Shayn

by Starr Huntress

  Shayn fell into an unbreathing heap and Naomi screamed.

  The sound cut off almost as if she were watching a vid as the vision shifted.

  She recognized this place. Sterile walls, white computer station, bright lights in the ceiling. When she looked down she saw her hands were bound just as they’d been through so many exams. Why had she thought that was okay? Why had she put up with it for so long? She struggled against the restraints but nothing happened. They dug in tight enough to hurt and there was no way she’d be able to loosen them.

  She could feel something in her chest, something that had nothing to do with Sola or Morgyn or her life with the corporation.

  Shayn.

  He was alive. She could feel the bond between them still going strong, something she knew wouldn’t be there if he was still dead. But where was he? Had Morgyn captured him too?

  The door slid open and the woman herself walked in. She glared at Naomi before taking her seat. “We have work to do. I’m tired of your insolence.” She reached into a drawer in the desk and came back with a pressure injector. Without hesitation she leaned forward and pressed it against Naomi’s neck. Something cool flooded her bloodstream and everything went black.

  Naomi was breathing heavily as the visions let her go, but she couldn’t have been out for long. Though it could seem like minutes or hours passed while she saw things no person should see, normally it only took a second or two of real time. Those two visions had happened between one staggered step and the next.

  She wanted to run off of the shuttle and find Shayn, but that first vision kept her rooted in place. It had happened on the planet and she was sure that if she went to find him only one of them would leave this place alive. But she worried that if she moved forward she would end up back on Oscavia, back in Morgyn’s hands. She didn’t know if there was a better way out, but she made her way deeper into the shuttle and found a seat. If the cost of Shayn’s life was her freedom, so be it. She wouldn’t be the cause of her mate’s death.

  But she wasn’t going to give up so easily. As the shuttle rose off the ground and blasted them towards their waiting ship, Naomi turned her mind inward, using every trick of concentration she’d learned, listening to every whisper that her instincts gave her, and tried to summon another vision, another way out.

  The ship rocked as they broke atmo and pressure in her head jumped, a headache blooming, partly from the environment but mostly from this attempt to use her powers. In the fourteen years she’d been working with Morgyn she’d never been able to reliably summon a vision, but she could almost feel it. The vision was right there, just out of reach. She needed something. There had to be a way to harness that thing.

  Something trickled out of her nose and Naomi wiped it away, thinking it was snot, but when she looked at her hand she saw blood.

  She sucked in a deep breath and let go of the attempt. The headache faded almost immediately and once she wiped away the small trickle of blood from her nose, no more joined it.

  She didn’t need a vision to understand her body’s warning signs. She was trying to do more than her body could handle, and if she kept it up she could hurt herself, maybe permanently. She was safe for the moment, but she had no illusions that she’d remain so once she was back on the ship.

  It was possible that the man Shayn had fought during the evacuation was waiting for her there, and there could be more operatives sent from the company to bring her home. She had to keep her senses on high alert. She hoped she’d already prevented the first vision from happening, but now she had to stop the second, had to make sure that no one returned her to Oscavia, to Dr. Pitner.

  Naomi looked around the shuttle as best she could. The lights were low to preserve power on the short flight, but she could see well enough. No one looked strange. There were two families, both trying to keep small children entertained, and several couples holding hands or cuddling close. Naomi’s heart ached for Shayn. Why had they been separated? Was it a simple alphabetical assignment? She hoped that was the case, even as her mind presented far more sinister reasons.

  No, she would be fine. She had to be.

  On the bright side, the man who’d attacked them the night before wasn’t on the ship, not that she could see. And she trusted Shayn when he said that he’d find him and stop him. Her blood chilled as she remembered the vision, but she’d been there for that. Perhaps she’d caused a distraction in some way, perhaps her presence had made it worse.

  That had to be true. She clung to that belief as they cut through space, closer and closer to the ship that would take her and Shayn to freedom.

  She lost track of time as they cut through space, but no one around her seemed worried, so the trip couldn’t be taking over long. And eventually they slowed down and docked, the ship rocking hard enough to wake anyone who’d been sleeping.

  “Welcome back!” one of the crewmen said over the speaker. “We’ve docked with our ship and will be unloading shortly. Please give your name to the attendant as you exit the shuttle so that we can confirm that you’ve made it safely. Please pick up any garbage and personal items as we will be heading right back down to the planet to collect the rest of the passengers and want to get them transported as quickly as possible. Thank you!”

  Murmurs rose around her and clothes rustled as passengers stood and got ready to exit. Naomi joined them and has happy this part of the journey was almost over. Shayn wouldn’t be far behind and they’d be reunited and this whole part of their trip would be nothing more than a sometimes terrifying but mostly exhilarating memory.

  It took several more minutes for her to make it to the front of the shuttle, but she didn’t complain. The crew member taking names looked harried, several strands of bright blue hair having fallen out of her coif, and her uniform was rumpled from the night on the planet.

