Sinadim’s face tightened, and, claws scoring the wound disfiguring his cheek, he scratched until he bled. The pain a distraction that helped to burn away the dense fog clouding his judgment.
At his command, the pack had come for vengeance. But instead of mindless, bloody violence and gore? Instead of a female they might avenge and a feral horde they could exterminate? They’d found Renegade lost, Balkazar in need of rescue. Beaten, forced to bear witness to this breeding, but still breathing. A simple belt used as a garrote.
There should have been blood, not bruises. Entrails spattered and torn, hanging free of Balkazar’s belly. Twisted limbs shining white where bones poked through flesh.
Not… this.
Not a female sobbing for more, not punishment served up to a defeated rival.
By the Nine, it wasclever.
Vindictive and selfish.
This was a male truly worthy of battle. A true challenge for the prince who’d been born above consequences.
Cawing a gargled scream, Renegade came apart before a silent, unseen audience. A violent orgasm crashing over her, she pleaded.Begged.Knees widening until there was room for Giaus to pound her into the dirt.
“P-Please…unghh… Please…” she mewled, eyes rolling back.
But Giaus didn’t relent to that primal call of pulsing, milking internal muscles that worked for his pleasure. Trying to drain and placate a male who dragged her insides out. No, he coughed up a cruel chuff and saw her orgasm redoubled. Allowing her a single breath before clapping one overlarge palm over her lips.
Silenced, Giaus cradled that exotic beauty in a fist that was meant for murder.
Renegade hadn’t a choice but to breathe through her breeding, her eyes showing white. Veins in her neck distended. She could do nothing but convulse and twitch around that plundering dick, left to do little but take it.
Working her over his shaft, Giaus’ tongue rasped against her nape. Licking at the bumps marking the top of her spine, even as he continued to torment the nub of her severed tail with a thumbnail. Continued to sluice through her reddened folds at ever frantic speeds.
Soaked in anxious, competitive sweat, Sinadim trembled on the edge. Fighting the urge to succumb to the rut. To charge into the fray and reclaim what belonged to him.
“Alpha?” Micha whispered, his brow heavy with concern, sloping down at the edges where that worry met his temper. Eyes tight as they watched Renegade mounted by another. And in his hands, a club. Claimed from the forest floor, he held a fallen branch with the menace of a warrior trained to defend his Alpha’s horde. “I can end him. Now, while he’s distracted.”
Sinadim didn’t bother to tear his attention free of the scene he so wished to interrupt. The answer obvious. A command already poised on his lips.
Giaus was infected.
It was plain to all who watched from the gloom, who could see the unnatural gleam flickering in amber eyes. Infected,yes, but this was anewstrain. Limiting gruesome mutations to size and strength alone. Leaving him disfigured, but in ways not previously known to the Silver City. A new strain that left the brain intact.
A beast like this—blessed by the Nine in ways Sinadim had never seen before? He couldn’t be allowed to live. Every breath Giaus drew was a threat to the healthy males who’d been forced to call the wilds their home.
But to risk them all in a fight against such a titan?
Suicidal madness.
And then movement caught Sinadim’s single working eye. His glare pulled up, atop the boulder where a familiar, tattooed face lurked.
Sickle.
That disobedient, infuriating Hathorian pet. His cheeks wet with tears, the soft-hearted fool.
Short spear clutched between inked fingers, poised to strike. Blind to anything but the fragile Hathorian queen sobbing beneath the male covering her.
With horrified fascination, Sinadim watched as if that moment had been suspended by the Nine themselves. Frozen in time, letting him see through the fog of rut and grasp a split second of clarity.
Sickle meant to sail through the air as if he might save Renegade from the colossus himself. As if it wasn’t already too late.
As if Giaus couldn’t simply slaughter the boy with a careless swipe of his claws.
Sickle would either be killed or infected.
