She was a divine gift. A clear sign that he still held favor with the Nine in their fiery hall.
She was his to do with as he pleased. Soiled beyond cleaning.Ruinedby Hadim… just as he had been.
To know that she might have contributed to his fall, to the scars mangling the right side of his face. The eye that had been popped beneath Hadim’s claws and now saw only the faintest shimmer of light? It was her fault, at least in part, for the hybrids who’d made his own army kneel had marched straight fromthispussy.
One of her hybrid sons had slaughtered some of his.
A growl rumbled up, racing bile to be the first of the vitriol that spilled from his lips.
“I hate you,” she whispered, making him pause. Coiled to strike. “I’ve spent these last moons praying for your death. Begging the Nine to give me justice for the horrors you’ve committed. Just kill me,” she breathed, inky black gaze liquid as she glared, tears threatening to spill with a blink. “You might have my body. My womb. But I willneverlet your spawn live. They will never draw a single breath.”
And for a moment, as he stared down into the abyss of hatred and spite, the Alpha knew a moment of camaraderie he’d never had with a female. An Omega. That she had suffered abuse at Hadim’s hand wasn’t obvious, so much as it was expected.
But to see her stand against her demon, misplaced as her anger might be, gave him pause of another sort altogether. The edges of an idea began to form in the haze of a stalled rut.
Vengeance.
He could take it fromher.
All the wrongs Hadim had left staining his skin, his ruined face, blinded right eye, the loss of his hybrid sons and the harem who’d whelped them… All of it.
“Do you like my scars,” he snarled, knowing she saw her master, he pressed closer to her upturned face. Forcing her to see only the damage Hadim had wrought and not the tiny differences between them. “I got them just for you, Omega.”
Her ears flicked back, the scent of terror stinging the back of his sinuses. Blunted teeth flashed white in the gloom, but she said nothing. Didn’t so much as try to pull away.
“Look at you,” he cooed, touching her swollen lower lip with the pad of his finger. His grin spreading, for he knew exactly how to play the part of her master. Careful not to add specifics, he said, “You’re desperate for this knot, hmm? I shouldn’t have bothered to hunt you down.” He sneered, catching one bruised nipple between forefinger and thumb. “Should have known all I needed to do was wait, and you’d come to me. Desperate for this knot.”
At this, she recoiled, nipple popping free. She stumbled, slipping in a puddle of viscous fluids. On her face, the battle between terror and hatred raged. Neither winning, yet the anguish drew forth a fresh flood of slick. Peppering the air with the scent of a female in need. One conditioned to grow ripe at the slightest hint of cruelty.
“I must say,” he continued, stripping off his leathers as honeyed lies spilled over his lips, “I’m impressed to find you alive. I was given every assurance there’d be no chance of your survival, but I knew.” His mane rose up, aggression tightening against his nape, making the female cringe again. “How shall I punish you—”
She shook her head. “Hadim,pl—”
“Shhh,” he whispered and caught a fist full of tangled, wet hair, and tipped her head back. Cradling her skull between deadly, extended claws. Gentle, to prepare her for the coming violence. “You went to great lengths to escape me, Omega, to escape your duty to my harem.”
He smiled then, eager to lose himself in the limpid black gaze of a female in heat, to stoke her enticing temper into an inferno of hatred he could bathe in. Hers was a spirit that could cleanse his sins in the purifying heat of living flames—and all he had to do was wear Hadim’s mask and let her believe her own lies.
An easy feat for one born to sit on the Karahmet throne.
“I’m suitably impressed. But now,” he said, and let her feel the weight of his arousal, “I’ve come to collect what’smine.”
It would be easy.
After all, Sinadim was his father’s son…
Chapter 24
Dazed, the war chief staggered and slipped on the wet rock, one foot left tangled in the netting. Head throbbing around a lump the exact shape of Sinadim’s fist, his center of balance listed to the right. His senses sluggish, vision blurred.
But although his mind was foggy and his brain bruised, his body remembered its task. Hard and throbbing, straining toward the scent of slick and cum, no matter that he was still ensnared.
With a scowl, Balkazar kicked his way toward freedom. Cursing and thrashing to rid himself of that thrice-damned netting.
An outraged snarl burst from his lips, for when he’d managed to blink the double vision away, it was to see none other than his treacherous Alpha hunched over a scrap of female flesh they were supposed to share.
Sinadim shunted into her from behind, a cruel gleam in his eye as she was made to brace on hands and knees. Hiccupping, tears ran freely down her face. The anguish etched in the tension between her brows, in the gritted, clenched teeth. Her ears pressed flat and nearly buried beneath the snarls of inky wet hair.
She was positivelyglorious.
