They stood around her like mountains cloaked in shadow. Ten towering figures, each unique, each more unnerving than the last.
The air throbbed with something unspoken, thick with tension, as though the ground itself held its breath. The dense jungle faded into silence. The trees leaned away. Even the strange twin moons overhead dimmed behind clouds, as if to grant privacy to what was unfolding.
Aarya stood still. Frozen. Terrified. Overwhelmed.
She had never felt so small—not just physically, though they dwarfed her easily, but existentially. These weren't men. They weren't even close. They were apex predators shaped like gods, their bodies carved by war and survival, each one of them a living weapon.
And yet…
Their eyes didn't shimmer with violence. Not right now.
They shimmered with something far more dangerous: recognition.
The eldest stepped forward. His long silver hair was pulled back in tight coils, his tan skin gleaming with battle-scars. His eyes, however—eyes the color of storm-lit oceans—locked onto hers and didn't waver.
"You're a female," he said, voice low and reverent. "A living one."
Aarya took a step back. "What—? I… I'm not from here."
"We know," said another, a muscular warrior with glowing blue veins pulsing beneath golden-brown skin. "Your scent is different. Purer. Unburned."
Aarya's mind raced.
What do they mean, burned? What happened here?
She clutched the pendant tighter around her neck. It buzzed faintly, translating their dialect as fast as it could. But her heart couldn't keep pace.
"Who are you?" she managed, her voice trembling.
The eldest lowered his head slightly. "I am Rudrayaan, High Commander of the last Dominion. And these are my brothers in blood and war. You… you are the first female we have seen in over 200 years."
Aarya's heart stopped.
Two. Hundred. Years.
Kiran, standing closest to her, looked as stunned as the others. His hand twitched toward her as if to comfort her—but he pulled back. "You're so small," he whispered. "So soft. I thought you were… malformed. Like a child."
Another male, with eyes like molten steel and hair braided with bones, stepped forward. "The last of our women were lost in the Fever Plague."
Aarya blinked. "Fever… Plague?"
Rudrayaan nodded slowly, grimly. "They were engineered. Our enemies created a targeted biological warhead. It spared us. Killed every female above the age of two within weeks. Our healers couldn't reverse it. We tried artificial replication. Cloning. Gene-breeding. All failed."
"And now," a sharp-eyed male named Vayujit added, voice dry, "Our kind is dying out."
"You're not just different," Rudrayaan said softly. "You're impossible. You're hope."
Aarya's legs buckled. Her breath caught in her throat.
"No," she whispered. "I'm not… I didn't come here to save anyone. I came by accident. A failed experiment. I was just trying to test a hypothesis—"
"You are the hypothesis now," said another, broad and dark with silver tattoos glowing beneath his skin. "The entire planet is listening to you. Don't you feel it? The pull?"
She did.
Her skin was tingling. Her blood humming. The moment she'd touched those obsidian stones, something in her shifted. Something ancient had answered.
Rudrayaan's voice dropped low, barely audible.
"There are ten of us. And one of you. We don't know what this means. But we will not let harm touch you."
Aarya trembled.
She felt the hunger in their stares—not of lust, but of longing. Of isolation. Of a world where war had stripped away softness, tenderness, and the scent of life.
And now, she stood among them. Glowing. Breathing. Impossible.
A living contradiction.
Kiran took a slow step toward her again, his voice tender despite his size. "We won't cage you. We'll protect you. But you have no idea how dangerous this world is. Others… will come."
Rudrayaan's voice cut the moment like a blade.
"Others will want her."
Silence.
They all felt it.
The magnetic pull.
Not just to her body—but to the possibility she represented. The promise of a new dawn after centuries of dusk.
Rudrayaan knelt first.
Then the others followed, one by one, massive bodies folding before her.
Not out of reverence. Not out of faith.
But out of the desperation only those who had lived in darkness too long could understand.
Aarya stood in the center of a fallen empire of men—its last kings, its last weapons—kneeling not to a goddess. But to the only woman who had survived the ashes.
And for the first time in her life… she didn't feel invisible.
The forest was breathing around her. Or perhaps, it was her heart she was hearing—louder now, faster, fluttering against the inside of her chest like a trapped bird.
