Decadence: Darkstar Mercenaries Book 4

by Carven, Anna

  “Come,” Ikriss said simply, drawing her to the water’s edge.

  She dipped her toes into the pool. To her surprise, it was only a little bit cool—not the icy cold she’d been expecting.

  Ikriss drew her into the water, pulling her toward him.

  Suddenly, she was weightless, floating on pure darkness. He pulled her against him so that she was floating with her head resting on his shoulder, her naked body stretched out in the water.

  Her hair fanned out in the water. Ikriss ran his fingers through the blond strands, whispering something fierce and tender into her ear in his melodic native tongue.

  The way he touched her—with such impossible tenderness—she instinctively knew he would never lay a hand on her in anger or betray her. She didn’t know how she knew it; she just knew.

  “This is a fine curse indeed,” he said softly, switching back to perfect English. “Let me savor you for a moment, Sienna Adamo. “

  She closed her eyes and let the gentle lapping rhythm of the water take her. Cool water flowed between her legs, but instead of dampening her arousal, it shifted her need into another dimension.

  It consumed her.

  She felt light; euphoric…

  Nothing could touch her now.

  There was only this sweet, fierce, complicated alien, and she was both ecstatic to have found him, and at the same time, terrified…

  That she could lose him.

  “Don’t be afraid, Sienna,” he murmured, his lips grazing her ear. She felt the sharp-yet-soft caress of his fangs. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her in an unbreakable embrace.

  I’m scared, she wanted to say, but she didn’t want to spoil this sublime moment. What if the procedure doesn’t work out?

  All those things Zharek had spoken of… growing a new heart and lungs, returning Ikriss back to peak physical condition in an instant, using her own serum to help heal him.

  Human medicine couldn’t do half of that. Even with modern organ-growing techniques, it took years to grow a new heart or lungs for transplant, and it was horrendously expensive.

  Kordolian medicine was as alien to her as the silver guys themselves.

  What if something went wrong?

  Ikriss started to tremble. He cupped her face with his hands. He gently kissed her earlobe, her cheek, her lips…

  His hands glided down her body, over her exposed breasts, down her belly, between her legs, finding the exquisitely sensitive nub of her clit.

  He inhaled deeply. “Your scent drives me wild, my amina. If I drowned in it, I would die happy.”

  “Don’t you dare say that,” she gasped. “Not even as a joke. You’re not going to die. You aren’t allowed to, Commander.”

  “As you command.” His kisses became rougher, hungrier. Strong hands spun her around and pulled her the right way up, into his powerful arms. He slid one of his fingers between the soft folds of her pussy.

  Warmth surged through her core. She wrapped her legs around him, using his hard, solid frame as an anchor.

  “We should stop,” she whimpered, afraid and exhilarated, unable to stop herself from grinding her hips back and forth as he slipped yet another finger inside her, gently stretching her. “I don’t want you to—”

  “I know when to stop,” he growled, before capturing her lips once again. This time, his fangs broke through the skin of her lower lip, eliciting a tiny pinprick of pain amidst all the bliss.

  She tasted her own coppery blood.

  He tasted it too, and for the first time, he moaned, a deep, guttural, primal sound that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

  “Oh fuuck,” she gasped.

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  She reached down and curled her fingers around his cock, feeling its thickness, feeling the raised ridge, imagining what it would be like to have him inside her.

  She wanted him in her now.

  “What the fuck are we doing?” she groaned. “Just getting to know each other?”

  “Savoring,” he growled, his voice cracking. “The first time will be the sweetest. I will make it perfect for you, my amina.”

  Suddenly, his arms relaxed. A great shudder racked his body, and he closed his eyes.

  He let her go…

  And slipped beneath the surface of the water, his pale hair becoming an ethereal swirl.

  His arms went limp.

  His entire body went limp.

  He started to drift away.

  “Ikriss!” Struck with horror, Sienna glanced around. She opened her mouth, a scream about to erupt from her lips, but before it could arrive, the General appeared at the water’s edge.

  When did he…?

  “What the hell is going on?” she demanded, suddenly realizing that she was naked. She covered her breasts with her arms, but it didn’t really matter, because the Kordolian wasn’t even looking at her like that.

  “We must take him now,” the General said simply as he locked eyes with her, a surprising amount of gentleness in his voice. “The strain of arousal has overwhelmed his system. Do not be alarmed; this is intentional. The Mating Fever has reached a dangerous level, and yet it will be the very thing that saves his life. Do not fear, human. Soon you will have him all to yourself, and for as long as you wish. But first, we must fix his body, because a man can’t exist without a heart for too long.”

  “You…” Shocked and confused, she stared at the imposing alien. “You set this up? But Zharek said two days…”

  “A cautious overestimation. My medic is always excessively cautious when it comes to this type of thing. In your current state, the worst thing we could give you is unrealistic expectations.” The General made some sort of signal with his hands—a silent order. “A fine set of organs is ready for him. Everything will be fine. You will see.”

