Page 72 of Shattered Silence

She knew exactly what he was capable of, but this was different.

His eyes were amber again, but he was hurting himself, lashing out at an unseen enemy; one he couldn’t fight with his bare hands.

She couldn’t stand it.

“Enki, it’s me, Layla.” She dropped to her knees in front of him, not daring to touch him, just hoping he would respond to the sound of her voice. “Don’t do this. Please.”

He paused, looked down at her, and blinked, his face a perfect mask of confusion. So unlike him. Impossibly, his silver skin started to knit together, the wounds across his chest disappearing right before her very eyes.

“Enki, snap the fuck out of it!” She said it a little more forcefully this time, desperately wanting her Kordolian back. “I need you.”

He froze.

Looked at her.

Blinked.

Slowly, tentatively, she reached out and closed her fingers over his hand, stroking his palm. Somehow, the black blood on his fingers had disappeared, but his claws were still extended. “You’re not going to hurt me,” she said confidently, bringing his hand toward her. “You wouldn’t do that.” Layla placed his hand on her chest, keeping perfectly still as five sharp, deadly points came to rest against her skin.

Something clicked.

A torrent of Kordolian curse-words dropped from Enki’s lips as he looked down at her, the fog clearing from his gaze. He spoke softly, but his anger and frustration were obvious.

Suddenly, his claws disappeared, retracting into his fingers. His touch turned into a caress. “I fell asleep,” he murmured. “This is the reason I don’t usually fucking sleep, but you made me drop my guard, Layla.”

The rumble in his voice sent a ripple of sheer relief down her spine. “You never sleep… because that’s the only time the Tharian can take over your body?”

“Yes. The only thing in the Universe that I can’t kill is inside my cursed head.” A look of perfect anguish crossed his face, and Layla went still as he curled his long fingers around hers.

Here was Enki, a fierce and deadly Kordolian warrior—a killer made of ice and stone—baring his soul to her. For a fraction of a second, his expression turned into something terrifyingly bleak. Seized by a strange mixture of emotions—love, melancholy, awe, acceptance—all Layla could do was look back at him until the shadow passed. In her heart of hearts, she knew that she was the only person in the entire Universe who would ever see this side of him. There was a world of pain stashed away inside him, but it was crystallized; never to be disturbed again, like flaws in a brilliant diamond.

And diamonds could cut through anything.

“I will find a way to destroy it,” he hissed, holding her hand tightly. “I’ll kill that cursed Tharian.”

There you are.

He was back in control, as fierce as ever. For a moment, Layla forgot to breathe. Her heart skipped a beat. This was the Enki she’d seen when they’d first encountered one another in those dark, horrible Kordolian labs, where death permeated every fucking inch of the place.

This side of Enki she embraced as much as the others. “You don’t need to kill anybody,” she said gently. “I spoke to her, you know.”

“You what?” Amber eyes narrowed.

“She has a name. Anuk. She wants out of your head so badly, Enki. I get that you’re afraid of losing control, but you have to work with her.”

His expression hardened. “Tharians and Kordolians are sworn enemies. I will not yield to a Tharian that lives only to see the destruction of my kind. Do you understand how dangerous that could be?” His jaw jutted out at a stubborn angle, and his snow-white brows drew together in a rather magnificent scowl.

Ah, so now she was seeing the obstinate side of him.

“Enki…” Layla sighed. “I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but… I know how dangerous it could be for another entity to take control of your body, but what exactly are you afraid of? Surely there’s someone in your mercenary crew who can restrain you if things get to that point, and even if Anuk wanted you dead, what’s she going to do? Force you to choke yourself to death? I don’t think that’s even possible. You’re pretty damn hard to kill.”

“Control is not something I can just relinquish. It is…”

“I know. You’re an uber-elite warrior, and precision and control are your lifeblood. The thought of letting someone else take over, even for a heartbeat, is probably as foreign and terrifying as me saying I want to take up one-legged crater-surfing on the moon. But you have a prisoner in your mind, and she doesn’t want to be there. Let her out, Enki.” It occurred to Layla that she was actually poking him in the chest, something she never would have dared to do before. “If she really wanted to make you suffer, she could have used your body to tear me apart while you were out of it, but she didn’t. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Enki went still, his expression unreadable, and for a moment Layla wondered if she’d gone too far with him, but she no longer cared, because she’d told him the truth. “She could have,” he said finally, reaching down and drawing her into his arms. “And it would have been the swiftest, most brutal way to hurt me… and it would have worked.” He stroked her hair, her shoulder, her arm. He kissed her forehead. “They were right about the human perspective.”

“What?”

---