by Anna Carven
He went quiet for what seemed like an eternity.
The red desert rushed by beneath them, ancient and immense.
“Alexis.” When he spoke again, his voice was cold, but she instinctively knew that coldness wasn’t directed at her. “Now is the time for you to tell me what really happened to you on Earth. I’ve heard you talking in your sleep. You are strong, but sometimes I still see the fear in you.”
“I…” She hesitated, not because she was afraid to relive those horrible memories again, but because of what it might do to him.
She had no idea how he would react.
“Tell me the truth, Alexis. All of it.” He squeezed her hands. “I need to know.”
“Why? You can’t change the past.”
“Alexis.” His voice became stern. “Tell me.”
She sighed. “Fine.”
And another rusted-shut barrier in her mind burst open.
Opening her mouth was like releasing the floodgates. She told him everything. About her job as a detective. About why she’d gone into this line of work in the first place.
About Tasha.
She spoke of Earth’s long history of human trafficking and slavery, right from the first written records of humankind until recent times, when people had started to disappear from the face of the Earth.
Alien abductions were the most serious type of cases the Human Protection Agency dealt with. When people went off-planet, they rarely ever came back. There had been exactly three recorded cases of returned survivors in all of human history—with the exception of the humans rescued by the Kordolian allies, of course.
There was a saying in the HPA. Lost in space, found on ground. It sounded corny, but it essentially meant that once human abductees victims entered space, there was almost no hope of retrieval.
Like Tasha.
God damn it. Alexis nearly choked up. “I was almost one of them,” she said softly, and he went very, very still. “We were on a routine search. In hindsight, it was stupid to go in such a small search party, but we getting a lot of pressure from the higher-ups. We were desperate for a lead, and the riots in nearby Lightside had us stretched for personnel, and we hadn’t really expected to find anything… maybe clues at the most; footprints, personal items dropped by the victims, signs of a struggle…”
“But you did find something.”
“Yeah. An alien… Kordolian ship. We literally stumbled across it. It was cloaked… nearly invisible to us, but we picked up a heat-sig. We decided to retreat and call for backup, but it was too late. They were returning from their hunt with two human captives in tow.” She swore viciously, slipping back in her the creole of her childhood. “We hadn’t had any direct encounters with Kordolians before. We all knew they were dangerous, but…”
She still blamed herself for Del and Thomas’s deaths, even though so many people—superiors, counsellors, colleagues—had told her it wasn’t her fault.
“You weren’t prepared,” Nythian said matter-of-factly. “Humans rarely are.” He leaned in, his body pressing against hers. She was strapped in. He wasn’t.
Everything about him was hyper-intense. He became eerily still as he broke her gaze and stared off into the shadows, and all of a sudden he felt completely alien; she couldn’t even begin to guess what was going through his mind.
But she wasn’t afraid.
Not one bit.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax.
“Tell me,” he urged softly.
The inside of the ship was silent save for the faint, almost imperceptible hum of machinery somewhere. She imagined the desolate but terrifyingly beautiful landscape rushing past beneath them.
Sand so red it was almost the hue of fresh blood. Cerulean lakes so startling they could have been dabs of paint on an artist’s canvas. Wild green jungles, viciously confined by the desert.
Spires of pure obsidian stone, rising arrogantly out of the red dust, appearing so alien, so sculptural, so unwelcome in that bizarre landscape that they might be unnatural things, built by some advanced civilization that died out eons ago.
The colors blurred in her mind, mixing together to become muddy brown and grey and black and eventually deep maroon… the color of dried blood.
The smell returned… that god-awful smell…
She entered a trancelike state.
“They reminded me of the worst kinds of criminals.” Her voice sounded hollow. “There are some cases you get that are so horrible you can’t sleep at night… and when you finally catch the ones that did it, there’s this look in their eyes. They aren’t angry, they aren’t remorseful, they aren’t even surprised. They’re only thinking of what they would do to you if they had you alone somewhere, powerless. They’re thinking of what they would do to bring you down, to humiliate you, to crush you into the dust beneath their boots… To make you feel fear. That’s what they get off on. We have all kinds of names for them on Earth, but they’re just labels that don’t really get to the heart of what it is that makes them so repulsive. Antisocial personality disorders. Sociopaths. Psychopaths… Just labels.” Her hands curled around the arms of the seat, her fingers digging into the strange hard-but-soft black material. “We all have a bit of that in us, I suppose, but some folks… there’s something not quite human about them, but they think they’re so far above you. To them, you’re nothing to them but a means to an end. That’s what those Kordolians reminded me of.”
Nythian didn’t say a word. Her right hand tingled, as if a thousand ice-footed vakkandik were crawling across it.
“They killed my officers while we were trying to defend ourselves. We fumbled in the dark and managed to get one of them off-guard. Killed him somehow; I hardly even remember how we did it. Then the other one came, and I thought I was the only one left. He wanted to make an example of me. For that? We were just defending ourselves.”
“What did he do?” When Nythian spoke again, she hardly recognized him. His low voice cut through her trance like a knife, cold and deadly and loaded with the promise of death.
