It was all they had, really.
And until he could train more, they’d need it—trying to follow the fragmented mind of a female losing her senses to a natural season wasn’t easy. Bore no resemblance to logic in any form. Already they’d been trying to unravel her trail for hours, but the reward for success was too great to ignore.
Adjusting himself, the war chief watched Sickle stoop at the water’s edge and drink from the stream.
“Fire-kin turn me to ash,” Sickle groaned, then plunged his head beneath the surface. Drinking great gulps of sweet water without coming up for air. Didn’t surface, in fact, until Balkazar himself pulled him up.
Sickle gasped, still swallowing. And then, “There’s slick in the water.” He lunged, trying again for the quietly bubbling stream. Fool enough to drown himself for another taste of that which was rare in the beyond.
“Stop!” Balkazar snarled, shaking Sickle by the lapels of his fitted leather jacket. “Think, boy. If her slick is in the water, what does that mean? Where will we find our bitch in heat?”
For several long moments, Sickle could do nothing but blink, straining toward the dilute slick. And then, “The water. She’s upstream.”
“To work, then,” Balkazar grumbled, grinning.
Oh, he was going to enjoy this…
Chapter 12
Sprinting as fast as his legs could go, Sickle ran with his brothers. Their feet falling sure and even, thighs whispering over well-worn leathers. Anhur before and behind, hybrids covering his flanks.
It was the safest he’d felt since he’d been taken by the scruff and tossed out. Unprovoked.
The new recruits to their sorry pack of six were hybrids. Big, as the mongrels often were, and bred for war. To defend their Alpha and his interests. Thundering along at his side, yet not daring to outpace him, they protected the weakest member by running at his speed.
It had always been this way for Sickle. The knowledge that he was less—smaller, slower, and not nearly as strong as even the female Anhur—had been the only real constant in his life.
Traded amongst the queens, he’d served several dozen mistresses before his twentieth birthday. Only three had bothered to learn his name before growing bored of his talents.
And even they’d traded him for another without a hint of regret.
Trained and conditioned from birth to relish the honor of service, their lives were elegance and heartbreak. Joyous and cruel. All any Hathorian male would ever know was to kneel for an Anhur queen. To sing and to please, to be submissive when his queen needed an outlet.
Except for him.
Sickle’s last queen hadn’t uttered a word of protest as he was cast out on a cruel whim. Not one word. She’d laughed along with the rest as her husband made a mockery of his entire species.
“Here.” The mistress’s husband took Sickle by the nape, two claws curving around and hooking into the sensitive shell of his left ear. “A parting gift to see you through the withdrawal.”
For weeks after they’d been cast out, Sickle had looked to the Firstborn with glassy-eyed terror. Certain the son would heed the father’s advice and vent the dregs of a lasting rut in his body. It was known to happen, after all. To those foolish enough to defy their mistress, who stole, or dared to strike at the clawed fist that held their leash.
Those unfortunates were discarded, left to die in the streets. Abandoned in the farthest slums, they were snatched up by packs of roving, unattached males. Desperate for a soft touch…
But Sickle had been banished beyond the wall no matter how prettily he begged.
Grinding his teeth, he redoubled his effort, nipping at the war chief’s heels.
No, he’d been cast out. Exiled. But there were mercies. Balkazar had a hurtfully low opinion of his kind—especially females. But he’d fought just as hard as the Alpha to win Sickle’s trust. Instead of taking liberties, they’d given him weapons. Taught him to shoot, to hunt, and to track. To manipulate with his intellect, instead of letting others take from his body.
He’d learned to be useful instead of used.
But now there was hope!
She wasn’t an Anhur queen, but what did it matter? There was a female in the beyond! One to serve and cherish, like he hadn’t been able to do in months.
“Movement,” Balkazar hissed, bringing their headlong sprint to a sudden halt, the war chief crouched low in the shadows.
As one, the pack inched forward. Moved away from their chosen path to peer over the edge of a deep ravine.
Ferals.
A whole horde gathered on the banks of a distant river. And from their vantage point, Sickle could see that they were massive creatures who’d grown mutated and grotesque. Each one bigger than the last. All terribly disfigured from their constant contact with the Trax virus. The infection raging, overwhelming the immune system until the host was forever changed.
Mutated and abhorrent. Utterly unrecognizable as the creatures they once were.
Something akin to sadness tugged at his soft heart, Sickle watched a battle erupt between two gargantuan beasts. Transfixed.
For a moment, it seemed as if the smaller of the two had the upper hand—and Sickle dared a tiny smile for those who’d been born disadvantaged. Seeing a message of hope, out here where hardship was the standard. Where death was easy.
But a few minor victories served only to inflate the smaller feral with overconfidence.
He got too close. Stepped inside his opponent’s ridiculous reach and paid for it by taking an absolutely brutal swipe of claws to his face. Bellowing, the smaller male turned toward the watching pack. Showing them all the horrific damage wrought with one well-timed blow—one that only echoed the horrific scars marking the Alpha’s once-handsome visage.
Because they were much, much worse than anything Sickle had ever seen.
Both eyes were obliterated, the left hanging loose on a bit of bloody cord. The right nothing more than a white smear spread over the ridge of lacerations that went clean through bone. Not quite a death blow, if the feral could survive without sight. If his gruesome wounds miraculously avoided infection.
Howling and victorious, the larger male launched a lazy attack. Jaws clamping shut about the other’s wrist, he twisted his head and shattered the bones until they burst through the muscle. Gleaming in the dying light.
Sickle’s mouth flooded with acid as the horde turned hungry eyes down, on one of their own who’d dared to show a glimpse of weakness.
Yipping and howling, they descended. The one who’d dealt a mortal blow the first to dine on living flesh, these ferals ate before they killed.
Horrified, Sickle couldn’t look away, having only heard of such an atrocity whispered about in the darkest corners of the court gossip.
And it was with bile searing the back of his throat that Sickle watched as the ferals spread the legs of the incapacitated male. Some standing on his limbs, they worked together to ruin the fallen creature. Genitals first, a savage injury was dealt. Spilled blood visible even from this distance as the beasts roared in triumph. As the victor plunged a clawed fist into that gaping orifice and pulled slippery ropes of intestines free.
A mortal wound, and one that left the fallen male crawling to the banks of the river on his belly. Dragging the ropey ends of his guts through the mud and filth.