by Carven, Anna
The tension drained from Mavrel’s delicate features. “Think of it this way,” the tech said, a spark of mischief in his eyes. “Won’t it be rather amusing to walk amongst humans as one of them, listening in on their conversations, finding out what makes them tick?”
“Amusing, or maddening?” Ikriss growled.
“Depends what you make of it, I suppose. They’re a curious bunch.”
“Indeed.” Ikriss folded the eyeglasses and stashed them in his jacket pocket. “Report back to me when you have completed those upgrades.” He could already think of a number of potential uses for Mavrel’s odd little invention. The tech was right. The ability to walk amongst humans or perhaps even other species without being noticed could come in quite handy.
Especially with what he feared was coming.
He hoped he was wrong, but echoes and whispers of war were starting to reach them from far across the Universe.
When the time came, they would be ready.
But first things first.
He had to seek out his little human, find out everything there was to know about her, convince her not to be terrified of him, and then seduce her.
Before he went completely insane.
Out of all the human females they’d rescued, she was the only one who would be getting a Kordolian High Commander to serve as her personal security guard.
A wry snort escaped him.
In the old days of the Empire, that never would have happened.
As Ikriss bid a curt farewell to Mavrel and stepped out of the labs, his comm buzzed.
“Report,” he snapped.
“I’ve got him.” It was Jeral, the First Division warrior who’d been sent to capture the Kordolian buyer on the black-market trading station called Zarhab Groht. Under pain of death, Ikriss had ordered the remaining Ephrenian crew to play along with the bastard’s communications; to deceive him into thinking they were still en-route with the captives.
Then he’d launched the Ephrenian ship into space with half the original crew onboard, alongside ultra-realistic holo-replicas of every single human female that had been rescued.
Even Sienna.
He gritted his teeth. They’d had to recreate her the way she looked when he first found her.
And lurking in the background of the junk-ship, there was Jeral of the First Division, and his presence alone was enough to strike deathly fear into the Ephrenian crew, because the terrifying reputation of Tarak’s elite warriors was well known in certain parts of the Universe.
So the Ephrenians did exactly what Jeral told them to do. They made a course for the trading station, and in the equivalent of a few Earth rotations, they had landed and lured the buyer onto their ship.
“Who is he?” Ikriss hissed, barely able to keep the anger out of his voice.
“Sagarath Rexu. Real piece of work, this one. One of ours, but you already knew that. Imperial loyalist. Served under Daegan. Wears the mark of the death-squad. Thinks he’s superior to everyone and everything in the fucking Universe. You know, the kind we like to eat for breakfast.”
Bastard. I’ll kill him myself. “He isn’t operating alone.”
“Someone’s giving him orders. You can almost smell the stink of Noble House shit on him. We need to get some answers out of him, but he’s a tougher shell to crack than the Ephrenians. He won’t talk unless we apply a little specialized pressure.”
“Then you bring him back, Jeral, and we will make him talk.”
“Yes. We will.” The warrior paused. “Ah…”
“Spit it out.”
Jeral let out a menacing growl. “There is another thing.”
“Report.”
“I found a captive on his ship.”
“Human?”
“What else?”
“Female, I presume?”
“Correct.”
“How bad is her condition?”
A faint hiss escaped the First Division warrior. “How did you know she was hurt?”
“Because I know Rexu’s type. You do, too. I’ve served under them and held rank over them. He would have derived pleasure from her pain.”
Jeral let out a particularly dark curse. “She’s beat up bad, but conscious… barely. I’ll get the medics to see to her immediately.” A sigh escaped him. “We’re a fucked up lot, aren’t we, Commander?”
“Only as much as we allow ourselves to be. Bring her back, Jeral, along with our enemy. Make sure she is in no pain and he is in plenty.”
“Already done. I don’t think I’d be able to make him talk without killing him, though.”
“Leave him for the boss. I will have a word with him too.” Ikriss’s pace quickened as his slow-burning anger threatened to ignite. After all, this was the bastard that had ordered Sienna to be tortured and degraded.
“Sounds like you intend to have the final word.”
“Perhaps.”
“Can’t argue with you there. Typical Imperial asshole; he’s got a mouth on him. Had to fight to keep myself from taking his head off. Better if you and the boss interrogate him. You’d be a bit more restrained.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Ikriss growled. “Get that human to the medical bay as soon as possible. Restrain Rexu and deliver him to us… preferably in one piece.”
A dark laugh escaped the warrior. “Our Empire-worshipping friend seems to think the good old times are just about to return. I wonder why that is. Now why do I get the feeling shit is about to blow up?” There was a certain vicious note of glee in Jeral’s voice that Ikriss recognized very well. The big warrior was spoiling for war. Of course he was. No matter how hard Tarak tried to rein in their more savage impulses, they had all—particularly the First Division—been trained as fighting machines.
Nobody did war better than them.
“If some misguided remnant of the Empire is plotting against us, they will learn a very painful lesson.”
“Can’t wait,” Jeral said dryly. “Been a while since I’ve dealt some good bloodshed. Prepare to receive your prisoner, Commander. I will see you back on Silence. Out.” The comm buzzed faintly then went quiet.
