What she’d done.
That taste… his scent, remembered for what it was.
Giaus.
Her mate.
A male who was so much more than she’d thought him to be.
He wasn’t just a monster who’d terrorized her for sordid entertainment, not a beast enslaved to primal instinct. No, he was something greater than the virus that had remade him,he had speech. His voice rich and deep in a way that saw her clench with the memory of barked commands. Not in halting fragments or broken, one-word sentences.
Eloquent.
Giaus was a force even a Karahmet prince saw reason to fear.
They’d bantered.
Traded insults.
Negotiated.
For her.
Tongue darting out, Renegade licked dry lips and tasted sweat. The metallic aftertaste of the male whose blood still lingered on her palate… and the brine of his seed that, even now, dripped from deep inside. Wetting her thighs.
Marked.
Both of them. One inside, the other out. Mistakes had been made that could not be mended. No apologies sincere enough to undo what instinct had demanded of her. Biting him was a brainless act of submission she could scarcely recall—one that had consequences she couldn’t name.
She was infected.
Already, she could feel the dull throb of fever rising behind her eyes. Pulsing with every blink. Every sideways glace.
Head spinning, Renegade tried to take a full breath and collided with a hazy wall of blistering, frigid agony. Pain so intense, she couldn’t force a sound to pass over her lips until something tugged at the backside of her ribs. A bleary fog of darkness and hurt that came in incomprehensible flashes and left her reeling without a tether to time or space.
Flashes she could only assume were coming fromhim.
Giaus.
He was inside her. Every breath she took laced with anguish, felt even through the veil of lethargy swirling between them.
“Where—” She twisted, eyes flicking from one shadow to the next, seeking that unmistakable bulk of the male who was with her and not. Presently absent. “Where is—”
“Shhh,” Sickle hummed, abandoning her hair to wrap his arms tight about her ribs. A hug, cheek pressed to cheek. “He can’t hurt you anymore, precious girl. You’re safe.”
She stilled as a touch of foreboding slithered into her gut, for there was nothing safe about Giaus.
Not a single thing.
“Don’t worry”—Sickle nuzzled against her collarbone from behind—“we’ll figure out some way to undo it. I—I promise—”
“Undowhat,” she croaked, eyes burning. Bile splashing up the back of her throat.
“Don’t be a fool,” Balkazar drawled, making himself seen where he lounged in the gloom. Picking at his claws with the point of a silver blade. “You know there’s no undoing what she done, boy. The beast has every inch of her, an’ it’s only by the grace of the Nine that the prince thought up clever some way to put ‘em both to use.” Balkazar stood, mane rising up as he approached, his face a mottled display of spectacular color. Bruises and split skin. “If it were up to me,” he said, “we’d string her up outside camp, where we can set a trap. Use her as bait, ‘causethatcunt is the most effective lure I’ve ever seen. Bet we could exterminate a good number of infected before she begins to rot.” The war chief’s lips spread over a knowing grin. “Unless they eat her first.”
Ears flat, panic bloomed in her chest, overriding any insidious whispers. Kicking, Renegade shucked the sweaty fur, threw off Sickle’s embrace, and surged to her feet. Staggered away from Sickle and his adoration. From the war chief whose fingers she could still feel wrapped tight about her throat. Her mind flooded with horrors, choking on memories and reality. Unable to swallow both at the same time.
“Renegade, no!” Sickle cried, and caught her wrist.
