Something was very, very wrong, and left with no other options, Arin was being forced to step into the belly of the beast. At gunpoint. Because she’d been consorting with aliens.
She was beyond compromised, and it was going to take all her wits to get out of this one unscathed.
“They’re dead if they hurt you,” Rykal whispered as he bent to retrieve his weapons. “Tell them whatever you have to. I trust you. You can’t betray me, even if you tell them the truth. You haven’t done anything wrong, my love.”
There was a dullthunkfrom outside. The retrieval podhad connected. Rykal palmed two of his small knives, the ones she’d seen him throw countless times with deadly precision, and passed them to her.
Thankfully, they were sheathed. Arin discreetly accepted them, stashing them in the inside pockets of her flight jacket before zipping it up.
“Just in case,” he whispered as the pod’s exit began to open, activated from the outside. The dull grey walls of a mobile airlock were revealed, and moments later, a space-trooper appeared in the doorway, his features obscured by a shiny black visor.
Rykal drifted to the side of the airlock, grabbing a handhold to steady himself in the weightless environment. His sword appeared in his hand as the trooper brought up a bolt rifle. “Stand down, alien. My boss doesn’t fuck around. Any sign of trouble and we’re all going down. I’m as expendable as you are.”
Rykal glared at the trooper, his sword resting by his side. His demeanor was deceptively relaxed, but Arin knew he could explode into action at any moment.
She gave him a reassuring glance.Hold.Everything will be okay.
She didn’t know that for sure, but the situation right now called for calm.
Miraculously, he obeyed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Rykal wanted to kill someone. It took all of his self-control to hold back. He watched silently as Arin donned a helmet, preparing to step off into the airlock.
His instincts were screaming at him to kill the human who was taking her away.
But he had listened to her. Her calm gaze did powerful things to him, soothing the savage beast that dwelled in the void.
She was the ice to his fire.
He needed her.
Her eyes were on him the entire time, until she slipped the dark helmet over her face and stepped outside, away from him, leaving him with a small parting wave of her left hand.
Hold.
And then the pod’s door closed, leaving Rykal alone.
And for the first time in his life, being alone bothered him.
He activated his comm. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Coming.” It was Torin. “Got held up. We were thrown off course by an explosion on the freighter, then a little human thought he could sabotage our thrusters. Let’s just say he won’t be sabotaging anything now. It’s a funny thing. I think some ofthese humans aren’t afraid of death. The old captain understands survival, though. He’s got your coordinates. We’re nearly there.”
Too little, too late. They had Arin. Rykal’s hand tightened around the grip of his sword as he tried to suppress his killing intent.
He’d held her in his arms, kissed her all over, and tasted her sweetness from both outside and within.
And he had let her slip out of his grasp.
He didn’t trust humans. He didn’t trust the cold-eyed woman who had negotiated Arin’s release. He had seen her kind before, countless times. Hers was a special kind of insanity that wasn’t reserved for just humans. Some Kordolians were afflicted with the same thing: dead eyes and a vacant soul.
There was no such thing as a ‘noble’ species. Like every other intelligent life-form he’d come across, they could be selfish, violent, petty, and cruel. The difference between Kordolians and humans was that humans were weak.
With the exception of Arin, he hadn’t yet encountered a human he’d be willing to save.
But then again, he was hopelessly biased.
