by Carven, Anna
An insignificant formality, nothing more.
“You’ll have to tone down that killing aura, then.” Nythian’s expression turned serious. “Don’t scare the humans too much. They have a tendency to lash out when backed into a corner, even if it’s futile.”
“Not always,” Lodan said cryptically, flashing his fangs.
Ikriss drew upon cycles and cycles of strict training and discipline to ignore the throbbing pain of his headache and the strange energy that coursed through him—a mixture of anger and lust and a hunger for violence. “I didn’t spend all those revolutions working mil-intel on foreign planets just to become some tactless imperial fool,” he growled. Compared to most Kordolians, Ikriss had a lot more exposure to different planets and cultures. It was part of the reason why Tarak had no trouble trusting him to deal with the various mundane tasks of officialdom and alien relations. He was probably better off dealing with the skittish humans than Tarak anyway, because the General’s forceful personality could be overly intimidating to weaker species. Ikriss was usually a little better at hiding his true nature. “I will handle the humans. There will be no incidents. Tarak will be arriving shortly to oversee the punishment of the remaining Ephrenian crew.” Ikriss bared his fangs. “And I will take you up on that fishing trip.” Anything to quell this cursed headache. Submerging into the near-frozen dark, silent depths of some foreign planet’s ocean sounded like his idea of bliss.
He looked forward to such solitude, because it would give him enough sanity to contemplate the small problem of a certain female called Sienna, who had triggered his fucking Mating Fever.
He’d held her in his arms when she was weak and almost broken.
Then he’d seen her made whole again, with her strength and pride and determination restored. She’d wrapped those things around herself like a glorious raiment, and he found himself struggling to resist the desperate plea in her strangely colored eyes.
I just want to go home.
She wanted nothing to do with him.
And yet she had no idea of what she’d just unleashed.
She had no idea of the storm that could engulf her.
“Well, this is gonna be interesting,” Nythian said softly, making a small gesture of farewell with his hand.
“Indeed.” Ikriss glanced at Lodan. The First Division warrior had grown uncharacteristically quiet. “And it is time I taught you the proper Aikun way to fish. Works on every planet.”
“Bet you a thousand credits it’ll be different on Earth,” Lodan murmured. “Nothing goes to plan in this cursed place.”
The pain in his head was making Ikriss’s vision go blurry again. He ignored it and started to walk. “But maybe that is for the best,” he said as he glanced over his shoulder. “Otherwise, we probably would have destroyed half the Universe by now, would we not?”
Chapter Six
“Just let me go over that one more time.” Sienna frowned as she tried to wrap her head around the cover story. She was intentionally speaking in Universal, which she’d been practicing ever since she’d returned from that unsettling meeting with the Kordolian. If that was what they spoke around here, then she wanted to understand everything—and be perfectly understood. “I was hit in the head from behind by a malfunctioning delivery drone while I was walking down the street? Knocked out cold. Woke up in hospital with a concussion and memory loss. For some mysterious reason that I don’t understand, the hospital didn’t contact my next-of-kin right away. What the hell?” She frowned. Was this story even plausible?
“That’s pretty much it,” said the woman sitting across from her, who had introduced herself simply as Riana. She’d appeared in the guest lounge alongside a female Kordolian medic called Zyara. They’d both taken a lot of time and effort to introduce themselves to all the rescued survivors, and Sienna had found herself quickly at-ease with Riana’s slightly awkward but warm chattiness and Zyara’s understated, gentle approach. It was only after she’d revealed a whole bunch of personal details about herself that it had occurred to her that perhaps this disarming Riana was the one Ikriss had sent to ask the questions.
If that was his way of getting information out of her after his about-face, then he was one sneaky bastard.
Now Riana was alone with Sienna in her quarters, helping her to prepare for her return to Earth. Well, the human was mostly alone. A guard was stationed outside. Sienna had caught a brief glimpse of him as Riana entered. Massive and fierce-looking, he was decked out in sculpted obsidian armor that molded to his powerful body. Intricate tribal-looking scars were carved into his face, and he wore an expression that could freeze over hell itself.
