by Kate Rudolph
Kayde nodded weakly. “Get me to the cockpit,” he slurred.
Oh, that wasn’t a good sign, but they didn’t have time to delay. She led him straight there, settling him into his seat before finding the first aid kit that was set up against the wall. Kayde moved sluggishly, powering up the ship and engaging the launch sequence. Quinn found an injector filled with painkiller and reached for Kayde’s arm, giving him the medicine without asking for permission.
He growled at her and she had to suppress a smile. Of course he was a surly patient, she shouldn’t have expected anything less. “How bad is the bleeding?” she asked, digging around for bandages and regen gel. She let out a little shout of victory when she found an almost full tube.
Kayde’s breath was shaky, but his hands on the controls were steady. “It will hold while I get us in the air.”
She could see the blood seeping into his top and wanted to fix him up right then, but she had to trust her mate. They were his injuries, and he knew his body. She sat back in her seat and stashed the first aid kit between her legs before buckling up. The nav screen in front of them was clear and they weren’t far from the gate. They could catch up with the fleet in no time and this little setback would be no more than an unpleasant memory.
They lifted off and Quinn finally got a look at the destruction all around them. The Detyen compound was gone, completely leveled. “What happened?” The words burst out, even as her mind scrambled to find an explanation.
“Self destruct,” said Kayde, his focus completely on the controls in front of them. “Can’t leave anything behind.”
“For who?” She still didn’t know why they’d evacuated, or what was going on.
Kayde groaned and a shadow passed over head. “For them,” he said as a giant warship came into view, and Quinn’s heart sank.
Chapter Twenty-Two
KAYDE WAS ON THE VERGE of passing out, and he’d had enough of battle to last him for the next several years. He’d spent days, weeks, in the trenches before and it had never been this bad. But he’d never had his mate at his side, and keeping her safe was more important than everything else.
The first of the Oscavian ships broke through the atmosphere and Kayde reached forward, reprogramming their trajectory and turning around 180 degrees. They were the last ship on the moon and he wasn’t about to let them get captured. He punched the speed, going as fast as he could manage while still bound by the moon’s gravity. A warning alerted him that they’d been spotted, but the giant Oscavian ship was much too slow to catch them. It could have flattened the compound in a minute, but one little speeder could outrun it with room to spare.
And he did.
The second they broke atmo he made the jump to FTL, the maneuver similar to how they’d escaped Beznifa. They left the Oscavians behind with no trail to follow and Kayde slumped in his chair, the buzz of the painkiller simmering in his veins even as it felt like his guts were on fire.
Quinn didn’t wait for his okay to scuttle out of her seat and start tending to him. She gasped when she revealed the blow that Denmen had dealt him, but she slathered on regen gel like a pro, giving him murmuring reassurances that everything would be okay. With her by his side, he could almost believe it.
“Who was that attacking? How did Laurel get on the base? Why did we have to leave?” Now that they’d reached some modicum of safety, the questions poured out of her and Kayde was more than happy to answer, but when he opened his mouth, his brain gave out and he slumped in his chair as everything faded to black.
He couldn’t have been out for long. Quinn’s hands were clamped tightly on his shoulders, but she didn’t shake him, too aware of his wounds to rattle him too much. Kayde sucked in a deep breath as the blood pounded hard in his veins. It felt like he’d been thrown out of a high-flying speeder and was about to plunge down onto hard land with no parachute. Something dropped out of Quinn’s hand, but he was too busy trying to breathe to look at it.
“You’re okay,” she told him, her voice firm. “We’re safe. You protected me.” Her lips brushed against his forehead, heedless of the sweat and grime he’d accumulated in the fight. “You’re all bandaged up and I gave you a stimulant to keep you awake.”
That must have been what fell out of her hand. Kayde managed a nod as his breathing evened. His heart still beat wildly, but that too was starting to get better. “I feel like I got kicked in the chest. By a fighting bot.”
His ever so caring mate smiled at him, a laugh in her eyes. “That’s what you get for scaring me like that.” She leaned back, letting her hand slowly trail down one of his arms before letting go. “I don’t like seeing you injured.”
“Believe me, denya, I do not like being injured. But I would take a hundred wounds every day to keep you safe.” It was only now truly setting in that they’d escaped. He’d been moving so fast since Druath and Laurel showed up that he hadn’t had time to sit down and think. Hadn’t had time to realize just how close he’d come to losing his mate and his life.
Quinn’s eyes softened. “I love you. And I don’t want you to take a hundred wounds for me. Let’s just avoid the fights all together.”