  As a team of stone-faced Kordolians swooped around Ikriss, scooping him up onto what appeared to be a floating platform-stretcher thing, the General dropped a towel and a silken robe at the edge of the pool. “Dry yourself and get dressed. One of my men will take you back to your quarters. We will inform you when the procedure is complete.”

  Now you wait just a fucking minute…

  Anger surged through her. She rose up out of the water, not giving two shits that she was naked. These aliens weren’t going to touch her. She was Ikriss’s now.

  She stifled a cry as dozens of lines and monitors were attached to his body. His lifeless form began to float away, drifting out of her reach.

  “If you’re going to manipulate us like that… even if it is for his own good, you don’t get to order me back to my room like I’m some random bystander… like I’m not totally and completely invested in him…” Her voice cracked with emotion. She was angry and scared and overwhelmed and still a little bit aroused. With Ikriss by her side, she’d been so close to reaching transcendence.

  So close…

  “Fucking hell,” she swore, switching to English. She reached for the towel and dried herself off, before pulling the robe over her naked body, tying the belt tightly around her waist. Adrenaline coursed through her. Ikriss invaded all her senses. She couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t even exist without knowing what was going to happen to him. “I’m going with you. You don’t get to pull me in this deep and then…”

  “Fine,” the General rumbled. If anything, he seemed slightly amused, in a benevolent kind of way. How the hell could he be amused at a time like this? “But you must be certain, human. Are you prepared to see your mate torn apart and made whole again? I warn you, it will not be pleasant.”

  Sienna crossed her arms and glared at the Kordolian. “I’ve been abducted by Ephrenians and beaten to within an inch of my life. I’ve seen said Ephrenian’s head explode right in front of my face. I’ve survived an attack by a weirdo masked assassin and I’ve seen Ikriss nearly bleed out to death under my own fucking hands. You think I’m going to be scared to stick by the man that saved my life?” She strode up to him, le
aving wet footprints on the cold floor. “I’m not that fickle.”

  The General stared into her eyes for a little longer than what was comfortable. She fought to keep from squirming. It felt like he could see right through all the layers she’d built up over the years. Now the fear came; unbidden, primal, a reflex response to some innate darkness inside these aliens that she would never understand.

  “You are one of us now,” was all he said as he turned toward the dark exit. “Come.”

  And that was how, barefoot and still dripping wet from her brief dip in the pool, Sienna found herself following the fearsome alien leader of a vast and dangerous mercenary organization as he led her to the place where her mate was about to be remade.

  Not in a million years could she have imagined her existence would come to this.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When they reached the medical bay, Ikriss was already back in the glowing blue stasis tank, once again hooked up to all those awful lines and tubes. Zharek stood before an array of complicated holos, staring intently at a datastream of indecipherable Kordolian characters.

  She was barely able to keep her eyes off Ikriss in the tank—so much so that at first she failed to notice the blindingly obvious.

  The General beckoned her to one side, where she could stand out of the way. His eyes flicked toward the top of the tank. For the first time, she detected a hint of tension in his expression.

  She followed his gaze… and gasped.

  Suspended in the blue fluid in a transparent egg-shaped, fluid-filled capsule, were a perfectly formed heart and lungs, complete with intricate branching blood vessels.

  Her jaw dropped. The lungs were light grey in color, and the heart…

  It was pure black.

  And it was beating.

  Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

  Holy shit.

  “Those are… his?” she whispered.

  How morbid. How gruesome.

  How utterly beautiful and incredible.

  “Indeed. Watch carefully now, Sienna. There is probably nobody else in the Universe who can resurrect a man from a Silent One’s death-curse.”

  It struck her that this strange, intimidating alien, who could probably annihilate Earth as an afterthought, cared deeply about his friend.

  So much so that he’d been quietly keeping an eye on things the whole time.

  Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at the General.

  She got the feeling that around this man, nothing happened by coincidence, ever.

  Accidentally bumped into Ikriss in the corridor, my ass.

  This whole thing with the Kordolian Mating Fever… she didn’t really understand it, but she knew that aside from making Ikriss incredibly horny and intense, it was somehow supposed to make him heal faster.

  And every time they’d met, the fever seemed worse.

  Torturing him… and her.

  To what end?

  This?

  It was almost as if the whole thing had been orchestrated to happen in a certain way. She felt like a tiny piece on a chessboard.

  Not that she cared. If this was all part of their plan to save Ikriss’s life, then she would gladly go along with it again and again.

  She stared up at Ikriss’s face, which was tilted in her direction. His eyes were closed, and his expression was eerily serene. Wisps of pale hair floated around his face, forming an ethereal halo. Weirdly, she was struck by how long his eyelashes were.

  Impossible man. Please be okay, Ikriss.

  In the background, the team of medics moved swiftly and silently. One of them was Asherin, the serious assistant that had summoned her earlier. None of them spoke apart from Zharek, who issued soft commands in his melodic alien tongue.

  The medic was all business now. His hair was bound in a neat topknot, and he wore a simple black utility suit in place of his usual flowing robes. It was the most serious she’d ever seen him look. He quickly donned a weird pair of goggle-type lenses that flashed bright blue then faded to black.

