by Anna Carven
It occurred to him that the Tharian always seemed to break through when he was angry.
And now he was…
Watching Layla. Feeling her lithe, slender body beneath him. Listening to the rasp of her breathing.
Impossibly, a smile grew across her pink lips, revealing a cheeky flash of her slightly-apart teeth. “I like the audacity of your plan.”
Enki frowned and inclined his head, wondering how she could be so flippant when she’d just narrowly missed getting toasted by plasma fire.
“Using the enemy’s ship as your escape vessel?” She smirked. “You clearly have no respect for the big bad Kordolian military.”
“There are worse beings in the Universe,” Enki murmured, knowing he should be paying attention to his surroundings, but wanting to indulge in her presence just a moment longer.
“Clearly,” Layla replied dryly.
Enki almost smiled, even though he’d forgotten how.
Chaos was all around them, but when he looked at her, he felt calm, and the passenger in his mind went silent.
The dull boom of a plasma blast shook the hull, jolting Enki back into reality.
You need to move.
He got to his feet, extending a hand to Layla. She didn’t hesitate as he pulled her up and led her toward the navigation pod. He gestured toward the curved Qualum seat next to his. “Sit. We are leaving.”
For a moment, Layla just stared at the seat, her expression serene despite the noise from outside. “That thing that looks like an ergonomic pile of black spaghetti in the vague shape of a chair? Sure. What could possibly go wrong?” She let out a laugh that was half relief and half nervousness as she collapsed into the passenger chair. “After today, nothing can surprise me anymore. Not even you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Layla’s dark brows drew together as she shot Enki a look that was filled with unexpected… heat. “Well, when you put it like that…”
“I do.” Enki surprised even himself with his forwardness. The words had come naturally, without a second thought. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt… hopeful. “I have never wanted to get to know a human before.”
“I’m honestly flattered.” A hint of pink suffused her delicate cheeks. Enki didn’t understand what that sign meant—he’d never been interested in human physiology up until now—but her racing pulse and dilated pupils told him she was receptive. “Surprise me, Enki. Give me something good. I don’t even know where you’re taking me, but it has to be better than this fucking nightmare.”
“We are nothing like them.” Enki declared quietly as he slipped into the navigation seat. He thought hard, trying to think of what he could say to make her feel secure. “The ones who abused you are all dead by my hand. I will not allow that to happen to you again, Layla. I will kill anyone who tries to hurt you.”
Layla rubbed her arms as she acknowledged his promise with a single nod. She swallowed and blinked fiercely, her eyes glistening as she digested his words. “I know that,” she whispered.
“Good.” He might be defective, but it was important that Layla understood what he was all about. “We will continue this conversation later.”
BOOM! A great explosion rocked the Rysor, shaking the walls and floor. Beside him, Layla gasped.
“Don’t worry about the blast, brother. It’s just me.” That was Nythian, of course.
“What took you so long?” Irritation was starting to get the better of Enki. Things weren’t exactly working out as he’d planned, but when did they ever?
He just wanted to be away from here, with Layla. He wanted peace and quiet.
He was tired.
“I think I broke the airlock when I came in,” Nythian answered wryly, before his comm went silent.
Click. Click. BOOM. A second explosion reverberated through the walls.
“Just me again. I was just kidding about the airlock. Those things are designed to be self-repairing. I’m guessing you’re in that flyer at the end of the bay, the one drawing all the negative attention.” A low whistle of appreciation escaped Nythian’s lips. “Is that Daegan’s body on the floor over there? You don’t waste time, do you, Enki?”
“He was asking for it.” In more ways than one.
“I thought I had dibs on that scalp, but never mind. I’m going to stay and play while you cruise off with the prize. I’m about to divert your attackers in a big way, so you’d better consider leaving now.”
“We are going.”
“Safe travels,” Nythian said, sounding like his his usual unserious self. “I’ll clean up the mess and wait for Ikriss to get here. Shouldn’t leave all the fun for them when we were the ones who found the Rist.”
The comm went silent, and moments later, Enki heard screaming through the thick walls of the ship. He glanced at the Rysor’s sylth. “Sylth, execute an immediate departure. You have permission to speak.”
The sylth’s blue light flared as it scanned Enki and registered his bio-sig. Before turning against the Empire, General Tarak had quietly made sure that each First Division warrior was given universal access to every ship, entrance, and base in the Kordolian military apparatus.
Their DNA was encoded into vast networks across the Nine Galaxies, and it would forever remain that way.
Such foresight. It was almost as if he’d predicted the downfall of the Empire so many revolutions ago.
And that was why Tarak al Akkadian was the boss.
“Welcome, Master,” the sylth said, her soft voice cutting through the muffled explosions from outside. “What is your destination?”
“Just get as far away from here as possible, and do it fast.” It didn’t matter where they went. They wouldn’t be on the Rysor for long, anyway.
“As you command.”
