“Don’t.” She licked her lips clean. Tasting him. Wide, dark eyes beseeching, she spoke as if dreaming. Joining the effort to save this pathetic Hathorian male from his wrath. “Don’t kill him,” she breathed, and touched his cheek with dainty fingers.
Her ears pitched forward in such a way that made him ache to have her all over again. To mount her once more, for if she’d had a tail, it would have been held aloft in a bold, sweeping arc. Something to match the insolent tone of a female who dared ask her mate for the life of a paramour.
The sort of daring he’d only seen in an Anhur queen, who would fight for what she wanted.
Pride bled through Giaus’ brain, fogging all rational thought.
A queen. With Hathorian blood.
Truly, this creature had been sent by the Nine.
Murder forgotten, he squeezed her tight against his burly chest with one arm. Humbled that he’d proven himself worthy of such a precious treasure, no matter that he never intended to let her go. That she’d been his from the instant she’d stepped foot in the great beyond. No matter how many males she’d taken, nor how untamed.
His.
Forever.
And now none could dispute it—not even her. Not with a claim laid in plain sight, bleeding freely over his chest. A match to the wound dripping down his back.
There was a moment of silence. One lonely instant of peace where Giaus looked upon a creature that was so much more than just a tight fit, a moment of perfect happiness threatening to blossom in his chest. Centered in the throbbing ache where her mark had been set.
Something sharp and wicked slipped into the soft spot between two ribs.
A shock of pain that allowed only a gasp to cross his lips before he was sinking. Legs going liquid beneath him, hunched, Giaus went to his knees. An Omega in each hand.
A whisper skated along Giaus’ nape, another male pressed far too close. Breath wetting his ear with a grin earned through deceit. “I’m going to enjoy this, you insolent cur…”
Tilting his head, Giaus looked.
Balkazar.
Free of his bonds.
And in his hands?
The end of a short spear buried between his ribs.
16
The shock of taboo raced through Sinadim’s blood.
She’d marked him.
The wound small but profound, one among many. But he’d seen it before. Knew exactly what that bloody circlet buried deep in the muscle meant to a Hathorian—what it meant for the Anhur who wore it, knew just how irrevocable a gesture it really was.
Renegade had claimed this beast as her mate, in the way of her people. With blood and scars—and Giaus had allowed it to happen. Encouraged it. By the Nine, he displayed it with the unmistakable glow of pride.
And it had cost him everything.
Even if he didn’t know it yet.
“Move even a muscle,” Balkazar snarled, pressing the spear deeper, “and I’ll tear her off your knot and break every bone in her body before I toss her into the heart of a horde. You understand me, mongrel?”
For a moment, Giaus pinned the war chief with a glare that dredged up long forgotten nightmares of the things that ate monsters.
And then, every inch a deranged feral Anhur, Giaus roared. Deep from the bottom of his massive chest, forehead thumping granite, it was an explosion of frustration and fury. One fist holding Renegade tight to his chest, the other growing dangerously close to crushing Sickle’s throat.
A threat that flirted with action.