How could this be the same man who had held her so gently, who had gone to such extraordinary lengths to earn her trust?
She was still back there in the forest, lost and fumbling in the dark.
“Alexis. What did he do to you? I need to know.”
“Why?”
“So I can give him the slow and excruciating death that he deserves.”
“Those things don’t matter anymore. He’s already dead.”
“How?”
“I killed him. I smashed his face in and slashed his throat.” A bead of sweat slid down the side of her face. Funny, it was cold in here, so why was she sweating? “I wasn’t fast enough. The asshole took too long to die.” It had only been a matter of seconds, but it felt like hours in her mind. “He managed to get some sort of snapshot of my bio-sig. Sent it out to his people in space. There’s a big motherfucking bounty on my head right now.”
“You killed him.” Now Nythian’s ice melted a fraction; he almost sounded proud of her. Huh. The things that could make a Kordolian proud.
“It wasn’t just me. Without the actions of my officers, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“But you are here. That bounty is meaningless now.”
“You know, it’s strange. After that day, I lived in the shadow of death. Those Kordolians… faceless assholes somewhere in space… they sent bounty hunters after me. All sorts. Human, Ifkin, Avein… Must have cost them millions of credits. I’ll bet their job was made a thousand times harder because they wanted me alive. I was under a protection program by then. Credit to my guards; there were a few near-misses, a lot of deaths on our side, but they kept me breathing. The attacks didn’t stop, though. Eventually, the Agency put me in the too hard basket and shipped me off to Miridian-7.” A wry snort of disbelief escaped her. “The Kordolians never sent one of their own, though. Wouldn’t that have been simpler? I just don’t understand it. I’m nobody special. I’m no
t even high up in the Agency ranks. Why would they go to all that trouble?”
“When did this happen?” His aura was still silent and scary and oppressive, but she found his presence strangely comforting.
Her brain tried to convert human units of time into Universal. Without her Link, she struggled. Mental arithmetic had never been one of her strong points.
“You can tell me in Earth years. I’ve spent enough time on your planet to become familiar with its orbital cycles.”
“It was roughly two years ago now. Feels so long ago. But it feels like yesterday, too.”
“Two Earth years…” He muttered something to himself in Kordolian, his eyes glazing over for a second. “Ah. That fits the timeline. Explains how they were able to evade our notice.” He curled his fingers around her arm as he moved even closer, his warm breath feathering her cheek. “The reason they could no longer send their own to hunt you is because we had taken full control of Earth’s orbit-space by then. We would have shot down any unknown Kordolian ship that tried to enter Earth’s atmosphere.” He chuckled darkly. “You must have frustrated them no end, evading their hired guns. Their obsession with finding you is not unusual for Kordolians. We will go to any lengths to get our revenge. It may seem strange to you, but I understand their motivation perfectly.”
She caught a glimpse of razor-sharp fangs. Stars, the vibe he gave off was both dangerous and protective; alien and familiar. It made her a little breathless. “I get the sense what I—what we—did was something they weren’t used to. That’s why they’re acting so damn irrationally when it comes to getting their revenge.”
“Believe me, there’s nothing irrational about it. Alexis, when you and your subordinates killed those Kordolians, you challenged the very fabric of Kordolian existence. Humans aren’t supposed to be able to kill Kordolians. They just aren’t. For them, it’s critical that they restore their version of the Universal Order, and that can only be done when they have you completely under their power.”
Alexis shuddered. “They want to make an example of me, one that’s so fucking terrifying anybody else will think twice before trying to mess with them—whoever the hell they are.” She opened her eyes and turned to him. “And what about you, Nythian? Do yo think humans shouldn’t be able to kill Kordolians?”
“Would I be telling you all this if I thought that?” He caressed the side of her face. “No, Alexis, you were well within your rights to kill, and now I am bound by the very same Kordolian logic.”
“What does that even mean?” Warmth spread through her core as his fingertips glided across her skin. Hands that could kill in an instant were so gentle against her skin. She got the sense she was on the cusp of something monumental, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. All this alien talk of revenge and Universal Order had destroyed her ability to think clearly.
He destroyed her ability to think clearly, with his damn intensity and his irresistibly warm body and those devious fingers.
“They did unspeakable things to you. Even if you don’t want to tell me, I can read it in your face.” His hand began to tremble ever so slightly. “You, the one I have chosen as my mate? They had no idea… No idea. Don’t worry, Alexis Carter of Earth. You have nothing to fear from any bounty or revenge-oath. I will deal with it. We Kordolians might be different in many ways, but we are also alike.”
“How so?”
“I will take my blood-revenge.” A tremor coursed through his massive frame as he leaned in and kissed her.
It was a featherlight kiss, full of reverence. He brought his arms around her restrained body and held her for a while.
Gradually, the tremor disappeared, and his breathing became steady and even, but she could still sense his anger. It was a cold, tightly controlled thing, and suddenly she understood that there was a part of him that would always be inscrutable to her; a part of him was tethered to a dark, ice-encrusted planet that she would never ever set foot on.
It didn’t bother her anymore.
“One of them… one of the Kordolians we killed was called Orshak.” The name was seared into her mind. “I didn’t get the name of the other before I killed him, but he spoke to someone called Sarkiss.”
