assassins. A Rit weapon, it had a larger blast radius than anything except his modified Andarion PX8s. Damn, he missed his blasters. A gift from Darling years ago, they were his most cherished belongings. He'd even named them. The fact he let Thia and Sumi take them said it all about his feelings toward the females.
He'd never had those weapons out of his hands before. Death had come quickly to anyone dumb enough to try to take them from him.
Cocking his head, he listened. Someone was crawling on the ground not that far away.
Hauk rose to his feet and lowered his head to scan the area around him. Then he heard it. The distant whine of an airbee engine. Lightweight airbikes, they were the choice for this terrain.
Walking slowly, he headed for a small copse of desert trees to use for cover while he mentally ran through all the weapons he'd kept. For once, he wished he'd taken explosives training from Darling. His friend had begged him countless times to do it. But after what had happened with Keris, Hauk had no use for anything that could blow up in his face and rain debris down around him. All he knew how to do was build the switches and timers. He'd never wanted anything to do with the explosive minerals or compounds themselves.
But that was okay.
He could kill well enough without it. At least that was the thought until he heard more engines approaching.
And more.
Shit. Were they planning a festival? The annual Hunt Hauk's Head Event? Exactly how many were coming to this little soiree? It sounded like an army mobilizing. Who t
he hell hates me this much?
Okay, a lot of beings. Still... he would be impressed by their determination and number if it wasn't his life they were here to claim. Damn.
Had Kyr finally figured out he was one of the prison raiders?
The prime commander was the only one he could think of who bore this amount of animosity toward him.
If Kyr had no proof that Hauk was part of The Sentella, but suspected Hauk's ties... he might resort to this. Maybe.
Too bad he didn't have a working link to check on it.
No, he chided at himself. It can't be Kyr. If Kyr put out a contract of this magnitude, even a civ one, one of their spies would have intelled it and Nyk and the others would have beelined here to pick up the kids.
This was much more covert. It had to come from someone who knew of his illegal allies and ties. Someone who didn't dare let anyone know he had assassins after him.
Dariana...
As Hauk positioned himself to watch his pursuers regroup to come after him, he paused to let that possibility play through his mind.
No. He was being stupidly paranoid. She wouldn't do that. Well, she might do that if he were here alone, but not with Darice in his company. No matter how much she might hate him and not want to marry him or release him, she wouldn't dare endanger her son.
Yet she had been close enough to implant him.
Many times.
Then again, so had countless others he'd fought with and against. For all he knew, it was the bar brawl he'd been in a couple of weeks back. He, Chayden, Ryn, and Fain tended to get rowdy whenever they drank. Fights were their stock-in-trade, especially when they were in some of their "finer" pubs.
Yeah, but these guys after him were seriously motivated. He watched in awe as they unloaded a small ion cannon and headed for his position.
Time to move.
Dropping gear weight, he only kept what he had to. They launched two probes to set eyes on his location. He stood up and batted the first one to reach him with the stock of Sumi's rifle. The other probe shot a laser. He barely ducked it before he returned fire and sent it to the ground.
Not that it mattered. He was now firmly in their sights. No sooner had that thought entered his mind than all hell erupted around him as they rained down everything they had.
CHAPTER 14
"I
hear engines." His brow tight with worry, Darice started back toward Hauk's last location.
Thia caught his arm. "Uncle Hauk can handle it."
"What if he doesn't?"
Sumi arched a brow at the sound of tears in Darice's voice. The little booger actually did love his uncle.
Who'd have thought?
Tears glistened in Thia's eyes as well. "Sumi? Tell him we can't fight them. We're better off here."
"As much as I hate to admit it, Darice, she's right. While I'm trained, you two are not ready for a professional strike force. You'd endanger your uncle by getting hurt, and would probably cost him his life as he tried to save yours."
"You're a coward!"
Sumi glared at him as she struggled with a fierce desire to give him exactly what he needed. A takedown he'd never forget. "Darice. I'm not Dancer or Thia. I have no familial love for you. What I am is a trained assassin who is one step away from cutting out your tongue. Think about it before you continue down this path that will lead you to a short lifetime of utter misery."
His breathing ragged, he fanged her. "He better not die!"
Those words caused all semblance of humor to fade from Thia's eyes as she picked up her pace even more.
Sumi ran to catch up and pull her to a stop. "Thia, you won't do Dancer any good if you break something or collapse from exhaustion or heatstroke. You're the only one of us who knows where we're going. We need you with us one hundred percent. Dancer's life depends on it."
Darice snarled at her. "Only family calls him Dancer. He's Hauk to you, human!"
He should be on his knees in gratitude that they couldn't afford stunning him. If Dancer wasn't under fire, she'd shoot him just on principal.
Sumi glared at him. "Do you talk to your mother like this?"
"No. She'd beat him till he bled."
