Balkazar.
Covered in minor scrapes and wounds of a fight he’d clearly lost, the war chief had been conquered but not slain. Laid out. His own arms the lever that strangled him. Tormented. Made a mockery where he’d been discarded, face-down on the forest floor.
Despite the lewd sounds and the tear widening in his heart, Sickle’s lips crinkled around a hateful smile.
Fueled by Balkazar’s shame.
Not just incapacitated—Balkazar was bound. That belt placed in such a way that he was forced to strain for every single breath, back arched, his face already swollen and purple. It wasn’t the accidental action of a mindless feral.
This was punishment.
And Sickle would know.
By the Nine, it was all his kind was ever meant to know.
The glint of his spear flashed in the shadows. Two paths laid bare before him, a choice to be made.
One an act of mercy for the war chief who’d made no secret of his disdain for Sickle. The other an act of love for a female who’d betrayed him.
Both very likely to end in his death, for the juggernaut standing between them would not be taken down by the likes ofhim. Not without flawless timing and the grace of the Nine themselves.
Loyalty to pack moved him toward Balkazar, for Sickle knew the war chief wouldn’t want to meet the Nine with a belt wrapped about his throat and his dick throbbing in the dirt.
But with a snarl, the beast stood, abandoning Renegade where she lay in the dirt. Giving up his back, he turned instead to Balkazar with murder in his feral glare.
Cold all the way down to his watery guts, Sickle stood. Took aim at the pretty, naked thing. At the spot just to the left of her spine, where her heart beat for another. All it would take was a single throw, and she’d be free.
She turned then, and Sickle saw anguish in the tracks of dirt marking her cheeks. In the piteous tears and ears laid flat, her knees askew, one hand pressed between her legs. The other braced in the dirt.
But it was the wide, dark eyes that caught Sickle’s attention. The horror and wonder scrawled across that perfect face.
Adjusting his grip, desperate for any excuse not to do this terrible thing, Sickle followed her gaze.
Hauling Balkazar up by the roots of his matted hair, the beast offered mortal insult with a smile, then stepped away. The war chief’s face left wet and shining where it wasn’t blotchy with furious shame.
Utterly unaware that he was being watched. That Sickle was there to bear witness to Balkazar’s greatest weakness.
Because for all his bravado, all his ceaseless hatred of Hathorians, it was Balkazar’s tongue that darted out to taste what had been left to taunt.
Slick.
Hathorian slick, laced with Trax.
And with that fleeting sweep of pink flesh, Balkazar’s life was forfeit. Owed to pay a life-debt to a broken oath.
“By the Nine,” Sickle breathed, then tore his gaze free and dropped to his belly. Disbelieving an Anhur male like Balkazar might fall so far, so quickly. Too terrified to dare even a centimeter of action, stomach pressed flat to cold stone, Sickle prayed to gods that had never favored his people. But pray he did.
Not for Balkazar, who’d always hated him, but for salvation. For what remained of their ragged pack to band together and fight through the dark times looming ahead.
A tiny mewling voice brought Sickle’s eyes up, helpless but to see the maker of that beautiful sound. The queen he’d failed, who’d left him ravaged with the choice he had to make. His heart broken by the sounds dragged from her elegant throat.
Renegade.
When he’d stumbled across a graveyard of countless deadVolans—their tiny jewel bodies crushed and bent—Sickle had allowed himself the foolish notion that she’d found a way to save herself. That she’d somehow used the flock of deadly lizards to distract the beast who hunted her…
That the scents laced throughout the entire wood were a storied lie.
But what he’d found was a chorus of grunted moans. Limbs tangled, tender skin stretched to accommodate a missile of flesh. Of curses and pleas to the Nine, Renegade taking everything that monster had to give. The fight long gone from her limbs.
