Standing there stark naked, Giaus stretched the kink in his ribs where a spear had once threatened his life, golden feral gaze fixed not on the approaching tide of carnage, but to the face of the male responsible for all of it.
Balkazar, the Unworthy.
He’d brought the horde to their sanctuary and threatened Renegade while she battled the killing fever—to make no mention of his attempt on Giaus’ life.
The king sneered.
His head would be the prize Giaus would take for quelling this uprising in Renegade’s name. A gift to his queen, the war chief reduced to a skull stripped of meat, dipped in molten iron, and mounted on the footstool of his throne—so he might always keep the unworthy lech under foot.
Where he belonged.
Cracking his neck, Giaus’ lips grew taut around a sneer, for he was whole. He had suffered Balkazar’s best and come through it without so much as a scar. Healed from a wound he hadn’t bothered to tend, gone before it could fester. A wound that had really only annoyed Renegade, because of the mystical bond they now shared.
His mane flared, hot and possessive. Unrestricted by clothing, the malted scent of musk rose from heated skin as a deadly surge of hormones polluted his blood. Hoppy and spiced, it was a warning as nuanced as it was subtle. That of a male willing to obliterate an army in defense of his female, so he might dress her in cured hides and bathe her in the blood of vanquished enemies. Cherished, even here.
“By the Nine,” Sinadim breathed, and Giaus caught the wisp of something similar rising from the other’s skin. A hated reminder that Renegade was not his alone. That although it would bring Giaus a sadistic glee to watch him struck down by the horde, the prince was just as important as the queen.
“Don’t fret, sweet prince,” Giaus drawled, craning his neck to leer down at his counterpart. “I’ll teach you to be a warrior worthy of the feral court.”
Sinadim jeered around a slitted glare. “Fuck off,” he snapped, but the scent of fear rose in a bitter cloud about his shoulders. “We’re outnumbered twenty to one.”
“Oh, it’s far more than that.” And through a grim smile and clenched teeth, he shook out his hands and ordered Sinadim to, “Tell your precious hybrids to guard my mate with their worthless fucking lives.”
“And how exactly,” Sinadim asked, “do you think we will defeat a horde without their help?”
“Wewon’t.” It was then, as he watched the killing field fill with fodder, that Giaus felt something deadly creep across his face. Something that might have been a smile, but wasn’t. Something starving for carnage, a darkness desperate to be unleashed in Renegade’s name.
A statement would be made.
A warning to the one watching from a distance, through a thousand sets of eyes…
Below them, past the swirling pools of heated water, Balkazar lumbered away from the onslaught. Following his former pack brothers in retreat, the beast was slow. Clumsy and bumbling, yet still resisting the call of the legion Giaus himself was all too familiar with.
Curious…
“If it’s your plan to fight alone, I won’t stop you,” Sinadim said, keeping tight to Giaus’ shadow. “But what, exactly, would you like me to do while you commit suicide,my Liege?”
Again, Giaus was made to look upon Sinadim’s scarred face with something approaching respect. An unbidden smile crinkled his lips when he snatched up a discarded spear and said, “It’s your job to clean up my mess, general. Impress me.”
Pressing the spear into Sinadim’s hands, Giaus turned. Dick swinging in the breeze, he paid no mind to the orders shouted at his back, over his shoulders. Orders that made three bewildered sets of eyes whirl as the hybrids hesitated to obey Sinadim’s commands, shocked as they were to see both of their prisoners free of confinement.
There was nothing in Giaus’ mind but a swirling pallet of color. A detailed catalog of the tools he’d use to paint a masterpiece in gore, one he’d etch into the very stone beneath his feet so his deeds here today would never be forgotten.
Foregoing any illusion of stealth, Giaus filled his lungs with the breath of the Nine and bellowed his challenge. His dominance. Ownership of everything he could see—defiance of his blood and the lineage he worked so very hard to deny.
The horde moaned back. A brainless entity that moved with a single mind, they filtered through the trees from all three sides. Groaning and gurgling, they clogged up the clearing with the stink of rot. Putrid, messy beasts too stupid to know the scent of danger, they charged after the hybrids. Swarmed around Balkazar, claiming him as one of their own, they shielded Giaus’ prized skull in a barrier of numbers. Hunting at the command of another, they moved as one toward the mouth of the cave.
Toward Renegade.
Giaus’ claws slid free of their sheaths, and without looking back, he charged into the fray. Barreling past hybrids only too happy to avoid this battle, he flew. Faster and faster, until the stone trembled beneath his feet and the Nine themselves would surely be tempted to ascend from their burning thrones to watch all that came next.
He met the first wave with arms spread wide. Ruined claws extended in a deadly hooked net, he laughed with the pure Anhur joy of honest battle.
Colliding with a newly infected thing, Giaus’ claws flashed through flesh. Catching at something vital that gushed when he tore it free and rolled easily into the next. Shifting his weight from his hips to his shoulders in a beautiful arc, he conserved strength. Tossed aside his second victim in favor of the third.
The fourth and fifth.
Moving with ever greater speed as his muscles warmed to the task. Skin flushed as his blood heated, his senses spilled over. Honed to a tiny prick of awareness, Giaus pulled a breath through his teeth and melted into an altogether different sort of killing fever as his vision splintered and color bled through.
