Rykal stalked down the narrow corridor, cursing the humans for putting him in this situation. That awful drink they called beer… sweet Goddess, he’d only had a mouthful, but it had flooded his system like the most toxic of poisons, making him angry and horny and impulsive and euphoric, all at once.

If not for Leo’s timely intervention, he probably would have torn that fucking admiral’s neck out. The man had once tried to lay his hands on Rykal’s mate! Unforgivable. Rykal was still getting accustomed to Earth and human culture, and sometimes what Arin asked of him seemed damn near impossible.

Control, for example. He was a simple man. He knew what he wanted, he knew what he liked, and being Kordolian, he took. He liked fucking. He liked fighting. Why should he ask permission from anyone to do those things? It was so difficult to get his head around all these human restrictions and protocols, but for her sake, he made the effort, even if it sometimes drove him to near-madness.

Back there, sitting beside Arin, he’d nearly had to punch himself in the face to ensure he didn’t do anything too extreme, especially in front of the mother. Her body, her scent, her warmth, her utterly addictive, madness-inducing presence…

Patience. You will claim what is yours.

He always did.

He couldn’t wait until he had Arin alone in his arms.

Later. She would taste the full force of his lust. Was she even aware of her effect on him? How she brought him to his knees, how she made him so hungry with desire he could barely think… each and every time.

It had taken all of his self-control to keep a straight face back there. To try and distract himself, he’d taken her hand between his, running his fingers over her silken skin, tracing the contours and planes and knots he knew so well; the small scar above her left thumb, the irregularity in her fifth finger—it had once been broken during training, she’d told him—the weapon-calluses over her palms and the pads of her fingers.

Every single little thing about her drove him wild.

Kaiin’s hells! His erection had been—was still—damn painful. At one point he’d bitten his lower lip to try and distract himself from his lust. Bitter, nanite-infused blood had filled his mouth, and he swore the torn skin had taken a little longer than usual to heal.

Maybe this fucking alcohol had also stunned his black nanites. Zyara had warned them about this poison, but Rykal hadn’t thought such a small amount would do him any harm.

He shook his head, discarding any inkling of doubt. Even without his impenetrable exo-armor, there was nothing much these humans could do to harm him.

That’s why he felt perfectly comfortable stalking after the two dark-suited men who had disappeared down this shadowy corridor. He didn’t have his swords or his guns, but a First Division warrior was never truly weaponless.

He had his hands.

He had his claws.

At the far end of the corridor, a bright green holo-sign depicted tiny images of a man and a woman. The figures swayed in time to the music, which had become driving and intense. The beat was surprisingly infectious.

On either side of the sign were glass doorways. The holo-man pointed to his left, and the holo-woman pointed to her right.

Rykal understood. These were the images humans used to indicate that toileting facilities were nearby.

“Please… please! I’ll give you anything you want. Is it credits? I’ll pay you whatever you ask! Y-you can’t kill me!” A terrified voice echoed down the corridor.

Rykal followed his ears and turned to the left. Muted by the glass door, the victim’s voice was extremely faint, but Recall’s hearing was far superior to that of a human, and he’d heard everything. The door slid open, admitting him into the brightly lit room. Even though the light was artificial and couldn’t burn him like sunlight, he blinked, his sensitive eyes adjusting to the glare.

Someone was in the process of getting killed in here. He recognized the voice; he knew exactly who the victim was.

Of course, he had heard and seen everything from his vantage point back there in the bar. Rykal knew killing intent when he came across it, and he’d known those two men were out for blood the moment he’d set eyes upon them. Although they’d whispered to one another in a language he hadn’t understood, snippets of their conversation had confirmed his suspicions. It was the tone of voice, rather than the content.

“Are you people crazy? You’ve been tracked and serv’d. Your DNA’s all over the place. This isn’t the twenty-first century. If you kill me, you’ll be picked up as soon as you walk out that door.”

Rykal walked forward on silent feet and saw his reflection in a wall-length mirror.

The killers saw it too. Their heads whipped towards him, eyes going wide. Both of them cursed. One of the dark-suited men moved towards him, putting a gloved finger to his lips. Quiet. In his other hand was a bolt-gun. “I’ll shoot you if you move,” he said in Universal.

Rykal raised his eyebrows and spread his palms wide. He shrugged. What are you going to do?

Kneeling on the floor in front of him was that yellow-haired idiot—the admiral. A man stood behind him with a gun pressed to the back of his head, assuming the executioner’s position. “What do we care if we’re caught? After this, we’re finished.”

Rykal stared at the attackers. They wore the hollow expressions of men who had reached the point of no return. “You’re seeking your blood-right,” he remarked.

