by Anna Carven
Kail held her essence between forefinger and thumb as her warm, silky wetness cascaded over his hand.
There.
A great moan rose from the depths of her chest as she stiffened and dug her nails into his scarred back. Kail savored the stinging pain, which lent an edge to his frantic need.
There.
He moved his fingers faster and just a little harder, until the tension welling up inside her was so much that he had visions of her exploding into a billion tiny fragments of starlight, like a supernova.
And then she came, and the sound of her pleasure brought Kail to the edge of oblivion, and he could no longer contain himself.
She became soft and boneless in his arms, sighing with relief and happiness. He withdrew his hand and prepared to strip her from the waist down, ready to claim his prize.
Because although she was spent and satisfied, Kail was filled with a raging torrent of need.
A light went on in the roof-house, and its metal doors slid open. A Human in a dark uniform stepped outside, a high-powered light-source in one hand, a bolt-weapon in the other.
Fuck. Not now.
Kail held Riana close, staring over her shoulder at the Human who had come to investigate. He’d probably been alerted by the noise.
He caught sight of Kail’s face and froze. Slowly, Kail brought a finger to his lips.
The message was clear. Don’t make a sound.
His lust was still there, but he summoned all of his willpower to keep it at bay as his killing intent rose.
“What’s happening, Kail?”
“Don’t worry,” he said as he watched at the intruder, daring him to try something.
The man raised in gun in a threatening manner. Riana’s back was turned, so she had no idea what was going on. Kail raised an eyebrow, anger and lust and the fierce desire to protect coursing through him. He trembled slightly. He wasn’t in his right mind. If the Human decided to approach them now…
Kail wasn’t sure what he would do. There had never been a worse time - a more dangerous time - to approach him
As if in response to the conflagration of his emotions, the wind picked up, swirling around them like a miniature vortex.
If you try and harm her, I’ll kill you. Kail stared at the Human with that single thought resonating through him.
The Human froze. Fear rolled off him, but he kept his weapon raised. Their silent exchange had happened so quickly that Riana was none the wiser.
“Kail?”
He didn’t want to hang around to see what happened next. Not when he had her in his grasp, spent and vulnerable. Kail wasn’t bothered by the fact that the Human had a gun, but Riana wouldn’t survive a blast from a bolt-gun.
So he swept her up into his arms and started to run, speeding through the garden and across the rooftop as Riana looked around wildly. The guard started shouting in some coarse sounding Human language, drawing her attention.
As she spotted the guard, she stiffened. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“Don’t worry.” Kail took a few more steps and launched himself off the edge of the rooftop. Together, they plummeted to the narrow street below.
Riana tensed, but she didn’t cry out in alarm. She just tightened her arms around his neck, and when Kail landed on the hard ground, bending his knees to absorb the full brunt of the impact, she looked up at him and sighed.
“You’re an outrageous monster, Kail,” she said, shaking her head slightly as a look of mild exasperation crossed her face. “Getting me into trouble like that.” Her tone was gently mocking. “What are we supposed to do now?” Her gaze caressed his face, dropping to his shoulders and his bare chest. “Um, you’re naked.”
Kail snorted and re-activated his exo-suit. The pain was a welcome distraction as the sub-microscopic particles appeared on his skin, coalescing to form an impenetrable bioform.
Riana shuddered. “That’s so weird.”
A retort about Humans and their undeniable strangeness sprung to his lips, but he quashed it as something flew overhead. Kail’s ears twitched as he looked up. A small airborne device shot past; it was probably a Human surveillance craft. The Human on the roof had undoubtedly reported them.
Mistakes happened when one acted impulsively. By giving in to his base impulses, he’d let his guard down and allowed them to be spotted. For the first time in his life, Kail had made a mistake, and what a glorious one it was.
He was still aroused as all hell, with fire pumping through his veins. She was still in his arms; she hadn’t tried to resist him, which was a good thing indeed.
