Legacy of the Unsworn Book 1 Sneak Peek (FIRST CHAPTER)

Finally! Here is the unedited sneak peek from my new series, an urban fantasy space opera. I’m tentatively calling this book Rebels Wars, but I don’t believe that will be the final title. This book is a spin off from my Unbounded series, taking place 12000 years in the future after Unbounded have rediscovered their homeworld and humans have spread out over the galaxy. Not sure when I will finish this, but I hope to release it before the end of the year. You can read the prologue and how it ties in to the Unbounded series here.

Raya Langton is a wanted criminal chaser, always chasing her next bounty while also searching for the people who murdered her parents.

Chapter 1

The overpowering stench of grease, rum, and sour beer saturated the dark interior of the noisy pub, called Grog’s Shop. The volume from the occupants and the blaring flat screen didn’t change, but even as my eyes rapidly adjusted to the dimness, I noted most of the gazes shifting in my direction. The reaction wasn’t unusual in a place like this, where half the crowd was likely running from the law or looking for their next mark. But this was followed by double-takes and the stares. Not because I was physically arresting, though mortals translated it that way, but because I was Unsworn.

My body began absorbing automatically, snatching tiny molecules of nutrients from the air and sucking them in through all my pores. Beside the grease and run, I also detected the savor of questionable meat, lemon, too much salt, and spinach that was beginning to rot. After a week in space with only rations, I couldn’t blame my body for being eager, especially when underneath the sourness and rot, the faintest aroma of fresh bread emanated from the swinging door behind the partially bald barkeep who was filling mugs at a barrel. Consciously, I upped my rate of absorption to achieve peak physical readiness.

Dreius Colburn was exactly where I expected him to be—on a stool at the long bar, his wide shoulders hunched over a plate of slop and his big right hand grasping a mug of what was probably two water grog. His long black hair lay lank over his dirty white muscle shirt. I let out breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in now that my intel was correct. My luck seemed to be running strong. It was only a matter of capturing the criminal and taking him back to Earth for my bounty. Piece of proverbial cake.

He was close to two hundred pounds, outweighing me by seventy. He was more flab than muscle, but the way he carried himself radiated an utter lack of concern not shown by many people on Sevunus, where anything was available for the right price. This hinted of at least some fighting skills.

The mortal didn’t stand a chance.

I allowed myself a tight, satisfied smile. Easy pickings. I’d have to get him alone, not because I couldn’t take him, as well as half the occupants of the pub, but because if I was shot in the head, or even temporarily killed, I really didn’t have a safe place to wait for healing. I was also down to my last vial of curequick, and buying more wasn’t at the top of my priority list. Not only because of my diminished credit account, but because it was too easy to become dependent, a danger I wasn’t willing to risk, not after the last time. Besides, if I didn’t take Dreius away from prying eyes, someone here might put two and two together and realize he was worth more than whatever money they were making in an entire year doing danger duty in the Senuvus mines.

As the capital of ruby mining in this corner of the Milky Way, an entire commerce had grown up in Senuvus around the mining business like in Ancient Thailand of Earth before its mines had been depleted. Which, of course was why Dreius was here. In his last heist where he’d killed a gardener and terrorized a child, he’d stolen an uncut ruby of over a hundred carats. His biggest heist yet, which had triggered the bounty on his head. Only here on Senuvus could he hope to sell it for a decent price without being caught by authorities. He’d take a tremendous cut on the real value, but the proceeds would keep him in sour grog, cheap company, and rations for years to come.

Which was far more than I had without going back to Aeterna and admitting failure to my family, which simply wasn’t an option after the way I’d left. No matter how I spun it, I needed this payout. Badly.

Under the continuing stares, I made my way to one of the empty stools next to my mark, my gag reflex telling me at once why they were both vacant, though the pub was surprisingly busy. Bathing regularly was clearly not one of his priorities.

Dreius was saying something unintelligible to a fifty-something waitress with mousy hair pulled back in a tight bun, her navy tank top more damp than dry. Perspiration bubbled on her neck and around her hairline.

