Chapter 15
LYK
“I’ve failed her,” Ally said, her voice breaking.
“No, sweetheart,” he said, his heart cracking inside his chest. He didn’t know why this woman tugged his heartstrings like no other, but he couldn’t bear to see her like this. “I’ve never seen anyone protect their loved ones so fiercely.”
“But it didn’t matter. When it came down to it, I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t powerful enough.”
“Who would have been? They’re demons, and you’re a human female. Beating yourself up over something you can’t control isn’t going to help. You’ve got to let that guilt go.”
“I think I need to lie down.” Her voice was small, and she sounded more defeated than he’d ever heard her.
“Of course.” Lyk drew her over to his bed. “Go ahead and rest. I’ll check in on you later.”
He turned to go but stopped when he felt her hand on his arm. “Can you… stay with me? Please?”
Lyk didn’t hesitate. He turned back, nodding, then settled her onto the bed. She looked up at him, and he thought he’d never seen anything more lovely in his life.
“Hold me? Just for a while?”
He’d been desperate for her to ask him to touch her ever since the moment he first laid eyes on her. Lyk climbed into bed behind her, then pulled her back into his chest and into the circle of his arms. She laid her head against his arm, and in that moment, he knew he’d never be the same.
She fit him so perfectly, as if she were made just for him. Ally was like no one he’d ever met. She was unforgettable, irreplaceable.
Perfect.
This close, he could smell her skin, the scent fresh with an underlying sweetness. It took every ounce of his self-control not to get hard. The last thing she needs right now is to feel my swollen cock pressing into her back.
Still, it was no mean feat. He wanted her like he’d never wanted a woman before.
She turned over, and suddenly, they were face to face. “Will they hurt my sister?” she asked, her big eyes seeming to stare into his soul.
All Lyk knew of the demons was what he’d heard from his sister.
They had terrible powers, and the creature they worked for was reputed to be ten thousand times more terrifying.
Still, Evie wasn’t the first prisoner taken to Dazimin.
Both Midnight and Juston, and Tess and Pennzinn had been able to escape the hell planet and best the prince and his minions.
“I can’t say for certain what will happen, but I can tell you that others have survived the ordeal and lived to tell of it.”
“Who?”
Lyk told her what he knew of Midnight and Tess and their time on Dazimin. His tale was light on details and heavy on the overarching fact that both had returned home safely.
“If your brothers have already managed to get two people off of Dazimin, then why can’t we?” Her tone was hopeful, and Lyk kicked himself for having opened this can of worms.
“They aren’t exactly ‘people.’ Midnight is a demon herself, and the prince only let her go because he was counting on her to betray the Vartiks and the Guardians. But she double-crossed him, coming over to the side of the Light.”
He pushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “Tess is a Guardian, and a pretty powerful one. She used her powers to bring down the Crown Prince’s palace around his ears, then collapsed his own ship on him while he was inside it.”
“You have powers too,” Ally said, putting a finger against his chest and slowly tracing her way lower. “You could use your powers to help me get Evie out.”
“We Vartiks have powers, it’s true, but nothing on the level of the Guardians or the Seekers. And I’m certainly no match for the Crown Prince himself.”
“If your family has so many powerful friends, maybe we can get them to help us. They seem like nice people.”
That finger kept creeping lower at a snail’s pace, distracting him. “I haven’t been back to the Vartik home world since I left it. I’m not exactly on good terms with the rest of the Vartik royal family.”
Ally frowned. “You seem very close to your sister.”
He nodded. “I am, but she’s the only one I still keep in contact with. My brothers never speak my name, according to Kara.”
“What happened?” Her voice was soft. Her finger had stopped its descent, and she now placed her hand against his chest, over his heart. It beat harder at her nearness.
Lyk had never opened up to anyone about his departure from Vartik. It was no easy decision to turn his back on his family. Dredging up the past never seemed like a good idea to him.
But Ally was the woman he wanted to claim as his mate. If he intended to keep her forever, then she would find out all of his secrets sooner or later. Maybe this was a way to engender trust, to build on the fragile foundations he’d managed to lay so far.
“It’s complicated,” he said on a sigh. “But then, isn’t it always?”
She looked up at him, silent, her eyes encouraging him to go on. Those eyes burned into him until they were all he could see. They were golden in this light, like twin gold rings circling a field of black.
“The Vartik royal line is an ancient and storied one. My brothers and I are from the strongest stock our planet has to offer. Along with that strength comes stubbornness. I inherited untold generations of that stubbornness and a streak of independence that seems particularly prevalent among my siblings.”
Lyk buried his hand in her hair, unable to refrain from touching her. She got under his skin, made him able to talk about things that he hadn’t even considered in ages. But once he started, he realized that it felt good to finally unburden himself to someone, especially her.
“We Vartik are raised to do our duty above all things, and that duty can be heavy. We have different roles, ways of using our talents in service of the state. Some rule. Some plan. Some build. Some kill.”
