Page 39 of Decadence

Now his cock was straining against his pants. His fangs were bared, his nostrils flaring, his entire body tensing in anticipation and need.

Only the effect of the relaxant in his system, Zylerin, stopped him from surrendering to the madness right then and there.

“Well, maybe I appreciate that, especially coming from someone like you.” As if sensing his arousal, Sienna leaned forward, her lips curving into a slightly devious smile. “But right now, I have work to do. There’s only so long folks can drink coffee before they start wanting their eggs, and the dough has risen, and it needs to be baked. If you plan on guarding me, or whatever it is you want to do, then you need to look the part, at least. Put those freaky glasses back on, and keep your hair over your ears, and don’t you dare scare my staff.” She turned and stalked toward the door. “Let’s go.”

A faint growl erupted from Ikriss’s throat as he turned and followed her, unable to keep his gaze from the alluring curve of her ass.

Well, it was a start.

She’d accepted him into her domain, and now he needed to gain her trust.

Soon.

She would be his.

And he would get to the bottom of why she’d been taken from Earth in the first place.

He would chase away all her demons; her tormentors.

Her previous suitors.

Any male who looked at her with even the slightest glimmer of intent…

He would destroy them all.

As Ikriss made to retrieve his holographic disguise glasses from his trouser pocket, it occurred to him that his claws were out.

Slowly, excruciatingly, gritting his teeth, he retracted his claws and found the strange metal frames, which he placed back across the bridge of his nose.

And just like that, he appeared almost human again. He followed Sienna into her small, curious kitchen-space, where strange, powerful aromas—some pleasing and some sickening—assaulted him from all sides.

And then he felt it.

Something strange.

A whisper of killing intent.

Then he saw it.

A slight aberration in the fabric of time-and-space; a distortion of the lines, a blurring of the air, a ghost walking through the light.

His battle-senses roared into high gear.

Death seeped through the cracks.

“Sienna,” he rasped. His sixth-sense took over, his hunter’s instincts propelling him forward before he even realized.

She spun around, her grey-green eyes widening, on the cusp of a scream…

And then one of Ikriss’s arms was around her, throwing her to the floor as he cushioned her fall with his other arm, at the same time dodging the attack that came from behind.

A blade whizzed past his head, missing so narrowly it sheared off a piece of his pale hair. He rolled to the side with Sienna roughly cradled in his arms, and to her credit, she was able to restrain the scream, her breaths coming in short, sharp gasps as he pushed her beneath the cover of a long metal work table.

Ikriss left her there, rolling out from beneath the table and pulling a plasma gun from where it was holstered beneath his shirt. He fired into thin air, acting on instinct alone.

He was rewarded with a grunt of pain. The blurring air solidified into an indistinct figure.

Ikriss didn’t waste any time trying to see who—or what— it was. He doubled up on his attack with a torrent of plasma fire. Moving almost as fast as light, the mysterious figure dodged, and a blast of plasma promptly exploded against the coarse brown wall on the opposite side of the room, turning the crude stone bricks molten red.

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