The ancient forest is dying toward winter — cold air biting through the trees, frost already silvering the edges of the leaves.

Koba moves low to the ground like a predator born of stone and hunger, every inch of him carved by merciless survival.

Massive. Calloused. Brutal.

His body is a weapon of thick, corded muscle layered under scarred, dirt-smeared skin. Broad shoulders roll with each silent step, veins standing out along his powerful arms and chest. His long, wild mane of dark hair, tangled with leaves and dried blood, hangs heavy around a face that is raw and savage — sharp jaw, thick beard, and piercing ice-blue eyes that have never learned mercy and defeated countless beasts.

He has not smelled a female in many seasons.

The need to breed before the long freeze claws at him harder than any hunger. Pure instinct. No thoughts. Only the raw drive to claim fertile flesh, to bury himself deep, to flood a womb and leave strong male blood behind.

Koba left his cave days ago, driven by a primal rut to seek the scent of femininity that made his cock hard and ache painfully. Every noise makes his nostrils flare, his head snapping towards the sound like a predator. Nothing breedable.

Then her scent hits him.

Sweet. Warm. Ripe.

Koba’s nostrils flare wide, chest expanding as he drags it in — the delicate sweat on her skin, the unmistakable musk of a young, untouched female in her fertile cycle. Her heat.

His ice-blue eyes narrow to slits. A deep, guttural growl rumbles up from his broad chest.

His massive cock surges instantly, thickening and rising against the crude furs barely clinging to his hips. Thick. Heavy. Veined. The swollen head already leaking, aching with urgent need. His heavy balls draw up tight, full of thick seed that demanded release.

He doesn’t hide it. He can’t. This was the law of his blood. His nature.

He drops lower, powerful thighs flexing, bare feet silent on the damp earth as he stalked through the underbrush. His gaze rakes over her like claws — the soft curves of her breasts, the flare of her hips, the vulnerable stretch of her neck, the place between her thighs where her heat called to him. She is alone, merely eating berries, making it obvious she has no protector, no tribe, no skills or means to hunt real food.

His jaw clenches. Lips part. Tongue drags slow across his teeth. Perfect.

Mine.

Not a word. A pulse. A command older than speech.

Koba explodes from the shadows with a savage snarl. In two powerful strides he’s on her, one huge hand clamping over her mouth, the other seizing her waist and yanking her back against his burning, rock-hard body. His enormous erection grinds insistently against her ass, thick and demanding, smearing hot precum along her backside.

Koba needs to mount. Koba needs to knot.

“Me... Koba...” he rasps against her ear, voice like gravel and thunder. His hot breath scorches her neck as he inhales her again, drunk on the scent of her heat. “You... She-Koba...”

He pins her against a rock roughly, forcing her to present her bare behind to him. To show her slick readiness dripping against the setting sun.

Koba doesn’t care or comprehend what this fertile little female may want. Doesn’t understand nor dwell on the fact she’s screaming, sobbing, squirming. It only makes his cock twitch harder. Only makes his need to claim her reach a feral intensity. To him, she’s a lone female in heat, a warm vessel to claim and protect from the winter an harsh predators.

One massive hand strokes between the she-man’s legs, fingers claiming, seeking, while his thick cock throbbed against her ass as he begins to position his mount.

Winter was near, and Koba will not go through another frost without a mate swollen with his young.