And then a sound.
Low. Rumbling. Building from somewhere deep in the earth, or deep in a chest, or deep in the primal part of her brain that remembered what it meant to be prey.
A growl.
Aimed past her. At the thing that had tried to kill her.
Serafina opened her eyes.
The alien had frozen. Its clawed hand still raised, its killing strike arrested mid-swing. And its face—that grey, angular, hate-filled face—had changed.
It was afraid.
A shape moved in the shadows behind it. Massive. It made the alien look small.
Makrath.
He had come.
CHAPTER 24
She had thought she understood what he was.
Five days of hunting him through this jungle. Five days of tracking his signs, following his trail, catching glimpses of him in the shadows between trees. She had seen the footage in training: Kha'Ruun warriors tearing through squads of armed soldiers, moving with a speed and brutality that defied comprehension. She had watched him on that ridge, felt the weight of his presence, sensed the danger coiled in every line of his body.
She had thought she understood.
She understood nothing.
Makrath—her Kha'Ruun—came out of the jungle like wrath given form. One moment the alien's claw was raised above her, the killing blow descending toward her throat. The next, eight feet of warrior slammed into it from the side, and the world became violence.
He was fast. Faster than the footage. Faster than anything she had ever seen move. His claws punched through the creature's torso before it could turn, ripping out a fistful of viscera, and then he was driving it backward, away from her, hismassive body a wall of armor and fury between her and the thing that had tried to kill her.
The alien shrieked. Fought back. It had nearly killed her—had been seconds from ending her life—but against Makrath it was nothing. Less than nothing. He caught its striking arm and wrenched, and the limb came away from the socket with a wet, tearing sound that would live in her nightmares. The creature screamed, and Makrath's other hand closed around its throat, claws sinking deep, and he lifted it off the ground like it weighed nothing at all.
For a moment, he held it there. Suspended. Thrashing. Making sounds that might have been pleading, begging… she couldn't tell anymore, her consciousness fraying at the edges.
Then he squeezed.
The shrieking stopped.
Serafina watched through a haze of blood loss and pain as he dropped the corpse. It hit the jungle floor in a heap of grey limbs and torn flesh, and he stood over it, chest heaving, and she saw him. Really saw him, for the first time.
This was what he was.
Not the shadow in the trees. Not the presence circling her camp in the darkness. Not the predator who pinned her to a tree and walked away, who let her shoot him, who played games of pursuit and evasion across this island for five days.
This was the Kha'Ruun unleashed. This was what the footage had tried to show her and failed, because footage couldn't capture the reality of it: the sheer, overwhelming violence of a creature designed for war, honed by centuries of combat, capable of destruction on a scale her human mind could barely process.
If he had wanted to kill her at any point during this Hunt, she would be dead. Not injured. Not captured. Dead. As quickly and completely as the thing bleeding out on the jungle floor.
The rules of the Hunt were the only reason she was alive. The rules said he could not harm her,but nothing forbade him from destroying what tried to take her from him.
She felt awe.
Pure, profound, bone-deep awe at what she was seeing. At what he was. At the fact that this creature, this perfect predator, this living weapon,had chosen her. Had watched her for five days. Had let her hunt him, let her wound him, let her believe she had any chance at all in this game they were playing.
He had given her that. The illusion of being his equal. The dignity of a real contest.
