This was what he did best. Hunt. Before he’d been recruited, his skill had made him infamous in the black markets. Specialized in trafficking drugs, goods, and of course, females.
It was what had brought he and the prince together, all those years ago. He, born without standing, a smuggler of precious goods, supplying breeding females to the Firstborn Son of the Karahmet bloodline.
He’d expected the prince to be yet another of the fat and lazy Alphas lounging in the safety of a palatial home. Those who promised a better life, access to females, to a future that didn’t end young and bloody. Enslaved to the perfume of hope, Balkazar and his pack had kept those insatiable gluttons supplied with a steady diet of pussy and illicit goods. Ensured their ranks continued to swell with hybrids whelped from stolen breeders.
Every single one of the upper class guilty of the exact same crimes. Who punished the common folk for daring to exist in the systemthey’dcreated.
But the prince was different. He saw the hypocrisy for what it was, knew all the grimy details commoners could only guess to be true.
Not a one of the most beloved conspiracy theories camecloseto the horrible truth. None might guess how deep the rot had crept into the Silver City.
The laws designed to protect them all, little more than wisps of fragile lies that hardly bothered to be convincing. All but undone by the wants of a ruling class that had armies of hybrids to die for them. Who squashed rebellions before they became more than whispers, no matter that one male claiming dozens of females had unbalanced the gender ratios and created instability for the young malesnotin a position to simply take what they wanted. That in doing so, roving packs of unattached males were forced to hunt together. Kill together. And though it wasn’t spoken of, some were even known to fuck each other to relieve the misery of being utterly without options.
These were the problems of peasants. Of those too weak to compete for resources.
So males like Balkazar did what they had to do. They adapted to the misery of the way things were, or they died before their undesirable genes could be passed down.
Simple.
Unavoidable.
Brutal.
Until the Firstborn had let Balkazar sire a few kits of his own on an Omega bitch in the harem.
They’d bred her together.
One driving the other deeper into rut. The presence of another male—the scent of royal seed mixed with high-quality slick—had sparked a heated rush of hormones that only made Balkazar’s rut sweeter. To have slick on tap, any time he wanted it? The prince eager to rut at his side?
It was a luxury he’d only ever dared to dream of.
The moons rose and fell three times before their breeder whelped her litter. And though most bore the vibrant green eyes of their sire, there were two who gazed at him with eyes he’d seen every day in the mirror.
A gift he would not soon forget, one that bought loyalty the war chief would never question.
That the prince had been made to go without… the throbbing, twisting agony of withdrawal from slick and the rut it inspired? It was his fault.Hewas the reason the prince had lost everything. Challenged his father too soon and been maimed for the oversight. One green eye lost its vibrant depth, the Alpha’s face mutilated by a vicious swipe of his father’s claws.
But it could have beenmuchworse.
If he’d been any but a son of Karahmet, he’d have been executed immediately. The prince had demanded exile, his right as the named Firstborn—and of all the advisers and noble elite who’d stood with him, the prince had chosen Balkazar to join him. Knowing what it meant for the others.
That to do so meant sacrificing a limb and giving up any notion of standing within the walls of the Silver City ever again.
But Balkazar had never bothered to blame the disgraced prince for his docked tail. Instead, he’d turned that bitter resentment back to those who’d earned it. Those who hid behind policies they wrote and knew just how to break the rules without consequence.
He was a war chief. Elevated through the ranks to stand at the ear of his prince, Balkazar would endure the absence of rut. The withdrawal that never really left his system. A living torture where every passing day without a female made temptation of Sickle’s sleek lines and willowy, Hathorian muscle. The memory of rut an insidious worm burrowing through brain matter. Boring holes and tunnels that all led back to slick heat and the flow of sticky fluids.
Balkazar couldn’t image what it was for the prince, who’d been breeding his harem since his balls had dropped.
But now they had something to live for! A chance to make something of their pitiful lives in the beyond.
By the fires, it was their turn to breed an unwilling female. And with her, they would have an army.
He would train new generations to hate the Silver City as they ought. To carry out the designs of their sire as he bred more to die against the wall…
Balkazar would see his Alpha on the Sultan’s throne, a female perched atop his cock, scepter dangling loose from clawed fingers, his thighs wet with slick. And perhaps, if the prince allowed it, a few hybrids would look up at Balkazar with familiar eyes and know of their sire’s deeds. That his sperm had swum beside royalty andwon.
Tipping his head back, Balkazar took a great, huffing inhale of the warm evening breeze. Eyes fluttering closed, hair tossed about his face. She was there on the wind. Hidden. And now that he had the scent of her, Balkazar could tell she’d been close to their camp. Clever enough to observe before she made her presence known, to disguise her scent beneath the putrid stench of death.
