Page 19 of Shattered Silence

They would experiment on her.

A naive, soft-skinned human.

She would be forced to endure the same torture Enki and his First Division brothers had endured for so many cycles.

And this clueless bastard just laughed.

Enki snapped.

Grabbing Relahek by his long hair, he slammed him against the wall, his claws extending until they dug into the noble’s scalp. Blood seeped through Relahek’s pale hair, painting it with streaks of black.

He pressed his blade against the noble’s cheek, just beneath his eye. “The only thing I can promise you is that if you tell me what I want to know right now, I won’t kill you.”

Make him suffer.

Taking advantage of the crack in Enki’s self-control, the Tharian emerged again, riding the wave of his anger. To Enki’s shock, his body moved, and this time it wasn’t his doing. The Tharian had seized control.

His knife wavered, cutting into Relahek’s cheek, making the lordling bleed.

“If you have to hurt me, can you please not go for the face?” The noble’s voice cracked as his features twisted in agony. “There are plenty of options below the neck… and uh, above the hips, if you would be so kind.”

If not for Enki’s hard-wired training, the Tharian would have made him slam the blade through Relahek’s eye socket, right up into his brain, but Enki fought hard, commanding it to stay.

Relahek had no idea how close he was to death right now.

Blood trickled over Enki’s bare fingers, and his nanites writhed to the surface, gleefully absorbing the bitter liquid. The scent of blood drove the Tharian wild, and it twisted and bucked and writhed, trying to regain control of Enki’s body.

And for a moment it succeeded, because for once, the Tharian’s anger was greater than Enki’s.

It was the fury of one who had lost everything, who lived only for revenge.

A vortex opened up inside him.

What the fuck is happening to me?

Relahek dropped, slithering out of Enki’s grasp, away from the edge of his blade. He held his hand up to his cheek, staring at Enki in outrage. “That’s going to leave a hell of a scar, assuming you’re going to let me live.”

Enki—the Tharian—caught him by his long, silken hair, violently yanking the noble’s head back. “Don’t move, Kordolian filth.” For the first time, it spoke through his mouth, his throat, his lips, distorting his voice into a deep echo.

Oh, no you don’t. How dare it assume control of his voice? For a heartbeat, Enki flailed inside his own body as panic set in. He was a supreme warrior, trained to push his enhanced body to the limits of control, always walking that fine line between cold purpose and savagery.

All of that was meaningless now.

He felt the Tharian’s triumph as it threw Relahek to the floor, as it stood over the noble, filled with the burning desire to kill.

First, I’ll cut his eyes out.

The Kordolian nobility had destroyed its people, and Relahek was the symbol of everything it despised.

A perfect target.

Enki watched in horror as his own arm reached out, grabbing Relahek by the neck, lifting him up. The noble choked, his face turning dark.

And then something strange happened.

The Tharian extended itself, flowing through his arm into Relahek’s body, and all of a sudden, he felt Relahek’s will.

What in Kaiin’s hells is this?

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