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Before she even realized what she was doing, Maya’s body shifted, swiveling in one unsteady motion. Her pulse hammered. Not with fear. Not exactly. More like a compulsion that wrapped around her ribs and squeezed.

Get away. Move. Run .

Her skin flickered. Camouflage. It activated without thinking, her form blending in and out with the sunlit trees behind her, light bending around her body like she was caught in a heat shimmer.

Riv’En pushed up onto his elbows, still coughing, eyes snapping to her in that sharp, unblinking way of his. But she didn’t stop to look. Didn’t wait for him to say aword.

Her breath caught, her pulse screaming in her ears. And sheran.

The jungle loomed ahead, dark and green and thick with heat.

She tore into it, feet pounding against damp earth, branches slapping her arms and legs.

Her skin flickered again, fading in and out as instinct took over completely.

Not just to flee. To hide. To pull away and make him chase. Make himfind.

Every step sounded too loud, every breath too sharp. And yet it recognized the rightness of it, the necessity. Her heart ached with it, lungs burning not from the run but from something else. Something she didn’t have wordsfor.

Behind her, afaint rustle. Asound she shouldn’t have been able to hear over her own breath and pounding feet. But sheknew.

Riv’En was coming.

A wild, half-hysterical laugh slipped past her lips, unbidden. Her body moved faster. Her skin shimmered again, blending perfectly into the green shadows aroundher.

It wasn’t fear anymore. It wasn’t escape.

It was need.

Maya ran deeper into the jungle, breath sharp in her throat, skin shimmering in and out of visibility.

Energy coiled tight behind her ribs, as if her whole body had shifted into overdrive.

Every step became electric, each stride driven by something bigger than fear alone. Something she couldn’tname.

Behind her, branches rustled. Leaves shifted. Awhisper of motion so exact it wasn’t even sound—just pressure. Presence. She didn’t look back. She didn’t needto.

Riv’En was there.

A delighted laugh escaped her, half- visceral, half-wild.

Her body came alive, sharp-edged with sensation.

Every breath tasted like sunlight and salt and something deeper, something she couldn’t name but didn’t want to question.

Her skin prickled with heat, each step sending a jolt through her veins like electricity.

It wasn’t just adrenaline. It wasn’t fear.

It was elation, pure and unfiltered, arush so fierce it made her teeth ache from holding it in.

She didn’t understand it, didn’t care to.

She just reveled in it, in the wildness pounding through her blood as her camouflage flickered unrestrained, blending perfectly into the shadows one second, her pale skin flashing bright thenext.

She dove low beneath a twisted vine, breath rasping as she ducked into thicker undergrowth. Branches clawed at her arms, dirt slick beneath her feet. Her pulse didn’t slow. It thundered faster. Her mouth tasted of something sharp, like adrenaline mixed with the heat of a flavor she couldn’tname.

Her heart raced so fast, like it wasn’t her body anymore.

Anticipation mixed with a dizzy kind of joy that left her chest aching and her legs burning.

It wasn’t just running. It was more. Bigger.

Wilder. And beneath that, euphoria so bright it bordered on delirious.

Every scrape against her skin, every drag of air into her lungs became amplified, like the whole world had narrowed to this single, wild moment.

She didn’t know why it felt so good—to run, to be chased.

To know Riv’En was right behind her, relentless and inevitable.

But she did know she never wanted it toend.

Maya stopped only when she found a hollow between two massive tree roots, crouched low, body folded tight. Her skin shifted again, blurring into the bark. She went still. Completely still. Waiting.

Her breath slowed. Her ears strained.

Footsteps. Slow. Substantial.

Then she saw him.

Riv’En emerged from the trees like he owned them.

His skin shimmered faintly, light bending around him, but not fully until he released his camouflage.

The sun caught on his long black hair, loose and wild, flowing past his shoulders like dark, wet silk.

Every step he took made the strands shift and ripple, framing a face that was all sharp lines and dangerous beauty: high cheekbones, straight nose, mouth cut with brutal accuracy.

His mouth. The one she’d kissed. Hard and rough, and still a distinct memory on herlips.

His eyes were the most impossible thing—brilliant ebony, glowing faint and fierce. Unblinking. Focused entirely onher.

