Hyperspeed Dreams by Anna Carven

Chapter Two

Tired of waiting,Lodan eased out of Darkshadow’s control chair. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and disentangled himself from the pilot’s controls; from the Sylth. A faint tingle crept across his skin beneath his exo-armor as he separated himself from the ship’s machine-consciousness.

The more he flew, the harder it became to relinquish control of the Fleet’s ships. Flying was as innate to him as breathing, and there was something addictive about being in complete command of a Kordolian ship. With their speed and destructive power, the former Imperial Military ships were unmatched by anything else in the Nine Galaxies.

Sometimes, when he was deeply enmeshed in a ship’s flight controls, the Sylth spoke to him, whispering strange things; ramblings of war and domination in some antiquated dialect of Kordolian that he could barely understand.

For the most part, he ignored that nonsense, putting it down to some innate defect in the Sylth’s programming. She had a few of those.

He should probably mention it to the boss sooner or later.

Probably.

But Tarak had enough problems to deal with right now, and Lodan was currently on Earth in some infernally hot, stinking, noisy, tree-infested jungle, waiting for Nythian and Alexis. His battle-brother had insisted on bringing his mate back to her childhood home, which was located on this cursed sun-drenched island in the middle of one of Earth’s vast oceans.

Reunion Island, the humans called it, for whatever reason.

Lodan moved through the ship, drawing nanites around his face to form his helm as he stepped outside into the soft, filtered light of the jungle. He had already coated his skin with an ultraviolet-blocking nanopolymer, but sometimes he just wanted to shield his eyes from Earth’s relentless sun, because he really, really didn’t like walking in the light.

He would never get used to the infernal sunlight, no matter how many of these sun-orbiting planets he visited.

Immediately, his sensitive hearing was flooded with the cacophony of a million living organisms. The deafening drone of tiny invertebrates was punctuated with the cries of those peculiar winged creatures humans called birds.

He snorted in amusement.The first time he’d seen one of those strange creatures scratching in the red dust near Teluria, he’d thought it resembled one of those infernal winged Avein.

The smell of wet earth filled his nostrils, combining with the pungent odor of decaying vegetation. He detected a hint of ripe fruit and a tendril of animal musk, along with something else…

Something familiar.

The unmistakable smell of human blood.

He swore and opened his comm. “Brother,” he said softly, reaching out to Nythian. “There’s trouble.”

“Naturally. I just found two of them,” Nythian replied as Lodan heard him execute a swift and brutal takedown in the background.

“Oof,”went some human. Nythian didn’t miss a beat. “Unidentified humans. Males. Armed. I’m not going to kill them, because we need answers. They’re unconscious now. Sorry, but I’ll have to leave the mess for you to clean up.” A terrible urgency entered his voice, laced with all the fury of a full-blooded Kordolian male that sensed a threat to his mate. “I need to get back to Alexis. I shouldn’t have left her alone. She’s tough enough, but—”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine. She can induce death with a touch, remember?” Lodan broke into a loping run, joining a worn path that wound between the trees, following the blood-scent as it grew stronger. It was fresh; someone had been injured or killed very recently. “But you go and do what you have to do. I’ll take care of the rest. Be wary of traps.”

“Always, brother.” Nythian grunted in agreement and killed the comm.

Lodan drew his Callidum longsword as he ran, hacking through a tangle of thick vines, brushing away the vegetation as easily as if it were nothing more than vapor.

Suddenly, another kind of scent hit him; one he had never experienced before.

It cut through the all others like an ice-blade, mystifying him, because it was sweetness and light and darkness and musk all at once, and it was more than a little intoxicating.

“Tch.” Lodan shook his head and ignored it, wondering if all that time he’d spent connected to the Sylth was making him crazy.

He reached the source of the blood-scent; a small clearing where large dome-shaped grey rocks were scattered across the ground. A human male lay in the center.

Tiny black winged insects buzzed around the human, who was slumped across a large boulder, clearly dead. Crimson blood was everywhere; on the rocks, on the human’s clothes, on the ground.

There was a small, precise incision in his neck where a critical artery had been severed.

Lodan let out a soft snort of surprise. Someone knew what they were doing. It was obvious that the killer had crept up on the victim from behind, taking him by surprise, yanking his head back and slitting his throat.

Lodan had to appreciate the neatness of it. He probably would have done the same.

Kaiin’s Hells.Surely it was no coincidence that a killer had appeared here of all places?

Nythian had just neutralized two human males. Were they responsible for this, or was there another attacker?

They had no shortage of enemies across the Nine Galaxies, including their own kind.

Either way, it didn’t matter to him. This was the territory of Nythian’s mate, and therefore it was also his territory. Anyone that posed a threat to Alexis or her people was his sworn enemy too, and Lodan would hunt them down and destroy them.

Strange, intoxicating scent or not.