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Balkazar was too fixated on the tiny boy squirming between his fingers. Captivated by the gleam of icy, blue eyes…
18
All it took was three hybrid females.
Three intruders with pure intentions and the delicate walls of a fragile existence shattered with a pop! Clashing with the ugly, jagged edges of reality, it ended in an instant Sinadim felt from the back of his sinuses, all the way down to the base of his tail.
Their private bubble trembled as it collapsed, leaving his brow damp with beads of anxious sweat as he watched that trio of females infiltrate his nest. With soft feet and quiet whispers, they left carnage in their wake.
Invisible and odorless, but unfettered destruction nevertheless.
He could see it in the way they cooed over the bundles of squirming siblings. Taking liberties with the tiny babes, they divided squalling infants amongst each other with soft smiles and gentle hands. Ignoring the Anhur males in favor of praising one dainty, exhausted Hathorian female.
It was the way of things.
A fact of Hathorian breeding Sinadim had understood for decades before he’d ever witnessed it in person. One Omega female could almost never nurse the litter she birthed. At the rate of their growth, the babes would outpace her ability to produce milk inside of a week. After a month, they’d fail to thrive and hard decisions would need to be made to ensure the survival of the strongest. The most promising.
But with a blend of special herbs, hybrid females could share the burden with their mother’s species. All but two would be given to the nursemaids, while the pick of the litter would remain with their mother. Nursed on rich, Omega cream, leaving the rest in the capable hands of surrogates.
Their arrival spelled doom for their private, deluded bubble. An ending to an event Sinadim might never witness again, for despite the sheer size of his harem, the prince hadn’t bothered to indulge a nesting Omega through the duration of her pregnancy—such a taboo hadn’t been feasible or appropriate. Not with a harem full of females demanding his attention.
No, this was the perversion.
His presence in a nest. The jealous flare of his mane prickling his nape as the nursemaids destroyed the sanctity of what had been a private den of sin.
It was an experiment of the obscene arts. A primal expression of everything a prince of the Karahmet throne could never be.
And it was over.
He knew it before he stepped foot outside of the master suite for the first time in three months. He saw the truth of what Balkazar was too overwhelmed by sentiment to understand—knew exactly what the arrival of those hybrid females meant for their precious, delicate bubble they’d shared as if it were second nature.
It was the same thing Sickle knew at a glance.
The very reason that tattooed Omega male knew to drop both blue-eyed newborns into Balkazar’s hands, and not Sinadim’s.
Oblivious, the war chief turned his misty gaze up, hands trembling as he cradled his tiny newborn son as if afraid to crush him.
Giving permission, Sinadim nodded. Lips pressed in a tight-lipped smile, he watched Balkazar press the child to their brave girl’s breast.
“Can hardly believe it,” Balkazar murmured, reverent and soft. Unable to tear his gaze from the sight—utterly unaware that so simple an action had doomed them. “A son of mine right next to yours.”
Nodding again, Sinadim’s jaw flexed, but that was all.
There was no denying it.
What he’d allowed to happen.
That, in the pursuit of his own selfish, princely desires, he’d allowed a commoner to do so much more than simply touch a sacred Omega. He’d shared her with his war chief and used the other male to drive his rut to heights he’d never thought possible.
He hadn’t merely allowed common blood to mix with coveted, he’d encouraged it. Worked toward it as a reward—the evidence was in two sets of icy blue eyes. A color that had never been present in the Karahmet line.
It was a crime.
A deadly offense to violate the sanctity of Hathorian bloodlines.
An offense that couldn’t be defended against, no matter that they weren’t in the Silver City, nor he a prince.
He was little more than a spoiled prick born to obscene privilege, gambling with lives to indulge his own lewd impulses.