  “Naomi Beck,” she said. Should she have tried to use a false name to purchase her ticket? At the time it hadn’t occurred to her, but now that she was certain people were after her it seemed foolish to travel as herself. Then again, it wasn’t like she had access to false identification papers.

  The crew member scanned her list, lips pursed as she tried to find Naomi’s name. “Beck, you said?”

  “Naomi Beck,” she repeated, enunciating each syllable.

  The crew member’s eyes flicked up and she looked Naomi over before looking back down at her list and pressing her finger against the screen several times. Then she nodded. “I’m sorry. I found it. Will you please step to the side here?”

  “What?” Alarm rang through Naomi. No one else had been asked to step aside. She just wanted to get off the shuttle and find a safe place to stay until Shayn was back.

  “Please step aside,” the crew member repeated. “Everything is fine.” She jumped as her tablet chimed. “Never mind, please meet the security crew at the door for further instruction.”

  “Security?” Naomi was getting more and more worried. Had Morgyn somehow managed to flag her name? Was this because of the man who’d attacked them during the evacuation? Or the one who’d attacked them on the ground?

  “I’m not sure what this is about, ma’am, the security guard will give you more information. Now, please, I need to get everyone else off the ship.”

  Naomi looked back to see a line of increasingly irate passengers. She took a deep breath and nodded at the crew member. Her palms were sweating and her instincts were at war, fear telling her to run while her more precognizant feelings knew that would be useless. She’d been herded up here, away from Shayn, just as effectively as a farmer herded an animal to the slaughter.

  She stepped off the ship, head held high. If this was it, then she wouldn’t go down like a coward.

  An Oscavian woman in the ship’s security uniform stood waiting for her, hand on her blaster and a tough look on her face. “Name?” the security guard demanded.

  Naomi could lie, but what was the use? She gave her name and the guard nodded.

  “Follow me
,” the guard said, taking up a position to the side so that Naomi would be in her sight the entire time.

  They walked to the elevator and the guard pressed the call button. Naomi wanted to ask what this was about, but her tongue weighed a million kilos and she couldn’t make herself talk. She looked around, hoping an escape route would magically materialize, but as the seconds ticked by and the elevator got closer, that seemed less and less likely.

  If she ended up on that elevator, it was all over. She knew that, her instincts knew that, and she couldn’t give up that easily.

  A child’s wail echoed up the hall and the guard looked over. Something clattered to the ground behind them and the guard spared her a glance before taking half a step away, as if she wanted to go help.

  It was the best shot Naomi was going to get, the only one she could count on.

  She ran and hoped it would be enough.

  SHAYN FOUND THE MAN who’d attacked them and kept eyes on him while Naomi’s shuttle blasted off towards the ship. When the man made eye contact with him and grinned, Shayn’s blood ran cold and a dozen scenarios played through his head of what could be happening to his denya while he wasn’t there to protect her.

  He should have never let them get split up. He should have argued with the crew member. Even if it meant they were the last passengers on the last shuttle, it would have been worth it to remain together.

  He wanted to approach the man and see if he could get him to talk, if he’d reveal anything about what his plan was or how he was going to get Naomi back to Oscavia if he managed to capture her. But that was useless. And as the man continued to cross his path, Shayn got the sense that he’d been had. The man was a distraction, a shiny object for him to keep in his sights while someone else went after his mate.

  Had it been orchestrated from the beginning? Why else would they have been separated when their tickets were purchased together?

  He needed to get on the ship, needed to find Naomi and be reassured that all his worries were merely his brain acting up, imagining terrible scenarios that would never come to pass. She was fine. She had to be fine.

  He closed his eyes and focused on the bond they’d sealed between them. He could feel it faintly tugging him up, which he supposed made sense since he was on the planet and she was already in space. His father had told him stories about how mates could feel each other through their bonds. The most common was a tug in their mate’s direction. Some bonded pairs could feel each other’s emotions, and in incredibly rare cases they could communicate telepathically. Then again, given the scarcity of Detyens, all bonded pairs were incredibly rare these days.

  More than three hours after Naomi had boarded her shuttle to get back on the ship, Shayn was finally allowed on his. The passengers around him all looked ready to be home and they were a subdued crowd as they broke atmo and headed for space.

  The man he’d been watching for those three hours boarded the shuttle and shot Shayn a feral grin as he took a seat just at the edge of his sight. Shayn could turn away if he wanted to ignore him, but that felt like ignoring a predator and Shayn was no man’s prey. His tension continued to ratchet up as each minute passed, but they made it to the ship without incident and Shayn was able to get off the shuttle after he gave the crew member at the door his name.

  When he turned to spot the man from the planet, he was gone. Shayn spent several minutes looking around, but it was as if the man had dissolved.

  Shayn rushed to their room, ready to reunite with his mate in every way. The door opened when he pressed his palm against the lock, but as he walked in, he smelled stale, processed air and heard only the hum of the life support system.

  The room was empty. It looked as if no one had been there since they’d evacuated.

