Content Warning: Graphic violence, gore, death, and forced-breeding threats.
“Odette is under my fang now.”
For a moment, no one moved.
The thorn gate, the broken roots, the wounded males, the crying females, the baboons standing outside, and even the small monkeys clinging to the dark branches above all seemed to freeze under Rauvan’s words.
A wet wind moved through the Red Canopy, carrying the smell of blood, mud, old leaves, and fear, but no beast made a sound.
It was not because they did not understand him.
It was because they understood too well.
Under his fang meant protected.
Under his fang meant claimed by his war-pride.
Under his fang meant that anyone who touched Odette from that moment forward would not be touching a weak hollow female anymore.
It meant Rauvan’s war-pride would bleed for her.
It meant any male who tried to take her would die screaming with his throat ripped out and his guts spilled across the roots.
It meant she was no longer Thorn Hollow’s problem to break or the baboons’ problem to breed.
The Thorn Hollow elders stared at him with wide eyes, and for the first time since Odette had been dragged back through the roots, they looked truly lost.
They had expected him to ignore her.
They had expected him to see a dirty, injured, troublesome female and look away like every other strong male who did not want extra burden on the road.
They had thought Odette had crawled toward death, not toward a beast who would reach down and pull her out of their control.
Vasha was the first to speak.
Or rather, she tried to speak.
Her lips parted, but no words came out at first because fear had caught her by the throat.
Her golden eyes moved from Rauvan to Odette, then back to Rauvan again, and the confidence on her beautiful face cracked so quickly that even Odette noticed it through the pain blurring her eyes.
Vasha was not foolish.
She knew Rauvan did not waste claims.
He did not collect helpless females to look generous.
He did not soften because someone cried.
If he said Odette was under his fang, then something about this mud-covered hollow bird had caught him in a way Vasha could not understand, and not understanding made her afraid.
“Rauvan,” Vasha said, forcing her voice to stay smooth even though her striped tail had gone stiff behind her.
“You cannot just take a female from a hollow without knowing what she brings.
She is covered in baboon blood.
She has hollow trouble on her back.
She could slow the road.
She could bring scent hunters after us.”
Her words came faster as she spoke, because fear always ran ahead of pride when it knew it had been seen.
She was trying to sound useful.
She was trying to sound loyal.
But beneath the loyalty was jealousy, raw and ugly, twisting every word.
Even through the mud and blood and swelling, she could see that Odette had something Rauvan had noticed.
Something that made him claim her in front of everyone.
Vasha didn’t know what it was.
She only knew she hated it.
Because even now she could not tell whether Odette was pretty, ugly, useless, cursed, or half dead beneath all that mud, and still Rauvan had looked at her.
Rauvan did not answer Vasha.
He looked once to his side.
That was all.
The male standing behind him moved before Vasha could even pull in her next breath.
He was Karesh, Rauvan’s first-claw, a tall saber-tooth male with dark brown hair tied back with sinew, a scar crossing one side of his mouth, and pale amber eyes that never seemed to blink at the wrong time.
He did not look as coldly beautiful as Rauvan, but his body had the quiet heaviness of a beast that had killed many times without needing witnesses.
His bare chest was marked with old claw scars, and a strip of black hide crossed one shoulder where a bone-handled blade rested against his back.
Karesh struck Vasha at the back of the neck with the edge of his hand.
The sound was dull and hard.
Vasha dropped to her knees instantly.
Her knees hit the mud hard.
Blood burst from her mouth in a thick spray, splattering across the ground in front of her.
She didn’t scream.
She bit down on the sound so hard her teeth ground together, but a low, wounded sound still escaped her throat.
Her fingers dug into the mud, claws scraping deep furrows as her whole body shook from the force of the blow.
She knew the blow had been light.
Karesh had not struck to maim her.
He had struck to silence her.
That almost made it worse.
Rauvan had never let anyone strike Vasha before.
Not in front of others.
Not like this.
The message was clear: she had crossed a line she didn’t even know existed, and now she was on her knees in the mud with blood running down her chin while a hollow female sat a few feet away, claimed and protected.
Everyone in Rauvan’s war-pride knew Vasha had stood near him for many seasons.
She had spoken beside him, hunted near him, and answered others when Rauvan did not care to waste words.
He had never treated her like a mate, but he had also never stopped her so openly.
Now, in front of Thorn Hollow, the baboons, the wounded, the hidden females, and the watching forest, Rauvan had given one look, and Karesh had put her in the mud.
Vasha lifted her head slowly.
Her golden eyes went straight to Odette.
