As execution of a Firstborn son was forbidden, he’d been sentenced to a lifetime of wandering in the wilds. Cast out as custom demanded, he’d been given nothing but the life of his war chief and was made to watch the others fall beneath the blade.
His father had laughed as their sentence was dealt. Cooing in mock remorse as his favored son was banished, docked, hybrid sons slaughtered, his harem ravished. No longer a threat to his father’s vast holdings. His title. And then his father had taken his mother’s favorite pet behind his golden, Hathorian ears, and shoved him into unwilling arms. “A parting gift to see you through the withdrawal.”
As if a prince would sully himself with a queen’s plaything!
No, he’d gone through the withdrawal alone. Without his Omegas, without a harem of dedicated females to induce his rut and catch his seed. The testosterone burning as it was purged from his system, andstill, not an instant of unwanted attention was paid to his father’s final gift. Sickle left unmolested, if traumatized by the abrupt change in living circumstances.
From pampered pet to survivor.
But through it all, the war chief held out hope. Even after all these long months of the hunt, after only managing to findthreehybrids that weren’t infected with the Trax virus, Balkazar continued his hunt. With one lone male and two underfed brothers to show for it.
Hardly an army of blood-thirsty rebels, though Konjo and Keever certainly had the appetites of several dozen males.
At the rate they were going, generations of the royal blood would rise and fall before his ragged pack could gather the resources to attack.
Ifthey survived the winter—and all the beasts who would awaken with the first snow. Those who hibernated while the summer children were fattened by long months of easy meals.
The Alpha hadn’t the luxury of hope. Knew just what lurked in the wilds, for he’d seen it when he was a child. His father had taken he and his siblings into the beyond to impress a young Anhur consort. Guarded by a hundred of his hybrid sons, he’d sent his natural children out of the carriage so he might breed a female that was not their mother.
And then the wilds attacked.
A wave of ravenous predators descended from the skies. Raining acid and cooing over blistering wounds, they’d formed a beautiful, deadly cloud. Tiny winged lizards who sang while they feasted. The swarm capable of bringing down blooded warriors by the dozens, he’d watched his only sister crushed to death beneath the weight of her personal guard.
It was only the beginning of the horrors that came pouring from the wood while the carriage rocked above them. His father serenading his new treasure to the sounds of death and horror.
Nearly seventy hybrids died that day—and every one of his siblings.
But he survived. He alone was showered in praise, named Firstborn, and given every advantage afforded him by his position of favor.
No matter how many new siblings his father gave him—of which there were many dozens—he was the one who stood at his father’s side. Groomed to one day challenge the Sultan himself.
No more. Not after—
“Alpha!”
His hackles bristled, mood soured by the hated shades of the past, by the sound of a hybrid’s voice that was not one of his own.
“My Alpha,please! You must come!”
Turning left, into his line of sight, the Alpha glared at the hybrid jogging across their camp. One of the twins. Konjo. An unmistakable silhouette clenched in his large hand.
Smooth. Polished. It was a carved length of maple, complete with veins and bulbous glans.
“Is that—” the Alpha swallowed, his attention caught by the breath of the sweet impossible scent wafting from between the hybrid’s thick fingers. The words died on his tongue.
His brain stuttered to a grinding halt, recognizing that scent in an instant.
And for a long moment, as he stared at the thing being presented to him, he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do much of anything really, except gape at what was clenched in Konjo’s fist. Stupefied.
And then, “Is that a cock?”
“Yes, my Alpha,” Konjo replied, his voice a deep gravelly rumble, his eyes unable to break away from the false phallus. Pupils narrowed to tiny points of black. “It stinks of”—the hybrid swallowed, then glanced over his shoulder as he whispered,“slick. It even tastes of slick… but…” He licked his lips. “But it can’t be, right?”
Heart pounding against his ribs, the Alpha snatched the shaft with careful fingers. Inspecting the carving with a critical eye, he breathed deep of a scent he thought he’d never know again. Committing it to memory, he grew familiar with her on an intimate level. Knew the scent of her… the taste…
Mouth watering, his tongue darted out to lick the wooden dildo from base to tip.
At the first hint of that precious flavor, his sack tightened. The rut threatening to consume him in a rush—mind growing hazy with ecstasy. His cock surging against his inseam.
