Shaking his head to silence their condemnation and the memories that tore him apart, Hauk forced his thoughts away from the past. No need to dwell there. He couldn’t change it.

And right now, he had something a lot more important to focus on. This was a trained assassin who had been sent to kill him. One who’d almost succeeded, and she wouldn’t stop coming for him so long as he breathed. While assassins usually worked alone, they didn’t always. If there were more League assassins behind her, he needed to know. They still had four more weeks before they were in satellite range again and he could call for a pickup.

The whole point of Endurance was to survive as if they’d crashed on the planet and had nothing save one survival pack of minimal supplies to sustain them. There was no one to call for help. No backup.

Completely alone, they were supposed to climb to the top of Mount Grenalyn, pluck a feather or bone from the nest of a sparn, and return to their drop site. It was a bonding experience that was usually shared between parent and child. A once-in-a-lifetime adventure designed to teach the teen confidence, self-reliance, and everything he or she needed to know in the event they should ever be on their own in a hostile environment.

And it didn’t get any more hostile than to have an assassin on your ass.

How had she found him? No one knew where they were. That, too, was part of the training. The only one who was supposed to have their coordinates was the pilot who dropped them off – the primary reason why it was always a trusted family member.

Chayden would die before he gave them up. As would Fain.

It made no sense.

And that, too, concerned him.

Hauk narrowed his gaze on the woman. “You better live.” He had to have answers from her. And if she was here to kill him, she had a ship nearby. One he might be able to use to get the kids to safety before anyone else came after him.

“Are you all right?”

He looked up as Thia returned to the tent. “What?”

“That expression on your face… it’s terrifying, Uncle Hauk. I’m used to my dad looking like he’s about to kill someone all the time, but not you.”

He softened his features for her and smiled. “Better?”

“Kind of. But I think I’ve been emotionally scarred. For life.”

He lovingly scoffed at her words. “I hope it takes more than my grimace to emotionally scar you, little one.”

“Says the male who has no idea just how bloodthirsty and cruel he appeared a minute ago. It’s one thing to be told your beloved uncle is a fierce warrior, it’s another one to see it firsthand.”

That was true. Because of his massive size, especially compared to Thia, he’d always gone out of his way to smile and be gentle and soft-spoken around her. When she’d first moved in with her father, she’d been absolutely traumatized by her violent stepfather, and the lunatic animals who’d worked for him. Animals Aksel had had around Thia since the moment of her birth. Not to mention the fact that the sadistic bastard had beaten Thia to the brink of death, and then brutally murdered her mother in a fit of rage.