His back connected with the ground before the back of his head, his locs a wild mess around his head. The pain barely registered as he shook the sand off. Swiftly, he recovered and shot to his feet as his assailant rushed him. This time, however, he was not going down easily. Not when he was this close.

He was an Elite hunter. Second in command to the Blue Spear Clan. Pup to an Elder with five kiande amedha Queen skulls adorning his wall. Trained by that very Yautja.

A female would not make a fool of him so publicly.

Dhare snarled and caught the female Yautja by the waist with an arm, her body spinning through the air as he brought her down. She landed with a heavy thud on her knees in the sand. Her tied up inky locs fell from their tie as she whipped her head around and roared another challenge, her mandibles spread wide.

He scoffed, lowering his body until he was bent at the knees, arms thrown out to the sides and returned the favor — spittle and all. Seeing the female in such a prone position made his blood sing in anticipation at what was to come. Forcing her into submission would prove him a worthy male to her.

The Elite smirked and shook his locs about his head chuffing playfully. He purred suggestively as he caught the female mid-attack and forced her back onto her knees, one of his large hands caressing her beautiful russet skin while the other held her down by the nape of her neck. Beneath his touch her skin was heated, the color contrasting beautifully against the golden tan sand that covered the ground beneath them.

Filling in for his sire was just what he needed to let off the steam. His veins pumped with excitement from the tussle with the slender female in his grasp.

Too long had passed since he had last seeded a female. He enjoyed the challenge. Doing government work had a tendency to make one soft if they didn't keep up their training, something he took part in daily. The Hunt was too deep in his body and soul to let it go to waste to become weak.

Great things were in store for those who proved themselves worthy and he...he was worthy as one could be.

Dhare ripped the female's loincloth away and fell to his knees. She tried one last time to claw at him but it was fruitless as soon as he buried his cock inside of her. The female snarled in defeat, his roar of victory outshining her. All around him the crowd pounded their fists and bellowed mighty roars.

He was the first male to make his female submit.

His hips slapped against her muscled cheeks as he pistoned his cock in and out of the female. He buried his claws into her hips as he pauked the female, his sack slapping against her skin noisily. Together they growled and grunted in ecstasy for all to hear.

Dhare became lost in the sensation of hitting that proverbial peak. The female had put up such a good fight that it was going to take him sooner to orgasm, a coil tightening in his lower abdomen as his body readied to pump her full of his seed. Her insides gripped his cock rhythmically when she orgasmed.

She clawed wildly at the ground as he continued to pauk her, not yet there. Soon enough he roared once more, a savage outburst as his seed pumped in waves into the female's waiting womb, ready to take his seed. With how much he filled her with, he was sure that their coupling would no doubt result in a pup in a little more than half a cycle. Even as he pulled his cock out, some cum leaking out onto the sand, he felt a primeval instinct that told him that indeed he had just added to his bloodline.

A pup of his was sought after by females. They wanted the strongest and most capable of hunters to sire their young. The weak were unworthy and had a harder time getting the attention of a female.

Luckily for Dhare, any who saw him knew just how capable he was. How virile he was. Any young that was sired by him became fierce warriors who excelled in hunting, climbing the ranks. Despite all of his achievements and ability to attract females with ease he felt...empty. Just as he had briefly felt on the ship after his talk with Artemis.

Ever since Artemis had come into the picture hazy memories had plagued his thoughts. The memory of a...sage-like smell that set his body aflame in waves, like nothing ever had before. Something small and afraid had accompanied it. He barely could remember what it belonged to.

Dhare stalked back to his seat upon the platform to watch the others continue their dance, Zen'tukte joining him shortly after. In silence they watched as eventually the arena floor was filled with gyrating Yautja pairs. The air smelled heady and thick. Couplings were savage and quick, but here, it was a public showing of who was the strongest.

It was in the fourth round of new contestants when he had enough.

"You will see me at last meal before my party departs." He informed Zen'tukte on the way out, the host clan leader nodding in acknowledgement.

Through the streets he wandered until he was back to his own quarters. Once inside he could fully relax. He had his fill of food and sat heavily on the seating module, his mind racing as he tried to remember.

Coming up with nothing he grabbed his bio-mask and put it on. He pulled up a search query through the recordings he kept of his hunts. Not finding what he wanted, he narrowed the search to even smaller game. The search this time included humans.

After much deduction he had decided it had to be a human or something else like them. With more thinking through the clouded memories of years past, he settled that it was indeed human and further narrowed the search to hunts of humans.

At last he settled on a recording that he was for certain the creature had been on. He let it play after checking his surroundings, the video feed through the eye lenses remind him of what he'd forgotten.

