Page 6

“The Pulse is agitated,” I replied with a sharp staccato of clicks. “The Great Alu’un wants this one observed. Look at the gold she carries.”

We reached the clearing where she huddled. I looked down from the high branch, my hair falling over my shoulders as I crouched, and watched her through the leaves, my eyes tracking the way she clutched her shoulder. She was broken, yet she was moving. Most creatures from the sky died in the fire; this one had crawled out of the wreckage and into the maw of the forest.

When she looked up, her pale blue eyes wide and blown with terror, I felt a strange, sharp jolt in my marrow. She was staring right at the spot where I crouched. She couldn't see me, not truly, but surely she felt the weight of my gaze. Her fear rolled off her in waves—hot, frantic, and smelling of honeyed panic. It was a delicious scent. I felt a primal urge to drop down and claim the space around her, not to kill, but to see if that gold hair felt as soft as the Skyla-down.

“She runs,” Toren signalled, his voice a mocking trill.

She bolted, her boots pounding the moss. We followed from above, our bare feet making no sound on the wood. We herded her, clicking and whistling to drive her toward the embankment. I watched with clinical interest as she stumbled and rolled, a mess of tangled gold and ruined white fabric.

Then, the Heat-Seekers took her.

Now, she was trapped. I stepped out of the shadows and let her see me.

She hung from the Heat-Seekers, the golden vines coiled tight around her ankles. From this upside-down position, she was a mess of tangled gold. I stood back for a moment, my arms crossed over my chest, simply observing the way the planet had claimed her.

The vines were already weeping their amber sap, bonding to her strange, shimmering second skin. My eyes tracked the damage to the suit. It was shredded in places that made my markings pulse with a sudden, curious heat. The tear across her chest had widened as she dangled; the gravity was pulling at the fabric, causing the soft, pale curves of her breasts to spill nearly halfway out of the material.

I watched the way her chest heaved, the pale flesh straining against the torn edges of her suit. She was flushed, the blood rushing to her head, turning her skin a shade of pink that matched the flowers of the undergrowth. Her heart rate was a frantic drumbeat hitting the air. I let my gaze wander lower. I saw her eyes fixate on the furs at my waist. I saw the way her pupils dilated as she realised the heavy, powerful reality of what lay beneath the animal skins. She looked at the silhouette of my sex, her breath hitching in a way that tasted of both terror and a confusing, primal heat.

“K’rrak zha? Vra-sha?” I asked, my voice a low, guttural vibration. Who are you?

She wheezed a word I didn't recognise. A series of soft, airy sounds.

I tilted my head, my torn ears twitching as they caught the whistle of her breath. I tried the Tongue of the Skies—the melodic trills. Nothing. I tried the clicks of the deep-crust. I even tried the low, barking growls of the beasts in the wastes. Still, she stared at me with that terrified, stubborn light in her eyes.

“I don't speak... whatever the hell that is!” she snapped. The sounds were harsh. Jagged. Like glass breaking. “You giant, red freak! Just cut! Me! Down!”

I froze. My markings flared a violent gold. She swore and screamed at me. My ears flattened against my skull as I reached into the vibrations of the Pulse, pulling the echoes of her barbed language from the air.

“Be still,” I purred, the language feeling heavy and strange on my tongue. I saw her entire body go rigid in the vines. “Be still, Woman. You are making the planet... hungry.”

“You... you can speak?” she wheezed, her voice a tiny, broken thing.

I didn't answer her. Instead, my hand shot out.

My powerful fingers wrapped around her throat. The black claws grazed the delicate skin of her jugular as I squeezed just enough to force her to look into my amber eyes. I tilted her head back, exposing the line of her neck to my golden gaze.

She was an intruder. A parasite from the sky. My instinct was to flex my hand and end the disharmony she brought to my forest, yet my claws refused to sink in. Something was missing—or perhaps something was too present.

I stepped deeper into her space, my heavy feet making no sound on the moss as I leaned my face into her personal space. I began to hunt her scent, moving my head along the line of her body, my nose brushing against the fabric of her suit.

I leaned in closer, my face passing the swell of her breasts, and moved lower. I buried my nose in the junction of her spread thighs, sniffing deeply at the heat radiating through the fabric of her suit.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" she shrieked, her body jerking violently in the vines. She flailed, her one good arm swinging uselessly, her golden hair whipping around as she tried to kick away from me. "Get away from there! Stop!"

I felt a low rumble of amusement in my chest. I like her flailing—this unknown, tiny prey trying to fight the inevitable. She was like a trapped skyla bird, all noise and useless wings. I moved back to her face, my tail snaking out from behind me. It was thick and prehensile, the tip flicking with a mind of its own. It tracked the long, jagged tear in her suit, the sensitive ridges of my tail-tip tracing the line from her hip down to the exposed skin of her chest.

I looked into her eyes, my patterns flaring with a brilliant, predatory light. I didn't know why I was keeping her alive. Every law of the Oru-Ka dictated she should be returned to the roots.

I reached up with my free hand, my black claws glinting in the violet light, and prepared to cut her out of the vines. I wouldn't be putting her on the ground. Not until I understood why the scent of her fear was making my blood sing.

Chapter 4

Lyra

The world didn't just tilt; it severed.

One moment, I was staring into the terrifying, amber depths of his eyes, the heavy weight of his tail tracing a line of fire across my chest. Next, there was a flash of black glass—his claws—slicing through the air with a sound like tearing silk. The tension in the golden vines snapped.