I never wanted to leave earth. I never wanted to be forced to accept a yautja male as my mate. I never wanted to bear his children or live with him on a small quiet farm. And yet, here I was. A mother, a well loved mate and happy with my life. Until – I lost everything.

Chapter 1

"Spread your feet. Always a shoulder's length apart, remember that."

I nodded tiredly as I squared my shoulders and raised my fisted hands to cover my face. Clenching my teeth against the piece of cloth in my mouth, I ducked, swayed, bobbed, and weaved as the woman in front of me aimed punch after punch at my head, shoulders and sides.

Any vulnerable spot really.

After getting kicked square in the diaphragm for the 10th time, I just couldn't find the strength to get up from the cold metal floor anymore.

"On your feet."

I spit out the cloth and took note of the deep red spot staining the linen cloth.

"I can't. I-I can't do this, Nora." I hissed angrily, raising my exhausted body up from the ground to settle on my knees with my head bent.

I felt her hand gently brush my tightly coiled hair before grabbing a fistful of the tapered curls and pulling my head back with a startled grunt.

"If you don't get up - you die. Your choice. "

Releasing my hair very unceremoniously, I bit past the pain, moved past my tears and pictured the goofy smirk my mate often wore on his face as I pushed myself to my feet.

'For you, Al' jek. And for our daughter.' I thought, my heart clenching stiffly.

Steadying my unstable legs and hardening my resolve, I stood my ground and took my stance. The stance of a fighter, a warrior. Nora grinned and took up her stance as well.

"Good. Again."

We struggled, fought and after a well placed spinning kick I managed to not be the defeated one for once. Nora and I both panted as we stared at each other. She had been my mentor, my only friend since we both ended up in this hell 3 years ago.

"We may actually stand a chance against them when we're picked." Nora said coarsely, pushing herself onto her feet and brushing off any dirt from her pants.

I didn't say a word, but instead chose to watch the guards, who by that point were watching us very intensely.

We were both waiting for our execution you see.

Everyone was when you were sold to the hunt camps. Small pockets of chained animals, humans, bad bloods, and many other species were all kept at these camps where the different clans would purchase individuals for the hunts.

You could be picked as a practice hunt before a chiva, or as bait for other creatures that the buyers were targeting, or even as a pet though that was rare seeing as most of the people/animals that ended up here were criminals or orphans or defects.

Nora and I had managed to meet each other on my first night in the camp. I was a shell when I was first thrown into this place. I didn't care about anything or anyone. My world had been ripped from my grasp, and after a while I had grown numb to everything around me. The first night I was awakened by a rough hand yanking me out of my small mass of blankets on the floor. I shared the small room I was in with about 15 other females, but they didn't move to help me when some of them were awakened by the scuffling sounds from our struggle. When I felt him cover my mouth with a harsh hand and push me toward the open door, the hallway dark and foreboding, I felt that buried spark in me ignite and burn hot.

"Let me go! St-Stop! Help me!" I screamed, tears starting to sting my eyes.

Suddenly, he wasn't pushing me out of the room anymore. In fact, he was completely still, and his grip had fully loosened.

"Leave now bastard, and you'll get to see another day. "Came from behind his broad shouldered body.

I quickly side stepped the male and stood beside the tall tanned woman, a makeshift shank pressed into his side, right between the ribs. Green florescent blood began to emerge from the knife's point of contact on his skin.

"Go. Now." She hissed low.

Without a word, he left.

I watched in silence as she wiped the male's blood off on her old shirt and stuck the shank back into the waistband of her pants.

"Thanks." I mumbled, shaking slightly as the adrenaline wore off.

"I hate that guard. He's tried that before, and no one here is willing to stand up to him." She frowned at the bodies on the floor fainning sleep.

"You did." I countered.

"Yeah, but only because you did first. Usually they just let him carry them out without a word. Some of them don't come back for days." She avoided my eyes as she sighed and walked back over to her spot.

"Well, either way I am in your debt." I smiled faintly as I sank back into my own blanketed spot.

