by Anna Carven
Arin shook her head. “You do what you want. I’m not leaving here until every last person is off the freighter.”
“Oh?” Rykal paused, trying to understand her mindset as she turned away from him, her expression stony. With the exception of Arin, he didn’t think much of the Humans he’d encountered so far. The idea of selflessly sticking around to ensure the safety of a bunch of Humans was something he never would have considered, but Arin seemed to be protective of her people.
Her scent was taunting him again. As Rykal clenched his teeth, his fangs broke the skin of his lower lip. The bitter taste of his own black blood filled his mouth. Arin looked away, staring at the wall, refusing to make eye contact with him.
Why don’t you melt just a little bit, my ashika?
They were alone inside this primitive metal box. Rykal had been alone with her before, but this was the first time they were confined together in such close quarters.
What was he supposed to now?
A hundred possibilities ran through his mind. He could disarm her, restrain her, strip her naked, and make her his. Physically, she was no match for him. He would claim her body and make her experience the greatest pleasure she’d ever known. Surely Humans possessed the same pleasure centers and erotic zones as Kordolians. She’d crave only his touch. She would beg for it. After he was done with her, she wouldn’t be able to even look at another male. The thought had crossed his mind more than once.
It was the Kordolian thing to do, but subjugation had always left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“I like you, Arin,” he blurted instead, affection swelling in his chest. He smiled, licking his lips to get rid of the aftertaste of blood.
The elevator shuddered, lumbering slowly upwards on the crude mechanism that propelled it. A strong, rapid thudding sound reached his ears.
It was the sound of her beating heart.
She slowly turned to face him, and her lips were slightly parted, glistening with a trace of moisture. “Rykal,” she said in a serious voice, “are you flirting with me?”
Chapter Ten
The elevator shuddered again, its rough metal floor shaking under Arin’s feet. Rykal blinked, appearing confused. “Flirting? I don’t know what that is. I was just speaking the truth.”
His smile, when she thought about it, was rather endearing. It was as if he was completely unaware that his fangs and his sharp, elfin features made him appear totally menacing, and that wasn’t even taking into account the arsenal of weapons strapped to his body.
He was flirting with her. He’d been doing it ever since he’d briefly taken her hostage on Fortuna Tau.
And Arin was doing her best to studiously ignore him.
Even though he apparently liked her.
Even though she found herself foolishly unafraid of him. His manner was dangerously disarming, especially when he flashed that brilliant sharp-toothed smile at her.
Arin took a deep breath to steady her beating heart as the elevator groaned. It was taking an unusually long time to reach the communications room, which was located on the uppermost deck. These old cargo freighters were rigged with some decidedly dodgy engineering, but surely the freight elevators were faster than this.
The shaking became more intense, and a loud screech tore through the elevator shaft. Arin swore in English, tapping her comm to activate it. “Navigation, can you tell me what the situation is with service elevator four? We seem to be grinding to a halt.”
No response.
A panel on the wall flashed red and amber, but it was all in diagrammatic engineering gibberish, and Arin couldn’t understand any of it.
The elevator shook as if they were caught in a massive earthquake, and then it stopped moving altogether.
“Great,” Arin groaned. She was now officially trapped inside a confined space with the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen, and he liked her.
“Your machine is broken,” Rykal remarked.
“Yeah,” Arin replied. She noticed the emergency call panel on the wall, pressing it with her palm. In this current state of chaos, she doubted anyone, robot or otherwise, would come, but anything was worth a try.
This was another unexpected pain-in-the-ass. She needed to get to the communications room to access a secure line. Because of the Network blackout, none of her wireless devices would be able to reach Earth.
Rykal strode across to the sliding doors and tried to wedge his fingers between them. What was he going to do; force them apart with his bare hands? If it was him, he could probably manage. He dug his fingers in, but he couldn’t find any purchase. He stepped back and drew his sword as the lights began to flicker.
“What are you going to do with that?” Arin couldn’t see how that curved blade of his might be helpful right now.
Rykal turned to her, his silver features swimming in and out of her vision as they were bathed in alternating beats of darkness and light. “Just wait.” His golden eyes were almost luminescent, and as the light flickered like a strobe, he turned and stabbed the sword into the elevator doors. Arin caught a glimpse of his powerful shoulders as they bunched and flexed. The blade easily penetrated the thick metal. Rykal gripped the hilt with both hands, pulling the blade across. There was a great screech as he sliced through the elevator doors like they were butter, creating a convenient person-sized hole. He kicked with one leg and the two metal halves of the doors fell away, slipping to the floor below. There was a loud clatter as they landed on some hard surface beneath them.
“Freak,” she muttered under her breath in English, but it was more an expression of wonder rather than scorn. Callidum could cut through anything. Rykal had said it many times, and Arin finally believed it.
“We seem to be between levels,” Rykal informed her, as the flickering light finally went out.
Arin’s world was plunged into darkness. She swore, dropping her pack and setting the rocket launcher down gently beside it. She started to fumble through her pack, searching for the familiar shape of her link-band. The damn thing received no reception up here, but she could use its small guide-light.
