Chapter 12
T he jungle swallowed them almost immediately after they left the narrow strip of black-sand beach. No gentle transition, no friendly palms or soft moss.
The interior of the island rose in jagged coral ridges that had been thrust upward centuries ago by whatever tectonic violence birthed this place, then colonized by life that obeyed none of Earth's rules.
Greta's bare feet suffered first. The coral was sharp, porous, and unforgiving; every step sent fresh cuts across her soles. Without scales, there was nothing to blunt the pain or protect the tender skin.
She hissed through her teeth but kept moving, one arm wrapped awkwardly across her breasts, the other hand trying to shield the more vulnerable parts lower down. The air itself felt wrong—thick, humid, carrying a faint metallic tang that coated her tongue.
Klari moved ahead of her with the fluid confidence of something born to hunt on any terrain. His own scales— deep indigo shot through with silver—caught the filtered light and seemed to drink it in.
He didn't glance back often, but when he did, it was to check her progress... and his golden eyes lingered a fraction longer than necessary on the curve of her bare back, the way her hips moved despite the pain.
"Keep your steps light," he said without turning. His voice was low, almost conversational. "The ridge ahead will give us better sightlines."
"Easy for you to say," Greta muttered. A cluster of waxy, broad-leafed plants brushed against her thigh as she passed.
Their surfaces were slick and faintly warm, glowing with a soft inner bioluminescence—pale teal veins pulsing slowly, as if the leaves had hearts.
She jerked away, the contact too intimate, too alive. But she couldn't help noticing how Klari's scales gleamed in the same filtered light, the way the silver ridges along his spine shifted with each powerful step.
The undergrowth thickened. Things skittered through it: insect-like creatures with too many legs, segmented bodies that gleamed like wet obsidian. Some had translucent wings folded along their backs; others dragged long, feathery antennae that tasted the air.
One paused on a pulsing berry cluster, its mandibles working at the fruit. The berry itself swelled and contracted rhythmically, like a tiny lung breathing. When the creature bit in, the berry released a puff of violet spores that drifted upward in lazy spirals.
Greta's stomach turned. Beautiful, yes. And deeply, deeply alien.
She stumbled on a root that twisted like a vein just beneath the soil. Klari caught her elbow before she fell, his grip firm but not bruising. His hand was cooler than hers, the scales smooth and dry.
For a second she felt the contrast sharply—his armored strength against her soft, exposed vulnerability. The touch lingered a heartbeat too long; she was acutely aware of the heat of her own skin against his cooler scales, the way his claws hovered just shy of pricking her.
Then he released her.
"Here," he said, nodding toward a coral ridge that curved upward into a natural overhang. Dense vegetation screened the mouth of the shallow cave, creating a pocket of shadow.
“Are there any… clothes?” she asked timidly.
He scanned the area once, then stripped several of the broad waxy leaves from a nearby plant with quick, efficient motions. The leaves came away with a soft tearing sound, trailing faint threads of glowing sap.
He held them out to her.
Greta took them, cheeks burning. “It’s not Chanel but I guess it’ll do.”
She turned slightly away—not that it mattered—and draped the largest leaf across her front, tying the flexible stems awkwardly at her hip and shoulder.
Another went around her waist like a makeshift skirt. The material was cool and slightly tacky, clinging where it touched skin. It wasn't much, but it was something.
Klari watched the entire process with a focused intensity that made her pulse quicken. His golden eyes traced the way the leaf conformed to the curve of her breast, how her human nipples tightened in the cooler air beneath the overhang, how the makeshift covering shifted when she moved.
There was fascination there, yes—but also a flicker of something hotter, more primal, beneath the appraising gaze. He didn't leer, but he didn't pretend not to notice her as a female.
When she was done, he gave a single nod of approval and lowered himself to sit against the coral wall, one knee drawn up, tail curled loosely around his ankle. Greta hesitated, then sank down a few feet away, wincing as her cut feet met the ground.
She’d insisted on walking. Now she regretted it. Not that she was about to let him know that.
