Page 5

Another vine caught my left calf. The sap touched the fabric of my suit and bonded instantly. I felt a sudden, violent tug as my feet were yanked out from under me. Hoisted into the air I couldn't help but let out a choked cry.

"Shit, shit, shit," I breathed, the world flipping as I was dangled upside down. My blonde hair spilt toward the dirt, a golden waterfall in the violet twilight. The blood rushed to my head, making the violet sky dance. As I twisted my body in a struggle the vines only tightened, the sap warm and sticky against my skin. I was well and truly stuck.

The rustling returned. From the shadows directly in front of my face, a figure detached itself from the dark.

It was a towering presence of reddish-brown muscle and predatory intent, and it made no sound. It was close—so close I could smell the scent of it. It smelled like woodsmoke, rain, and a sharp, muskier scent that made my stomach flip.

From my upside-down perspective, I was staring directly at its chest. Its skin was decorated with faint, swirling markings that pulsed with a low, rhythmic copper light. Below that, its hips were draped in dark furs, but they did little to hide the heavy, powerful weight of what lay beneath. My eyes widened, my face heating up as my brain finally connected the dots.

Okay. So whatever the fuck this creature is... it’s clearly a male.

I tried to look up, to see its face, but the blood in my head made me dizzy. It stood there, domineering and silent, watching me struggle with clinical curiosity.

Then, it spoke.

"K’rrak zha? Vra-sha?" The voice was a deep, guttural rumble that I felt in my very marrow.

I trembled, the golden vines creaking as I swayed. "What?" I managed to wheeze.

It tilted its head. Then, its throat shifted, and it emitted a series of sharp, avian whistles. When I didn't respond, it tried a low, barking sound, followed by a series of wet, clicking noises that sounded like a swarm of insects.

"I don't fucking know what you're saying!" I snapped, my fear turning into the jagged edge of my trademark temper. "I don't speak... whatever the hell that is! You giant, red freak! Just cut me down!"

The creature froze. Its long, rigid ears—one of them torn at the tip—twitched violently. It leaned in until its face was inches from mine, close enough that I could see the fine texture of his skin and feel the heat rolling off him. Dark hair fell forward in loose, wavy strands, black as void, brushing his jaw and framing a face carved in sharp, predatory lines.

Slowly, it closed its eyes. The copper markings on its skin flared, an intense glow that lit up the clearing.

When it opened its eyes again, they were a brilliant, taunting gold.

"Be still," it purred. The English was deep, vibrating, and carried the weight of a king’s command. It was too perfect, too deliberate. "Be still, Woman. You are making the planet... hungry."

I stopped breathing. "You... you can speak?"

He stepped even closer, a forked tongue darting out to taste the air near my cheek. He didn't answer me. He just reached out with a hand that had one thumb and two thick, clawed fingers, and wrapped them around my throat—not to choke me, but to tilt my head back, exposing the line of my neck to his golden gaze.

"Fuck" I whispered, the word lost against his skin.

Chapter 3

Kaelen-Thul

The scent hit me before I even saw her.

It was a scent that didn’t belong on Xylos-Vra—a sharp, synthetic tang of cold metal and ozone, layered over something soft, organic, and sweet. Like nectar hidden inside a lead box.

I had been tracking the trail since the sky-fire screamed across the atmosphere and buried itself in the Iron-Bark canopy. My brothers wanted to wait, to let the planet digest the metal intruder, but the Pulse was agitated. The ground was humming with a frantic, staccato rhythm that I had never felt in all my seasons as Huntmaster. The planet wasn't just eating; it was reacting to something inside the wreckage.

I watched her from the ridge, my bare feet silent against the damp, warm moss. I didn't need the hide-wraps of the northern clans; my soles were thick, calloused by a century of climbing, my black, sharp toenails digging into the earth for purchase.

She was small—dangerously small—and lacked the protective shifting hues of a true child of the soil. Her skin was a pale, sickly cream colour, and her hair... it was a violent, impossible gold. It sat against the dark reds of the forest like a piece of the sun had fallen and refused to go out.

My brothers and I moved through the upper limbs with a velocity that would have looked like a blur of shadow and copper to an outsider. We didn't need the ground. We swung from the weeping vines and vaulted across the obsidian-leafed branches, our black claws sinking deep into the bark, our tails providing a fifth limb for balance.

Click. Trill. Click.

I signalled to the others as we closed in. We were a pack of ghosts in the violet mist.

“A parasite,” Toren clicked from a branch twenty feet to my left, his ears flat against his skull. “The sky-metal brings sickness. We should let nature drain her and be done with it. The roots will clean the mess.”