“She tried to kill me with missiles, and she was going to killyou,” Rykal growled, his killing intent rising as he remembered the blank-faced woman who had snatched his precious Arin away and left him to die in the escape pod. “Revenge is my blood-right.” He paused, studying his mate carefully. Some of the things she said baffled him. He couldn’t understand the way humans thought sometimes.
Or maybe it was females in general.
Rykal shook his head. “How are you able to be so calm about it after what she did to you? If you wish, I will grant you first choice of weapons and first choice of retribution.” He moved closer to her, inhaling her intoxicating scent. She definitely had a calming effect on him; without her nearby, he would probably still be seething with rage.
“I’m more angry about what she did to you,” Arin said quietly, her eyes cold and clear. “I’m furious. If I think about it too much, I scare myself, because I think about doing terrible things to her, and then I realize that I’m not the noble peacekeeper I thought I was.”
“You wish for revenge?”
“Very much so. But our culture is different from yours, Rykal. We don’t make revenge into an art form. We have laws to deal with this kind of thing. When you killed those men back there, a part of me rejoiced, because I wanted them to die. There was a small part of me that took savage delight in it, and that terrified me, because it showed me that I’m capable of terrible things.”
“But revenge is a natural part of life.” Rykal was struggling to understand her logic. Humans seemed to believe in justice without bloodshed. Was such a thing possible?
“Not where I’m from, it isn’t.” Arin pressed herself against him with a sense of ease that pleased him greatly. “But in this case, I can see your side of the argument, and I can see whyyou consider it justified. I’m just trying not to give in to my darker urges. Compared to humans, you Kordolians possess so much power. Being so close to it is a little scary and a little intoxicating, and in the face of all that, I’m just asking myself whether I’m still capable of doing the right thing.”
“Ah.” Rykal blinked, trying to comprehend her reasoning. “You’re trying to be just and follow the laws of your people.”
“Something like that.”
“And are you certain justice can be done in your so-called ‘Federation’?”
“Actually, no.” Arin looked up at him with her pink lips slightly parted, and Rykal was tempted to devour her in a devastating kiss. But this was a serious conversation, so he restrained himself.
Something was being pressed into the palm of his hand. It had the familiar weight of sweet, pure Callidum.
“So on this occasion,” she said softly, “I’ll ignore the law, because the law has ignored us, and look what happened. Just don’t kill any of the other humans, and try not to kill that woman, E1, if you can avoid it. Promise me, Rykal.” Her tone became stern, her clear blue eyes like chips of ice.
Rykal’s fingers curled around the familiar hilt of one of his throwing daggers. “You kept this?” His eyes widened in surprise.
“Hidden in my flight jacket. I only ended up using one of them. You can open up the wall with it, right?”
“Naturally.”
“Fine. Do what you have to do, but promise.”
Rykal sighed. “I promise not to kill any of the other humans.”
She curled an arm around his neck and kissed him. “We walk a fine line, don’t we, my Kordolian?”
“Between life and death, or right and wrong?”
“Both,” she murmured. “And ever since you entered my life, you’ve turned everything upside-down.”
“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like a good thing.” Rykal couldn’t hold on any longer. He returned her kiss, making sure it was deep and devastating enough that Arin was reluctant to let go.
“Mm,” she sighed. “Upside-down in zero Gs isn’t a bad thing at all.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
When the cavalry finally arrived, Arin was the one to operate the mobile airlock, going back and forth between theArawenand theSilvermistuntil Torin, Jeral, and Kail were safely onboard the surveillance cruiser.
Two of the warriors had stayed behind on theArawento make sure Baraka and Loic didn’t make a quick dash for it, and Rykal had managed to cut a hole in the wall with a throwing knife, retrieving the rest of theSilvermist’screw, along with a shaken-looking E1.
Arin’s suspicions had been right. After all the guards had been killed, they’d holed up in a safe room, thinking they could hide from a Kordolian warrior.
To Arin’s surprise, Rykal hadn’t killed E1, but she looked as if he’d taught her the true meaning of fear. Arin had regarded her coldly before deciding she wasn’t worth her time. She wasn’t the type to rub salt in one’s wounds. Luckily for the one known as E2, he’d already been med-evac’ed to Earth, suffering a punctured lung, apneumothorax, and some severed thoracic blood vessels. He’d already received punishment by Arin’s hand.
At first, Arin had wanted to torture the expressionlessfemale agent until she got some genuine emotion out of her, but upon seeing how the woman had cowered in fear every time Rykal stalked past, Arin realized she wouldn’t get any satisfaction out of it.