• • •

The planet was barren as it was desolate. There had to at least be forty varieties of the color grey in varying shades. Clouded skies blocked any light that could touch the surface to bring it life. Not even the colonists had succeeded in bringing color to this lifeless ball of black dirt.

Dhare treaded lightly through the last abandoned building, scanning the area as he went. Nothing but human corpses and blood covered the metal floors through the maze of corridors. His scans brought no heat signatures just yet.

All was quiet and still.

Already he had slain a good number shortly after walking onto the grounds. Two more had been feasting on a corpse, the kill about a day old according to his scans.

He continued down another hall when he heard the telltale hissing from above. Shifting his feet he dodged the serpent, his wrist-blades extending and cutting through the chitinous sleek dome. Down the creature fell and he skirted out of the way to avoid the acid blood that sprayed across the floor. A cocky growl escaped his throat at another victory over the kiande amedha.

The serpents were not ready for the likes of an Elite.

Just as he rounded another corner, shaking the blades free of the acidic blood, he saw a faint heat signature on the floor. Bending down he gingerly tested it between his fingers. The coppery smell was faint but still there...and trailed towards outside where they turned to drag marks.

His bio-mask led the way, the lukewarm trail showing up in the infrared vision of his mask. Along the way he killed three more serpents.

The drag marks led him outside to a drop ship with the ramp open still. A mutilated corpse lay on the dark soil at the foot of the ramp, the slash marks and puncture wounds telling the story of their death. This human was only a pup. A male pup with nothing to defend himself.

With added gentleness to his touch, he closed the eyes of the dark skinned pup and fisted his chest in a silent prayer to Cetanu in thanks for the quick death he had been given. No pup deserved such a fate, but such was the way of life.

We were born to die. A wheel turning around and around until the end of time. Only this time, the death had been caused by the adults' hubris.

Dhare was happy the serpents had wreaked havoc on those responsible. He had seen the broken corpses in the human lab in the first building. Those deaths had been drawn out and grisly. There he had eliminated much of the kiande amedha, the majority of the job done in that one structure alone.

Shaking his mane about at the human species tendency to mess with things they shouldn't, he continued his hunt, following the trail into the ship.

He was much taller than a human, his height at seven-foot-eight, and bent down upon treading the ramp stealthily. His cloaking system activated with a push of a button on his wrist gauntlet. Silently Dhare stalked through the ship looking for any signs of life.

Some ways back through the ship the trail had gone cold and he was relying on his senses now. Having a serpent catch him by surprise wouldn't be good. The serpents had come from human hosts so already they would be tougher prey to kill if taken off guard. They had a way of adapting traits from their host before bursting free.

Towards the back of the ship he heard a faint heartbeat and a smell that momentarily had him wanting to take off his bio-mask just so he could spread his mandibles and inhale it naturally instead of through the filters in his mask.

It was stupid and dangerous to take one's bio-mask off during a hunt. Without it he wouldn't have the proper atmospheric levels or important functions that helped his survival.

Despite the filters, the smell of...Earth sage...came through. It made him slightly dizzy it was so intoxicating.

Instinct took over and like a thirsting hound he followed the scent until he found the source slumped in a corner next to a large metal container. This area of the ship was darker, shadows playing about so he was able to see her less clearly without a different spectrum. A quick scan over the female revealed that she had internal bleeding that required immediate medical attention, a large wound from a serpent's tail likely the cause.

The human woman wore a thin top that covered her mammaries and a torn and dirty pair of leg coverings. Her skin was dark in color, a warm brown that contrasted beautifully against her clothing. He couldn't help but stroke her beautiful skin with a careful finger, trying to not wake her. Even her mane, a wild mass of curls, reminded him of a cloud with its texture. Something about her plump lips begged him to taste them with his tongue. This human female's scent crashed into him and crawled its way through the filtration system of his bio-mask.

Dhare didn't know what to make of his reaction to a dying human. It was...wrong...right? Surely it couldn't be natural that he felt his cock swelling at the sight and smell of an alien.

Only, it did feel right.

His next actions were completely out of the norm for him, but it was the right thing to do. He couldn't watch such a creature suffer and him not have the slight possibility of ever smelling such a scent again. There were bound to be questions from his sire, the leader of his clan, but he didn't care at the moment.

This felt like the right thing to do. Perhaps Kayana was reaching out and pushing him in the right direction.

