Page 58 of Venomous Lust
“But you and your kind have cost me enough. I had hoped you’d be killed in the crash, but now, I get to enjoy watching you suffer.”
Knut’s promise hung in the air. His polished, well-groomed face stayed perfectly still as he watched Khal’s reaction, the perversion visible just beneath the faint veil of civilization. Knut was rotten, twisted and evil beyond repair.
“How did you find us?” Khal asked, his eyes darting to the Ilarian guards, clearly assessing his chances of success should he attack. Hazel watched, paralyzed with fear as Khal stepped in front of her and an Ilarian guard lifted his ionic gun higher, his finger on the trigger. They would shoot at the slightest doubt.
Knut stared at Khal, his grin wide and creepy. He was clearly amused by the situation. “What would one do without friends?” He chuckled at his own words, then snapped his long, elegant fingers of pearlescent white skin. The Ilarian guards moved to make way for a tall and broad figure with blue skin and deathly pale, soulless blue eyes, which settled on Khal and Hazel.
“Gerkin.” Khal spat the name. “You honor-less bastard. You put a tracer on our ship when we refueled. That’s how Knut found us.”
“Surprised, Commander Khal?” Gerkin chuckled dryly. “You were so focused on your mating, you didn’t even check.”
“You betrayed your people, the entire Ring, for what? To be that Avonie’s little errand boy?”
“I’ll show you just what an errand boy can do.” Gerkin lifted his hand and rubbed his wrist. It took a few moments for Hazel to realize the hand was not his own, but a mechanical prosthesis wrapped in a black glove. “If fact, I think I’ll kill you with my new hand. Don’t you like it?”
“It’s an improvement,” Khal answered, completely unafraid. “Maybe you’ll have better judgment on who you fight for, or who you’ll fight against next time.”
“Maybe itisan improvement. Maybe I’ll use my new hand to choke the life out of you, or maybe I’ll just use it on your pretty little bloodmate here.”
There was resentment and hatred in Gerkin’s voice, enough to chill Hazel to the core. Gerkin was never going to stop seeking vengeance. Only death would stop him.
“If you touch Hazel, I will make sure you die slowly and painfully.”
Khal’s promise hung in the air, his face a death mask. Gerkin had the good sense to look slightly unnerved, but he soon got over it as two more Eoks appeared, hard faced and their expressions closed off, dragging two figures behind them. Unlike Gerkin, they didn’t make eye contact with Khal, staring at the ground instead. They were not as callous as their commander. Hazel watched them, wondering just how bad they felt about betraying their nation. The muffled sound of a female’s cries of pain reached the group.
Then the Eoks dropped the two figures on the ground and Hazel immediately recognized her friends.
“Celaith! Zaxis!”
Celaith lifted eyes full of fear to Hazel, but didn’t speak. Her skin was almost completely white, streaked with faint purple lines. She was so weak, Hazel knew she didn’t have long if she didn’t receive proper medical care.
“I must admit, your resilience impresses me.” Knut spoke again, this time from the side. Hazel turned her head to see that he was talking to her and not to Khal. “You have been through more than any other human female, and still you didn’t break.” Those thin lips smacked together in a semblance of annoyance, but his purple eyes gleamed with amusement, his pupils shrinking and dilating as he spoke of the past. “You only broke when I took your sister away. She was such a delicate little thing, much more suited to that idiot than you. You would have been wasted on him.”
His purple eyes assessed her with an owner’s gaze, and the primal fear she’d always had of him returned—like it was just yesterday that she was eighteen and frightened, about to be sold. Fighting for her freedom with all the resolve she had.
“It was a long time ago. I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m not scared of you.”
It was a lie, but Hazel managed to spit the words out anyway. Knut’s pupils flashed thin and angry as Khal took a protective stance in front of her. But it was useless; there were just too many of them, too many weapons.
There was no way out.
Knut turned to the Ilarian guard closest to him. “Toss the Eok back into the Medina Forest.”
“And the human female, sir?” The Ilarian’s tone was detached, unaffected.
“It would be a waste to destroy a female with such spirit, and I didn’t get to where I am by being wasteful.” Knut turned his gaze back to Hazel, full of the promise of a retribution so horrible, she couldn’t even think about it. “The human comes unharmed. Bring the Duke’s son and the Arvak as well. She’s a rare commodity. I’ll find a buyer for her, one who likes his kittens with some claws. The Duke will pay me a nice ransom for his son as well.”
Gerkin’s eyes settled on Hazel and an evil grin stretched his mouth. His two Eok guards, still looking down, motioned for Zaxis to move. He obeyed, but not before spewing a slew of insults and threats, Celaith cradled against him, sending Hazel one last desperate look.
She was losing them. She had lost them already.
And she was going to lose Khal as well.
The Ilarian guards moved, closing in on Khal in a semi-circular formation, ionic guns raised, emotionless eyes full of calculation. They were either going to shoot him where he stood or force him to go back to that horrible place where trees shot up from the ground to melt the flesh from your bones.
A hand shot to her arm from behind, and Hazel spun around to see an Ilarian guard, looking down at her with his dead eyes. She hadn’t even heard him inch closer.
“Unhand her!” Khal shouted, his talons fully extended into deadly weapons, his eyes glittering bright blue with fury. His snarl inflated and Hazel knew violence was about to come. An Eok warrior might be fast and strong, but he couldn’t outrun an ionic detonation.
