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Gravity tried to claim me, but his arm was a band of warm iron across my waist, snatching me out of the air before I could hit the moss. The transition from hanging upside down to being hauled against his massive, solid frame made the blood in my head roar. My vision went white, then grey, then finally settled into a blurred reality of reddish skin and moving shadows.

He didn't put me down. He didn't even pause. With a guttural grunt that vibrated through his ribs and into mine, he lunged upward.

I let out a strangled gasp, my good hand clutching instinctively at the thick, corded muscle of his shoulder. My fingers sank into the furs he wore, and beneath them, his skin felt like sun-warmed stone—vibrant and humming with that strange, internal pulse.

We were ascending at a speed that defied human physics. He moved with a terrifying power, using the trunks of the iron-bark trees as if they were flat ground. He vaulted from one massive limb to another, his bare feet gripping the bark with prehensile ease, his black, sharp toenails clicking against the wood like points of flint. Every time he jumped, my stomach dropped into my boots. The forest floor receded until it was nothing but a distant, shimmering carpet beneath us.

As we climbed higher into the darkening canopy, I realised we weren't alone. Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw them. Other shadows, just as fast and just as silent, moved through the parallel branches. There were at least four or five of them. I caught the glint of more amber eyes and the flash of copper skin-markings through the thick leaves. They were communicating as they moved, a constant, eerie staccato of clicks and trills echoing through the heights.

Click-click. Whistle. Click.

It sounded like a hunt report. Were they discussing me?. They were trailing us like a pack of wolves following their alpha with the kill. One of them, a smaller male with a rough scar across his throat, swung close enough for me to see his sneer before he vaulted away into the mist.

I turned my focus back to the male holding me. Being this close was an assault on the senses. My face was pressed against the side of his torso, and as he moved, moonlight and bioluminescent moss filtered through the leaves, illuminating his skin.

Up close, the copper markings on his skin weren't just tattoos or pigmenthey were luminous—they swirled in intricate, geometric fractals across his forearms and chest, glowing brighter every time he exerted himself. They pulsed in time with his heart—a steady, driving beat that I could feel vibrating against my own ribs.

But I also saw the history of his violence. Across his ribs and trailing down his bicep were thick, raised welts—scars that didn't glow. Some looked like they had been made by claws similar to his own; others were uneven tears that suggested he’d survived encounters with things much worse than me. They were white against his skin, a map of survival etched into a body that seemed built for nothing but war.

"Stop! Put me down!" I choked out, the wind of our movement whipping my hair into a golden frenzy. My voice sounded pathetic against the roar of the forest.

He ignored me. His grip only tightened, his thick fingers pressing into the soft flesh of my hip. I could feel the sharp points of his black claws resting against my skin, a constant reminder of how easily he could end my life. I looked at his hands again, fascinated despite the terror. He had three digits—one powerful, opposable thumb and two thick fingers. They were alien, yet they held me with an unnerving precision. He wasn't just grabbing me; he was stabilising me, his tail providing a fifth point of contact as it wrapped around my waist to keep me from slipping.

Up here, the air grew thinner and cooler. The spicy scent of the floor gave way to something like night-blooming orchids and ozone. The canopy was a labyrinth of interconnected branches, some as wide as highways.

"Where... where are you taking me?" I asked, my voice trembling.

He didn't look at me. He swung across a gap between two trees, the sheer strength of his form carrying us across the void. "Home," he rumbled. The word vibrated low in his chest.

Finally, the frantic movement stopped. He stepped onto a wide, flat platform of living, woven wood that hung suspended in the clouds. He let go of me so abruptly I hit the floor with a dull thud, my head was spinning and my legs feeling like they were made of water. I clutched my dislocated shoulder, gasping as I looked up at him.

Standing on the platform, he seemed to block out the very sky. Now that I was at his feet, the scale of him was undeniable—he had to be at least seven feet tall, a towering monolith of muscle. His hair was windswept, framing a face that was beautiful in a way that felt dangerous. I looked at his feet—bare, powerful, and covered in the dust of the climb. Then my gaze travelled up past the furs at his waist, past the ridged scars on his belly, to those burning amber eyes.

I forced myself to crawl toward the edge of the platform, looking out over the side. My breath hitched. We were hundreds of feet in the air, but we weren't alone in the heights. Below this primary platform, nestled into the massive forks of the iron-bark trees, was an entire civilisation.

Dozens—no, hundreds—of smaller platforms and huts with rounded, leaf-thatched roofs were interconnected by a web of suspension bridges and thick, hanging vines. Fires that burned with a soft, blue flame glowed in the centres of some of the structures, casting long shadows of more of his kind. I could hear the collective hum of their voices—a low chatter of clicks and trills that rose up from the village like the sound of a living hive.

This wasn't just a nest. It was a city in the clouds.

"Stay," he commanded.

I looked back at him, ready to scream another protest, but he didn't give me the chance. Without a glance back, he walked to the very edge of the platform and leapt.

I scrambled forward, a cry catching in my throat, expecting to see him fall. But he didn't fall. He plummeted with controlled grace, catching a thick vine twenty feet down and swinging out of sight into the lower levels of the village, vanishing into the violet mists.

I was alone. I looked over the edge, the vertigo making my stomach turn. I was 300 feet up, I was broken, and I was stranded on a wooden island in the sky.

"Shit," I whispered, the wind pulling the word from my lips. "What now?"

Chapter 5

Kaelen-Thul

The air in the high canopy was thinner, cooler, but it did nothing to extinguish the riot in my veins.

I hit the secondary platform twenty feet below the Observation Deck, my knees absorbing the impact with the practised ease of a hunter who had lived his entire century in the vertical. I didn't look back at the creature I had left above. Though I could still smell her—that ozone-and-honey scent—clinging to the furs at my waist and the skin of my chest. It was a pollutant. It was a melody I couldn't stop humming.

As I strode toward the village's central hub, the silence was immediate and heavy. Then, the whispers began. My people, the Oru-Ka, emerged from their dwellings like shadows materialising from the mist. Amber eyes flickered in the dark, reflecting the copper glow of my skin as I passed.