5. The Watcher in the Jungle #2
The females' scents shift direction, carried on the jungle breeze. Soft vulnerability rolls through the circle like heat from an opening furnace. Pupils flare. Throats work. A collective, silent fight.
Want claws through us. It’s a clean, violent hunger, the kind that could swallow reason if we let it. But we remain hidden, breathing slowly, shoulders locked, every instinct screaming to take, to guard, to claim, and every instinct hammered back into stillness by sheer will.
This control separates true Xytheos warriors from ferals. Or it's supposed to.
Henrick Taylor stands with arms folded, radiating so much heat that the rain steams against his forearms. Every exhale carries the faintest hiss, like he holds flame behind his teeth.
Matro Jonsson stands pale and immaculate.
His crystalline armor casts thin shards of reflected starlight even in the gloom.
He studies the humans like a strategist studying a battlefield—angles, vulnerabilities, leverage points.
He gives me a single nod, a quiet acknowledgment from one commander to another.
My jungle is not to his liking. It’s too different from his biome.
He is vulnerable here, and escape would not be easy for him.
And then there’s the High Lord, Jarrett Davryn.
He stays back, partly veiled in shadow, but his gaze cuts clean through the clearing.
If Jarrett has come this close to me before the Ceremony, these particular women aren’t just valuable.
They’re irreplaceable. Jarrett collects courtwives—females who for various reasons can’t have a mate.
Like the other biome rulers, he has never been assigned a mate by the Concord Stone.
He arbitrates between lords. Inside the Green Reach, his word weighs exactly as much as I allow.
The Concord Council has found ways to increase its interference in other biomes.
Mine remains inviolate. Even with Vorak on my borders.
Liron leans closer to me. “You think the Stone will pair you with her? The one you watch more than the others?”
My only answer is in the way I keep counting the distance, recalculating every risk she faces, balancing it against my own restraint.
Liron watches the women move in their sleep. “If mine dreams of escape, I hope she tries,” he says. “I think I’d find the chase invigorating. Maybe one will run before the Claiming. I could stay to help you chase her down, Rythar.”
Before I can answer, Akran's wings ruffle, catching the mist. "Do not forget how easily human females break.
The last thing we need is a dead bride." He taps a gauntlet against his bracer.
"This is your command, Rythar. You know what happens if one of them is injured by a Xythean. Or escapes the Claiming."
“My memory is long,” I say. My voice is rough, and I’m not sure if my words are a promise or a warning.
But Vorak is nearby. Vorak should take it as a warning.
I do not trust any of these rulers, but I trust Vorak least of all.
There are males on the Concord Council who still think as he thinks.
Old code, from before the engineers learned better.
The kind who believe taking is the same as ruling.
Wyller’s gaze lingers too long on Elena. A low growl coils in my chest before I crush it. She is not mine. Not yet. Not even maybe. Wyller's look is not personal. It's the way of things. We are all curious about these New Terran women. I relax a little when his gaze is drawn to another.
Night deepens. The rain stops, then starts again, beading on leaves and armor, trickling down my spine and pooling at the base of my throat. The women sleep in shifts, one always awake, peering out into the dark as if she might spot the monsters before the monsters spot her.
She won’t.
At some point, Elena curls tighter, knees drawn to her chest, one arm wrapped around her ribs as if she’s shielding them from something in a dream.
The movement is slight, but it detonates a surge of protectiveness sharp enough to override command instinct.
I grit my teeth. Force my gaze away, then right back, as though my body is trying to disobey every rule I’ve carved into myself.
It would be so simple to step into the clearing, curl up next to her and give her heat, shield her from the wind, make the ground less cruel.
This is how unmated warriors go mad.
Heat knots low, my length a hard, primal demand straining against my breeches, an urge I leash down hard. I shift my stance, letting the shadows conceal what my body refuses to quiet.
Claimings drag up old fears. Like how easily a female could die in a jungle like mine, and how easily a warrior could lose what he wasn’t meant to want in the first place.
Duty brought me here tonight. Duty, and the wreck that tore open my territory.
Now, with scent in my lungs and hunger under my skin, I wonder if this was a mistake.
Elena is asleep, mouth parted, hair slipping across her cheek, soft in a way my world has never been. My need is still there, insistent, and beneath it, the dread I never escape.
I don’t want to want her. Wanting means risk. Wanting means loss. But I want her anyway. And when the Stone calls, I will answer. Whether it becomes a gift I don’t deserve… or a sentence I won’t survive.
My men begin to move in, silent. The other males fall back, one by one, until I’m left alone at the perimeter. Liron lingers just long enough to flick water from his cloak and say, “Claiming on schedule. Destiny at my leisure.”
Akran’s reply is soft. “All twenty of them have survived. May the Stone grant all of us a good match.”
I grunt, but my eyes are already back on Elena.
She’s still dozing, head angled just enough to expose the delicate line of her neck.
I look away as the other ruling males withdraw into the trees to prepare for the Claiming.
To ease tension. I don’t follow, though I have many hidden spots in my jungle.
I wouldn’t trust my hands—or my thoughts—to go near the heat running through me.
Not when it’s her scent that lit it, and she is so near.
I turn my attention to patrol routes. I count them twice. I still know exactly where she is.
I pull my helmet down over the upper half of my face, sealing it into place like armor against my own instincts. I will ready the women. I will escort them. That is my charge. I am permitted nothing else.
But beneath the discipline, a darker truth twists in my gut—not fear of wanting her, but fear of what wanting her would demand of me. Of what it could cost both of us.
And if the Stone chooses Elena for me, nothing in this jungle, not custom, not rank, not war, will stop me from claiming her as my Starfallen Bride.