Shattered Silence

by Anna Carven

  And then she was gone.

  “Look, you fucking moon-elf. I don’t give a shit if you’re the former conquerers of the Universe or whatever. You’re on Earth now. Our rules. If you don’t get off my property right now, I’m calling the Enforcers. What do you want? A movie-part? A pic? My fucking stash of credits?” He waved his hand around in a false display of bravado. “Go on, take it. Just get the fuck out of here. I was just about to get some mind-blowing head, you asshole.”

  Enki stared at the man, exerting great self-control just to retract his claws.

  “Hey, moon-elf. Do you even understand Universal? Do you know who I am?”

  Enki grew sick and tired of the man’s voice. He moved, becoming a dark blur as he darted across to the edge of the pool. He grabbed Andross by the hair and hauled him out of the water. The man twisted and flailed and gasped. Enki flipped him around, grabbed one of his ankles, and strode across to the edge of the very tall building…

  Where he dangled Andross in the icy wind, over the snow-covered street.

  The man screamed. “Oh god, oh god, oh god!” He babbled in his own language, shouting and cursing, looking up at Enki in horror. “Who the hell are you? What do you want from me? Don’t kill me.”

  Enki swung the man back over the edge and dropped him on the stone floor.

  “Aaargh!” Andross screamed as his pale wet body hit the icy surface. Small white flakes of ice started to fall from the sky above, drifting slowly to the floor.

  On Earth, there was beauty in the ordinary, and the beautiful—his Layla—was divine.

  Enki squatted down beside the terrified naked man, waiting until Andross had calmed down enough to look him in the face. “Wh-what do you want? Man, I can pay you a lot of cred—”

  “This is about Layla.”

  Andross stiffened. “Layla Rose? She’s gone, man. A long time ago. That’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “Oh?” Enki lifted a finger.

  Andross flinched. “Wh-what d-do you want to know about her?” He was shivering now, his unnaturally white teeth chattering.

  Enki rose to his feet. “I don’t need to know anything from you. After this night, you do not get to speak of her ever again.” He dropped a device in front of Andross, a small human-designed holorecording machine that Sera had given him. “Fix it.”

  “F-fix what?” The man sat up and curled into a ball, trying to conserve his body heat. It was amazing how quickly humans succumbed to the cold. Enki found this climate quite pleasant.

  “You know what you did to her. Fix it.” Enki was starting to lose patience. This human truly did not understand how close he was to death right now.

  Or perhaps he did. Fear began to percolate in Andross’s eyes as he picked up the device with trembling fingers that had turned a peculiar shade of blue. Enki could always tell when his victims moved from denial to acceptance. The imminent threat of death tended to make that transition occur rather quickly.

  “W-what do you w-want from m-me?”

  “Apologize to her and record it. If you do it with enough humility and contrition, I may spare your life.”

  Andross cursed under his breath in Earth-speak. “C-can we at least g-go inside? I-I’m g-gonna g-get fucking hypothermia out here.”

  Enki shook his head.

  Andross let out a strangled whimper. With shaking fingers, he activated the device and stared into the recording lens. “Th-the B-black T-tapes are already out there. I d-don’t know how you think this is g-going to ch-change anything.”

  Enki raised an eyebrow and drew his longknife from its sheath, holding it sideways. A single flake of ice came to rest on the obsidian blade, and Enki admired its intricate hexagonal design.

  “Oh god. Fuck. You j-just c-can’t do this.” Pure terror invaded the human’s voice. Enki tended to have that effect on people, even when he wasn’t really trying hard to intimidate. He didn’t know why, he just did.

  He stepped forward, ice-flakes swirling all around him. A few of them landed on his face and hair; pleasant, ephemeral fragments of coldness. He liked this falling ice… what did humans call it again? Snow. Perhaps he and Layla could go somewhere where there was plenty of this snow, but without the infernal crowds.

