“No,” she spat, teeth flashing and staggered from Micah’s lap. Slipping on the slick, red stone, her ears pressed flat to her skull. Limbs trembling with helpless need, with the effort to refuse an Anhur male making unspoken demands.
But refuse she did.
Giving them her back, the girl turned to the hot springs. Away from Hadim and the retribution she knew would come. The claws and bruises. Slicing into her flesh, he would leave her marked if he bothered to leave her alive…
She stumbled when she stepped in a puddle of fluids, then went to her knees with a thump, a pained cry. Both hands braced wide, elbows locked. Her pelvis pulsing with need none but Hadim had ever been able to ease.
Having exhausted all of her other playthings, she squealed a wordless protest.
She needed, but refused to submit.
Hot, throbbing agony oozed through her veins. Her skin. The base of her spine, where her tail tried to flex in a graceful, alluring arch of invitation none could see.
Rounded ass swaying to and fro, keening high at the back of an abused throat, she began to crawl. Hips tipping up, she presented even as she set flimsy claws into stone and worked toward a freedom she’d never have again. Displaying swollen lips and a splash of seed that clung to slick flesh.
She saw Micah stand, the depleted hybrid retreating after he’d taken his fill. The heavy weight of his dick now shrunken and soft, he made way for the Anhur to take his place.
Abandoning her where she lay.
Whining, she dragged her knees over the stone. Breath hitching, a fragile sob escaped swollen lips. “Nnnest,” she whispered, rattling over the lonely syllable. Seeking the comfort of instinct, when there was none to be had elsewhere. Her ears drooping as her strength began to wane, as adrenaline gave way to scorching heat. Liquid desire. “Just need… my… my…”
Shouted cries of triumph shattered the glassy haze enveloping her mind. And she looked, knowing she shouldn’t. That doing so might well be her last free decision.
But she couldn’t help it.
And it was too late to run… to get to her spear. To hide.
Hadim was nearly free.
Chapter 21
“I can’t go any further,” Sickle gasped, sweating as he worked with arms raised high above his head. Sawing at the tar-coated ropes keeping the Anhur stranded and out of the competition. “I—I can’t reach.”
Sneering, the Alpha shoved his hand through the net, palm up. Reaching. “Give it to me,” he said, fingers clicking until the rough handle of Sickle’s make-shift blade landed with a slap. Jagged edges threatening to tear skin, until he set it to the itchy ropes. “Move,” he snapped, shoulders bunching as he worked. Trying to saw at the cords beneath his ass, no matter that doing so made him rock against Balkazar.
Made him throb and drip.
The Omega mewled, pained and desperate. HerBiqueaglands swollen to the point of acute agony the likes of which he’d never witnessed before, visible from even this distance.
This was no lowly runaway on the cusp of maturity, fleeing the change that would see males fight over breeding rights—females likethatwere easily serviced by a hybrid’s weak knot. It was a handy trick, to use a well-trained hybrid to subdue females in heat. To keep their wares pristine, their wombs untouched and hovering at peak-value. Break them in without hardening them off.
But not this girl.
Micah’s girth should have been enough to at least partially relieve her—and yet, she was as agitated as any he’d ever seen.
Which could only mean…
Wonder lit the Alpha’s face for an instant. A brief moment of realization and stark hunger for a thing he’d thought lost to him forever.
This girl was an escaped harem slave.
Somehow, by the grace of the Nine, she was here. Thriving in the beyond.
There would be no lengthy training period, no messy tears of a virgin needing to be broken in.
She’d been bred for endurance, schooled in the arts of giving pleasure, her bloodline was ancient—one he recognized, if he couldn’t quite place it. Hand-chosen with the highest pedigree, herBiqueaglands had grown hard, resistant to abuse from anything but a truly massive knot of a dominant Anhur male.
Maybe even a prince.
