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But he was a prince, first. One destined for glory that would rival the Nine themselves.

And so he was forced to ignore the rut burning through his veins. To put his thirst for vengeance aside and wait for information that would see his army through, mostly unscathed.

He stayed with his men in the desert.

Secluded.

Losing himself to meditation. Drawing tight, even breaths as he worked to banish the image of his forefathers broken and bloodied by his claws. Savaged, as they so richly deserved.

Haunting the dunes, Sinadim’s forces stayed out of sight. Lurking amongst the rugged scrub grasses and hard-packed bedrock of some long-dead ocean, it was a place the Tengit city guards assumed to be utterly devoid of life. Either an oversight of lazy defense planning or the sheer lack of armed bodies to defend a glaring weakness in their territory lines.

Their undoing, either way.

The prince had expected the first of his generals to return with a report of the markets.

Instead, he woke on the first morning to find an irate hybrid male bristling in his tent. Reeking of pussy, unspeakable filth, and scarcely contained rage.

Temper seething, color high, the massive male had returned to the camp spouting disturbing tales of horror. Of females chained to breeding posts in underground brothels.

Almost unable to speak, the hybrid male forced horrific details through clenched and pointed teeth. “They’re using hybrid females for sport,” he rasped, mane shivering with the need for bloodshed. “Healthy enough to take whatever diseased prick has two eighths of copper to rub together. And for the price of fifty silver kormers,” he growled, flashing teeth, “any desperate wayward cur can taste the slick of a breeding Omega and savage a hybrid female until⁠—”

He couldn’t go on.

They were his mother’s people.

Pupils tiny pricks of seething fury, muscles trembling as he forced himself still, the massive hybrid fell silent. Choking on helpless fury.

But he’d said enough.

Balkazar grimaced, saying only, “I know the sort,” without elaborating because he’d come from nothing before he’d become a war chief. Brought up by those who trafficked in flesh and slick before Sinadim had offered him a golden ticket free of poverty.

The prince was silent as he considered this first piece of the Zaganos puzzle.

Illicit brothels were not uncommon, despite being outlawed decades before Sinadim’s birth. They were cesspits of filth the Sultan had ordered cleansed from his continent to stop the relentless march of disease.

But there would always be a hunger for the carnal and depraved—especially when there was such a deficit in resources. Not enough to go around. Generations of males left with no hope of claiming a female for themselves, when those in power took large harems and several wives.

Before Sinadim could ask, his general spoke one last, damning sentence. “My prince, they fly the Zaganos banner.”

Sanctioned.

By Veli himself.

A means of drawing income from hybrid females, otherwise deemed worthless by a male who’d hinted at female culls…

As the second day drew to an end, the rest of the reports filtered in. Equally grim, they painted a picture of decrepit markets hawking wares of terrible quality, rife with pickpockets and thieves with poisoned blades.

Fighting pits teeming with outlandish matches, pitting children against blooded warriors. Starved animals against those unfortunates maimed in battle. Vicious places utterly absent the honor of the hot sands of his homeland, these were pits of despair where the truly desperate wagered their lives for a pocket of coin that wouldn’t see them through the week.

But it was the reports of the Kesh plants that truly damned Veli Zaganos and his spineless pestilence of a son.

“The fields are being replanted for the second harvest,” his general said, voice a reedy whisper. “Even now, bales of abundance roast in sixty kilns, out-shone only by the vats of underground storage—and the six new reservoirs being dug into the mountainside to store their copious overflow.”

Claws extending, mane rising, Sinadim allowed a vicious smirk to play at the corner of his lips. “And Veli?” he asked. “Varjim? What of the Zaganos males?”

“Whispers in the markets place Veli in his harem. Celebrating his negotiations, while the Tengit citizens turn cannibal and starve. But Varjim was seen fleeing the city, just this morning. Several Omegas in tow. A handful of females, and… a single male.”

Sinadim made a sound, low at the back of his throat. “He got his claws into an Omega male, after all. May the Nine pity that poor creature,” he mused, despite the splash of cold skating down his spine.