Page 90 of Decadence

How morbid. How gruesome.

How utterly beautiful and incredible.

“Indeed. Watch carefully now, Sienna. There is probably nobody else in the Universe who can resurrect a man from a Silent One’s death-curse.”

It struck her that this strange, intimidating alien, who could probably annihilate Earth as an afterthought, cared deeply about his friend.

So much so that he’d been quietly keeping an eye on things the whole time.

Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at the General.

She got the feeling that around this man, nothing happened by coincidence, ever.

Accidentally bumped into Ikriss in the corridor, my ass.

This whole thing with the Kordolian Mating Fever… she didn’t really understand it, but she knew that aside from making Ikriss incredibly horny and intense, it was somehow supposed to make him heal faster.

And every time they’d met, the fever seemed worse.

Torturing him… and her.

To what end?

This?

It was almost as if the whole thing had been orchestrated to happen in a certain way. She felt like a tiny piece on a chessboard.

Not that she cared. If this was all part of their plan to save Ikriss’s life, then she would gladly go along with it again and again.

She stared up at Ikriss’s face, which was tilted in her direction. His eyes were closed, and his expression was eerily serene. Wisps of pale hair floated around his face, forming an ethereal halo. Weirdly, she was struck by how long his eyelashes were.

Impossible man. Please be okay, Ikriss.

In the background, the team of medics moved swiftly and silently. One of them was Asherin, the serious assistant that had summoned her earlier. None of them spoke apart from Zharek, who issued soft commands in his melodic alien tongue.

The medic was all business now. His hair was bound in a neat topknot, and he wore a simple black utility suit in place of his usual flowing robes. It was the most serious she’d ever seen him look. He quickly donned a weird pair of goggle-type lenses that flashed bright blue then faded to black.

Holo-lenses?

Like dancers in some silent, sinister production, his team moved fluidly around him; retrieving strange items, putting things into place, intercepting streams of data.

Sienna felt like an intruder here. Aside from herself and the General, there was nobody else in the room. Arin was gone. Kai was gone.

She was the only human in the room.

And she couldn’t lie; she was scared.

“Do not fear,” the General said softly. “I know Ikriss all too well. He is far too stubborn to succumb to this. Understand one thing, human. Now that he has found you, he will not let go of you for anything in the Universe. Here with us, you are safer than you ever have been.”

He said it with the kind of unshakeable certainty that only these aliens could have.

Sienna sighed as some of the tension flowed out of her body. She stared in fascination as Zharek hooked himself up to various monitors and machines, including a pair of gloves that looked like they were made of the same weird living fibers that permeated the walls and doors of the ship.

Sometimes, she got the strange feeling that this ship was alive.

Zharek sat down in a high-backed chair and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and composed himself, leaning back. With his wild hair pulled back from his face, his delicate, elfin features and obsidian horns were accentuated, making him look like a character straight out of some freaking high fantasy holofilm. This time, the chair actually moved, wrapping black tendrils around his arms and chest.

All of a sudden, the eccentric medic looked deadly serious.

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