As she place a full shot glass in front of him, his hand closed over hers. “I got money,” he said more loudly, blinking at the lopsided tag on her blouse. “That’s right, uh, Bette. Lots of money. You should be nicer to me.”

A ripple of aversion passed over her face, followed so quickly by undisguised greed that I doubted dirtbag Dreius saw it. “Does that mean you’re going to leave me a big tip?” Her voice was loud and playful. “If you promise to, I’ll throw in a slice of bread for free. It’s just out of the oven.”

“Hah!” barked a man down the bar. “You said the same thing to me an hour ago, and it was cold then.”

Bette shrugged. “You never leave me a good tip. This new guy hasn’t stiffed me yet, so he’s still got a chance for warm bread.”

Dreis frowned. “Make it two slices,” he muttered, removing his hand and tossing back whatever hard liquor she’d given him. “And they’d better be thick, if you want any tip.”

Her smile didn’t falter, but she glanced once at the barkeep, who hadn’t appeared to notice the request. “I’ll have to charge you for one. Or I’ll get fired.”

He glared at her before grinding out. “Fine.”

The waitress moved away, barking out an order through the swinging door, and there ended the flirtation or exhortation, or whatever it was.

My turn to go to work. “Mind if I sit here?” I indicated the chair on his right, closest to the opening in the counter that allowed the barkeep to take people their orders at the tables.

“Free world,” he ground out, scarcely glancing over. Then the double-take. He looked around, as if to make sure I was actually talking to him and not some better man behind him. His face was fleshy and though he was in his mid-thirties, some five or so years older than my physical age, he looked a decade older. If we met again in forty years at the prison where I was going to send him, I’d appear the same, and if he hadn’t been knifed, he’d either be a hunched old man or long dead of a heart attack. It would have been enough to make me feel sorry for him if he hadn’t terrorized a child and killed a gardener at one of the houses he’d robbed. He’d made the jump from petty theft to grand larceny to murder in record time. I planned to stop him before it happened again.

“Sure, you can sit.” Dreius leered. “You’re hot.” A waft of alcohol and bad breath hit me.

“Aren’t we all?” I smirked. “This is Senuvus, after all.”

He blinked stupidly. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” I waved the comment away and glanced toward the door to the pub. “Look, can we pretend we’re together for a minute? I don’t think he’ll dare follow me in here because he owes too many people money, but in case he does, it would be better if I’m not alone.”

He followed my gaze, his back straightening and chest expanding. “Boyfriend trouble?” His grin turned mocking, calculating.

But playing on his hope to bed me—I doubted he had much chivalry—wasn’t the plan. I had something much more enticing in mind, something he wouldn’t be able to resist.

“Just a business partner who thought he deserved more than half, so I cut out first with everything.”

His eyes snapped back to my face. “So you say. Or maybe it’s a cop out there. Don’t want no part of that.”

I leaned forward, pinning him with my gaze. “No cops.” I kept my voice high enough for him to hear but low enough not to carry past the blare of the flat screen. “Look, I’m heading offworld at midnight. You help get me to the spaceport safely, and I’ll pay you.”

Interest flickered in his muddy eyes. “How much?”

I put my fingers into a hidden pocket of my knee-length shorts, pulling out a tube containing several pea-sized uncut rubies. Though the color was unappealingly dark and their flaws many, he wouldn’t be able to tell here in the dim lighting. “These are just a small sample. I have more.” My tone implied a lot more.

“Oh yeah?”

I was glad my stones were real when he whipped out a small machine to test authenticity. I shouldn’t have been surprised since he’d obviously been targeting gems in his latest heists. I’d bought these upon my arrival on Senuvus with the last of my reserves, and they weren’t impressive, but they were real.

I smiled flatly. “I’ll pay you ten thousand credits. And my former partner’s not really dangerous, just greedy. You’ll there only to make sure he doesn’t jump me on the way. Once I’m at the Spaceport, I have connections.”

Ten thousand was the most I could offer him for this simple guard duty without raising suspicion, and there was always the chance it wouldn’t be tempting enough. Of course, the real temptation was the chance of taking it all from me, just like I had from my imaginary partner.