  He caught another snowflake on the flat of his blade as he stared past Andross, watching the glittering city skyline beyond. He had no desire to look at this pale human’s ugly, shivering form.“I will not repeat myself, so listen to me carefully, human. Layla is under my protection. Any insult to her I consider a direct insult to me, and I have killed people for much lesser crimes.” He turned away from Andross, walked to the edge of the building, and looked down. Below, the empty street was covered in a thick blanket of snow. The only sign of life was the occasional drone silently drifting past.

  It was early in the night, after all, when most humans retreated into their small dwellings, seeking warmth.

  Thinking he had an opening, Andross rose to his feet and attempted to creep away.

  “Don’t.”

  The foolish human froze.

  Enki didn’t bother to turn around. He could hear everything, even the soft plop of the ice-flakes falling on the deck. “Do you understand me, human?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Then fix it.”

  “U-urgh.” The human made a sound that was halfway between a choke and a whimper.

  “And if you ever bother her again, if you even so much as think of her, I will find you, and I will rip your fucking heart out with my bare hands, and I will do it slowly.” Enki caught another tiny snowflake on his knife, marveling at how the faint starlight caught its incredible angles and spikes, turning it into a dazzling jewel. It nestled against the one he’d caught earlier, appearing similar at first, but on further inspection, he realized it was intrinsically different. He wished he could show it to Layla, but she was asleep in the desert on the other side of the planet. She would be waking soon, because shortly after the sun set here, it slipped over the horizon on the other side of the Earth.

  Strange planet indeed.

  “Make this quick, human.” He would be home soon, slipping back into their pod before his mate even realized he’d been away.

  With his teeth chattering like mad, the human started to talk.

  This was going to make for some entertaining viewing, and Enki was pleased that he had achieved full capitulation without shedding even a single drop of blood.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Enki,” Layla said slowly, a sneaking suspicion entering the pit of her belly as she glanced at her holo again. No, she hadn’t misread it. That figure was real. “Would you by any chance happen to know why a shit-ton of credits has suddenly appeared in my account overnight?”

  He shrugged, his expression perfectly deadpan. Well, except for the slight narrowing of his eyes.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” she whispered, taking a sip of her hot, thick tsokolate, made the way her Filipino father had taught her. Even though it was blazing hot outside, she’d craved the drink for so long, especially when she’d been trapped in the escape-pod, thinking she was going to die.

  So now she was having it for lunch as they sat alone together in the homestead’s weird old-fashioned kitchen.

  Layla made the best tsokolate. Even Abbey’s blunt talking aunt, Kenna, had begged her for more. It was how she’d made a living as a seller on the streets of Moscow before she got famous. In fact, it was only yesterday that she’d thought about starting an upscale cafe in Darkside, because her remaining credits weren’t going to last forever, and she had to invest them in something she knew.

  She knew how to make tsokolate so thick and moreish and addictive it was like opium, and now she was thinking about an iced version.

  Well, she’d been thinking about an iced version a few minutes ago, until she’d checked her account and found that she was filthy rich.

  Holy moly. What the hell was she going to do with all these credits?

  From across th
e table, Enki watched her with smoldering eyes, a satisfied little half-smile curving his lips.

  Almost as if he were acting smug. That was about as smiley as Enki got.

  “You did something, didn’t you?”

  Still no answer.

  “Enki.” Her voice rose a fraction in exasperation as her thoughts ran. “What did you do?” She activated the holonavigator on her link-band. “Search Layla Rose,” she commanded. If anything major had happened, it would already be on the Networks.

  A flurry of titles appeared before her, floating up into the air above her wrist.

  Oh, shit.

  “Search Damien Andross.”

  Double shit.

  “Oh no, you didn’t.”

  More headlines appeared, with links to a certain holoclip.

