Page 61 of Decadence

He remembered his last glimpse of her. She’d been staring at him in a way that he hadn’t seen before.

Her lips had been slightly parted, revealing a glimpse of tantalizing pink softness. A subtle flush suffused her cheeks, and strands of golden hair escaped around her face, framing her delicate features.

There were still flecks of blood—his blood—on her cheeks.

Her gaze had been wide and vulnerable, demanding his absolute attention as she conveyed the most complicated mixture of emotions through her eyes.

Fear, fascination, disbelief.

Desire.

Worry. For him.

The soft, silent onslaught in her eyes had driven his inner protector wild.

He was weak right now, and he couldn’t stand it. If there was any reason for him to accept Zharek’s unnatural, arcane modifications, it would be for her.

Not for the Empire, or for himself, but for her.

So he could give himself to her in the way that she deserved.

So he could protect her, always.

The frantic beating of his phantom heart became a slow, sensual throb that spread down into his cock.

On a tide of drugs and pain and madness, Ikriss felt himself slipping away…

“Ahem. Snap the fuck out of it, Commander. You are not to claim her until after the surgery,” Zharek said hastily, a note of panic entering his voice. “If you want to end up whole and as monstrously fit and battle-ready as you were before this little incident, you will listen to me. I might be a genius, but I cannot work miracles all the time, and believe me, this procedure will test me. It’s not every rotation that I bring someone back from the dead.”

Ikriss searched for the icy control he’d worked so hard to develop over the revolutions.

It usually came so easily to him.

But now he finally understood the insanity Tarak and the others had spoken of. If he caught a glimpse of her now, not even the entire First Division could keep him from her.

But first things first.

Ikriss took a deep breath and drove all thoughts of her from his soul.

Later.

There would be time for this later.

“Hurry up and get me out of this cursed tank,” he growled. “I have work to do.”

He needed information.

He needed to have words with Tarak.

There were problems on Earth that had to be dealt with. There was an abduction ring that had somehow escaped their surveillance. There were rumblings of Kordolian dissent coming from the far reaches of the Universe.

There were riots outside Sienna’s little empire

The naive humans on Earth were being whipped up into a fearful frenzy by unknown agitators, and Ikriss could not let such impertinence play out under his watch, especially when it was happening right on Sienna’s doorstep.

It was all connected somehow.

He would get to the bottom of it all.

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