Chapter Eight
Kodyn
It had been days since the demise of Ordyt, and my relationship, or whatever it was, with Elise was rocky, to say the least. We hadn’t spoken for two days, even though she shared my bed. It was as though she hated me.
She would look for ways to make me jealous: to bother me or worry me.
I wondered if she knew the real danger she was putting herself in by being exposed to the Vithohn warriors, especially on nights when she did so without me around to protect her.
She wanted to get them on our side, I assumed. Did she want to flirt with them? Make it easier to get an alliance without me present? The idea infuriated me.
I watched the Vithohn around me treat her like a lofty prize, and it makes me wary: a wet feeling in the pit of my stomach that wouldn’t go away. All I wanted was to pick the willing Vithohn and be on our way: to check in with Nadirath about the alliance and take her away from this place.
Up until we arrived here, Elise had been a willing spirit to me: ready to give her love to me at a whispered request. But since Ordyt’s sentencing, she boiled hot and cold. And in some way, I supposed I deserved it.
Some days she went distant and others she would be at my side like a pet: curled up next to me and sharing her whispers. It made me sick wondering if she’d ever shared her secrets with others. I wanted them all.
I was nothing but distant to her, even though all I wanted to do was wrap her up in love.
She stayed in our lab: a place no real warrior would let her go if they weren't blinded by her beauty or her charms. Yet, there she was. Invading our space and searching through our files as easily as she was breathing. Our soldiers: warriors, hard and hoping for the chance to press against her.
I walked up the hall and watched as they fawned over her: watched a hand go on her shoulder, and long Vithohn fingers trace down her cheek. It was then I knew she was going to be trouble for me.
“What’s going on?” I said, approaching the pack and worming my way through the crowd to Elise.
“Did you know the humans have cyborgs?” one Vithohn, Taraxen, said with a fascinated emphasis. “Half human, half robotics. Can you imagine one in a fight? Better than a pure human, from the sounds of it.”
“But not nearly as physically appealing, right?” Elise teased: a touch of honey sweetening her flirtatious tone.
“I would be surprised,” Taraxen said with a cocked brow, looking her body over and pulling back from devouring her.
“That’s sort of like Ordyt though, isn’t it?” asked Endodran, another Vithohn warrior. “Something pretending to be one of your kind when it isn’t?”
Elise shot me a look: a fire that lit at the mention of our shared source of tensions over the last few days.
Thanks, Endodran.
“No,” Elise relented, breaking the hard stare she has cast at me. “The cyborgs don’t try to hurt us.”
“Come with me,” I said, breaking their conversation and looping my fingers through hers.
She pulled away, sending the other three Vithohn exploding into a fit of riled laughter and jeering. That’s how it worked with the Vithohn: once one got another going, they couldn’t stop. Their egos would flare up until the circle of them exploded into a wild competition. They would incite one another to see who could be the cruelest, the most violent, or the most bothersome.
“I don’t want to be rude,” Elise said, pulling her hand from mine and using it to fix the long bangs that fell in front of her face. An excuse to leave my touch, for certain.
“Come with me, now,” I said, growing more furious as the seconds went by.
“Ah, look, Kodyn doesn’t want to share,” Kirasoull, the third Vithohn said, laughing wildly.
“After what the humans did to Fiona, and this is how you repay her?” Endodran taunted with mock incredulity. “By plunging into another’s wet, hot center?”
“That’s enough,” I snapped, eyeing them all one after the other.
“I’ve had it with you and these humans,” Taraxen said, equally as infuriated with me. “All we’ve seen is you cater to them over and over.” He grabbed Elise’s arm, and my eyes went wide. “I’m ready to find out what all the fuss is about.”
Taraxen pulled Elise close to his body and pressed himself against her, hard and needy, fondling her body even as she tried to escape his grip.
I gritted my teeth at the gesture and watched as the other men lost their control, screaming and shouting vulgar curses for what he should do to her: how they should use her holes.
And then I’d had enough.
I inhaled sharply and screamed, “Get off of her!”
With a sharp jab of my elbow into Endodran, he quickly backed away, though still watched with a heightened energy from afar as I took on the other two Vithohn.
Kirasoull swung a punch at me and was quick with his shield as I tried to retaliate. They were animal now, with only one focus: Elise’s body. Their biological instincts had taken over. She brought out a sanity in them that they now craved: needed fulfilled.
I let out a fierce battle cry and used my tentacles to try and connect with Kirasoull. If I could just connect, I would be able to weaken him by draining his power for myself, but he kept putting up his shield.
Finally, I channeled the energy from my tentacle enough to let out a fist-sized ball of light and lightly pinged the heat against his shield, causing him to draw back out of shock. The energy wasn’t enough to hurt him, but it was enough to stun. He locked eyes with me, drawing back his shield. Then he ran.
“Elise, come here,” I ordered and watched as the petite woman I had been sharing a bed with struggled to get away from Taraxen: his massive arms keeping her firmly in place.
