Page 63 of Fractured Souls

“Naturally,” Tarak rose to his feet, offering Nythian a hand.

Nythian took it and got up off the floor, grunting as his body protested. He ached all over, but it was a good kind of ache. In a short amount of time, he would be back to normal, although a bit leaner, considering the massive amount of damage he’d sustained. When the nanites ran out of their own energy, they would start to cannibalize his tissue.

Nothing a plasma-protein injection couldn’t fix.

“A draw,” Tarak repeated, clapping him on the shoulder, eliciting a fresh wave of agony. “You’ve improved.”

None of the First Division had ever beaten Tarak, and it was so very rare to fight the General to a draw.

“Next time, I’ll destroy you,” he growled, feeling unsatisfied. The only acceptable outcome was victory.

“Try it.” Tarak smiled, a cold, vicious expression that caused Nythian to bare his fangs.

And so the cycle continued, both Kordolian males driven by deep instincts they didn’t completely understand.

The need to dominate. To protect. To find a mate and claim her; mind, body, soul.

This was how it should be. They’d heard whispers of such bondings in the old legends and tales of the Aikun; in secret snatches of Kordolian lore that been stolen from them by the Empire, their history erased as mothers grew old and their daughters—those rarest of creatures—were stolen away by the cruel nobility.

Turned into cruel creatures themselves.

Where had it all gone so fucking wrong?

Didn’t matter. Nythian was here. He’d survived. He was no longer one of their fucking underlings.

He’d won.

And he was going to claim his mate.

Seventeen

Alexis stood under the shower, warm water soothing her aching muscles as it cascaded over her back. As impossible as it seemed, this Kordolian warship had facilities that were as good as—if not even better—than anything she’d experienced on Earth.

Luxury encased in light-sucking obsidian walls. Ha.

After she’d hung out with Abbey for a while, Enki had taken her to Zharek’s labs for another thorough check-up—at Nythian’s insistence, apparently. The medic had reassured her that every organ in her body was functioning as it should, that her test results were absolutely normal, that the damage in her brain had all but repaired itself, and she shouldn’t have any further memory lapses or bouts of confusion.

And she wasn’t going to die, even if Anuk’s consciousness untangled from hers.

Zharek said it was biologically impossible, but a sliver of uncertainty still lingered in her mind.

She’d been too close to death, far too many times.

She looked down at her body, at her glistening brown skin, which was as smooth and unblemished as the day she’d been born. All her old scars had disappeared, even the faint white mark on her knee from when she’d fallen over as a child and cut herself on a rock. Her belly was flat and lean, her thighs full and toned. She was in peak physical condition, exactly as she’d been when she’d stepped onto the Malachi and said goodbye to Earth forever.

As if she’d been reborn.

A hollow ache spread through her chest. Before she’d left Earth, she’d considered taking a risk and making a quick visit to the island to see her mama, because there was no way she was going to leave without saying goodbye to the woman who had taken her in when she was twelve months old and raised her like her very own daughter.

But that would have put Mama in danger, so she’d settled for a quick and emotional farewell on the comm.

How painful, that she couldn’t even hug her.

Sweet Mama Virginie. The eccentric, kind-hearted woman who’d saved four children from going into the Federation’s labyrinthine foster program. Alexis, Tasha, Kylian, and Felix.

Alexis had no memory of her parents. Mama said her father was a space miner; he’d left for work six months after she was born, only to be killed in an asteroid mining accident. Six months later, her mother had succumbed to a deadly multiresistant prion disease.

Mama Virginie always said they were good people taken too early. Alexis still visited the holo-memorials of her parents every year, watching the faces of the parents who’d given her life, listening to their voices, their appearance so realistic she could almost touch them.

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