Free Fugitive by Cheryl Brooks

nuts! Want to mate with her and all that crap!"
       Manx's lips curled into a grin. "You wouldn't have said it was crap when you were younger."
       "That's another reason never to get old," Zef grumbled. "I got so old and ugly they voted me out of the lake! Imagine that, now—being sent off to live out the rest of your miserable days without any of your own kind!"
       Manx just looked at him for a long moment with a slightly raised brow.
       "Oh, yeah," Zef said. "Sorry. Forgot! Guess you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"
       "Yes, I would," Manx said. "And if you don't mind my saying so, the 'rest of my days' is going to be a very long time—provided that no one kills me—and I'm thinking I'd like to spend those days with someone like Drusilla." Actually, it wasn't someone like Drusilla that Manx had in mind, but Drusilla herself, though he didn't want to get his hopes up too soon. After all, Drusilla wasn't the first potential mate he'd spotted, just the one he found the most appealing.
       Manx had come very close to choosing a mate on Serillia, which was where the Nedwuts had caught up with him last. Larita was her name. She was pretty and very nice, but Serillians weren't nearly as much like Zetithians as Drusilla was. They'd become good friends, but Manx wasn't sure he could have mated with Larita; her scent wasn't quite right, and he'd had doubts that they were genetically compatible. Manx was also honest enough to admit that he hadn't truly loved Larita, but he did regret not saying good-bye to her. He had warned her about the threat of capture and hoped she understood why he had to leave so abruptly, but there was no way to be sure.
       Zef hadn't thought so when Manx had related the story to him. "Just thought you were making an excuse to run out on her," he'd said. "Not a bad excuse, either."
       But Manx didn't want to make excuses anymore, and he was getting tired of being alone. He wasn't that old—just entering the prime of his long life, in fact— and being on the run wasn't much fun, either. There had to be someplace where the Nedwuts wouldn't find him. Perhaps this "Earth" that Drusilla was from was just such a place…

Chapter 5

    MANX HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING IT AT THE TIME, BUT EARTH was a very good place for a Zetithian to seek refuge— and Captain Jacinth "Jack" Tshevnoe of the starship Jolly Roger was the reason why. A Terran herself, she'd bought a Zetithian slave whom she'd subsequently freed and then promptly fell in love with. She'd dubbed him "Cat" and, since her marriage to him, had become the champion of the remaining Zetithians throughout the galaxy. Granted, there weren't many of them left, but those she'd found were now well protected—especially by the women who loved them.
       Given to shooting Nedwuts on sight, Jack had managed to discourage most Nedwuts from collecting the bounty on her husband, but she had recently discov ered that the bounty was not only still being offered, but had, in fact, been raised to five million credits. Someone wanted them exterminated very badly—someone with plenty of money and the ability to remain anonymous.
       Nedwuts were hairy, snarling, wolf-like primates who were generally regarded as the worst the galaxy had to offer. Thanks to Cat's visions, it had become known that, while people from several worlds had been engaged in the war on Zetith, it had been the Nedwuts who were responsible for its ultimate destruction. This, coupled with the fact that no one liked them anyway, made Nedwuts persona non grata on most civilized worlds. But with a five million credit bounty on Zetithians, those who had the resources kept looking.
       Jack was a trader in legal goods throughout the galaxy but had lately tended to keep to the Terran quadrant, where it was safer for her husband and six children. She and Cat traveled with Leo, another Zetithian, and his wife, Tisana, who was a witch capable of telepathic communication with