The secret truth that was all his own…
Legs falling apart, his gaze flicked up. Toward the light. “Luck,” Giaus said, and that was all.
Sinadim followed Giaus’ gaze.
But here he would wait. In a hole, trapped in deplorable conditions, with flimsy security totally insufficient to keep one such as he locked away in the dark.
Waiting. For his wounds to heal. For his mate’s suffering to ease…
For the winds to shift, so he could rise from the dark with a queen at his side. His general on the other.
A conqueror for the wilds.
The mutant king and the half-blind prince.
It was nothing less than what she deserved. What she’d asked for, in claiming them both. To be worshiped by two males named mate, her primal needs serviced. Appetite for rebellion nurtured by a male who would see her rule—her vicious instincts honed to a deadly point by the other. Males who would feed her wildling heart to bursting, her thirst quenched by more than just what might be pumped down her throat.
Her every savage whim satisfied.
Until she begged for more…
25
Sprinting through the night, Sickle fled. Seen only by the watchful gaze of triplet moons sitting fat and lazy on the horizon, where they peeked through the canopy and bore witness to his greatest shame.
Haunted by his failure. By the sounds he’d heard echoing up from the bottom of that pit, in knowing that he’d been too late.
He’d never forget the echo of fists on flesh. The horrible snarling yelps of a vicious beating silenced too soon.
The prince was dead.
A victim of Balkazar’s madness, Sinadim had taken the full weight of Giaus’ territorial rage.
But with his fall, Sickle’s oath was no more. His obligation to the Karahmet line expired with the end of the prince.
He was free.
No queen to serve. No master to obey. No allegiance to brothers who wouldn’t act, except to save themselves.
Alone, for the first time in his life.
With a hiccupping sob, Sickle vaulted over a fallen tree, his pack of medical supplies slung over his shoulder where it bounced freely at his hip. Racing along the river’s edge, he darted through the shadows. Unarmed. Eyes flicking back and forth with the sort of vigilance he’d learned in the Anhur courts. He fled knowing it wouldn’t be long before Balkazar noticed his absence, until he was hunted down and made to answer for his daring. To pay for breaking his vow to his brothers.
Balkazar meant to finish what he’d started down by the river.
But even knowing the war chief could track his scent—that he was faster, stronger, and had more endurance than Sickle could ever dream of wielding—there was a chance. A possibility that Balkazar was too sick to hunt efficiently, and no matter how unlikely his survival, Sickle had to try.
For her.
Knees buckling, Sickle collapsed. Palms slipping on wet stones, pebbles slimy with algae, he went to hands and knees. On all fours. Heaving for breath beside the peaceful trickle of the river. The same one they’d followed in search of a precious Hathorian female in heat, drawn to the irresistible lure of slick in the water.
Tears spilled over his lashes, dropped from the tip of his nose and fell to the detritus. Left the leaves dark and speckled with his grief.
A female of incomparable worth, Renegade was a treasure many would die just to touch.
And by the Nine,Sickle had touched!
They had all tasted that sweet slick and known what it was to transcend the horrors of their life in the beyond. Just for a moment. Just long enough to be utterly ruined by it.
