Page 66 of The Huntmaster

I spun her back around to face me, my hands gripping her hips so tight the green vines pulsed a warning emerald. "Is that what you truly wish to be? Unclaimed? For any male to track and corner in the dark?"

She let out a long, ragged sigh, her eyes searching mine, her fingers curling into the leather of my harness. "Strangely... no. I don't think I've felt 'unclaimed' since the day I met you."

Her words hit me harder than the beast's charge. Why did we want this? It shouldn't be possible. Every law of nature told me she was a creature of the stars, a ghost, while I was a son of the red earth. I tried to tell myself it was just the Alignment, a trick of the moons—but I was in denial. She was the other half of a bond I hadn't even known was missing.

As I struggled with the weight of my own thoughts, Lyra reached up. She cupped the side of my face, her palm impossibly soft against my rough, scarred skin, and forced me to look down at her.

"I want you," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the thrumming drums.

The words stripped me of my armour. I was lost for words, my chest heaving as I stared at her. "I will hurt you, Ly-ra," I managed to rasp, the warning thick with the fear of my own strength. Under the full Alignment, I was a predator of peak capability. "During the Hunt... I am not the man who speaks to you in the hut. I am the beast you saw in the arena."

Her pupils dilated until the blue of her irises was almost gone. She tipped up on her toes, her lips a fraction of an inch from mine, her voice a daring, feral challenge. "What if I want to be hurt? What if I want you to stop being careful?"

My eyes blew wide. The admission shattered the last of my control. I was about to claim her right there, in the dirt and the violet fire, to hell with the festival⁠—

BLARE.

The Great Horn of the Solstice cut through the air, a deep, bone-shaking note that seemed to vibrate the very ground beneath us. Lyra jolted, her head snapping toward the sound, her eyes wide with the sudden, jarring realisation of what that horn meant. The games were over. The dancing was done. The time for words had vanished.

The crowd around us dissolved into a frenzy of motion, half darting into the brush like shadows as the others let out a collective roar. The air grew cold and electric.

Lyra didn't pull away immediately. She lingered for one heartbeat, looking at the dark tree line and then back at me, her chest heaving with the same frantic anticipation that was burning through my veins. She reached up, her lips pressing a soft, searing kiss against my cheek.

"Catch me if you can, Huntmaster," she whispered with a mischievous, heartbreaking glint in her eyes.

Then she was gone. She slipped through my fingers like water and sprinted into the dark, dense forest, her silver fur catching the light of the rising moons one last time.

I stood frozen, a low, tectonic growl building in my throat. My claws unsheathed to their full length, my markings burning a lethal, predatory gold. I was hungry. I was focused. As I turned toward the trees, my lungs filled with the scent of jasmine, woodsmoke, and the invitation of the stars.

The Hunt was on. And I would not be denied.

Chapter 44

Lyra

Iwas running. My boots hammered against the damp, mossy floor, the impact jarring up my shins, and my lungs burned with the sharp, oxygen-rich air of the coming night. But my mind was moving even faster than my feet, a chaotic blur of panic and primitive, heart-stopping excitement.

I am insane. I am officially, scientifically, certifiably out of my mind. I had just dared an apex predator—a seven-foot-tall, super-strong, blood-slicked alien warrior—to hunt me in a forest he owned. Not just a warrior, but a man whose entire culture was built around the lethal efficiency of the chase. And the worst part? The part that made my pulse throb in my throat? I wanted him to catch me. I wanted to feel those heavy, clawed hands on my skin again. I wanted that look in his eyes—that dark, blown-out hunger that had nothing to do with diplomacy and everything to do with consumption—focused entirely on me. He looked like he was going to eat me alive.

And honestly? If he did, I’d probably thank him for the meal.

I tried to blame the fermented honey-wine that was still singing in my veins. I tried to blame the three moons hanging overhead like giant, glowing spectators, or the weird, magnetic pulse of the Alignment that seemed to be rewiring my nervous system to respond to the forest’s frequency. But as I sprinted through the undergrowth, dodging the low-hanging vines that felt like fingers brushing my hair, I knew those were just excuses. This planet, as deadly and strange as it was, was starting to feel more like home than Earth ever had. Because he was here. Because for the first time in my life, I wasn't an outcast, a scientist or a backup plan—I was a woman being sought.

I remembered the training about the Lumia-ferns. They were sensitive to touch, flaring into a brilliant, temporary violet glow when brushed against. Usually, a scout would avoid them to stay hidden, moving through the canopy to avoid leaving a trail. I did the exact opposite.

As I ran, I intentionally trailed my fingers through the ferns, watching them ignite in a shimmering trail of purple fire behind me. I knew he could track me by scent alone—I was probably a lighthouse of pheromones and fear in the darkness—but I wanted him to see the path. I wanted to lead him straight to me, to tease him with the evidence of my passage.

My breath began to hitch in my chest, my legs feeling like leaden weights. My heart pounded, and the adrenaline began to turn into a heavy, dragging fatigue. I dove behind a thick, broad-leafed shrub, pressing my back against the rough, ancient bark of a Great Tree to catch my breath.

All around me, the forest was alive. I could hear the distant thrum of the tribe's drums, a heartbeat for the world itself. Every few seconds, the canopy above rustled with a violent suddenness as hunters and their chosen mates swung through the heights, disappearing into the dark for their own private rituals.

Then, the silence hit.

It wasn't a natural quiet. It was the heavy, pressurised stillness that happened when the top of the food chain entered the room. The insects stopped chirping. The wind seemed to hold its breath. A twig snapped—deliberate, loud, and sharp—just a few yards to my left.

"I can smell your heart, Ly-ra," his voice drifted through the trees, a low, tectonic rumble that seemed to rise from the planet's roots.. "It is beating so fast..."

I shivered, a violent jolt of white-hot electricity shooting straight from my spine to the damp, aching heat between my thighs.