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“Your son.” Sinadim laughed and it was cruel. “I shall water my gardens with his spinal fluid in a matter of hours.”
Sinadim moved.
Silk through water, trained by the very best of the warriors in the Silver City, the prince fell into a deadly dance. Dodging and weaving, he let his claws sing. Ripping the air from where they clung to the shadows, he darted and spun. Floating through the gloom, free of the weight of fighting sands where he’d learned to dance, he drew first blood before the first note of pitiful begging might spill over Veli’s lips.
“Y-You don’t know!” Veli cried, trying to spin fast enough to put his female shield between them. Sending skinny, limp arms flailing in a garish arc.
And fuck the Nine, it was working.
Sinadim couldn’t attack without knowing if the girl lived. He was forced to listen to Veil’s sniveling excuses. Muscles trembling with the effort he spent in the restraint.
“You don’t understand!” Veli said again, adjusting his hold on the girl. “I inherited a bankrupt throne! These bitches are the only thing of value in the whole rotting city—”
“Spare me your blubbering,” Sinadim spat. “Find blame where it lies at your feet. You, who would doom your own citizens for a chance to strike at the throne? Who would sacrifice your future queen for a handful of breeding Hathorians, and to what?” he snarled, lunging to pull the delicate thing from Veli’s doomed fingers. “To replenish your harem of corpses?”
Hardly touching the girl, Sinadim sent her into Balkazar’s waiting hands. Never peeling his eyes from Veli’s blotchy, sallow face.
And now, his path was clear. Veli’s last few breaths were upon him.
“You will never dine with the Nine,” Sinadim murmured. “Your name will be stricken from the histories. Your line obliterated and the sickness you breed snuffed out.”
Spinning, the prince closed the gap. His claws a blur that caught the other male under his ribs as he spun Veli and claimed his back.
One knee pressed to the other’s spine, Sinadim forced him down. His claws slipped through skin and meat too fast for the other to protest or complain.
“I’m going to let you live,” Sinadim whispered, pressing his lips to the other’s ear. “For as long as it takes you to starve, alone in this tomb. Long enough to know that your son has met a darker fate.” Digging, Sinadim pressed hooked fingers through the wall of Veli’s abdomen. Shoved aside his jaundiced liver and curled one claw around the slippery rope of the coward’s intestine. “Suffer with the knowledge that Varjim will beg for death. On his knees. Shamed before the citizens you betrayed. But first…”
All it took was a gentle tug. One carefully placed claw, and bile spilled into Veli’s abdomen as if from the mouth of a hose.
“First,” he said, and pulled his hand from Veli’s guts, “I owe your harem a gift.”
Veli made a strange sound, then. Something caught between a squeal and a plea. Something that gurgled as it clawed its way free of his throat and died a meaningless death on his tongue.
Sinadim took no joy in parting the man from his cock and balls, but doing so was a matter of honor for a promise made.
Leaving the Zaganos Alpha to die a eunuch in the dark, however, soothed the beast howling in his chest.
Just for a moment.
Long enough for him to risk a smile when he turned, a dangling prize hooked in wicked claws.
“T-Tell me, my prince,” Veli spat, teeth chattering as the shock set in, “were you granted permission to marry sweet Teliah when you knelt before the Sultan? W-Was Rusteem pleased by th-the match?”
Sinadim paused at the tone in the other’s voice. The hint of mockery that reeked of that something vile. Something heavy enough to crush his windpipe, if it were fast enough to catch him about the throat.
“D-Did she beg?” Veli crooned and went to his knees in the dark. “Did she plead for you to save her, even as the Sultan ruined her tight cunt?”
Helplessly enthralled, Sinadim turned to face the male he’d killed.
“Her s-sons”—he coughed, and spittle sprayed from his lips—“they’ll never be y-yours.” He laughed, then. Mustering the audacity to claim the final word, dousing the sweet scent of victory in a tainted brew. “A-All I had to do was w-whisper, and you went willingly to your doom. The poison you seek to smother runs thick in Karahmet blood, sweet prince.”
Laughter gurgled through watery Zaganos bile. A haunting sound that chased Sinadim from the gloom.
“Seal him in,” Sinadim spat, even as he felt Veli twist that final, poisoned blade…
8
He sent a falcon.
