by Kate Rudolph
“Sort of.” She didn’t want to fail. Not when they were this close. But lying wouldn’t improve matters at all.
“When I reach for your spark, you’ll feel it. Are you ready?” He was giving her one last chance to back out, and Lena could appreciate that. But she wasn’t walking away.
“Do it.” She braced herself, but he didn’t touch her. Not physically. His own eyes drooped closed and after a moment she felt a brush of something against that barrier she’d almost seen. He was testing it, pressing against the wall. It tickled.
Lena fidgeted and then made herself stop. She had more discipline than that. But it did feel weird and she didn’t like it.
He pressed even harder against the bond and her instinct was to fight. She didn’t want anyone inside her, not in her mind, not like that. But that was the whole point. They had to reach into one another to make this thing work.
She stopped resisting.
The barrier didn’t suddenly fall, but Lena could feel Solan more solidly. She breathed deep and tried to let him in, but nothing she did seemed to help.
And then he was there between one breath and the next. The barrier hadn’t dissolved, but he was inside her mind, reaching for her power, and tugging it back towards himself.
Lena acted on instinct, following him. She didn’t know if she’d be able to break that barrier between them on her own. By following him she didn’t have to.
His mind, his power, wherever she was, was different than her own. The hues were darker and the shapes deeper, undiscovered. She wanted to wander, to find the crevasses all around and see what secrets she could uncover.
But that wasn’t why she was here. And Lena was worried that if she stuck around for too long she wouldn’t be able to find her way back out. Finding what she was looking for was no trouble. Assuming Solan’s spark was the blue, glowy thing right in front of her.
Did she have something similar inside herself? Why hadn’t she seen it?
She reached a hand in and tried not to wonder if it was really her hand or some strange projection.
The second her fingers touched his power, something tugged in her chest and she was being whisked back towards the barrier. She held tight to the power she’d latched onto, knowing the bond wouldn’t be complete if she didn’t take it with her. And once his power touched the barrier, it shimmered and dissolved.
She expected some rush, some intermingling of their sparks, but her power stayed on her side, and his stayed with him. She reached for it anyway and knew she could call on it at any time.
Lena opened her eyes and stumbled back when she saw how big Solan’s wings had grown.
Wind rustled behind her, not a weight, not exactly, but an awareness. Lena glanced over her shoulder and got an impression of electric green and red, just like Solan’s wings. She wished there was a mirror in the room. She wanted to see for herself.
Solan’s eyes glowed, lightning flashing bright and seductive.
She vaguely remembered their agreement, but with power, his and hers, fizzing in her veins it was impossible to hold to the deal they’d made. She stepped up close and reached out until her fingers traced over his wings, the power crackling around them. From the feel of the electricity, she knew it should hurt. She was sure he could make it hurt, but from the way he was looking at her, she knew he didn’t want to hurt her.
Would she taste his spark in his kiss?
She wanted to find out. She was drunk on power and sudden desire. She leaned in, unable to pull herself back. Solan’s fingers landed on her waist, squeezing tight, right there with her.
This was happening. There was no stopping it.
Her body tightened, ready and waiting for whatever was going to happen. The heat of him was almost too much to handle but she wasn’t letting go. She’d never been so close to a person in her life. His spark, his lifeforce, flowed in her veins. It didn’t get better than that.
No.
Sanity knocked at the backdoor of her mind and Lena wanted to keep it out, if only for a few more minutes. Just long enough to let her get a taste of this man. Was that too much to ask?
Apparently yes.
She stepped back, the promise she’d made to him stronger than whatever desire she felt. It broke the spell and Solan stepped back as well. They stared at each other for almost a minute, neither of them knowing what to say. Lena wanted to fill the silence with something, but her mind was still a bit scrambled.
Solan cleared his throat. “Your wings look nice.”
“Yeah?” She flexed her back muscles, trying to flare them out farther so she could see them. It didn’t work. “I guess I’ll have to get used to them. How do I put them away?”
That stumped him for a moment. “When you’re first learning to use them, they react strongly to your emotions. If you feel like you’re in danger, they’ll come out. Try and remind yourself that you’re safe. I know you think your muscles control them, but they don’t. They’re a manifestation of your spark, and that is where they go when they’re not on display. Feel your spark and pull them back.”
It took a minute. Now that she wasn’t holding onto Solan’s power it was harder to feel her own, but easier than it had been before they bonded. And she knew she wasn’t in any danger at Human House. Especially not with Solan here.
Though she wasn’t about to let herself rely on him. That way led to danger and heartache.
The fizzing glow of her spark was there when she looked for it, and she imagined sending her wings back there to hang out for a while. Nothing felt different when she opened her eyes back up, and yet she was certain the wings were gone.
So that was that. She and Solan were bonded.
And now that it was done they didn’t know what to do with one another.
Solan was the first to speak. “I’ll inform the admiralty. We’ll be expected to begin training in earnest now that we’ve bonded. I’ll relay a schedule to your communicator. Have a nice evening.”
