A queen.
And she would not be told tostay.
Sneering, she pulled a breath through her nose. All the way to the bottom of her lungs, where a painful swampy sort of wet had begun to fester.
And then she reached for her mate—not with her hands. Not seeking comfort of any sort.
No.
She strummed the poisoned dart he’d lodged behind her ribs. Pricked her finger and invited the storm into her heart.
Muscles coiled, Renegade snarled. Her eyes fixed to Giaus’ profile, she flashed teeth filed short by a cruel master, and submitted to instinct.
Anhurinstinct.
To subdue using any means necessary, any unfair advantage pressed without remorse.
Humming, a savage song of irresistible beauty flooded her mind. Gravely seduction laced with contempt for his species and their unconscious violence.
Her throat began to twitch.
Languid and delicate, a quiver of muscles never used before.
Sinuses full of an elegant, throbbing melody that bubbled up from the bottom of her chest. Muted on her next inhale, before that ethereal rattle spilled from the center of her being. Giving life on her breath, she sang to soothe a beast.
Her mate.
Giaus shuddered to a halt, the vicious tempest of swirling hatred suspended in an instant. Fingers that had been tight around Sinadim’s throat went slack. The prince free to suck in a harsh breath as he slid to the floor of their dank prison. A boneless heap watching with one green eye. The other silver.
Staring atherin slack-jawed wonder.
She rubbed her cheek against Giaus’ ribs, entranced by her own song. Worming her way under his arm, she burrowed deeper until she stood in the shelter of his embrace. Tracing the curling sweep of muscle over Giaus’ hip, Renegade inhaled and set the air on fire. Felt his muscles lurch beneath her fingertips, a shiver that twitched in perfect sync with vibration pouring over her lips.
Lifting his elbow, Giaus looked. Face slack, he peered beneath the crook of his arm. His brows inching together on a wondrous frown, held rapt to her song.
Violence forgotten in the face of a sweet Omega purr.
Head tilting, Giaus stared. Speechless and unblinking, his pupils dilating in a slow sweep that swallowed the blazing ring of feral gold, until all that was left were bottomless pools of inky want.
“You will be king,” Renegade said at last. His attention gained, she reached to touch where royal blood had spattered his cheek. His lips. Her voice heavy with the power to enthrall Anhur males heated with bloodlust, because it was their very same spell turned back on them. A mirror from her humble, Hathorian heart. “A king for the wilds. Out here, in a place that bows to you.”
Giaus swallowed. Took a shallow breath through parted lips, and tasted the air. His tongue painting her scent along the roof of his mouth in that peculiar way of his.
Purring all the louder, she moved to separate them. Back pressed to Giaus’ shivering abs, her palms laid to Sinadim’s shoulders. The prince slumped at her level where he was sprawled in a puddle of blood, she stepped between his thighs. Both of them bleeding, neither in any pain.
Beyond it.
And through the drugging elegance of her purr, Renegade straddled Hadim’s son and spoke to her mate. “You will be king, Giaus,” she said again, and felt him drop to his knees at her back. “Myking.” A calloused palm wrapped around her ribs as she tucked her nose against Sinadim’s throat—a warning issued too late. “But a king cannot rule without a general.” She lapped at the Karahmet blood trickling down Sinadim’s throat, shivering as the prince tried to escape her touch.
His chin tilting back, nostrils flared—his working hand landed on the curve of her shoulder. Neither pushing her away, nor pulling her close.
“But most important,” she purred, ears laid low, a wicked smirk pressed to Sinadim’s thrashing pulse, “a king needs his queen. And this choice ismine.”
Before any might react, before either male could so much as shout a single useless command or dare to order her submission, Renegade lunged.
Blunted teeth sliced through skin and muscle. She forced her mark deep into that bronzed flesh—and with it, the virus.
It was a choice. One made through a fog of spiteful delirium, but a choice nevertheless.