He hadn’t said a word.
But his presence didn’t seem to bother Riana at all. In fact, Sienna swore she’d seen them exchange a weird little heated glance as Riana passed.
“I don’t feel like that’s enough detail,” Sienna said dubiously. She didn’t feel confident about any of this. Her closest friends—who she also worked with—weren’t exactly naive.
“Relax, it’ll be fine. You don’t want to make it too elaborate, because then you’ll just end up digging yourself deeper and deeper to cover for all the inconsistencies. Remember, you had memory loss. If anything gets weird, just say you can’t remember. I can tell you aren’t exactly adept at lying. Don’t worry, that’s a compliment. It just means you’re honest.” A soft laugh escaped Riana, and Sienna was struck by how comfortable and yet out of place she looked on this dark, forbidding Kordolian ship.
With her lush, copper-dyed bouncy coils and mismatched pink and blue gemstone heart-shaped earrings and her khaki jumpsuit and cute pink hi-top sneakers, Riana could easily have been one of the über-cool regulars that popped into the Whisk and Pin every morning to feed their carefully curated caffeine addiction.
For most of her highly discerning clientele, only the best would do, and Sienna’s barista Cleo was the best, and they had gone to a lot of effort to source the very best organic coffee beans in the world.
God, how she missed her small empire, as Ikriss had called it.
“You know what? I think I’m just going to tell people the truth,” she said dryly. “That I was abducted by aliens and I don’t want to talk about it. I’m terrible at lying.”
Riana shrugged. “Well, whatever works for you, hun. I’m betting nobody will believe you, but even if they do, these guys have no problem with people knowing who they are. They’re not trying to hide anything. They have no need to. This is really all just to make your life easier. I’ve gone into all the necessary digital records and updated your movements, paid your bills, your suppliers, your staff’s wages…”
Everything except for the Syndicate repayments, because they’re off-system.
“Wait… you can’t…” Sienna shook her head. This was the kind of stuff that only happened in movies. It went way over her head. “How did you do all that? Are you working for the Federation… or for them?” How are you even here?
“I know my way around the Networks,” Riana said quietly, modestly, giving Sienna the feeling she was actually scarily good at what she did. “And I’m not gonna lie. Full disclosure here, just so you know what you’re getting into. I’m totally in bed with these Kordolians. See, one of them—that big guy standing outside the door right now? He’s my mate.” She beamed with pride.
Mate. Sienna’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “You mean, you’re… ”
“Done. That’s it. I fell for him, and I fell hard, and I know there’s never going to be anybody else for me in this life, and it’s… amazing.” The human’s eyes gleamed with a fervent intensity that scared Sienna a little, because she didn’t understand it.
She didn’t know this person, really, and Riana was speaking of totally alien things.
The kinds of things she’d come face to face with when she’d encountered Mr Scary-Hot Intensity himself in that cold, silent room that looked out onto the stars.
A strange, delicious kind of tension
snaked through her core, winder her tighter and tighter like thread pulling through silk.
Her thoughts spinning out of control, Sienna picked up the mug of warm chamomile tea on her bedside table and took a long, slow sip in an attempt to regain her composure.
Riana studied her closely, her expression growing serious. “You don’t look terribly impressed,” she said after a moment of silence. “Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat anything. Kordolians are the Big Bads of the Universe. They’re fucking scary if you get on their bad side, but they’re oh-so good to us. A lot of alien-folk in the Universe would so easily grind us humans beneath their heels, but he would never treat me bad.” Riana grew thoughtful. “He’d easily kill for me, though,” she said softly, in a tone of voice that both chilled Sienna to the core and warmed her battered heart. “It’s hard to explain and probably just a little bit illegal to have these thoughts, and I hate to admit it to a perfect stranger, but the evil part of me revels in it a little… all that vicious protectiveness, I mean. If you get to spend more time amongst them, you’ll see for yourself what I mean.”
Holy hell.