I returned the rubies to their tube, closing my fist over it as I waited for his response. Sweat slicked my neck, moistened the few inches of my dark hair, and gathered in the valley between my breasts. With two suns locking the planet into an intricate rotation that created only two kinds of weather—hot and scorching—I’d taken the time this morning to shave my head before leaving the ship. I was still sweaty in my black shorts and tank top, lined as they were with a layer of Aeternai body armor. No matter how thin the material these days, anything that could protect against bullets wasn’t exactly breathable. In retrospect, the standard set with the nanite cooling feature might have been a better choice even if it made me look like a cat burglar.

“Look, if you’re not interested, I’ll find someone else.” I stood to leave.

His hand reached out to close over mine on the counter as he had done with the waitress. By the way his calculating gaze latched onto mine, I knew he was in—and already calculating how he might get his grubby hands on the rest of what I’d stolen—and maybe on me as well. “Okay. You got time for a drink first?”

Instead of answering, I stiffened as a big man entered the pub, blinking into the dark interior. On a world with two suns, indoors was almost always darker than out, and mortals needed a lot more time than I did to adjust. But the timing of his entrance along with all the blinking was perfect.

“What?” Dreius said.

“It’s him. I need to leave before he sees me.” Standing, I hurried through the opening in the bar, angling toward the swinging door and what I presumed was the kitchen.

“Hey, you can’t—” the waitress began, but I ignored her and ploughed on through.

Dreius moved almost as fast after me, unwilling to give up what he now saw as his second best pay day. I didn’t blame him because. He had no idea of the training I’d gone through, or that I was gifted in combat. Not only could anticipate each of his movements, but I could sense all his weaknesses and knew exactly how to exploit them.

I’d already noted that the best place to snap on the shock cuffs would be in the stinky alleyway outside the pub, where the refuse they’d been throwing at the large bin there appeared to have made it only fifty percent of the time. The stench alone would make it private. I just had to get Dreius there.

Inside the kitchen two male cooks, dressed with darkly stained aprons that might once have been white, stared at me as I burst into their space, fear on their face.

But no surprise.

Recognizing an ambush before I saw my attackers, I whipped out a leg in a round kick. At the same time, I turned and punched into the narrow space between a large rack of fresh bread and the wall. Both hits met flesh.

A man grunted and moved from his hiding place behind the bread. I slammed him again with my other fist before he could lift his weapon, and he was out like a light. My senses told me there were three others. Definitely armed, and, by their movements, well-trained.

Not as well as I was. Their weapons leveled the arena quite a bit, but I could still take them.

I spun to my right, ducking under an arm with a gun, and swiping out the man’s feet from under him. He fell with a crash as I smashed my fist into one of the others I’d hit. That was three down by my count, only one of which was still stirring. Mere seconds had passed—long seconds to me. Plenty of time to see the cooks recoiling in fear and Dreius, the coward, turning to abandon me to my fate.

Except the other two shadowy figures were on either side of him, blocking his escape—one a woman with bulky muscles and a man whose body was as toned as any fighter in a sports arena. Their movements were slow, though. Not like me, so not gifted with combat. Two throwing stars would take care of them. Maybe permanently. And as long as I was fast enough, I’d avoid getting shot.

I didn’t want to kill them, but on Senuvus, where human trafficking occurred almost as often as ruby sales, giving up wasn’t an option. Especially where were too many people ready to pay big money for an Unworn fighter—or baby momma. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life fighting battles in some illegal backroom betting ring, and the second option was worse. Besides, letting Dreius escape now, and possibly join these mercenaries went against everything I believed in.

I might be Unsworn, but my family tradition of protecting mortals was deeply ingrained. Dreius wouldn’t hesitate to kill innocents, even if these newcomers seemed interested in keeping me alive.

My throwing stars were out and the decision made before they’d laid hands on my prisoner.

“Raya, stop!” said the toned man at the same time the woman shouted, “We’re HAWC!”

HAWC. The Hunter Association for Wanted Criminals. My perspective shifted. Apparently, Dreius hadn’t been the only one followed. What’s more, I knew that first voice, the one that had called my name. He was Karson Hargrave, and his presence explained why they hadn’t taken me out when they’d had the chance.