He left without waiting for her response. Not that she had one.
Lena sank back down onto the couch. She had an awareness of Solan living within her and she could reach for her wings at any time. For the first time in a month, things were looking up. She’d have a real job, a purpose, soon enough. And she was Matched to a capable soldier who she was fairly certain she liked.
But as she sat in the empty room she’d never felt more alone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SOLAN’S MESSAGE CAME early the next day: Training facility. 10:00. Since she only knew of the one facility, that was where she went. And when she got there, Emily was climbing up to one of the top platforms and sailing down as if she’d been born with wings.
If Emily was using her power, that meant Oz was somewhere close by. For some reason, Matched units needed to be in relatively close proximity or their sparks didn’t work well. Emily had confided that she and Oz were working on the distance and now they could be miles apart and still make things work.
Had Solan considered that?
They hadn’t discussed it, but he must have. Right? Lena wasn’t going to worry about it. It was his problem. Besides, she’d been up half the night testing out her wings and she hadn’t run into an issue with her powers once. Whatever their range was, they had plenty of room to maneuver.
Lena wasn’t ready to talk to Emily about what was going on, so she ducked down towards the changing rooms before her friend could see her. Solan hadn’t forbidden her from saying anything to Emily, and she wouldn’t have bonded with him if he had, but this was way too new to talk about yet. She changed into her workout clothes quickly and headed down one of the halls, looking for a smaller training room where she could warm up before Solan arrived. He’d said to be there at 10:00, so she was ready at 9:30. Her body was still adjusting to the twenty-two hour long Zulir days. The constant sunlight didn’t help, nor did thirty-four years of dealing with a twenty-four hour schedule.
But Lena had decided to embrace her new world as much as
she could. There was no going back to Earth, not ever. And if she sometimes had to wipe away tears wondering what had happened to her family, she’d do it where no one could see. Let the Zulir throw anything they wanted at her. She could take it.
After she warmed up her muscles.
She found a small workout room and thought it was unoccupied until she heard a female grunt and looked over to see a blonde head bobbing in and out of view near what looked sort of like a squat rack. Lena recognized that blonde head and she would have turned right back around if Grace hadn’t caught her gaze in the mirror and lifted an eyebrow in challenge.
Great, now if she walked away she’d lose something. She wasn’t sure exactly what, but she would lose and Grace would win and she didn’t want that. Grace was fully human, but she’d been raised on Aorsa by a human mother and her Zulir step-father. At some point she’d joined the military and had been sent down to Kilrym to infiltrate the same facility where Lena and her friends had been held. Grace had been the model prisoner, currying favor with their guards and alienating all of the other humans. She’d also been instrumental in eventually freeing the humans. Lena’s feelings about the young woman were... complicated. And she wasn’t in the mood to talk.
So she didn’t, instead waiting to see what Grace would say. Grace remained silent.
It went on for another minute before Lena gave up. She headed to one of the workout stations, ignoring Grace, and powered up the treadmill-like device. It wasn’t identical. It was built into the ground and operated by waving her hand over a sensor, but Lena quickly got the hang of it. She started slow but quickly picked up the pace. The machine adjusted to her stride. She didn’t know exactly how fast she was running, but it felt good. And by the time she was warmed up enough to begin stretching, Grace was gone.
Good.
Lena wanted to hit herself. She shouldn’t be feeling good about avoiding interaction with Grace. Grace had done nothing but her job. She was a decent person who’d done a duty. They didn’t need to be best friends, but that didn’t mean Lena should treat her like crap.
That was another resolution for the list. Be nicer to Grace. Fine. But she wasn’t going to chase her down to do it.
Awareness pricked at the back of her neck a second before she heard the door open. Lena stood up from her stretch and turned to see Solan watching her. Had he been looking at her butt?
Not the time.
“You’re early,” he said.
“Early is on time.” It had been drilled into her in the military and she wasn’t going to forget it now.
“I have a training station set up. Ready?” He nodded back towards the hallway.
She followed him out. “Thanks for that tip about the translator.”
“What?” The halls were a maze around them and Lena hoped she didn’t have to find her way out alone.
“I did a bit of research after we... talked. And I successfully read a paragraph from that book. And now I know more about fertilizer maintenance than I ever wanted.” She hadn’t been able to sleep, so studying had seemed like a great idea. She needed more practice, but she was sure it would all come together soon enough.
“That’s great.” He grinned at her and Lena’s stomach flipped. Stupid stomach. Stupid grinning man. She wasn’t going to put up with that.
The training room looked a little like a shooting range, but not a shooting range that Lena had ever seen. There were targets set up at intervals, some made of paper, some freestanding, and paint on the floor marked the distance.
She could barely hold in her excitement. This was really happening. She had a purpose again. She wouldn’t need to rely on Crowze’s kindness or anything else for long. She could stand on her own.
Well. Mostly. There was still Solan right there beside her.
“Where are the guns?” she asked. She’d briefly carried a Zulir blaster when they went to liberate her fellow prisoners, but other than that she’d been unarmed for months. Years. She still didn’t know how to reconcile the time difference.