Her gaze drifted lower. Across the sweep of his broad chest, bare now, smooth and marked with faint lines of old battles, skin stretched over muscle so hard it looked sculpted.

His shoulders flexed as he moved, arms hanging loose at his sides but with an unmistakable threat in every line.

Power, pure and coiled. His torso tapered to a lean waist, hard planes giving way to the brutal strength of his abdomen.

And lower still.

He wore nothing.

Her breath caught hard in her throat.

Riv’En wasn’t just naked. He was unapologetically male.

His cock hung thick between his meaty thighs, long and thick, adeeper bronze than the rest of his skin.

The shaft wasn’t smooth. It was encircled with small golden-brown mounds, each one pulsing in a slow, convoluted rhythm that made her breath catch.

They weren’t random. They moved like they followed some pattern only his body knew.

Her gaze flicked higher, to the top of his shaft where a knot formed, larger, darker.

It wasn’t human. It wasn’t even close. But it wasn’t strange, either. It was mesmerizing.

Beneath, his balls hung low and full, darker than the rest of him, the skin stretched tight and marked with the same faint iridescent shimmer she’d glimpsed when he moved through the light.

The shape of him wasn’t just anatomy. It was purpose.

Function. Power carved into every line. And the way he carried himself—utterly without shame, totally under his command—told her that whatever those markings meant, whatever that knot was for, it wasn’t just decoration.

It was inescapable.

Her pulse stuttered hard in her throat, heat crawling down her spine as she drank him in, unable to lookaway.

She could see him because he’d dropped his camouflage.

She was still hidden, but her own shimmer was faltering.

The harder her pulse kicked, the hotter her skin burned, the harder it became to hold her camouflage steady.

Every flicker became a frustrating betrayal.

Like her body wanted him to find her. Wanted him to seeher.

Her chest ached with how badly she wanted him to find her.

To reach her. To strip away whatever thin barrier still existed between them.

Every flicker of camouflage turned into a battle she wasn’t sure she wanted to win, her skin trying to reveal itself, to show him exactly where she was.

It wasn’t just physical. It was deeper, clawing at the inside of her ribs, wild and frantic.

She ached with it. Ached with him. Not just from the need to run or the heat pulsing through her.

From the want so sharp it might rip her apart.

He turned his head slowly, scanning. His eyes were sharp, unblinking, the same as always, except now they burned. Not just with heat, but hunger.

Maya didn’t breathe. Didn’tdare.

Then his gaze swept past her hiding spot—and stopped.

Their eyes locked.

Her heart flipped. Her skin shivered. She didn’t know if she made a sound or if it was just her body reacting, but the second stretched razor-thin.

Riv’En snarled. Low. Lethal.

And then he was moving.

Maya shot to her feet, adrenaline kicking hard. Her camouflage shimmered bright again as she bolted deeper into the trees. Leaves slapped her face, her arms. Her feet slid on damp earth.

But she didn’t stop.

Behind her, she could hear him. No words. No taunts. Just the steady, relentless rhythm of his pursuit.

The chase wasn’t escape anymore, but preordained.

Branches cracked. Shadows flickered. Her heart wanted to tear through her ribs. Her breath sawed in and out, wild and uneven.

And still she ran.

Until his hand caughther.

A sharp tug. She stumbled, her back brushing up against a tree trunk, breath catching in her throat. His body pressed close, not slamming her but bracketing her in, one hand flat against her chest, steady and firm, holding her in place without hurtingher.

Her breath caught, sharp and shallow, her skin tightening as though it might splinter under the pressure.

Heat spread outward from where his hand pressed against her chest, alive current she couldn’t escape.

Her camouflage flickered and failed, skin flashing into full visibility as her body gave up the fight.

It wasn’t just the heat in her veins or the wild hammer of her heart.

It was him. The power of his presence pressing in from every direction, overwhelming her focus. Her breath caught, ragged and shallow, as if just the sight of him was enough to strip her bare—not just physically, but emotionally.

She was exposed in a way she couldn’t explain, as though every barrier she’d built between herself and the world had been peeled back under his gaze.

Vulnerable. Claimed. Seen in a way that had nothing to do with her form and everything to do with whatever ancient, impossible bond now pulsed between them.

Her muscles tensed, caught between the urge to flee and the deeper, hungrier need to be caught, to let him find her. To let him haveher.