by Avery Rae
Soldier’s Runaway
Korystus Aliens II
Avery Rae
ISBN: 9781717981240
Copyright © 2018 by Avery Rae
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Follow Avery Rae
1
I was going to die on Korystus. As I stared up at the planet's forever starry night sky, both moons enhancing the bright blue-and-purple glow of the trees around me, I had to admit it wasn't a bad place to go. At least, it was better than dying in Governor Solys's dark basement. It'd been a few weeks, maybe months—I couldn't be sure—since a fellow human helped me escape, and I never wanted to go back.
Marion. She'd told me that day she knew a Korysti who might help us. I chose not to go with her. I couldn't. Not after Solys. No Korysti could be trusted if a psychopath like him was an elected official. Even though my choice had led to me lying here, taking in my final breaths, I still believed I had made the better choice.
My head rolled to the side. With what little strength I had left, I brushed the tips of my fingers against a stem of grass. So pretty. It glowed a soft, calming blue against the white soil. The worst part about Korystus was that I loved it here. If only it wasn't for the planet's awful inhabitants.
The first time I'd had the chance to look out a window at the laboratory, I fell head over heels with the place. It looked like somewhere unicorns and fairies and a host of other magical creatures would live, so how could I not, right? Unfortunately, instead of fairies, it was populated by the biggest assholes in the universe. Just huge, massive—I mean, gargantuan—assholes.
The Korysti responded to us crashing on their planet by loading us all up and carting us off to their big, fancy labs. They undoubtedly saved a lot of lives with the advanced medical technology they were so proud of. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
They were a little snobby and rude, but we were all pretty thankful at first. Until we realized they only did so to mine our heads for information, then sell us off. We became a product for wealthy Korysti to indulge in. A fun new hobby. An accessory. A sex toy. They could take their pick. What we wanted didn't matter. We certainly didn't get to choose.
To be honest, unlike a lot of my fellow humans, I was alright with making the best out of a bad situation. Especially after being stuck in a ship for ten years or so. I was more than happy to have something new to do, especially if that something was a Korysti. They were all beautiful. Perfect. And I could swing either way. So I thought, hey, why not have some fun for once?
Only I got stuck with a psychopath. Apparently, their genetic witchcraft was only skin-deep. Because despite his beauty, Governor Solys was rotten on the inside. Like I said, I would've been perfectly okay fooling around with someone, no matter the ethics of him having purchased me or whatever. I didn't care. But he didn't want that.
He wanted to break me. Turn me into some sort of simpering little automaton who did whatever he said. I realized far too late that he enjoyed keeping me in that cramped little room. He didn't just want to break me—he liked the process, even more so if he got to draw it out. He'd been playing the long game and loving every second of it. I'd just been making it more rewarding for him. It was a wonder I hadn't gone completely bonkers. Or maybe I had. I didn't know anymore.
Speaking of which, where did those come from? I blinked slowly at the booted feet in the grass beside my hand. It seemed like a weird pre-death hallucination. Maybe it was Death himself, tracking me down in the depths of the universe?
I weakly tapped a finger against the boot, expecting to find thin air. Instead my finger landed against the smooth, hard surface and slowly slid down. Huh. I guess they're real.
"You're alive?" a bewildered voice asked. It sounded like the speaker was underwater. "How did you even end up out here?"
I wasn't sure what they expected from me. I couldn't respond, or even move my head to look at them. I was dying, after all. I hoped they would just leave. I wanted to groan as a hand touched the side of my face and gently turned my head. Go away. I stared blankly at the blurry sight of purple skin and glowing silver eyes. Korysti. A male. Why couldn't he just leave me be?
"You're not well at all, are you?" he murmured, voice increasingly muffled.
I slowly blinked at him. No shit.
The Korysti gathered me into his arms, and I wished I had the strength to fight back. I knew where this would lead. Straight back to Solys's basement. I didn't want to go back there. I couldn't. I wanted to die here, not there.
To my surprise, my sluggish pulse quickened. In a burst of strength I didn't know I had left, I fought to free myself—blindly attacking the Korysti. Judging by the way he gave me a confused look and started running, I got the idea that my struggle felt a lot more impressive than it was. My body went limp in his arms as my consciousness slipped away.
I'm not dead, am I? I could still smell that specifically Korystus scent. It was sweet. Not in a cloying way, but a mellow sweetness that made me want to take a bite out of the air. The important thing at the moment, however, was that I couldn't smell that damp basement. Which meant I wasn't back at Solys's yet. I still had time to get away. And I felt amazing. Like a superhero or something. I was pretty sure I could fly.
I blinked my eyes open one at a time and groaned as the light seared my corneas. Not that much of a superhero, apparently. As my vision cleared, I saw that I was in a small home, especially by Korysti standards. In fact, it was small by human standards. Sort of like a studio apartment. The bedroom, living room, and kitchen were all in one room, divided only by sparse furniture.
