Page 52

"Let me help you," I whispered, my voice thick.

Kaelen’s eyes snapped to mine, his breath coming in rough, wet rasps. He was sweating, the moisture making his dark, reddish skin shimmer in the moonlight like polished mahogany. "Away," he choked out, his voice a ruin of its usual authority. "Ly-ra... run. I cannot... I will not break you."

"You won't," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. I thought of the dream—the phantom weight of him, the way he had claimed me in that hazy, silver world where our souls had blurred together. "In my dream, you took what you wanted. You marked me. I think I’d like to return the favour."

Kaelen’s pupils pulsed, his mouth falling open in a stunned, silent gasp that sucked the air from the space between us.

Slowly, deliberately, I sank to my knees on the rough, ancient bark of the branch. The height was dizzying, the wind whistling around us in the high canopy, but my focus had narrowed down to the man in front of me. My hands were shaking as I reached for the ties of his loincloth, the heavy, coarse furs rough against my skin.

"Let me help you," I repeated, almost shyly, looking up at him through my lashes.

Kaelen looked down at me, wide-eyed and speechless, a deep, vibrating growl starting in the base of his chest. As the furs fell away, I felt my own jaw drop. I had seen him before, but never with this kind of terrifying, focused proximity.

He was massive—a dark, imposing weight that seemed too large to be real. His length was thick and heavily ridged, the texture of the shaft complex and slightly pebbled, coloured a deep, bruised purple that contrasted sharply with the reddish hue of his thighs. It throbbed with a life of its own, the veins standing out like corded wire. The tip flared out into a blunt, impressive crown that caught the lunar light, emitting a faint, bioluminescent glow from beneath the skin.

Am I really going to suck off a fucking alien? I thought, a hysterical giggle threatening to bubble up. Yeah. Yeah, I am.

I looked back up at him. He was mesmerised, staring down at me as if I were a vision he was afraid to touch. His claws were still buried in his palms, drawing fresh silver. Gently, I reached up, cupping one of his bloodied hands with mine, my thumb stroking his wrist until he finally, painfully, uncurled his grip.

I leaned forward, the heat coming off him nearly overwhelming. I let my breath hitch against his skin before I flicked the very tip with my tongue.

Kaelen let out a violent, breathless shudder, a low growl vibrating through his entire frame. His knees buckled slightly, his head snapping back toward the moons as his spine arched.

I took him into my mouth, the sheer size of him stretching my lips wide as the heat of his body filled me instantly. He tasted of wood-smoke, salt, and something intoxicatingly sweet, like fermented nectar from the heart of the tree. I swirled my tongue around the flared ridge, tracing the shaft’s intricate, pebbled texture.

The ridges felt strange—exotic and stimulating—as I began to move my head in a slow, rhythmic pull. With every downward stroke, I felt him grow, the girth expanding against my cheeks and the length stretching further down my throat until I had to use my hand to guide the base. He was changing, reacting to the moisture and the suction with a primal intensity that made the golden markings on his thighs flare in time with every pulse of my tongue.

I sucked harder, my hand wrapping around the thick, dark base to squeeze as I pulled back. I could hear his breath hitching, turning into sharp, desperate gasps that synced with the frantic thrumming of the Pulse in the wood beneath us. Each time I licked the glowing tip, his hips gave a small, involuntary jerk, his hands reaching down to tangle in my hair, not to pull me away, but to anchor himself to the only thing keeping him from drifting into the fever.

Chapter 35

Kaelen-Thul

The world had narrowed to a single, localised point of exquisite friction. Usually, my mind was a chorus of the forest—I could hear the slow hum of the Home Tree’s sap, the distant skittering of night-gliders, and the constant, heavy thrum of the Great Alu’un Pulse that connected my people. It was a roar that never silenced.

But now, I heard nothing of the great wood. The Pulse was a ghost. My universe was composed entirely of her—the soft, broken hitch of her breath and the low, involuntary moans that vibrated against my skin.

I looked down at the crown of her head, the golden strands of her hair shimmering like liquid silk between my bloodied, trembling fingers. My mind, usually a fortress of strategy and cold logic, was a ruin of smouldering ash. How was this possible? How could this small, delicate creature—this human with her stubborn heart and fragile frame—possess a mouth that felt like a molten forge?

The heat of her was absolute. Every slide of her lips, every deliberate, agonisingly slow swirl of her tongue against the sensitive ridges of my shaft, sent a white-hot spike of lightning directly to the base of my spine. The way she used her small, pale hand to guide the base, her fingers squeezing with a desperation that mirrored my own heartbeat, made the blood in my veins roar until I was deaf to anything but the sound of her.

I was drowning in her, and for the first time in my life, I didn't want to swim. I wanted to sink.

My hips moved of their own accord, driven by an instinctive, primal demand for more depth, more of her. I felt the low, rattling growl in my chest turn into something raw and desperate. My hands, still slick with the cooling of my own blood, moved from the bark to the back of her head. I didn't want to hurt her—the thought made my stomach twist—but the fever demanded I take control of the rhythm. I gripped her hair, my fingers tangling in the gold, and I began to meet her movements with forceful thrusts that drew a muffled moan from her throat.

More. The word echoed in my skull like a war drum, deafening and relentless. I wanted to lift her, to pin her against the ancient trunk and claim her until the moons went dark and the stars fell from the sky. I wanted to feel her warmth around me entirely, to mark her so deeply that the forest itself would know the star-woman belonged to the Huntmaster and no other.

But I couldn't. Not like this. Not while the fever was a madness instead of a choice.

I was seconds away from the precipice, my entire body corded and shaking so violently the branch beneath us seemed to hum. The golden markings on my thighs were flashing with the blinding intensity of a dying star, and I could feel the pressure building at the base of my spine, the release coiled like a spring⁠—

And then, the forest spoke.

It was a faint shift of weight on a higher branch. My head snapped up, the movement jagged and sudden. My predatory senses, heightened to a terrifying degree by the arousal and the proximity of her skin, cut through the haze of pleasure like a sharpened blade. I peered into the dense, silver-lit foliage of the neighbouring branch, nearly fifty paces above and to the left.

For a heartbeat, I saw them. Two glowing, amber-yellow eyes, wide with shock and recognition, stared back at us from the dark.

I didn't know who it was. I couldn't distinguish a face or markings through the thick canopy. But those eyes—the same gold as my own—belonged to one of my people. Someone from the tribe was watching.