Hyperspeed Dreams by Anna Carven
Chapter Six
Lodan foundhimself in the grip of a strange madness.
As soon as he’d stepped inside the human’s radius, the intensity of her scent had changed, hitting him in the face like a hard, delicious slap…
Triggering something inside him.
That scent…
He thought he could resist it.
He thought it had only intrigued him because it was strange and unfamiliar, but now his eyes were locked onto hers and he couldn’t look away, because her essence was swirling around him, and her clear, brilliant blue eyes were the most mesmerizing thing he’d seen in a very long time.
Around the edges of her irises was the faintest ring of pure violet.
How strange. He’d never seen that color in a human before.
He took a deep breath, allowing himself to savor her scent for a fraction of a heartbeat before he caught himself.
Stop, idiot.
She was an unknown quantity; a killer like him.
She wasn’t like the other human females he’d encountered—the mates of his battle-brothers. She wasn’t maddeningly friendly or impulsive or overly talkative or even… wholesome.
She was cold and sharp and secretive.
And she was the most attractive human he’d ever seen.
Now he had a fucking erection again.
Stop.
A familiar voice echoed through his mind, uttering a single word in High Kordolian.
Stop.
The Sylth?
The floor of the ship rippled angrily, its Qualum-Callidum tendrils snapping at the soles of his armored feet.
Unable to take his eyes off Tasha, Lodan went very, very still.
Where did you come from, Sylth?
The Sylth couldn’t speak to him unless he was in the pilot’s chair, connected to the flight controls—to the neural integrator. He still didn’t understand how she could talk to him inside his head; most of the time, he suppressed her feverish rantings, not wanting to think that he might be going insane.
Before he could make sense of it, Lodan was hit…
With vicious pain.
Right in the fucking balls.
Oof.
Did she just…?
The urge to strike back—to kill—was so powerful that it took all his self-control to rein it in.
What in Kaiin’s Hells had she done?
Had she just…?
Kneed him in the fucking balls?
Him,a First Division warrior?
Nobody caught him off guard like that… except for his brothers when they sparred in the training room—they were his equals, after all.
But now he was distracted by her damn scent and the infernal Sylth whispering inside his head.
This human is not worthy of you, Master. Do not allow yourself to succumb to the weakness of temptation.
Lodan stared at Tasha’s face; at her sharp, almost severe features, which were taut with shock and fear.
As if she could hardly believe what she’d just done.
You, a Kordolian, would let this inferior creature disrespect you like that? You must punish her. Humans must be taught their place.
Lodan was drowning in perfect blue.
Shut up. He sought the icy calm center of control that had been drilled into him ever since he’d started training to become a warrior. You are a hundred cycles too late to be lecturing me on the place of humans in this Universe. Along with the coldness came anger.Quiet. His mind-voice became a thundering roar.
Hewas the pilot of this ship, and no infernal defective ancient AI would tell him what to do.
He’d never lost control of the systems before. He wasn’t about to lose control now.
Not now, of all times.
The Sylth was theirs to command. It had been that way since the dawn of the empire. She did not give orders.
And Lodan did not let malfunctioning AIs or troublesome human females rattle him.
He had orders to follow; a mission to complete, a newly mated battle-brother to look out for. Not that Nythian needed protection from anyone... it was just that a newly mated Kordolian male could become a little… irrational.
He glowered at the human, trying to suppress the swirl of confusion and lust and cold anger that had taken hold inside him.
But he couldn’t get rid of it, no matter how hard he tried.
Fuck.
For a heartbeat, the darkness inside him yearned to steal her away from her illogical existence; to pin her down and demand that she reveal every last detail about herself, to steal her away and bend her to his will.
To claim her.
He needed to know.
He needed control.
It would be so easy to break her right now.
But instead, he forced himself to act somewhat normally. “Kaiin’s curses, woman,” he hissed. “What was that for?”
The way she stared back at him—with a fierce challenge in her eyes despite her fear—was life itself.