by Anna Carven
“But you were. If it wasn’t for your accurate shooting, the portal would have been destroyed.” His smile widened. His mate was too beautiful, even with the smattering of glittering blue scales on her cheeks.
She didn’t know it yet. As she’d released Anuk into the afterlife, the scales had emerged through her skin, a sign that she was no longer entirely human.
Not that he cared.
He would be obsessed with her even if she grew a tail and three horns.
This human… he was addicted to everything about her; her toughness, her imperfections, her pure untainted heart.
How selfless she was.
The thought that someone could have harmed her… it stoked his anger so quickly, so easily that he could just end up doing something crazy if anyone tried to touch her.
He was usually pretty good at keeping his volatile side under wraps, but she had the power to undo all that in an instant.
Did she realize what she did to him?
As he watched her through a half-lidded gaze, trying to contain the fury building inside him, a familiar voice came through his comm.
“Nythian. I need… backup.”
“That you, Ash?” He was tempted to throw in a little jibe—Ashrael sounded like he was trying to swallow blades; the Silent One didn’t like asking for help from his old enemies—but he held his tongue. He could actually hear the strain in Ashrael’s voice. That meant something was very wrong. “What’s up?”
“I encountered an unexpected… problem. I am injured. I had no choice but to escape on the support cruiser. There was a Xargek.”
“Xargek?” Nythian cursed under his breath. What kind of morons would keep a Xargek onboard? Now he really wanted to kill them. “Where can I find them?”
“We are tracking them from a distance. You have to go in and finish them. There are at least five left. Two are ordinary fighters. At least two are advanced, probably ex-military. And there is one, who I wanted to take for interrogation... the leader. I do not know how it is possible, but he uses the same technique as your mate. The neurotoxin. Caught me off-guard.”
“Hm. Is that so? Why does it not surprise me that they’ve been experimenting with some weird shit? Tch. You know what our people are like, Ash. Considering you’ve taken out what amounts to an entire squadron on your own, you can take a break. I’ll deal with them. You okay, though?”
“I will be fine.” The Silent One’s voice was colder than the icy Vaal. He was pissed; Nythian could tell. The ex-assassin obviously wasn’t used to not completing his missions, but then again, this wasn’t his preferred style of combat.
No, Ashrael worked best from the shadows, taking out his targets before they even realized he was behind them.
“Hey, at least you ain’t dead.”
“No.” Ashrael’s voice was laced with scorn. “I don’t die that easily. For all your sakes, that is for the best.”
Nythian tensed as a deep metallic groan echoed through the Mhyndin’s hull. The ship listed to one side, and he jumped to his feet and rushed to Alexis, just in case something was wrong.
Kordolian battle cruisers never lost stability like that.
“I have told Noali not to be concerned. She is understandably upset.” Now Ashrael was calm, even slightly amused.
The movement stopped, and the Mhyndin quickly returned to its usual serene state.
“Just a little psychic interference,” Lodan reassured him from the cockpit. “I’ve stabilized it.”
“Your mate’s doing, Ash?” Nythian asked the Silent One.
“She does not like it when I get hurt. Expect more turbulence before I return to Mhyndin. I will do my best to reassure her until then.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Lodan said dryly.
“What the hell was that?” Alexis whispered, looking unsettled.
Nythian caressed the back of her neck with his bare hand, craving the feel of her naked body against his. “It’s just Noali.”
She relaxed at his touch. “She can do all that with her mind?”
“She’s still learning the finer points of control.”
“Everything okay? Maybe I should go and talk with her?”
“Nah. Best not to bother her when she’s dealing with this. Don’t worry, they’re communicating through mindspeech. Ashrael will keep her from flinging us into oblivion.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.” She looked up at him, her expression wry. “You have work to do, I take it?”
For a moment, Nythian couldn’t speak.
He was dangerously aroused and utterly entranced, falling deeper and deeper under her spell.
Her golden brown eyes were like warm embers in the shadows, reminding him of sunset on Earth.
Her lips were slightly parted; deep pink and glistening with a hint of moisture. Her brown skin was dewy and lustrous. Everything about her was lush and tempting. He wanted to run his hands over her bare skin, to taste her essence again…
Her scent was driving him nuts.
But there wasn’t time for this right now.
“I have to go,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Ashrael ran into a little unexpected trouble, but he managed to extract himself. I need to go in and clean up the rest of the mess. Won’t take long.” He kissed her on the top of her head.
“I’d tell you to be careful, but I get the feeling that would be silly.”
He snorted. “You don’t have to worry. This body can take some punishment.”
It was ridiculous that she should be concerned about him—nobody had ever worried about him like this—and yet it pleased him a great deal.
The warm feeling inside him grew, feeding into his lust. He turned away from her, fearing he’d lose control if he didn’t get moving.
Time was short. If he didn’t get on the enemy ship soon, they could slip away. Kordolians were sneaky like that.
He retrieved his swords from their resting place against the wall and checked his guns, deciding to go past the weapons store on the way out and pick up a few more small blades and something with a bit more firepower. He liked the big semi-cannon, with its long barrel and increased range. Yes. He would take one on his way out.
