Page 40 of Shattered Silence

“You’ve seen it.” Slowly, he released her and turned away. “I promise you, I will never let it take over. But sometimes, I just need a little time to… tame it.”

“It made you do that?”

“No. The actions were my own. My consciousness was submerged, and your approach caught me off-guard, so my training kicked in.”

“Remind me not to ever sneak up on you when you’re asleep.” Layla shuddered as she realized just how close she’d come to getting killed. What kind of job required a man to have such hair-trigger reflexes? To kill without a second thought?

“That would never happen.” Enki began to walk, beckoning for Layla to follow as he traversed around the dead bodies on the floor. “Come. We must go. Keep your head down. If we encounter anybody, do not engage. Do not look them in the eye. Let me do all the talking.”

“You haven’t told me exactly how you plan to get us out of here.” Layla did not understand how one simply exited a massive Kordolian warship, but if anyone could do it, it was Enki.

The ultimate badass. The only person in the Universe who could get her off this ship. What were the fucking chances? Layla didn’t really believe in fate, but she was beginning to feel that perhaps a higher power had sent him to her.

“Layla, there is no time to explain. Just trust me on this.” He looked over his shoulder at her, and this time, his gaze was reassuringly amber. “I am going to get you out of here.”

Even though he’d just had her underneath him—had almost killed her—Layla believed him with all her heart.

And what happens once we escape?

Layla decided to worry about that after the fact. Hell; at this point, she would gladly settle for returning to Earth.

Suddenly, the old blue-white-and-green looked like paradise again, and after what she’d been through these last few weeks, there was nothing humans could throw at her that she couldn’t handle.

Nothing.

Chapter Fourteen

Enki slammed down the barriers inside his mind, using the technique he’d been taught by the Silent One. Fury and revulsion washed over him as he realized how close he’d come to…

Losing control.

It wasn’t the Tharian’s doing. It was just the fact that whenever Enki was caught unaware, his hard-wired training kicked in.

And he’d definitely been caught unaware.

What in Kaiin’s Hells just happened?

He’d been watching Layla put on her boots, his attention completely captured as he took in her graceful form. Even the too-big maintenance worker’s suit looked good on her lithe, long-limbed body, and he’d idly wondered how she would look in a fine Kordolian kashkan. As she bent over, her long black hair fell around her face, revealing the slender curve of her neck.

He caught a hint of something fragrant wafting from the dark curtain of her hair; a scent that reminded him of the poisonous but devastatingly beautiful night-flowers on Tharos.

With his senses swamped by her presence, the slightest of cracks began to appear in Enki’s self-control. That’s when he felt the passenger tug at his will, directing his attention to the dead humans suspended in the stasis tanks. For whatever reason, the Tharian was drawn to them.

The intensity of the Tharian’s fascination with the humans had taken him by surprise, and once again, Enki had found himself locked in a battle of wills as the Tharian tried to pull him toward the tanks. Enki had fought to regain control, and that’s when Layla had put her hand on his shoulder.

Triggering his instinctive reaction—to kill.

And everything had gone to shit.

When Enki finally regained his senses and snapped out his dark trance, Layla didn’t complain, even though her fear was obvious.

“You’re not that type,” she’d told him instead, appearing to dissect his truth in an instant.

How could she understand so much when she knew nothing about him, when she wasn’t even Kordolian?

How could she endure so much without complaint?

She didn’t complain about wearing the boots of a dead man or that her hair was matted in places with dried blood—hers or Mirkel’s, he couldn’t tell. She didn’t complain even though she was still in pain—he could tell by the way she favored her left side ever so slightly.

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