I launched toward him and put both tentacles on his arms, picking him up with all my strength and slamming him into the metal wall behind him over and over.
The Vithohn’s breath left him in a large huff as I cracked his frame against the wall. By the second pound, he had let Elise go, and she ran to me. I wanted to stop then, tried to even, but my anger was overwhelming.
“Kodyn, stop!” Elise pleaded and grabbed my arm, but I didn’t stop.
‘Is this what you wanted?’ I wanted to scream at her. But instead, I said nothing, continuing to crash his limp body into the wall before throwing him with force to the ground.
Kirasoull had long run off, but Endodran still stood at the end of the hall, stuck in a mode of maniacal laughter as he watched, with madness, our fight.
I grabbed Elise’s arm after that, dragging her down the hall with me and violently shoving past Kirasoull.
We made our way to my room, and I locked the door tightly behind me, furious with her.
“I don’t like that,” I said firmly, my voice shaking with rage.
Elise hoisted herself up on a wide dressed, kicking her legs and looking down at her fingernails like nothing had happened.
“We were just talking,” she said whimsically.
Then I knew she was trying to infuriate me.
“I don’t care,” I snapped, walking in front of her, lecturing her like a child. Except on my planet, if a child behaved the way she just did, he would get be sent into a smoke pit to die.
“You don’t talk to me for days, and then you go and put yourself in dangers for what? For spite?” I scoffed.
She set her hands on her tightly armored thigh and looked up at me, raising a perfectly arched, pale brow. “Do you know women at all?”
I blinked, taken aback.
“Of course it’s out of spite!” she announced, hand flung into the air. “What you did…” she trailed off.
I grabbed her shoulders and shook her: locking my eyes and sharing an intense gaze with the green irises that looked back at me. “What I did!” I shouted, “Was none of your business!”
“Fine!” she yelled back, trying to shrug out of my grasp. “Then I’ll stay out of your business just like you want me to and you can stay out of mine.”
My face neared hers, so close I could see my breath ghosting on her face and moving the strands of hair that fell across her eyes. “I brought you here.”
She raised both brows, arrogant.
“Then I’ll leave,” she said simply.
My stomach went sick. She was impossibly human sometimes.
I wanted to let her go: to abandon my plan for revenge. But, then I thought about her trying to wander her way back to Scarlet Heights, and it made me feel even warier.
“Elise,” I said, trying to calm myself down. “He was a Kilari,” I explained slowly. “I won’t say it again. Now stop this.”
She pulled back, trying to get my hands off her, and ended up slamming into the wall behind her. “What happened?” she fumed, narrowing her brows. “What aren’t you telling me? Why would… why did Fiona send Ordyt here, and if you were so fine with it then, why aren’t you fine with it now? Who was she with? What did you steal?”
It was clear that her questions had been building for days. I wasn’t sure how to answer most of them.
“Relax,” I said, releasing her finally. I brushed my hand down the side of her pale cheek. “I was fine with it then because I didn’t believe her.”
I hated admitting it, but it was the truth.
She swallowed. “But you believe her now?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I believe you.”
“But…” Elise blinked, and her face went red as her eyes searched mine. “I didn’t believe he was a Kilari.”
“But you believe they exist,” I said. “And that’s enough for me.”
There was a long silence between us then, and Elise drew her tongue across her bottom lip, thinking.
“So,” she finally said, her high pitch cutting the tension in the air. “What you’re saying is… this is actually your twisted way of telling me you trust me?”
I laughed. “Something like that.”
She stared at me, suddenly serious, and then leaned in and kissed me. Her tongue searched my mouth like she was digging for treasure, gliding across my teeth and then finally meeting my tongue. She flicked inside my mouth and then gently sucked at my tongue when it approached her lips.
I moaned at the action and couldn’t help but run my hands over her armored navel and up to her flat breasts. I pressed my hands into her chest and then slid them down her back, pulling her to the edge of the dresser so she could feel how hard she was making me.
“Mmm,” she breathed. Then, in a whisper that was both gratuitous and soft, she demanded, “I want you inside of me.”
My mouth met her again, never breaking contact, even as I undid her pants and slid them down her legs. I could feel her kick off her boots and get one pant leg completely off. With one leg still clad in armor, I pushed the loose leg to the side and pulled the front of my pants down.
Elise guided me into her and started bucking against me, but I slowed my pace. I opened my eyes and watched her as I thrust into her.
I wanted to let loose and pound her hard, but something inside me told me not to. So I watched her. I took in every breath and every moan of pleasure she sounded off: relished the way her green eyes rolled back as I brought my hand into the mix of our bodies.
The expression on her face intensified, and I felt myself getting close. I quickened my pace then, and the dresser shook from underneath us.
I looked over Elise’s small body and, even though she was still clothed, I could picture her small breasts jiggling as I moved deeper inside her. The thought of it sent me into waves of hot pleasure: groaning out and listening for the sounds that Elise had climaxed as well.
“So…” she breathed heavily, smiling at me. “Fight over?”