Riana’s expression turned serious. “We’re supposed to wait up there for Darius and Erika. He’s going to get us seats on an unmonitored Seadiver. Erika’s going to help us look less like fugitives and more like… normal people. And Arin and Rykal are supposed to follow us at a distance.”
“Your brother and his mate… you trust them?”
“Unequivocally. Darius has always stood up for me. He’s a bit eccentric, but he’s a good sort.” There was fierce conviction in her voice.
Kail decided to trust her judgement, because his sixth sense hadn’t detected a shred of duplicity in her. “Then tell them that we will arrange another place to meet.”
She held up her bare wrists. “I don’t have a link-band anymore. I don’t know for sure, but I’m paranoid that the Feds can track me through link-band usage. I’m supposed to be untraceable, remember? If they’re following the instructions in my webgram, they’re going to be here any minute, anyway.”
A low hum alerted Kail to the fact that several vehicles were approaching. A disturbance in the air above him made him look up.
“Rykal,” he growled. His brother-in-arms landed silently beside him, having dropped from a balcony several stories above.
Riana stiffened in shock, swearing in some distinctive Earth language Kail hadn’t heard before. How many languages did she speak? “You Kordolians are going to be the death of me.” She sounded mildly exasperated.
Rykal grinned. He raised his eyebrows questioningly as he took in Riana’s compromising position.
“I heard noises. Is something up?”
“We were spotted. We need to move.”
Rykal’s eyebrows went even higher. “You were spotted?”
Kail growled in irritation. He didn’t like admitting his mistakes to anyone, but it couldn’t be helped. “You didn’t have to jump down here. You could have just comm’ed me. Alert Arin and get out of there. I will contact you once we’ve shaken the tail.”
Riana glanced up at the empty balcony that led to her room, “I need to find Darius. He’s our ticket out of here.” If she felt awkward about Rykal discovering her in Kail’s arms, she didn’t show it. She just took it all in her stride, seemingly content in his presence.
She was comfortable with him. Kail never believed such a thing might be possible. It was a bit absurd to think that he, a lone hunter who had never cared a whit for any species outside his own doomed race, was now ensconced with a curious, confounding, contradictory creature called a Human.
And he couldn’t get enough of her.
Rykal shot Kail an odd look but wisely kept his mouth shut about that particular matter.
“We need to leave now. I hear vehicles approaching.”
Rykal nodded in agreement. “We’ll find this brother of yours and I’ll ask Arin to create a diversion. She’s pretty creative, you know.” He grinned like a madman.
Riana laughed. “You’re not wrong, soldier.” She motioned for Kail to let her down and he obliged, setting her on her feet. Her hands flew to the top of her blouse, where she discreetly tried to preserve her modesty, deftly doing up the fasteners.
A wordless glance passed between the two warriors. Kail moved closer to Riana, pressing his body against the curve of her back.
She is mine.
Rykal nodded, understanding the situation perfectly. If the younger warrior was surprised, he didn’t show it.
Perhaps he sensed that Kail was on a knife’s edge.
A storm raged inside him. On the outside, he was as calm and controlled as ever, but beneath his icy exterior he was seething. He hadn’t yet had a chance to sate his lust, and he was burning up inside.
A throbbing pain had infiltrated his temples. It had come on insidiously, increasing in intensity until it felt like a fucking ice-blade was digging into his skull.
Riana’s scent was all around him, the rich aftertaste of her arousal taunting him even as she watched him in that deceptively unassuming way of hers. She was glowing now; a dusky blush had spread across her cheeks, and her movements were smooth and languid, as if she had all the time in the Universe.
For now, she was satisfied.
He wasn’t. His triumph was tinged with fierce, desperate need.
But he would have to wait, because a vehicle had just rounded the corner, turning its bright lights on them. Human voices punctuated the air, drowned out by the ear-splitting screech of a siren. The high-pitched wail assaulted Kail’s sensitive hearing and turned the ice-blade in his temples into a pounding stone-hammer.
