Chapter 16 #2
"I was fighting during the Romvesian-Vaktaire skirmish.
It was... chaos." The words came faster now, like a dam breaking.
"Warriors everywhere. Weapons fire. Screaming.
I was with my friend Daicon and my brother Charick, trying to hold position on one of the Gilese mining moons—trying to keep the Romvesian forces from breaking through our line. "
The memory was fragmented, like watching a vid with pieces missing. But the emotions were intact—the fear, the adrenaline, the desperate need to protect my brothers, my people.
"I got hit. A blaster shot caught me in the side." I touched my ribs, remembering. "It hurt, but it wasn't fatal—I'd had worse. The impact threw me back, and I cracked my head on a stone. Everything went dark."
I could still feel it—that moment of consciousness slipping away, the world fading to black.
"When I woke up, I wasn't with my unit anymore. I was in a cell." My voice went flat. "Standing over me was General Riunodo Barkaze."
Niki's hand tightened on mine. "Who?"
"A Romvesian. He'd competed with my mother for the seat of Alliance Prime. Lost. He hated her for it. Hated our entire family."
The memories pushed through the walls I'd built. Clearer now. The pain came with them.
"He kept me prisoner. For years. I don't know how many." My voice sounded flat, emotionless, like I was talking about someone else. "He tortured me. Beat me. Tried to break me. He wanted information about Alliance defenses, about my mother's strategies, about everything."
I could see Riunodo's face in my mind. Cold. Calculating. Taking pleasure in every moment of my suffering.
"I didn't tell him anything. Couldn't. Even if I'd wanted to, I didn't know most of what he was asking. I was a soldier, not a strategist. But he didn't believe me." I swallowed hard. "Or didn't care. He just kept hurting me."
My voice cracked on the last word. I had to stop. Had to breathe. Had to remind myself that I was here. On Avalon. With Niki. Not there. Not in that cell.
"Enslak." Niki's voice was thick with tears.
"Eventually, he got tired of me. Or maybe he realized I truly didn't have the information he wanted. Either way, he sold me." The words tasted like poison. "To the Ulkommenian."
Niki made a sound. Small. Wounded.
"They were different from Riunodo. They didn't want information.
They wanted a test subject, and what they did to me was worse than anything that came before.
They were experimenting with augmentation, trying to create the perfect soldier, the perfect weapon.
They took me apart and put me back together over and over again.
They spliced me with other species, grafted scales onto my skin, changed my bone structure, enhanced my claws and teeth.
They made me into something that didn't look Vaktaire anymore. "
I glanced down at my body as I spoke. The grafted scales were gone. The foreign tissue they'd spliced into me had been removed. The hybrid modifications that had made me look like something stitched together from nightmares were gone. My body was mine again, mostly.
But not entirely. Some things couldn't be undone.
I was considerably larger than most Vaktaire, my frame built bigger and stronger than it should have been.
My claws were longer than they should have been, curved and sharp in a way that standard Vaktaire claws weren't. My fangs were longer too, visible through slightly parted lips.
These things were part of me now, woven into my actual body at a cellular level. Not grafted on. Not foreign. Just mine.
I looked down at my hands, turning them over to study the claws. They'd been forced on me, yes. But they were mine now. Part of who I was. Part of what I'd survived.
"Then they threw me in the pits." The words came out tight.
"To test their work. To see if their augmentations made me a better fighter.
They wanted me to kill. To rage. To become nothing but violence and instinct.
And I did. I killed so many times. So many creatures.
Because if I didn't, they'd kill me or drag me back to the lab for more experiments. "
The memories crashed over me. The blood. The screaming. The endless cycle of fight, survive, recover, fight again.
"They gave me suppressants to control my hormones. To make sure all my aggression went into fighting. They wanted a mindless weapon."
I looked at Niki. Tears streamed down her face.
"I'm sorry," I said automatically. "I shouldn't have—"
"Don't." Her voice was fierce despite the tears. "Don't apologize. Don't you dare apologize for what they did to you."
She moved closer, her hands coming up to frame my face. "You survived, Enslak. Do you understand that? You survived a century of torture and experimentation and horror, and you're still here. That's not weakness. That's strength."
"I don't feel strong." The admission came out raw. "I still feel... broken. Like there are pieces of me missing that I'll never get back."
