His back to the light, the prince sat with arms crossed over his chest. Breaths slow and measured, he slept in the way of a common soldier—right on the edge of waking.
Sickle knew better than any just how dangerous it was to disturb a sleeping Anhur, and with the utmost care, he slipped into the dark.
Padding across red stone with bare feet, Sickle clung to silence. Oozing through the shadows, he gathered his courage in a comforting cloak. Stepped around any loose shale, and placed his feet with careful, deliberate intention, then skirted the rim of the pit. Positioning himself opposite Sinadim, with easy access to flee should this confrontation go as badly as it could.
Sickle cleared his throat. “Sin—”
A shadow fell across the mouth of the den.
Without thinking, Sickle dropped back. Hidden behind a large outcropping, his back pressed to stone, he crouched. Feet tucked beneath his thighs, breath held once more. His heart thrashing at the back of his throat.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sounds of harsh, ragged breathing.
A sniffle, followed by a wet cough.
Sickle twisted, peering through the gloom.
Balkazar.
Shoulders hunched, the war chief lurched toward Sinadim in a drunken line.
Face flushed, twisted and horrible, for there, in the dark, Sickle caught the sinister gleam of feral gold…
21
Sinadim woke with a start, his senses returning in an instant of flushed panic. One-eyed gaze darting around the den, the prince bristled at the feeling that his space had been violated. Hackles going up, claws coming out, his attention snapped to the pit. Where he’d trapped Renegade with a monster in the cold, lonely dark.
Quiet.
The thatched roof of saplings woven into a lattice still intact. Untouched. His prisoners in their place.
So what—
“My prince,” came a rough voice from the gloom. Garbled and wet.
“Balkazar?” Sinadim asked, shock making him jerk toward the sound in disbelief. That the presence of his most trusted ally had set him to such a state, his knees braced for attack. Squinting into the shadows.
The big male ambled into view. Shaggy hair hanging in limp clumps, Balkazar’s head tipped to the side as if the whole world had tilted to the left. “I have news.”
Muscles locked against the instinct screaming that he mount the first strike, Sinadim watched his war chief’s approach. Gooseflesh spilling down his nape at the mere sight of the other male. Every inch of himwrong.From the shuffling, heavy footfalls landing without a hint of elegance or intention, to the way his claws extended and retracted. Pulsing in erratic waves that might have been a subtle threat, if it weren’t for the flat and submissive mane. That the other’s scent held no hint of musk or aggression, but was thick with a cloying film of rot Sinadim couldn’t place.
Wrong, wrong,wrong.
The war chief’s lips spread over a grin. “I understand what she meant.”
Sinadim stepped forward, pacing to the right to keep Balkazar on his good side.
Snorting back a clump of wet, Balkazar horked, spat a wad of something green off to the side without bothering to blink. Not even once. “Thought at first it was more o’ the same shit, eh?” he said, and jerked his chin at the pit. “Instead of having a warm quim at our disposal, we’d have to watch that lanky, infected fuck have his way with her.” A burble of damp disgust tore free of Balkazar’s throat in the shape of a laugh. “Followin’ orders of the elite, made to play nurse and keep them warm and fed while we do all the heavy lifting? Thought, what’s the point of all this, eh? Might as well still be in the Silver City, takin’ it rough and dry from royal pricks who don’t give a collective fuck about us at the bottom.”
Shoulders still, Sinadim’s mane stood fully on end as he tried to follow the bizarre daisy chain of logic. The quiet stink of pheromones filling the still air—his own, laced with uncertain fear. “And what changed your mind?”
Digging one clawed finger into his ear, the war chief shivered. Distracted as he itched, an audiblepopechoed between brothers and Balkazar groaned. Tilting his head all the way over, his ear draining in a rush of bloody green slime.
Puss.
Reeking, putrid rot.
Relieved of the pressure, Balkazar seemed to rally. “Swore an oath,” he said. Voice a distorted, gravelly rasp. “To protect the Karahmet line from any danger, no matter how insignificant. From yourself.” Snorting again, Balkazar swiped at his nose, and left a slimy trail from the crook of his elbow all the way down to his wrist. “An’ from worldly Omega wisdom,” he chuckled, and grinned. “Remember that one girl we took from the Tengit uprising?”
