Page 32 of The Huntmaster

"Round... six legs... a yellow stripe on its back," she whispered, her voice already beginning to slur as the neurotoxin hit her system. Her eyes were unfocused, her head lolling back against my arm.

My blood turned to ice. "A Sun-Stinger."

"Is that... bad?" she asked, a small, delirious laugh escaping her. "Everything here is named so... dramatically."

"It is lethal," I growled, the urgency turning my voice into a snarl. "The poison paralyses the heart within minutes. I have to suck it out now, or you will not see the dawn. Do you understand me? You will die."

"Just... fucking do it," she wheezed, her hand clutching my shoulder with a weak, desperate grip.

I didn't hesitate. I pushed her onto her back, my large hands gripping her thighs. The charcoal leather of her wrap-skirt was pushed aside, and I forced her legs apart to get to the wound. My hands covered the majority of one thigh, her skin feeling like heated velvet against my calloused palms.

The bite was high—dangerously high, near the very apex of her inner thigh, where the skin was thinnest and most sensitive.

I leaned down, my face inches from the heat of her core. I pressed my mouth to the puncture wound and pulled. The taste was bitter, acrid—the burning, metallic sting of the Sun-Stinger venom. I spat the black-tinged fluid onto the moss and returned immediately, digging my fingers into her soft flesh to squeeze and force the poison toward the surface.

I did it again and again, my focus absolute, my mind narrowed to the task of keeping her heart beating. I could feel her pulse thrumming against my lips, frantic and fading. But as the crisis passed, as the silver-black tint began to fade from the wound, the silence of the thicket returned, heavy and suffocating.

The scent hit me then—the raw, intoxicating musk of her, intensified by her fear, her sweat, and the heat of the forest. It wasn't just the floral oil anymore. It was her—the S'va—the essence of her womanhood, blooming just inches from my face.

A low, primal growl rumbled deep in my chest, a sound of pure, unadulterated hunger that I couldn't suppress. I froze, my face still buried against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, my breath hot and heavy against her. The smell did something to my Pulse that no training, no council, and no law could contain. It woke the beast I had been told to cage for the sake of my people.

I felt her breath hitch—a sharp, breathless gasp that told me she had regained enough clarity to realise exactly where I was, and exactly what my face was pressed against. She was disoriented, her body limp from the lingering venom, but her skin was beginning to flush with a different, more dangerous kind of heat.

I should have pulled away. I should have stood up, wiped my mouth, and been the stoic Huntmaster. But the star-woman’s scent was a drug, and I was starving for a taste of the fire she carried.

I tilted my head, my lips brushing the very edge of the shadow between her legs, the friction of my markings sparking against her skin. My voice was a desperate, tortured rasp when I spoke, the words vibrating against the most private part of her.

"Ly-ra," I groaned, my eyes lifting to meet hers, dark with a need that bordered on physical agony. "May I... have a taste?"

Chapter 20

Lyra

The world was a fractured mosaic of violet shadows and the heavy thrum of Kaelen’s heart against my own. My brain felt as though it had been spun from cotton candy—light, sticky, and rapidly dissolving. The Sun-Stinger venom had left a lingering, honey-like haze in my veins, a delicious, heavy numbness that turned the damp moss beneath me into a cloud and the terrifying forest into a dreamscape.

But then his voice hit me, and the dream sharpened into a singular, piercing point of reality.

“May I… have a taste?”

The words vibrated against the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, a low-frequency hum that travelled straight into the marrow of my bones. I stared down at him, my vision swimming, trying to process the request through the fog. The great, stoic Huntmaster—the man who had looked at me with such icy disdain only days ago—was currently anchored between my knees, his face centimetres away from the most private part of me.

His large, calloused hands were still gripping my thighs, his thumbs digging into my soft flesh with a possessive, grounding weight. I could feel the furnace-heat of his breath—heavy, ragged, and smelling of that dark, intoxicating spice—billowing against my core.

He growled then, and it wasn't the sound of a predator about to strike. It was a deep, guttural vibration of pure, unadulterated hunger, a sound of a man drowning in a need he could no longer fight. It buzzed against my skin, sending a frantic, electric jolt through my nervous system that made my breath hitch in a sharp, broken gasp.

"Kaelen... please."

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, a raw, breathless plea that hung in the humid air between us. I should have said no. I should have pushed him away and demanded we return to the safety of the Great Tree. But the haze was too thick, and the heat radiating from him was the only thing keeping the cold dread of the forest at bay. I told myself it was the neurotoxins. I told myself I was delirious, dying, or simply lost in the madness of this planet. If I said yes, I could blame it on the Sun-Stinger. I could blame it on the atmosphere. I could blame it on the fact that he was the only thing in this godforsaken world that made me feel alive.

He didn’t hesitate. He surged forward, and the world dissolved into pure, shocking sensation.

When his mouth finally made contact, I thought my heart might actually stop. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced in the world I left behind. His skin was so much hotter than a human’s, and the friction of his gold markings against my inner thighs felt like tiny sparks of static electricity dancing over my nerves.

His mouth was a brand of impossible heat against my core. The first touch of his lips was a soft, searing pressure that made my entire body jolt. His breath, hot and smelling of dark spice and the forest, washed over me, and then his tongue—his forked tongue—flicked out.

Oh, god.

It wasn’t one point of contact. It was two. Two separate, nimble, scalding points of wet fire that moved with a devastating, alien precision. The twin tips traced the outer lips of my pussy, a slow, maddening exploration that had me gasping, my fingers flying to fist in the thick, dark silk of his hair. He growled again, the sound vibrating directly against my clit, and I cried out, my back arching off the ground.