“What? Shut the fuck up, alien. Get down on your knees and face the wall!” The human’s gun-hand trembled.

“Revenge,” Rykal continued, ignoring the human’s threats. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? The feeling is burning an empty hole through your soul right now. I understand the feeling all too well.”

“What the fuck would you know, alien? Get down!” Sweat made the human’s pale face glisten. Rykal could hear his frantic, pounding heartbeat.

Rykal shook his head, a bitter smile ghosting across his lips.

He didn’t kneel for any human… except one.

“We’re not playing, Kordolian!” The man stepped forward. He shouted at his companion in some strange human language. They exchanged rapid-fire words, their voices growing louder and more heated.

Amateurs. They’re nervous. He’d seen their type before. Almost everyone in the Universe wanted to take revenge against Kordolians, and Rykal had been on the receiving end of plenty of that sort of hatred in his time.

The hateful, burning stares of the people he’d oppressed had never bothered him until recently.

Until he’d met Arin. Now, this kind of stuff tended to get under his skin.

“Argh!” Too terrified to move, the admiral stared at Rykal’s reflection in the mirror. “Are you nuts, alien? You’re going to get us both killed! Do as he says, for fuck’s sake.”

Rykal stared back, meeting the admiral’s wide, bloodshot eyes through the mirror. Why should he do anything for this man? This was the human who had tried to harm his mate, who had tried to rape her.

Unforgivable.

He should just let these revenge-seeking humans get on with it and blow Davis’s brains out. Better yet, he should join in; he could show them a hundred different ways to administer a slow and painful death.

The old Rykal would have. The soldier in him was indifferent to Davis’s plight. He didn’t care why these nervous, fidgety humans wanted revenge badly enough that they would try and kill the man in a public toileting-room. Admiral so-and-so was a big-shot, and soldiers—especially those at the top—tended to collect enemies.

He’d known what was going to happen as soon as he’d seen the two dark-suited humans follow Davis down the corridor.

So why had he gone after them? Why not just let natural justice take its course?

Maybe that cursed poison-drink had impaired his judgment, because somehow, he’d suddenly been spiked with a certain feeling of… responsibility.

Rykal couldn’t let this happen on Leo’s turf. After all, he liked the man. But more importantly, he couldn’t disappoint Arin. He knew his mate, and no matter what this honorless admiral had done to her, she wouldn’t want him to die.

Arin valued life. In that guileless, relentless way of hers, she’d tried to make him understand human values. Rykal wasn’t going to turn into a pure soul overnight, but he wanted to become more human-like… for Arin.

Only for her.

He summoned his exo-armor, millions of tiny nanites emerging from his bloodstream to form an impenetrable second-skin beneath the folds of his kashkan. He didn’t construct his helm or his gloves. That would only alert the humans to what he was about to do.

Davis’s face had turned a spectacular shade of pink. “Do not kill me. You will be executed on the spot. My personal security monitor has been activa—”

Three jittery humans were playing out some unresolved blood-feud, and someone was about to get killed.

Ugh. How troublesome.

“Don’t move, Kordo—”

Rykal moved. The human raised his gun and fired, but Rykal was already there, placing his hand over the barrel of the weapon, pushing it aside. A blast of energy seared through the uncovered flesh of his hand, followed by a jolt of pure agony. Rykal grunted and wrenched the crude weapon out of the human’s grasp, kicking the man in his stomach with such force that he flew across the room and shattered the mirror.

Blam! The other gun went off, but Rykal was already there, putting his body between the blast and Admiral Davis.

“Oof!” he gasped, ignoring the pain that blossomed in his chest. He lurched forward and savagely head-butted the assailant before the man could squeeze off another shot.

The attacker collapsed to the floor.

Rykal groaned in pain. Kaiin’s hells, he’d forgotten how punishing those stupid human bolt-guns could be.

“Y-you…” Davis wobbled as he rose to his feet, trying to regain his composure.

Frantic footsteps alerted Rykal to the presence of company. The music had become painfully loud, the driving bass beats almost too much for his sensitive ears. Racked with pain and still affected by that cursed alcohol, he stumbled towards the admiral and grabbed the man by the neck.

“Get off me!” The man’s panic was fueled by the fear of death.

Rykal pushed Davis to the floor. The admiral landed on his back, and Rykal pressed his foot against the man’s chest.

Battle-lust raged in his veins. His instincts screamed at him to kill the man.

Rykal closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. With his good hand—the one that hadn’t nearly been severed by the close-range blast of a bolt-gun—he grabbed Davis by the hair and yanked the man’s head back. His claws were out. They dug into the human’s scalp. “I may have saved your life, but don’t think I did it for your sake. Listen carefully now, human. You will not trouble my mate again. If you speak to her, if you look at her, if you even so much as think about her, I will tear your fucking heart out. Do you understand?”

