Chapter 65: Episode 065: You have to do this.
Rue looked up, her vision swimming in waves of gold and grey.
Knox was standing over her. He had moved with that frightening, predatory speed he possessed, crossing the distance from the living room to the kitchen in a heartbeat. His face was etched with a sharp, immediate concern that made the shadows under his cheekbones look deeper than usual.
"Rue," he said again, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a low, questioning rumble. "What happened? You fell."
She tried to ignore the way her stomach flipped at the sound of her name on his tongue.
"I am fine," Rue muttered. Her voice sounded thin, like it was coming from someone else. She blinked, trying to force her eyes to focus on the broken shards of the clay bowl. "It is just... a mild fever. I probably caught something from the festival. Low-grade viral load. It will pass."
She tried to push herself up, but her arms felt like they were filled with heavy, molten lead. Her skin felt hot, not the normal warmth of a living body, but a deep, radiating burn that seemed to come from her very marrow. She shivered, even though the air in the cabin felt like it was scorching her lungs.
Knox didn’t listen. He knelt beside her, his movements smooth and incredibly careful. He looked at her flushed cheeks and the way her hair clung to her damp forehead.
At this point, Rue began to doubt if he really could tell.
The way the juices flowed between her legs, he should have picked up on the scent.
"That is no fever," Knox muttered, his Golden eyes narrowing as he scanned her face with a predatory intensity. "Your scent is changing."
She was swallowed.
"It is a biological response to infection," Rue insisted, though her words were breathless. She was already mentally listing the symptoms: fever, weakness, and altered sensory perception. It was all so logical, so easy to diagnose. It was just a post-festival sickness.
But the truth was she was hiding from herself, she felt this with Caius, not once... but twice!
"Drink," Knox said. He reached for a heavy ceramic mug sitting on the nearby table, filled it with water from the rain barrel, and brought it to her lips.
Rue took a sip. The water was icy, pulled straight from the cold mountain spring. But as it touched her tongue, it felt like she was drinking liquid fire. It didn’t soothe her throat; it only amplified the burning sensation spreading through her chest. She choked, the water splashing down her chin and onto her collar.
Knox wiped the water away with his thumb, his touch lingering against her jaw for a second too long. His skin was hot—not the same kind of hot as hers, but a heavy, solid, animalistic warmth that made her head spin.
She wondered why it felt different with Knox, almost too painful and draining.
She wondered if it was because he was unmated and because she was fully conscious of what could happen if they crossed this path.
"My skin is burning," Rue whispered. She felt a strange, frantic pressure in her stomach. It was like her body was vibrating, every single nerve ending screaming for contact, for something to ground the wild electricity racing through her blood.
She tried to pull away, to crawl toward the wall and put some distance between herself and the Panther King, but her legs were useless. She felt like a trapped animal, and the most dangerous predator in the forest was currently sitting right next to her.
Knox watched her with growing alarm.
"How can you be so weak?" Knox asked, though there was no malice in it, only pure, baffled worry. He leaned in, his scent enveloping her entirely. He smelled of deep jungle moss, sharp citrus, and something else, something primal that tugged at the very centre of her being.
Oh fuck, System... I don’t think this is the right time for this.
[Relax, you are overreacting, let nature take its course.]
I don’t think I am ready for another child.
[Who said anything about breeding?]
...
She had been post-pregnancy, her body recovering, her hormones shifting, and she had spent four days in a closed, small space with a high-level predator whose pheromones were essentially saturating the air. Her cabin was not just a home anymore; it was a sanctuary of concentrated, unmated predator energy.
So it was safe to say, her body was thinking it was time to mate.
Her body hadn’t just been recovering. It had been resetting. It had been waiting.
"Get away," Rue gasped, her voice trembling. "Knox... please."
"I am not leaving you," he growled. He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders, his grip firm and steady. "You are going into heat. How can I leave you like this?"
He pulled her away from the broken ceramic. Rue felt her tunic slide against the rough wood of the kitchen floor, and as she was lifted into the air, her bare arms brushed against his palms.
The contact was electric.
It was like a lightning strike. The moment his hot, calloused hands made contact with her flushed, burning skin, the world turned inside out. The heat in her chest surged, a massive, unstoppable wave of pure, needy longing that she could not stow away any longer came to life.
Rue’s head fell back. Her eyes squeezed shut, and a sound ripped through the quiet kitchen, a soft, high-pitched, needy gasp that was completely involuntary.
Knox never knew Rue could produce those sounds in his entire life.
And that made him freeze.
Rue immediately slapped her hand against her lips and looked away from Knox, her face flushing red from embarrassment.
"Rue?" Knox whispered, his voice broken and unrecognisable.
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She only leaned into him, her skin aching for the friction of his touch, her breath coming in fast, shallow stabs as the reality of her body’s hunger took total control.
Did she really have to do this?
[I am afraid, at this point, just go with the flow. It was bound to happen.]
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