  Where was Naomi?

  He’d imagined that someone had nabbed her, but hadn’t really thought that was true. It couldn’t be true. He’d just found her, he wasn’t about to let anyone take her away from him so quickly.

  Calm, he urged himself. Deep breaths.

  Just because she wasn’t in the room didn’t mean she wasn’t on this ship. Their quarters were down several out of the way hallways where anyone could have been waiting for her. She would have known that and it was perfectly possible that she hadn’t wanted to risk going back to their room alone.

  He checked the communications panel in the wall to see if there was any message waiting for him, but there were none. He concentrated on the denya bond and could feel it pulling him out of the room. He’d just follow the pull until he found his mate. Simple enough. He locked the room behind him and started down the path.

  As he walked he realized he was heading towards one of the more popular entertainment decks and started to feel a sense of relief. This was a good public place to wait, full of passengers and crew, never deserted, brightly lit, everything a person could want to make sure she didn’t get taken by some sinister operative of the corporation who’d raised her.

  But as he entered the entertainment deck he didn’t see his mate, and the bond pulled him further down the hall. He passed by a restaurant and two bars as apprehension welled within him. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t there. Where in all the hells was she?

  Finally Shayn came to a dead end, his path cut off by a wall that he couldn’t find a way around. He could still feel Naomi, but the bond was feeling fainter, as if she was getting further away. As if she wasn’t on the ship at all.

  He rushed to the nearest information tablet and pulled up the passenger manifest, looking for her name to make sure she’d made it back to the ship. He’d seen her get on the shuttle; there had been two hundred and forty-nine other people on that shuttle and someone would have noticed if that large group of people hadn’t made it back.

  He checked again, but the manifest told him she wasn’t on the ship.

  “Then where is she?” He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud until another passenger glanced at him oddly. The sound had been more growl than speech, but his frustration and fear were growing. His mate was out there somewhere, possibly in the hands of her enemies, and there was nothing he could do to protect her. What kind of mate was he?

  He needed off this ship.

  If she wasn’t on board then maybe she’d been taken back to the ground, where whoever had her could find another ship to take them back to Oscavia. If he got back on the shuttle, he could find her.

  He raced back to the shuttle, but when he got there the crew members were cleaning up and sealing the door shut.

  “Wait!” he yelled, “I need to go back down to the planet.”

  A harried looking crew member with blue hair half held back and half falling around her face gave him an unimpressed look. “I’m sorry, sir, but no one is going back. We’ve finished shuttling our passengers from the planet and have just taken off. Can’t you feel us moving?”

  He couldn’t, but ships like this were designed to cut through space without passengers feeling a thing. “My mate is down there,” he said, feeling his claws prick his knuckles. He kept them in check, barely. Attacking a crew member would be a one way ticket to the brig and he’d be no help to Naomi in there.

  “She’s not,” the crew member insisted. “We confirmed all passengers have been returned safely to the ship.”

  “She’s not on the manifest.” He’d steal the damn shuttle if he had to, but maybe he could get some information from the crew member first. “Will you look her up? Naomi Beck. She’s human.”

  The crew member’s eyes widened a fraction before she got her expression under control. But it was enough to make Shayn wonder.

  “Do you know something? Where is she?” He was one second away from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her.

  The crew member looked from side to side, checking to make sure they were out of ear shot of anyone else. “It was weird,” she whispered. “Her name was flagged as a security risk. A guard came to escort her away from the shuttle. There was a bit of a commotion. And this part
I didn’t see, but some crew were talking about it. She tried to run, made it halfway to the stairs. Then another security guard intercepted her and took her into custody. But no one could say who that guy was. There’s a lot of crew, but we recognize each other. And no one knew who that guy was. Out of curiosity I looked up her name later and it was gone. No security notation, nothing. I wish I could help you more, but that’s it.”

  Ice flowed in Shayn’s veins at her words. “Is it possible this man took her off the ship?” Every minute he could feel the bond between them stretch and stretch, and he only hoped it was too strong to snap.

  The crew member nodded.

  “I need off this ship. I need to find them.” He’d fucking float through space if that was what it took, but he was going to get his mate back.

  “We’re rerouting to Honora Station for some extra repairs. We’ll be there in three days flying directly at top speed. I’m sorry, there’s no way off the ship until then.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and left Shayn there, fuming and ready to lash out.

  Three days? Anything could happen to her in three days.

  There wasn’t a second to waste, and Shayn had a call to make. He was going to get his mate back.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  OKAY, SO RUNNING DIDN’T exactly work. Naomi raised her bound hands to rub at her tender cheek where it had been slammed into the wall when the security guard tackled her. Not that the failure had really been a surprise, but she was disappointed all the same. At first she’d hoped she was being held by ship security, but when the guard led her to a docked speeder and forced her on by jabbing a blaster into her back, she’d known things had only gotten worse.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have run.

  No, either way she would have ended up here, and at least she’d tried to escape.