With no one to tell her why any of it was happening. No one to guide her through such an intimate bond, but the animal himself.
He should have killed her in the clearing. Could have stopped her from marking Giaus with a single, well-placed blow, and given her freedom from the suffering she would be made to endure.
But now her misery would stain his hands just as surely as the ink twisting and curling over his fingers. The backs of his hands.
All of it,his fault.
Movement made Sickle glance toward the firelight.
Balkazar, the war chief moving at an alarmingly slow pace. One that weaved left then right and spoke of just how bad things were going to get.
Change on the wind.
And above it all, Sickle merely watched through eyes that itched with his grief. His self-loathing. Indulging himself with the notion that he might never come down. He could hold a vigil from here, watch until the camp was overrun with infected.
Enjoy the quiet for just a little longer…
Eyes burning, Sickle’s gaze fell to his fingers. To the scattered medical supplies that needed to be prepared. Taking note of the things that needed to be replenished, he fished out a bunch of dried herbs and ground them with more vigor than could possibly be justified.
Worked until all that was left was a fine, silty powder. Until his tattooed forearms were burning with fatigue and the distraction fell second to a growling stomach. Long and whining. Protesting this hunger strike, but there he waited. Stuck between two paths—duty to pack or self.
Waffling between both, he sat above them all. Muscles cooling as the night wore on, utterly motionless until he could hear the distant, rhythmic rumble of sleeping males.
Snoring. The occasional grunt.
Eyes flicking toward the dying fire, Sickle sighed.
Balkazar was coming undone. That once-sharp mind of an Anhur war chief addled by the very same fever and infection that had turned Giaus into the thing that had upended their entire pack.
Struggling to stand, stiff and sore, Sickle straddled a choice. His loyalty to pack hanging by a thread, but it was one he himself couldn’t cut.
If the prince meant to do this horrible thing, to take away the freedom he’d found in the wild and become a villain equal to Hadim himself, then he’d hear it from Sinadim’s lips.
And if none of it was true? Merely the ramblings of a relic falling into madness?
It was what he owed to the prince he’d sworn a blood oath to serve.
A warning of things to come.
Hands braced on his lower back, right above the stump of his tail, Sickle stretched. Abs trembling as he reached, twisting left, then right. The vertebra cracking in quick succession of satisfying pops as he balanced on the edge of his quiet perch.
Deplete.
Heart sore.
Ravenous.
Descending with reckless speed, Sickle moved until he was close enough to the ground to let himself fall. To land on the balls of his feet just inside the mouth of Renegade’s den.
He took a breath.
Slick.
It filtered through his brain and made his stomach twist in a painful, empty knot that hungered for more than just a scrap of food.
Fists clenched, ears pressed flat, he paused only long enough to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom. To spot the single, hulking guard stationed at the top of the prison pit.
Sinadim.
