Page 16

“My prince”—he staggered back from the flavor of murder lingering in the air—“W-What’s happened?”

Sinadim grinned, and it was a hideous, terrifying thing made all the worse when he said, simply, “We go to war.”

5

The coast was a wet and dreary place.

Damp. Everything quietly stinking of mildew, no matter how clean, or secure their rucksacks. From their manes to their socks, Sinadim’s entire army was… moist.

Already, many dozens had suffered festering lesions that had seen the war chief assign each warrior a partner to check for such noxious maladies and reduce the burden on already taxed surgeons.

Forced to retreat to the edge of the desert, clinging to dry, arid land, they lurked in the sands where few of the coastal clans had reason to go.

Thousands hung on their prince’s command.

Poised. Ready to strike.

Fighting for a clear head, Sinadim kept his war chief close. Trusting Balkazar’s counsel over his own, for the lust for blood had thickened his veins and left him desperate for carnage.

Each beat of his heart sent a frozen image of mayhem flashing behind his eyes—each blink captured the fantasy in a vivid green flame that would twist his victim into another agonizing position of torment. Between one instant and the next, the face blistered by righteous flames melted with his indecision of which he hated more.

At once Veli Zaganos and the man he truly wanted to obliterate…

… but couldn’t.

Sinadim’s every breath coated his tongue in choking ash. But each exhale was a torment of the prize held beyond his reach by the most untouchable male on the continent.

Rusteem Karahmet.

Grandfather.

Sultan.

Even now, the image of Teliah’s slumped shoulders and tucked tail haunted him. Knowing just what was happening in that reliquary. That he was helpless to stop it—to save her—until he’d amassed enough wealth and power to make a true play for the throne.

Until then…

… he would obey.

He would spend these last months of his bachelorhood making amends to the Zaganos clan—by repaying exactly what they’d earned.

Determined to indulge his bloodlust—to suffer as she suffered—he’d left his harem under lock and key. Locked them away with a dozen eunuchs to see them through his absence, and set a legion of his army to guard them from theft.

Being without was a dangerous game for a prince. Addicted to slick, his rut would threaten to consume him.

Already his focus was tattered and frayed. The promise of cracking open Veli’s harem and taking that which was most precious to him was a constant distraction. At once threatening the outcome of these games, and making the prince more dangerous than he’d ever been.

Seething, Sinadim had sent his best warriors into the city of Tengit and tasked them to integrate. To discover the weaknesses drilled into the foundations of Veli Zaganos’ prized coastal city before Sinadim’s forces saw it shatter and crumble beneath their boots.

“Enter the games in the fighting pits,” he’d said with a nod toward the most vicious of his generals. “Visit the brothels and markets,” he commanded the most chaste and the spendthrift. And to the stealthiest of them all, he said, “Tour the Kesh manufacturing sites,” without bothering to order him to go unseen. “And should any of you come across it, I want the location of any male bearing the Zaganos name.”

He’d given them two days.

Two days to make their findings and their reports. Two days to leave and return with news that might see a once-prestigious dynasty crumble to dust beneath the Karahmet forces.

It was all he could tolerate.

Blood so thick with the lust for murder, he was sick with the need for carnage. Thoughts of Teliah haunted his every blink, tainted his every breath with the flavor of impotent rot. A putrid, stinking disease that might only be relieved by the wholesale slaughter of any bearing the Zaganos name.