She embraced him. Welcomed him with spread thighs and clinging fingers.
Sickle’s fingers tightened around the spear, grip damp with anxious grease.
There was no denying it. Not anymore.
She was infected.
Sweat bloomed across Sickle’s brow, soaking through his undershirt as he was made to watch the feral male who’d found his Renegade. Who’d murdered a perfect thing without a spark of regret.
But Sickle knew, even as his own pants grew tight and uncomfortable.
This was no simple infected animal rotting from the inside out.
Not grotesque or revolting, the horrific mutations they’d seen in the beyond were absent in this towering beast cornering willing prey. Absent except for his eyes, which gleamed with the heat of unnatural fire. Luminous and feral.
No, this creature was a force of nature made manifest. Intact, his tail held aloft in supreme arrogance, his control absolute. A true son of the Nine, every inch more dominant than Sinadim himself, a prince who’d been born to rule.
Everything Sickle wouldneverbe.
Something hideous writhed in Sickle’s chest, then. Something hateful, helpless but to watch as Renegade went to her knees at the beast’s approach. Not quite cowering, not quite submissive. Her eyes glassy as she stared up at a giant, devotion sparkling in those inky, bottomless orbs.
Rumbling low at the back of his throat, the beast stooped. Crouching to meet her limpid black gaze, he wound his fingers in tangled ropes of inky black hair and tipped her head back. Gentle as he guided her, made her look until she squirmed.
And then she reached for him. Fingers trembling when they made contact with the vast bulk of his thigh.
“Please,” she whispered, and Sickle’s heart dissolved. Burning and acidic as it slid into his gut.
Rolling to his back, Sickle clutched the spear close to his breast.
His mission altered by seething jealousy.
A new target, and this one with gleaming, feral eyes…
13
Renegade snarled around a sob. A trembling heap of pathetic conflict, she knelt at the hunter’s feet. Disgraced, unable to flee or meet those gleaming amber eyes, she was left to cower while he loomed above. Trying not to press her cheek to his knee and beg until her voice spluttered and died. Until she was the thing she feared most.
An empty sleeve, just waiting to be filled.
Rendered fat over a cooking fire. Docile jelly.
He straightened, stepping around her despite the way her fingers clung, the hunter settled back against the boulder. Sliding down, he sat with that glorious tail tucked between his cheeks to protect from the loose detritus, and let his knees fall apart. Exposing a heavy sack and proud, jutting length pulsing and unspent. Throbbing against his belly. A towering example of masculine beauty Renegade hadn’t a hope of ignoring in her addled state.
Not with a natural season still thick in her blood, inflamed by the scent of a male who’d fought to claim her. Who’d met and conquered every challenge with ease. Defended her. By the Nine, he’d been downrightgentle.
All without speaking a single word, being the ruined feral he was.
The risk of infection didn’t stop herBiqueaglands from finding a second wind. The dregs of her heat sputtering to life once more, she began to produce a fresh wave of soothing, slippery slick in answer to that savage girth. Called by widening thighs, by hooded, amber eyes that issued a clear command.
That sheobey.
“He means to take his reward,” Balkazar rasped, subdued but still seething. Taunting her. “An’ I’m going to enjoy watching you fall, whore. The Trax will not be kind to a pathetic, weak little bitch like you.”
Keening, Renegade inched back. Teeth bared, ears flat, she retreated. Crawled through the dirt like the terrified breeder she was, lashes wet with self-loathing, for Balkazar’s opinion of her was nothing more than an observation of what he could plainly see.
A harem slave, dripping for the most dominant male. Heedless of the very real danger, she couldn’t help herself.
Renegade mewled, high at the back of her throat.