Sumi cringed as she heard a cannon's blast. "Is that --"
"Ion cannon fire," Thia finished for her. "I know that sound. Intimately."
The lorina hissed and started toward the battle sounds, but Thia caught her collar. She looked expectantly at Sumi.
It took everything Sumi had not to run back for Dancer. That was her natural instinct. Only the sight of the kids kept her focused on the fact that she needed to protect them more than a trained soldier. Unlike Dancer, the kids wouldn't survive an attack, and he'd never forgive her if they were hurt.
For that matter, she'd never forgive herself. Neither of these kids needed another nightmare added to their memories.
But with every step they made toward the base, terror consumed her more. How could anyone survive the thunderstorm behind them?
Alone.
She made herself remember Dancer attacking the prison as one of their two lead points. The Sentella had been significantly outnumbered, at least twenty to one. By heavily fortified League forces. No one should have survived such a reckless assault. Yet they had taken minimal casualties and put a major hurt on League guards and trained assassins. Dancer and Darling had led the others in. The TAM had paved the way for their troops.
But Dancer hadn't been alone then. She kept returning to the fact that he was fighting this battle today with no one on his six.
Please be all right.
Even Darice was growing paler by the heartbeat as he kept looking back over his shoulder. "Thia," he breathed, his voice cracking. "Tell me a story to give me hope."
Thia had to practically drag the lorina with her. "Um... okay. Let me think." She bit her lip before she drew a ragged breath. "Uh, there was this time on Broma, back when Uncle Syn lived there. It wasn't long after he and Uncle Hauk had become good friends. To celebrate the fact that Syn had just finished his first residency, they went out drinking. After they'd been there for a while and were... let's say consumed by excess, this really gorgeous woman came up and decided to give Uncle Syn a lap dance."
Sumi arched a brow at where this story was headed. "Thia! They really tell you these things?"
She blushed. "No one in my family knows I have Andarion hearing. I get lots of good stories they don't know I can overhear."
Shaking her head, Sumi laughed. "And will we be getting the adult version of this tale?"
Thia flashed a cheeky dimple. "It's appropriate, I promise. I'm editing as I go." She turned back toward Darice. "Anyway, she hadn't been there long when all of a sudden this shadow falls over them. He grabs her by the arm and snatches her off Syn's lap then goes to slap her. Quicker than anyone can blink, Uncle Hauk catches his fist in his hand and glares a hole through him. In that deep, terrifying growl of his, he snarls to the man, 'Boy, before you kick open the door, you better make sure you have on the right boots.'"
Darice scowled. "What does that mean?"
"It's an old Triosan saying. It means before you start a fight, you better know you can finish it. But like you, the guy didn't know that. Any more than Hauk or Syn knew he was the son of Balur Droug."
Sumi sucked her breath in sharply at the name. Droug was second only to Idirian Wade when it came to cruelty and cold-blooded murders. He was a legendary criminal who had been captured and executed only a few years back. "Oh my God, what did they do?"
"Well, Syn is the son of Idirian Wade."
Stunned, Sumi widened her eyes. That was the last thing she'd expected to hear. Wade had been a serial killer and madman so twisted that even decades after his death, mothers still used his name to frighten their misbehaving children.
Damn, Dancer ran with some extremely dangerous people. No wonder Thia had called them all scary. "What?"
Thia nodded. "But back then, Syn was in hiding under a false identity and was
wanted for treason on Ritadaria - which is a whole other long story in and of itself. Anyway, he couldn't afford for anyone to find out who he really was."
Which an arrest for a bar fight and the resulting DNA scan at the Enforcers' headquarters would have certainly exposed.
"Droug pulled a knife and tried to stab Uncle Hauk. Uncle Hauk threw the first punch then realized half the bar's occupants were on Droug's payroll. When Uncle Syn started to help, Hauk shoved him toward the door, and told him to take the girl and run before the Enforcers came and arrested him."
Sumi gasped. "Surely he didn't leave him there."
"Uncle Syn had no choice," Thia said simply. "It would have been a death sentence for him to be caught. But he did shoot and stab a few on his way out. He said his last sight of Uncle Hauk was him standing in the middle of a dozen muscled goons... my word substitution. Anyway, Uncle Hauk was barely grown and was surrounded. Right? So what does he do? He holds his hands up," Thia illustrated her words, "and as calm as you please, takes the shot glass from the table where they'd been sitting and pours himself a drink. He knocks it back, and puts the glass down like it ain't no big thing and there aren't a dozen guys waiting to gut him. He sweeps his gaze over the men and smiles. Then faster than lightning, he grabs the bottle and goes on the attack. By the time he was finished, there were twenty-two bodies on the floor and he had Droug by the throat, threatening to rip it open with his fangs if anyone else came near him. And all that completely bare-handed. He walked away with a bruised jaw and ear. A couple of cracked ribs and a broken nose. But he was intact and no one dared to arrest him for it. No one."