by Anna Carven
There was too much going on for her to process all at once, and she needed time.
Enki stiffened, and for a moment Layla wondered if she’d put him off, but then he lifted his head and captured her lips with his.
He kissed her gently, reverently, taking his time, grazing his fangs against her lower lip. Layla closed her eyes and responded in kind, her thoughts shattering into a million fragments of pure bliss. His lips were warm and demanding against her own cracked ones. His tongue was insistent. His kiss was the best fucking thing she’d felt in longer than she could remember.
Finally, he drew away, looking down at her with eyes that were pure amber, with not a trace of eerie green to be seen. “That’s how much I notice,” he whispered, his voice raw and rough and full of hunger. Ooh, that level of intensity was toe-curling. “But I know how much you have suffered. I can wait until you are ready.”
The strain in his voice told her otherwise, and it made Layla appreciate his restraint all the more. Clearly, he was a man who was used to doing what he wanted, but for her, he was willing to hold back.
That meant everything.
Layla leaned in and kissed him, not quite believing her audacity when it came to this lethal otherworldly creature.
“We have time, Layla,” he murmured, looking fierce and intense and all kinds of sexy. He stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb, edging his fingers beneath her chin. She became lost in the depths of his gaze, which was a portal to another reality.
Suddenly, Enki was moving, lifting her into his arms so fluidly and quickly that he stole her breath away. She didn’t quite understand how he went from siting on the floor to standing in a single motion, but she went with it, simply content to let him take over and whisk her away.
“You are with me now, Layla of Earth. That means you are part of the Darkstar network, and we take care of our own.” He took her away from the airlock, striding through dark rooms and corridors that looked very similar to the ones on the warship they’d just escaped. “Nobody can touch you here.”
Layla got the feeling she’d accidentally stumbled onto something huge. “I really don’t understand what’s going on. I thought the Kordolian Empire was finished. Are you guys from the Empire, or are you…?”
“Former Empire,” he said, his voice turning dangerously soft. “We were their enforcers, until we decided we didn’t want to serve the Empire anymore.”
“So you deserted?”
“We tried. They didn’t want to let us leave. So we destroyed them.”
“You…” Were responsible for the downfall of the entire Kordolian Empire? Layla went silent as she tried to wrap her head around what Enki had just told her. Obviously, there was a lot more to the story, but the way he said it—with such brutal conviction—made her feel as if Enki and his people could do anything they wanted in the Universe and get away with it.
Who the hell are these people?
And more importantly, who was Enki, really? Rescuer. Protector. Badass. Tortured soul with a demon inside. Soon-to-be lover. “I have so many questions,” she whispered as he brought her inside a small, dark chamber. Confined spaces on Kordolian ships weren’t exactly Layla’s favorite places in the Universe, but by now she was too far gone to care. She was in his arms, and that was all that mattered.
Enki gently laid her down in a dark cocoon of softness—sheets that felt like pure silk and smelled of him. Her body sank into the bed, or pod, or whatever it was, her arms and legs suddenly feeling heavy. God, she was tired.
In that moment, everything else became inconsequential. She no longer cared about the fact that she didn’t even know where she was, or her dirty and disheveled state, or the question of where she would end up after this was all over…
None of it mattered. She was here with Enki, with desire slowly permeating through every cell and pore of her body, and she felt warm and fuzzy and safe.
Her eyelids slipped, turning her world into a blue-and-dark haze; limned with silver, shot through with amber. She fought to stay awake. Her breathing deepened. She reached out with one lazy hand and found the smooth, hard planes of Enki’s chest. Still naked.
“Aren’t you going to rest?” Her voice was hoarse, her words slightly slurred. “I’m probably taking up all the space in your bed. I don’t mind if you want to…” She didn’t really know what she was saying anymore, only that she craved his warmth.
“Later,” he whispered. “Rest.” He wrapped his fingers around hers and gently kissed her knuckles, sealing the sudden spell he’d cast over her.
Bone-weary but content, Layla drifted into dreams of stars and dark infinity, feeling at peace for the first time in ages.
Chapter Twenty-One
Enki sank into the chair opposite his pod, bone-tired himself, but utterly entranced by the creature he’d claimed and whisked away to his quarters.
A human female.
His Layla.
As soon as they’d escaped the clutches of danger, the feeling had come upon him so quickly, so fiercely, that the intensity of it had surprised him.
And now his horn-buds throbbed, and a terrible headache was spreading through his temples, and part of him wanted to rage against the stars and fight and kill anything and everything that could possibly cause her harm.
His cock was fully erect, straining to the point of agony even as he closed his eyes and tried to dissociate himself from the tangled mess of his emotions and the Kaiin-cursed Tharian who was always agitating at the periphery of his thoughts.
But of late, it had been surprisingly silent.
Enki’s eyes snapped open again as he failed to find the quiet place he so often craved. His gaze was drawn to Layla, and he allowed himself to slip a little further into the exquisite madness that was the mating fever.
What torture.
