Drifting amongst the stars, waiting for the rescue ship to arrive, Enki finally found his silence.

There were no voices out here, and the Tharian seemed to have given up on trying to take over his body—for now.

With his claws embedded firmly into the outer walls, he clung to the escape pod, watching her through the small window. He wanted to open his comm and speak to her through the pod’s internal communicator, but it wasn’t synced to him, and he didn’t want to risk fumbling about and having his signal detected by the techs on the Ristval V.

They had only just narrowly escaped getting blown to particle dust by the ship’s powerful lasers. He had known the Rysor would immediately become a target, hence why he’d gotten Layla into the pod as soon as the flyer’s velocity had stabilized. Then they’d ejected, and a moment later, the Rysor had been obliterated.

Everything had been done with the narrowest of margins, with the most precise of calculations—the retrieval, the escape, the time taken to get Layla into the pod and eject—but Enki hadn’t been worried about failure.

He did this sort of shit all the time.

Layla didn’t.

But she was smart enough to trust him, and now he was watching her sublime face through the window as she mouthed something at him.

This time, he couldn’t understand the sounds her lips and tongue formed. Perhaps she was speaking in Earth-language, or perhaps he just wasn’t that good at lip-reading.

So he just shook his head slightly and watched her, a sense of contentment coming over him as he observed the slight flush in her cheeks, the dark cascade of her hair as it framed her face, the flutter of her eyelids, the appealing curve of her lips as they parted, revealing her pink tongue…

And those deep, searching brown eyes, so bright in the darkness.

She was life itself; pure, vibrant, vulnerable… everything that he was not.

A prize, as Nythian had called her.

In this rare moment of silence, a powerful feeling came over Enki. It began in his barely beating heart, which had slowed in response to the lack of oxygen in his lungs. It spread through his body, his limbs, his chest, right up to the throbbing bases of his sawn-off horns.

It made him dig his claws deeper into the thick metal walls of the escape-pod, his body filled with tension and desire.

Mine.

In that moment, he realized he didn’t want to let this human go.

Mine.

He would fight for her, kill for her, maybe even die for her.

Mine.

His erect cock strained against his armor-plate, and he was glad for the exo-helm that covered his face, because he didn’t want her to see his expression right now.

Not yet.

“Found you, brother.”

Lodan’s voice filtered through Enki’s comm, tearing him out of his lust-filled thoughts. The bastard had the most irritating sense of timing, but in truth, Enki was glad for the interruption, because he couldn’t get Layla out of here quickly enough.

Only when she was on the Fleet Station with him would he be satisfied that she was truly safe.

“I’m going to sweep down with the retrieval line in three, two…”

One. The familiar form of the Virdan X coalesced out of the inky darkness, approaching them at great speed. The retrieval line—a long, metallic arm—extended down toward them.

Of course, Lodan had been lurking around the Ristval V all along, waiting for Enki to eject the pod. The stealth cruiser had been heavily cloaked, but Lodan knew what to expect—they’d discussed it in detail—and the pilot could be extraordinarily patient when he wanted.

Only the secret tiny tracking device Enki had embedded beneath the skin of his left arm had given his location away, and now Lodan was coming to their rescue, doing the crazy sort of precision flying that only he could get away with.

The hooked end of the retrieval line whooshed toward Enki at impossible speed, and he didn’t hesitate. Releasing one hand from where he gripped the pod’s outer shell, he whipped his arm around and grabbed the line in an unbreakable grip.

Drawing on all of his strength, he brought the line closer, closer, closer, until it connected with the wall of the pod. The line’s Qualum fibers did the rest, extending toward the wall, meshing with the Qualum-Callidum composite of the pod, forming an unbreakable bond.

The whole time, they were moving, because although Lodan had slowed down, he hadn’t stopped at all, and now they were starting to accelerate again as the Virdan X retracted the line bit by bit, and they were drawn toward a small airlock in the side of the hull.

“Hold tight.” There was a warning prickle at the back of Enki’s neck, and then the Virdan X veered sharply to the right, and Enki gripped the pod tightly, creating a barrier with his body as a giant plasma flare tore past them, narrowly missing the pod and the ship’s hull, and for a moment, Enki’s entire body was engulfed in blue fire.

Then it was gone, leaving immense pain in its wake.

But he had shielded Layla from the blast, and that was all that mattered.

The stealth cruiser gained speed.