"Then we'll find new pieces." Her voice was steady. Sure. "We'll build something new. You don't have to be who you were before. You just have to be who you are now. And who you are now is enough. More than enough."
The tears came then.
I couldn't stop them. Couldn't hold them back anymore. They poured out of me—a century of pain and fear and loss I'd been holding inside, locked behind walls I'd built brick by brick.
And Niki held me. Let me break apart in her arms.
"I'll stay with you. Always," she whispered against my hair. "As long as you want. As long as you need. We don't have to go back until you're ready. We can stay here. Just us. For as long as it takes."
Something in my chest cracked open at those words. Something that had been locked so tight for so long I'd forgotten it was even there.
I pulled back enough to see her face. Her eyes were red, her cheeks wet with tears. But she was smiling.
Actually smiling.
"Why?" I asked. "Why would you do all this for me?"
"Because you're important." She said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. "You're the most important thing in my life. Maybe the most important thing ever. And I'm not leaving you. Not now. Not ever."
The sensation in my chest intensified. That connection I couldn't quite name, couldn't quite understand. But it was physical. Real. Binding us together.
"Niki." Her name was both prayer and promise. "I don't know what I did to deserve you. But I'm so grateful."
"You don't have to deserve me." Her voice was soft. Certain. "You just have to want me. Do you want me, Enslak?"
"Yes." The word came out fierce. "More than anything."
"Then that's enough."
She kissed me.
And the last thread of my control snapped.
I crushed her against me, my mouth claiming hers with a hunger that bordered on desperation. She gasped against my lips and I swallowed the sound, my tongue pushing into her mouth, tasting her, devouring her. Her hands fisted in my hair, pulling hard enough to sting.
The pain only sharpened my need.
"Enslak." She breathed my name when I finally let her come up for air. "Please. I need—"
"I know what you need." My voice came out as a growl. Rough. Possessive. "I can smell it. Your arousal. It's driving me insane."
Her pupils dilated. Her breath came faster. "Then do something about it."
I lifted her. She wrapped her legs around my waist immediately, grinding against the hard ridge of my cock through our clothes. The friction dragged a groan from both of us.
I carried her back toward the cave, my hands gripping her ass, feeling the heat of her core even through the fabric.
Inside, the afternoon light cast everything in warm golden tones. I laid her down on our makeshift bed.
Not gently. Not carefully.
I was done being careful.
"I love you," I said, the words fierce and raw. "And I'm going to make you feel exactly how much."
"Yes." She breathed the word, her eyes dark with need. "God, yes. I love you too. Now stop talking and fuck me."
The crude words from her mouth made my cock throb painfully.
I reached for her clothes. The soft gray tunic she'd salvaged from the ship. The loose pants cinched at her waist. My claws extended instinctively.
I heard the fabric tear before I'd consciously decided to rip it.
The sound was obscene. Cotton and synthetic fibers shredding under my claws like paper. The tunic split down the middle, soft material parting to reveal her pale skin beneath. I tore it away from her shoulders, from her arms. Ruined fabric falling in strips around us.
Her bra came next. Simple pale cotton, worn soft from weeks of hand-washing. I hooked one claw under the center clasp and pulled. The elastic snapped instantly. The cups fell away to expose her breasts.
She didn't complain. Didn't flinch.
Just helped me. Her small hands yanked at the waistband of my salvaged pants—the dark fabric that had been straining against my arousal since we'd started kissing. She couldn't tear them the way I'd torn her clothes, but she shoved them down my hips with desperate urgency until my cock sprang free.
Thick and hard and already leaking.
I hooked my claws into her pants next, shredding them with one swift motion. The fabric gave way like nothing, tearing down the seams and splitting apart to reveal her legs.
Her underwear—those simple cotton panties that had driven me mad at the river—lasted only a second longer before I destroyed them too.
And then she was naked beneath me.
Completely, utterly bare.
The sound of cotton tearing was something I hadn't planned.
My claws caught the fabric of her tunic when she pulled me down to her, and the material gave way before I'd consciously decided anything, splitting from collar to hem in one clean motion.
We both went still for a moment, the silence suddenly very loud.
"Sorry," I said, meaning it. "I didn't—"
"Don't apologize." She laughed, breathless, and reached back to shrug the ruined fabric from her shoulders. "Keep going."
So I did.