Humming low in her throat, Renegade glanced at Sinadim and plied him with a coy pass of her tongue. “Then impress me.”
Detangling them from the heap of soiled furs, Giaus’ fingers held her spread where she was locked in place atop his knot. Back to front, he turned as if she weighed nothing in his arms, his every ground-eating stride taking them further from the nest he’d built around her.
He didn’t stop until they stood at the mouth of the den, overlooking her budding domain. Sinadim warming her right side, he waited just a half stride back.
A breath of fresh air slid over heated, sweat-slicked skin. Refreshing, despite the wave of gooseflesh that followed, granting enough clarity that she could look without pain.
It was night.
The Queen’s Landing lit by a dozen torches she avoided in favor of the shadows they cast.
Gone were the corpses of the damned. Their blood and gore washed away as if they’d never been. The only hint of the carnage was the oily black stains of a cremation fire still smoldering at the forest’s edge. Downwind and downstream.
The forest itself had been pushed well back. Saplings felled in an impressive radius, and while some had undoubtedly fueled the fires, the rest had been whittled into spears that ringed the red stone clearing two rows deep.
“Behold,” Giaus said, and slipped one massive hand between them. Compressing the base of his knot, he unleashed a gushing flood of seed and set her on her feet. “The Queen’s Landing.”
Straightening, Renegade eyed the landing with keen interest, eyes flicking over every new feature. Each budding construction project where hybrids toiled to build a fortress in the wild.
Seeking an escape. A weakness that might be exploited.
Anythingat all she could use to take the one and only thing she’d ever asked for.
Freedom.
But the time to claim her vengeance, her chance, would come—but only when the Anhur had been mollified. Given exactly what they expected of a Hathorian female, and were in turn sedated by her obedience.
So instead of seething, she smiled. Where she might have screamed her throat bloody, she purred, wanting nothing so much as she wanted to run.
And then her demeanor shifted, became almost coy as she glanced at her king from beneath the fan of thick dark lashes. Clapping her hands, Renegade said, “A perfect place to build an army so we might challenge the Silver City and claim what is owed.”
Giaus went rigid. Posturing, his mane standing on end as a shiver of delight skated down his back.
It was Sinadim who glared, the former prince who knew not to trust something so sweet.
The ghost of her tail flicking, Renegade sashayed away from the mouth of the den. Shunned the fresh air and that tender glimpse of freedom, and retreated into the gloom without a backward glance.
“Cut down the trees,” she ordered. “Build me a wall no horde can climb, and then we shall speak of breeding. And by the embers of Toth, this den is dank and dreary!” she called from the dark. “Filth in every corner. Clean this up, or I’ll paint the walls with murder.”
At her back, Giaus laughed. Filling her heart with mirth, he said, “It shall be done,” through a purr.
And she smiled, despite the circumstances.
For she had a secret.
One that was all her own, that she’d keep close to her breast. A coveted scrap not meant for the Anhur.
And with sensitive pupils fixed into the dark, ears pricked forward, she said, “Oh, and light some torches.”
16
Sinadim blinked.
Jaws hanging slack, he watched Renegade turn as if in a swirl of silks. Regal in the way she whirled and shot a lurid glance over her shoulder. Beckoning. Lower back bunching where her tail might have flicked in invitation, she turnedawayfrom the clearing. Shunned the breath of fresh air, and returned to her den.
“Youwant a wall?” he asked, incredulous. “You? The female I couldn’t hold in a den of her own choosing?” Long legs gobbling up the space between them, he stalked her shadow as she led him deeper into the dark—dark she wanted lit with torches. “A harem Omega who escaped her duty to Hadim, denied my royal bloodline, refused the protection of a pack, and named herselfRenegade—youwant a wall?”
She watched him from beneath a fan of dark lashes, lips crinkled ever so slightly. Gold gleaming where her irises reflected what little light there was in her dank and dreary nest. “I’m certain my king is capable of single-handedly defending us,” she murmured. “But it seems a bit arrogant to invite the next horde in, wouldn’t you say? Correct me if I’m wrong,general, but it seems the wiser course of action to erect an obstacle or two between us and them, hmm?”