Hatred burned there so fiercely that for a breath, Odette thought Vasha might forget fear and lunge.
Her claws slid out of her fingers, long and curved, catching the dim light beneath the trees.
Then Rauvan’s scent shifted, cold and warning, and Vasha’s claws retracted back into her hands.
She lowered her gaze, but not before Odette saw the promise in it.
They were enemies now.
Odette only looked at her for one second.
Then she looked away.
It was not because she was not afraid.
She was afraid of Vasha, afraid of Rauvan, afraid of the baboons, afraid of her own bleeding body finally giving up.
But she had no strength left to spend on a female who hated her for being noticed.
If Vasha wanted to rip her open later, then later would come when it came.
Odette still had to survive this breath first.
The baboon envoy took a step forward, his face was twisted, caught between fury and the cold understanding that he was standing too close to something that could end him without effort.
Still, he spoke.
Pride made him stupid.
“The female killed one of ours.”
Rauvan’s eyes moved to him.
The baboon swallowed, but pride made him continue because the other baboons were watching him, and in the wild, losing face could become another kind of death.
“She belongs to our troop as payment.
You cannot take what is owed to us.”
One of the baboon males behind him beat his chest once and bared his teeth, trying to look brave now that words had been spoken.
It was a stupid choice.
Even the envoy turned his head slightly, as if he wanted to bite him quiet, but it was too late.
Rauvan extended one hand.
He moved like water poured from a height — fast, heavy, and unstoppable.
One moment he stood near Odette.
The next he was across the space, his hand closing around the baboon male’s skull with a wet, crushing sound that made several females flinch and turn away.
Bone cracked loud enough to echo off the thorn walls.
The baboon’s eyes bulged, then burst as pressure built inside his head.
Blood and brain matter sprayed out between Rauvan’s fingers in a hot, chunky burst, splattering across the envoy’s chest and face, across the mud, and across the thorn gate behind him.
The body dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
Limbs twitched once, twice, then went still in a spreading pool of dark blood and gray-pink matter.
The smell hit hard, hot copper, shit, and the thick, metallic stink of ruptured brain.
The females screamed.
Some of the Thorn Hollow children cried out and were pulled behind older females.
Pearl covered her mouth with both hands, her duiker ears pressed flat to her head.
Odette’s stomach rolled so violently that she nearly vomited again, but nothing came out except a weak, broken breath.
She had seen death already.
She had made death with her own hands.
But this was different.
This was not a fight.
This was a reminder.
Rauvan opened his hand and let blood drip from his fingers.
He didn’t wipe his hand.
He didn’t look at the body.
He simply let the blood run down his fingers and drip onto the mud between his feet while he stared at the envoy.
“Speak again,” he said, voice low and flat.
The envoy didn’t speak.
His throat worked as he swallowed, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.
The other baboons behind him had gone completely still, eyes wide, bodies angled slightly away like they were already preparing to run.
None of them wanted to be the next skull in Rauvan’s hand.
Rauvan did not need to explain that Odette was part of his side now.
The crushed skull in the mud had said enough.
In the wild, a warning only mattered when it had teeth behind it, and Rauvan’s warning had ended a male before his body understood it was dead.
After a long silence, the envoy forced himself to breathe.
“Then payment must come from Thorn Hollow.”
The mandrill elder’s face changed.
“No,” he growled, but his voice had lost its weight.
The baboon envoy turned toward him, and all the anger he could not throw at Rauvan rushed toward the hollow instead.
“Your female killed our male.
Your hollow hid her.
Your hollow failed to settle blood.
If he takes her, then you pay.”
Rauvan looked away as if the matter had already died.
He turned his head slightly, and his pale blue eyes found Odette again.
Just for a breath.
It was nothing.
A glance.
But it landed on her like a weight.
Like he was checking that she was still breathing.
Still his.
The look was cold, but it wasn’t empty.
There was something in it, recognition, possession, and something older that made Odette’s stomach twist and her chest feel too tight.
She didn’t understand it.
She only knew that when he looked at her like that, the fear in her bones shifted into something hotter and more dangerous.
The mandrill elder stared at him in disbelief.
“You bring this on us and leave?”
Rauvan’s pale blue eyes did not even flicker.
“Your weakness is not my concern.”
The words struck harder than a claw.
Odette understood then that being under Rauvan’s fang did not mean he had come to save Thorn Hollow.
It did not mean he cared who died behind him.
He had taken what interested him, warned those who challenged him, and now the rest would fall where it fell.
But then Pearl stepped forward before anyone could stop her.
“I want to go with her.”