“Sinadim,” the war chief said, swallowing when the prince’s claws extended. Leaving marks against his throat. “My prince, you know I’m right. The girl is already dead—”
A shimmer of blonde fur shivered once as the prince pressed closer still. His gaze a horrific thing that whispered of vengeance. Of retribution against the truth. One eye a vibrant green, the other a flat, dull white. His face a mask of the grotesque, and in that moment, Balkazar saw what the girl had done to his prince. The obsession she’d wrought with nothing more than a dripping, sloppy quim.
The poison.
“You’d risk us all forher?” the war chief barked, shocked. Forgetting to fear the brother who’d given so much. That he wasn’t merely an ally, but a former prince who’d run a massive harem. The First Born. Named and chosen to sit third in line to the Karahmet throne.
“Iwill rally the others,” Sinadim whispered, his breath a furious hiss against Balkazar’s cheek. His lips. “Youwill go ahead. Hunt her down and bring her back, Balkazar,” the prince spat, leaving the rest unsaid. The promise of retribution for failure.
Despite the prince’s temper, it wasn’t rash, as far as plans went. Traveling with a pack—especially one bogged down with a pathetically soft Hathorian male—was slow going. Though several of the hybrids boasted a more refined sense of smell than either of the Anhur, their sheer size made fast travel impossible. Lumberous mutants that they were.
And Sinadim? The prince was half blind. Vulnerable, his lineage suited to being served. Issuing commands that were obeyed without question, not risking senseless death against a hoard of mindless infected.
No, Balkazar was the right choice, because Balkazar wasexpendable.
For an instant, as he submitted to Sinadim’s claws, the war chief considered. Calculated what it would take to overpower his Alpha… and take his place.
The thought had scarcely bothered to form before he shook it away. Hackles rising up on a wave of gooseflesh. But a whisper lingered, nevertheless. A sinister spark of something he couldn’t completely ignore, no matter his love for the male whose grip had flexed about his throat in brotherhoodandownership.
Sinadim jerked his chin toward the exit. Saying nothing. Demanding everything.
And Balkazar obeyed, his pride bruised more than the fingerprints scored along his windpipe. Dressing with haste, the war chief said nothing as he rushed to leave, trying not to hear the harsh edge of madness in Sinadim’s voice as he ordered the others up. Readying them to fly into the maw of almost certain death for a fucking breeder who’d dared to run.
Seething, Balkazar took off. Pausing only to glance over his shoulder—and so doing, saw her final insult.
There, smeared on the wall, was a single word written in slick. A signature.
Renegade.
Oh, yes.
He was going to enjoy making her scream…
3
Astrangled cry ripped free from her throat. Heart skipping over her ribs hard enough to make her stumble. Shocked, her nape grew damp with terrified sweat. Fear soaking through her layers to permeate the wind in her wake.
She was being hunted.
Worse, she’dbeenhunted, stalked, and now she was being chased.
Not by Hadim, the cruel nightmare she’d escaped. Who’d been her master until he’d docked her tail and been made to watch as she slipped through his hated fingers forever. Leaving only four parallel scars tracing the inside of her arm—from pit to elbow.
Not by Sinadim and his pack of rejects. The males she’d left in a cooling pool of their own collective failure.
No, as if in retaliation for her open defiance, something crashed through the brush at her back. Moving at speed. Trailing her and making no effort toward discretion.
Because none was needed.
A second roar blasted through the thinning forest, this one laced with the lilting edges of mirth. Trumpeted victory fought and claimed before she’d even begun to flee in earnest. Before she’d been afforded a real chance to fight.
An earnest scream spilled over her lips, her spear nearly slipping from sweat-slicked fingers. A scream that was high in pitch, crackling with all the chaotic, terrified energy lashing at the back of her throat. Beating at her sternum, the backside of her pelvis, for there, just beyond the limit of her vision, she could see bright light.
The edge of the forest, where every last centimeter of protective darkness ceased to be.
Heart in throat, she tried to split to the left. Tried to veer off, away from where the forest grew too thin. She was met by the flash of claws. The heated puff of breath against her cheek, warming her unprotected nape, before the beast fell back once more.
She knew, then, what he was doing.
