It wasn’t far enough.
Limp, the matron fell away from her murderer, a boneless heap making a terrible mess of the grotto. Her head struck the earth with a hollow thud, breath foaming where her voice box should have been. A red lather that spit and hissed and wouldn’t stop until the matron’s eyes went glassy. Her pupils claiming slow millimeters of watery blue until everything she’d been was nothing more than meat. Empty. Waxy.
The girl choked on a single sob, tasting iron. Gagging when the eyes she’d loved so much rolled, the left one twitching and lurching in the socket. Moving independently of its twin, the right half-hidden behind a hooded eyelid, sightlessly gazing at the ceiling.
Death was ugly. Fucking hideous and wrong.
A whimper burbled up from the girl’s chest. Some poor attempt at a eulogy, she could offer those dying eyes no comfort. No parting words of love or a promise to see her again in the arms of the Nine.
She could only see a garish, fleshy mask, drooping where the lips sagged open. Forever slack. A cruel mockery of the kind face that had been smiling only minutes before.
Something crunched and the girl flinched. Scrambling to her feet.
It was Samina.
Nightdress soaked through with blood, her gown clung to her skin. Her distended belly bathed in red, every generous curve of a pregnant female revealed.
It was a grotesque image, but a perfect metaphor for everything that defined the Anhur. Life, born from death.
Samina dropped the chunks of flesh and sinew, letting it splat.
And then she smiled.
Chapter 4
“Omega! Come get this cock, you eager little slut.”
The girl shivered, hunkering down into a tiny ball. Trying not to see the hands reaching for her through the steel bars, her tail curled around her thighs in a pathetic bid to shelter from their attention. Shying away from the raspy voices begging her to come closer. To submit and take their bloated girth as deep as they knew she could. It was what she was born and bred for.
“I can smell it on you, Omega,” another said, openly jerking off, in spite of the dozen other males in his cage. “You want it, don’t you? Come have a taste…”
With a grunt, he came. Spraying fetid cream across the tacky grime coating the floor around her.
And though her heat was easing, her mind clearing of the poisonous hormones that drove her to seek her master, she couldn’t help but look. Couldn’t help glancing at the ropes of sperm splashed in her direction, her tongue darting out to wet dry lips.
Laughter exploded all around her, the prisoners delighted by her reactionary instinct.
“Can’t help herself, poor little breeder.” He offered a smile through chipped and blackened teeth. “Daddy has more where that came from, but only if you crawl for it. That’s it,” he said, eyes gleaming in the dull light. “Lap it all up, and I may just feed you another dose of what you need, baby girl.”
Teeth bared, she tucked tighter. Burying her face between her knees, palms pressed to cover her ears. To fold them down and seal them off from the gloomy world around her.
It was dank in her cell. Moist and cold. Unspeakable filth on every surface, but at least she hadn’t been thrown in with the males. At least she wouldn’t be torn apart between them while fifteen fought over three holes. A small mercy, really, given what she was beginning to understand about herself. About her place on this carnival ride of horrors she’d been born into.
She had hated her life of service to Hadim. Hated being used and bred, talked about as if she weren’t capable of speaking for herself. But most of all, she’d hated being kept in the Harem. Unable to see the sunlight, unless she was in Hadim’s rooms being fucked silly and knotted placid. Only seeing the sun through a tiny slitted window in the breeding rooms.
But that was before she understood what it was she’d given up. The point not made obvious until she’d been tossed in a prison cell amid a hoard of unattached males, each taking great, woofing breaths of her scent. Prisoners and criminals, sold into the labor forces that kept the Silver City gleaming. Chances were good that she was the only female they’d seen in years—maybe ever, for some of the younger ones had been driven into rut after their first breath of her scent. She’d watched them devolve into savage fucking, shocked speechless as male flesh speared through male flesh. Growing ripe and aroused by the display of flexing and bunching muscles. All that masculine energy clashing and fighting.
And then she was made aware of a startling truth.
Samina had been right.
Life as Hadim’s concubine was that of a pampered doll. Under the master, she’d never wanted for food or comfort. An entire harem of Hathorian females were at her disposal. They’d formed a generous sisterhood of support, and without being told, the elder generations lavished their advice upon the younger. Caring for the daughters that weren’t theirs, they’d built a community in the dark.
With a single mistake, she’d lost access to a whole quiet culture of Hathorian history.
Her people, now forever out of her reach.
And in that moment, there was nothing she wouldn’t have given to take it back. A lifetime of bearing Hadim’s hybrids, only to end it teaching the next generation how best to take a thick knot.
She’d been cherished by a bearer with faded blue eyes and sagging dimpled skin.
With a whimper, she squeezed her eyes shut—and recoiled. Assaulted by flashing images of muscles tearing free from tendons. Of flesh with holes growing wider as it was pulled asunder by a merciless grip. Blood whizzing around and around, painting everything crimson. Of one eye rolling until it went white… and the other… the other rolling to stare directly at her.
Accusation gleaming in that faded blue iris.
Feet sticking to the grime, she stood in a rush, letting the muck squelch between her toes.
“That’s it, baby girl,” the male with black teeth drawled. Straightening when she moved, posturing to catch her attention, his mane standing on end where it wasn’t matted to his nape. “Come to Horace.”
Sneering, she stalked away, ignoring him. Ears pressed flat to her skull, tail whipping in a fluffy arc at her back. Agitated, she was able to walk a straight-line forward, then back, lest she get too close to either side and get snatched up by grabby fingers.
Instead of ending her, Hadim had given her to the guards at the wall. Banished her from his home, he’d cut her off from everything she’d ever known. The males posted at the wall were… unfit for civilized society. Unable to fight for a harem of their own or simply not given the opportunity. It was the way of things. That so many young males would never know the touch of a female.
Anhur or Hathorian, they were claimed by the strongest warriors. The most promising princes. Hoarded and jealously guarded, no matter their species.
As a consequence, young males were known to form packs, roaming from one hellish living situation to the next. Left with no options, no hope for continuing their lines, they were forced to live together. Surviving on a meager life of crime and the company of their pack brothers.
Most couldn’t climb the hierarchy fast enough to escape their end.
It was the fortunate few who were offered a position guarding the wall. Those Anhur rejects were made to watch the fires of the great beyond, as if those who lived in the wilds were capable of scaling the great sloping cliffs.