I step closer. Close enough that I can feel the heat of her small body. Close enough that the air between us is thick with her scent and mine.
I have been practicing these words since I was a boy. Every Xylan male learns the ancient words of claiming in puberty. I used to speak them in the empty tunnels of the mine when no one else was there, just to feel what they felt in my mouth. I used to whisper them into the dark of my empty bedroom, never daring to believe I would say them to a mate.
I open my mouth and speak them now.
The formal Xylan pours out of me, guttural and old and older than Timbur, older than Minecorp, older than anything we have built. It is the language of my ancestors on Chronos, before therewere laws and ceremonies and testing. Before we were civilized. I am saying that I claim her before the two moons and the stream and the old gods of our people. I am saying that I claim her as my Bride and the mother of my line. I am saying that I claim her until my two hearts stop beating. I am saying that she is mine.
She stands patiently and listens.
I see tears in her eyes even though she cannot understand a word of it. She understands the weight.
I reach the end of the words. My voice is rough now and my body is shakes. Every muscle is coiled tight. One last command. The one that starts everything.
“Run.”
She blinks up at me. “Run?”
“Run, my Bride.”
Her breath catches.
And then she turns and sprints into the jungle.
I force myself to stand still. One heartbeat. Two. I must give her a good head start. This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. My cock aches. My claws flex. I can hear her bare feet on the jungle floor, fast, determined, pushing through the undergrowth. She is running from me and hiding so I will have to work to claim her. She is giving me this gift.
Five. Six.
The first drops of rain hit my bare shoulders. Warm Timbur rain. The jungle fills with the soft sound of it hitting the canopy overhead.
Ten.
Her scent is still in the air where she stood.
Twenty.
I cannot wait any longer. I throw back my head and roar.
The chase is on.
I movethrough the jungle like I was born for it, because I was. My night vision picks up every leaf, root, and low-hanging vine. I chase after her, my own legs pumping as I run. Her scent is a bright trail in the darkness. Her bare feet have crushed moss, broken twigs and left little smears of her blood on the sharp rocks. She is faster than I expected. She is running like her life depends on it, arms pumping, legs driving her forward, and I can hear her short, sharp breaths.
The rain begins to fall harder.
I catch glimpses of her in the distance, through gaps in the dense jungle. Her dark hair is already wet. She darts left through a stand of giant ferny plants. I follow. She leaps a fallen log and I leap it behind her. She splashes through the stream.
Clever. Trying to lose my scent in the water. It doesn’t work. I can smell her anywhere now. I’m closing the distance. Three strides. Two.
She reaches another small clearing, a patch of soft moss where the canopy opens up and the rain falls in silver sheets through the two moons overhead.
I wrap my arm around her waist like a band of steel.
She shrieks.
I lift her off the ground.
“No!” my bride screams.
She twists, kicking, pounding her fists against my arm. She’s soaked. Her hair is slicked back and she’s glorious.