The walls and floor were plain ivory stone with a faint shimmer, probably the most common building material I'd seen on Korystus. What little I'd seen of it. I was purchased by Solys not long after we arrived. In fact, I was one of the first humans sold. I only knew because Solys bragged about having pulled strings to buy me before the lab had finished their research.
I sat up in bed and took in the rest of my surroundings. There was a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor next to me. I stared at the makeshift bed curiously. Frankly, I was a little shocked the Korysti hadn't put me on the floor instead. I eyed the front door, then looked back at the only other door in the house. It was open. I craned my neck to look through it. It was the bathroom, and it was empty. I'm alone.
Excited and hardly believing my luck, I jumped out of the bed and raced toward the front door. I flung it open and raced outside, heart pounding wildly—and was immediately jerked backward. I slammed against a solid, muscular chest.
"Fleeing into the wilds without clothing," a confused voice rumbled above me. "Bold strategy."
I was so taken aback that I immediately scoffed.
"I'm not—" I looked down. "Huh. Would you look at that? I'm completely naked."
"You are."
I tilted my head up. "Dare I ask why?"
"I had to bathe you."
The Korysti was smirking at me. It was an annoyingly good look for h
im. Then again, his kind could get away with a lot because they were all model-perfect. Cheekbones for days. Full lips. Their bizarre yet appealingly shiny purple skin and bright eyes. This is one beautiful man.
It was a shame I hadn't been purchased by someone less insane. Even after dealing with Solys, I was still shamelessly attracted to Korysti. But, y'know, I also couldn't look at them without thinking of that psycho anymore, so that sort of soured things.
I scowled at the man holding my arm. "Could you explain why you felt the need to strip and bathe me?"
"I could."
I gave him a flat look. "Will you?"
"Maybe. After you explain a few things to me."
I clicked my tongue. "Yeah, unfortunately, I've got to get going. So, if you could just let me go, that'd be great."
He had other ideas. He picked up my nude form like I was made of paper—and, honestly, I probably weighed about as much. I'd been living off the land, and poorly at that, and I had already been borderline skeletal after Solys's treatment.
The Korysti placed me back on the bed, draped a cover around my shoulders, then crouched down in front of me. "Who do you belong to?"
"No one owns me," I replied without missing a beat.
"Someone paid good money for you." He sighed and rubbed at a dark purple brow. "I need to know where to return you."
"Return me?" I made a noise of disgust. "What's wrong with you?"
The Korysti tilted his head to the side, tapping at one of the translation discs in his ear with a look of confusion.
"What're you doing?" I asked, brow furrowed.
"I think my discs are malfunctioning, because I'm not hearing a name." He straightened his head, eyes narrowed. "You belong to someone, and I want to know who. Tell me."
This guy could act tough all he wanted. It wouldn't do him any good. I had nothing left to fear except for that basement, so he could shove it.
I leaned forward, teeth bared. "I don't know who you think you are, but—"
"I'll have you know, I'm a soldier in the Korystus Defense Force." He said those words like they really meant something. They didn't. Not to me, at least.
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, wow, there's nothing that says tough like being part of a Defense Force." I waved my hands in the air. "What're you gonna do? Protect me to death? Threaten me when you join a real army, hero."
"Kolyr."
"See, if you had been nice enough to introduce yourself first, I would've done the same." I gave him my biggest, fakest smile. "My name is Naomi. Some fun facts about me, you ask? Well, I was the youngest ever spaceship pilot, and—"
"Do you think you're funny?"
I shrugged. "Sometimes."
"You don't think you're being disrespectful?"
"You should be asking yourself that."
He placed a hand on either side of me, sinking his fingers into the soft mattress as he drew closer. "I saved your life, wasted my emergency injections to bring you back from the brink of death, and tended to all your wounds. Yet you're still ungrateful. You humans are all the same."
Something about what Kolyr said gave me pause. Not because I'd changed my mind about the respect thing, but because of something else. I pulled the blanket a little tighter around myself with one hand, then used the other to feel around my body.
None of my scrapes and cuts were there anymore. I was still bony. Maybe even bonier. I didn't feel frail though. Not like before. I knew Korysti medicine worked quickly, but something told me more than a few hours had passed.
"H-how long have I been here?"
He seemed taken aback by my sudden shift, but he still replied. "Several cycles."
I couldn't remember how Korysti days and nights worked. I didn't get much of an introduction to Korystus before my stint in the basement. Besides, it was too confusing when it always looked like it was night outside. Their time had something to do with the rotation of the moons, I knew that much. And a cycle was at least somewhere around twenty-four hours. Maybe more, maybe less. Either way, I'd been here for way longer than I expected.
"Several?!" I sputtered. "How? Why?"
