The Lesson
A deafening roar tore through her skull and set the rock vibrating. Jules snapped her eyes open. Bluish light sliced through the darkness, fracturing into a thousand shimmering droplets and bathing the rough walls in aquatic twilight. A cascading curtain of water sealed the cave entrance.
She lay on bare stone. Cold crept through torn denim into her bones.
Every fiber burned. Her ankle throbbed with the dull rhythm of the fall.
Jules braced on her palms and pushed herself up.
Her neck cracked. The memory of iron fingers clamped around her spine sent her pulse hammering against her ribs.
She wasn’t alone.
Heat hit her before she could make him out in the half-darkness.
Animal musk displaced the cool scent of water.
A physical pressure filled the space. Kore stood less than ten feet away.
Blue light slid over his dark skin. The cords of muscle on his thighs and chest looked carved from obsidian—tensed, built for destruction.
A wet black mane hung in his face, partially obscuring the glowing gold eyes that never left her.
His scaled tail dragged across the floor in a hypnotic sweep.
A wet slap tore through the roar. Kore dropped something.
It hit, slid across the wet rock, and came to rest directly in front of Jules’s knees.
Hot, metallic stench rose. Blood. Jules stared down.
An animal carcass. Bristly, ash-gray fur, big as a dog, but the anatomy was wrong—too many joints, bone ends too sharp where they jutted from the torn flesh.
The neck had been bitten through. Dark red liquid seeped from the wound and mixed with the spray.
A milky eye stared up at her from a twisted angle.
A growl rolled from Kore’s chest. He took half a step forward. Claws scraped against rock. He lowered his head. His leonine features hardened as he nudged the carcass with the back of his hand. The flesh slid closer. Blood touched the hem of her jeans.
Eat. The gesture needed no translation.
Jules’s stomach cramped. Sour bile rose. She swallowed hard. The smell of raw meat and torn innards choked off her breath.
Her survival instinct—stubborn, defiant, and damn near suicidal—snapped awake. The blue light washed away any thought of playing victim. She was freezing, every fiber hurt, and rage suddenly blazed hotter than fear.
Jules jerked her head up. Her gaze bored into his eyes. “Are you serious?” she croaked, hoarse from dehydration. She slid back, away from the pool of blood.
Kore growled. A demanding, impatient sound from deep in his throat. His tail struck the stone harder, the rough scrape of scales echoing off the walls.
“I can’t believe this.” Jules crossed her arms. Her torn top exposed her collarbones and the edge of her bra, but she refused to cower. She pointed at the gutted animal. “I got kidnapped by an alien lion and the bastard doesn’t have a damn gas grill.”
He bared his teeth. A soft hiss. He didn’t need her words to translate the tone. Rebellion.
Jules laughed dryly. She wrapped herself in sarcasm like armor. “Is this organic? You know, on my planet we cook our food. Or we nuke it in a microwave. I don’t eat anything that’s still staring at me.”
She pushed the carcass away with the toe of her shoe. The dead animal slid across the wet stone, back in his direction.
The air in the cave went still. The heat radiating from Kore condensed into a physical barrier. His features hardened to stone. The scaled tail stopped and tensed into a rigid cord of muscle.
He tilted his head. Those gold eyes scanned her face, searching for submission and finding naked defiance. The tendons in his neck stood out. He snorted—a sharp, annoyed burst of air. His patience with the noisy thing was exhausted.
But he didn’t attack. He turned away. The movement dripped with an arrogance that made Jules clench her teeth.
He offered her his unguarded back. Massive shoulder blades shifted beneath dark skin as he strode toward the waterfall.
Without a backward glance, he dove through the roaring curtain.
The water swallowed his silhouette in seconds.
He left her alone.
Jules didn’t hesitate a millisecond. The moment his presence faded, the leaden heaviness vanished from her limbs. Adrenaline ignited in her veins. Ice-cold, razor-sharp focus burned away the pain in her ankle and the nausea in her stomach.
Get out of here.
Her hands flew over the stone, hastily gathering what was left of her gear.
She grabbed the torn shirt she’d stripped off in the night and pulled it over her head.
The fabric was wet and cold, but at least it offered some protection against the elements.
A quick grab for the leather boots. The laces held.
Then her fingers slipped into the deep side pocket of her jeans. Cold, hard metal. The tracker. The encrypted beacon Jinx had pressed into her hand before the detonation. Undamaged. Jules closed her fingers so tight around the small device that the edges cut into her skin.
She cast one last look at the bloody carcass. “Choke on it yourself,” she whispered.
She turned and ran. Her boots found purchase on the wet rock. The roar of the waterfall became deafening, filling her entire skull as she charged toward the cascading blue curtain. She didn’t slow down. She threw her arms up to shield her face and plunged through the hammering torrents.