And Ikriss thought of a thousand and one ways he could make this Sagarath Rexu suffer.
They would get the answers they needed, and then they would chase their enemies to the ends of the infernal Universe. Someone from above had ordered the Kordolian to purchase the women, and someone from below—a human, presumably—had let the Ephrenians evade their surveillance and enter Earth’s orbit.
Who?
There were plenty of humans that were seething with resentment at the quiet occupation of their planet.
Plenty of humans that would fight them viciously if they had the power.
Sometimes, the best way to catch one’s prey was to hide in plain sight… and wait.
He’d done it in the frozen ocean on Earth, catching more fish than all three First Division warriors combined—including Tarak.
But all of that was secondary to his main task, which was to seek out his human; to know her, to protect her, to draw her—willingly—into his orbit, and to find a cure, once and for all, for his cursed Mating Fever.
Why did something that sounded so simple have to be so fucking complicated?
Chapter Nine
Three days later - Federated States of Earth, New York, The Lower East Side
Sienna slapped the thick, sticky ball of dough onto the work surface; a smooth stainless steel bench that was covered in a light dusting of flour. She dug her fingers into the dough and took a deep breath, savoring the smell of fresh yeast and flour.
Then she began to work, pushing her palms into the dough, kneading it into submission. Beneath her fingers, she felt the texture change, becoming smooth and elastic as the gluten strands in the bread were warmed and stretched out. The physical nature and the simplicity of the task made it immensely satisfying. In their modern world, which sometimes felt like it moved faster than the speed of light, simple, handmade things�
��real things—were becoming increasingly rare.
Unlike most other restaurants, where the food was prepared with the help of bots and machines, Sienna made everything by hand.
It just tasted different… better.
And it was the reason their customers kept coming back for more.
Everything that was old was new again.
As she looked out across her small kitchen, with its sleek skylight and gleaming steel surfaces and neatly arranged pots and utensils, she fell into a calming rhythm. This was her sanctuary; her domain.
She was back.
Away from the chaos and terror of space.
And the Kordolians had assured her she would never have to worry about being abducted by aliens again.
Strangely, she hadn’t seen a single sign of the silver-skinned aliens since she’d arrived at her small skybox apartment on New York’s Lower East Side.
They whole manner in which they’d returned her had been weirdly anticlimactic. Along with Kyuri and several of the other girls, she’d boarded a sleek black ship that had transported them back to Earth. In addition to the Kordolian pilot and crew, they’d been accompanied by Zyara, Riana, and that stone-faced and fucking scary-as-hell warrior called Kail—who was actually Riana’s mate.
They’d landed in the middle of a barren desert in the deep of night. Sienna had been so tired and disoriented she hadn’t even been able to figure out which continent they might be on. From there, they’d said quick, disbelieving goodbyes to one another before being ushered to private flyers—human made, of course, although they were manned by quiet, serious, black-uniformed and discreetly armed Kordolians.
In the early hours of the morning, they’d arrived at a small private airfield on the outskirts of the city, and the Kordolians had bundled her into a nondescript black driverless car that had taken her all the way to the underground entrance lobby of her apartment building.
After that, she’d never seen the Kordolians again.
The AI at the security entrance had read her bio-sig. She’d stepped into the elevator and zoomed up to the seventy-first floor, where she’d entered her apartment and found everything exactly as she’d left it.
Even the half-eaten bowl of spiced apple porridge that she’d left on the kitchen counter was still there, although it was now over a week old and growing a thin blue film of something furry and funky.
Aside from that small detail, it was as if she’d never been away at all.
She’d showered and slipped into her bed and stared up at the white ceiling for a while, feeling raw and troubled as memories of the last few days flashed through her mind like snippets of a surreal nightmare.
A strange kind of emptiness had filled her; after experiencing the vastness of space, she couldn’t help but feel like there was supposed to be something more to all this.
That’s… it?
Eventually, she’d fallen asleep, waking just a few hours later when her Sleep Assistant chimed to alert her to the start of the new day.
With some trepidation, she’d gone in to work, slipping in through the back entrance of the Whisk and Pin to find her staff already hard at work preparing for a busy day ahead.
Her barista-by-morning and sommelier-by-night, Cleo, and Emmett, the waiter who worked the morning shift, had encountered her in the kitchen.
The looks on their faces had been priceless.
“Oh, my god, Sienna. Where the hell have you been? Are you okay?” Cleo exclaimed as she greeted her with a firm hug.
“I’m completely fine,” she’d replied awkwardly, wanting to get the conversation over and done with. “I know this must seem strange, but I swear I’ll explain it all later. Can I just ask that we not talk about it right now?” The last thing she wanted to do was relive all that crap.
Emmett looked her up and down, his blue eyes filled with concern, and for a moment she’d feared he could see the hot mess beneath her carefully composed outer shell. But then he simply stepped forward and pulled her into his big bear hug. “We can wait, hun. As long as you’re okay. Stars, we were worried sick about you. If you don’t want to talk about it right now, that’s fine. You know we’re not going to intrude on your space like assholes. Besides, we’ve got work to do. I didn’t expect to be offering the full menu today, but if you’re okay with it, I’m going to surprise the regulars.”
