Chapter 7 #2
The air is fresh and clean and clear, so many things that have been lost to my kind in recent years.
I jump from seven stories up. The fall is a thrill that spikes my adrenaline.
My boots bury in the dirt, sinking from my weight.
When I get a good look at the females running all around the arena, my Inferno figures out what’s happening.
Some females hide. Many give chase to other males. A few fight back the ones they don’t want.
My spark arrestor beeps rapidly. I don’t give a damn. The female scent is…addicting.
I run toward the chaotic mass among other males: princes, kings, generals, pilots, infantry, hunters, and more. A few males wear Abr suits, likely because they have no armor.
I bet they have money.
Many males return to primal instincts, dropping to all fours and charging through the crowd like animals.
Brynna’s dark hair flashes in the crowd and vanishes again. I collide with another male. We shove each other apart and keep running.
She’s here. I know it’s her, not just by sight, but in the way my Inferno surges like a wildfire tornado. The validation fuels my legs, and I plow through the males and females, sprinting across the grassy fields, focused on one thing: making her mine.
Brynna darts through the mass and then vanishes into the trees with a few other women. Several of us males break away from the group and chase them.
When the other women running with Brynna catch glimpses of me, their eyes widen, and they immediately change course, heading in any other direction.
It’s easy to take it personally. But I am used to others being afraid of us. It just stings a little more when I’m here to find my mate.
But they aren’t her. So I let it go.
Until doubt creeps in again that Brynna will even look at me twice.
Based on the map, she’s headed in the direction of the shorter hills that lead back to the bamboo forest and eventually the short beach around the backside of the largest hill Abr calls Mount Milli. The first woman to reach the summit wins. If she reaches it without a male.
Brynna isn’t headed that way.
She wants a mate.
I find my focus again as a Ginarigon darts toward her through the trees. I sprint hard and catch up with him,
“She’s mine! She has an orange band!” He tries to knock me off course, but I flare up and throw a shoulder into him. He stumbles and breaks away for a different female, proving to me he isn’t concerned about who he hunts, just what.
I snarl at him. You don’t deserve her.
Brynna has sacrificed a lot to do what she does, helping species like mine. She deserves to be cherished and protected, not used as an offspring factory.
The thought makes me wonder if I even want my own hatchlings. I’m not sure I do, not in this world. Not until my colonies are safe.
Not until Brynna is safe.
A Leosanti male parallels her up ahead. His armor is smooth and flawless white. His wing sheen is more angelic, mine more demonic.
Brynna would be happy with him. Safe. Not at risk for being burned.
But they have unusual mating rituals with lots of formalities, and he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t searching for an ornament for his side. Brynna is more than a pretty face. She’s smart. She needs to be able to keep doing what she loves, not serving as a cog in someone else’s glittery machine.
As he cuts through the brush on a crash course with her, I have to pick up my pace.
When he sees me, he breaks off a tree branch, simply by smashing into it, and swings it back at me.
I duck and slide underneath it, then get up and keep running, barely glancing over my shoulder to make sure I haven’t set the forest on fire.
I could. Easily.
Eluni’s spark arrestor can only hold back so much. I learned that with Aura’s arrestor when I was here last.
The Leosanti chases me as we sprint up a rise in the hills, and I can’t believe Brynna’s keeping up her pace. She’s not frail because she lives on a ship in space, which tells me she trains even with everything else she has going on.
As we reach the crest of the hill, Brynna disappears down the other side, and I wish I had use of my wings.
The Leosanti catches up to me. He’s lighter and faster. But I have mass and anger. I throw my body sideways, into his. He swears, skids to the left, and staggers down the hillside, away from her.
I continue after Brynna. But when I crest the ledge, I can’t see her anywhere.
There’s a feminine scent on the breeze, only one. I’ve never caught her scent before because I always had my mask on, but it pervades my body with ruthless force, commanding me down the hillside among the boulders. She is here, somewhere, hiding.
I listen for her breathing, for signs of other males, for a stronger whiff of her floral musk. In the back of my mind, I know the musky notes. She’s nearly in heat.
My Inferno fumes because we have lost her, but it knows she is nearby. Closing my eyes for a moment, I try to rein it in. It wants her badly, but I cannot take her. I won’t. But as sure as there is hellfire in Magmium, I want her for myself.
Where are you, little female?