"When it ends, I'm not leaving this island without you."
The sound he made was inhuman. A roar and a purr tangled together, vibrating through his chest. His other hand curved around the back of her neck, pulling her close until her forehead pressed against his helm.
"Mine," he said. "You are mine."
"Yours," she agreed. "But you're mine too. That's how I work."
A sound like laughter. Or wonder.
"Yes. That is how this works."
They stayed like that, forehead to helm, breath mingling. She didn't know if he could kiss, if his anatomy allowed for it, if whatever lay beneath that armor would feel anything like human lips.
She didn't care. This was enough. This was everything.
Then he pulled back. Rose. Stood over her, massive and dark.
"Rest," he said. "Heal. Tomorrow, the Hunt continues."
Before she could respond, he was gone. Melted into the shadows at the cave entrance, silent as always.
She stared at the space where he'd been. Her lips tingled where his thumb had pressed. Her skin burned where he'd touched her.
Tomorrow, the Hunt continues.
Of course it did. Words weren't enough for a Kha'Ruun bond. The rite required proof: blood, dominance, surrender. He couldn't simply claim her because he'd saved her life. What happened next had to be earned in combat, or the bond wouldn't take.
She lay back on the moss and let herself smile.
You want me to hunt you? I'll hunt you.
She slept without dreams, his webbing warm against her wounded arm, his scent still thick in her lungs.
When she woke, the cave was empty. Grey pre-dawn light filtered through the entrance. Her wounds had healed enoughto move, though "healed" wasn't quite right. The bio-armor had forced her body into compliance, sealing damage, numbing pain, keeping her functional through sheer alien intervention. His webbing on her bicep pulsed faintly with warmth, still working. His gift. His marker.
She sat up slowly and tested her body. Everything held.
The cave held traces of him: his scent in the air, the impression in the moss where he'd crouched. But he was gone, back into the jungle, back into the game.
The Hunt continued.
CHAPTER 25
He couldn't maintain distance anymore.
The control that had defined him for decades, the discipline beaten into him through training and combat and the endless, grinding demands of the Kha'Ruun caste—had shattered somewhere between seeing her blood and tearing the Khelar apart with his bare hands.
He had left her in the cave as dawn approached. Had forced himself to walk away while she slept, her breathing steady, her wounds healing beneath the webbing he had wrapped around her arm. Part of him—the part that still remembered what the Hunt was supposed to be—knew he should return to the old patterns. The circling. The distance. The careful ritual of pursuit.
That part of him was dead now.
He hadn't slept. He’d spent the night running patrol patterns along the island's perimeter that served no tactical purpose, his mind replaying the same images over and over. Her on the ground. The Khelar's claws in her arm. The blood running down her skin in dark rivulets. The way she had touched his helm and said his name like it mattered.
Mine, he had told her.You are mine.
Yours, she had answered.But you're mine too.
The words pulsed through him like a second heartbeat. She had claimed him back. No candidate had ever done that. No female had ever looked at what he was—had seen him kill, had felt the weight of his body pinning hers—and responded with anything other than fear or submission.