The Rysor started to ascend. Another explosion rocked them from below, causing the ship to shake from side to side as it rose into the air. In typical sylth fashion, the movement was slow and methodical, nothing like the magical physics-defying kind of flight Lodan could coax out of these machines.
But it didn’t matter. With Nythian handling things below, they drifted toward the airlock without interruption, the Rysor’s engines humming as they prepared for a massive acceleration burst.
Nearly there.
Now, all they had to do was avoid getting blasted to smithereens by the Ristval V’s powerful plasma beams.
Chapter Eighteen
At last, a break.
As they left the chaos behind, drifting toward oblivion, Layla closed her eyes and replayed everything in her mind. It ran like a bad horror movie—the micrometeorite storm, her fellow passengers dead, drifting alone, getting captured by monstrous aliens, the agony of the pain collar, the mad doctor and his terrible claws…
Fuck.
Horrible, all of it. She’d be dealing with the aftermath in her head for some time yet; just another bunch of crap she could add to all of her Earth baggage.
But then her savior had come.
A Kordolian. A lethal warrior who could cut through metal with nothing but his sword.
She studied Enki out of the corner of her eye, trying to be discreet even though she got the feeling he noticed everything.
He showed so little emotion that his face could have been sculpted from marble, but he maintained an insane level of focus on the ship’s strange blue-glowing console thing, reading data that was written in indecipherable Kordolian symbols. Occasionally, the console would speak in that lyrical language of theirs—ensuring she couldn’t understand a word—but for the most part, it was silent.
And now and then, Enki’s features would tighten, as if he were under some sort of strain. He’d been doing that ever since he rescued her, and she suspected it had something to do with the scary green-eye thing, but she didn’t dare ask.
Not yet, anyway. There was a time and place for these things, and it wasn’t when one was trying to escape from a massive enemy warship.
; “We’re out,” he said softly, managing to surprise her even though he was right beside her. Enki could probably even do stealth in his sleep if he wanted to.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered as a sense of un-reality washed over her. A glittering field of stars greeted her through the view-port, and the sight that Layla had come to detest during her time in the escape-pod now felt like something else.
Freedom.
After thinking she was going to die time and time again, she was so close to…
“Layla, in a moment, we will need to move again.” Enki’s aristocratic features softened as he looked at her. He whispered a command to the ship’s… computer, or whatever it was, and the low hum from the rear grew louder and louder.
The starfield in front of them became a blur of silver and white. Layla was thrown back in her seat, and the writhing black fiber things curled around her body, holding her firmly in place as the ship accelerated.
Whoa.
Such impossible force.
As quickly as it came, the acceleration-force disappeared, the ship stabilizing within seconds.
Amazing.
Layla was awed and a little intimidated at how smooth their departure had been. Leaving Earth on the Malachi had been a lengthy, arduous, and sometimes terrifying experience. First, they had to leave Earth’s atmosphere in one of the Federation-approved transport vessels. Then they were transferred to an orbital station, where they boarded the SS Malachi, strapping into claustrophobic safety seats for the acceleration.
And then there was the takeoff. Impossibly loud, shaky, and long, minutes stretching into hours as the ship reached full speed. Only when they were in stable flight had they been allowed to get out of their safety seats and transfer to the cryosleep slings.
This Kordolian ship was tiny compared to the Malachi, and yet it had just achieved all of that in mere seconds.
Scary.
Kordolians were scary. Everything about them was scary. Enki was scary, but she was no longer afraid of him. At some point during the escape ordeal, Layla had decided he wasn’t her enemy. The way he held her was just too… gentle. He could have been harsh and brutal if he wanted. Layla knew all the different ways in which a man could hold a woman.
“Layla.” Now he stood over her, holding out his hand, a sense of urgency in his voice. “Follow me. Don’t argue. No questions. Just move. Everything will make sense in a moment. You need to trust me.”
When did he even get up? I swear the man is part-ghost. Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed him as he moved, but Layla was used to his ways by now, so she just took his hand and allowed the spaghetti-chair to release her from its strangely comfortable grasp.
Enki took her into her arms and crossed the floor.
Whoa!
Step. Step. Step. He moved as gracefully as a big cat, and Layla’s world blurred into dark walls and blue light and the distant glow of the stars in the background. So fast! This was so surreal. She felt as if she were floating, lulled into a semi-trance by Enki’s effortless movements.
“What are you—?”
“No questions.” He put a finger against her lips and put her down, his deep amber eyes burning with terrible intensity. Anger. Darkness. Heat. Desire. Maybe Layla was just imagining things, but she swore she saw all that and more, and all she could do was throw down her defenses, throw herself completely open to him as he placed her inside some sort of safety pod at the back of the ship. Seriously, the thing had walls and a small window to peer out of, and a kind-of padded area designed to protect the passenger from impact, and…
Shit.
It reminded her of the much larger escape pod she’d been trapped inside for weeks.
Layla’s old instincts awakened, and suddenly, fear threatened to destroy her mind. What if he was about to betray her?
“Layla, trust me. You are not going to die. I will be with you every step of the way, but there is only room inside here for one. I will be on the outside. There is no time to explain. We have to leave this ship now.”
