There was a first time for everything.

A first time for being face-to-face with a human, and for attempting to do a medic’s work.

Enki’s first encounter with a human resulted in him applying fibrogel to her badly lacerated back. As he took in the full extent of her injuries, anger sparked deep within his soul.

It was truly fitting that she’d killed Mirkel, finishing what Xalikian had partly done, because that deranged piece of shit medic had savaged her. In death, Mirkel was fortunate, because if Enki had caught him, he would have ripped the cybernetic prosthesis from the medic’s body, fiber by fiber, making sure he felt everything.

And then he would have killed him slowly.

The scratches on Layla’s back were long and deep, oozing blood. What surprised Enki was that she hadn’t complained once.

And now she bared herself to him, trusting him.

Why do you hesitate, soldier? For once, the Tharian didn’t mock him. It seemed genuinely curious. That’s so unlike you.

But Enki didn’t answer, because he was transfixed.

In the gentle arch of her ravaged back, he found beauty.

Careful, soldier.

Enki applied the tip of the fibrogel tube to the worst scratch, the one that ran from the bottom of her left scapula to her lower back. As he painted a line of silver gel along the wound, she flinched, then relaxed. The healing nanites did their thing, quickly dissolving into the surrounding tissue to repair the damage.

At the same time, Layla quickly smeared fibrogel on the scratches across her chest, her back muscles flexing as she worked. Enki studied the planes and contours of her body, noting her toned muscles and the delicate, sculptural protrusions of her vertebrae.

Her skin was pale and luminous, decorated with the occasional dark spot of pigmentation. Enki swept her long black hair out of the way, pushing it over her shoulder so he had a clear view of her back. “Yeah, my hair gets in the way sometimes,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse. “This stuff is amazing, by the way. I thought I was going to have terrible scarring all over my body… not that it really matters anymore.”

“Hm.” Enki attended to a scratch that ran horizontally across her spine, watching with some satisfaction as the wound closed almost instantly. He never could have imagined that another creature’s back could be so… fascinating. “It matters,” he said quietly, dabbing the tube along a row of vicious looking claw-holes.

As her back healed, he became more and more convinced that she was smooth, sinuous perfection, and there was something immensely satisfying about seeing her heal.

And so it begins.

What are you on about?

As usual, the irritating creature quickly retreated into silence, leaving him to stew over its cryptic, snippy little comment.

Consider yourself lucky you don’t have a physical form, Tharian. Enki was filled with the sudden urge to eviscerate the creature, but instead he focused on the sublime contours of Layla’s back as her skin knit together, leaving only faint white scars that would completely disappear over time.

“That feels so much better.” Layla wriggled her shoulders and hips, moving like a dancer, stretching her newly healed skin. She grabbed her hair and twisted it into a single tail so that it rested neatly against the side of her neck, revealing a slender black collar.

Ah. In his rush to deal with her wounds, Enki had almost forgotten about that heinous device. Moving quickly, he whipped out his Callidum dagger and sliced through the metal collar. He reached around with both hands and pulled the thing from her neck, throwing it onto the floor. “I don’t believe in these,” he growled.

“Your have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that.” She ran her hands around her neck, rubbing the place where the collar had sat against her skin. “That thing is awful. It’s weird, though. Once I stopped being scared of the pain, it didn’t hurt as much, or maybe I was just able to tolerate it better.”

Her words struck a chord with Enki, who had spent cycles upon cycles being subjected to the worst pain imaginable… all in the name of science.

Layla was right. In the absence of fear, pain was just another sensation.

He was overcome with the sudden urge to caress her slender neck and tell her he knew what it was like, but instead he leaned back, the Tharian’s words echoing in his mind.

You Kordolians tend to lose your heads whenever you encounter these human females.

Enki told himself he was thinking this way because he’d sought solitude for so long; because he’d never encountered a human up close before, let alone a female.

But there was more to it than that.

She was vulnerability and strength, and the combination was curiously intoxicating. He could have studied her for an eternity, but he forced himself to snap out of it, because they had to move. It would only be a matter of time before some idiot on the upper decks noticed that Mirkel and the squadron guarding him were missing, and Enki wanted to be well away from here before that happened.

“Let me fix the scratches on your face, then we have to go.” With each passing siv, Enki grew more and more edgy. Although he tried his best to be gentle with Layla, he was wound tight like a metal wire, ready to snap at the slightest provocation.

Layla turned to face him, her deep brown eyes widening a fraction as he leaned in and touched the fibrogel tube to a deep scratch that ran from the corner of her right eye to the edge of her mouth. It was still bleeding slowly, sending a trickle of dark crimson down her cheek.

“You should have left that one,” she murmured, one corner of her mouth quirking upwards. “I would have looked like such a badass with that scar.”

“No. You should not have to look at your reflection and remember what he did to you. Let those memories die when we leave this ship.” The fibrogel melted into Layla’s wound, closing it instantly, and Enki studied her face in detail for the first time.

As far as Kordolian standards went, it was a highly imperfect face. Eyes too far apart, black eyebrows that were a tad too bold, cheekbones broad and high, dry and slightly cracked lips parting to reveal a gap between her two front teeth. Two distinct black spots decorated the right side of her face; one at the corner of her eye, and one in the center of her cheek.

And now the vicious scratches had faded to faint white lines, adding another mark to her soft skin.

When all of her imperfect features were put together, they became a thing of incomparable beauty.

Perfection in imperfection. How was such a thing even possible?

A deep feeling of relief spread through Enki as he realized what could have been lost.

You got to her in time.

Suddenly, he became acutely aware of her state of undress, and for a heartbeat, his gaze flicked down to her chest, where her small, pert breasts captured his attention, her nipples proudly erect and delicious, twin delicate nubs surrounded by a halo of pebbled tawny skin.

He became aware of her scent—female musk and sweetness and a hint of earthy sweat, mingling with the sharp remnants of metallic blood.

He noticed the delicate ripple of bumps across her skin, and how she was trembling slightly, shivers racking her body in rhythmic waves.

Shit.

She looked uncomfortable.

Enki cursed himself for being careless. He’d forgotten humans were sensitive to cold, and that they followed certain customs when it came to dressing. Kaiin’s hells; he knew so little about them.

Suddenly, her body wasn’t just a thing to look at dispassionately. It wasn’t just an ordinary soft-skinned alien’s body.

It was a woman’s body, and she was watching him expectantly, her brow furrowing slightly. “Enki, are you okay?”

He took a step back as her addictive scent surrounded him. His nostrils flared. His claws extended. His cock stiffened.

Well, that was qui—

You shut the fuck up now.

“Wait here,” he said to Layla, trying to inject some gentleness into his voice. “I will be back.”

He slipped away into the darkness before her spell undid him completely.