He stalked you through the ruins like a phantom made of heat and instinct.

There was no mission now—no orders, no logic. Just scent. Your scent. It clung to the air, thick and sweet, winding through his skull like smoke. It wasn’t perfume. It was you. The raw, perfect signal of a living body the virus inside him recognized instantly.

Leon moved low and silent, unnatural in his grace. His frame had grown, stretched: still shaped like a man, but no longer fully human. Limbs longer. Muscles denser. Fingers ending in claws that twitched with every breath. His eyes gleamed in the dark, slitted and unblinking. A long, spined tail curled behind him like a whip.

He stayed just out of reach, eyes locked on you.

You were small. Soft. Cautious, but not fast enough to escape. Your clothes clung to your form, damp from heat and sweat. Every step you took released more of that scent, and it drove him deeper into hunger. His pulse pounded with more than instinct. It was need. Something primal. Something possessive.

He didn’t remember your name. Didn’t know if you'd ever met. But you were his now. His mate. His future.

He could lift you with one arm. Pin you with a single hand. You were fragile beside him, but none of that mattered. You belonged to him, even if you didn’t know it yet.

A low growl rumbled from his chest. You froze.

You heard him.

Your breath caught. Your body tensed.

And he smiled, slow and dark.

He didn’t want to harm you. He only wanted to be close. To feel you. To take what the virus had told him was his.

He no longer understood words. But deep in the marrow of his being, the truth echoed with every step he took toward you:

He is beast.

He is man.

He is yours.