The sounds from the water filtered up through the rock—those distant clicks, the low thrumming call that seemed to travel through the island's bones.
She drew her knees to her chest, hugging them. Exhaustion pressed down on her like wet sand. "They're still out there, aren't they?"
Klari tilted his head toward the sea, listening. "They’re always out there. Three of them. Maybe two, if they’re already killing each other. Not close enough to strike yet. But the tide is shifting."
Greta let out a shaky breath. "How long before they come up here?"
"Minutes? Hours? Hard to tell." His tone was matter-of-fact, almost clinical.
"Land doesn’t play to their strengths and they avoid weakness at all costs.
They're built for the deep channels and the kelp hollows.
The coral tears at their fins; the air dries their gills too fast. But they're patient.
They'll wait for you to return to the shoreline when thirst or hunger drives you. "
The words landed like stones in still water. Greta stared at the pulsing berry cluster visible through the screen of leaves. One of the multi-legged creatures was dragging a smaller one into a crevice, the victim still twitching.
"So my options are: die slowly on a beautiful alien island," she said, voice cracking into a short, exhausted laugh, "or go back in the water where five predators are waiting to assault me. Great. Really spoiled for choice here."
Klari’s expression shifted. The hard line of his mouth softened by a fraction—not quite a smile, but something closer to acknowledgment.
The faint inner light of the waxy leaves painted shifting patterns across the scales of his face.
His gaze dropped briefly to the leaf covering her lap, then back to her eyes.
"Three," he corrected quietly. "Not five."
“Three?”
“Three predators. I killed one and I will never harm you. So, it’s three, not five.”
A small silence fell between them, the first real one since the chaos of the water. The thrumming call from the sea rose and fell, almost like a question.
Greta studied him properly then. Not scanning for immediate threat, not calculating escape routes. Just looking.
He was massive even seated—broad shoulders, powerful chest plated in interlocking scales that shifted from deep indigo at the edges to a metallic silver along the ridges. Scars crossed his torso in pale lines: old battles, old victories.
His tail, thick and muscular, rested with deceptive calm, gently curled about her left ankle. And those eyes—golden, slit-pupiled—watched her with that same intensity, now laced with unmistakable male appreciation for the soft lines of her human body.
"How long have you been doing this?" she asked. The question had been burning in her since the kelp hollow, when he'd pulled her from the others' grasp. "How many games? "
Klari didn't answer right away. He reached out and plucked one of the smaller pulsing berries from a nearby vine, rolling it between clawed fingers. The berry glowed brighter under his touch, then dimmed.
"Longer than most who survive," he said finally. His voice had dropped lower, carrying a weight she hadn't heard before. "This is my seventh."
Greta's head snapped up. "Seventh?"
He met her gaze steadily. "The first was... different. I was younger. Arrogant. Thought the rules were simple: hunt, claim, win. The female that cycle was from one of the outer reef clans. Strong swimmer. She fought well." A pause. "She didn't survive the claiming. Few do."
The admission hung in the humid air. One of the multi-legged creatures skittered across the overhang ceiling, its too-many legs clicking softly against the coral.
Greta swallowed. "Why tell me that?"
"Because you asked." Klari crushed the berry absently; violet juice stained his claws.
His eyes traced the line of her bare shoulder where the leaf covering had slipped slightly, lingering on the smooth skin there.
"You're… raw. Every sensation hits you without armor.
The coral cuts deeper. The air chills you faster. The fear tastes different on you."
He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, closing some of the distance between them. The air between their bodies felt warmer. "I watched you earlier. The way you didn't scream when the first wave of pain hit after the change. Most break faster. You haven't broken yet."
Yet.
Greta gave another tired laugh, but it sounded thinner this time. "Give it time. No fresh water, no safe food. I'm already shaking from the cold and the cuts. How long until I start begging to go back in the water just to end it? "
Klari’s gaze didn't waver. His eyes flicked down to the faint tremble in her arms, then back to her face.
There was heat in that look—subtle, but present.
"That's what they count on. The others in the water—they'll circle.