Davis nodded. Fear swirled in his eyes. Rykal’s message had hit home.

“Rykal!” Arin, Alison, and Leo appeared behind him, accompanied by a trio of armed soldier-types. “What are you—”

They stared at Davis and Rykal in shock. The two assailants were slumped on the floor, unconscious. Rykal had made a very special effort not to kill them, because the admiral would have preferred them dead.

Besides, he had no quarrel with these revenge-seeking humans. He would leave them to be processed in that bizarre Earth-justice system of theirs.

“Don’t kill hi—”

Rykal looked down and realized how incriminating his current stance was. Slowly, he stepped off Davis, releasing his hair. The admiral gasped in relief and collapsed onto the polished floor.

“Uh…” Rykal raised his arm and offered a sheepish wave, feeling slightly embarrassed. By Kordolian standards, his behavior was perfectly acceptable, but this was Earth, and he’d wanted to make a good impression on Arin’s mother and her mate, and now…

He met Arin’s gaze, and her perfect blue eyes grew wide with concern. “Rykal, your hand!”

“My…” Oh.

He’d waved at them with his injured hand. Two of his fingers—the fourth and fifth—had been blasted clean off, and his virulent black nanites were in the process of regenerating them from their stumps, although they were healing a little more slowly than usual.

“I’ll mend.” He was acutely aware of the fact that Alison and Leo were staring at him as if he’d grown another head. “I heal better than most,” he shrugged.

Then Arin was there by his side, gently taking his injured arm into her hands. “You should be more careful,” she scolded, inspecting the damage with a sympathetic hiss. “I know you’re mostly indestructible, but damn, Rykal. That has got to hurt.”

“Only one thing can make me feel better right now,” he whispered, his cock becoming hard all over again as her intoxicating scent invaded his senses. It was a heady mixture of woody spice and the freshness of the ocean and her delicious feminine musk. Rykal instantly became drunk on it. The pounding, primal music was driving him crazy. The bright lights were driving him crazy.

She was driving him crazy, just like she always did.

He curled his intact arm around her waist. Beside him, the admiral staggered to his feet, staring at Rykal in shock. As his eyes drifted towards Arin, Rykal glared at him.

Don’t even look at her, bastard!

Davis followed his instructions to the letter, making a careful effort to avoid laying his eyes on Arin.

Good. Humans could learn. Sometimes, things just had to be explained in a way that was easy for them to understand.

“You, uh, run into a little trouble there, my friend?” Leo was staring at the smashed mirror in dismay. He nodded discreetly at his security men, who swiftly scooped up the discarded bolt-guns on the floor and attended to the unconscious humans.

“Assassination attempt,” Davis said gruffly, attempting to kick one of his assailants. He froze as Rykal shot him another death-glare. “Crazy bastards. I’ve never seen them before in my life. How did they get past your security, Leo?”

“Nova Terra ain’t a fortress, Sir. We can’t police everyone who comes and goes, and…” Leo folded his arms, frowning. “Well, you’ve authorized a lot of these so-called ‘defensive’ bot-attacks in recent times. You kill enough people, there’s guaranteed to be some blowback. You’re just lucky we had a Kordolian in the house tonight.”

“You’ve received the briefings, but I take it this is the first time you’ve encountered a Kordolian face-to-face.” Alison raised an eyebrow. The admiral nodded weakly. Arin’s mother regarded Rykal with an inscrutable expression. “We’ll take it from here. Thank you for protecting our asset, soldier. I’m sorry the evening didn’t go quite as planned, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other in future.”

Rykal dipped his head in acknowledgement, drawing strength from Arin’s presence as the afterglow of bloodlust drained away. The lights, the music, the pain, the poison in his veins, his mate’s undeniable presence; all these things combined to induce a feverish kind of madness in him.

“Let’s go home,” Arin whispered, sensing his mood.

“Yes,” he growled. Injured hand or not, he would take her into his arms and run through the night, moving faster than any of their primitive bot-cars until they reached the place where they had booked a private room.

But first…

“Just bear with me for one of your Earth minutes,” he murmured. He gently withdrew his arm. “General Varga… Alison. I need to speak with you. In private.”

“Of course.” She graciously motioned towards the door.

Arin glanced at him in surprise.

“Be right back,” he murmured, trying to regain some semblance of self-control. This was important business. He’d spent a lot of time secretly researching human customs, and he wanted to get this right.

He just hoped that the mother, who was as strong-minded and willful as her daughter, would be in agreement with his plan. Oh, he was going ahead with it whether she liked it or not, but he would at least make an effort to win her over, because wasn’t life just a little bit different when they all got along?