by Anna Carven
She came, again.
And it was sublime.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Layla’s eyes fluttered open. Disoriented, she blinked and slowly absorbed her surroundings.
Where am I?
She was naked, and her last memory was of falling asleep in Enki’s arms, listening to the slow cadence of his breathing as he embraced her from behind. She remembered the feel of his bare skin against hers, his chest and abdomen curving against her back, their legs entwined. She remembered being surrounded by his intoxicating male scent and feeling warm and gooey inside as she basked in the afterglow of their lovemaking.
He’d nuzzled her neck…
And at some point, she’d fallen asleep, and so had he.
Wait… what?
He wasn’t beside her anymore. She looked up and saw him sitting across from her, fully dressed in his dark Kordolian robes.
His eyes were closed.
“Enki?” Something about the way he looked made her cautious as she said his name. There was an eerie stillness about him; his face was completely expressionless, as if he were a statue carved from silver.
His eyes snapped open.
Layla froze.
They were green. Not an ordinary human-looking green, but a deep, unnatural shade of emerald that glowed faintly in the dim light. Instinctively, Layla knew this wasn’t Enki. The way this being sat—stiff, awkward, as if it didn’t fit the body it was in—was so unlike the deadly, graceful warrior she knew.
“Layla. I beg of you, listen to me carefully. I do not have much time. He will be awake soon.” The voice that issued from his throat sounded strange; high-pitched and stilted, speaking Universal in a thick alien accent. Impossibly, Enki’s hard features twisted into an expression of fear, confirming to Layla that the being controlling his body right now was definitely not Enki.
The effect was unnerving. She gathered the sheets around herself, suddenly aware that she was naked in front of a stranger. “Wh-who the hell are you? What are you?” Her voice turned sharp. “What have you done to him?”
“My name is Anuk ik Arenhel Nimhara the Third. I am a daughter of the Tharian Empire.”
“Anuk…” Layla’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re inside his body? How is that even possible?”
“When one’s heart gets eaten by an indestructible Kordolian warrior just as one is about to transition into the second stage of the life-cycle, this is what happens.” Using Enki’s features, the Tharian somehow managed to convey wryness. God, that expression looked so weird on his face. “But there isn’t time for me to explain the details, and it’s probably better that you don’t hear them from me. I need to get out of this body.” Enki—Anuk—grimaced. “Being trapped inside him is absolute torture. I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I can’t think. He is far too strong; a monster. Please help me to escape, Layla. It will be better for the both of us.”
“What do you need me to do?” Sensing the Tharian’s urgency, Layla leaned forward, all ears, even as she wondered about Enki’s habit of eating hearts. But she couldn’t be afraid of him, not after what they’d shared. Layla would do anything to help, because she’d knew the Tharian’s presence greatly disturbed him. Even though he never talked about it, she’d seen the anguish on his face; she’d seen him wage internal battles with this strange green-eyed creature.
“I’ve found a suitable host,” Anuk said. “Back there on the Kordolian warship, where you were captured… there were two human bodies inside those tanks.”
Horror coursed through Layla. “The dead humans… You want to inhabit one of those bodies? You’ll leave Enki alone if you can transfer to a human host?”
“I felt the pull, Layla. One of them is my true host.”
Layla’s thoughts whirled. The death of the other passengers was still fresh in her mind, and a strange kind of guilt pricked her chest. What fucked-up twist of fate had allowed her to live while the others perished? And who the hell was she to decide what happened to the bodies of those unfortunate souls?
But Enki needed to be free of this Tharian… ghost, or whatever she was, and Layla would move heaven and Earth for him.
“What do I need to do to get this to work?” she asked as Enki’s eyes began to change, tiny gold flecks spearing through brilliant green.