“Can I help you out?” Rykal’s voice was a whisper against her ear, startling her.
Shit. When had he moved?
Judging from the direction of his voice, he was crouching down beside her.
“I’m here,” he said softly.
So close. Shit. Where was he?
Without thinking, Arin reached out with one hand, thinking she’d grasp only air. What she got instead was hair. He was so close to her. Arin suppressed the urge to gasp as an image of Rykal’s pale hair entered her mind. From memory, she knew it was the color of moonlight, cut short but not as short as some of the other Kordolians. It wasn’t done in a buzz cut, but rather in a slightly messy crop that accentuated his sharp features. It was impossibly soft and silky.
She hadn’t been expecting that.
She withdrew as if she’d been burned, but not before he grasped her wrist, gently stroking the inner aspect with his thumb.
His hands were bare.
How had he managed that?
She was grateful for the darkness as it hid her reaction, but then she remembered something. “You can see in the dark, can’t you?”
“I can.”
He moved his thumb so that it was pressed gently against her radial pulse. His hands were surprisingly warm, and the sensation of his bare skin on hers sent a thrill shooting down her arm and into her chest. “Jesus, Rykal,” she breathed, pulling away from him. “Help me find my link-band.”
He let out a low rumble of satisfaction. “What’s that?”
“The black thing I usually wear on my wrist. You might have noticed it before. It’s in the front pocket of my pack.”
“Ah.” There was the sound of zipping and rustling material. Moments later, he was pressing something into her palm. Arin activated the light, bathing them in a faint blue glow.
Rykal’s golden gaze was impossibly intense in the dim light. H
e’d been watching her the whole time, and she hadn’t been able to see him. Inwardly, Arin cringed. What had she revealed to him in the darkness?
“Let’s go,” he said, this time picking up her pack and the EI launcher without asking. He carried them effortlessly as Arin rose to her feet, strapping the link-band to her wrist.
Arin looked up and saw that there was an oval-shaped hole in the middle of the elevator’s giant metal doors. They were indeed stuck between levels, but Rykal’s blade had actually managed to carve through the two-foot thick metal floor of the ship, leaving two deep gashes in the actual floor of the ship. He held out a hand, indicating for her to wait as he stuck his head into the gap. “We go up,” he said.
Arin had no idea what level they were on, and she didn’t care. She just wanted to get out of the elevator.
“Wait here,” Rykal ordered. “I’ll go first and check.”
“But-” Arin opened her mouth, thought for a moment, and closed it again. She wasn’t used to taking orders. She was the one who gave orders, the one who went first, the one who took risks on behalf of her squad. She could outgun, outrun, and outthink even the most decorated peacekeeper.
But now she was with Rykal, and he was inhuman in every sense of the word.
So she let him go first. Arin stepped back and watched as he pushed her pack and the launcher out onto the floor above. He glanced back at her, winked, and then pulled himself upwards. Underneath his obsidian armor, his muscles bunched and flexed. Arin stood back and secretly enjoyed the view. It lasted only for a split-second, because he moved so damn fast.
Then he was up, and extending his arm to her. “Come,” he said.
Arin looked up and saw a smiling face free of guile. The hard look in his eyes was gone, replaced with nothing but warmth. She stared at his outstretched hand. It was still bare, his silver palm luminous in the soft glow of her guide-light.
She could easily jump up out of the elevator herself, but when Rykal looked at her like that, how could she brush him off?
For some bizarre reason, she got the feeling that if she refused him, he’d be hurt. It seemed stupid, but Arin didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
So she gave him a curt nod and placed her hand into his. His warm fingers curled around her hand, and Arin marveled at the fact that this alien, who was capable of such great violence, could feel so damn Human.
The very hand that pulled her up was a killer’s hand, and yet he was so gentle with her, applying just the exact amount of pressure needed to help her up onto the ship’s floor.
He held onto her hand for just a little bit longer than was necessary, helping her to her feet. It was a strange feeling.
“Uh, thanks,” she murmured.
Rykal’s gaze turned distant as he continued to grasp her hand, his grip tightening. His expression became strange.
Arin froze. “Rykal?”
He murmured something in that strange melodic language of his, which Arin guessed was Kordolian. It sounded like a language that elves might speak, and coming from Rykal’s throat, it was oddly beautiful.
“Rykal,” Arin hissed, alarm coursing through her. His body was here, but his mind was wandering.
“Rykal!” she said again, injecting force into her voice. That seemed to get a reaction out of him. He blinked, his gaze slowly becoming focused again as he released her hand. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like cursing.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He turned away, bending to retrieve her pack and the EI launcher. “I can carry these if you like…”
Arin shook her head. “I’ll take them.” The pack contained some sensitive equipment, including some tiny DNA collection devices. The intelligence people wanted her to use them to collect biological material from the Kordolians.
Ha. They had made it sound so easy.
As for the launcher, that was just a comfort thing. She felt better hauling around a weapon that could at least put a minor burn on a Kordolian warrior, even if it wouldn’t kill him.
