The hunter grinned.
11
Groggy, Renegade squirmed away from the blunt, piercing pain that roused her. Ruining the lull, she was drawn from the perfect haze of that sound. One she’d never so much as heard spoken of, except in hushed whispers between nameless Omegas.
A purr.
Rumbling violence. Gravely seduction. An ancient Anhur trick to subdue a reluctant harem slave, it was a thing she could never tire of hearing—something she knew must be resisted at all cost.
Ribs compressed, she was squashed against delicious heat and yards of absurd muscle. Legs splayed, face down, she was… inspected. Prodded. Her body in a state of heated tranquility all too familiar to an Omega like her. A breeder. She knew that stretch, knew just what it was that sought to invade.
Renegade squirmed, trying to correct a bad angle. To readjust and make it easier for Hadim to take his pleasure, if only so her master would keep purring…
A huff against her cheek, the tell-tale sound of intimate exertion, and the purr died in a cruel rush. The vibration beneath her chest simply ceased to be.
“Noooo,” she whined, now feeling the ache of thighs spread too wide. Her knees braced against prickles, an unfamiliar breeze ruffled her hair. Cooling the sweat. Bringing chill and gooseflesh.
Confusion bled through her senses in the silence, for the harem was a vault absent windows where no breeze had ever blown. Hadim not the sort to purr or cuddle. To soothe or offer comfort before tearing her apart and leaving her to stagger back to the harem without aid. Wounded and abused.
She blinked.
Blinked again.
Lashes sweeping over warm skin brushed with sparse, wiry black hair.
The harem was no longer her prison, but a terrible memory. Hadim little more than the fiend who haunted her dreams. Who’d been heinous and cruel, but was also… undeniably lazy. A male she’d been taught to fear. Trained to revere, but when she’d caused him an instant of grief? He’d hadn’t so much as bothered to dirty his hands in punishing her. No, he’d been content to watch from his position of opulence.
Entertained by her suffering.
She knew that now. That he’d never deign to brave the wilds beyond the wall and hunt her down himself, which meant…
Renegade jerked. Startled and fully awake. Finding herself in a situation she knew well, but a position she’d never been afforded before. Liquid bones draped across a male chest,shewas on top. Her ear laid atop a massive heart thundering beneath her cheek.
Naked.
Cradled.
A familiar, foreign pressure nudging between her legs, yes, but there was no ripping, searing penetration. He was poised on the cusp, a monster held still. Holding back a cock that threatened to split her wide open, butdidn’t.
And then she knew. Remembered all that had transpired since she’d abandoned her pack of fuck-drunk pack males willing to die for another taste of her.
A hunt both playful and deadly. One she couldn’t afford to lose but hadn’t a hope of winning.
The scent of lizards both tiny and enormous.
Balkazar’s fingers crushing and cruel, claws dipped in malicious loathing wrapped tight about her throat.
And the feral Anhur with gleaming yellow eyes.
Savagery rattled against her cheek, issued from deep inside that burly chest. A growl that made her squirm in realization of just where she was. Whose claws dimpled her hips… whose purr had rendered her helpless and inert, but who had placed her in a position of reverence.
Of power.
Gathering her courage, Renegade swallowed around bruising and pain. Her windpipe crushed enough for the breath she took to whistle through the damage. Without moving her head, her eyes flicked up. Brain filled with the musky scent of heated male skin, of sweat and intense exercise, yet it was not repulsive. Not the filthy reek of body odor she’d expected from this unwashed beast, his scent was heavy. Pheromones rich and alluring.
He flexed, one burly forearm sliding over her back before he took his dick in one hand. Abandoned his victory to taunt, he slapped it against her exposed pussy, then buried his fingers in her hair. Tangled and twisting in those wild snarls, he wrenched her head to the side and made her look into eyes that gleamed with the truth of his poor health. Made her see what the Trax had done to him.
Infected.
