Enki sank into the chair opposite his pod, bone-tired himself, but utterly entranced by the creature he’d claimed and whisked away to his quarters.

A human female.

His Layla.

As soon as they’d escaped the clutches of danger, the feeling had come upon him so quickly, so fiercely, that the intensity of it had surprised him.

And now his horn-buds throbbed, and a terrible headache was spreading through his temples, and part of him wanted to rage against the stars and fight and kill anything and everything that could possibly cause her harm.

His cock was fully erect, straining to the point of agony even as he closed his eyes and tried to dissociate himself from the tangled mess of his emotions and the Kaiin-cursed Tharian who was always agitating at the periphery of his thoughts.

But of late, it had been surprisingly silent.

Enki’s eyes snapped open again as he failed to find the quiet place he so often craved. His gaze was drawn to Layla, and he allowed himself to slip a little further into the exquisite madness that was the mating fever.

What torture.

What fucking bliss.

And they hadn’t even mated yet. Enki was being restrained for very good reason. As he carried her away from the airlock, he’d sensed the deep tiredness that permeated every fiber of her body. He’d observed the way her limbs relaxed and her breathing deepened as she curled into his chest, not hesitant, not afraid, simply trusting him.

But he knew she was hurting, because she unconsciously guarded a certain spot on her chest, and her face revealed moments of pain whenever he moved too quickly. Enki could not claim her when she was like this. Human bodies were fragile, and she had just been through the physical equivalent of an atmospheric storm.

No; he would give her time to rest and regenerate and become whole again before he claimed her. He would attend to her with single-minded focus, attending to her every need until she was ready to come to him.

Because when he eventually claimed her; when he finally sought release for his savage need, he suspected he was not going to be entirely gentle with her.

That was just his nature.

So for now, he waited, and suffered, and even his torture was a thing to be savored.

Enki watched as her face became peaceful in sleep. There was a small cut above her left eyebrow; one he’d obviously missed when he’d applied the fibrogel to her wounds. Her other cuts had healed, leaving faint white lines across her delicate skin. Would they fade over time, or would they always be there, a reminder of the brutal treatment she’d suffered at the hands of that mad Kordolian medic?

Pride surged through him. In the end, she’d killed Mirkel—that spineless fuck—because she was strong, finishing the job that Xalikian Kazharan had started when he’d infiltrated the Ristval V and helped divert it away from Earth.

A human. Who would have thought?

He watched the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, and it lulled him into a surreal half-trance as he absorbed every line, every contour, every stray wisp of hair, hardly believing she was his.

“Enki.” Lodan’s voice came across the comm. “What in Kaiin’s hells happen—”

“I completed my mission,” Enki said tersely, not pleased about being interrupted. “She is resting.”

“She is, huh? I take it you have everything under control?”

“I do.”

There was a slight pause. “Anything to report?”

“Daegan is dead,” he announced, feeling the same way he always did when he thought about a kill—empty. There should have been some sense of satisfaction that he’d fulfilled his blood right, but Enki had never experienced that feeling in his life. To him, kills were simply kills; the elimination of enemies under orders. Daegan might be the man who had sired him, but the general had thought Enki so inconsequential that he hadn’t hesitated to give him up to be experimented on by military scientists—knowing he would most probably die.

Zharek’s datacube had told Enki that much, and at the time, his mind had coldly filtered the information, registering it as just another fact in his colorless life. Thinking about the kill now, he felt much the same. The anger was gone. It was just another fact.

None of the others knew Daegan was his father, not even Tarak. The information in the datacube was for his eyes only.

“Trust you to get straight to the point.” Lodan’s words held a note of approval. “Well, that’s another crusty old Imperial bastard we don’t have to deal with anymore. Nythian knows?”

“He does. There is another matter.” Enki had almost forgotten about a certain issue, but it was important. “There are two bodies in stasis in the med-labs. Humans.”

Lodan swore. “They killed them?”

“No. They were already dead.”

“Ah. Shame. So Mirkel took the bodies for his research. I’ll tell the boss. We’ll take care of it. Anything else to report?”

“No.”

“I’ll let you know when we’re about to enter the Fleet Station.” The comm clicked off, and Enki whispered a soft command, inactivating his own comm. The tiny device that threaded directly into his auditory nerve went quiet, leaving Enki to be alone with his newfound obsession.

She slept soundly, her breathing slow and rhythmic, the lines of pain and fatigue melting from her face.

Pure. Innocent. Sublime. She was everything that he shouldn’t be allowed to have, but he was going to take her anyway, because he just couldn’t help himself.

At last, he understood how his mighty brothers—their formidable leader included—could have fallen so hard, so fast. This lust, this attraction, this need… it was a powerful, living, writhing thing that thrust its hooks into one’s soul and changed the very color of it.

He couldn’t explain it, but then again, not everything in this Universe had to have an explanation.

Enki reveled in the solitude, closing his eyes and floating on the divine sound of her as he slipped into the place in-between wakefulness and rest. For some reason, the Tharian didn’t bother him at all… it was almost as if it were being respectful of his bond with Layla.

Enki would always be… deficient in some areas. He was a warrior and a killer, and the violence that was written into every fiber of his being would never leave him. But when it came to Layla, there was a part of him that felt alive, and now he knew he had the capacity to be tender and gentle toward her.

But only her.

Before, he hadn’t been sure whether he possessed the same instincts as his brothers when it came to humans, but now he knew. How powerful it was to know that she was under his protection, that he alone could make her feel secure enough to sleep so soundly on a strange alien warship.

A new and unfamiliar feeling took hold, confusing him at first.

What… is this?

And then he realized.

For the first time in his entire life, he felt good.