CHAPTER 4 - THE OFFER
She had been following him for five minutes and he had not said a single word.
That was fine. She did not need words right now. What she needed was to keep moving and keep thinking and figure out how she was going to approach the situation that Weiwei had dropped into her lap with all the casualness of someone announcing the weather.
She had less than two and a half hours.
The countdown sat in the corner of her vision, patient and indifferent, ticking downward one second at a time. She had tried ignoring it twice already. It did not work. Every time she looked away it was still there when she looked back, a quiet red reminder that her body was currently on borrowed time in a world that was not built for her.
02:24:51
She looked at his back.
He moved through the open land with long unhurried strides, the dark hide around his waist shifting slightly with each step, the three stripes on his upper arm visible from where she walked behind him. He had not checked once to see if she was keeping up. He simply moved and apparently assumed the world would follow.
She was following.
She was not entirely sure how she felt about that.
The silence stretched. Not uncomfortable exactly, just full, the kind of silence that sat between two people who did not yet know what to do with each other. She watched his back and her feet moved over the pale ground and she thought about countdowns and mate bonds and the fact that she was walking behind a man whose name she did not even know.
"What is your name," she said.
He did not stop walking. Did not turn around. But after a brief pause, just long enough to tell her he had heard: "Riven."
That was it. Just the one word, offered without ceremony, like names were practical things and he had given her his the same way he would hand over a tool she had asked for.
"Lin Wan," she said.
He said nothing. But something in the set of his shoulders told her he had filed it away.
She looked at her countdown.
02:23:17
She looked at his back again and then looked at nothing, directing her attention inward.
"Weiwei," she said under her breath, quiet enough that only the system could hear.
"Yes Host!"
"Tell me about him. What do you know."
A small enthusiastic pause. "Riven is a three stripe warrior of the Leopard tribe, which marks him as the third highest combat rank a beastman can achieve. Within his specific tribe he holds the position of second ranked fighter, directly beneath the chief. He is unmated, which as Host knows is part of why his compatibility rating is high. He is considered a loner by tribe standards. His dwelling is set apart from the main settlement by choice. He lives and hunts alone."
Lin Wan absorbed that while watching her feet move.
A loner. Cold and self contained and living apart from everyone else by his own choosing. She looked at the broad line of his back and thought about the way he had sniffed the air around her at the pool and something had shifted in his expression, quiet and quick and gone before she could fully read it.
He had been thinking something then.
She wondered what.
"Weiwei," she said again.
"Yes!"
"The mate bond. What does it actually involve. Specifically."
A small pause. "The initial stage of a mate bond on the Beast Continent involves the male marking his chosen female. The mark is applied through a bite, typically on the neck, and leaves a permanent pattern on the female's skin corresponding to the male's lineage markings. Once the mark is placed the female carries the male's scent and is considered claimed by all other beastmen. This initiates the bond and begins the process of Host's body adapting to the Beast Continent's atmosphere."
Lin Wan processed that while watching her feet move over the pale ground.
A bite on the neck. A permanent mark. His pattern on her skin for the rest of her life.
She was nineteen years old. This morning she had been a normal person with a boyfriend and a best friend and a life that was ordinary and functioning and fine. Now she was on a parallel world with a countdown over her head being told she needed to let a stranger bite her neck.
"And if I don't do it," she said.
"Host's body will continue to reject the atmospheric conditions. After the countdown reaches zero the deterioration will accelerate significantly. It would be very unpleasant for Host."
"How unpleasant."
Another pause. Shorter this time. "Very."
Lin Wan looked at her countdown.
02:22:13
She looked at Riven's back.
She made a decision.
"Riven," she said.
He stopped walking.
He turned to look at her with that same flat direct expression, patient in the way of someone who did not need things explained twice and was giving her the space to say whatever she was going to say.
She took a breath.
"I need you to explain something to me," she said. "In the forest you said you would offer to claim me. I want to understand what that means. What you are actually offering. What it involves for both of us."
He looked at her for a moment. Something moved behind his eyes, brief and unreadable, and then he turned fully to face her and crossed his arms over his chest.
"I will speak plainly," he said.
"Please."
"You are unclaimed. You are alone with no memory and no tribe. On this continent a female in your position is not safe. Any unmated male who finds you before you are claimed can attempt to court you. You would have no protection. No standing. Nothing to stop them."
He said it without drama. Just facts, laid out one after another, the way you would explain the weather or the lay of the land to someone who had never seen either before.
"I am a three stripe warrior," he continued. "Three stripes mark the third highest combat rank among beastmen. In the Leopard tribe I hold the position of second ranked fighter beneath the chief. I am healthy. I have never lost a challenge." A pause. "My dwelling is solid. It sits apart from the main settlement, away from the noise of the tribe. I hunt well. I do not go hungry and neither would my mate."
He stopped. Let that land.
"If you accept my claim I will provide you with the finest beast hide for clothing. Enough meat to keep you well fed. Clean water. Protection from any male who looks at you wrongly. You will be treated with the full respect owed to a claimed female and no one in the tribe will dare to question that."
Lin Wan looked at him.
He was not selling himself. That was the thing. There was no warmth in it, no attempt to charm her or perform any version of desirability. He was simply presenting facts about himself the same way he would describe a shelter or a hunting ground. Useful. Reliable. Available.
She looked at her countdown.
02:18:44
She thought about the alternative. No protection. No standing. A body that was going to start giving out in just over two hours.
She thought about the mark. Permanent. His pattern on her skin for the rest of her life.
She thought about how this morning she had been a normal person with a normal life and how completely unavailable that was to her now.
"You said your dwelling sits apart from the main settlement," she said.
"Yes."
"You live alone."
"Yes."
"And if I accept your claim, you would not bring other women into the dwelling."
Something shifted in his expression. Brief and controlled but she caught it.
"I do not share well," he said. And for the first time there was something in his voice that was not just flat practicality. Something quieter underneath it, something that had edges she could not quite see yet. "A claim from me is not a partial claim, I'm yours alone and your mine alone"
Lin Wan held his gaze.
Her countdown ticked.
02:17:09
"I accept," she said.
Riven looked at her for one long moment, the kind of moment that felt like it was measuring more than just the words.
Then he nodded once. The small precise movement of someone who had made up his mind long before the conversation reached this point.
"Then it is done," he said.
He took a step toward her and Lin Wan realized, just a beat too late, that done did not mean later.
It meant now.