Already her bulk was a burden when she demanded to perch with her claws on one side, and her tail wrapped around his narrow shoulders.
Trilling, Sultana shimmied back, shaking her head and neck. Wrenching something free with a squelch of ripping meat, she returned to stand at his side. Dropping a jiggly hunk of what looked to be liver at his feet, she sent her long, serpentine tongue over her muzzle and teeth before slurping that forked appendage back between her lips.
It flicked out again to taste the wind. His mood. Sussing out even the slightest hint of danger or opportunity. Her senses a deadly sharpened blade he trusted implicitly.
He grinned, showing the point of deadly teeth. “All for you, my lady. My larders are full, remember?” He reached and scratched beneath her pointed, angular chin. Fingers inching back to tease the edge of her frill until she sent a playful snap at his wrist. “Gotta keep you nice and fat so you and your thralls don’t get any clever ideas about putting Hathorian on the menu.”
She blinked, and in one sinuous movement, caught her unwelcome gift between her teeth, threw her head back, and swallowed. Neck sliding side to side in a bunching curve as she forced that mouthful down into her gullet.
Movement.
Breaking branches that shattered the hush.
Hissing, his wryms fell into a possessive snarl over their kill. Warbling a deep, thrumming growl, Sultana thumped her tail on the ground. A hollow crash loud enough to be unmistakable for what it was.
A warning.
The only one she’d bother to issue.
Slipping into the dark, the Hathorian male blended into the shadows that called to him. Fingers dancing over the hilt of his obsidian blades. Clear of Sultana’s path, should she need to incapacitate with her horrible song, he claimed an angle none of the wryms had covered. Strategic. Calm. His wrist cocked and ready to flick one of his many obsidian blades into the throat or eyes of whatever was stupid enough to ignore Sultana’s warning.
Clicking his tongue twice, he held the wryms back until he knew just what it was that dared to interrupt their meal.
Something small shoved through the underbrush. Careless, a soft grunt of effort and a hiss that was decidedly not animal.
Fingers growing slick on his blade, his jaw flexed.
Infected.
He’d only seen a handful of loners since setting the horde on Balkazar. But every one of them demanded respect.
After all, he had no mercy for the hopeless lost.
Only vengeance.
Only hatred burned where his heart had once been soft.
Movement caught his eye, and with ears pressed flat, he sank deeper into the shadows.
Nothing at all could have prepared him for what came through the brambles.
She burst into the clearing in a shaft of moonlight. A swirl of tattered nightdress, all elegant fine bones and snarls of wild loose hair. Skin pale and unblemished.
A creature of his most cherished fantasies, in the flesh.
“Renegade,” he breathed, and his heart cracked. Bleeding where it had broken, this one final time.
Of course she’d be here. Alive, in whatever capacity that word meant for her, now. She was a survivor, in any state. A true queen, no matter the corruption in her blood. All lush curves and tempting peaks.
Sighing, she lifted her arms high above her head, stretched, pulled the night deep into her lungs, and exhaled a coy smirk. “I presume you’ve got control of these lizards?”
Startled, he reeled back—and gave away his hiding place.
She took a step toward Sultana, palms up.
Sultana’s frill snapped open, beaming deadly crimson, the not-so-tiny wrym coiled around herself and prepared to kill for a second time in the space of an hour.
“Sultana, no!” he shouted, because he couldn’t help himself.