She was at a crossroads. She could choose to give in to her fear, to believe Enki was doing something terrible, or she could really listen to him and hear the tenderness in his voice, an emotion she would not think this man to be capable of at all if she hadn’t gotten to know him a little.
She could trust him.
Besides, what was the worst that could happen?
Layla took a deep breath, and suddenly the world closed in around her, filling her vision with darkness, and she realized the door of the pod-thing was closed.
Panic rose in her chest. Her heart hammered. Her palms went clammy. She struggled to breathe. A feeling of impending doom rose up inside her, and for a split-second, she felt certain she was going to die.
Once again, Layla drew on her depleted reserves and summoned the fragile, desperate strength that had gotten her this far. It wasn’t anything special. It was simply the desire to keep going, to survive.
Stop it. Enki knows what he’s doing. He didn’t go to all that trouble of getting you out of there just so he could sell you out. He might be brutal, but he’s never done wrong by you.
So she took a deep breath, and decided to trust, even though she didn’t understand a fucking thing, and suddenly, her world turned black and there was a sensation of great speed and her stomach dropping and then the total absence of gravity…
And it was cold.
And quiet.
And she could see the stars.
He’s ejected me!
Out into space.
What the motherfucking hell have you done, Enki?
Confusion reigned over her thoughts, but before doubt could take hold, a great shockwave buffeted the pod, followed by a distant boom. For a brief moment, a blue flare of light spread across her vision, before dissipating into the infinite starry void.
What was that? Did something explode just now?
And then a chill ran through her, because she hadn’t seen Enki getting into any escape pod, and what if he was…
Taptap. A black-gloved hand knocked on the clear window of the pod, and Enki’s head appeared in her vision, only his face was hidden behind that armor-helm thing that he seemed to be able summon from beneath his very own skin.
The first time she’d seen it happen, she’d actually pinched herself.
Layla shook her head. Too much. Every time she thought she had a handle on the weirdness of it all, something even more unbelievable happened. What choice did she have but to roll with it?
And now Enki was on the outside of her floating escape-pod, tapping on the window. He raised a single finger. Wait. Be patient.
“It’s not like I have any choice,” she mouthed, wondering if he could lip-read. “Why didn’t you warn me about this part?”
Lip-reading skills on point, he shrugged.
“And… somebody’s coming to get us, right?”
Enki nodded, and instant relief coursed through her.
“Why aren’t you in here with me?” Layla blurted the words before she realized what she was saying. In truth, she wouldn’t mind being in close quarters with Enki. She’d been picked up, carried, and held tightly by him countless times already, and she’d gotten used to the feeling of his strong, hard body pressing against hers, of his arms around her waist, of his hands on her hips, of the way he lifted her so effortlessly, making her feel safe.
Really, there was something about a man who was so powerful, yet so restrained, even when he was struggling with his own internal demons.
Enki held up a single finger, shaking his head.
“You mean there’s only room for one in here?”
He nodded, then made a sign with his hand. Wait.
Wait? Layla pressed her hand against the window, wishing she could talk to him, see his face, touch him. How was he even surviving out there in the cold, airless vacuum, anyway? Was his armor oxygenated, or did he just not need to breathe?
She stared at him, wanting so badly
to unravel the mystery that was Enki, even as the thought of him caused a certain warmth to enter her chest. Her breath misted against the window as she watched him floating amongst the stars, a phantom in alien armor who had saved her from his very own kind.
He was vicious and ruthless, just like them.
But he’d saved her, so he was nothing at all like them.
The feeling of warmth spread through the lower half of her body, sending a pleasant ripple across her skin, awakening a sensation she hadn’t experienced for a long time.
Need.
Why now, why here, of all places? Perhaps it was because Layla had found a pocket of calm in the storm. As traumatic memories flooded her mind in the cold, dark, claustrophobic pod, she had no choice but to latch onto the good, and the only good thing to come out of all of this was Enki.
So she thought only of him…
And waited.
Chapter Nineteen
Drifting amongst the stars, waiting for the rescue ship to arrive, Enki finally found his silence.
There were no voices out here, and the Tharian seemed to have given up on trying to take over his body—for now.
With his claws embedded firmly into the outer walls, he clung to the escape pod, watching her through the small window. He wanted to open his comm and speak to her through the pod’s internal communicator, but it wasn’t synced to him, and he didn’t want to risk fumbling about and having his signal detected by the techs on the Ristval V.
They had only just narrowly escaped getting blown to particle dust by the ship’s powerful lasers. He had known the Rysor would immediately become a target, hence why he’d gotten Layla into the pod as soon as the flyer’s velocity had stabilized. Then they’d ejected, and a moment later, the Rysor had been obliterated.
Everything had been done with the narrowest of margins, with the most precise of calculations—the retrieval, the escape, the time taken to get Layla into the pod and eject—but Enki hadn’t been worried about failure.
He did this sort of shit all the time.
Layla didn’t.