“Just make him understand what I have told you. He has not given me the opportunity to…” Anuk awkwardly shook Enki’s head, conveying her frustration. “He just needs to make skin contact with the host-body.” She spoke rapidly now, the words spilling from Enki’s lips in a frantic, almost incomprehensible stream. “Make him calm, like you always do. You are the only one who has that effect on him. He must let go, must give up control for just a moment, otherwise it’s never going to wor—”
Abruptly, Anuk stopped speaking, a faint choking sound escaping her—Enki’s—throat.
Green turned to amber. Enki’s eyes widened, his eyes becoming glazed and unfocused as his features twisted into an expression of pure rage.
Enki was back, but he was confused, and dangerous.
“What have you done?” he roared. Dark claws extended from his fingers. He looked straight ahead, straight through Layla, as if he didn’t recognize her at all.
He raked one hand across his chest, drawing blood, digging those vicious claws deeper and deeper, as if he intended to tear his very own heart from his body.
“Enki, stop it! Nothing happened.” Terrified for him, Layla shot off the bed, not caring that she left the covers behind, not caring that Enki had previously told her to stay away whenever the Tharian invaded his mind.
He’s dangerous. She knew that.
She knew exactly what he was capable of, but this was different.
His eyes were amber again, but he was hurting himself, lashing out at an unseen enemy; one he couldn’t fight with his bare hands.
She couldn’t stand it.
“Enki, it’s me, Layla.” She dropped to her knees in front of him, not daring to touch him, just hoping he would respond to the sound of her voice. “Don’t do this. Please.”
He paused, looked down at her, and blinked, his face a perfect mask of confusion. So unlike him. Impossibly, his silver skin started to knit together, the wounds across his chest disappearing right before her very eyes.
“Enki, snap the fuck out of it!” She said it a little more forcefully this time, desperately wanting her Kordolian back. “I need you.”
He froze.
Looked at her.
Blinked.
Slowly, tentatively, she reached out and closed her fingers over his hand, stroking his palm. Somehow, the black blood on his fingers had disappeared, but his claws were still extended. “You’re not going to hurt me,” she said confidently, bringing his hand toward her. “You wouldn’t do that.” Layla placed his hand on her chest, keeping perfectly still as five sharp, deadly points came to rest against her skin.
Something clicked.
A torrent of Kordolian curse-words dropped from Enki’s lips as he looked down at her, the fog clearing from his gaze. He spoke softly, but his anger and frustration were obvious.
Suddenly, his claws disappeared, retracting into his fingers. His touch turned into a caress. “I fell asleep,” he murmured. “This is the reason I don’t usually fucking sleep, but you made me drop my guard, Layla.”
The rumble in his voice sent a ripple of sheer relief down her spine. “You never sleep… because that’s the only time the Tharian can take over your body?”
“Yes. The only thing in the Universe that I can’t kill is inside my cursed head.” A look of perfect anguish crossed his face, and Layla went still as he curled his long fingers around hers.
Here was Enki, a fierce and deadly Kordolian warrior—a killer made of ice and stone—baring his soul to her. For a fraction of a second, his expression turned into something terrifyingly bleak. Seized by a strange mixture of emotions—love, melancholy, awe, acceptance—all Layla could do was look back at him un
til the shadow passed. In her heart of hearts, she knew that she was the only person in the entire Universe who would ever see this side of him. There was a world of pain stashed away inside him, but it was crystallized; never to be disturbed again, like flaws in a brilliant diamond.
And diamonds could cut through anything.
“I will find a way to destroy it,” he hissed, holding her hand tightly. “I’ll kill that cursed Tharian.”
There you are.
He was back in control, as fierce as ever. For a moment, Layla forgot to breathe. Her heart skipped a beat. This was the Enki she’d seen when they’d first encountered one another in those dark, horrible Kordolian labs, where death permeated every fucking inch of the place.
This side of Enki she embraced as much as the others. “You don’t need to kill anybody,” she said gently. “I spoke to her, you know.”
“You what?” Amber eyes narrowed.
“She has a name. Anuk. She wants out of your head so badly, Enki. I get that you’re afraid of losing control, but you have to work with her.”