But once you're in, it's over. The game ends with the strongest claiming the prize. "
"And you're the strongest?" she challenged, though her voice lacked heat. She was too aware of how close he sat now, the clean, briny scent of him cutting through the metallic air.
A flicker of that almost-smile again. "I killed one already. The others know it. They'll test me before they test you directly. But yes. For now."
Greta pulled the leaf tighter around her lap, wincing as sap stuck to a fresh cut on her thigh. The pain was sharp, immediate—no buffer of tough hide.
She could feel every heartbeat in the wounds, every shift of air across her exposed skin. Vulnerability wasn't just emotional here; it was physical, constant, grinding. Yet under his gaze, that vulnerability felt strangely... charged.
"Why do you do it?" she asked after a moment. "The games. If so many die... if you've done six before and they're all dead or... whatever happens after."
Klari was quiet long enough that she thought he might not answer. Outside their shelter, another thrumming call rolled through the island, closer this time. One of the rivals testing the boundary between sea and land.
"Status," he said at last. "Power. The right to breed true lines.
The Council of my species send their males here, to these Games, as a way to filter out the weak.
The males who win get to pass on their genes.
Losers... fade. Or challenge again next cycle.
" He gestured vaguely at the alien foliage around them.
"This island is neutral ground. Ancient.
The bioluminescence you see? It's not just pretty.
The plants store energy from the twin moons.
The berries pulse with it. The skitterers feed on the excess.
Everything here is tied to the cycles of the games. Even the island waits."
Greta stared at the glowing veins in the leaves overhead. "And the females? Do they ever get a say?"
"Some try." His tone turned dry. "Most realize quickly that fighting the current only drowns you faster."
She looked at him sharply. "Is that what you tell yourself when you drag the next one under?"
Klari didn't flinch. "I don't lie to myself, Griita.
I killed to reach you. I'll kill the rest if they force it.
But I'm not pretending this is gentle." He tilted his head, studying her again with that unsettling fascination, now mixed with clear male interest. "Your vulnerability interests me.
The way your skin flushes when you're angry or afraid.
The way your pulse jumps here—" He ran his fingers over her throat, sending a shiver through her.
"—when the thrums get louder. No scales to hide it.
No gills to regulate the fear. It's... honest."
"Honest," she repeated bitterly. "Great. So I'm a fascinating science experiment while I slowly die of exposure."
Another short silence. The skittering creatures had quieted, as if listening too.
Klari shifted closer and his tail wrapped tighter around her leg, up to her knee. The space between them shrank; she could feel the cool radiate of his scaled body against her warmer human skin.
He tore another broad leaf and pressed it gently against the worst cut on her foot, stemming the slow ooze of blood. The sap stung, then numbed slightly.
His claws brushed her ankle, sending an involuntary shiver up her leg that had nothing to do with pain .
"Not an experiment," he murmured, voice lower, rougher. "A variable I didn't expect in the seventh game. Most females are still terrified of me by now. You… You’re not."
Greta watched his clawed hand work with surprising care. Her pulse kicked harder under his touch. "I hate the situation. The game. But you rescued me. You saved me." She let out a breath. "But how long before those males decide to come looking for me?"
He didn’t answer. Not again. Because they could come at any time.
She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the alien symphony around them: the pulsing plants, the clicking skitterers, the distant predatory calls from the sea. Her body ached all over.
Naked vulnerability pressed in from all sides—no clothes, no scales, no safety. Yet when she opened them again, Klari's gaze was still on her—protective, predatory, and undeniably attracted.
"Seven games," she said softly. "And you're still here."
"For now." He withdrew his hand from her foot, the leaf sticking lightly in place, but not before his fingers grazed her calf in a lingering pass. "The question is whether you'll still be here with me when the others make their move."
Greta didn't answer. She simply pulled the makeshift coverings tighter and listened to the island breathe around them, beautiful and merciless, while three hunters waited patiently in the water below.
The charged quiet stretched between them, thick with unspoken tension. Knowing at some point she would have to choose.
Him… or one of the others.