Page 2 of Alien Huntsman

She grabbed her basket, grateful for the excuse to escape. Lenora only wanted to be alone with Edgar but for once, she welcomed her stepmother’s scheming. Anything to escape the crawling sensation of Edgar’s eyes on her.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” she murmured, slipping past them.

“Take your time, dear,” Lenora called with false sweetness, already angling herself between Edgar and the door.

The still cool morning air felt like freedom as she stepped onto the dusty street. She had no critical errands, but she’d learned to enjoy these rare moments away from the shop. Most of the shopkeepers were just raising their shutters and the market vendors were still setting up their stalls, so she decided to take a quick walk.

When she passed her friend Scarlett’s weaving studio, she stopped and gave it a wistful look. The small shop with its colorful sign was dark, the door locked. Her friend had disappeared into the woods and returned mated to a Vultor—the other alien race that had colonies on Cresca. The Vultor had a terrible reputation as vicious hunters and killers but Scarlett’s grandmother Agatha had been effusive about Finnar, Scarlett’s mate. She’d described how he’d come to her rescue and protected her from a villainous human.

Tessa knew there was more to the story, but Agatha’s praise had eased the way and when Scarlett returned to the village with Finnar he had been regarded with suspicion but not hatred. They still whispered about “the beast” who had stolen her friend away but the story had the familiar comfort of a favorite bedtime story. It had certainly helped that Mrs. Jacobson, the village mayor, was negotiating a trade agreement with the Vultor pack and spent a lot of time talking about how profitable it would be.

Despite that, Scarlett and Finnar spent most of their time at the Vultor enclave in the mountains to the north of the village and she missed her friend. But she couldn’t blame Scarlett. She’d seen how Finnar looked at her friend—with a devotion that made her heart ache with longing. She couldn’t begrudge her friend the happiness she’d found, even if it meant their stolen afternoons of shared tea and confidences had dwindled to rare occasions.

At least someone escaped.

Sighing, she continued walking. Between dawn-to-dusk work at the bakery and Lenora’s increasing restrictions on her movements—“A proper young lady doesn’t wander about unescorted”—she felt more isolated than ever. The few friends she’d maintained after her father’s death had either married or moved away, leaving her with nothing but Lenora’s cold scrutiny and constant criticism.And Edgar’s unwanted attention.

By the time she returned to the market square it was bustling with activity, a welcome distraction from her thoughts. Her first stop was Willem’s fruit stand, where baskets of apples and pears gleamed in the morning light. Willem had an orchard of hybrid fruit trees—modified from the original Earth planets to flourish on Cresca.

“Good morning, Tessa!” Willem’s weathered face crinkled into a smile. “Nice to see you out so early.”

“Good morning. Lenora sent me out to run errands.” She returned his smile, examining the fruit. “These look wonderful.”

A flash of sympathy crossed the old man’s face before he nodded. “Your father always said you had an eye for quality. Remember how he’d bring you here when you were knee-high, letting you pick out the fruit for your mother’s pies?”

The unexpected mention of her father made her chest ache. “I remember,” she said softly.

“Thomas Fairwind was a good man.” He looked as if he wanted to add something else, but he only sighed and placed an extra pear in her basket. “This one’s on the house, for old times’ sake.”

“Thank you.”

She handed over her coins, blinking back sudden tears as he took them, then gently squeezed her hand with gnarled fingers. She managed a watery smile before she walked away, memories washing over her. Her father’s deep laugh, the way he’d swing her onto his shoulders when she was small, his patient hands guiding hers as she learned to knead dough. Four years since the fever had taken him, yet the loss still felt raw some days.

Everything had changed after his death. Her stepmother had never shown her much affection, but there had been a grudging tolerance while her father lived. Lenora had at least maintained appearances then, limiting her criticisms to when they were alone.

But with no one to temper her, Lenora’s true nature emerged. The thinly veiled insults. The increasing workload. The way she’d begun treating Tessa like a servant rather than family. Each day brought some new slight, some fresh reminder that she was unwanted in what had once been her home. Her father would barely recognize their lives now. The bakery still stood, but its heart was gone.

Doing her best to push the memories aside, she turned toward the flower stall. A flash of movement caught her eye—someone ducking behind the colorful display of blooms—and she immediately recognized the hunched shoulders and brown hair pulled back from a pale face.

“Elli? Is that you?”

Elli Jacobson’s head popped up from behind a bucket of daisies, and the girl gave her a tentative smile.

“Good morning, Tessa.” Elli straightened, tugging nervously at her dress—a drab grey thing at least two sizes too large. “I was just… I delivered these for Aunt Margaret.”

“They’re beautiful,” she said, stepping closer and fingering a collection of huge pink blooms. “Especially these.”

Elli flashed her a quick smile, the expression transforming her face, then ducked her head.

“I’ve been experimenting with crossing some strains of the hybridized plants from Earth with native plants.” She glanced anxiously over her shoulder. “Aunt Margaret doesn’t know.”

She nodded understandingly. Some of the colonists did everything they could to make Cresca a new Earth, clinging to the notion that the hybrid plants and animals they’d brought with them were just like the originals. They even used Earth names to describe anything on Cresca that was remotely similar to something that had existed on Earth. She thought that what Elli was doing—mixing both together to create something new and beautiful—was far more impressive. It also required considerable skill, but then Elli had always loved their nature lessons before Mrs. Jacobson had declared school a waste of time for her niece.

“Your aunt doesn’t know what she’s missing. You always had the greenest thumb in class.”

Elli blushed, fingers fidgeting with a loose thread on her sleeve. “I should go. Aunt Margaret wants me to polish the silver before the council meeting. She’d be furious if she knew I was talking instead of working.”

“It’s good to see you,” she said softly. “We miss you at the town festivals.”

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