“You had a flashback just then, didn’t you?” She asked the question before the moment slipped away, taking her heavy objects from Rykal.
He looked away. “I don’t know what that means.” His voice was terse and clipped as he began to walk away. Arin stared after him. His pointed ears were twitching.
“I know that look, Rykal,” she called, shrugging her pack over her shoulder as she hurried after him.
He ignored her.
What had changed? It was as if day had turned to night in the blink of an eye. Arin had seen this before. She’d seen it in the veterans who’d returned from missions to the very far reaches of Human charted territory. They were the men and women who went to the unknown places; the places where new species were encountered and people disappeared, never to be heard from again.
Something had triggered a memory in Rykal, and whatever he’d seen hadn’t been pretty, because all of a sudden, he’d become withdrawn.
Arin stopped and looked around, trying to get her bearings. They seemed to be on some kind of service level. Dilapidated equipment lined the corridor, and beside her was a series of decommissioned cleaning bots and a stack of rusted spare parts.
“Why are you even following me, anyway?”
Rykal turned, and his face was like smooth, polished stone. Once again, he was a perfect stranger, an alien. His barriers were definitely up. “You told me to,” he said, his voice flat.
Arin looked up and saw the sector markings on the wall. They were in 7B, which was close to the communications room. “You don’t have to follow me, you know. I’m a big girl, and I can find my way from here.”
“You’re right,” he said. Those damn elf ears of his were still twitching. Up above, the lights flickered. As Rykal turned on his heel, tiny black specks started to appear on his face, neck, and the top of his head, quickly becoming denser until they formed an armored black helm that completely concealed his features.
He glanced back at her for a brief moment, appearing so cold and menacing in his full suit of armor that her pulse quickened and her mouth went dry. Her fingers flew to the activation panel of the EI launcher. Arin was reminded that he wasn’t her friend, no matter how much he professed to like her.
Rykal wasn’t Human, and she wasn’t going to make the mistake of forgetting that again, no matter how charming he might be at times.
As Arin glared back at him, wondering what the hell had turned him into such a moody bastard all of a sudden, he disappeared without a word, leaving her standing in the service corridor amongst dead robots with the lights flickering up above.
Chapter Eleven
Of course Rykal wasn’t going to leave her. Not when he’d heard the familiar skittering sound of Xargek larvae in the vents. Not when he’d heard them scratching up and down the elevator shaft.
But he was a little bit messed up right now, and he didn’t want her to figure that out.
It had happened when he’d pulled her up out of the elevator.
The memory had been so sharp, burning brightly in his mind. Arin had called it a flashback.
For a moment, it had nearly destroyed him.
Out of all the First Division warriors, Rykal considered himself the most defective; the most fucked up. That mind-wipe shit the Empire’s scientists had tried to pull on them had left him with confounding fragments of memory, like shards of broken glass that couldn’t be put back together.
The memories could be triggered by almost anything, but he hadn’t had a flashback for such a long time.
Yet it had happened when he’d gripped Arin’s arm.
He’s clutching her arm, holding on so tightly, but she’s too heavy and she’s starting to pull him with her, because his body is just too small. He’s only a child, after all. She looks up, smiles at him, and lets go, falling into the abyss below.
Maybe the others had these fragments too. Maybe they were just better at burying them. Maybe they had better self-control
.
She doesn’t scream. She just smiles, her eyes overflowing with love for him.
Rykal swore as he stabbed his sword into the wall and made another hole, squeezing through the gap. There were narrow corridors in-between the walls containing deadspace. They housed all manner of pipes and cables and even some monitoring devices. He advanced along the deadspace and waited until he heard Arin’s steady footsteps, made heavier by the dual load she was carrying. She reached the hole he’d made, paused, sighed, and then moved on, heading further up the corridor. Rykal followed her by sound alone, navigating through the hidden corridor between the walls. Occasionally, he had to duck or crouch as pipes and machines got in the way, but he had no trouble matching her speed.
He tried to rid himself of the bitter aftertaste of that terrible memory, of what he’d seen in his mind’s eye when he’d touched Arin.
She slips out of his grasp. It’s his fucking fault, because he isn’t able to hold on. He’s too weak. Too small. He screams as shots ring out and the crater below lights up with flashes of blue plasma fire.
Rykal followed Arin as she picked up her pace, her footsteps echoing through the thin metal walls. She walked with fierce purpose; he could almost feel her anger reverberating through her footsteps.
He’d probably pissed her off, but he’d had his reasons.
An overwhelming wave of emotions had overtaken him. Searing, white-hot anger. Despair, as bitter and black as the Callidum mines of Kythia. Emptiness, terrifying and unfathomable. He wanted to fight something. He wanted to kill. It was like the bad old days all over again, before he’d learned to be a proper Kordolian.
That’s why he’d had to leave her, because he’d been afraid she might see something ugly. She was beautiful and pure, and she shouldn’t have to put up with his shit.
Rykal listened carefully as she stopped. Underneath his helm, his ears twitched as he filtered the various sounds that trickled to him from beyond the walls.
One was Arin’s hand touching a door-panel.