  SCANDAL: Layla Rose’s former manager admits to fraud, created the notorious Black Tapes using a sophisticated composite model

  DIRTY DAMIEN: Andross goes into hiding after shocking confession holo leaked, spotted leaving NY penthouse with mysterious hand injuries

  WHERE IS LAYLA ROSE? Star rumored to have left Earth for new Colony Planet, whereabouts still a mystery

  BLACK POISON: Warning not to view Black Tapes, reports of systems becoming infected with malicious virus

  Okay, so the last one, the virus, was partly her doing, because she’d gotten in touch with a genius hacker called Riana at Abbey’s suggestion, and the woman had gone into her quarters, checked something on the Networks, and come out again ten minutes later, saying “yep. I can help you with that. Give me a week.”

  And then she’d constructed that crazy virus.

  These Kordolians had made some interesting allies on Earth. Correction, mates. Layla had soon discovered she and Abbey weren’t the only human women mated to Kordolians.

  Layla selected the holoclip and watched about one-and-a-half seconds of her former manager naked in the fucking snow, his bits blurred out, blabbing on about how he was sorry, how it was all a terrible mistake, begging for her forgiveness…

  She switched it off.

  Looked up at Enki.

  “He’s not dead,” he said. “I didn’t cut him or anything like that.”

  “The thing with the fingers?”

  “Humans are susceptible to cold. Perhaps it was frost-damage.”

  “When?”

  “You were asleep. Our stealth cruisers cover ground fast.” He stood. Walked around the table. Put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you… displeased?”

  “Well, no. Just a little bit surprised. Thank you for not… killing him.” Layla hated Damien, but not enough to wish death upon him. She didn’t want that sort of shit on her conscience, not after everything she’d been through. The public humiliation and injuries he’d suffered—she suspected they might be frostbite—were enough. A fitting punishment for trying to put his hands on her, then literally screwing her over—in front of the whole world.

  “I told you I would do something about it. I keep my word.” Enki was so earnest now, stroking her neck, lifting her chin so she was staring into his deep amber eyes. So earnest. Like he really wanted the best for her. Like he would do it again and again—defend her, protect her, using every skill in his formidable arsenal to bring down her worst enemies.

  How could Layla even be angry with this sweet, impossible man?

  Oh, he was dangerous.

  And she alone held the keys to his secret heart.

  What a pair they were. Both flawed, but together they were perfect.

  “I know,” she whispered as he leaned in and kissed her. “My knight in obsidian armor.”

  He smiled then, the first true smile she’d ever seen from him, and it was pure radiance edged with darkness. “My mate. All is fixed now. Welcome home.”

  She returned his kiss, his touch, his smile.

  He devoured her all over again, lifting her effortlessly into his arms. “We’re going to my quarters, now.”

  And she couldn’t argue with that.

  It was so good to be home.

  Dear readers, thank you for supporting my work. I hope you enjoyed this latest installment.

  If you would like to receive updates about my stories, you can sign up to my mailing list: http://eepurl.com/bQaHP5, or find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annacarvenauthor/ I’ll only email you when I have a new release to announce.

  I also post the occasional musing on my blog: https://annacarven.wordpress.com/

  Also by Anna Carven

  Dark Planet Warriors

  (in order of publication)

  Dark Planet Warriors (Book 1)

  Dark Planet Falling (Book 2)

  Into the Light (Book 3)

  Out of Darkness (Book 4)

  Darkside Blues (Book 4.5)

  Forged in Shadow (Book 5)

  Infinity’s Embrace (Book 6)

  Electric Heart (Book 7)

  Brilliant Starlight (Book 8)

  Hidden Planet

  Destroyer (Book 1)

  Catalyst (Book 2) - coming 2018

  Darkstar Mercenaries

  A Darkside Interlude (Book 0.5)

  Taming Chaos (Book 1)

  Shattered Silence (Book 2)

  Book 3 (TBA) - coming 2018

  Dark Planet Warriors: Earth Files (a series of short stories)

  Book 1 (Rykal and Arin)