There were more secrets to be wrung from Sinadim’s mind.
But violence was an option none of them could afford.
A dull, throbbing pulse pattered between his ribs. Soggy where his wound was packed, the slow ooze of soiled dressings already saturated and spilling over. The promise of something ruptured while he’d rained fury down upon Sinadim.
Throat swollen and abused with over use, Giaus’ purr stuttered to a halt.
Renegade’s breath puffed against his chest.
A frown bunched between her brows. Nose wrinkling all the way up to her forehead, she squirmed in his arms. Spine flexing, ears flicked back, and as he watched, she whined. Low and keening, the sound of a wounded animal too sick to hide its suffering from predators.
He merely held her tighter, enough that her ceaseless shivering was slowed.
Not stopped.
And then blank, feverish eyes snapped open. Taking shallow, rapid breaths, she mewled and tried to sit. Tried to push her way free of his arms, becoming increasingly frantic as she fought the touch that had only moments before been enough to keep her tame.
“You need sleep,” Giaus rasped, and petted sweaty hair back from her face. Trying to soothe. “The killing fever hasn’t ended for you.”
Renegade hiccupped around a sob, her ears flat when she burrowed deeper into his chest. Frigid, digging little hands found Giaus’ armpit—her heels struck his packed wound.
Giaus recoiled with a hiss. Guts roiling, he adjusted Renegade’s twitching limbs, and laid her flat across his lap.
Her head fell back, resting on Sinadim’s thigh.
Keening, she squirmed and rolled. Pressing her cheek against the warmth of Sinadim’s skin—where his shirt had bunched up at the back.
And then she stilled. Taking deep, huffing breaths against Sinadim’s belly, her bones melted.
“She’ll beg for me. Even as she cries for you. To deny her the attentions of a mate is a death sentence crueler than killing me here and now.”
Temper fraying,frustrated, Giaus hooked extended claws beneath the collar of Sinadim’s shirt—and split it down the middle. Giving her all the access she might need. To breathe as deeply as she might against the other.
“Wha—” Jerked from his senseless delirium, Sinadim woke with a start. Functional eye bleary with an over-bright sheen of glass, cheeks pale beneath the flush of a fever rampaging out of control. Forehead dewy, lips chapped.
And just there, on his shoulder… the crescent of Renegade’s mark.
For a moment, as the two males made eye contact, Giaus was stiff. Bristling, the scent of pheromones broadcast his dominance across the small space. Every muscle locked, nape tight with the urge to assert himself above the other. To flex his status, tail raised in an arrogant sweep that left Sinadim with nothing. A destitute prince who’d fallen. Who now relied on the charity of a beast.
A killer.
But a moment later, Sinadim’s mismatched eyes rolled back, his head striking the bedrock with a dull thump. Lost once more. Harmless, declining further with every ragged breath, every whispered fragment of nonsense that crossed his parched and cracking lips.
Giaus went to work. Relieving Sinadim of his shirt, he tore the fine, worn linen into strips and saw to Renegade first. Wrapping her calf tight enough to force the ragged edges of flesh to meet, he bound the damage done to her shin. Four slashing claws that had flayed her almost down to the bone.
An accident already paid for.
Nose pressed close to her skin, Giaus lifted that slender leg and inhaled, searching for the scent of infection. Tongue painting the roof of his mouth, so he might taste any hint of festering rot.
What he found made his mane rise up in a slow, shocked halo. Evidence that his mate, this precious Renegade Omega, was so much more than he’d ever thought possible.
She waspure.
In him, the Trax virus was a sour, toxic thing. Reeking of mutation. Of havoc and madness that worked horrific change at random—in him, size, speed, strength, and limits he had yet to push. But in the beast that had infected him?
Giaus shuddered.
Pressing his nose behind Renegade’s ear, he tongued the spot where her scent was rich and intimate, her flavor bursting across his palate. Behind his eyes, where she danced in his brain. Lit by shimmering colors, she was burned deep inside him.
