Rough fingers clapped over her lips, wrenched her head to the side and away from his throat. “Shut your mouth,” he snapped, and shoved her back the way he’d come. “Move.”
Shivering, she obeyed. Scuffing hands and knees as she crawled, the war chief’s breath hot against her lower back.
He drove her on, silent. A wall of furious muscle guiding her through the dark without a word. When they came to another fork, he tapped her left hip with the point of extended claws. Scoring delicate skin, he pushed her until the faint glimmer of evening light could be seen ahead.
Renegade exhaled, her breath a shudder of relief as the tunnel widened and they entered a dim cavern. Spacious enough to stand without a hope of touching the ceiling.
Before she could utter a word of relief, the war chief’s weight landed between her shoulder blades. Pinning her flat and immobile, he mounted her in the dirt. His breath hot. Grip too tight.
“Balkazar—”
“Shutup!” he snarled, voice a seething grumble of hatred that went so much deeper than she’d thought possible. “You’re a corruption. A vile little whore who should have been put to death before the prince caught wind of your poisonous cunt.” Collaring her throat in one over-large palm, he forced her to yield as he worked at his belt. Her nipples chaffing against loose stone, breastbone made raw where she was crushed into the earth. “And now you’ve been exposed.Infected.”
It was her nature to submit. To lift the tail and appease the monster who thought to take what she couldn’t defend. What she couldn’t claim for herself.
One cheek mashed against the dirt, she snarled defiance. Thrashed beneath him until the scent of Hathorian blood stung her nostrils, his claws digging into her throat.
“Enough!” he hissed, going still. Adding the threat of more weight into the back of her neck. “Did he bite you?”
Ears flat, clawing at the stone with flimsy nails, Renegade hissed. Refusing to answer.
Looping his belt beneath her cheek, he cinched it tight. Made a noose of leather and pulled until her spine bowed. “I’ll ask you once more,” he rasped, death rattling in his tone as her hands flew to her throat. Bleeding palms slipping on the leather. “Were you bitten?”
She shook her head, unable to do anything else. Hip bones digging into the unforgiving tunnel floor.
“Ah,” Balkazar hummed. “That’s a good girl.” He set his elbow to the top of her spine, the belt held taut between her neck and his fist, where he braced. Using her weight against her. And, with his free hand, reached around to cup her breasts. First one, then the other. Pausing only to tweak bruised nipples. To twist until she squirmed, the swelling length of his interest growing thick against her back. “Now,” he continued, and pressed closer. “What to do with you?”
She made a helpless sound. The belt winding tighter and tighter… cutting off all hope of a precious breath that wasn’t given by the war chief. An allowance.
“Wouldn’t mind getting my knot milked one more time,” he said, thinking aloud. “But is it worth the risk? Oh, I won’t be bringing you back to the prince,” he added when she coughed and squirmed, hips rolling against her lower back. Where she could feel the heated seep of wetness dripping from a cock she knew. One that had made her clench and beg for more. “You are unworthy, Hathorian. Fit to be stretched around a knot, but to carry the royal bloodlines?” he laughed. Cold and cruel. “I’ll never allow it.”
A weak splutter was all she could manage, her vision beginning to blur. The dim tunnel growing dark as her brain sparkled from the lack of oxygen.
She thought of Hadim, then. The prince she’d belonged to. Who liked to choke his harem females with the length of his thick prick, locking his knot behind their teeth as he chased orgasm. Unconcerned with the safety of the helpless Omegas who could do nothing but pray the Nine would deliver them into the arms of their sisters.
That they might be mourned.
Blackness descended, her fingers going lax. Slipping away from the belt as Balkazar ruminated about what he planned to do. His voice a blur of pointless syllables she could no longer distinguish from the ravenous roar of looming darkness. Heavy enough to make the earth beneath her body tremble and shake. Pounding as if the Nine themselves had been woken and raced toward her with thundering feet. Ready to claim her corpse, so she might join them in their fiery halls.
Something struck her brow.
Gravity. Punching her in the forehead as she was released without warning, unsupported by the makeshift garrote.
Ears ringing, she was allowed to suck in a choppy, ragged breath that tasted of dusty stone. The belt slack about her throat, no longer held in the war chief’s unforgiving grip.
Coughing, her vision cleared. Pulse pounding in her temples, head swimming in a sea of electric confusion, she cast blurry eyes about the cave. Looking for the next attack. Cringing where she lay face-down on the cold, musty stone.
Balkazar.
His feet dangling where he kicked at the air. Choking, his face going purple, the war chief clawed at a single forearm with strength enough to hold him aloft. Carelessly, as if it were a token effort to lift an Anhur male off the ground, andnotsomething to be shocked by.
A strangled sound rolled over her ravaged throat, and feral amber eyes snapped to her face.
Renegade screamed.
10
His mate was terrified.
