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King Crencik blinked. “Let us be certain before we pass judgement.”

I glared at his back as he walked away. “She had help…you think?”

“I think we won’t know until we get her back,” Crencik mentioned.

“Get her back?” I looked down my nose at the King. I didn’t mean to, but it just happened that way. I was growing impatient. I was here in the moment, but I was determined to be elsewhere—on a hunt to track down a murderous human bak’ku.

“You know we can’t leave her roaming around here,” King Crencik stated, linking his fingers together. “She must come back as I intended—”

“You intended to have her mated and bred. I get it,” I interjected.

King Crencik sighed. “Patience is a virtue.”

“What does that mean?” I was frustrated. My uncle was dead. My emotions were on my sleeves, laid bare for the King.

“In time, you’ll know. But yes, eventually, the little human will breed with a Zunatorian,” he said, and then turned.

The Earthlings were compatible with the Zunatorian’s, that much I knew. They were captured in the dead of night on Earth and evaluated for transport back to Zunator. Even the willing females acted unwillingly. To their disadvantage, many of us could read minds. After ensuring that the female was suitable for mating, the humans were abducted from Earth and brought to our planet and groomed. Only Zunatorian males worthy of a human mate were selected to join the auction. My uncle, Roult, was selected this time and it seems that he picked the wrong one. She was probably planning his demise the whole time.

I grunted. “If she did this…” I threw up my hand toward the carnage. “…and it looks like she went on a blind rage and she did this, then she will kill again.”

“Perhaps…”

“Do you see something?” I asked. King Crencik had a gift of foresight. I wasn’t sure if it worked on demand or just something that came to him in visions. But who was I to ask a King what he knew and didn’t know. Sometimes things were best left unknown.

“I’ll see that justice is served, but I need the girl. She will tell the story one way or another,” he said.

“If she did not act alone, I will have the head of the one who helped her. I don’t care who he is.”

“Excuse me for interrupting. I have information. Some of the blood samples are, in fact, human,” one of the medics explained, approaching us.

“We’ll take a few samples to be sure,” Crencik said, acknowledging the officer. “Like Xaixek, I’m not sure that she was the only soul here last night. If there is a match with another citizen, we’ll know.”

“I found fingerprints in the blood over there by the bed where his body was found,” the medic continued. “Human fingerprints. The female was here when it happened even though she is now nowhere in sight.”

“We combed the entire perimeter around the house, inside and out. Her trail led us in circles. Furthermore, some of the other trackers thinks she might have gone off into the forbidden,” another offered.

“Into the forbidden? The outer lands? I just came from that direction. I scented no human on the trail,” I countered.

“Excuse me for bringing this to your attention, but a mere human would not know how to find the trails. Her scent was erratic, here and there. She stumbled near the doorway. There’s drops of her blood on the stone walkway. There’s evidence up the path that she may have been injured somehow, perhaps in a struggle with your uncle Roult. She could’ve ran off into any direction especially if she ran off into the night without assistance,” the medic offered.

I rubbed my chin. “You are right. All she probably was thinking about was getting away after she throat-slashed Roult.”

“We need to find her before something else happens,” Crencik said.

“If she’s in the outer lands, something else will happen. No human can survive out there alone. It’s a death sentence of her own making.”

The king spun on a heel, his eyes flickering with urgency as if he had just thought of something. “You are going to find her.”

My jaw dropped to the floor. “Me?”

Crencik cut me a puzzled look. “Yes, Xiaxek. You are a bounty hunter. You’re going to do what you do best. You are going to find her.”

I was speechless for a moment. I had never tracked down a human. Or a female. My expertise involved tracking down Zunatorian and other non-Earthling criminals. I wasn’t thinking I wouldn’t or couldn’t find the girl. I was just perplexed at why the King chose me to track down my uncle’s killer when he had to know that all I wanted to do was wrap my fingers around the human’s neck and squeeze until I heard a pop.

I trained my gaze on the King, hoping he hadn’t intercepted my thoughts.

“Find the human and bring her back—alive,” the King commanded.