Page 137 of Decadence

Did he not understand a fucking thing?

Virchal laughed. “You’ve gone soft, Commander. All this time spent amongst humans has made you weak.”

“Oh?” Ikriss simply flicked his blade up and brought it down—into Virchal’s left eyeball. The warden screamed as black blood ran down his cheek.

Ikriss watched him dispassionately as he sheathed his sword. You think I am so indisciplined that your pathetic taunts will earn you an easy death? “Now you have half-sight. You will never fly again. Instead, you will work for me.”

Virchal put a hand to his bleeding eye and groaned in dismay.

Ikriss closed his eyes and fought to regain control, searching for the cold void of nothingness that had saved him so many times before.

He remembered sitting on the bottom of Earth’s ocean floor, surrounded by silence and darkness as tiny fish darted around him.

He wanted to burn everything to the fucking ground—the Syndicate, Virchal, the cursed human mercs…

This Praetorian…

And then Kail was beside him, the embodiment of the cold void itself. “Easy, brother. He’s not going anywhere. Look up there.”

The big warrior extended his arm, plasma gun pointed at something in the sky.

Ikriss caught a glimpse of a small human-made drone. A tiny red light blinked insolently.

Kail fired.

The drone disintegrated.

Virchal half-wheezed, half-chuckled. “N-now they can see you for what you truly are. Fucking pretenders.”

“Shut up.” Ikriss kicked him in the ribs. The noble’s laughter turned to howls of pain.

“Come, Ikriss.” There was a note of deep understanding in Kail’s voice. “We have them now. The females are safe. The one you specifically sought… this Eva. She is alive, but she has sustained plasma burns to her face and arms. Zyara is treating her in the Mhyndin. They will take her to our base near Teluria. You need to go to your mate and make her understand.”

“She is hurt?” Ikriss looked up sharply. “How badly?”

“She will survive, but she is in great pain. She will need almost constant sedation. I do not know if she will achieve full recovery. Zyara will brief us when she is stabilized.”

Ikriss cursed viciously in Aikun. He had sworn to keep Sienna’s people safe, and now this had happened.

“She is alive, and she is with us,” Kail reminded him. “Your mate will be relieved to know that she is not in the hands of our enemies. For that alone, our mission was a success.”

Ikriss shook his head, trying to clear the fog of rage that had enveloped him. He’d always been known as a cool-headed, rational commander, even in the most fraught situations, so why did he now have this intense urge to slowly and painfully kill every single creature that had played a role in the capture and torture of his mate?

It wasn’t logical.

It wasn’t like him.

Kail studied Ikriss, featureless and completely unreadable behind his dark helm. “I know the feeling,” he said dryly. “It’s the mating fever, brother. It takes a while for it to abate, and even then, it will never truly leave you. I find it helpful to think of my mate. A paradox for sure, but it is for their sake that we must harness our savage impulses. Do not fight it. Become it. It is part of you now.” The temanjin chuckled softly. “And you will never be the same again.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“There’s a Special Alert.” Cleo frowned as she glanced down at her link. “We’re supposed to turn our Network Broadcast to the Fed Channel in two minutes.”

“When have Federation Broadcasts ever told us anything that has actually made our lives better?” Emmett ran a hand through his damp hair. After much convincing, the Kordolians had actually allowed him to go home and shower and change into a new set of clothes. “It’s probably just one of the President’s boring-ass speeches on how we all need to work harder and sacrifice a little more for the survival of the human race, you know, because we’re under constant threat of invasion, and if we pay more tax to the Federation that’s somehow going to make it all go away…” He glanced surreptitiously toward the front windows, where two heavily armed Kordolian guards stood watch like a pair of lethal alien gargoyles.

While their Kordolian guards busied themselves with security and other alien matters, and Alexis went off to do something or other at the perimeter, they were left with nothing much to do but wait. That’s why they were sitting at one of the tables in the main dining area, trying to make a plan for the possible re-opening of the Whisk and Pin. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking at this point, but they all needed something to keep themselves occupied—and sane.

Emmett and Cleo still got these weird looks on their faces from time to time; wide-eyed, shellshocked, as if they weren’t sure whether they were dreaming or not.

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