Layla hugged her knees and tried her best to stop her teeth from chattering. In the aftermath of such brutal, visceral violence, her body had dumped all of its adrenaline, and now she was running on nothing but her wavering willpower.

At least those horrible scratches had stopped bleeding, but now they stung like crazy, and the wounds that were in contact with her shredded cryo-suit had started to burn.

Her entire body was on fire, but she was so, so cold.

And the floor was coated in sticky, drying blood, making her want to retch.

Layla had dragged herself around the scientist’s dead body, retreating back into the sanitation chamber, where the pitch darkness gave her hollow comfort. She couldn’t see in the dark, but a Kordolian could. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the only hiding place she could find at such short notice.

This was the pits. The absolute fucking pits.

If they caught her now… Layla didn’t have much left in the tank, but least she had her knife back. As she’d dropped to a crouching position, trying with all her might to keep fucking still, her fingers had brushed against it. She clutched the small blade tightly, seeking small comfort in the fact that she wasn’t completely defenseless. Even if it had been a total fluke, she’d just killed a Kordolian.

Might as well go down fighting.

Her hatred for these cruel aliens ran deep, giving her the strength to keep going.

Taking a deep breath, Layla tried to center herself, going through the ritual she used to follow before every filming session.

Empty your mind.

Take the deepest breath you can and then exhale, focusing on the movement of your chest and belly. Concentrate on your surroundings; the sounds, the smells, the sensations.

But the only thing she could smell was her own coppery blood, mingled with bitterness. She felt the hard hilt of the blade in her right hand, felt the stickiness under her bare feet, felt pain across her skin and in her ankle. It spearing through her ribs too, waxing and waning with each breath.

She heard…

Voices.

Becoming louder.

Oh my god, they’re here!

They spoke in their language, and she couldn’t understand the words, but she understood the shock in their voices perfectly well as they entered the chamber, as they undoubtedly took in the scene before them.

She recognized their voices; Captain Pradon and the others.

The shock in their voices turned to anger. Boots stomped on the floor as they spread out, searching for her.

Any minute now, they were going to uncover her hiding place, and then what? There were many of them, and only one of her. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

As Layla tensed, preparing to uncoil like a spring at any moment, Pradon’s voice cut through the silence. This time, he sounded imperious, outraged, indignant, barking a question in that strange, lyrical tongue they all spoke.

Weird, how such a beautiful sounding language could be spoken by such brutal people.

Suddenly, Pradon’s tirade was cut short.

Layla heard shuffling and rustling and the hiss of metal against scabbard as blades were drawn. More shouting, this time from Pradon’s men.

Shik. Thud. Thud.

Gasps. Pleas.

Fear. The Kordolians who had treated her so brutally were now fucking terrified.

And then, silence.

Everything stopped. Voices, footsteps, and seemingly, her heartbeat.

What the hell just happened?

Layla was dying to peek outside, but she didn’t dare. Instead, she waited, trying not to breathe too loudly, trying to listen.

A strange tingle ran down the back of her neck and over her scalp, a feeling she imagined she might get if a spirit were to pass through her.

Layla believed in ghosts. There were things in the Universe that science just couldn’t explain.

Like how a group of armed Kordolians could enter the room, find their dead comrade, then… nothing.

Layla rose to her feet, surprised to find that she wasn’t trembling anymore. She couldn’t crouch here in the darkness any longer. She had to sneak a look outside.

“Layla.”

She gasped in pure shock as the voice came out of nowhere, echoing inside the tiny chamber. Was it to her right, or left, or in front of her? She couldn’t tell. Out of pure instinct, she thrust forward with her small knife, stabbing blindly into the darkness.

“It’s me.” Something warm and firm slid around her wrist and gave it a gentle squeeze. Her grip became weak as pressure was applied to a specific point—a nerve?—and the knife was easily taken from her hand.

“Me?” Her voice came out as a high-pitched almost-shriek as she flailed around, fear overriding her capacity to think straight. “Who are you?”

“Enki,” he answered simply, taking hold of her other wrist.

Suddenly, Layla couldn’t move her arms. His grip was firm yet gentle; she didn’t know how he was doing it without hurting her, but somehow, she couldn’t pull away.

And all she could see was pitch black.

Layla started to hyperventilate.

“Be calm. Don’t fight. I am here now.” His emotionless tone was strangely comforting. Something clicked in Layla’s brain, and she remembered the odd exchange they’d had when she was stuck in the escape-pod.

She remembered the sound of his voice and confirmed in her mind that it really was him.

“E-Enki,” she repeated, his name feeling strange on her tongue as she spoke it aloud for the first time. “It’s r-really you?”

“I said I would come for you,” he said quietly, his words permeating into her weary soul like rain in the parched desert. Layla forced herself to be still, to not fight, even though she couldn’t see Enki at all.