The stars were already flying from my hands. I couldn’t take them back, but at the last second, I altered their angle. They crashed into the wall above my attackers, sinking almost out of sight. I heard a collective release of breath as everyone turned to stare at the wall.

The wall exploded.

Everyone except me dived to the ground to avoid shrapnel. A man beside me screamed and grabbed at his neck. Not fatally, I saw, for which I wasn’t exactly grateful at the moment but would probably be once I figured a way to safely extricate myself from this encounter.

“HAWC or no, this is man is my prisoner,” I ground out.

Karson Hargrave stood, smirking. “I don’t think so. He’s wearing my cuffs.”

I glanced at Dreius to see that it was true. One of them had snapped on HAWC shock cuffs, and even if I fought my way out of here with Dreius, there was no way to get them off without killing him and breaking a dozen interplanetary laws. I had a pair just like them inside one of my hidden pockets, except I had the open code to mine. Karson didn’t.

“Yield now, and we won’t press charges,” the muscled woman said. Her red hair was braided tightly against her head, and her many freckles ran together in huge splotches as if she had some rare skin disease.

Ignoring her, I faced Karson, aware that all except one of their other companions had recovered from my attack and were now ringing me. I’d lost whatever advantage I had. I wouldn’t get out of here—at least not with Dreius. Unless I talked my way out.

“He’s mine, Karson, and you know it,” I said. “I’m the one who found him, and I’m the one who will bring him back to face murder charges.” Sometimes a bold statement made all the difference.

Karson’s smirk never wavered. “Oh, so you do remember me.” His mocking blue eyes told me he knew very well that I remembered him. “Yes, you found him, but I got the cuffs on first. That means he’s mine.”

“You followed me.” I’d could kick myself for not masking my movements, but ordinarily, I didn’t have competition this far from Earth.

He shrugged. “I knew you’d be able to track him here faster than I could, what with your family’s connections.”

That rankled because, yes, my extended family was involved in mining on Aeterna, and I knew a few names, but I wasn’t a part of the business. I wouldn’t even get the shares allotted to me by birth until I hit my first century or managed to prove myself in a significant way—and thus far I was hitting so far below that mark that it didn’t register on the proving scale.

“But let me make you a deal.” Karson gave me another of his smiles that had once captured the attention of our entire training class. “You come to work for HAWC and we’ll split the bounty. It’ll be like old times back on Earth. Remember how the two of us could beat any other team to a capture?”

My gut twisted. If I let myself, I could remember those times only too well. Besides my years of intensive combat on Aeterna, the six months I’d spent in chaser training on Earth had been the most grueling and intellectually challenging time of my life. All WCCs, wanted criminal chasers, whether potential HAWC employees or independent chasers like myself had to go through training before receiving the license required for payment. Before the official license, I’d gone through a third party to get paid, and I’d decided to go direct before I gave away any more of my hard-earned profit. Ultimately, I made the leap because of my first cousin, whose family I’d grown up with since my tenth birthday. He was worried that I’d get caught, which was valid, because some of the people I’d worked with might have been just as likely to sell me out if they discovered my heritage than to pay me. The fact that I was Unworn and nearly impossible to kill without really getting their hands dirty probably saved me.

Before I’d entered WCC training, I hadn’t realized that so many trainees were destined for HAWC. Or even what HAWC meant. Not having lived on Earth since my childhood, I missed a lot of the history lessons.

HAWC was created by Hunters. And though they played nice in the Galactic Unity Alliance, or GUA, that had been in power for the past hundred years, their hunting came from a much darker tradition, a tradition not all of them had left behind.

I knew this from personal experience.

Pushing aside the old grief that threatened at these thoughts, I focused on my next move. Karson and the others waited for my response to their offer. Dreius was glaring at me too, as if I was to blame for his capture, which I was. Whatever happened here, he would not be killing again. Not soon and maybe not ever. I hoped that helped the gardener’s family find closure or whatever they were calling that these days.

I didn’t have that luxury.

