Her expression was disbelieving. “What… what is that for?”
Since she’d walked up to him in the tavern, he’d been hit with a wave of protectiveness for this female. Knowing that she was working at a stinking centipede factory to support herself made him angry for reasons he didn’t want to examine very closely.
Credits were the easiest way to take some of the pressure off her. His plan was to give her enough to keep her settled until he could find a way to win her trust. Despite the way he seemed to disgust her, Lyk wasn’t the type to give up easily. He saw something he wanted, and he took it.
He wanted this female more than he’d ever wanted another.
“Take them. Consider them a payment for your inconvenience.”
“Inconvenience?” She shook her head, a joyless laugh leaving her lips. “You steal from me, and then you try to pay me off, calling the loss of the last remnants of my family aninconvenience?”
“Consider it payment for the heirloom then. The one I don’t have.”
“It’s not for sale! Not at any price. And certainly not to you.” Her eyes were hard, her tone like cold metal. “You can shove those credits right up your pompous ass.”
Lyk had to fight back a grin. Her spirit did something to him, something that heated his insides and made his arousal uncoil, ready to strike.
I can’t let her walk away and not take the credits.
He needed to know she was taken care of, even if she wouldn’t let him close enough to do so himself.
“Take it,” he said, his voice deepening as he let a trickle of his Vartik powers out. His eyes were locked on hers, the persuasion hooking into her with a jolt of her body.
Her hand jerked out and clutched the credits. She held them there, unmoving.
“Put those in your pocket and forget about them until you pull them out again. Understood?”
She nodded and shoved the credits in her pocket. When he ordered her to go back to work, she pivoted on her heel and walked away without hesitating. Lyk watched her go, finally able to let the smile break across his face.
She’s flawless. I must have her.
Lyk walked away from the plant, determined to figure out just exactly who this female was and what she was looking for. Planning to pull his gang together to find out whatever he could about her, he set off in the direction of the tavern, his unofficial HQ.
Along the way, a voice appeared in his head, startling him. “Hey, brother. How’s the weather on your rock?”
Lyk smiled. “Same as always since it’s temperature controlled.”
“It’s raining on Vartik. The kind of rain you always liked.”
He remembered walks in the misty rain, the sort of rain that didn’t seem to fall but just hung there in the air tingling against the skin as he walked through it.
“How are you, Kara? It’s been a while.”
Lyk was the seventh of eight children, born to the King and Queen of the planet Vartik. The eighth child was Kara, his sister. Born only a year apart, they’d spent a lot of time together when they were younger, developing a close bond and a strong liking for one another.
Kara was an empath, able to read emotions and sense them, even over extreme distances. She could sense any of her brothers, but with Lyk, the bond combined with her empathic abilities to form a unique system of communication.
They could speak with each other in their minds. It was a secret, something only the two of them knew. And since Lyk hadn’t spoken to his family in years, his connection with his sister was the last vestige of his Vartik heritage.
“Things are getting serious, Lyk. Very serious.”
“What do you mean?” The last time he’d spoken to his sister, she’d told him how they’d assembled all of the Guardians, powerful beings devoted to protecting the twin children of the Goddess of Light.
It was a fanciful tale, like something taken from a storybook. Marek, his oldest brother and the current reigning king of Vartik, had started them down this road after a chance meeting with Jazmine, one of the Goddess of Light’s twins. He’d fallen hard for the beauty and vowed to help her rescue her brother from Dazimin, the nightmare planet ruled by the Crown Prince of Hell. The rest of the Vartik royal family had agreed to help Jazmine, which was no surprise since Vartik had always worshipped the Goddess of Light.
Still, to Lyk, it sometimes seemed unbelievable. One by one, his brothers had fallen for strong women who’d either joined the cause or become part of it. One by one, they’d assembled these Guardians while fighting off the Seekers, demons bent on thwarting them. Kara kept him informed, but being so far removed from the action, it was like something that happened in a dream, something that left only a faint trace after waking.
“The Battle of the End is coming. And I pray to the goddess that we’re ready for it.”
