A scream teased at his senses, the high-pitched wail of a female who needed to take a knot and was being denied. Bred to be desperate for it.
For him.
Even if she didn’t know it.
She cowered beneath the bulk of a male who outweighed her by easily six-fold, crying out with each desperate clash of pounding flesh. Eyes almost black, ears pressed flat, she squealed as Konjo worked that tight sheath with a knot that couldn’t give her relief.
She surprised him, then. With one foot braced on slick, red rock, she huffed, arched, then flipped them both. Going so far as to wrap dainty fingers about Konjo’s throat, dominating the massive hybrid as she tried to take what she needed. Her hips working in a furious blur as she rode another sticky load from the downed male.
Gasping, she scrambled free. Dripping. Shivering, a copious flood of cream gushed from her soiled channel, both male and female. None of it Anhur.
A fragile, tormented sound ripped free of her throat. A raw sound that made Balkazar’s hackles rise where they were trapped against his Alpha’s chest.
But instead of running, she stumbled to an unsteady stop a few feet away, swaying. Brow creased, she stood scratching at a spot on her jawline. Hugging her ribs and shivering.
Confused and still needy, the poor girl.
Desperate to sink his knot into that messy cunt, the war chief squirmed, setting the Alpha off when he snarled, “Sickle! Now!”
“It’s almost—there!” the boy cried, leaping back as the rope snapped at last. Whistling as it whipped through the air.
Nothing happened.
No sudden drop, no breathtaking thump… or… at least not for the Anhur males.
Behind him, Keever and Micah crashed into the earth, howling and snapping at each other. Thrashing against the net’s weight.
“Sickle, what the fuck?” the Alpha bellowed, trying to strain away from the wet spot spreading on Balkazar’s hip. To reach the girl before the others left her a twitching ruin.
Keever got free first.
“Don’t you dare!” Balkazar hissed at the new recruit, trying again to tear his way free until blood dripped to the ground below. “Touch that bitch, and I will turn your marrow into soup, you ungrateful mongrel!”
For the first time since the hybrids had joined the pack, the war chief went ignored.
Sprinting flat out, Keever bellowed a challenge in the girl’s face.
She managed to take a full step back before her knees went liquid. Before she melted and was caught, slung over a broad, dense shoulder, and spirited away.
“Sickle!” the Alpha bellowed, breath trembling on Balkazar’s nape. Dominance shimmering in the air all around him. “Find that fucking anchor, or—”
“There’s none left!” the boy cried, edging back from where Micah thrashed in the fallen net. “I cut both ropes already! And… and I can’t see—I don’t know where to look!”
Balkazar craned his neck back, tracing the inky black rope where it snaked through the foliage. It was there, in the sharp, zagging lines in the trees above. The fragmented mind of a female in the thrall of a natural season.
“Well, that’s inconvenient,” the war chief said, spotting their anchor at last—forty-five feet above unforgiving, rock-hard ground.
Following his gaze, Sickle paused, then said, “That clever minx,” in a quiet, breathy tone under his breath. And then, “I’ll climb for it, Balkazar. I’m sor—”
“No.” Balkazar shifted, eyes flicking toward Keever’s back. Watching as the Beta male sprinted toward the bubbling hot spring, then tossed the girl in. “It’s a foolish risk.” And one she was going to be punished for taking. Harshly. “Konjo!” he barked, and the freshly fucked hybrid flinched. Having the sense to look contrite, even as he struggled to tuck his thick, messy cock back into his leathers. “Get over here and boost Sickle up.”
The Hathorian male shifted on the balls of his feet. Brow damp with anxious sweat. “Why?”
“Because—”
At the pool, the girl screamed then went silent. Keever scouring her fragile body of his pack brother’s leavings, dunking her head under the water’s surface in his haste.
An instant later, Micah was free of the netting. Muscles heaving, his hackles up. Dark eyes fixed to the spot where Keever had forced her to bend, sending a thick cock sluicing through delicate folds.
And Balkazar relaxed, grateful for the gentle, dark-skinned giant—no matter the urge to rut, Micah would not allow her to be harmed, much less drowned.
Despite the interruption and the demand throbbing in his pants, the war chief returned his eyes to Sickle. Dangerous and glittering—a solemn vow of retribution. “You’re going to cut us free.”
Chapter 18
Breath leaked from her lips as she thrashed, bubbles tickled the fine hairs lining her cheeks. Her upper lip, forehead. Bodily submerged, she was scoured clean, thick fingers plumbing her depths. Purged of any trace of the other males who’d already been between her thighs.
Taking liberties where few were given.
But still, she was held beneath the surface until the bubbles began to slow. Until her chest fought and burned.
And when knuckles bumped her glands, deep inside, she gasped, sucking in half a lung full of heated water.
She came up spluttering, hissing with indignant rage—but the male at her back was too desperate to care. Not given a single moment to catch her breath, she was mounted. The head of a fat, blunt cock speared through tender flesh. Not bothering to tease, yet too big to batter his way in with only a single, vicious stroke, the hybrid had to fight for every last inch of conquered pussy.
“Wait—” she yelped, goosebumps rippling over her skin. Trying to scramble free of calloused, greedy fingers before she was drowned right there in the bubbling hot spring. Speared on a prick too big for her slight frame.
“Please—”
Stretching as he squeezed into that tight sheath, the hybrid at her back groaned. Deep and rough. A ragged huff against her nape, but that was all. Not a word of introduction. Not an ounce of civility.
He took her like a beast. Starved for female attention, he was unable to do anything but burrow.
Lips and nose dipping beneath the surface in his haste, she yielded the last inches of her slit to an unstoppable force. Blowing bubbles once more. Flailing with nothing to use for leverage, the pool too deep. Too wide to offer aid.
A hand found purchase in the floating locks of her hair. Made a fist between her ears, then pulled. Dragging her to the edge of the bathing pool by the roots of her hair, the animal at her back was forced to follow or be rejected.
She coughed up a grateful breath, making the cock lodged inside her kick and pulse.
Dark skin met her blurred vision, the bottom edge of flexing abs rippling too close. Her brain fogging with the scent of a heavy, masculine musk. All male, and yet…
Infertile.
She could smell it, just there. Hidden among the other many scents that told her who this male was.
A measure of confidence bloomed hot and twisty along her spine.
Hybrids, both of them. Unable to breed, they’d been born to fight but knew how to nurture. Twice the size of the Anhur, they were deadly and gentle.
And this was the first time she’d ever been able to really look.