As Dhare cleaned her oozing wound and prepped a tiny dose of painkiller from his pack, the human aroused to consciousness. Dark golden brown eyes stared back at him as he quickly triaged the female. The color of her eyes made him feel...things...he shouldn't have felt. Tiny gold flecks in her irises made him feel like he was drowning, struggling for air.

He had to break eye contact long enough to remove his bio-mask once he saw how deep he needed to inject the syringe. He had been chastising himself moments ago about how dangerous this was, but here he was, doing just that.

Seeing the female with his own eyes was something he needed to do. When their eyes met it wasn't like the fairy tales humans would tell their pups. It was just two people partly cast in shadow meeting another's gaze in a quiet calm.

The shadow he partly hid himself in did much for the human. She wouldn't see that he was different...alien. If she had seen him then, without his mask and so unapologetically alien, her reaction wouldn't be so calm. Her injuries were severe enough that she likely was not fully aware of her surroundings, nor would remember him. Despite her condition, she was quiet — the pain likely too great for her to react.

Exhaling a deep breath, Dhare palmed her stomach while he gently inserted the needle into her wound directly. He was momentarily distracted by how right her skin felt beneath his hand as he injected the painkiller solution into her. Her stomach was fleshy and pudgy beneath his touch. The skin was also heated, likely due to her nerves on fire from the pain she felt.

A few seconds after the solution hit her system the female whimpered, liquid spilling from her cheeks. Her eyes squeezed shut as her body shook violently. The injection was doing its job and healing her from the inside.

Placing his hand by her wound he could see the skin stitching itself together. He had combined a heady cocktail that would numb the pain while healing the wound. Even for a human it was a lot to handle at once, which is why he wasn't surprised when she passed out. As her eyes shuttered closed, he sliced his palm with his hunting knife and squeezed his hand so his fluorescent green blood dripped into the still healing wound. His blood was going to speed up the process.

When the wound was closed and the evidence of his blood on her dark skin wiped away, he packed his med-pack and returned it to his back before he swept the human into his arms.

In his arms she was light and her plump body soft. Her head rested against his chest as he trekked his way back to a room he passed earlier. Inside were a number of cryogenic sleeping pods and, after some tinkering with the primitive technology, placed her inside of one.

Something in his chest clenched involuntarily as he observed her slumbering soundly in the pod. She looked like nothing had happened to her. A sleeping dark fleshed goddess.

Dhare messed with the controls before donning his bio-mask and heading to the control deck on his way out.

From afar, bathed in the shadows of the settlement, he watched as the ramp closed and the ship left the planet just as he had programmed it to. With luck she would be found by her own kind and fully brought to safety. Given what knowledge he knew about the human species' knowledge of space flight, it was primitive compared to the Yautja.

Watching the ship disappear into the sky caused turmoil in his stomach. It was a feeling that didn't sit well.

A weakness of body and mind.

Dhare decided a good hunt was what he needed to clear his mind of the tantalizing human. A good cleansing was also in store. He had to wash that scent away, lest he lapse into weakness once more. Weakness was something he could not afford.

His honor and reputation would be at stake and he had worked too hard to sway off the beaten path to lust for a human when there were dozens of female Yautja who saw him as worthy to sire their pups.

Even as he collected his trophies and left the planet shortly after, he still felt that twinge of regret over letting her go. The goddess with a cloudy mane and gold flecked golden brown eyes.

Pauk.

No other female's scent could compare, but his upbringing told him that his decision had been correct. Nothing could distract from the Hunt and weaken him.

Not even one of Kayana's handmaidens in the flesh.

• • •

Dhare set his mask aside and kept the image of the woman in his mind a moment longer.

He sobered quickly, however. Whoever and wherever she was now, she was most likely dead. She had looked to be twenty human cycles old. That realization was...unwelcome.

Now that he remembered the thing — person — that had haunted him, it made him understand why his sire Rhage had become more...emotional. Emotions were seen as a weakness, especially when it came to love. But, with his sire and Artemis, it seemed to make him stronger. Dhare also wanted to feel this but he felt like he had already failed in ever finding what his sire had found.

She could be dead.

He squeezed his eyes shut and lied there for a while longer. It took a while before he recovered, ready to face the last feast with the savages. Tucking away that heart ache that shouldn't be there, he began to train in the center of the room. Training helped to quell those unwanted emotions.

The heartache.

The regret.

He couldn't afford to feel. Feeling such things would bring negative consequences. Dwelling on the past was a waste of time.

The now was important.

Despite his musings, he reminded himself to visit a temple dedicated to Kayana and leave a generous offering. It was the least he could do. Offending a goddess, if that female had actually been one of her handmaidens, was not something he wanted to do.

😁

Credit goes to ArtBreeder.com