How strange. He was actually here with her, immobilizing her, his warm fingers pressing firmly into her aching wrists, and she was definitely scared, but ,not as scared as she should be.

“How are you even here?” Layla’s confused thoughts crashed around in her mind as she tried to understand how this person—this Kordolian—could have infiltrated a supposedly impregnable battle cruiser.

Or had he been here all along?

“The details are not important.” Slowly, gently, he brought her wrists down by her side and then released them. “Don’t fight me,” he repeated. Steady. Calm. Rational. “You are hurt. You’ll only make it worse.”

It occurred to Layla that it had been so long since she’d had contact with someone who wasn’t hostile, who didn’t speak to her as if she were an inferior life-form.

“Can you walk?”

“Yeah.”

“Follow me.”

Layla took an unsteady step forward, and was surprised to feel his guiding hand on her back.

When did he…? Somehow, he’d moved behind her without making a sound. If he hadn’t spoken, she wouldn’t have suspected a thing.

“This way.” He was careful not to touch the wounds the mad scientist had inflicted upon her. The bare pads of his fingers were featherlight against her skin as he coaxed her into the light. “These are claw marks. Did the medic do this to you?”

“M-medic?” For a moment, Layla was confused. Oh. He must mean the mad scientist. That freak… was a medic? It was strange to find out that he was supposed to have healed people, not tortured them. “You knew him?”

“Vaguely. You killed him?”

“I get the feeling you already know the answer to that. Am I in trouble?”

“You are not.” A note of approval entered his voice. “I would have killed him myself, but it seems more fitting that you did it.”

As they stepped into the light, Layla tried her hardest not to make it obvious that she was staring, but this was the first time she’d seen the mysterious man, and she was dying to know what he looked like.

This is Enki.

The very same Enki she’d been thinking about as those Kordolians put her through hell.

He’s actually here.

Light washed over them. For a heartbeat, all of Layla’s pain melted away as she looked over her shoulder, catching her first glimpse of the man who had found her drifting through infinity.

Amber eyes stared back at her, and Layla could have sworn they glowed green just for a split-second, but maybe that was just the blue light reflecting off his striking irises.

His skin was that typical Kordolian shade of silver, a tad darker than the other Kordolians she’d seen. Its slightly reflective sheen gave him a distinctly otherworldly appearance, and Layla got the sudden urge to reach out and touch him, to confirm for herself that he was actually real, but there was no fucking way she was going to do that.

Just because he’d come for her didn’t necessarily mean he was on her side, and the memory of Kordolian cruelty was fresh in her mind.

She took one last drink of his features before turning away, noting the elegant white brows that were drawn together in a slight frown, the straight nose, the razor-sharp cheekbones and chiseled jawline, the slight hollow of his cheeks and the subtle feline slant of his eyes.

His face was sharp, regal, and cruel, all at once.

And he was beautiful.

She’d seen a few Kordolian faces by now, and none of them were as striking as Enki’s.

Layla blinked as she grappled with that realization. It was a stupid thing to think when she’d just been captured and tortured by Enki’s very own kind, but his features were rudely perfect, demanding her attention.

But as quickly as it had arrived, her fascination vanished, because her bare foot brushed against something soft.

Cloth.

She looked down and saw Captain Pradon lying dead on the floor. His limbs were askew, his harsh features softening in death.

His throat had been slit.

“Tch.” Enki made a small sound of irritation. “You don’t have boots?” Without warning, he hooked one arm around her waist and lifted her into his arms. His movements were swift and effortless, as if she weighed nothing. “There’s blood on the floor, and we need to be quick.”

Layla forgot to breathe as a chilling realization struck her.

Pradon wasn’t the only dead Kordolian in the room. The rest of his crew had been killed too, all five of them.

Pradon, the mad scientist, and the five henchmen were dead. All of them had neat, deliberate knife wounds at points where vital organs and vessels lay—neck, heart, base of skull.

Layla didn’t need to ask. She already knew who killed them, and there wasn’t a single part of her that felt sorry for them.

What truly shocked her was how quick and effortless it had all been. The time from Pradon’s sentence getting cut short to Enki finding her had been…

Seconds.

Holy crap. He’s a badass.

Not an ordinary one, but a super-ultra-elite one, because who the hell could kill an entire squad of soldiers in just a few seconds?

Enki swept her from the chamber of horrors into another room, where the same gentle blue light allowed her to make out a row of large tech-looking seats. Glowing monitoring devices stood beside the seats, along with an array of mysterious looking medical equipment.

There wasn’t a disposable canister or plas-bag or IV line in sight. Everything was so unfamiliar.