“No way I was going to let that one get you,” Lodan grunted. “Don’t worry. We’re almost out of their plasma range now, and I’ve told Ny to go up to the gunport and deal with the shooter. Remember, they can’t chase us. They’re crippled.”

The airlock opened and the metal arm grew shorter and shorter, drawing them inside.

The airlock closed.

Gravity kicked in. Enki dropped to the floor, his entire body on fire. A blast from a plasma gun was one thing, but catching even just the edge of a massive blast from an alpha-class Kordolian warship was a completely different experience.

That shit was powerful, and it hurt.

He dropped to all fours, gasping, drawing oxygen into his lungs for the first time since he’d left the Rysor. His nanite exo-armor broke apart, withdrawing through his skin as the tiny machines instantly reacted to the massive heat-damage in his cells.

The pain caused by the retreating nanites was something he was used to, but when it came with a side of plasma burns, it became unbearable.

He screamed.

A torrent of memories flooded his mind, and suddenly, he was back there.

On Tharos.

“Brother, you all right?” Lodan’s concerned voice came across the comm, but Enki was too far gone to be able to respond. Somewhere in the back of his consciousness, he became aware of frantic banging—Layla.

But he couldn’t do anything, because he was crippled by pain, and all he could see was…

The blinding flash of the the bomb as it decimated the Tharian capital, Marenja. The world turning into a sea of white fire, everything getting obliterated before his very eyes. The entire Seventeenth Division—all twelve of them—swallowed up by the inferno in an instant, turned to ash, gone. The terrible screams of the Tharians—men, women, younglings—as they were consumed by the white fire.

Enki’s skin and flesh melted, and the nanites went deep inside him, trying to preserve his most vital organs as the world around him turned into the deepest of the Nine Hells.

His shock quickly turned to rage. Cursed nobles. So quick to pull the trigger each and every time, because in the infinite Universe, a tiny planet like Tharos didn’t really matter, and the quickest way to guarantee submission was through force.

Enki and his brothers knew the rule of force all too well, but there was a limit to even their brutality.

This… this was destruction for the sake of destruction. Vindictive. Excessive. Deceitful.

Cruel.

Just like the nobles themselves.

Anger invaded every pore and cell of his burning body, and he swore he would take his blood-revenge on Lord Agarel Vethal and his entire Kaiin-cursed House even if it was the very last thing he did.

Because he would survive, and General Tarak would scour every section of this cursed planet until he found him, and then Enki would demand his blood-right.

Vethal obviously believed Enki would die along with the Seventeenth. He didn’t understand that the Empire’s own creations were even more monstrous than anything his poisonous mind could conceive of.

And the mind-wipe that was supposed to have kept them under control no longer had much of an effect.

He crawled forward on all fours, fighting excruciating agony, dragging himself through the wide halls of the Tharian High Palace, through ash and rubble and smoldering fires. He passed the charred and blackened bodies of the dead, barely able to distinguish them with his severely damaged eyes, remembering that they had once been graceful blue-skinned Tharians.

His anger became a howling vortex.

A wide stone pillar loomed before him, and he sank his claws into it, hauling himself to his feet. A soft sound reached his ears as he staggered across the floor—shallow breathing. Behind the pillar was a dying Tharian.

Her body was mostly intact. The pillar had shielded her from the force of the blast, but it couldn’t protect her from the heat.

She stared up at him in horror, her green eyes blazing with hatred. “M-monster,” she hissed, and the green glow leapt out of her eyes, rising up into the air like a vengeful spirit. “Your kind are going to destroy everything.”

Enki had no words. How did one apologize for the sins of an entire race? Especially with what he was about to do…

I am sorry.

Filled with disgust, he dropped to one knee and reached for the Tharian with his claws fully extended, because he was nothing more than a charred walking corpse himself, and his nanites desperately needed sustenance.

He had to survive, so he could take his revenge.

So he took what he needed from the Tharian, even as the green glow grew brighter and brighter, surrounding him.

Suddenly it was inside him.

His hands moved of their own volition, curling around his throat, squeezing, his claws digging into his very own burned flesh…

Kill yourself.

No! You will not control me!

His eyes snapped open, and he saw another face, this one pale and delicate—human.

“Don’t touch him,” she growled, looking at whoever was behind him. “He will be fine. Just give him time.”

There was power in her voice, because that sound alone dragged him out of his nightmare. She was fierce, concerned, protective… of him.

Unbelievable.

A human.

His Layla.

She just didn’t know it yet, but she would.