“Well?” he asked.

“Hell, no,” I spat through gritted teeth.

“You’re going to get yourself killed, hunting alone,” Karson shot back.

My turn to smirk. “Are you saying it’s safer working with you?”

“You still holding that against me?” The amusement vanished from his voice for just that moment, and I could see the real Karson, the one who stayed at my bedside until my heart had started beating again. It had taken less than twenty-four hours, but as a mortal, that was a long time for him to wonder if I really would recover.

“I mean permanently,” he added so low I might not have heard if I hadn’t been looking at his face.

I shrugged. Though it wasn’t fun, dying hadn’t been all that bad. I’d felt worse pain after a good training session on Aeterna. Coming awake afterward had been disorienting, but all my memories appeared to be intact, and I had no residual effects.

“Anyway, I don’t hunt. I chase.” I wanted the distinction clear. Hunters by tradition were murders, and even though some of their past targets had deserved punishment, many more had been innocent, and even though the mortal Hunters today could trace their lineage back to those of the Unsworn, they were nothing like us. Or at least not those I descended from. My people.

“HAWC are not that kind of Hunters,” Karson said.

I waved the words away. “He’s still my collar.”

Karson’s lips firmed into a thin line. “The assignment came down to me. You know how it works. I had no choice.”

The sad thing was that I did understand. If he didn’t take a case, or he failed on too many, he’d be knocked down to a team member instead of team leader and be chasing small-time thieves, losing out on the higher bounty and lower HAWC cut for each criminal, which was their way of reimbursing their agents for going after the dangerous ones.

“I could use someone like you on my team,” he said. “And I know you could use the money.

If he knew how desperate I was, that meant he’d dug into places where he had no business looking.

I gave him a flat stare. “So you can get rid of all these guys?” I raised my voice. “You hear that? Your team leader wants a bigger cut.” Because I was worth all of them combined, and Karson knew it.

Karson snorted. “Raya, that’s not—”

I jabbed a finger in his direction. “You followed me and stole my collar. I have nothing to say to you.” The words stung him, I could tell. Karson was never good at hiding his feelings, especially from someone gifted in noting every physical nuance.

Turning, I angled toward the back door, past the cowering cooks, who were casting looks at their open grills where black smoke was already pouring from what looked like some kind of burgers. The burning stench was better than rancid meat odor, so I suspected we were doing customers a favor.

Two of Karson’s team stood in my way, both men bleeding from cuts I’d given them. Anger colored their faces and twisted their expressions. Unprofessional.

“Want to go again?” I asked a little too casually. It would be fun now that I knew I wasn’t in danger of being killed or sold on some black market.

“Let her go,” Karson said tightly. To me he added, “But with the increasing political unrest in the galaxy, you’re going to need backup, Raya. The Galactic Unity Allianace is making the WCC Oversight Board crack down on freelancers because of their connection to the crime syndicates.”

I lifted a hand without turning around. “I leave the syndicates alone, and they leave me alone.” At least it had worked out that way so far, and I didn’t think that was because of my familial connection with Aeterna. In fact, I had worked hard to hide that I was Unsworn, an Aeternai who had left the protection of our homeworld. I’d removed my tracker and didn’t report in as much as my extended family wanted, but I knew they’d still be checking up on me as much as they were able.

The agents were distracted when the door to the pub swung open, and the barkeep’s bald head peeked through. His entire body shook, as if it had taken every moment since the explosion for him to dredge up courage to check out what had happened. His hands went up. “Please don’t shoot.” For a big, hairy-armed man, he sounded weak and whiny.

“HAWC,” Karson said, whipping out a badge. “We’re apprehending this dangerous criminal. We’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

That gave the barkeep some courage. “Who is going to pay for this mess?”

“Send the bill to HAWC.” I pushed roughly past the chasers in front of me, moving to the door faster than any mortal could react.

“Think about it!” Karson called after me. “The invite is always open.”

It would never get to that. Over my dead body.

Unfortunately, WCC bounty had been my last chance. I was now officially screwed.

 

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Copyright 2022 Teyla Rachel Branton

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