We were skilled in tracking and hunting, in eliminating our enemies, and in protecting our allies.
I knew how to function in virtually every kind of terrain from here to Andromeda Five. I was used to foes who were smart, canny, wily.
But apparently, I wasn’t ready for an adversary who cut out her own tracker and flushed it down the waste receptacle. Speaking of barbaric. I shuddered. “Why would she slice open her skin to remove her communicator?”
The tiny human male standing next to me with his hands on his hips looked me up and down with a derisive snort. “She’s not the first runner your kind has dealt with, is she?”
My frown turned into a scowl. “She doesn’t need to be afraid of us.”
The law enforcer shrugged. “Doesn’t mean she has to be excited to go with you, either. I understand this lady’s a doctor. A surgeon. Plenty good at cutting, I expect. Seems like maybe she has a life here she wouldn’t want to leave.”
His wide-legged stance was aggressive, and I realized as I compared him to the other human males standing around that he was, in fact, bigger than most of them. More muscular, probably stronger. There was a distinct possibility that he would be considered a fine masculine example of the species, with dark eyes and skin that was one of the darker shades on the boring beige-to-brown spectrum that humans tended toward.
He’s nothing compared to a Khanavai warrior, of course, but perhaps impressive among his own kind.
Part of me wanted to slap him down, remind him of Khanavai superiority. But there was a chance I would need human assistance in this particular hunt. Especially since the bride at the end of it was meant to be mine.
Knowledge of the local customs could be useful—especially since no one on the impromptu team I had hastily assembled specialized in Earth culture.
Besides, they were all in orbit on the shuttle Vos had given me in exchange for allowing the entire hunt to be filmed by the silver ball currently hovering beside me, noting every moment of this exchange.
I might as well attempt to garner goodwill—both with this law enforcer and the viewing audience of both worlds.
After all, I might know Amelia Rivers was mine. But she was still technically a Bride Games contestant—I would need Vos to sign off on our pairing before this was over.
A ping on my wrist communicator alerted me to a message coming in—one of the perks of having been able to commandeer a military team to work with me on this. I was particularly pleased to have found Wex, the communications officer who had been given leave to work on the Bride Games transmission. He was technically still military, so I had added him to my team.
Now Wex’s words scrolled across the screen: Vos offering a bounty for bringing Amelia Rivers in safe. At least three other hunters heading planetside to claim the bounty.
Great. In addition to tracking down my runaway bride, I’ll have to eliminate the competition, as well.
I wondered briefly if any of the other bounty hunters were after Amelia herself, or if they simply wanted the monetary prize that came with capturing a human woman who fled the Bride Lottery.
I turned my attention back to the dark-skinned police officer. “Tell me about the various modes of transportation she might have taken out of your pleasure city.”
He snickered, shaking his head and squeezing the bridge of his nose with two fingers before glancing up at me. “Just the usual. Planes, trains, and automobiles. She couldn’t get very far walking.”
I held up the plastic bag containing her now ruined and befouled communicator chip and examined it with distaste. Without her implant, I had no way to track her directly.
Time to engage in some old-fashioned tracking.
Turning away from the enforcement officer, I keyed my wrist communicator’s vocal recognition program. “Get me an analysis of all potential transportation methods out of the pleasure city of Las Vegas on Earth, along with a detailed analysis of which method the fugitive was most likely to have taken.”
Wex’s response came almost immediately. “Without sufficient parameters, this could take some time.”
I snarled, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the human officer take a step backward, away from me.
Good. The humans needed to learn to respect the Khanavai.
Just as I would teach Amelia to respect us. To respect me.
Once I caught up with her.
Chapter Three
Amelia
Abandoning all my electronics in Las Vegas had left me desperate for information, but at the same time, I was afraid to try to find out too much from other passengers. So at the first stop, I’d bought a couple of preloaded generic epaper news and novel collections to entertain myself during the trip.
The very first news headline was all about me.
Runaway Lottery Bride, it screamed in bold letters as soon as I opened it.
I snapped the cover closed on the bold text, fighting not to glance around and see who was watching. When I realized no one was paying any attention to me, I opened it up again and scanned the headlines to see what the news sites were reporting.
I spent three full days on that bus ride. The itinerary said it was a two-day trip, but we had numerous, excruciating delays. It was a long and miserable trip. And every time I updated my epaper at one of the stops, my picture was plastered all over the front page. At the first stop after I realized exactly how big the story about me had become, I bought sunglasses, huge ones that covered half my face. They were terribly out of style, but dark and anonymous. I kept them on constantly, as if blocking out light so I could sleep.
For part of the way, from Green River, Utah, to Denver, Colorado, I ended up with a seatmate, an overly chatty woman from a Chicago suburb who, luckily for
