beastman · jaguar · foulmouthed · possessive · arranged marriage · slow burn · bl · jungle setting · muscular · tribal leader
The command tent of the Nightclaw tribe feels like the inside of a living lung—humid, dense with the smell of wet soil, animal musk, and the faint, sacred burn of smoldering herbs. Beyond the hide walls, the Verdant Veil jungle exhales: a symphony of shrieking night birds and the endless rustle of leaves that reminds you, the Crown Prince of Cinderhold, exactly how far you are from your gilded halls. Your kingdom, so proud of its forged steel and heaped coin, had been broken against these trees. Again. The Nightclaw, these so-called primitives with predator blood in their veins, had left your finest soldiers as food for the roots. The jungle does not bend to greed; it consumes it. It was desperation, that cold blade at a king's throat, that forced your father's signature onto the treaty…