What fucking bliss.
And they hadn’t even mated yet. Enki was being restrained for very good reason. As he carried her away from the airlock, he’d sensed the deep tiredness that permeated every fiber of her body. He’d observed the way her limbs relaxed and her breathing deepened as she curled into his chest, not hesitant, not afraid, simply trusting him.
But he knew she was hurting, because she unconsciously guarded a certain spot on her chest, and her face revealed moments of pain whenever he moved too quickly. Enki could not claim her when she was like this. Human bodies were fragile, and she had just been through the physical equivalent of an atmospheric storm.
No; he would give her time to rest and regenerate and become whole again before he claimed her. He would attend to her with single-minded focus, attending to her every need until she was ready to come to him.
Because when he eventually claimed her; when he finally sought release for his savage need, he suspected he was not going to be entirely gentle with her.
That was just his nature.
So for now, he waited, and suffered, and even his torture was a thing to be savored.
Enki watched as her face became peaceful in sleep. There was a small cut above her left eyebrow; one he’d obviously missed when he’d applied the fibrogel to her wounds. Her other cuts had healed, leaving faint white lines across her delicate skin. Would they fade over time, or would they always be there, a reminder of the brutal treatment she’d suffered at the hands of that mad Kordolian medic?
Pride surged through him. In the end, she’d killed Mirkel—that spineless fuck—because she was strong, finishing the job that Xalikian Kazharan had started when he’d infiltrated the Ristval V and helped divert it away from Earth.
A human. Who would have thought?
He watched the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, and it lulled him into a surreal half-trance as he absorbed every line, every contour, every stray wisp of hair, hardly believing she was his.
“Enki.” Lodan’s voice came across the comm. “What in Kaiin’s hells happen—”
“I completed my mission,” Enki said tersely, not pleased about being interrupted. “Sh
e is resting.”
“She is, huh? I take it you have everything under control?”
“I do.”
There was a slight pause. “Anything to report?”
“Daegan is dead,” he announced, feeling the same way he always did when he thought about a kill—empty. There should have been some sense of satisfaction that he’d fulfilled his blood right, but Enki had never experienced that feeling in his life. To him, kills were simply kills; the elimination of enemies under orders. Daegan might be the man who had sired him, but the general had thought Enki so inconsequential that he hadn’t hesitated to give him up to be experimented on by military scientists—knowing he would most probably die.
Zharek’s datacube had told Enki that much, and at the time, his mind had coldly filtered the information, registering it as just another fact in his colorless life. Thinking about the kill now, he felt much the same. The anger was gone. It was just another fact.
None of the others knew Daegan was his father, not even Tarak. The information in the datacube was for his eyes only.
“Trust you to get straight to the point.” Lodan’s words held a note of approval. “Well, that’s another crusty old Imperial bastard we don’t have to deal with anymore. Nythian knows?”
“He does. There is another matter.” Enki had almost forgotten about a certain issue, but it was important. “There are two bodies in stasis in the med-labs. Humans.”
Lodan swore. “They killed them?”
“No. They were already dead.”
“Ah. Shame. So Mirkel took the bodies for his research. I’ll tell the boss. We’ll take care of it. Anything else to report?”
“No.”
“I’ll let you know when we’re about to enter the Fleet Station.” The comm clicked off, and Enki whispered a soft command, inactivating his own comm. The tiny device that threaded directly into his auditory nerve went quiet, leaving Enki to be alone with his newfound obsession.
She slept soundly, her breathing slow and rhythmic, the lines of pain and fatigue melting from her face.
Pure. Innocent. Sublime. She was everything that he shouldn’t be allowed to have, but he was going to take her anyway, because he just couldn’t help himself.
At last, he understood how his mighty brothers—their formidable leader included—could have fallen so hard, so fast. This lust, this attraction, this need… it was a powerful, living, writhing thing that thrust its hooks into one’s soul and changed the very color of it.
He couldn’t explain it, but then again, not everything in this Universe had to have an explanation.
Enki reveled in the solitude, closing his eyes and floating on the divine sound of her as he slipped into the place in-between wakefulness and rest. For some reason, the Tharian didn’t bother him at all… it was almost as if it were being respectful of his bond with Layla.
Enki would always be… deficient in some areas. He was a warrior and a killer, and the violence that was written into every fiber of his being would never leave him. But when it came to Layla, there was a part of him that felt alive, and now he knew he had the capacity to be tender and gentle toward her.
But only her.
Before, he hadn’t been sure whether he possessed the same instincts as his brothers when it came to humans, but now he knew. How powerful it was to know that she was under his protection, that he alone could make her feel secure enough to sleep so soundly on a strange alien warship.
A new and unfamiliar feeling took hold, confusing him at first.
What… is this?
And then he realized.
For the first time in his entire life, he felt good.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“This is…” Layla looked around wildly, grateful for the powerful light source that Enki had procured from some mysterious place while she slept. Layla had woken to his gentle fingers on her cheek as he quietly informed her that they’d landed. The deep, dreamless sleep had done her wonders. She didn’t realize how tired she’d been until she woke up feeling refreshed for the first time in ages; a completely different person.
