Page 118 of Fractured Souls

“Noa…” Alexis glanced at her in alarm. What was this strange pressure all of a sudden? “What are you doing?”

“Sorry. That wasn’t supposed to happen. This power… I forget sometimes. I’m not allowed to fight with it until I learn to control it better.” Her eyes went distant for a moment, and the pressure dissipated. She turned to Lodan. “She’s all in now, you know. You can’t have it all one way, Kordolian. We humans get crazy about our mates too. You really think he would be a threat to her? Your cold and harsh Kordolian ways aren’t the only way of dealing with things. She’s probably the best thing for him right now. One day, you might understand what I’m talking about.”

“Hm.” Lodan inclined his head, staring at Alexis for a while, his expression indecipherable.

She felt like she was being dissected under that intense golden gaze. In some ways, he was just like Nythian, holding deep and complicated secrets behind a tightly controlled exterior.

“Okay,” Lodan growled after what seemed like an eternity. “Nythian says you’re tough, and he wouldn’t want me to coddle you. He’ll kill me if I restrain you, and he’ll kill me if I let you go down there. Either way, I can’t win.” He let out an aggravated sigh. “Let’s go. Follow me closely. You, though...” He glanced at Noa. “You stay here. I’m not looking to piss off Ashrael right now, and I don’t want any more big psychic disruptions on my ship. No more dark matter disturbances, you hear?”

Noa shrugged. “I don’t have my boots on anyway.”

“You’d definitely need boots down there,” Lodan said dryly, and there was something faintly ridiculous about the way he said it.

A cry of pure fury reached them from below.

Nythian. How could they just stand here yapping when he was obviously in distress?

“Let’s go, Lodan,” she growled impatiently.

The pilot raised a pale eyebrow. “I’m starting to see why you’re a good match for my brother.” Then without further warning, he turned and jumped into the dark hole, and she assumed he must have landed somewhere, but he didn’t make a sound. His disembodied voice floated up through the darkness. “It’s a long drop. There’s a ladder on the side. Mind your step on the way down.”

“Show-off,” Alexis grumbled. She made her way to the edge of the hatch, where she found a series of curved grooves cut into the wall.

The aforementioned ladder… of sorts.

The Kordolian guards stepped back, watching her silently like twin silver statues, their strange eyes like gemstones in the dim light.

Sometimes, she forgot that she was surrounded by aliens.

“Hey.” Noa held something out to her. “You’ll probably be needing this.” It was a standard human-made guide-light.

“Thanks.” Alexis clipped it onto her belt, sharing a moment of solidarity with this human woman she barely knew but already felt so comfortable with.“See you in a bit.”

“Yeah. Remember, they’re survivors, just like us.”

Alexis barely had time to wonder what the hell Noa was talking about as she slipped down into the cold, silent darkness, following a lethal alien warrior who moved like a ghost in the shadows.

That didn’t bother her at all.

She just wanted to be with her mate.

Twenty-Nine

When he woke he was confused, disorientated, angry.

He didn’t know why.

He just was.

Nythian sat on the floor amidst mutilated bodies and the bitter stench of dried blood and Xargek venom and charred flesh.

This was his doing, all of it.

The nanites coursed through his body, repairing torn flesh and organs. The pain was excruciating, but he welcomed it, because it reminded him that he was alive.

The anger was still there, burning through him, too big for his body to contain. If he didn’t find release, it would consume him.

He vaguely remembered someone entering the chamber—a dark figure who moved swiftly and dangerously, who had uttered his name… but Nythian had been lost deep inside the red haze of his anger, so he’d attacked.

---