I look at the broken meat.
But the dominant scent in the air is not the prey.
It is sour. Scented of dried lifeblood and rotting firebloom roots.
Lucek’s clan.
”Just past the first incline,”Haroth projects rapidly, his frequency sharp and urgent.”Not at the outer markers. Right here. They are already deep inside our territory.”
The air leaves my lungs in a violent rush. Mydra-kirsimply stops.
Eh-ree-kah.
I am already moving.
Haroth projects something else into the wind. I ignore it.
I run, tearing down the steep ridge, across the deep dunes, toward the outer tunnels. I cover the vast distance in a fraction of the time it took to walk it. My claws tear straight into the stone as I round the final bend, and the warriors guarding the outer cavern throw their bodies sideways as I barrel immediately past them.
I do not register any of them. Not their faces, not the central fire pit, not the dark alcoves of the sick bay. The instant I clear the tunnel, my golden eyes sweep the cavern and immediately lock.
She is sitting on the floor sorting dried fiber rations. Her dark mane is falling down, stuck to the sweat on her soft forehead, and she is furiously muttering to herself. She does not notice me stalking toward her. She is too busy arguing with a basket.
I walk directly into her space.
“Hey, watch—” She turns her head, and instantly stops.
I grab her soft shoulders. She is so small my claws go almost around her joints.
The roaring heat in my bloodstream severs my logic. I do not consciously command my own muscles to move. I simply blink, and I have already yanked her flush against my chest, abruptlyturning to put my wide back between her fragile frame and the rest of the open cavern.
She makes a sound. A small, completely cut-off sound, high in her delicate throat and mydra-kirinstantly slams against my ribs in response.
I roughly tilt her small head to the side and crush my face directly into the soft joint of her thin neck and jaw and drag a deep breath into my lungs.
She smells completely fine. She smells of filtered water and dust and violent storms. No sour lifeblood. No rotting roots. No trace of another male. She is here. She is completely whole. She is unbothered.
She is completely fine.
The roaring silence in my ears finally breaks. The cavern immediately coalesces around us, and I go very, very still. My face is still completely buried into the softest part of her skin.
I have to physically force my own body to pull back.
She is staring straight up at me, her dark eyes enormous. She has a desperate death grip on the basket she is still holding against her chest.
“Are you—” She swallows, her pulse jumping frantically against the thin skin of her throat. “Are you sniffing me?”
Herdra-kiris completely erratic. I smell the sharp spike of her startlement. The focused frequencies of the clan press against the back of my skull. Every warrior in the cavern has stopped moving. They are standing dead silent in the shadows, watching my claws cage her small body directly against my glowing chest.
The need to bury my face back into her throat and simply absorb her scent until mydra-kirregulates is overwhelmingly powerful.
“Neh-ck,” I force out, my vocal cords grinding against the unfamiliar human sounds.
She blinks up at me. “My neck?”
I am unable to form any other words. The possessive fire roaring through my veins drowns out my logic. I stare down at the frantic pulse hammering in her throat and force a single, guttural sound up my chest.
“Gooood.”