Alexis rose and walked to his side. “Hey.”
“Hmm?” He could barely look at her. She was too fucking beautiful.
“Come back to me in one piece? I know this is probably a bread-and-butter mission for you, but I don’t want you to take any chances.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her, demanding his attention. Ha. Nobody did that to him, ever. “You’re too fucking important to me.”
Almost at breaking point, he stared down at her, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled her essence. She had no idea how close he was to…
“I’m coming back,” he whispered, his hand trembling as he stroked the side of her cheek, “and then I’m going to do unspeakable things to you.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. Her sultry little smile made him growl.
“Later, Alexis.” He leaned in and kissed her fiercely, giving her a small glimpse of the savage desire that he just barely kept at bay.
She responded eagerly, running her hand down the back of his head, threading her fingers through his hair, down his neck…
The faint, addictive tingle of power crackled along her fingertips.
He wanted her so badly right now.
No. He couldn’t fuck up this mission because he was an indisciplined idiot.
Later.
Nythian gently broke the kiss. Seething and unsated, he reluctantly turned on his heel and disappeared, leaving her breathless and flushed.
He’d never known such exquisite torture.
Maybe killing a few Imperial scum would help relieve this unbearable tension.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“THERE YOU GO, BROTHER,” Lodan said over the comm as Nythian dropped through the Mhyndin’s lower hatch. “We’re kissing the enemy’s roof now. Our cloaking’s good, but it isn’t infallible. I can’t stay like
this for too long without avoiding detection, so hurry up and get your ass inside. I dare say they’ll be expecting your ugly face. They know who they’re dealing with.”
“Gracious as ever, I see,” he grunted, while at the same time appreciating Lodan’s skill. It was an extraordinary feat of flying, one that very few Kordolians in the Universe could accomplish.
In that sense, Lodan was a special kind of freak.
Nythian slipped into the flying boom and dropped to his feet—right on top of the enemy’s ship. The boom was a long flexible tube made of Qualum fibers that could form a perfect seal against any Qualum-Callidum composite. It was designed solely for the purpose of infiltrating other Kordolian ships, and was designed to remain stable at hyperspeed. “Give me a moment.” He pulled out one of his blades and sank it into the thick outer shell of the ship’s roof, where he quickly cut a neat hole in the exterior. “I’ve breached. Entering now. Seal the bastard up behind me and get out of range. We don’t want to take any chances with the humans onboard.”
“I would never take chances with your human, brother. Are you clear?”
Nythian listened carefully, checking for movement. “All clear.” Then he dropped into the opening below, right into the enemy’s ship.
“Activating the seal now.” Above him, the dark metal he’d sliced sealed over as Lodan applied a temporary patch that would maintain the cabin pressure. “Okay, I’m out of here. I’ll be on standby. Holler when you need retrieval, and please don’t kill the information.”
Nythian sighed. “I won’t kill the information.” He just couldn’t seem to shake off his reputation for excessive violence—and this was even amongst the First Division, who lived and breathed violence. Okay, so he’d lost his temper once or twice and accidentally killed a few hostages in the past, but that was a long time ago. Things were was different now, especially since he’d found Alexis.
He took stock of his surroundings. He was in one of the rear compartments, a space usually used for storage or holding prisoners. The Qualum doors were sealed shut, engulfing him in comfortable darkness.
The cruiser would be standard-issue military. Only the Empire had made ships like this. Nythian didn’t need to access the spatial data. He already knew the layout like the back of his hand.
According to Ashrael, there were five targets onboard… and then there was the Xargek. If not for the fact that they needed to take one alive, Lodan would have just blasted the thing into oblivion and been done with it.
This endless trail of interrogation was starting to get on Nythian’s nerves. Scumbags were popping up everywhere.
First they’d captured Relahek Alerak, then Daegan and the Kaiin-cursed Ristval V, and now they were hunting these idiots who had tried to colonize Tharos and use the ithari for their own purposes.
There was a pattern here. Someone or something was coalescing in the shadows of the Universe.
The Empire wasn’t just going to fade away quietly.
He knew it.
The General knew it.
But every time they tried to chase a lead, the trail disappeared like vapor. The prisoners they’d interrogated didn’t know much either, even when Zharek gave them truth drugs. It was like… what was that human expression Abbey had used?
A trail of breadcrumbs.
He didn’t even know what that meant, but it sounded about right.
Then there were the Kordolians who had come to Earth and harmed his mate. His claws reflexively flicked out as he imagined what he would do to them once he found them.
But they were already dead.
Alexis had killed them. Pride surged through his chest, mingling with his anger.
She’d defied the odds, but now there were others that wanted her dead. He knew his people; how they thought, how single-minded Kordolians could become in pursuit of revenge.
But this was about more than just revenge.
It was about Kordolians thinking they were superior to all other living things in the Universe, which was a complete load of crap.
As he drew one of his long swords from the sheath at his back, Nythian silently vowed to hunt them down and destroy every last one of them. He paused beside the closed Qualum door, listening for sounds of life beyond.
There. Voices. Two of them. Faint at first, but growing louder as they approached.
