An Unauthorized Field Guide to the Hunt
Chapter One
“Entering an arena is like being awarded a ticket into the most exclusive megabucks lotto in the galaxy…except that ticket is accompanied by vicious claws, fangs, and a barbed penis.”
~ Shane West
Cycle 2315
Mariket, Arena 4
Season Premier
Shane bounced lightly on the floor in the hovercraft to stay nimble as he monitored the red light above the bay door. He used his peripheral vision to assess the ship’s complement of Hunt competitors. He wished he could believe the division of competitors for transport to Mariket was coincidental, and that his assignment to a ship with just two other humans was bad luck. Lying to himself—if only to calm his screaming nerves—would result in failure and pain, though. The cats never left anything to chance. For some unknown and unknowable reason, the cats had chosen to insert him into an arena with a group that included few likely allies. That could mean screening tests had indicated Shane was a poor candidate, to be discarded early and ruthlessly. Or the cats might believe him so well suited for the Hunt that he’d been selected for the gift of vulnerability.
Either way when that light flashed green and the bay door glided open, Shane was in deep shit.
He slowed his breathing by inhaling a long drag of air through his nose until his chest fully inflated, and then released it through his lips in a protracted though quiet hiss. Panic wouldn’t help.
Shrugging to secure his backpack comfortably on his shoulders, he pretended not to notice the spicy stench from the majority of Nambians on the ship. So what if the agile and ferocious creatures could trigger their own mating heat? Any cat that would fall for the promise of a fast fuck rather than the lure of the chase wasn’t for Shane. Let the Nambians squander limited time and resources on orgies. Shane hadn’t come to the Hunt to entertain lusty cats as their whore.
He just hoped the Nambians didn’t think much of his strategy either. If they’d identified him for elimination, Shane was doomed when they exited the hovercraft.
The red light flickered.
The shields had lowered to allow hovercrafts into the arenas.
Not much longer.
Shane’s heartbeat skipped, his pulse sprinting as his fight-or-flight response kicked into gear. He lifted his hand and curled his fingers around the strap of his backpack to anchor it. The cats never allowed competitors to take much into the Hunt, but he couldn’t afford to lose his kit. Vulnerability was fine, maybe even good. Helpless stupidity wouldn’t be forgiven.
Green!
By the time the pneumatic door slid wide, Shane had already leaped forward. Smaller, quicker, Shane pushed through his fellow competitors, and squinting at the blinding brightness of the arena from the gloom of the ship, he jumped through the bay door. He contorted to free himself from a tug on his pack and grunted at the jar of landing on solid ground.
He bent to dislodge another grasping wrench on his pack. And he ran.
To the trees.
He focused on making it to the thick underbrush that circled the area cleared for this landing pad. The fact that cats waited in the forest, primed to hunt him, was irrelevant. At least the cats wouldn’t beat Shane—or worse—in order to strut their strength and superiority. Leaving the Hunt too soon was more dangerous than all the competitors and cats in the arena combined. An early evac was good as a death sentence to him. If he didn’t reach another landing pad and ally with a larger group of humans…
He streaked across the field. Before he’d scrambled halfway to the woods, snarls, screams, and the thuds of fists landing on flesh erupted behind him, the sickening sounds a chorus signaling the predictable rush of medevacs during the first moments of the Hunt. Let them fight. Fewer rivals for Shane with the cats. He’d last longer. Plus the brawl would occupy wardens. He wouldn’t have to worry as much about the officials intruding to spur the season on.
Pounding footsteps followed closely behind Shane as he raced toward the forest. He’d never believed he was the only competitor on his ship with the brains to opt out of an unfriendly alliance at this entry point. He didn’t need to be smartest, though. He needed to be fastest.
With a frantic glance, he pinpointed the least dense sliver of overgrown thicket ahead, and legs pumping, he shot directly for it. Whoever was trailing him—more than one competitor, judging by the collection of uneven panting—would be on him once he entered the woods, but he might still give them the slip if he forged a quicker path through the barrier of briars.
He barreled into the prickly patch of leaves and twigs, lifting an arm to shield his eyes from jutting thorns that whipped at him as he used his momentum to punch a hole in the brush. Brambles gouged his hands, his neck, any exposed skin. Ignoring the sting, he raced on. The scritch of tearing fabric and a brief flare of pain at his thigh didn’t stall him. Even the vines tangling around his feet didn’t slow him. When he tripped, he simply rolled, allowing the weight of his body to shoot him forward. He tumbled once, twice. Too fast. A disorienting spiral of violent green whirled around him until his legs hitting a slender tree jerked him to a stop. Shaking his head to clear the dizziness, he scrambled on all fours through a tunnel of dappled leaves. He was almost in the forest proper. If young trees grew here, and native wildlife had made a path of bent limbs in the thicket to feast on ripe berries, he must be close.