Cold. Hard. Merciless. The water ripped the air from her lungs as she forced her way through blind. Stones scraped her knees, tore the denim, scratched bare skin. She blinked the water from her eyes, stumbled forward, and landed on foul-smelling swamp ground.
The jungle atmosphere hit her like a sledgehammer.
The cool, clean cave air didn’t exist here.
The wet shirt immediately plastered itself to her ribs.
Jules didn’t stay down. She pushed herself out of the mud with her palms, hauled herself to her feet, and ran.
Her soles slipped. Thorny vines lashed her face, tearing burning welts into her cheeks.
She threw her arms up and stormed blindly into the green twilight.
Her fingers clenched around the tracker in her pocket. The metal was her anchor. Keep going. Just get away from the cave.
She didn't make it twenty meters.
The air above her thickened. A shadow blocked the sparse light filtering through the canopy. No thud of landing, no crack of branches. Only crushing weight plummeting from nowhere.
The impact knocked her off her feet. Jules slammed into the ground. Mud splattered into her mouth and nose. The force drove the last air from her lungs. Before she could gasp for breath, an iron hand flipped her onto her back.
Kore hadn't left. He'd been waiting.
The warlord pressed her into the muck. His armored chest lowered, pinning her to the earth. The heat of his dark skin burned through her soaked clothing. Jules's eyes flew open. She struck out wildly, hammering her fists against his shoulders, clawing at the corded muscles of his neck.
“Get off!” she screamed, spitting mud and water. “Don't touch me!”
Kore ignored the blows. His clawed fingers closed around her forearms like hot iron vises. With one fluid motion, he yanked her arms above her head and pinned them one-handed into the mud.
Jules writhed. Kicked her boots against his shins, tried to ram her knee into his groin.
A deep growl vibrated in his chest. Louder than before.
His tail shot forward. The scaled length glided like a striking viper between her legs.
Rough scales scraped hard over the inside of her thighs, tearing the denim further.
The tail wrapped around her right leg, dragged it outward, and wrenched her hip open.
At the same time, he pressed his knee onto her left thigh.
Jules's resistance collapsed. Legs forced apart, arms pinned above her head. She lay completely exposed beneath him, trapped between the mud and his weight.
Kore sank lower. The leather armor of his loincloth scraped over her lower belly. Beneath it, Jules felt the rigid length of his arousal. He pushed his hips forward, pressing that hard heat directly against her mound. The pressure was enormous.
A strangled sound scraped in Jules's throat. She tried to twist her hips away, but the tail tightened like an anchor. The friction burned against her soft skin. He didn't leave her a millimeter of space.
Kore bent his head. Wet black mane fell like a curtain around their faces, shutting out the rest of the jungle. His golden eyes glowed in the darkness, pupils narrowed to thin slits.
“Flight,” he growled. The words came out rough and choppy, but their meaning cut clear into her mind. “Small prey runs.”
“I'm not your prey,” Jules forced through clenched teeth. She held his gaze, even as her body trembled under the pressure. “I'll cut your throat while you sleep.”
Kore bared his teeth. A laugh formed deep in his throat.
He pushed his hips forward again. A slow, hard grinding motion that pressed Jules's pelvis deeper into the mud.
The friction sent an electric shock through her nerves.
Jules sucked in a sharp breath. Her body betrayed her.
The primitive, biological reaction to his dominance pushed the fear aside and sent a hot, insistent pull through her core.
He felt the trembling of her muscles, the racing pulse at her throat. His free hand slid over her hip. Claws cut through the wet shirt, tore the material without resistance, exposing her ribs. Rough fingers stroked bare skin. Not a caress. A claiming.
His hot tongue scraped over her neck. Jules closed her eyes. The saliva burned on the thorn scratches. He sucked in her scent, deep and greedy, mingling the stench of mud and sweat with his musk.
“Mine,” he growled against her ear. The bass vibrated through her skull.
He raised his head. His gaze fell on her left hand, still clenched on the ground. Between her fingers, the gray metal of the tracker glinted.
Kore's eyes narrowed. He scented something foreign on the material. Without another word, he released her wrists, grabbed her left hand, and pried her fingers open with rough, mechanical precision. Jules gasped as her joints cracked.
He took the tracker. The device looked tiny in his fist. He looked directly into her eyes.
No expression on his hard features. Then he closed his fingers.
The sound of splintering titanium and shattering circuits tore through the silence.
Circuit boards crunched, glass burst. Kore ground the metal to dust. He opened his hand and let the shredded remains fall into the mud beside Jules's face.
The signal was dead.
He braced himself over her again, the weight of his lower body still pressing demandingly against her. The scaled tail tightened around her thigh.
Jules stared at the wreckage in the dirt. Ice-cold reality closed like a fist around her mind. No escape. No Jinx. Only the mud, the heat, and the king of the jungle.