“I thought I saw a blip on the sylth’s detection field. Definitely wasn’t space-junk or astro-debris. The pattern was different.”
“You sure, Murkot? You’ve been acting paranoid as fuck ever since we left Tharos.”
“You think I’m paranoid or just being realistic? Look how many dead we just had to jettison. They sent a fucking Silent One after us.”
Nythian detected real fear in this Murkot’s voice. He suppressed a dark chuckle. It was good to have Ashrael as an ally and not an enemy.
“Yeah, but the General got him good. Did you see that? Just stuck his big old blue hand out and paralyzed him from the neck down. That’s when I got him. Stabbed him right in the heart.”
“Yeah, but you missed, Murkot. You didn’t kill him.”
“I got him in right in the heart! I don’t know why he didn’t die. Then he fucking disappeared right in front of us. What in Kaiin’s Hells was that?”
“He’s a Silent One. What did you expect?”
The two went quiet, but Nythian could hear their footsteps. They were heading for his compartment; he was certain of it. His trigger finger twitched, but his mind burned with questions.
Who the fuck was styling himself as a General now? There were only two Generals in the entire Kordolian Imperial military, and one of them was dead.
How dare some pretentious little upstart call himself a General? That title was sacred. It could only be earned after many revolutions of bloodshed and suffering.
His blood started to boil. How dare they disrespect his boss’s name?
“I don’t like it. That Tharian bonding business… It’s unnatural. Creeps me out.”
“Well, he saved our asses, didn’t he? We’re up against demons, Murkot. We gotta take any advantage we can get. The General knows that. That’s why he did the transformation in the first place.”
They were almost level with Nythian now. He waited silently, his senses stretched taut. Now he could hear their footfalls, the rustle of their armor, the clink of weapons, the harsh sound of their breathing.
If they were soldiers, they would have been from the very lowest ranks. They were clumsy and indisciplined. He could tell from the way they moved.
“Yeah, we escaped all right,” Murkot muttered under his breath, “but we didn’t get that brown-skinned human bitch. He isn’t going to accept it. We’re walking dead men, Rurak.”
“Shut up, idiot. You know we’re not allowed to speak of him.”
The Qualum doors unravelled and Nythian stepped in front of them.
The Kordolians froze, their eyes going wide as they stared up at Nythian.
He was fully armored; they couldn’t see anything of him but his obsidian outer shell, but they knew what he was.
“Fuck,” the one called Murkot whispered, raising his plasma gun with a trembling hand. “How did he get in here?”
Murkot was a lean, weathered Kordolian who looked older than he sounded. His left eye was milky and sightless—probably an old battle injury of some sort—and his ears were adorned with an odd collection of crusty piercings, a pale imitation of the gaudy jewels made fashionable by the nobility.
Time slowed. The world around him seemed to move in slow motion. He saw the almost imperceptible tightening of Murkot’s trigger finger, saw the tip of the gun move ever so slightly to his left, aiming for his heart.
Now, now. That wouldn’t do.
Nythian flicked up the point of his sword and reversed it, impaling Murkot’s wrist.
The Kordolian screamed and dropped his gun.
Rurak didn’t even attempt to try and defend his comrade. He was paralyzed with fear, root
ed to the floor, trembling slightly.
“Which human were you referring to when you used that word, hmm?” Nythian leaned in, twisting his sword ever so slightly. Black blood gushed down the sleeve of Murkot’s light armor. He could very easily sever the bastard’s hand, but he didn’t want him to bleed out and die on him… yet.
“I... I was just…”
“Don’t be shy. Tell me now,” Nythian said mildly, his tone at odds with the anger that writhed beneath his controlled surface. He already had an idea who they might be talking about.
That these lowly creatures would dare insult his mate like that…
Murkot’s eyes bulged.
Nythian’s hand shot out. He grabbed the Kordolian’s neck, allowing his claws to sink in a little.
Rurak tensed, as if he were about to reach for a weapon.
“Don’t,” Nythian said sharply. “I will kill you if you try anything stupid. Now tell me what you meant by that. Just who exactly are you calling a bitch?” He squeezed a little, cutting off the blood supply to Murkot’s brain. There was a certain point where the lack of oxygen would loosen the tongue, right about…
“The human who killed Orshak and Temm,” Murkot wheezed, and Nythian eased his grip just a little too allow the bastard to speak. “B-bitch has evaded us until now. Unbelievable. Tch.” He shook his head, his Kordolian arrogance overriding the pain for just a moment. “Her reputation’s turning into a legend. The lesser species think she’s some sort of talisman, and they’re starting to think they can copy her. That’s a big fucking problem for our kind, don’t you think, traitor? He wants her alive, so she will be taken sooner or later. It is only a matter of time.”
“She will not.” A faint red haze descended across his vision as Nythian’s anger mounted. It took all of his self control not to kill Murkot right there and then. They really had no idea who they were screwing with. Nythian squeezed, cutting off Murkot’s words. He was tired of this little game now. They clearly hadn’t gotten the message that Alexis was with him now. “He? Who is this he? This General you speak of?”