They’d quickly made their way out of the ship, and as Layla set foot on the boarding ramp, she found herself stepping into a world of shadows and impossible vastness. The ceiling of the cavernous docking bay stretched far up into the darkness, making her feel small and insignificant.
She was only just beginning to understand how the Kordolians had come to be so dominant in the Universe.
The scale of the place blew Layla’s mind. She thought the Kordolian warship had been huge, but this…
This was a floating city, on steroids. Layla was no expert on alien tech and scaling, but she suspected this docking bay alone could probably accommodate several warships.
“This is the Fleet Station,” Enki grunted, as if that explained everything. “The heart of our operations. You will not find a safer place in all of the Nine Sectors.” His hand rested on the small of her back as he guided her through a maze of dark, hulking spacecraft. For some reason, he seemed a little edgy. Tension sharpened his words and radiated off his powerful frame, making it seem as if he might explode into violence at any given moment.
But maybe he was always like this; a honed weapon in Kordolian form, always alert, always dangerous, even when he wore what she assumed was his off-duty garb; a deep blue robe-like garment with wide sleeves that was belted around the waist, and no shoes.
No weapons, either, although Layla suspected it didn’t make a difference one way or another.
In this unfamiliar place, Layla was grateful for his silent presence at her side. Walking next to him felt strange and thrilling and reassuring, but she wasn’t afraid at all. As they made their way across the massive floor, Layla saw dozens of Kordolians, all of them male. Some looked menacing in their full tactical gear, while others worked on spacecraft of all sizes, alongside bots and various strange machines.
Unlike the silent, dour-faced workers on the other warship, these Kordolians looked a lot more relaxed. Snatches of quiet conversation reached her ears, and although she couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying, Layla knew the sound of banter when she heard it.
These guys seemed completely at ease, and they barely paid her and Enki any attention.
Strange.
It was almost as if they were used to seeing humans around the place, and as for Enki… well, they gave him a wide berth, but that was about it.
Layla tried not to gape. “Darkstar’s really something, huh?” She didn’t know much about space-politics and aliens, but she was pretty sure regular old mercenaries wouldn’t have a massive floating fortress full of dangerous looking spacecraft. It really was like a scene out of that terrible holo-movie she’d shot when she was first starting out—Varaxian Raiders II—only without the cheap special effects.
No, this was the real fucking deal, and this place was kinda blowing her mind right now.
She glanced at Enki, who was wearing his usual inscrutable mask. Layla narrowed her eyes, trying to read him. She couldn’t, and that both infuriated and mystified her. “What did you say your job was again?”
“Mercenary.” Enki guided her between a pair of sleek obsidian ships that looked as if they’d been designed to slice through the very fabric of the Universe itself. His hand never left the small of her back as they turned, heading toward the entrance of a large corridor.
Suddenly, a slender Kordolian with intricate silver braids and deep crimson eyes emerged from the shadows, almost giving Layla a goddamn heart-attack as he glided toward them on some sort of hovering platform that made no noise at all. As he neared them, he slowed to a complete stop and jumped off the thing, which reminded Layla of an oversized black surfboard. Enki uttered a single word to him in Kordolian, and for a moment, a look of stark fear crossed the man’s face, until Enki waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal
The Kordolian’s shoulders sagged in relief, and then he disappeared in a flash, bowing and striding away, leavin
g the hover-thing floating in mid-air. The guy actually seemed terrified of Enki.
Huh. Were exactly did Enki sit in the hierarchy of this place?
“Get on,” Enki snapped, gesturing toward the floating platform. Layla looked up at him, confused by the harshness in his voice. Everything about him was sharp; his expression, his tone, his glare. His lips were pressed together in a stern line, and his eyes narrowed as she raised her eyebrows questioningly.
But his hand was still on the small of her back; constant, reassuring, confusing the heck out of her.
“Have I done something to piss you off?” she asked quietly, refusing to get on the weird floating platform until he explained himself. Really, ever since she’d woken up in his pod, he’d been broody and silent, his behavior in stark contrast to the way he’d been with her before.
Possessive. Tender. Irresistible.
What had happened to that Enki, the one who had held her so tightly on the floor of the airlock?
For a moment, he just stared at her, his fierce eyes burning in the shadows. Layla forgot to breathe as he took a step forward, leaning in close so that his lips grazed the helix of her ear. “I’m not pissed off with you, Layla,” he whispered, caressing the angle of her jaw with the pad of his thumb. An electric thrill ran through her, sending a ripple of goosebumps across her arms. “Quite the opposite.”
“Then why are you—”
He stiffened, his breath warm against her cheek. Tension radiated from every pore, and Layla caught a hint of his masculine scent—ice and fire and just a whisper of the salty ocean air—how was that even possible?
“Layla, I am on the very edge of self-control.”
