For much of her life she’d been beaten and poisoned and abused, worked to become stronger. Better. At the expense of her innocence. And that is why she would do anything to protect Skehl, a male they both knew was the best of them. Amazingly strong, powerful, yet so kind at heart. A heart he didn’t let others see. But they knew.
As Arghet understood they knew about him. Nothing special, Skehl had said about himself. But that was Arghet’s flaw, that he knew he was nothing special but wanted to be more anyway. Pride, the need to show himself as better than those around him, because he knew he wasn’t.
That’s why he trained so hard, why he worked to do anything his alpha and beta asked of him. Because he belonged as one of the many. But what about Arghet stood out? What about him was different from any other?
A burst of energy lit him from within.Damn.Raia and Skehl were insatiable, and he continued to feel the aftereffects from their frenzied sex. The buildup energized and drained him at the same time, because he hadn’t been able to relieve the pressure.
A glance underfoot showed small buds growing. Grasses seemed taller, the trees swaying as new leaves sprouted on branches. He glanced down at his chest and saw the telltale red streaking through his markers.
Maker, what he wouldn’t give to sink inside Skehl or Raia right now. To feel them around him, touching him. Making him whole.
And the elders wanted him to give that up? To share himself with other barbarians so intimately after knowing the perfection of a true bonding?
A furious burst of energy left him, the light from his marker shooting like rays of energy and covering the cat and the area in front of him with a crimson light.
The feline blinked at him and started to…change. As did the area under his light.
Arghet stared at a new vibrant section of tropical forest and laughed, giddy and a little dizzy. He tried to stand and sat again, unable to balance himself. The cat padded to him, now twice the size it had been before, a monster with huge claws and fangs. It butted his hand, and he stroked it, amazed at the thing’s silken texture, the fur so soft, the color of the feline now black, white, and green in marked patterns that reminded him of his chest marker.
It purred, steadying him, before it froze, scented the air, and ran away.
The flit birds had doubled in number, swarming the many blooms on the meyrn tree, which appeared…larger?
He had to laugh.
“What goes on here?” Ackhlen, a male he hadn’t talked to in days, but who’d seemed to always be there, on the periphery, walked toward him, studying Arghet and the thickening jungle in awe. “Arghet?”
Arghet didn’t want the male too close. Ackhlen’s phelthar connected to a strange, creeping rot Arghet could sense but not see. A rot expanding, making his skin prickle in warning.
He tried to rise and found he couldn’t.
“He’s in here.” A whisper of breath, a prick in his neck, then Ackhlen crooning into his ear from way too close, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
The last thing he heard was Ackhlen talking to someone else, then nothing.
