Thighs wrenched apart, an impossible weight landed on her back, and he moved between her legs with sinister intent. The brush of cruel, massive hands kneading at her hips, taking liberties before traveling up. Over bruised ribs, and higher still.
Silent, the graceless brute pulled at her precious cloak. Ripping the seams at her right shoulder in one savage tug. She was stripped of her priceless garment soaked in deadman’s fat. The very thing that had kept her hidden all these months, obliterated with a few callous moments of effort. Reddened arms the only evidence of her struggle.
Burying his fingers in her sweat-soaked hair, he forced her head to the side. An open mouthed kiss pressed to the spot between shoulder and jaw, his tongue darted out to taste the sacred place where a Hathorian male might leave a claiming mark.
“No!” Renegade gasped, shameful tears gathering at the seam of her lashes, she strained away. “By the Nine,please!”
But there would be no reasoning with this beast. No compromise or conversation, for the Trax had taken his mind. If the myths were true, he would seek to satisfy his hunger. Torn between tearing her to shreds with teeth and claws until his stomach bulged on a feast of flesh, or… rutting her blind. Mindlessly fucking until Renegade was little more than a sleeve for his drooling cock.
Addicted to feral cum.
Sobbing, her fingers clawing at the earth, she tried to crawl to safety. No matter the rough hands pinning her flat, the scent of dominance invading her brain, or the thick bulge pressing against the outer curve of her thigh. She fought with all she had.
Great whuffing breaths traced the delicate slope of her neck, the hunter taking her in, making himself familiar with her scent on an intimate level reserved for a master and his harem slave.
The sharp ache of teeth shouldn’t have come as such a shock. Shouldn’t have made her squeal and go still beneath the weight of a monster whose blunt, Anhur teeth clenched around muscle and sinew. Pinching without breaking skin.
If she didn’t know it to be impossible, she might have thought he was toying with her.
And by the Nine, it shouldn’t have set her pussy clenching at the seam of her leathers. Her base needs inflamed in an instant by nothing more than a show of force. Needs she’d seen to, only the night prior!
But there was no mistaking the gush of slick, the subtle way her spine arched where her tail might lift in invitation. Hardly daring to breathe, she lay petrified beneath him, aroused and terrified all at once. The meat of her shoulder caught, forcing her compliance for fear of finding herself marked. Infected.
A growl rumbled against her skin. Starting low, she felt it first against her spine. Where he’d stripped her of her cloak and left her in a sweat-soaked undershirt. It traveled up, rattling between her ribs, injecting her heart with pure, primal fear until there was nothing else. Only the sound of the largest male she’d ever encountered, preparing to mount her. The rut a heavy curtain of threat and debauchery that hung over them both. His weight heavy across her back, one she couldn’t lift. Couldn’t fight.
Breath puffing against her ear, whistling through his nostrils, he exhaled. Released her skin without placing a mark, but paused to snuff at her nape.
He licked her, then. Low growl growing sharp, his tongue rasping as it moved from shoulder to earlobe. Leaving a trail of gooseflesh in its wake.
Renegade whined, a pathetic, brittle sound that warbled around a sob. A desperate plea for mercy answered only by the press of hips, the threat of violence that pulsed against her lower back. Once, twice—and then he was gone.
Gasping, her every muscle trembling, she twisted and found the hunter balanced on his haunches once more. Simply watching her. One hand pressed to the dirt between spread knees, the other working at the laces keeping his ragged pants about his hips. Tongue making a scandalous pass across full lips, he caught her gaze in his. Held her there for a moment, until she managed to scramble back with a vicious curse. Heart pounding. Breath coming short and wild, as she stared back at golden amber eyes. Bewildered.
He grinned, displaying strong, white teeth.
Because hewantedher to run.
Wanted to hunt.
Renegade didn’t need telling twice. Didn’t need time to think of the chances that she might escape unscathed, she merely scrambled to her feet without a second glance, snatched her spear, then fled into the gloom.
4
Running and dipping, the lithe female sprinted as fast as her slender Hathorian limbs could carry her. Fleeing what she could not escape, the scent of his mate liberated from the confines of that putrid cloak soaked in fetid slime.
Pacing her,easily, the hunter loped along at her back. Admiring the way her muscles moved beneath her skin, the way tendons and sinew worked in tandem along the flat planes of her shoulder blades. Her skinjustpeeking through the tattered remains of an ill-fitting undershirt, while tangles of river-damp hair streamed along behind her.
Grinning, his mane standing on end where it wasn’t plastered to his shoulders, he snarled at her just to hear her sing. Just to watch her feet stumble as she fought his claim, gorgeous dark eyes rimmed in dread, her gaze flicked back. That silly little spear clutched tight to her chest. Her ears laid flat, hidden beneath a curtain of wet hair, her lips parted around a panting, silent scream.
Entranced by inevitably, she squealed as she ran. Whatever she saw on his face held her rapt, her spine twisted as she looked up at him.
Running blind.
The hunter huffed, then stooped. Thundering feet never missing a beat, even as he reached out and caught her back ankle. Angling her away from the trunk of an unforgivingly large tree, he sent her spinning once more.
Tumbling over and around herself, she dropped the silly spear and managed to slow her fall with outstretched hands. A dainty yelp torn from her lips as she caught the bark of a fallen log then rolled, landing flat on her back.
She blinked up at the canopy above.
