Page 18 of A Darkside Interlude

“Tend?” Brown eyes fluttered in alarm.

“Tend,” he agreed. Why did it bother Iskar that the idea of him tending to her seemed to cause such trepidation?

“Why would you help me? I stole from you.”

The truth was, Iskar hadn’t thought about it all that much. It went against his nature to personally involve himself in the affairs of others, but here he was, holding a human female in his arms as if she were his personal property.

Victory had come easily, but it felt empty. He took no pleasure in her capitulation, and as he understood more about her existence, a strange sense of guilt rose inside him.

In this world, she was powerless. She stole to survive, and he had run her down like a common enemy. Physically, she was no match for him, and the chase had left her injured.

Iskar couldn’t just leave her like this. He would use the remainder of his incredibly rare and expensive nanite-impregnated fibrogel to heal her feet. It was the least he could do.

“Human, do not ask complicated questions. I have pledged my assistance. Just accept it for what it is.” He eyed the entrance to her dwelling with suspicion. “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?”

She slipped her fingers into the pouch at her waist and retrieved a ring of small dangling metal instruments. “What are you, a vampire? You’re going to have to let me down so I can unlock the bolts.”

“Your front door does not have voice activation or identification sensors?”

“What are those?” she asked sarcastically, slinging the metal ring around her index finger. “We’re in the Dust Alleys. These are called keys. Now if you’re going to enter my house, can you please lose the hood and the face-scarf?”

Iskar tipped his head in acquiescence as her curious stare burned into him. “What, have you never seen a Kordolian before?”

“Actually, you’re my first.” Red lips parted, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of her pink tongue.

Was that intentional, or just a slip of the tongue?

Fuck. His cock strained.

There she was again, the temptress. Irrepressible, despite her fear of him.

This is the point at which Iskar knew he should just take her inside, hand her the fibrogel tube with instructions, and leave, but he couldn’t.

“Let’s go in,” said the thief, unaware that she was inviting the High Commander of the Kordolian forces on Earth into her den. Would she recognize him without the disguise? Did Iskar even care?

As if reading his thoughts, Torin raised him on the comm. “You lost, Commander? I thought you would have caught your thief by now.”

“There was a slight… delay,” he muttered in Kordolian. “I am attending to some unfinished business.” No way in Kaiin’s hells would he admit to Torin that he’d been shot by a human. How embarrassing. In his haste to catch the female, he’d been sloppy. It had been a little too long since he’d been out in the field like this.

“Nothing you can’t handle, I presume.”

“Indeed.” His voice became a low rumble as he stared at the intriguing creature in his arms.

She stirred his basest desires in the most unexpected of ways, eroding his famous self-control. Iskar was a principled man, a disciplined man, who never let his own needs interfere with duty, but now he was caught in a bind.

The human aroused his lust.

And in this empty dustbowl of a street, in this lawless part of town, on this primitive backwater of a planet, who the hell was to stop him from doing as he pleased?

Chapter Nine

“Artoo, vamosh!”

She’d yelled the warning as they reached the entrance to her home, knowing her little brother would still be awake.

Arturo would understand what she meant.

Vamosh meant disappear in Eskulin. Ever since Arturo was small, Mari would tell him to vamosh whenever they had unexpected guests. People around these parts talked. It was better if they forgot he even existed, because she never, ever wanted her kid brother to come onto the Syndicate’s radar.

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