Her Cold-Blooded Protector

by Lea Linnett

  Kormak shuddered, rage sinking its teeth into him again when he considered that Malcolm might already be dead. That his life might have been taken by someone else.

  Kormak growled with frustration, his anger peaking. All the pent up violence that would have gone into throttling Malcolm mere minutes earlier was now channeled into his arms as he ripped the front of the safe clean off, the hinges shrieking.

  The desk was the next casualty. He righted it, ripping out a drawer and throwing it to the ground where it shattered, sending splinters everywhere. The dark wood of the desk was soft, and parted easily under his fingers, the lacquer sending out a spiderweb of cracks from the gouges.

  The desk defeated, he turned to the throne, but as he bent to sink his claws into it he faltered. He hovered for a moment, finding himself unable to rip the ostentatious wood apart, and instead smashed one bony fist into the wall beside him, smashing the plaster clean through.

  In the wake of his outburst, the room fell silent, filled only with the panting of Kormak’s own labored breaths. His adrenaline spent, a deep shame rocked through him, weighing him down until he sank to his knees on the splinter-filled carpet.

  What was he doing?

  This was just proof of what he’d been reminding himself all along. He was a brute—stupid and violent—that could only destroy. He’d used that to get himself thrown out of his family home, whining that he didn’t have a head for strategy or rules, but now, sitting in the midst of a mindless destruction that he’d caused, he wondered if the military would have been a better fit after all.

  The military wasn’t all strategists and generals. He could have slipped down into the rank and file, spending his anger wherever he was told, and while it wouldn’t change him, it would have at least given him direction. Because without it, destruction seemed to be all he was capable of. He was a nucleus of hatred, kept leashed until he could be set upon some enemy like a rabid dog. He could never be gentle, but maybe he could have been useful.

  He looked down at his hands. Had he ever been gentle?

  No. Except…

  In his mind’s eye, he saw his clawed hands run softly along pale skin and trail through falls of blond hair, lighter than air—

  There was a noise behind him, the sound of a door creaking open, and Kormak surged to his feet. His heart leapt to his throat, and he moved on instinct.

  But he was too late. Before he could reach his full height, a jarring strike slammed into the side of his head. He listed sideways, one knee going out from under him.

  Another brutal impact, and another. It was something metallic, and it threatened to split his skin, bruising him down to the muscle. He pushed up through the assault and swung out with a hand, hoping to grasp either the weapon or its wielder, but then another blow landed just shy of the soft folds of his ear, and the world went black.

  25

  Lena sat around the foldout kitchen table that night with a full plate of food in front of her, and the sight of it nearly brought her to tears. It was the first proper meal that she’d had in days—weeks even, if you counted the tasteless offerings at Kharon. She’d never been so excited to see potatoes and salad, and the tiny portion of steak that Augusta had squirreled up was already making her mouth water.

  But her enthusiasm was dampened.

  Her heart still ached, even through the rumbling of her stomach. She’d tried to keep her mind on her family—touring the house and visiting her old bedroom and talking to Ellie and Augusta—but beneath it all was the crawling sensation of guilt.

  She’d let Kormak go. She barely even tried to fight him as he walked away. And every time Ellie asked a question about him or her journey, Lena felt her heart constrict painfully. She wished she could run out that door and find him, but she knew already that it was too late.

  She managed to deflect the conversation back to the everyday goings on of Rockford a few times, counting on Ellie’s exuberance to keep thoughts of Kormak safely at bay. Her sister happily spilled all of the gossip that she hadn’t been able to fit into her letters, and quite a bit that she had. Lena ate quietly, happy to soak up the natural warmth that seemed to beam from her sister.

  But eventually, Ellie ran out of steam, and Lena had exhausted the polite questions that Augusta would feel comfortable answering. A pregnant silence settled over them as they ate, until Ellie bit her lip.

  “So…”

  Lena glanced up at her, knowing what line of questioning was coming. “How did I escape?” she prompted, preferring to start with the easy parts. Her sister nodded.

  “Wrong place, wrong time? Or maybe, right place, right time,” Lena amended, rolling her eyes. “I just happened to be stuck in Isolation when the levekk decided to break out of it. So I followed him.”

  “Did he take you prisoner?” Ellie asked, eyes wide. Lena nearly choked on her food.

  “What? No.”

  “What about that bruise?” Augusta asked sharply, nodding at the hand-shaped purple blotches that still encircled her wrist from the night before.

  “That wasn’t him. It was a pindar.”

  “And why was a pindar—” Augusta began to say, but Ellie cut in, voice rising in excitement.

  “A pindar! How’d you get away?”