"Don't mention it. Names Nora, by the way. "

"Kira."

We didn't know what the other had been through before the hunt camps, and out of respect neither of us asked. We simply saw a similar goal in one another, where the other females had given up and accepted their fates, we wouldn't go down that easily.

All I was certain about Nora was that she was some sort of solider before all of this. Her skills in fighting, her quick reflexes, and her level headedness all these years pointed to it constantly. So much had happened, but she never lost her cool.

'Maybe she was a Marine'. I thought.

As we took a break from sparring and started to walk around the large room that the guards allowed us in for a portion of our day, I started remembering what Nora had told me when I asked why we were allowed to train the way we were.

"Won't they get mad if they find us training?" I asked, wrapping my hands in loose pieces of cloth I had ripped from the helms of my more worn out shirts – just like Nora taught me to.

Nora chuckled darkly, "No." She started stretching, and I followed suit. "If we are healthy and fit, we will cost more and therefore become more valuable prey." She mumbled low. "More of a challenge in the hunt."

Slender fingers snapped a few inches from my face and I blinked back the memory and found myself staring at Nora.

"Kira, come on. Pay attention, your movements are still kind of unstable. You are smaller than they are, use that to your advantage. You have to learn to be quick on your feet. "Nora urged.

I nodded and began to imitate her movements, steps and fluidity. I had to get better, I had to learn as much from Nora as I could before one of us was picked. Of course, I prayed that we would be picked together and would be able to brave that cold reality together, but in this place – there were no certainties.

Later that night as we were all getting shoved back toward the direction of our respective rooms, I was surprised to find that we were actually being led into the grand show room where the selling usually took place.

It was happening again.

I had been in a group of possible candidates before, but never picked. Something felt off however as I searched the room. There was a small group of yautja warriors that entered the room almost as soon as we all filed inside. They were tall, broad shouldered and had blooded markings on their metal masks. As the one in the middle stepped forward and removed his mask, I felt my heart pick up speed and my eyes draw wide, becoming big dark brown pools of disgust and hatred.

Rai.

My mate's closest friend. And his murderer.

"I will admit ooman, I am surprised you still live. This place tends to destroy everything it swallows up within months." He growled amusingly.

I cut my eyes at him and bit the inside of my cheek, feeding on the slight pain from it in hopes that it would distract me from saying anything I would regret.

Rai stepped toward the females and smirked as they flinched away in terror. He came to stand before me and I met his red eyed gaze evenly, though he towered over me by at least two feet.

"Your wait ends now, little mate." He husked, casting a glance over his shoulder to his blood brothers who growled in approval of the choice.

I was pulled from the line and made to stand to the side as he finished examining the other girls. When he came to Nora, he hummed curiously at her cool gaze and how she didn't cower like the others did. Rai suddenly grabbed her by the chin and bent her head back to look at her closely.

"Do I not frighten you, ooman?" He asked, his mandibles opening slightly to take in her scent. He traced the edge of her bottom lip and purred lowly.

Nora reacted by grabbing his hand and biting down as hard as she could, and her flat teeth actually managed to break through his rough hide. Rai snarled and yanked away from her, holding his bleeding hand and staring at her in slight surprise.

Nora spit out the green blood that had filled her mouth and again leveled a cool glare on him.

Rai let out a snarl and motioned to her, the guards worked quick to move her to my side of the room where she stood with a small smirk on her face. I peeked over at her and saw the droplets of the florescent green liquid still present on her chin. I didn't even try to hide the small smile that graced my face.

Rai picked a few more females, some human and some not, and ordered for us to be loaded into the ship. I felt my head growing heavy as I followed the line of woman, Nora marching confidently behind me, toward the hunters' spacecraft.

"Remember what we trained for." Nora whispered to me.

"We fight." I whispered back.

"Till the end." She chanted softly.

"Until death." I responded in kind.

'For Al'jek and for my pup.' I silently vowed, 'I'll collect his head before I go.'

'I promise.'