This totally normal-seeming, friendly human was in a relationship with that stone-cold killer outside?
Sienna cupped her hands around her mug—a quaint pink porcelain thing. One the side was a picture of a cartoon cat wearing a light blue bowtie. She stared down into the swirling golden depths of her tea. “Why do I get the feeling we humans really have no control at all over our little corner of the Universe anymore?”
“Because we don’t,” Riana said softly. “We really don’t. We’re just lucky these guys found us first.”
An unpleasant shiver coursed through Sienna as the horribleness of the past few days threatened to crack through her composure. You’re just lucky they found you… lucky to be alive.
“But seriously, you have nothing to worry about now. You’ll be home soon, and everything will be back to normal.” Riana smiled. “Besides, we’re here to keep them in line. They do tend to get carried away sometimes.”
“We? You mean there’s more of you?”
“I’m not the first human girl to fall for the silver-and-fanged. If you ever decide to join us, well, you know where to find us. I’ll give you my link details. Any problems at all, you contact me straight away, okay? We’ll move heaven and Earth to help you out.”
Join us? Give up her hard-won independence for one of these über-powerful, violent, intimidating, all-controlling aliens?
No way. Not even if some of them—cough, cough, ahem, Ikriss—were fucking hot.
She’d already made the same mistake twice. She wasn’t about to let herself be broken a third time.
Correction, a fourth time. She was still fucked up from what her abductors had done to her, and the only thing that could make her feel better right now was to do something she had actual control over. She longed to do something simple; something where she could work with her hands, something that had been done by humans every day for thousands of years… like kneading dough.
She couldn’t wait to get into the kitchen and knead some dough. Really get stuck into it. Rise it, punch it, prove it. Do it all over again. Fill the whole restaurant with the smell of freshly baked bread.
That, at least, was something she could control.
Forget about this insane world of scary aliens and stars amongst the endless darkness and cruel, barbaric enemies.
She didn’t belong here.
Take me home.
She needed to make herself whole again.
Chapter Seven
Ikriss stepped out onto the ice and inhaled the cold fresh air of Earth. Behind him, the sleek black stealth cruiser called the Crurix rested on the frozen surface of the lake, its obsidian hull contrasting sharply with the pure white ice and snow.
How refreshing.
With the clear dark winter skies above and the howling wind whipping through his hair, the scene reminded him of Kythia.
Specifically, it reminded him of the flat, endless Vaal—the frozen surface of the vast ocean that surrounded his traditional homelands.
The lands of the Aikun.
Like so many of the warriors in the former Kordolian military, Ikriss had been taken from his family shortly after his coming of age. He’d been assigned to one of the cold, brutal Imperial Education Barracks, where the trainers had forced him to renounce his family ties and his culture and suppress all memories of his former life… and his freedom.
They’d shaved his hair and subdued his temper and forced him to wear their dark imperial uniforms.
And slowly but surely, he’d succumbed to their indoctrination, and it was made all the more potent for the fact that he knew—they all knew—that if he didn’t submit and work hard to become a good imperial soldier, his family would suffer.
The memory of it put cold fire into his veins even as he reveled in his surroundings; as he grappled with his headache, which had been reduced to a dull, pounding throb at the base of his skull.
“Boss is early,” Nythian remarked as he strode across the ice beside Ikriss. Lodan walked at his other side; uncharacteristically quiet, barefoot and perfectly naked in the way of an Aikun hunter. Clearly, he was impatient to get into the water. Soon Ikriss would strip off his stiff official uniform and join him.
“He can’t help it,” the pilot said dryly, his soft voice barely audible above the howling wind. “Always has to be one step ahead. Besides, he’s got Abbey and the offspring at home and even the toughest of us needs a break away from human chaos, because they say that younglings can be little terrors. Don’t you dare tell him I said this, but sometimes I almost feel sorry for him.”
Nythian let out a snort of agreement.
Ikriss glanced to his side and saw a second stealth cruiser, this one twice as large as the Crurix. He immediately recognized the Darkshadow, which was the craft Tarak normally used for short trips from Silence to Earth.
