Page 89 of Taming Chaos

Time stopped. She lost herself in his kiss, and all the horrors surrounding them faded into insignificance.

Finally, he broke away, leaving Seph with the most delicious afterglow. If just a kiss from him could feel that damn good, then…

Later, girl. You’re getting ahead of yourself.

Torin’s soft cursing broke her out of her semi-trance. He grabbed her wrist, the one he’d bitten, and shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t have magical healing saliva like those mythical creatures from your Earth stories,” he said, his voice infused with gentle irony. Sounding more like his old self. “What are they called again? Va… vamp…”

“Vampires.”

“I overheard a passing comment where someone on Earth compared us to such beings.” He snorted, sounding a little offended. “We are nothing of the sort.”

“No, you definitely aren’t,” she murmured. You’re far more dangerous. Seph relaxed as Torin grabbed one of the pieces of red fabric that had bound her to the table and wrapped it around her wrist, tying it with just the right amount of pressure.

In the far corner, the one-eyed Bartharran captain was beginning to stir. The nak nak had gathered around him, and they sniffed him and tapped him with their paws. Seph looked around, taking in the bodies and the destruction.

“We have a long way to go yet, don’t we?” A stream of frantic thoughts ran through her mind. “What about Parrus, and Kvorae, and the intruders, and Relahek, and—”

Torin put a finger to her lips. “Shh,” he said softly. “All will be well. The Veronians went into hiding. They are cunning and resourceful. I’m sure they would have survived. The Plutharans have retreated from this vessel. I drove them off. That is why you see me like this. I ate a…” he shook his head, reconsidering his words. “I healed myself, but then they attacked again, and there was no time…” He gestured down to his naked, slowly filling out, slowly healing body. “As for the filthy noble, I could not give a shit. I suspect he is the reason the Plutharans attacked in the first place.” Crimson eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I think he called them in to retrieve him. If he’s still alive, we will hunt him down and find him eventually, and he will be made to pay.” He laughed. “I have screwed up my mission beyond all hope, and for you, I would do it over and over again. Don’t worry about a thing, Seph. First, let’s get home.”

“Home,” she whispered, the word sounding so fucking good as it dropped from her lips. “Home is with you.”

“Yes,” he agreed, stroking the nest of chaos that was her hair. “Yes it is.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Torin sat on the curved dome of the outpost’s roof, staring up at the Bartharran night sky. Unlike the star-sprinkled darkness that blanketed Earth, the night on Bartharra was tinged with red.

Finally, they’d reached the War Planet. After the Plutharan raiders exited the Skalreg Va, Torin had ordered the now one-eyed Captain Ludo to land on Bartharra, as far away from the conflict zones as possible. The two Veronians, who Torin had found in hiding in a passenger’s abandoned quarters, came with them, of course.

Thinking Torin was mad, and wanting to be rid of them as soon as possible, Ludo had punched through the atmosphere, landed in a wide, flat salt pan in the middle of nowhere—the landmark Torin had pointed out from the skies—and promptly blasted off again. They had watched the ungainly Skalreg Va struggle to take off, and when it was finally airborne, it flew away lopsided, due to all the damage it had sustained. As far as Torin knew, Ludo was taking the thing to the Rakthari Coast for repairs and refuelling, but he didn’t really care what the Bartharran did after that.

After trying to kill his mate, the pirate was lucky to escape with his life, and Torin had only spared the Bartharran because Seph had asked him to.

His mate never failed to surprise him.

As for Relahek Alerak, Torin had found no trace of the bastard. That confirmed his suspicions. The noble must have called the Plutharans to rescue him.

How? When? It didn’t matter. They would hunt him down and torture him to within a shred of his life. Idiot nobles with big fortunes to squander always left a trail. They would find him eventually.

Torin closed his eyes and tilted his face toward the heavens, inhaling the warm air, which smelled of sand and dust and salt. How good it felt to be on solid ground again, even if this place was hot and dusty and devoid of vegetation.

At first, Seph had been apprehensive about being dropped in the middle of nowhere, but her fear was quelled when Torin found the Kordolian outpost at the edge of the massive salt pan.

After he’d dusted all the sand away from the entrance, the door had opened automatically, recognizing his bio-sig. Inside, there were supplies, weapons, sleeping quarters, and most importantly, a communication pod.

He’d immediately put out a distress call to Silence. Unlike the Bartharrans’ crude technology, a Kordolian comm-pod could send a signal across galaxies.

And now he waited and watched the sky.

A series of heavy booms reached his ears, coming from far, far away, a distant reminder that this was a planet consumed by war.

A war prolonged by his actions.

But really, the tensions had already been there. The various Bartharran tribes were always at each other’s throats, and it had been that way for countless generations. The Kordolians had simply provided the spark, turning the kindling into a raging inferno.

That didn’t mean it was right, though. As Torin thought about his long, blood-soaked relationship with this planet and its people, it occurred to him that the Bartharrans probably just wanted to live in peace like any other species.

Like humans.

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