“I love you, too.” He might not have said it in so many words, but he tried to show it to her in his every action. “But there are many battles yet to come, the Oscavian ships that found our base will not be satisfied with a ruin. They will pursue us.”
Quinn bit her lip and sighed. “Is the fight ever going to be over?”
She’d only known battle for a year or so, while Kayde had lived it every moment of his life. But for the first time since he could remember, he had hope. “It will,” he promised, “and soon. The people who attacked us might be connected to Yormas of Wreet.” He told her all that had happened, from Dru and Laurel arriving on the planet, up through the battle, filling in the blanks of the last few hours.
“You think that Laurel is Druath’s denya?” was Quinn’s first question.
Kayde shrugged. The regen gel burned on his side, but the painkiller he’d been given when they first boarded was doing its job, and he was able to focus. “Perhaps,” he conceded. He could remember the fury in her voice when she’d denied Dru, but that passion had to come from somewhere. “She said she wasn’t his mate. But I don’t know where she would have gotten the idea that she was.”
Quinn looked thoughtful. “I hope she figures it out. She’s been through so much, she shouldn’t need to suffer anymore.”
So had his own mate, but she had found a core of inner strength, and even though she’d been put through all the hells she’d shown that she had the heart of a warrior. But even warriors needed rest. “You can go and sleep,” he offered. “It will be some time until we rendezvous with the fleet.”
Quinn reached out and placed her hand over his. “I’d rather stay here.”
Kayde couldn’t help his smile. “There’s no other place I want you to be.”
“Where are we going? The fleet, I mean. You didn’t say.”
There was only one place in the galaxy that they had a chance of making a stand, one place where they’d already begun to lay the groundwork of a life and a potential alliance that could save them all, and the planet that had the best chance of saving the young of the Legion from the Denya Price. Kayde squeezed his mate’s hand before leaning forward to program in the coordinates to find the fleet, then he turned to her. “We’re going home. To Earth.”
She met his eyes and smiled. “Everything’s going to turn out alright now, isn’t it?” It was a question, but she asked it with confidence.
And for the first time in a long time, Kayde felt the truth in his answer. He had his mate by his side and a real home on the horizon, a place where his people could be safe. “It is.”
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More Detyen Warriors
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Heartless
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Also by Kate Rudolph
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Snowed in with the Alien Beast
Crashed
Mated on the Moon
Mated to the Alien
Ruwen
Tyral
Stoan
Cyborg
Krayter
Kayleb
Detyen Warriors
Soulless
Ruthless
Heartless
Paranormal Romance
Marked
Bear in Mind
Alpha’s Mercy
Gemma’s Mate
The Mate Bundle
The Alpha Heist
Entangled with the Thief
In the Alpha’s Bed
Find more by Kate Rudolph at www.katerudolph.net
About Kate Rudolph
KATE RUDOLPH IS AN ex-derby girl who lives in Indiana. She loves writing about kick butt heroines and the steamy heroes who love them. She's been devouring romance novels since she was too young to be reading them and had to hide her books so no one would take them away. She couldn't imagine a better job in this world than writing romances and sharing them with her fellow readers.
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Preview Ruwen by Kate Rudolph
Chapter One
THE PLANET WAS CALLED Polai and it sucked.
When Lis Janyx was eight years old, the idea of traversing the universe and seeing everything it had to offer had sounded great. But now, at twenty-five, Lis hadn’t chosen to come here. Nor had she chosen to leave Earth. They said living in the Wastes, a slum near the hollowed out husk of Old Cleveland, lead to death, dismemberment, or disappearance. Lis had never believed that.
Not then.
She’d been coming home from a late night of busting heads and tracking cheating husbands when a mountain of a man had literally appeared in front of her and knocked her out with one blow. At the time, she hadn’t realized they were aliens. Aliens didn’t come to Cleveland—no one did if they could help it.
But the next thing she knew, she was coming to aboard a spaceship, being examined by the most threatening medical bot she’d ever seen. They’d done tests and... stuff. She didn’t want to dwell on the stuff. It had been bad, some of it really bad, but it could have been a lot worse.
In the weeks she’d been aboard, she’d only seen the inside of her windowless cell and the little med bay. Day by day, she could feel her sanity and her belief that she’d make it out alive start to fade. She didn’t know what they wanted to do with her, whether they’d make her a slave, eat her, or worse.
And then one day when she’d lost count of how long she’d been a prisoner, she woke up on Polai with a small pack of supplies and a note written in English.
Apologies. Wrong girl. Humans can survive on Polai.
