Page 36 of The Huntmaster

"Then what is it? You look as though your tongue has forgotten how to speak."

I swallowed hard, pacing the small space as I wrestled with the ridiculous, foreign sounds of her language. "She... she called it a kees."

Toren blinked, his ears twitching forward. "A... a kess? A kee-sz? What is a kees? Is it a weapon? A curse from her stars?"

"No," I growled, feeling my neck heat up beneath my markings. "It is a tradition. A... human custom. When they wish to express desire... or intimacy. They press their mouths together."

Toren stared at me, his jaw slowly slackening. "They... press their mouths together? The organs used for chewing meat and roaring at predators? Why would anyone perform such a bizarre, inefficient ritual? How does that express desire?"

"I do not know!" I snapped, turning on him, my voice tight with frustration and raw, dangerous emotion. "She called it 'intimacy.' She said it was to taste the soul before taking the flesh. And then..." I choked back the rest of the sentence, the memory of her soft lips opening under mine sweeping over me like a tidal wave.

Toren’s eyes widened, the ridiculousness of the word vanishing as he read the sheer, unbridled chaos in my eyes. "A kees," he repeated quietly, the mangled word settling heavily between us. He looked at my mouth again, then at my trembling hands. The realisation hit him, and he let out a soft, breathy sound of disbelief. "Kaelen... you didn't just learn a word. You let her do it. You did it to her."

"Tell me of the bonds, Toren," I demanded, desperately trying to steer us away from the madness of her mouth, my movements uneven and restless. "When we mate with our own... when the Pulse aligns... what is the sensation? Is it... a consumption? Or a choice?"

Toren blinked, his brow furrowing as he leaned against a support pillar of living wood. His shock was palpable, but he didn't mock me. Instead, he watched me with a low-key, supportive concern. "You know this, Kaelen. It is a resonance. Our markings find the same rhythm. The Alu'un blesses the union, and the hunger... it settles. It becomes a shared strength, a slow, steady burn that warms the blood for cycles."

He stepped toward me, his voice softening. "But that is with our own blood. With a female of the Tribe. Why are you asking this now?"

"The hunger I felt today," I whispered, the words slipping out like a confession. "It was not a slow burn. It was a wildfire. It was a drowning. It felt as if the planet itself had stopped breathing just to watch me... feast. My Pulse didn't find a rhythm, Toren. It broke."

Toren’s face went pale, a stark contrast to the glowing blue of his markings. He looked at my mouth—at the slight, lingering flush on my lips—and then at my hands. The realisation hit him, and he let out a soft, breathy sound of disbelief. "To feel that for a human... for a creature whose Pulse does not even speak our language..." He shook his head, looking more awestruck than horrified. "That is not a bond I have ever heard of. But the way you describe it... It sounds like something ancient. Something primal."

He took another step, his eyes searching mine. "Did you? Did you claim her, Huntmaster?"

I thought of Lyra—the taste of her, the way she had looked at me with that silent plea. I thought of the mud I had forced upon her to hide my own weakness. I hardened my heart, the mask sliding back into place.

"Nothing happened," I snapped, my voice as sharp as a jagged flint. "She was bitten. I extracted the poison to save the Tribe's investment. That is all."

Toren stared at me for a long time. He saw the lie, the tension, and the raw hunger I was trying so hard to bury. But instead of pressing, he let out a long, slow breath and nodded once. He knew when a Hunter was cornered by his own heart, and his silence was his gift to me.

"If that is what you say, then that is what I will tell the others, but I suggest you wash your face in the rainwater, Kaelen. Because right now, you look like a man who has found the most precious prey in the forest... and is realising he can never truly have it without burning his whole world down." Toren said quietly.

As he moved toward the door, brushing aside the willow vines, he paused and looked back over his shoulder, his expression earnest. "Just remember, Kaelen... whatever madness has taken hold of your Pulse, I am always here for you, brother. I do not care where the scent comes from. I stand with the Huntmaster.

He slipped out into the night, leaving me alone in the dark. I stood there for a long time, listening to the silence. All my life, my Pulse had belonged to the Alu’un — steady, faithful, unquestioning.

Now it hummed with a different rhythm.

Softer. Wilder.

And terrifyingly… it was not the planet calling to me anymore.

It was her.

I turned the thought over once, testing its weight the way I might test a blade before a hunt. Star-woman was the name I gave the others, a name for what she was to my people, to the Tribe, to the Council who would need to be told. It was not the name my Pulse used when it reached for her in the dark.

I did not let myself say the other name aloud. Not yet. But it had already carved itself into the marrow of me, quiet and absolute.

Little star.

I pressed my palm flat against my chest, against the place where the rhythm refused to settle, and said nothing at all.

Chapter 24

Lyra

The mineral pools were nestled in a natural hollow of the Great Tree’s roots, where steaming, pale-blue water bubbled up from the earth. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a spa day in paradise. The cavern was filled with the soft sound of water dripping from ancient stalactites, and the air smelled of wet stone and sweet, crushed ferns. But as Sora scrubbed the thick, grey silt from my back with a bundle of lichen, all I could feel was the phantom weight of Kaelen’s hands on my thighs.