He arched a brow. "Do you have somewhere to be?"
"How have I not woken up for a week?" I asked more forcefully, my heart-rate skyrocketing. "What've you been doing with me all this time?"
"I kept you under so you could heal faster. What do you think I was doing?"
I ground my back teeth together. "Well, I don't have any clothes on, do I?"
"I kept you covered once I finished treating your wounds. Besides . . ." He extended an arm, pointing toward a small table with rounded edges at the side of the bed. "Before I knew you were unstable, I figured you'd wake up, realize you were nude, and just put on the clothes I left for you."
"You try being locked in a basement for months and see how you come out."
Kolyr pulled back, his head cocked. "What?"
"Do you think I just ran into the forest and starved myself for the fun of it?" I got to my feet, forcing him to get up and take a few steps back. "I was kept in a room with no windows. No light, except for one tiny plant. My owner tried to break me, and he didn't succeed. So if you think you're getting anything from me by touting your meaningless credentials and using your big, bad, angry voice, you're wasting your breath."
I slapped a hand down on top of the clothes piled on the dresser, yanked them into my arms, and stormed to the bathroom with the blanket around my shoulders billowing behind me. Staring at Kolyr furiously from inside the bathroom, I slammed my hand against the screen next to the doorframe, illegible to me, until the door finally slid shut.
The moment I was alone, I slid down to the floor. I was screwed. This soldier guy was definitely going to send me back to Governor Sociopath and there was nothing I could do about it.
2
All I'd done in the bathroom was take a shower and get dressed, but apparently that was a grave offense. When the door slid open, Kolyr was pointing a weapon at me. Not just any weapon. Mine.
Anyone with authority on this supposedly peaceful planet carried these staves which could knock you on your ass in a microsecond. I stole mine from one of Governor Solys's guards when Marion and I escaped, and I'd held on to it all this time. Now Kolyr had it aimed in my direction, and he looked pissed off.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked as I stood in front of the bathroom door, hands on my hips.
"Naomi."
I gave him a funny look. "Yes, that's my name."
"You're the one who attacked Governor Solys."
My brows shot up to my hairline. "Do people talk about me that much?"
"There've been rumors that his human—Naomi—went feral and nearly killed him. It was you, wasn't it?"
"Feral? That sounds like me." I snorted out a laugh and held my hands up. "Well, you've figured me out. So, what happens now?"
"I'm going to call the peacekeepers and tell them you're here. Try anything, and I'll use this." He jutted the staff toward me for emphasis.
"Why? You can't take all five pounds of me on your own?"
"You would prefer the staff."
"You're that tough, are you?"
"Despite not being in a real army, yes."
"What, exactly, do you think I'm going to do to you?" I spun around, tugging at the silky, summery dress he'd given me to wear. It looked tiny before I put it on, but it was so big the straps kept slipping down to my elbow. "You've got over a hundred pounds of genetically modified muscle on me. If I overpower you, even for a second, I think it'd just be poor form not to let me win."
His silver eyes narrowed to slits. "You fractured Governor Solys's skull."
"He deserved worse."
"No Korysti deserves that."
"Not one, huh?" I lifted the hem of my dress and jutted out my left thigh, pointing at the faintly scarred flesh. "Get a good look at that and tell me what he deserves."
Kolyr's eyes darted away at first, but when I didn't move, he slowly looked back. Brow
furrowed, he took a step forward. "Is that . . .?"
"You didn't stop and look at it earlier, did you?" I dropped the hem and gave him a bland look. "You're telling me you didn't recognize it? C'mon, Kolyr, he's your governor."
"I was trying to look . . . as little as possible." His jaw clenched and unclenched, as if he was embarrassed to admit he'd tried to give me some dignity while I was unconscious.
"Solys told me it was the Sonethel family crest as he was burning it into my skin." I forced the words out even as the memory threatened to overwhelm me. This was important. I wanted every Korysti to know what he'd done to me. "He put it there in case I ever got lost. So people like you would know where I belonged. He would be so disappointed to know it didn't work."
Kolyr looked away again, the glow of his eyes fading as they fell shut.
"What? Are you actually surprised?"
"I don't—I don't know what to say."
"But you're still going to send me back there, aren't you?"
He opened his eyes again, but there was something hollow about them now. "You said it yourself, he's my governor."
I hadn't expected Kolyr to fully understand, but now I knew for certain I couldn't depend upon him for help. And there was very little chance of me getting away from him. That was my luck though. Not only did a Korysti find me just before I died but it had to be a soldier with blind loyalty to his people. Even someone like Solys.
"Unbelievable." A frustrated growl worked its way from my throat. I shoved a hand into my hair, wincing as my fingers caught on the wet strands. I yanked my hand away and looked down to see a single black hair wrapped around my fingers. It was so much longer than I remembered, and that was saying a lot.