“Move,” he said softly.
For a heartbeat, all was silent. Then, before the Humans had a chance to attack, the two Kordolians burst into action.
Rykal disappeared without another word, retreating into the shadows. Kail swept Riana up into his arms and ran.
“To the seaport,” she whispered, understanding his intentions perfectly well.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Riana, you didn’t tell me you were involved with these… these…” Darius ran a hand over his dreads as he paced back and forth across the worn concrete floor. They’d all managed to evade the Feds and regroup at the seaport. Rykal had scouted out the area and found this abandoned machine-house at the back of the docks. It was crude and dilapidated, but it suited their needs for now.
“Kordolians,” Riana finished for him. “They’re called Kordolians.”
“I know what they’re called. I just didn’t know you were crazy enough to invite not one, but two of them to our private party. This is some level-ten illegal shit, Ri. I mean, I’m all for illegal, but not this kind of illegal. We could get a triple-lifetime cryo-sentence if we’re caught.”
Riana glanced nervously through the open door. At least they were speaking English, a language she was pretty sure Kail didn’t understand.
On the other side of the machine-house, Kail sat in a battered metal chair as Erika worked her magic, transforming him into something a little more… Human.
“Just help me get to the Underground,” Riana said quietly as she watched Erika apply something to Kail’s face with a tiny brush. The big warrior sat so still he could have been a statue. “If anything goes down, I’ll take the fall. The only communication I sent you before I left Tamanrasset was highly encrypted and untraceable. The Feds can’t prove a thing.”
“But that’s why I’m not happy,” Darius hissed. “I don’t want you to take the fall for anything. If the Feds get to you now, your life is effectively over.”
“My life would have already been over if Kail hadn’t come after me. I’m out of the system now. My monitoring chip was illegally removed. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but I have no choice. I’ve got to see this through.”
“Shit.” Darius shook his head. “I can’t afford to let anything happen to you.”
Riana pointed her chin towards Kail, hoping the big warrior wouldn’t realize they were talking about him. The problem was, Kail had this uncanny way of knowing everything. “He won’t let anything happen to me.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“I just know.”
“You’re trusting him based on some hunch? He’s a fucking Kordolian, for Jupiter’s sake.”
“Shh.” Riana put a finger to her lips as Kail shifted in his seat. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “He understands English, you know, and he has super-sensitive hearing.”
“What?” The color drained from Darius’ face.
Riana looked at him very seriously. Then, her lips curved upwards. “Just messing with you.” Even after all these years, she couldn’t resist teasing her little brother. “Don’t worry. He doesn’t understand a word of what we’re saying, and even though he reads minds, it’s only in Universal.” She wasn’t sure whether she was joking or serious about that last part.
“Idiot.” Darius punched her gently in her upper arm. “One day, you’re going to get us all thrown into cryo-stasis.”
“As if you aren’t already halfway there yourself. You’re no angel either, brother of mine. One of these days I’m going to find out exactly what it is you do for a living.” She laughed softly as Darius cringed.
Her little brother’s expression changed. “But seriously, the alien can’t actually read minds, can he?”
Riana shrugged. “Beats me.”
“All done,” Erika called out, her voice ringing through the cavernous space. “Come and take a look.”
“Darius,” Riana murmured, keeping her voice low and discreet. “My life should have been over the moment I set foot on Earth. That’s why I want you and Erika to get out of here as soon as we’ve boarded the Seadiver. I’m compromised beyond all return. Don’t follow us, don’t try and contact me. I don’t want either of you to experience any of the fallout from this. He, on the other hand,” she pointed her chin towards Kail. “This is just a walk in the park for him. He’s practically immune to whatever they might throw at us.”
“You aren’t, though.”
“That’s why I need Kail.”
“At what price?”