“Hm.” Nythian gave no indication that he recognized the names. What were the chances? There were plenty of Kordolians out there, both good and bad.
Hers was one of the good ones…
Sometimes.
Abruptly, Nythian kissed her again, and this time his kiss was white-hot and passionate. “You did well, my love,” he rasped, his voice thick with emotion. “Nobody will ever lay a hand on you again. I swear to the Goddess.”
She closed her eyes and let herself be engulfed by him. Whatever the hell it was that he planned to do… it didn’t matter. She believed him. One hundred percent, she believed him.
TWENTY-ONE
NYTHIAN HELD her close until they landed, using the pad of his thumb to wipe the salty tears that slipped from the corners of her eyes. She seemed annoyed at this phenomenon, this terribly human trait.
He found it curious and fascinating and strangely beautiful, but he was also enraged that some piece-of-shit Imperial scum could make her feel this way.
Kordolians didn’t cry. Biologically, they couldn’t. Sadness and grief were not acknowledged much in their culture. They were signs of weakness, to be crushed or turned into anger and coldness.
The Aikun had their ways of expressing sadness, but the so-called modern Imperial Kordolians sneered at their old tribal ways, dismissing them as primitive.
Nythian didn’t feel any sadness right now; he was Kordolian, after all. He would honor her fallen humans, the ones who had sacrificed their lives to save hers—for that he would be eternally thankful—but he couldn’t summon any emotion resembling grief.
Only anger. Cold, all-consuming anger that invaded his heart like a disease.
Anyone who had harmed her, who had sent hired goons after her, who was even having a sliver of a thought of a possibility of threatening her…
He would kill them all.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured softly in her ear, not really knowing how to comfort a human but trying his best anyway. “I’ll find them. I’ll deal with them. You shouldn’t be afraid to set foot on your own planet. Never again. When we’re finished here, I will take you back to Earth, and you will go wherever you please.”
He wanted to give her all the assurances in the Universe, but this was the best he could do.
“Hey, Nythian.” She brought her Tharian-changed hand around the back of his neck and drew him down, kissing him tenderly as the Mhyndin dropped through the stratosphere. She pulled back and looked at him; really looked at him, her startling brown eyes capturing the essence of his soul and twisting it round and round and round her little finger. “I think I get what you’ve been trying to do now.” There was that canny look in her eyes again, the one she got when she’d figured out some critical truth about him. “I just wanted to say thanks. Like, really fucking much. I mean that.”
“Unnecessary,” he growled, “but noted and accepted.”
“Hmm, I get the feeling we’re starting to understand one another.” She kept her hand on his neck, her nanite-covered skin emitting a faint buzz of energy that awakened his lust.
A deep, animalistic rumble escaped him. “There is much to learn yet. I look forward to it. Now let’s go down and release this restless spirit of yours so she can find some peace. Has she said anything since we left the Fleet Station?”
“No. She’s still asleep.”
“You’re certain she’s still there?”
“I can feel her. It’s hard to explain. You wouldn’t understand unless you’d had one yourself.”
“Hm. A minor inconvenience. You see, now we’re going to have to talk with the locals, and that’s going to be a pain-in-the-ass. They don’t take too kindly to our type.”
“I wouldn’t either, if someone had bombed my civilization into dust.” She made a face. �
��You sure we can convince them?”
“Nope. That’s your job, human.” Her earnestness made him smile. No other species did empathy quite like humans.
Nythian leaned back as the Mhyndin came to a complete stop. The motion suppressors were almost faultless, but he knew.
He always knew.
“You actually paying attention down there, brother, or has the Mating Fever turned your brain into plasma?” Lodan’s calm voice filtered through his comm. His partner sounded slightly amused. “The Stealthstalkers are ready to go. Marenja’s about fifty kuliks north of here. The sylth has found evidence of life. These Tharians look like they’re either trying to hide or pull an ambush on us. It’s not safe for your mate to go down there yet. Better we go catch one of them and bring them back here. You want to guard or capture?”
“Guard.” Nythian didn’t have to think twice.
“Thought you’d say that. I’ll go alone.”
“Do me a favor and bring us one that speaks Universal.”
“I’ll find one. Any other requests? You want me to bring back some Veronian sweets and a bunch of Earth roses too?”
“Get your ass into gear, brother. I don’t want to spend a siv longer on this cursed dust-pit than what’s absolutely necessary.”
“This place isn’t so bad. It has a stark beauty to it, don’t you think? It’s really not too different from Kenna’s landholding on Earth.”
“It isn’t too different from the hundred other dust planets we’ve been to. Anyway, I hate that place,” he growled, remembering Earth’s infernally hot sun. The only reason he tolerated working in the desert was because it made logistical sense; it was easy to guard and far from most human civilization. The cold, crystal-clear nights weren’t so bad, either.
“I know. If it were up to you we’d all still be sitting on some sunless ice-planet. I’d find that boring as shit. Armor up if you have to go outside, brother. I won’t be longer than twenty sivs.”
“Twenty. Got it. Don’t kill any Tharians if you can help it.”