Sinadim would tell him to find a weapon, an advantage over the dull, primordial brains of the predators who outranked him. Some way for him to triumph against impossible odds.
And if he couldn’t find something… he’d need tomakeit.
In the absence of Anhur claws or sheer, indomitable power, Sickle had no choice but to play to his strengths.
His wit.
Qualities Balkazar—that worthless doomed relic—would insist no Hathorian possessed.
Swallowing an anxious lump peppered with spite and loathing, the Hathorian male nodded. His decision made, witnessed only by the welcoming dark and the starving things that lurked within it. The creatures who outranked him, and those he felt a pang of empathy toward.
A high-pitched coo dragged his attention into the moment.
He looked and found the female wrym. That crimson frill hidden and folded and tucked flat against her throat in such a way that she might have been mistaken for a male, if it weren’t for the dull spots speckling her scaly hide and the secret peek of a blood-red throat. She stood alone in her unblinking vigilance, watching Sickle through slitted glare. Coiled in the dark, her tiny limbs braced to lunge. Neck bent and tucked tight, she trilled again, scales vibrating in a warning Sickle had only ever heard talked about, but had never seen.
“Sorry, Sultana,” Sickle cooed, daring to smirk into that sinister scowl. And, stooping closer, he said, “It’ll be years yet before you’re large enough to burn me with your noxious spit.”
As if to defy him, her frill snapped open in a crimson flare—and instead of molten vomit, she opened her jaws around a warbling tri-toned cry. One that went so much deeper than his ears, it sent his brain jiggling inside its case. The jelly of his eyes turning liquid as he staggered back with both hands pressed to flat ears. Teeth clenched hard enough to taste the scream of crackling enamel, Sickle issued a wretched shriek of his own…
… and stumbled.
Stepping badly on the uneven cave floor, he was sabotaged by an unseen crevasse. A crack in the stone that sent his ankle twisting seconds before he went down in a graceless heap of senseless, Hathorian goo. But he didn’t feel the impact. Took no notice of the way his skin split when it struck a jagged rock and didn’t care at all when the males returned.
He merely tried to crawl away from that piercing howl. Unfolding himself from the fetal position, he pulled his fingertips from ears that had grown tacky with blood and fled. Blind to all else,utterlyincapacitated by a fledgling wrym who had no business wielding a weapon such asthat, he dragged himself away.
The female fell silent.
Sickle opened eyes and saw nothing as his brain tried to adjust to the absence. The whites of his eyes now speckled red with blood that couldn’t ooze, the orbs swollen as if having suffered repeated blows to the back of his head.
Shaking, his skin slick with traumatized sweat, Sickle swiped at a trail of tacky wet that spilled from his nose and blinked as his vision cleared.
Five matching sets of vertical pupils waited. That primal hatred replaced by a look Sickle knew well, for it was one he’d seen too many times on the faces of the Anhur who’d ruled him—joy of the hunt.
An insignificant weight landed between his shoulder blades. The sixth clutchling, a tiny female with crimson frill and a voice that would send horror into the blood of the Nine themselves.
She issued one final, dainty trill…
… and commanded her siblings to dine without bothering to kill…
2
Waking with a jolt, soaked in sour sweat, Sinadim tried to swallow the anguish but found his throat parched. Dry and cracked where it hadn’t been sliced raw.
Thirst.
It clawed at him. Ravaged and raged. Burning away any hint of sense or logic, it devoured his thoughts. Time distorting around the need to plunge his head beneath the surface of the river and drink. Deeply. Until he couldn’t take another gulp.
He swallowed again and it stuck. Throat swollen and gritty, he could taste infection. Smeared across the roof of his mouth, the back of his tongue, it invaded his sinuses. Blinking, Sinadim’s head lolled to the side. His fractured attention drawn by movement in the dark of their prison. The sound of boulders rolling down the side of a mountain.
Rich and heavy, it settled at the base of his skull with weight enough to prevent him from lifting his head. Made him forget that unquenchable lust beating at the inseam of his pants, forget the thirst, if only for a moment. Urging him toward peace… submission…
But something in him rebelled.
He hated that sound, even when his own throat ached to compete. To recreate it in a way that might show the female held rapt and entranced thathewas the better choice of mate.
Entranced by the startling display of intimacy, Sinadim stared into Renegade’s blank and glossy eyes. Counting her blinks. The number of times Giaus’ fingers traveled from scalp to the tangled ends of silky black hair. Sinadim made a record of every tiny, insignificant detail as the pair huddled together in the dark, soaking up the scraps of their bond. Feasting on their excess, he let another male’s purr seep into his chest, where it settled and felt like the rattle of health.
And then he fell into the sleep of the aggressively ill.
