Chapter 1
Kira
The sky was wrong. So wrong, my brain kept trying to fix it, like a glitched screen flickering between memory and madness. The moons didn’t belong there. One full and bone-white, the other low and red like an open wound. They stared down at me like gods waiting to pass judgment.
Not Earth. Not even close.
I staggered through the jungle with one arm clutched to my side, where something sharp jabbed deeper every time I breathed. Not broken, not yet, but close. The taste of copper and ozone coated my tongue. My boots squelched in the black mud, dragging through roots and rot and something else, something alive in a way Earth never was. Too alive.
I didn’t know how long I’d been running. Hell, I didn’t even know how long I’d been conscious. I remembered the fall. The rupture. The alarms. The shriek of the pod splitting open. The white-hot terror of the atmosphere clawing at my bones. Then silence. Dark. Cold. And now this-this humid, feral place that breathed like a beast and reeked of fire, decay, and something floral that made the back of my throat burn.
I tried not to stumble again, but my body was too wrecked. My balance kept listing left, my vision refusing to stay steady. Everything felt slanted. Too loud. Too green. Too wrong.
And yet I couldn’t stop moving because something was out there.
Something else.
A branch cracked behind me. Sharp. Deliberate. I froze. Another crack, closer.
I spun, muscles screaming, heart knocking against my ribs like it wanted to claw its way out.
Nothing. Just shadows. Trees and ferns. Vines thick as arms. But something was watching me. I knew it.
I backed up, boots sliding in the mud, and my foot caught on a root. I went down hard, pain flaring through my ribs, scraping open my palms on something rough and wet. I tasted blood and dirt and a scream I didn’t let out.
Then it came, a growl. Low. Vibrating. Not cat. Not wolf. Not anything I’d ever heard.
It wasn’t close enough to see. But it was close enough to smell.
My limbs tried to move, but my strength was gone. My body had run out of miracles. I had instinct and terror, and that was all. I pushed forward anyway, crashing through fern fronds, fingers brushing vines dripping amber sap that clung like honey and smelled like metal.
Far off, something let out a high, keening cry. Sharp and thin. Almost human. Not a bird, not an animal, but something worse.
I collapsed under a black-barked tree, the trunk arched over a dry ravine like a giant’s rib. My knees hit the dirt. My hands trembled. And still, I couldn’t cry. Couldn’t scream.
I pressed my face to the bark, fingers clawing at the moss and splinters.
Get up, Kira. You’ve survived worse.
But I wasn’t so sure anymore. Not in this place. Not under these skies. Not under the gaze of watching gods and air that tasted like blood and thunder.
Then the air shifted. It wasn't the wind. And not sound. But a Presence. Like something seeing me from the inside out.
I turned. Too slow.
He stepped from the trees like a ghost pulled out of a fever dream. Massive. Bare to the waist, his chest streaked in black mud and warpaint, long scars crisscrossing muscle like history carved in flesh. His shoulders gleamed in the moonlight, slick like obsidian. Braids hung past his jaw, feathers and teeth tied to the ends, brushing against his dark skin. His face was severe, angled, and brutal, made for war, not mercy.
And his eyes…
His eyes glowed yellow. Not reflection. Not lightplay.
Glowing.
One long red slash of paint cut across one eye and down the cheek beneath it. Like blood that never washed off. He held a spear in one hand, long and tipped with sharpened bone. A net in the other. Made of something organic. Twisted. Alive.
And he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just looked at me. Watched me. Studied me like I was something new.
“Stay back,” I said. It came out hoarse. Weak. The sound of a cornered animal.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t blink. But he stopped. The jungle stilled. Even the insects hushed. And then I saw them, shapes moving behind him. Bigger than men. Warriors. Cloaked in hide and paint, watching.
Waiting. For a signal.
He made a sound, just one, and they vanished into the trees.
Gone. Obedient.
His attention returned to me.
He dropped the net first. Then the spear. Set it gently aside like it wasn’t even part of him, and then he crouched. Slow. Low. Controlled. Not like someone about to strike, but more like someone approaching something wounded. Or sacred.
He held out a hand. Palm up. No words. No threat. Just offering.
And I... I couldn’t breathe.
Not from fear. Not exactly. It was something else. The kind of silence before a storm. Before a first kiss. Before something begins that can’t be undone.
He didn’t move closer. Didn’t reach for me. Just waited like I mattered. Like I was more than just a crash-landed stranger covered in blood and mud and desperation.
My fingers curled in the dirt. My ribs throbbed. And still, I didn’t move. Because he wasn’t looking at me like prey, he was looking at me like I was… something claimed.
And God's help me, in that moment? I wasn’t terrified. I was seen.
