Page 136 of The Hunter

Gradually, her breathing eased, evening out when her body fully relaxed. Only after she’d been asleep for a while did he dare move, lifting his hand from her pussy and bringing it to his mouth.

As though he hadn’t tormented himself enough, he licked her essence from his fingers, shuddering at the delectable taste.

And it is mine, for me. She is mine.

Despite his cock throbbing mercilessly against the walls of its cage, Telok eventually followed his mate into slumber.

CHAPTER 32

The hunt resumed the next morning. Telok and his companions picked up the kurghests’ trail where they’d left off, but the tracks had deteriorated further, making them more difficult to follow.

Their slow pace instilled Telok with buzzing, anxious restlessness. He knew the beast waiting at the end of this trail, the prime kurghest, was flesh, blood, and bone, but the longer it took to find it, the more images his mind created of a hulking, nightmarish monstrosity. His imagination was transforming his quarry into an impossible, ravenous creature the likes of which even the gods had struggled to slay in the old stories.

His only comfort came when the group returned to Tovuunshai that night, where he could again pretend there were no kurghests, no Tangle, only himself and Lacey.

While they lay in bed, Telok again explored his mate with his hands, discovering new spots and ways to touch that brought her pleasure. This time, he kept her face to face with him as he stroked her clit, watching her cheeks pinken, her lashes flutter, her lips part, and that lustful gleam make the green of her eyes darker in comparison.

The rain began just after her first climax.

And then he pleasured his mate with his tongue, her cries carrying upon the winds of the storm.

Suncrest came with clear skies that reflected in the moisture clinging to everything. The hunters were quiet as they gathered, frustration and disappointment apparent in their eyes and movements. Everyone knew what the rain meant, and it was confirmed when they trekked back into the jungle.

The trail they’d been following was gone, washed away by the nighttime storm.

Spreading out—but keeping well within sight of each other—they moved in the direction the tracks had been leading, searching for any remaining signs.

With each segment they traveled without finding anything, Telok’s chest grew tighter. He reminded himself that things like this happened frequently during hunts. Trails were lost, opportunities were missed, seemingly promising tracks led to nothing.

As midday passed and evening approached, it seemed the day would yield nothing. The hunters would trek back to Tovuunshai knowing only that their prey denned somewhere within this immense chunk of unforgiving jungle.

Until Elharat said he smelled something.

The odor struck Telok a heartbeat later. Rotting meat.

They followed the smell to a grisly discovery—the carcass of an unac, a predator as large as a female kurghest, surrounded by gore.

The beast was covered in savage wounds that had rent its hide and muscles and shattered bone. Half its skull had been crushed as if beneath unfathomable force, and some of its insides had spilled onto the ground. Despite the rain, much of the carcass and the surrounding vegetation was crusted with dark blood. It couldn’t have been dead for more than a day or two.

“This was the kurghests?” Lacey asked.

Unsettling heat skittered up Telok’s spine, arcing outward to trace wild, tangled paths through his body. “Their prime.”

“Fuck.” Cole crouched and poked at the unac with a stick, shifting some of its ruined hide. “It didn’t even eat this thing.”

“Because it is not food. It is a message. A claim.”

Garahk hummed, the sound low and resonating. “We must be near their den.”

“We must watch with all eight eyes,” Okkor warned.

“The hyu-nanz do not have eight eyes,” Elharat replied.

Okkor smacked the butt of his spear against the yellow-hided vrix’s hindquarters. “They see more with two than you with eight.”

Elharat huffed. “I see all.”

“You see little unless it is food,” Droztar remarked with a chitter.