His expression hardened. “Tharians and Kordolians are sworn enemies. I will not yield to a Tharian that lives only to see the destruction of my kind. Do you understand how dangerous that could be?” His jaw jutted out at a stubborn angle, and his snow-white brows drew together in a rather magnificent scowl.
Ah, so now she was seeing the obstinate side of him.
“Enki…” Layla sighed. “I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but… I know how dangerous it could be for another entity to take control of your body, but what exactly are you afraid of? Surely there’s someone in your mercenary crew who can restrain you if things get to that point, and even if Anuk wanted you dead, what’s she going to do? Force you to choke yourself to death? I don’t think that’s even possible. You’re pretty damn hard to kill.”
“Control is not something I can just relinquish. It is…”
“I know. You’re an uber-elite warrior, and precision and control are your lifeblood. The thought of letting someone else take over, even for a heartbeat, is probably as foreign and terrifying as me saying I want to take up one-legged crater-surfing on the moon. But you have a prisoner in your mind, and she doesn’t want to be there. Let her out, Enki.” It occurred to Layla that she was actually poking him in the chest, something she never would have dared to do before. “If she really wanted to make you suffer, she could have used your body to tear me apart while you were out of it, but she didn’t. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Enki went still, his expression unreadable, and for a moment Layla wondered if she’d gone too far with him, but she no longer cared, because she’d told him the truth. “She could have,” he said finally, reaching down and drawing her into his arms. “And it would have been the swiftest, most brutal way to hurt me… and it would have worked.” He stroked her hair, her shoulder, her arm. He kissed her forehead. “They were right about the human perspective.”
“What?”
But Enki just shook his head, appearing more cryptic than ever. “I will consider your argument, but only on my terms.”
“I was expecting you to say something like that.”
“You presume to believe you know me so well, Layla of Earth?”
“What do you think, mercenary?”
He surrounded her with his muscular arms, radiating warmth, and she felt perfectly cocooned and safe. There was no trace left of green-eyed Anuk or vulnerable Enki, and it occurred to her that she might never see him raw and laid bare like that ever again.
“I think you’re very naked right now, human.”
“And?” Her heart fluttered.
“That you know me well enough,” he grunted as he shifted, his erection pressing into Layla’s hip. “Do not abuse this unholy power you have over me, female.”
“Power?” Layla snuggled against his broad chest, absorbing every drop of his warmth. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m just an insignificant human. I’ve got nothing on you big bad Kordolians.”
“Hmph.” Enki kissed her on the top of her head. “Says you.”
Something between them shifted, and their silence stretched into a familiar, comfortable thing, as if they’d known each other for years.
Layla sighed contentedly as Enki rose, his biceps flexing as he lifted her with ridiculous ease and carried her across to his pod. If someone had told her that her journey to Miridian-7 would end on a Kordolian space station, in the dark embrace of a deadly, heart-eating alien warrior whose body had been invaded by a desperate Tharian, she would have thought them insane.
But Enki was very real, and she didn’t ever want this dark, seductive dream to end.
Now all they had to do was set Anuk free.
It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?
Chapter Thirty
They stood in the center of Zharek’s lab, staring at the two human bodies that were suspended in separate blue-glowing stasis tubes. After her conversation with the Tharian, Layla had insisted on coming down here with Enki. He might be near-invincible, but still, she couldn’t help but worry about him, and as a human, she felt some sort of responsibility for these human bodies, which had been retrieved from the enemy warship and brought here to the Fleet Station.
The woman on the left had been the first person to greet Layla once they were all onboard the Malachi. “You escaping the dirty ol’ blue-and-green too?” she’d said with a sly wink. “I don’t blame you, honey. It’s a goddamn madhouse down there, and it’s only gonna get worse.”