“I’ve promised to do a little job for him, that’s all.” Riana started to cross the cavernous space. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
Darius kept pace with her. “That’s what you said when they put you in that stupid half-baked Offender Enlistment Program. Look how that turned out.”
“I’m alive, aren’t I? And at least I’ll have some brownie points up my sleeve when the Kordolians finally decide to conquer Earth. You never know, they might spare us from slavery.”
Darius was aghast. “Riana…”
She winked at him. Perhaps her recent near-death experiences had turned her sense of humor a little morbid.
As they crossed the floor, Arin appeared through one of the side-doors. Her eyebrows rose as she took in Kail’s transformation, but wisely, she didn’t say anything. “Captain says they’re leaving in ten minutes. You ready?”
Riana ran a hand over her newly shorn hair. “Almost. Any sign of the Feds?”
“They passed near here, but Rykal says they’re still concentrated around the motel. I’m sure they’ll be back, though. He almost shot down a surveillance drone just now. The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”
Outside the abandoned machine-house, Arin and Rykal had been standing watch while Erika hastily turned Kail and Riana into strangers.
At least that’s what Riana had seen when she’d stared into the mirror, momentarily transfixed by her new appearance.
And that’s what she saw now when she looked at Kail. As she neared, he stood, the folds of his long black coat straightening as the garment fell into place around his large frame. Black leather gloves and boots complemented the garment nicely. He looked like a fucking bad-ass. No-one would be able to tell that underneath the coat, he was wearing his trademark armor and concealing a small arsenal of weaponry—luckily for him, Rykal had managed to retrieve the weapons he’d left behind on the roof.
He looked at her expectantly.
He was Kail, but he wasn’t.
“Erika, you’re a genius.” She was talking to her brother’s wife, but she had eyes only for her almost-lover. Riana was still giddy with the afterglow of Kail’s unexpected attention.
Seriously… making her climax on the fucking roof like that? She bottled up the dangerous heat surging inside her, acutely aware of Darius and Er
ika and Arin’s curious stares.
Don’t let them suspect anything. Damn you, Kail, you outrageous, scary-sexy monster.
Kail’s cold stare softened a little as he met Riana’s gaze. His appraising eyes roamed over her face and figure, stoking the heat inside her to almost unbearable levels.
She was dressed for the cold now. Thanks to Erika, she wore a grey knee-length coat that fitted in all the right places, accentuating her breasts and hips. Her legs were encased in dark leggings and long neo-tex boots. A white real silk blouse —now where had Erika found that vintage gem?—caressed her skin under the coat, and as for her ruined bra… well, there was nothing to be done about that. Her breasts were bare under the luxurious fabric.
An impossibly soft red scarf completed the outfit, adding a touch of color to all the monochrome.
Riana was about to walk into the jaws of chaos, but at least she could do it in style.
And Kail? He was as intimidating as ever, only now, he looked Human.
Well, kind-of Human.
His distinctly inhuman amber eyes had been disguised by a pair of lens inserts, turning them dark brown, just like hers.
But the lens inserts were just tints designed to confuse the bioscanners. Changing his eye color didn’t take away from Kail’s arctic demeanor. He was as Kordolian as ever.
And his newly transformed hair and skin didn’t detract from his austere features either. Erika had given him a wig of wild black hair that concealed the distinctive points of his ears. His pale eyebrows and eyelashes had been tinted in the same hue.
What was more astonishing, however, was the fact that his skin was now a deep tan color, only a few shades lighter than Riana’s own. His distinctive scars were covered over, and his cheeks were smooth and unmarked. To the untrained eye, he could pass for a tall, dark, and striking Human.
So much for the incognito part. They were going to turn heads wherever they went, but at least people wouldn’t be dobbing them in to Nonhuman Affairs.
“Here.” Erika handed Riana a bottle of purple liquid. “The stuff I’ve applied to your faces is called SecondSkin. This is the solvent that removes it. I’m guessing you’ll want it off eventually.”