Solan shook his head. “No weapons.” He flashed out his wings with a jerk of his shoulders, then sent a bolt of power flying towards the nearest target. The paper caught fire with a flash and burned almost too fast to see. As soon as the fire was out, a wire descended from the ceiling and automatically replaced the paper.
“Neat trick.” Lena subtly flexed her shoulders like Solan had, but her wings stayed stubbornly retracted.
“Once you’ve practiced enough, you won’t need your wings extended to call your spark, but it’s definitely easier that way.” He looked at her expectantly, waiting to see her wings.
Lena could do this. If Emily could summon her wings like it was nothing, so could Lena. Piece of cake.
She looked within herself for that power she’d felt before. Solan had said it was tied to her emotions. The wings would protect her. So she needed to think of something scary.
Killer clowns. Creepy bugs. Jail. Jail with killer clowns.
It didn’t work.
She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw. She could almost feel that power. She just had to reach for it.
Come on. Come on.
There!
Lena had it for a second and wind rustled behind her, but when she opened up her eyes, Solan was still looking expectantly.
“A little help?” She hated asking, but she didn’t want to stand here all day.
His face grew thoughtful. “I’m going to try reaching for your spark.”
A sarcastic comment sat on the tip of her tongue, but Lena held it back. She and Solan weren’t at the witty banter portion of their relationship yet. She just nodded.
She knew the second he was inside her. It tickled. But it no longer felt wrong, not exactly. He was more guest than intruder. Until he jolted something inside of her that made her wince and jerk back.
“Hey!” Her arms were up and she was ready to fight.
But he grinned. “It worked.”
“What?” Lena jerked her head back and got the impression of electric green and red out of the corner of her eye. “I really need a mirror.”
“There’s one in the changing stalls,” he offered. “I’ll wait, if you want to take a look.”
The offer sounded genuine, but it made Lena feel vain in the worst way. “I’m good,” she said. And she was going to figure out how to call her wings out on her own so she could see what they looked like in private.
Solan shrugged. “Here are the goals for today. You are going to use your spark to hit at least three of the targets. Once you’ve done that, we will combine our sparks to see what we can hit.”
She looked back. There were five targets, two made of paper, the others freestanding metal of some kind. None of them far away. If Lena had her gun, the targets would be toast. But the point of this was to train her new powers so she’d never be unarmed. “Sounds easy enough.”
“It should be,” he agreed. “We’ve been given a directive to begin training and these are the most rudimentary exercises, designed to train a newly Matched pair where one partner has an underdeveloped spark. Once we complete these, we’ll be monitored more closely and judged by military trainers before we can be put in the field.”
That wasn’t exactly how they did it back home, but it didn’t matter. She had to hit a few targets before they took the training wheels off. Fine. She flexed her shoulders and imagined her new powers, that lightning that Solan could call so effortlessly. Her fingers tingled and when she looked down she saw white light dancing between her knuckles.
She wasn’t going to miss this chance. Lena aimed, palm up, fingers down, and tried to shoot like she was slinging webs in a Spider Man comic. There was a small puff of air, crackling with electricity, but the closest target, which was only about six feet away, was untouched.
“Maybe some advice would help,” she admitted, turning back to Solan. “You Zulir make this look easy.”
“I’ve been doing this since I was a child. It will
come.” He stepped close and ran his fingers over her arm.
He was off to the side so he wasn’t interfering with her wings, but her wings seemed to have a mind of their own. The one closest to him flared out and rubbed against his shoulder, sending sparks raining down on both of them.
Solan’s fingers tightened around her forearm and he sucked in a deep breath. “We’ll need to add wing etiquette to the training as well. That is a very...” he had to clear his throat to get around the gravel that made him husky, “intimate gesture.”
Lena snapped her wings back, and they would have made a sound if they were more than just magical electricity. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.” He put a little space between them and lifted her arm. “You’ve called your spark to the surface. That’s a good first step. Eventually you won’t need to, but we’ll get there. What you need to do now is concentrate it before you aim. See how you have all these separate strands? You want to consolidate those into one strike.” He traced his fingers through the power, nudging it all towards the center of her palm.
“Does it sting?” She wasn’t sure exactly how this was supposed to work, but it looked like he was playing with live electricity. That couldn’t be safe.
He looked up from her palm and she couldn’t read the look on his face. Or maybe she just didn’t want to. “We’re bonded,” he said. “Your power recognizes me, just as mine recognizes you. We can’t harm each other, no matter how hard we try.”
“Handy.” With his fingers still swirling in her power, Lena tried to do as he said, concentrating all the filaments and strands into one. Her palm grew warm, and though she hadn’t consolidated everything, she’d certainly made progress. “Let me try again.”
Solan dropped her hand and she did.
This time she hit the target. It didn’t go up in flames, but there was a definite scorch mark.
“Yes!” Lena shot her hands in the air and did a happy dance. She didn’t realize her power was still active until Solan jerked her hand down, eyes frantic.
