“Name?” I ask.
“Zai Witz.”
“With a Z?”
“With two Zs!”
I rub the cheap pencil eraser against my clipboard, then write in the Z I’d missed. The S is still faintly visible, but I’m guessing this paper will go in the wastebasket anyway.
“And, where did you say you were from again?”
My photograph hung on the bar’s wall.
“WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE”
“$100,000”
Well, at least it didn’t only say dead. And a reasonable amount of money, too. What had I done this time?
Maybe it was the general stores I’d robbed or the people I’d blackmailed for information. With a shrug, I glanced again
A luminous nymph dashes from the darkening woods, leaping barefoot from log to rock. Her silver hair glows, reflecting the light of the two bright moons above. Her pale, web-like dress snags on a branch as she streaks by. A path of blood follows her as she bolts through the brush.
She is no spirit.
Zaivar crouched in the shadows of an abandoned factory and strained his bloodvoice for his target’s thoughts.
There.
A flicker of movement caught his eye, and he crept forward. Zai prowled through the decrepit alley with the steady stride of a trained hunter. The warrant turned over in his head as he moved.
“I’ve always wanted to chase down a beautiful space princess!” Zaivar Witz remarked hopefully when the reward for the missing Princess Mira came through on the Interstellar Broadcast Bands.
Two days later, the hope solidified as his chances of nabbing the princess improved. He’d learned what he could about her, which wasn’t much:
Zai had a feeling he’d run into trouble tonight—he just didn’t know if it was the good kind or the bad. He pushed open the grime-encrusted doors of Randy’s Interstellar Roadhouse, releasing a wave of smoke, body odor, and honky-tonk music.
With a planetary alignment only days away, the H’don Galaxy was
I punched the Mustang into gear, tires squealing down the unlit county highway.
The sudden acceleration pressed the man beside me back in his seat. He made no move to grab the door handle for support. Probably because I’d zip-tied his wrists behind his back.
“I thought your orders specified not to harm me.”
The sneeze quivered on Munya’s nose, and she opened her mouth. Mami clamped a hand over both, earning her a fistful of spit and snot.
It wasn’t enough.
The men shouted and came toward them.
“Run!” Her mother sprang from the underbrush and shoved Munya in the opposite direction. She stumbled and looked back.
Zai rotated the pendant dangling from his neck, lost in thought. Clanking shackles roused him, and he glanced at Xander, the drug dealer he’d apprehended in the Ketz District. “Maddening, isn’t it?”
A tall man in a red capitol uniform marched past the cell, and Zai shot to his feet. He slammed his huntsman’s
“Er’Rets,” I repeat for the third time.
The woman next to me, clearly imitating an over-the-top princess in her bejeweled blue and white dress, runs her fingers over the plaited strand draped over one shoulder. “It’s pronounced ‘Air-ruhn-dale’.”
“I’m not a simpleton. I know the kingdom from which I hail.” My father’s the head
One hundred seventy hours. That’s it between me and flying somewhere beyond Inteltech’s reach.
I tug my sleeve over my tracker cuff, wishing my sentence for “reckless flying” could disappear so easily. No matter how hard I pleaded my case, Inteltech refused to listen.
Grivo, my cyborg overseer, adjusts his position atop a graffiti-covered
Zai’s blood pressure skyrocketed at the sight of the woman sauntering into the restaurant, her golden hair wound in a coronet, a faint sneer marring her otherwise perfect face. One look was all he needed to recognize Viola Gill, the galaxy’s most notorious slave trafficker.
He was bussing tables at the Perfect Plate
Recent Comments