“Take another breath for me now, Omega,” the captain of the guard murmured, shushing her. Quick fingers working to clean her stump.
“No painkillers,” Hadim drawled, and stroked at the tears tracking down her cheeks. “Not for her.”
She blinked, tears running hot and fresh down her cheeks. Pain radiating from what was now the base of her spine, tingling with an antiseptic burn.
“Will you trim her ears?” Hadim asked, tugging at the expressive feature. The very last of her Hathorian pride left up to the whim of her new owner.
The captain cleared his throat, uncomfortable, but saying, “If it’s up to me, I’d rather not, sir. Better to be reminded of what she is, and I’m fond of the look.”
Hadim shrugged, giving one final, cruel tug before he stood.
“Come, my love,” Samina said, gathering her shawl tighter about her shoulders. “It’s a long trek home.”
Hadim nodded, licking his lips. Eyes glinting with a sharp, predatory edge. And then, to the captain of the guard, “She’ll give you many strong hybrids to serve at the wall, as long as you breed her regularly. And,” he added, clapping a bit of loose black fur from his palms, “might I recommend breeding her to as many of your soldiers as possible?” He laughed, kissing Samina’s cheek. “By the fires, why not let a few of the prisoners at her? Use her as a reward for good behavior.”
A pitiful little sound burbled between her lips. Scarcely a whisper, but all she had left.
The captain worked at the stock, lifting the brace keeping her neck and hands locked down. His touch gentle, even daring to stroke her nape when she whimpered. Almost as if… as if he pitied her, for what he’d done.
What he’d been made to do.
It wasn’t until she’d been freed that she was able to control her sniffling. That she could stand to meet the eyes of the Anhur monsters who’d maimed her, still clutching her severed limb in both hands.
Hadim smiled. Gloating, even then.
“Let’s be going, love,” Samina said, looking away.
Scrambling, the captain bowed to the royal pair. One hand pressed to his heart, the other crossed over his waist—leaving the girl shivering unsupported. Unchained. “Thank you for this treasure, my prince. We will honor your wishes, and she will give us many strong soldiers to protect the Silver City.”
Hadim flicked his wrist, bored now that the day’s entertainment had ended. “Yes, see that she does.”
Clutching her tail to her breast, she dared to scowl at his back. Fur matted with blood, sticking to her fingers as she held her severed limb in a ginger grip. As if it wasn’t real, so long as she didn’t feel the way delicate bones poked through thin skin. Didn’t feel the occasional spasm of dying nerves, or that she was tipped too far forward. Over compensating for the loss of a thing she’d learned to walk with.
But it had happened. She’d been docked. It was the ultimate shame, the mark of a criminal. Outcast.
A renegade.
Off balance, she wobbled in the chill, light headed and in shock. Watching as the captain debased himself before the royal pair, his back turned.
Gaze wandering to the wall and beyond, she stroked at the black fur she’d once groomed to catch Hadim’s attention. Inspecting the void on the other side. The empty expanse of sky shining blue and pristine. An insulting contrast, and one that made her lips curl in a watery sneer.
The decision was easy.
The opportunity ripe.
And without pausing to over-think, the girl seized her moment. Took advantage of the captain’s lapse in attention and turned on the spot. Fled, despite the pain and her center of gravity being pitched forward. Pouring everything she had into the perfect escape, she ignored the agony splintering through her nervous system. She lifted her feet high, so her toes wouldn’t drag. So any stumble would be minor as her strides grew longer with every shouted command for her to, “Stop! Omega, stop!” Footsteps at her back making her heart lurch, her window snapping shut, almost out of reach.
When her left foot landed on the stone railing, her elbow was caught in a bruising grip. His fingers long enough to set the tips of his claws into her armpit. And though she had enough momentum to carry her over, she was stopped short—held teetering over the edge. Stalled.
Snarling, she whirled again, this time turning to meet the vicious male that had ruined her.
Hadim. His mane standing rigid, clawed grip leaving deep gouges in the muscle where he’d caught her.
But the decision she’d made was not one to be easily unmade, and with a nasty smile perched on her lips, the girl took a swing. Lashing out with her free hand, she punched her master in the throat.
The sound he made was nearly gratifying enough to make her do it again. A strangled squawk she’d never heard an Anhur make, let alone one like Hadim. A named prince. Recognized heir to the Karahmet throne. It was enough that his grip faltered. That he let her teether toward oblivion as he hacked and coughed, red in the face.
Going rigid, she let the weight of her body carry her over. And as she slipped free of Hadim’s grip, the slender muscle of her bicep was scored from armpit to wrist.
Coughing, his hand darted out, eyes ablaze with outrage. Halting her fall with the hand not clutching at a bruised windpipe.
But he missed her wrist entirely.
Instead, his fingers caught at that severed limb. Her tail. The shaved and bleeding end clutched in her fist, the fluffy black tip clenched in his. Crunching when he tried to yank her back, she watched the end lurch to the right. The vertebrae dislocated, forever kinked—and she didn’t feel even a whisper of phantom pain, though the sight of it made her sick. Queasy with a sour, out-of-body sensation to see her tail separate from herself. Now broken and bent.
Held frozen in a tableau—her weight suspended over the void beyond the wall—Hadim was unable to move, lest he shatter the delicate balance that held her still.
“Omega, come,” he said, issuing command in a voice that had once made her quiver with the need to submit.
Now absent.
Instead of desperate obedience, a brief flare of seething contempt, then… nothing.
She glanced down, to the thousand-foot drop separating the Silver City from the wilds of the great beyond.
“Omega,” Hadim growled, and tugged on his end of their ghastly life-line. His voice hoarse and raspy.
She met his glare. Saw the malice simmering behind a thin veneer of civility and knew it to be a lie. What looked to be meek was merely waiting for a chance to strike. Poorly disguised beneath a thin and tattered cloak, a monster waited. One that would never abide her abhorrent behavior. That she’d dared to strike him.
A smile creased her lips—the first that had ever done so.
And it was beautiful, stripping years of torment off her skin in a single instant.
Hadim had taken much. Everything he could.
But not this.
Still smiling, she simply… let go. Her stomach lurched, the wind roaring in her ears as she began the free fall toward the only truly independent decision she’d ever made.
She’d always wondered what it was to fly.
Chapter 6
She was falling.
The wind screaming in her ears as Hadim’s shocked face grew tiny and distant, her tail still locked in his grip as he stared over the edge of the wall. Watching her escape his claws for good.