They rose, one by one, from where they had knelt before her.
And now, they approached—slowly, carefully, like predators wary of frightening their prey… or worshippers approaching a flame that might devour.
Aarya didn't move.
Couldn't.
The scent of their bodies was warm and sharp like iron and smoke. They each radiated heat like suns, their proximity altering the very air around them. The faint light of the twin moons gleamed on their strange armor, their weapons, their skin that shimmered with lines of glowing energy that pulsed with life.
Kiran, the first she had met, stepped to her left, closer than before. His long dark hair fell in soft waves down his broad chest, and his golden-tan skin was lined with glowing blue veins that pulsed erratically as if sensing her nearness.
"I am Kiran," he murmured, voice deep and soft. "Hunter of the Red Ring. You… already know me."
His gaze dropped briefly to her hands—still trembling—and then back up, his expression unreadable. "You are not weak. You are… just not of this world."
Aarya's throat dried. Her body was aching, overstimulated, her nerves sharpened by adrenaline and something deeper—something ancient that whispered beneath her skin.
A second stepped forward—taller, broader, his arms crossed over his bare chest. His deep gray eyes sparkled like forged steel.
"I am Arayaaksh. Commander of the Eastern Sky Legion," he said, tone crisp, precise. "I was bred to command. I've never seen anything like you, Devi. I don't understand you. But I want to."
He reached out, slowly, his fingers brushing the air beside her cheek—but not touching. As though afraid contact would break something sacred.
Rudrayaan, the eldest, came next. His silver hair gleamed under the moonlight, and he radiated an aura of brutal calm.
"I am Rudrayaan, eldest of the Ten, born during the last moonfire war. I buried the last queen of this planet with my hands. We are all the descendants of the Stormbloodline " He looked at Aarya, eyes deep and slow like winter rivers. "I do not kneel lightly. But to you, I would kneel again."
His gaze didn't stray once from her eyes—not to her curves, not to her glowing skin. Just her.
Aarya's breath caught.
One by one, they came.
Shauryan—covered in strange runes that moved when he breathed, as if alive, his voice low and quiet. "I was created to kill. But I would destroy myself before letting you be harmed."
Varenyak, wild and untamed, hair braided with bone and feathers, his voice a growl: "I've broken mountains with my hands. But your scent…" He inhaled deeply. "It breaks something inside me."
Bhavmyan, soft-spoken with eyes like stormglass. "I hear you, even when you say nothing."
Tarkaan, with skin dark as obsidian and glowing silver tattoos etched like constellations. "I've mapped the stars to find something like you. I never thought it would walk toward me."
Shvetan, quiet but radiating immense psychic energy. "The moment you touched those stones, the entire planet trembled. I felt it."
Dhrivas, golden-eyed and leaner than the rest, voice wicked and teasing, but undercut with reverence. "You're too soft for this place. But somehow, this place is bending for you."
And finally, Nirant, the youngest-looking, with a scar running across his lips and a gaze like fire behind ice. "I was born in war. But in you, I smell peace. I don't trust it yet. But I want to."
Aarya was breathless.
Ten names. Ten voices. Ten giants, all standing around her like planets drawn into orbit—by her.
She didn't understand why. Or how. But her body did. Her instincts did.
They weren't just drawn to her—they were made for her.
Something in her trembled. Not in fear now, but in the slow-burning warmth curling in her belly. A longing she didn't want to name. Something molten, something dangerous.
And yet… their eyes never wandered. Not to her chest. Not to her legs. Not to her exposed skin, now barely wrapped in fur and hide.
They looked at her as if she were divine.
And that reverence felt far more intimate than desire.
"I don't know what you think I am," she whispered, voice shaking. "But I'm not here to be worshipped."
Rudrayaan's eyes softened.
"You are not here to be worshipped," he said. "But we may do it anyway."
Aarya's knees gave out.
And Kiran caught her—arms warm and strong, cradling her with surprising gentleness. The moment their skin touched, something electric rippled through them both.
His breath hitched.
She shivered.
Somewhere deep inside her chest,
a strange light stirred.
The ten did not move closer.
They only watched—each of them drawn, controlled, straining.
Something had begun.