  Holo-lenses?

  Like dancers in some silent, sinister production, his team moved fluidly around him; retrieving strange items, putting things into place, intercepting streams of data.

  Sienna felt like an intruder here. Aside from herself and the General, there was nobody else in the room. Arin was gone. Kai was gone.

  She was the only human in the room.

  And she couldn’t lie; she was scared.

  “Do not fear,” the General said softly. “I know Ikriss all too well. He is far too stubborn to succumb to this. Understand one thing, human. Now that he has found you, he will not let go of you for anything in the Universe. Here with us, you are safer than you ever have been.”

  He said it with the kind of unshakeable certainty that only these aliens could have.

  Sienna sighed as some of the tension flowed out of her body. She stared in fascination as Zharek hooked himself up to various monitors and machines, including a pair of gloves that looked like they were made of the same weird living fibers that permeated the walls and doors of the ship.

  Sometimes, she got the strange feeling that this ship was alive.

  Zharek sat down in a high-backed chair and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and composed himself, leaning back. With his wild hair pulled back from his face, his delicate, elfin features and obsidian horns were accentuated, making him look like a character straight out of some freaking high fantasy holofilm. This time, the chair actually moved, wrapping black tendrils around his arms and chest.

  All of a sudden, the eccentric medic looked deadly serious.

  Zharek issued a quiet order.

  The faint blue lights died.

  And just like that, they were engulfed in perfect darkness.

  Panic rose in Sienna’s chest. “What’s going on?” she hissed.

  “For this kind of difficult procedure, Zharek prefers to work in natural light,” the General rumbled. “Our kind of light.”

  “Darkness,” she whispered dryly. “You can actually see in the dark?”

  “Indeed.”

  “You’re really being very considerate, you know, trying to reassure me and all.”

  “My mate would give me what she calls an ‘earful’ if I failed to ease your fears, and I do not relish her anger. Nor do I want to face Ikriss’s wrath. I suspect he will be more than a little combative when he wakes up.”

  His… mate?

  Holy crap, now that’s someone I want to meet. Who the hell would be crazy enough to put up with this guy?

  And Ikriss… combative?

  “What are you talking abou—”

  “Quiet, now. Zharek is going under.”

  She didn’t know what that meant either, but the General’s stern tone brooked no argument, so she went quiet.

  The only thing she could hear was the swish, swish of the fluid in the stasis tank, occasionally punctuated by Zharek’s soft muttering.

  But then even he fell silent.

  She didn’t know how long she stood like that for, listening, waiting, hoping… It could have been minutes or hours.

  Not knowing was the worst thing of all.

  Something flashed in the darkness; a sharp blue beam of light. A… laser of some sort? It flashed again and again, throwing faint blue light across the chamber, showing her glimpses of a scene straight out of a horror movie—Ikriss’s beautiful body torn apart, his chest cavity stretched open, a gruesome mass of tangled organs floating in the stasis fluid, which had become dark and cloudy.

  A total fucking nightmare.

  And amidst all the chaos, a pair of long, tentacle-like arms moved around in the tank, their fingerlike projections extending like webs, attaching themselves to organs and vessels, anchoring to Ikriss’s mangled body.

  Alien.

  Everything about this was so far removed from her once cozy and predictable life on Earth.

  Nausea rose in her throat, but she ignored it.

  Please survive, Ikriss.<
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  She had to keep it together. When he woke up, confused and suffering from Mating Fever, she would be there for him.

  She had to.

  None of the Kordolians said a word.

  She glanced at the General’s face. It was as cold as a glacier.

  Everything went dark again.

  Swish, swish.

  A muffled scream split the silence. It was his voice.

  Fear and relief swirled in her chest. He was alive.

  He was in pain.

  She was overcome with the sudden urge to rush to the edge of the tank, but the General’s powerful hand clamped down on her shoulder. “Hold,” he ordered.

  The screams grew louder.

  Zharek whispered a rapid-fire curse.

  Dread filled her. She’d never felt so helpless in her life, even when she’d been held captive by the Ephrenians.

  Come on.

  There was a distinct crack, followed by several more cracking sounds.

  What the hell is that?

  For some reason, she thought of breaking bones.

  The red light flashed again, but the stasis tank had become too cloudy. She couldn’t see a thing.

  Her heart sank.

  But all of a sudden, Zharek let out a triumphant cry. He started to laugh. “I am a fucking genius,” he chuckled, switching back to Universal.

  “It is done?” the General demanded.

  “Mostly.”

  “Put the lights back on.”

  Cool blue light immediately flooded the room, allowing Sienna to see the tank clearly for the first time since the procedure had started.

  Her eyes grew wide.

  Ikriss was there, all right. The liquid in the tank had reverted to its original crystal clear state, allowing her to see him clearly. He was curled up in the fetal position, and from what she could see, his body was perfectly intact, his silver skin shimmering in the blue light. She saw the constellation of scars across his back. The black metal implant was gone, replaced with smooth silver skin.

  He was intact.

  But that wasn’t what made her gasp.

  Something about him was different.

  Very different.