Page 15 of The Hunter's Mate

I’m going to win this fight and snatch my freedom from the jaws of an alien invasion.

I step outside of the shed and do a sweep of my surroundings before I go to pee in the grass, keeping my eyes peeled. I sense Nyrik as I’m pulling up my pants—a glimmer of yellow eyes in the dark, the snap of a twig in the brush. I yank up my pants and level my crossbow at him, and then he emerges from the shadows in all his reptilian glory.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “I thought we were competing.”

“I’m…” He pauses, his tongue flicking out past his jaws. “Checking in.”

I raise my brows and cock my head to one side. “Is that so? Is it common for you to check in on your opponents?”

He stares at me, his gaze calculating. I’m confident he could catch this thing in a heartbeat if he wanted to—and that he almost definitely knows exactly where it is—but he’s acting like we’re on equal footing here when he’s already caught the creature once before.

“I realized this was not…fair,” he says. “You have no armor—no defenses, no prior knowledge of this creature.”

“So you came to educate me rather than letting me lose?”

Nyrik blinks slowly, a distinctly alien expression that reminds me jut how different he is, even if I feel a strange kinship with him.

“I came to help you,” he says.

I narrow my eyes. “Why?”

“Because this is a test for you, not for me,” he says. “If you catch the creature, you’ll have proved your worth; I could take you with me back to Wildervane—”

“Whoa, whoa,” I say, putting my hands up. “I thought you were going to let me go.”

Nyrik takes a step closer, his tail twitching.

“I have thought about this over this past day,” he says. “I have thought long and hard…and I do not think I wish to be parted from you.”

My eyes widen. “What does that mean?”

Another step. My breath quickens.

“It means I have tasted you…and I already long for more,” he says, his voice a low growl.

He suddenly lunges forward and takes me by the waist with one clawed hand, his head bending so his tongue can skate over my neck. I tilt despite myself, giving him better access rather than pulling away, and the feeling of his tongue and his breath on my skin leaves me needy.

He pulls away slightly, until I can see the golden sheen of his eyes.

“You long for me, too,” he concludes.

“I don’t,” I bite out.

“Your words are meaningless,” he says. “I can taste your desire in the salt on your skin, and in that delicious scent coming from between your legs. You long for me. You wish to be mated by me, plundered, conquered—”

“I don’t need your help,” I cry, wrenching myself away.

My voice echoes in the cypress cathedral overhead.

Nyrik lets out a strange sound: a drone that comes from his throat like a bullfrog. And that low, deep, resonant sound…it makes me wet.

I clench my thighs together.

“You’re doing something,” I mutter. “Stop it.”

“Merely calling out to my mate,” he says.

“Stop—”