Her eyes widened. “Which did you do?”
Lyk didn’t look away, although he wanted to. “I got my hands dirty. At first, I served under my brother Zelup in the military. I was a crack pilot, able to get a ship out of a tight spot without a nick on her.
“In those times, my father, the king, had gone to great pains to keep our existence a secret. He’d managed to hide the planet through the very clever use of cloaking field, the first of its kind.
Our military was strictly defensive, making sure that no one was able to penetrate the field and expose the existence of our people.
But sitting around waiting for something to happen wasn’t something I was very good at.
“One day, I was piloting a small craft for my brother, Calabez, on a secret mission. Things went sideways, and I found out that Cal was working with my father and a network of spies to keep Vartik completely off the radar. He would eradicate any mention of our planet or people, and he’d go to great lengths to do it. ”
“Through the course of the mission, we stumbled upon a ship full of heavy weapons belonging to black-market smugglers who also dealt in Vartik blood. Cal and I worked together to take them out, and I suggested we relieve them of their weapons before we destroy the evidence, their ship, and the smugglers themselves.”
He watched for any hint of a negative reaction, but she just continued to look at him, listening without judgment. His need for her grew in that instant.
“After that mission, I realized we could strike back, hit back at the ones who dealt in our misery and harvested us for our blood. But when I suggested as much to my brothers, I was quickly shut down. Cal told me that our father insisted on absolute denial of our existence. Which meant no warnings to those who would do us harm.”
Ally’s brows furrowed. “How could you expect to scare people off if you had to pretend like you didn’t exist, even though they already knew you did?”
“My point exactly. I got angry, thought I knew better, so I set up an operation on my own. I put together a trusted crew and went out raiding. Any smuggler, any black-market scum that dealt in Vartik blood, they were put on my hit list.”
His smile was self-effacing. “It didn’t take long for my family to catch wind. They were particularly angry at my calling card, a V made from the blood they’d harvested. I’d leave it on the walls of every ship we raided, and sometimes on the bodies of the men we killed.”
Lyk remembered the day his father had berated him in front of his older brothers and his mother.
His face had been so red, Lyk worried that he might have a heart attack.
The king had branded him a terrorist, sowing fear and raising their profile just as the rest of them were working so hard to eradicate it.
“Long story short, my family was disappointed in my actions. I wasn’t doing my duty I was working against them. I was to stop my raids and assume a position at the academy, teaching new pilots. No more active duty missions.”
The thought of that even now made him feel like a caged animal.
Lyk couldn’t imagine the long centuries of simulations, of teaching the same maneuvers over and over to younger and less qualified men who would go on to fly serious missions while he was trapped on the ground. He’d never have survived.
Not to mention that he thought he was providing a valuable service to his people. He didn’t believe in hiding in the shadows. He believed in bringing the fight to those who thought they could exploit and destroy the Vartik. It was time to prove how wrong they were.
Except it wasn’t.
“What did you do?”
“I left. I stole this cruiser, and I took it to the other side of the galaxy. My brothers backed my father, telling me I was making a mistake, warning me against exposing our planet. Cal told me that he didn’t want to have to track me down and slit my throat in the middle of the night.”
Ally gasped, and Lyk shrugged a shoulder. “Cal was always a bit of a jokester, but I don’t think he was kidding when he said that.”
“So you left, but you continued your raiding?”
“Yes. I kept on targeting blood smugglers when I could find them, which was a lot harder without Cal’s intel. But instead of painting a V, I altered the symbol slightly.”
“The raven.”
Lyk nodded. “In flight, they’re pretty similar. I slowly assembled a crew, and we widened our purview to any criminal outfit that looked ripe for the plucking.”
“And your family? They’ve not reached out to you since?”
Lyk shook his head. “My father was a hard man for many years. My sister says he’s softened now, since he’s passed the crown on to my oldest brother, Marek. But he’d put a moratorium on mentioning my name for years after I left, and I suppose they just… forgot about me by now.”
“How could they forget about you?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper, reminding him of a billycat’s purr. “You’re certainly not anyone I could forget.”
Her arms encircled his neck, and she pressed herself closer to him.
Lyk stiffened, again fighting his arousal.
She’d had a long day—hell, a long few months—and her emotional state wasn’t exactly stable.
But when she brought her face within inches of his own, he found he couldn’t stop looking at her lips.
“Maybe all they’re waiting for is for you to make the first move.”
Lyk laughed softly. “Sure. The royal family would love to welcome home their prodigal son, the pirate.”
“You’ll never know until you make that first move.” Her voice was low, her lips curled up at the edges. Suddenly, Lyk realized that her words weren’t referring to his contacting his family but to him making the first move with her now.
He wasn’t able to hold back his arousal at the thought. His cock shot rock hard and his breathing grew heavy.
She wants me to kiss her.