Pearl stared at Rauvan as he walked toward them.
Panic and hope fought across her face.
She looked like one wrong breath would make her cry.
She knelt in the sandy mud beside Odette, one small hand pressed against Odette’s shoulder.
Her other hand hovered over Odette’s bloody neck, but she did not know where to touch without hurting her more.
Her duiker ears were pressed low against her hair, and she bit her lower lip so hard that the cut there opened again.
She wanted to scream for help.
But the first time she had screamed, every beast had turned to look at her like she had made herself prey.
So now Pearl forced herself to stay quiet.
She could only stare at the saber-tooth leader coming closer and pray he did not change his mind before he reached Odette.
Rauvan stopped beside Odette’s body.
For a moment, he only looked down at her.
Odette lay half on her side, one arm twisted under her body.
Her silver-white hair was stuck to her neck and cheek with mud, sweat, blood, and crushed leaves.
Her face was so dirty that no one could clearly see what she looked like under it.
Even the feather crest on her head was flattened, like the night had beaten that down too.
She looked terrible.
Not ugly in the normal way.
She looked like something that had crawled through blood, fear, mud, and death, then somehow refused to die.
But Rauvan’s eyes did not stay on her face.
They moved over her body with the cold focus of a hunter checking wounds.
He was not looking at her like a male looking at a pretty female.
He was reading her body, reading the damage, reading what she had survived.
Still, even under the mud and torn hide, he could not miss her shape.
Long legs.
A narrow waist.
Strong lines under all that weakness.
A body too graceful for the mud it had been thrown into, and too stubborn for the death it should have accepted already.
Around them, hundreds of eyes watched.
The war-pride did not fully stop moving, because migrating beast people did not waste too much stillness in the open forest.
Still, the ones closest to him slowed down enough that their silence formed a circle around Rauvan and Odette.
Even the cubs riding on their mothers’ hips lifted their little heads to see what their leader would do.
Rauvan had never shown interest in females like this.
He protected the road.
He guarded his people.
He chose battle paths.
He killed threats.
If a female became important to him, it was only because she carried information, had power, had a wound that could poison the group, or had a cub that needed to be moved.
Rauvan did not bend for softness.
He did not carry what could be dragged, left behind, or ordered to walk.
Vasha saw him still looking at Odette, and her breath caught in her chest.
It felt like a thorn had pushed under her ribs.
Before she could stop herself, she took one step forward.
Her face was pale with anger beneath her stripes, but she forced her mouth to open like she was only trying to help.
“Rauvan,” she said, “I can send two males to carry her.
There is no need for you to touch a hollow female covered in filth.”
She did not get another step.
Karesh’s arm moved across her path.
He did not grab her.
He did not push her.
He only lifted one large arm between her and Rauvan.
But Vasha stopped at once, as if she had walked into a wall of stone.
Her throat moved as she swallowed.
The back of her neck still remembered his earlier strike.
Her body remembered pain faster than her pride could argue.
Her fingers curled at her sides, and her claws slid out halfway before she forced them back into her skin.
Karesh did not even look at her.
That made it worse.
Vasha’s jaw tightened.
Her eyes burned as she watched Rauvan bend down.
Then her worst fear came true.
Rauvan slid one arm under Odette’s shoulders and the other under her knees.
Then he lifted her from the sand without effort.
He lifted her like the blood, mud, and broken breaths clinging to her meant nothing at all.
Her body was limp against him, head falling back before it settled against his chest.
Her silver-white hair, stiff with mud and blood, brushed his collarbone.
One of her long legs hung over his arm, the torn skin on her knee still weeping dark blood that smeared across his forearm.
Her crushed hand rested against his ribs, fingers swollen and useless.
She was lighter than he expected.
Too light.
Like the forest and the hollow had already started eating her from the inside.
For one short breath, the cut on her neck brushed close enough to his skin that her blood scent rose again.
It was faint.
It was hidden under mud.
But it was sharp.
Rauvan’s expression did not change.
Inside him, the Blood Prowl Direflow moved.
It was not a full awakening.
It was not strong enough to break through his skin or call blood to blood.
But it stirred low in his chest like a beast that had smelled something through stone.
Odette’s fresh blood was almost buried under baboon blood, crushed leaves, old fear, mud, and the bitter stink of Thorn Hollow.
But the true scent beneath it was still there.
Ancient.
Thin.
Hidden.
This was not hollow blood.
This was not the weak blood of a female raised behind roots and fed on safety until her instincts became dull.
For one dangerous breath, Rauvan’s mouth watered and his eyes darkened with hunger.
The Direflow stirred harder.
It was not hunger for meat.
It was recognition.
The ancient thing inside him had caught the true scent under all the filth and fear, and it wanted closer.
It wanted to press its nose to the source.
It wanted to taste whether that thin, hidden wildness would answer back.