Page 2 of Hunted By the Wraiths
She handed me a datapad, its screen casting a blue glow on her face. More manifests, more credits moving through my accounts, more idiots trying to skim off the top. Running a smuggling empire was ninety percent dry logistics and ten percent creative application of consequences. Not the future I’d envisioned nine years ago, planning trade routes and a quiet life with Thoryn.
Inventory: One ghost, refusing to stay buried.
I pushed the thought down. Hard.
This cantina had good bones though. Solid rock core, defensible sightlines from my preferred corner booth. I’d chosen this old mess hall because it could withstand a firefight. Kept it because the location, near the station’s main ventilation hub access in Sector Gamma, offered multiple escape routes into the old mining tunnels.
Turned it into the heart of my operation because turning nothing into something was the only skill I had left after Kestis Minor.
Almost a decade since the ambush left me with nothing but wreckage and secondhand reports of a death. Years since I stopped being Maris Elen, hopeful merc planning a future, and started being… this. Colder. Sharper. Built this operation block by block out of grief and spite. Some days, the spite carried the whole damn load.
Vashil was still talking.
My brain cataloged automatically while I stared into my empty glass. Three primary suppliers, two backup routes through pirate territory, one emergency alternative using the abandoned comms relays near Sector Gamma if things went completely sideways. Risk assessment: moderate, patrols were predictable. Someone trying to set up a rival shop in one of the offshoots of Tunnel 12. Bastard had been there a month.
Profit margin: acceptable, even with hazard pay.
“Boss.” Vashil’s voice, sharper now. Pulled me back from the edge. “You listening?”
“Supply chain issue. Outer Fringe. Conglomerate patrols. Route through Kessik.” My voice sounded flat, even to me. “Then send the rest of security down to Tunnel 12 to finish that guy off. I’m done playing nice.”
She blinked. That familiar flicker of surprise. People always underestimated the processing speed required for good logistics. “Yeah. How did you?—”
“It’s the only logical option with acceptable risk margins.” I took the datapad, thumbed the authorization. Handed it back. “Do it. And tell Grevik I want updated cargo manifests by morning cycle. Real ones, not the padded numbers he thinks I won’t notice.”
“On it.” She paused, studying my face in the dim light. “You should sleep. You look… strained.”
“Functional.” The word was automatic. I turned back to the bar. Poured another drink I didn’t really want. “Close up when Korvak pays or forfeits his ship. I’ll be in my office.”
She left without another word. Good lieutenant, Vashil. Loyal, competent, knew when to push and when to let things lie. Best hire I’d made since taking over Tunnel Section Four six years back.
I was halfway through the second drink, savoring the burn, when the main door hissed open again. The hydraulicsigh echoed in the near-empty cavern, louder now that the background chatter had faded.
Didn’t look up. Just wanted five minutes of quiet before tackling the next crisis. “We’re closed.”
Footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Each tread resonated slightly through the placrete floor, a low vibration under the soles of my boots. Not station security – their boots clacked. Not one of my regulars – they shuffled or swaggered. This was measured. Controlled.
A second step. A third.
My hand drifted automatically toward the blaster holstered low on my hip, fingers brushing the worn grip. Big footsteps. Seven feet tall, maybe more, based on the steady, powerful gait. The air shifted subtly as he moved, displacing more than a human would.
“I said we’re closed.” I turned, annoyance tightening my voice.
And stopped breathing.
Thoryn.
Bigger than I remembered. Definitely bigger. Broader through the shoulders, thicker in the arms. Harder. Covered in scars I didn’t recognize, pale lines crisscrossing scales that looked… wrong. Dull. Mottled. Flickering between a sick gray-green and a deeper, healthier emerald under the harsh industrial lights, like a failing power conduit.
But it was him. Those amber-gold eyes, slitted with vertical pupils that seemed to absorb the dim cantina light, finding mine across the room. The shape of his jaw, broader now maybe. The heavy brow ridge I used to tease him about. Him.
The glass slipped from my hand. Hit the floor. Shattered. The sharp crack echoed in the sudden, ringing silence. Distant. Unimportant.
He took a step forward. The movement was fluid, unnervingly silent for his size, almost reptilian. Controlled. Contained.
I found my voice. It came out thin, rusty, like an old hinge. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
THORYN