Tarak stood a little way off from the ship, looking down through a hole he’d cut in the ice. In one hand was a long serrated ice-saw called a skrath. The sight of the traditional Aikun tool pleased Ikriss immensely.
The General wore nothing but a soft black casual kashkan robe that was open at the waist, revealing his well built form, and a pair of loose trousers. As the three of them approached he looked up, inclining his head in greeting.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Ikriss said gruffly as he reached Tarak’s side. “When was the last time you had a chance to do a bit of ice-fishing?” He fought to keep his expression neutral as a fresh bolt of pain lanced through his left eyeball.
“Several cycles ago, on Kythia,” Tarak remarked as he bent over and picked up several wickedly barbed Callidum hunting harpoons called krizen. The sight of the traditional Aikun weapons sent a thrill of excitement through Ikriss. He felt a sudden urge to hunt. “Just like you,” the General continued, “I have missed it, which is why I have acquired these hunting lands. Besides, I have promised my mate fresh meat for her dinner.”
“This area is under our control now?” Ikriss raised an eyebrow. “I thought we ceased colonizing planets when we broke the Empire.”
“It is a strategic acquisition. Advance payment in exchange for our services. I have a few of these now.” Tarak tossed one of the krizen to him. Ikriss snatched it out of the air, appreciating its familiar heft and weight as his fingers wrapped around the obsidian haft. “It is a reservoir of edible species for our people; the kind of prey we prefer and that which is most nutritious for us. My wife, in all her wisdom, tells me it is fine so long as we engage something called a marine biologist to ensure species numbers stay viable.”
“Makes sense,” Nythian agreed. “But doesn’t she know we’ve been controlling species numbers all over the Universe long before humans even knew how to ”
“Her ideal way of doing it is different,” Tarak said quietly. “More balanced.”
“Less brutal,” Lodan added. “And maybe we shouldn’t
be trying to control every cursed thing in the Universe.”
“Indeed,” the General rumbled, sounding half-amused as he tossed his First Division warriors a krizen each.
“I’m going in.” Without further hesitation, the Lodan took one, two, three graceful steps and dropped right into the hole in the ice, his lean, muscular form making barely a splash as he disappeared beneath the water’s dark surface.
Nythian shrugged. “Can’t let him get the first catch. He’ll get big-headed again.” He followed in Lodan’s footsteps, entering the water just as silently as his battle-partner. Nythian might be big, but he could be as stealthy as the death-lord himself.
The dark surface of the water rippled and then went perfectly still, like a mirror.
Now only Ikriss and Tarak were left standing at the water’s edge.
The General turned to his Commander. “I trust all is going smoothly with the return of the human females.”
“I made sure the Federation representatives understand our position. They will not interfere.” At first, the agents from the so-called Nonhuman Affairs had tried to impose their conditions, but Ikriss had quickly subdued them with a few diplomatically veiled threats. He was very good at that kind of thing. “Riana and Zyara have spent time reassuring them all that we are not going to forcibly mate them—or eat them.” He smiled grimly. Their reputation for cruelty was proving hard to shake off, probably because so much of it was true. “The first group of females—those we have deemed fit—are boarding a cruiser to return to Earth as I speak. The rest will be returned once they are physically and mentally able. It seems that humans vary greatly in their ability to withstand psychological stress.”
“They are a confounding species,” Tarak agreed. “Vulnerable and yet strong. Unpredictable. Do what you must to ease their fears. What will be most effective is if they continue to receive visits from our humans—with all the necessary security arrangements in place, of course. As we discussed earlier, I want you to create an unseen ring of protection around each and every one of them. For whatever reason, these specific females were deliberately targeted. There is a chance they will be targeted again, and when that happens, we will be ready. Treat every prisoner we take as a potential lead. The ones that are behind this think they can hide from us by leaving their dirty work to others, but sooner or later, we will find them. Be patient, ‘Kriss. Sooner or later, you will be able to take your revenge.”