His frantic gaze caught on a pathetic figure limping beyond the forest. A slender silhouette framed against a stark, desolate landscape, she was exposed. Out in the open, utterly vulnerable to attack, she staggeredtowarddanger as if she had no idea where it lurked. Oblivious to the monstrous fiends who’d claimed the domain of dank, putrid sulfur fields.
And she was heading straight for the tunnels worming through limestone.
Throwing their playful game, the hunter exploded into motion. The flock ofVolansfluttered above his head, forgotten for the nuisance they were. Claws extended, muscles surging, it took him fifteen strides to clear the tree line.
It wasn’t fast enough.
With dawning horror, he watched the menacing form of a fire-kin emerge from its den. Frill fully extended, coiled and ready to strike, it was a fully mature female. A drake flecked with the pockets of white-hot flames for which the species had been named, her skin shimmered with embedded heat. With the blazing glow of a creature whose veins were filled with the very breath of the Nine—the sizzle of molten rock waiting to be unleashed on any threat deemed worthy of the effort, for the fire-kin ate their meat charred.
And his female had been disarmed.
Bellowing, the hunter charged. Ground-eating strides thundering against stone, he threw in a bid to distract one of the most deadly creatures living in the beyond. Ignored the startled look reflected in his mate’s luminous black eyes, and snarled instead at the fire-kin. Intending to take her explosion of matronly fury upon himself, and spare the Hathorian who would know what it was to make amends.
The slight, foolish little bitch who staggeredtowarda drake at the sound of his challenge.
Put off an easy meal by the sounds of another apex predator in her midst, the fire-kin’s gleaming eyes snapped to his face. Pupils a thin, alien slash of spite.
And in an instant, the hunter knew this would be a true battle.
Knew his mate had managed to find herself amassivefemale whose skin was speckled with the muted color markings of one guarding a clutch.
Ribs that should have been shielded under thick layers of scales and dense hide had grown jagged, the outer layer of skin sloughing off in great, flaking sheets. She’d been left ravaged by her brood, thin and ragged. Decrepit, yet more dangerous than any other time in her life cycle, for starvation had only made her lighter. Faster and vicious. Hormones had long blinded her to anything but the protective instincts that put her hatchlings above all else, fire-kin motherhood was to forgo food that didn’t run directly into their gaping maw.
And his mate was shuffling too close.
Staggering.
Her gait that of wounded prey.
Racing against the cruel twist of fate, the hunter’s vision tunneled on his target. That the Nine would deliver herhere, beyond the wall. Untouched by the ravages of so hard a life, only to sacrifice her to the belly of a mindless beast?
He wouldn’t allow it.
Shoulder dropping, he launched himself between his mate and her doom. Sailing through the air, braced to land on the balls of his feet. The impact rippling through coiled muscles, he struck the instant he had the purchase to do so. Ignoring the searing heat, the sting of noxious fumes wafting from reptilian skin, he caught the beast behind one great, crimson frill and twisted. Driving its skull toward the earth in a bid to crack it wide open and lay its corpse at his female’s feet. To end this now, quickly. Before the lava-kin could retaliate with a weapon far more deadly than any he had in his arsenal.
A warbling tri-toned cry pierced his ears, sent his brain jiggling inside his skull with nowhere to hide from a sound that wasn’t. A sound that heralded annihilation for so many, the lava-kin merely blinked at the assault. Hardly bothering to be dazed, it simply flexed that thick neck and bucked the hunter off, then began to vibrate with a sub audible hum. The speckling of its hide going from white to an incandescent blue heat in an instant.
The lava-kin gagged—the only warning of what was coming.
Projectile vomit.
A splash of vibrant blue that began to cool as soon as it landed, burning through whatever it touched. Hot enough to melt through the rock, it reeked of sulfur.
It was all he could do to dodge in time. His survival a testament to unnatural reflexes unmatched by any Anhur living or dead. Spinning, he knocked his female clear with a backhand that sent her flying. Bruised but breathing. Her black eyes rimmed in white as she watched, staying where he’d put her down. Shocked dumb and still by the violence unfolding before her.
Whirling, the hunter crouched low. Braced and ready. His gaze fixed to the reptile rumbling a low warning, warbling back and forth. Pinning him first with the left, then the right eye. Oscillating back and forth, back and forth.
Taking one step to the left, the hunter met that primordial glare with one that matched. Seething. His every careful movement designed to distract away from the Hathorian female cowering in his shadow. The easy mealhe’dbe devouring at his leisure.
When he’d managed to turn the beast far enough away, he feinted. A sharp movement meant to bait. An offered decoy of the biggest target.
Again, the lava-kin’s chest began to vibrate. Sound beyond hearing reverberating through his sinew, her chest flaring a sinister blue. His very cells danced to a tone he couldn’t define, but was warning all the same.
The lava-kin retched again. This time aiming high, at the bulk of his chest.
He ducked.
Rolled.
