Chapter 24
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 of these 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.
Rykal closed his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and let his body float, allowing himself to drift through the pod as he waited for his brothers to retrieve him.
He tried to calm the savage emotion seething within him, but he couldn’t.
What the fuck are we doing here?
Killing Xargek. That was what they’d been ordered to do.
Eliminate at all costs.
And there was the unspoken. If things got out of hand, they could always retreat. They could have hijacked a human vessel and made their way to Sector Eight, where there were Kordolian-occupied territories.
Retreat.
The word wasn’t in the First Division’s vocabulary.
In the past, they’d been able to subdue entire planets with little more than their reputations and the weight of the Kordolian Empire behind them.
Once people knew what they were about, they generally tended to co-operate.
These delusional humans, on the other hand, still thought they held some power in the Universe.
They had no idea who or what they were messing with; otherwise, they would have capitulated a long time ago.
Rykal exhaled and latched onto the image of Arin that was burned into his mind. She filled his emptiness and made him feel complete. She soothed his wild, reckless heart.
He would have her back at all costs.
She was the last thing he saw in his mind’s eye as a giant boom shook the shell of the pod. He had barely enough time to activate his full armor before his world disintegrated into a raging inferno.
There was another boom.
Then another.
And another.
There was only searing heat, pain, and the fading image of his mate, in all her beautiful human glory.
Whatever they’d hit him with was fierce. His armor could only hold off so much. The blast was starting to burn through.
It was excruciating.
Arin.
He couldn’t lose her now. He’d only just found her.
As Rykal’s body burned, he reached out with one arm, trying to grasp her, but her form was ethereal and elusive, and it was stolen from him as agony took over, thrusting him into the depths of Kaiin’s darkest hells.