Without ceremony, Enki set her down in the nearest chair and stepped back, crossing his arms as he studied her from head to toe, a slight frown curving his dark lips. He wore a dark utilitarian suit that looked like a uniform of sorts, except it wasn’t nearly as well cut or expensive looking as the dead Captain’s clothes, and hung loosely on his frame, around a size too big.

“Killed a medic with nothing more than this pretend-blade,” Enki muttered, shaking his head slightly. For a fraction of a second, so quickly she almost missed it, his gaze grew distant. “For that alone you have earned my protection.”

“I was desperate. I got lucky. Look what he did to me.” Layla was scared of what she might see when she looked in the mirror. The scratches were on her face, too.

Enki’s snow-white brows drew together, his expression pure thunder. Layla balked, but then she realized his anger wasn’t directed at her. Still, it was rather unnerving to be under the full force of his gaze. She couldn’t read him at all; she had no clue what he was thinking.

“I’m going to tend to you now,” was all he said as he turned and retrieved a bunch of strange looking items from the… med-trolley, or whatever that thing was. “Those wounds will not withstand repeated stress. Take off your clothes.”

Layla gave him one of her famous side-eyes, trying to figure out if he was messing with her. “You mean all of my clothes?”

“The relevant clothes.” He was dead serious. “I need to apply fibrogel to your wounds.”

So… her cabin-jacket and the top half of her cryo-suit. The garments were shredded beyond repair anyway, so they had to go, but it occurred to Layla that she wasn’t wearing anything else underneath. No bra, no tank-top, nothing.

She was in a strange room with an alien she barely knew, a man who just so happened to be a special-ops super-assassin or… whatever, and she was seriously considering taking her top off for him.

Fuck it. He wanted to treat her, right? After killing a guy, nothing was beyond her. Besides, Enki was an alien, so he probably didn’t see her in the way a human man would. “You know, there are people on Earth who would pay thousands of credits to see what you’re about to see.” As Layla shrugged off her jacket, pain shot through her ribs, making her wince. “Personally, I’ve never understood what all the fuss is about.”

“Pay?” Impossibly, Enki’s expression became even more thunderous. “What are you, some sort of courtesan?”

Why did that notion seem to piss him off so much?

Layla shook her head. “No, no.” She waved her hand in a placating gesture. The very last thing she wanted to do was piss him off. “I was just being flippant. Sorry. Back home, I am—was—a VR star. If you’ve ever been to Earth, you’ve probably seen my face on a holo-board somewhere.”

Not recently, though. They don’t seem to like me very much on Earth these days.

Her admission didn’t seem to make any sort of impression on Enki. He nodded at her top. “Take it off. You should not make such unserious remarks about selling your body. This is purely for medical reasons, and absolutely necessary. I will not have your fragile human skin breaking and bleeding all over the place as we escape. Now hurry. It is only a matter of time before we are discovered.”

Oh. Layla was so used to being admired for her looks that Enki’s dispassionate approach surprised her. Why did she feel like he should at least somehow be… impressed?

Fame gone to your head, honey?

“I am not going to fondle you, if that is what you’re worried about.”

Huh. Was he being chivalrous, or just cold?

She suspected the latter. “I’m not worried. You don’t look like the type to take advantage of a situation like this.” Layla tucked her fingers under the edge of her top and pulled it away from her skin, wincing as tiny fibers of synthetic material were ripped out from where they’d become stuck in her drying wounds. She hissed in pain as she pulled the bio-material away from her skin, until finally, the top was gone, revealing her bare chest, boobs and all.

Instantly, her nipples hardened, reacting to the cold. Layla was so incredibly vulnerable right now, but for some reason, she wasn’t absolutely terrified.

The way Enki treated her was… different. The fact that he looked at her with no emotion whatsoever—it actually helped. She didn’t get the feeling he was about to ravage her or lock her into brutal slavery.

Even though he was a Kordolian, an alien, a stranger.

Even though he was so obviously dangerous.

Enki produced a small metal tube. “This is a healing gel. I’ll put some on your finger, and you will apply it over the scratches on your chest. I will do your back. Turn around.”

So cold. So clinical. Layla supposed she should be thankful, but a small part of her wished he would show at least some sort of reaction.

Maybe because that would demonstrate some form of weakness, would show her that he was human after all.

But he wasn’t.

So it didn’t matter.

Enki reached out. “Give me your hand.”

Layla placed her cold, trembling fingers into his. Enki’s touch was warm, rough, and gentle, all at the same time. He pressed a spot on the tube and a smooth silver gel came out, forming a blob on her fingertip. As it made contact with her skin, the stuff felt strange; warm and tingly and fizzy.

“Turn around.” It was a simple command, and there was probably nothing sensual or sexual about it, but Layla couldn’t help but become a little hypnotized by the roughness that entered Enki’s voice.

It was the first hint of an emotion other than anger.

Wordlessly, she obeyed, because really, what else could she do?