A pang of sadness pierced Layla’s chest as she watched the woman’s body bob up and down, her long arms and legs swaying gently as some unseen current swirled through the stasis liquid. The woman’s skin appeared shiny and flawless like obsidian as the blue light reflected off it, casting an otherworldly pattern of light and shade that accentuated her toned physique. Zharek must have had some sort of respect for her modesty, because unlike in the mad scientist’s labs, when she’d been naked, she now wore a long, tight sheath-like garment that covered her body from the breasts down to the thighs. In death, she looked almost as regal and otherworldly as the Kordolians themselves.
The human on the right had shared her packet of delicious orbit-cakes with Layla as the Malachi prepared for departure. Now she hung in stasis, her brilliant blue eyes closed, her brown hair forming a wispy halo around her head. She looked strangely peaceful, almost as if she were just asleep.
If only that were the case.
How the mad scientist had managed to restore their bodies to such perfect condition, Layla would never know. When the Kordolians retrieved them, they’d been floating in the wrecked body of the Malachi, dressed in only their cryo-suits. Exposed to the cold, endless vacuum of space, their cells would have sustained significant damage.
Which one was the Tharian going to choose? Would this insane proposal even work?
“This is…”
“Difficult for you,” Enki finished, curving his arm around her waist and pulling her close. “I can sense the disquiet in you.” He rubbed the small of her back in a reassuring gesture. “It will pass.”
He didn’t say anything else, because there was nothing more to say. Instead, he just held her tightly as Layla contemplated life and death and the tenuous threads of her very own existence. “Hey, you’re the one with the disembodied alien consciousness stuck in his head,” she said dryly. “If anyone’s uneasy, it should be you.”
“I don’t get uneasy,” Enki replied, and Layla couldn’t tell whether he was being serious or not.
Abruptly, he glanced over his shoulder, and a weird feeling—a sudden sense of danger—made Layla turn.
Her eyes widened and her breath caught as three of the most dangerous, bad-ass looking Kordolians—apart from Enki, of course—entered the lab, with Zharek following close behind. They all wore that sleek black living armor, and they were all armed to the teeth—unlike Enki, who still wore his dark robes, and as was his habi
t, went barefoot.
Holy crap. How many of these guys were there? They looked as intimidating as hell, and only Enki’s protective arm around her waist kept her from feeling completely freaked out.
She took a deep breath and tried to slow her palpitating heart. Enki squeezed tighter. “Relax,” he murmured. “There is nothing to fear.”
Layla leaned into him, studying the newcomers. She recognized the pilot from the rescue—Lodan, his name was—but the guy to his left she hadn’t seen before. He had the look of a bruiser, with a massive frame and broad, not-quite-handsome features.
But it was the man in front of them who drew—no, demanded—Layla’s attention. A fraction shorter than Enki and slightly more muscular, he radiated authority, his crimson gaze missing nothing as it swept across the room, flicking over Layla for just a fraction of a second. She got the feeling he’d just dissected her and put her back together in the blink of an eye.
Scary. Who the hell is this guy?
The boss. It was obvious.
“Enki.” He greeted the warrior with a sharp nod. “I am no believer in coincidences, but it is rather interesting that you seem to have found a solution for your unique problem at the same time as you have found your mate.”
“Sir.” Beside her, Enki tensed, his tone becoming respectful, almost deferent—well, as deferent as a guy like Enki could possibly get. “I did not know you were back on the station.”
“Bartharra is an ongoing project. I am not wasting an entire fucking half-revolution of my time trying to keep those moronic yellow-skinned brutes from tearing each other’s throats out. Torin is overseeing security for now while I attend to other matters. I am only needed there for some of the negotiations.” The Kordolian shrugged. “His mate is with him, so he does not care if he has to stay there a little longer. My mate is here.” Abruptly, he turned his attention to Layla. “My wife has told me everything I need to know, Layla Rose dela Cruz. Let me make it clear that we do not care what has occurred on Earth, and we have little regard for the fickle court of your race’s collective opinion. I respect Enki’s judgment. That is all. Do you understand me, human?”