“Are we stocked?”
“Not fully, but I can have a drone delivery from the Central Markets here in ten minutes.”
“Do it. Order extra eggs. I’ll do a shakshuka as a brekky special.”
“Amazing. It’s so good to have you back.”
“I don’t care where you’ve been or what the hell you’ve been up to,” Cleo said gently, “but if you need to talk, you know where to find me. On one condition.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Wine. I’ve got a ’14 Krondorf Chardonnay I’ve been saving for something like this.”
“You got me,” Sienna said, feeling a great rush of relief at the way Cleo and Emmett simply accepted her back—with no judgement or interrogation. “We’ll talk later, and I’ll tell you all about how I was abducted by aliens.”
“You’re such a dork,” Cleo laughed, clearly not taking her seriously.
“Please tell me it was silver elves,” Emmett whispered conspiratorially. “They’re very interesting. I’ll bet they’re like that thousand-credit wine pairing Cleo offers you at the start of your meal. It’ll be heavenly for a moment, but then you realize you’re in way over your head, and you’re probably going to get ruined.”
“Let’s get to work,” Sienna snapped, not wanting to hear another word about fucking Kordolians.
And that was how things had gotten back to normal.
Three days had passed since she’d returned, and the Whisk and Pin was back to full service, with a line out the door and every table full.
Sienna had been relived to learn that while she was away, Cleo, Emmett, and her evening waitress and good friend, Eva, had devised a limited menu. For breakfast, there were the cinnamon scrolls and croissants that Sienna had prepared ahead of time and put in the freezer. All they’d had to do was pop them in the oven, and the delicious aroma would waft out the store, enticing people in from the cold.
A selection of simple but flavorsome tapas and both sweet and savory muffins and delicious sourdough grills, all prepared to Sienna’s exact recipe, were offered for lunch, along with the best coffee in the city and a carefully curated wine and cocktail list.
A total disaster had been averted.
She owed them, big time.
And the last thing she wanted to do was drag them into her private little hell. The terrible ordeal she’d endured—none of that should touch them, ever. That was hers and hers alone to deal with.
Damn it.
Sienna slapped the ball of dough onto the bench a little more forcefully than was necessary. A knot of anger twisted inside her chest. She knew it was futile, impotent anger; the ones who had caused her all this trouble were either dead or about to be dead at the hands of the Kordolians that had rescued her.
At Ikriss’s orders, no doubt.
As Sienna moulded the dough into a neat ball and placed it into a warm metal bowl so it could rise, Cleo appeared in the kitchen entrance, looking completely freaked out.
That was rare.
Cleopatra Reid was tall and graceful, with regal features—oval face, long straight nose, strong cheekbones, full lips. She had deep bronze skin and often wore her lush coils in a colorful silk headwrap that provided a bright counterpoint to her sleek black uniform.
Usually, Cleo was the calm and collected one. When things got chaotic in the front of house, she would become a beacon of sanity, putting customers at ease, exchanging pleasantries in that cool, slightly clipped British accent of hers. She never appeared hurried or frazzled as she worked, whether she was taking orders, making smooth coffees with artistic flourishes in the creamy froth, or presenting the small but well
curated wine selection to the evening crowd.
Somehow—Sienna didn’t know how she did it—Cleo was magically efficient, even when she appeared to be taking her sweet time.
That’s why it was so weird to see her so obviously unsettled.
Sienna wiped her hands on her apron and covered the metal bowl with a sheet of flexi-wrap.
“What’s up, Cleo? You okay?”
Cleo’s perfectly manicured brows drew together. “Not really.”
“What’s happened?”
“You know that ex-boyfriend of yours? The one I don’t like?”
“Who? Connor, or Michael?”
“The shady one. Er, the shadi-er one. Connor,” Cleo grated, unable to hide her distaste. She looked like she’d just swallowed broken glass. “He’s here.”
“Here?” What the hell does he want?
“I’d just unlocked the front doors to get a bit of fresh air in, because it was a little stuffy. He came in with two of his, uh, associates, and he just had to have a coffee. I declined. He insisted. I didn’t want to have my throat slit in a dark alley in the middle of the night, so I complied.” Cleo rolled her eyes. “They’re sitting out the front enjoying caramel macchiatos.”
“Connor wouldn’t hurt you,” Sienna said quietly, a tendril of disgust roiling around in her gut. He could be violent and nasty, but he had his own version of standards.
“Don’t you go defending him, Si.”
“I’m not. Just stating facts.” She rolled up her sleeves. “Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of him.” The last thing she wanted to add to her personal shitstorm was a visit from the son of a powerful crime family that controlled territories in New Jersey.
Any feelings she’d held for Connor Ryan had started to evaporate the moment she’d started to realize who he truly was.
God, she’d been so young and naive, thinking he was just a charming guy in a suit; one of the well-heeled late-night diners that visited Aria, the five-star restaurant where she used to work. A lawyer or a corporate trader, perhaps.
How wrong she’d been.
And when he’d struck her in the face—that one time he’d lost his temper with her—the attraction had disappeared completely.