That was it. No explanation, no directions on how to get home. Just five energy bars, a canteen filled with water, and a thin jacket that didn’t do much to guard against the cold nights. Lis had taken to wearing it at all hours despite the lack of warmth. Polai’s sun did something strange to her skin, leaving painful bruises on every inch that she left exposed.
On her second night it had begun to rain and Lis found shelter under the broad brown leaves of the squat trees that dotted the land. For a few moments, it seemed like the foliage would be strong enough to protect her from the worst of the rain, but then the large leaf directly over her head collapsed in the center and poured all the collected water down over her arms, like a spout.
Since then her left forearm had been covered in small welts. They were getting better, but Lis refused to risk drinking from the small stream that ran near the woods where she’d been camping.
Humans in general may have been able to survive on Polai, but she wouldn’t last for long.
Lis didn’t want to live here. She just wanted to find a ship and get on the first freighter or cruiser headed back toward Earth. And that was going to be harder than she’d first thought.
Her ever-benevolent kidnappers hadn’t fitted her with a translator, and nothing indicated that Polans could understand English. She’d scoffed at learning Interstellar Common, the language of trade in space, in school, but she’d memorize a freaking dictionary of it if it meant she could get home.
And the Polans weren’t friendly. Lis had taken shelter in a small swath of woods about two miles north of a small town. She’d tried to approach a pair of Polans once she’d gotten her bearings on that first day. They looked almost human in shape, though they were smaller, shorter than five feet tall. Their skin was a dark green and none of them seemed to have any hair.
She’d hoped that raising her arms and looking pathetic would give them pause. Instead, both of the aliens had shrieked and charged at her, chasing her out of town and up a tree. Once they’d lost interest in her, Lis had decided to steer clear of the town during daylight. She wasn’t going to risk getting hurt by a lucky hit.
One night she’d stolen back into town, trying to find food. Nothing looked familiar in the small shop off the main street. It could all be completely harmless or extremely deadly. More out of spite than survival, she’d swiped a small bottle of a bright green liquid. There was an advert on the wall that showed two Polans drinking the stuff.
It wasn’t poison to them, but she hadn’t been brave enough to try it herself.
So here she was, nearly a week on the planet, her stomach tied in knots of hunger and her mouth as parched as the desert.
She clutched her jacket closed across her chest and kept her head down as she walked through the woods. Before, she’d been afraid that if she walked in too deep, she would get lost. Now, she needed to get anywhere. The day before, she thought that she had heard a vehicle coming from somewhere within the forest.
There could be people, or a house, or a conveniently abandoned spaceship. She didn’t expect the last one, but a girl could dream. While the leaves on all the trees were brown, the trunks themselves were a yellowish-orange. When the sun was up, they soaked up the light, and at night, they glowed faintly.
It was night now, but those trees gave her just enough light to see by. Lis hadn’t seen any Polans out after dark, and she was fairly certain they were a diurnal people. All the better for her. She’d always been a bit of a night owl.
After a bit of walking, the woods came to an abrupt stop. The trees had been cleared for a hundred or so yards up to a large gray building in the middle of a field. But the vegetation around the building was overgrown, with yellow grass as high as her knees, weeds, and vines crawling up one of the walls.
Abandoned. Perfect.
Lis spared a
quick look around, but she didn’t hear or see anything. As far as she could tell, she was completely alone.
She made her way through the high grass, stumbling over the uneven ground underfoot. Her head spun, but she regained her balance without falling over. There had to be food in there. Hopefully energy bars that she knew were safe to eat.
Lis made it across the clearing and found a door. Of course, it was locked, but she wasn’t going to let a thing like that stop her. She just needed a crowbar or something like it and then she was in.
The hairs on the back of Lis’s neck stood up and she froze where she stood. She looked back around to check that she was still alone, as if some primal instinct had sensed danger. Lis looked around again, but it was still quiet and she saw no one.
But when she looked around for something to pry the door open, she moved with extra care. It felt like something was out there, coming for her. Something big and dangerous that could end her in an instant.
The apprehension she now felt was different than what the Polans had brought up. Lis felt exposed, and she needed to get inside quickly. In her gut she just knew that whatever was coming was coming for her.
Chapter Two
RUWEN NANARAN MADE landfall on Polai in the bright sunlight of morning. It was nice, as far as inhabited planets went, but he wasn’t there to sightsee. His small cruiser sat hidden under cover of dense foliage, fuel cells recharging and cloaking system resetting itself. He’d be grounded here for a week.
More than enough time to get the job done.
He was a Detyen mercenary, contracted out to an anonymous client in need of a piece of information that only the Polans had access to. Getting onto the planet hadn’t been difficult. His ship had one of the most advanced cloaking systems available and Polai had a lax incoming defense system.
