Page 41 of Decadence

“Ikriss!” someone hissed.

Sienna!

Something slid across the floor. A tiny but very sharp looking knife.

Hers?

It was the little blade he’d found her clutching before.

Thank you, my cherished one.

Ikriss dropped to a crouch and picked up the blade. In a single fluid motion, he rose up through the mess and chaos and plunged the tiny knife somewhere—he didn’t quite know where—into the Silent One’s body.

He was rewarded with a grunt of pain and a gush of warm blood.

Hands went around his neck.

He plunged the knife deeper, twisting harder and harder.

But the Silent One was a tough bastard, and he just kept tightening his grip around Ikriss’s neck, cutting off his air.

His vision started to dim. Once again, he became aware of the terrible pain in his side.

“Get him, Ikriss.” And then the voice of a goddess floated toward him, piercing through the haze of his agony and rage. “Kill him.”

Giving him unnatural strength, yet again.

I must protect her.

The urge to protect his mate was so strong it almost drove him insane.

Ikriss did the only thing he could. He brought his head forward with great force, closing his eyes as his forehead connected with the hard surface of the Silent One’s white death-mask, and there was a satisfying crack as the cursed thing shattered into pieces.

He’d simply headbutted the fucker.

Got you, bastard.

At last, the assassin’s grip started to weaken…

The Silent One fell.

And so did Ikriss, dropping to his knees as the gush of blood from his chest turned into a torrent, and he was dimly aware of Sienna shouting at him in the background, but everything was a blur; a haze, a dream… fading into blissful darkness.

Chapter Eleven

“Ikriss!” Sienna screamed as she saw the powerful Kordolian fall to his knees, black blood spilling from the left side of his chest. His enemy had fallen too, and Sienna didn’t know if the creepy masked alien—whatever that thing was—was even alive, and she couldn’t care less.

Ikriss was hurt.

He could even be dying.

She was dimly aware that somewhere in the background, her staff were frantic and terrified, approaching her through the blood-and-turmeric-mess; through the destruction and chaos, but she couldn’t focus on them right now.

Ikriss was hurt.

He’d saved her life, and he was hurt.

She crawled out from under the workbench and half-ran, half-stumbled to his side, dropping to her knees and pressing her hands into his bleeding torso. She tried to apply pressure, leaning into the wound with her palms, but it was no good.

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