Page 11 of Rebirth

A curse. Possibly distress. Certainly fear.

“I’m sorry, I—” A melodious voice. I hear her softly inhale as she tries to deliver an excuse. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I…I wasn’t following you or anything.”

I open my nostrils and sniff.

She lies.

“I’m going to go now.”

She speaks. Tells me her intent. Yet, she remains behind the tree, fear scent intensifying. I inhale it this time, allowing it to fill my nostrils and energize me. There’s a faint ache in my fangs. A slight priming of my muscles.

“You won’t attack me if I leave now, right? Clearly, I interrupted something.”

Her words swim to my ears like a song.

“Do you…can you even understand me? I don’t know if you all know English. Shit, I should have asked that before coming all the way out here.” Her voice lowers. “Now I’m alone in a forest with an alien who is obviously about to attack me.”

Sweet, melodious song.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you, Sophie.” An even harsher whisper than before.

A soft rumble pulls from my chest.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt this urge to hunt. To claim. Such urges have long withered within me.

Deep below my palms, there’s a pulse in the earth, and I wonder if that’s the reason. If that part of me is causing this development. The part I deny. The part I wish to strip from myself. One that should have never been, but is. If that part of me is taking over…

The thought is enough to make me remain still, and some other scent reaches my nostrils. The scent of my own fear.

The female curses again, and her hand forms a fist at her side. I can tell what she’s about to do even before she makes a move.

“Do. Not. Run.” My voice rumbles between us, my Vullan tongue shaping her hyu’man words, and she freezes. Chest heaving.

Her fear scent spikes like an intoxicating concoction of pheromones I could feast on and another rumble goes through my chest.

This…is not me. I would never debase myself and hunt a female like this.

This is it.

“If you wish to leave…” I say, “…do so slowly…”

A few seconds pass where the female’s back remains pressed against the tree, and I wonder, does she know how little protection it gives? If I went after her, that tree would snap like a twig beneath my claws.

“Do you not want me to leave?” she whispers.

A question that snaps my mind back to reality. To the fact I’m on my knees digging in the soil for…something. And the fact that she is here with me. That she followed me here.

“You are…curious.” The words slip from my lips as realization dawns.

Her side profile is slightly visible and I see her throat move before she looks back my way, pale eyes meeting mine once more.

I see the fear there. Smell it so strongly I can taste it. And yet, she stands before me still.

She faces it.

She faces me.

“That is why you followed me here.”

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