“Not really.” He scowled as he dropped the beast and then noticed Darice, facedown on the ground. Arching a brow, he turned toward Thia. “You kill him?”

“No. Just a good stunning.”

A slow, boyish grin curved his lips. He rubbed at his goatee with his thumb. “Would it be wrong if I left him there until morning?”

Thia shrugged. “It’s an Endurance. You tell me, oh great uncle.”

“Maybe I’ll just throw a blanket over him and leave him there for a while.”

Thia scoffed. “It’s more than he deserves.”

As Hauk prepped his prey, Sumi noticed that he was much more relaxed than he’d been when he left. He was almost peaceful now.

“So killing things is how you unwind?”

He looked up with a wicked smile that flashed a bit of his fangs. “Indeed. Want to help me skin it?”

She screwed her face up as he pulled out a huge knife from the sheath on his thigh that also holstered his blaster. “I’d really rather not.”

Pausing, he arched a brow. “A squeamish assassin? Really?”

“Conscripted,” she reminded him. The last thing she needed was for a trained killer, holding a knife, to see her as the threat she knew she could be. “Before that, I was a botanist.”

He sharpened his knife against the bracer on his forearm that contained a whetstone. Sumi wasn’t sure what part of that disturbed her more. The fact he was so nonchalant about it, or the fact he felt compelled to wear a whetstone for such occasions.

Hauk tested the edge of the blade with the pad of his thumb. “So slaughtering innocent plants doesn’t bother you?”

“I never slaughtered any plants. I only studied and catalogued them.” She turned away and grimaced as he…

Shivering, she couldn’t even think about it. It brought back too many awful memories for her.

Suddenly, she felt his warmth at her back. He was close enough to touch her, yet he didn’t breach that little distance between them. “How did The League train you?”

She trembled even more. “Death matches and hunts.”

He turned her to face him. In spite of the darkness, she saw the sympathy in his eyes as he stared at her. “Botanist, huh?”

Sumi nodded.

Hauk watched as she nervously bit her bottom lip. That single act sent a ferocious wave of desire through him and set his heart pounding again. Because he wasn’t allowed to touch a female, he’d never spent much time around any who weren’t bound to a male. Not that it mattered. Andarion females considered him disgusting and hideous. One look at his scarred flesh, and they curled their lips and insulted him before they scurried away to their mothers.

None of them would ever accept him in her bed.