  Augusta’s face was stern and Lena imagined it would only grow sterner if she found out about the trip to the Sheneth Quarter, so she focused on Ellie’s question. “The levekk scared him off for me.”

  Ellie and Augusta shared twin looks of shock. The levekk were the baton-wielders, keeping their subjects just comfortable enough to discourage mutiny and thumping them into submission when the former was no longer effective. They were the queens at the top of the anthill, overseeing a bustling network of different castes in their colony with little feeling. The two women probably thought Lena was mad.

  “It’s not really that exciting,” she continued. “We got out of Kharon, stole a car—like, a customized, pre-Invasion monster of a car—and then the tire blew. So we walked the rest of it.” She paused, her eyes lighting up. “We crossed this huge river. I’ve never seen one that big! I could barely believe it was real. But, uh,” she faltered. “I guess that wasn’t the best day, really, what with Kormak falling into the river, but—”

  “Kormak?” asked Augusta, her eyes sharpening just slightly. Lena winced. She’d been trying to avoid his name, the wound still fresh, but it had fallen from her lips unconsciously.

  “…Yeah, that was his name.”

  “You traveled with him the entire way?”

  Lena frowned, seeing the worry creeping onto Augusta’s face. “Yeah. It was the only thing I could do. I would’ve been caught by Sweepers on that first night if it weren’t for him. And he had no idea what he was doing with that car…”

  “But how did you deal with him for a whole week? Did he talk to you?” asked Ellie.

  Lena rolled her eyes. “Of course we talked. He was… pretty normal, really. It wasn’t so bad.”

  “It sounds like you became close,” Augusta said, frowning openly now.

  Lena’s heart skipped, her stomach twisting. “I-I guess you could say that.” Lena tried to keep her tone light, but the older woman was watching her, her expression intent.

  “So where is he now?” asked Ellie, her shock having long since given way to intrigue. She was leaning forward in her seat, her eyes alight.

  Lena opened her mouth to reply, but realized she didn’t quite know how to answer that. “He… He had business. In the city. I expect I probably won’t see him again, to be honest.” The words clawed at her throat as they passed, and her stomach tossed and turned around the food she’d just eaten.

  “Oh.” Ellie’s gaze fell to the table, and she looked almost as disappointed as Lena felt. “Was it scary?” she finally asked, her blue eyes huge and wide again.

  Lena laughed. “I guess so, at times. I think I would’ve been more terrified if I’d been all alone, though.” The words came unbidden, and she paused, silently cha
stising herself. Stop thinking about him…

  Augusta stood up then, crossing over to the stove to make them more coffee, their dinner finished.

  “I’m just so happy to be back,” Lena added, hurriedly. “Even if it’s only for a little while.” She turned to her sister. “I-I don’t know if I can stay here, Ellie. I’m worried about someone reporting me. But I was thinking: maybe you and I could go somewhere—a different city—to start over. You too of course, Augusta. If you want.”

  But the woman only turned on the faucet, filling a pot with water.

  “Ellie, why don’t you tell your sister about your new job?”

  Lena’s gaze swiveled back to find her sister looking guilty, her eyes on the table again. “Ellie?”

  “Th-there was an ad,” Ellie began, haltingly. “Keely—you remember her?” Lena had a vague recollection of a girl who spent too much of her meager grain market earnings on drinks at the local dance hub. She nodded. “Well,” Ellie continued, “she got a hold of it somehow. The ad. It was looking for live-in housemaids. For residences in the city.”

  Lena’s face blanched. “Is this a sex thing?” she blurted out, and Ellie’s face turned red, looking scandalized.

  “No! Jeez, Lena. I-I interviewed with the—you know Helik Kaan? The senator? He’s running it, and I met his assistant. It was all legitimate. They want to improve human work conditions.”

  “So they’re targeting humans?”

  Ellie rolled her eyes at Lena’s tone. “Yeah, I know how it sounds. But it’s not like that. The first trial is gonna pair up humans with Senator Kaan and a few other levekk hotshots. He wants equality for humans, Lena. And if things go well, more places will want to hire humans in the city. Wouldn’t that be kinda cool? Us getting to live under the domes like pindar and cicarians can? I even get proper time off and stuff.”

  “So you’ll be one human in a city full of aliens?” Lena snapped. “Who’s going to protect you? What if something happened to you?”

  “There’s going to be regular checkups, performance grading, a support monitor that we can go to with any complaints—”

  “Sure, and I bet they’ll be super helpful.”

  “Lena, don’t you see how much this could help us? All of us?” She gestured wildly. “They’re offering three times the pay I could get working in a factory out here. This is a way for more of us to get better jobs.”

  “Because cleaning is a ‘better job’—”

  “It is!” Ellie insisted, her voice raised. “I’d rather clean some rich guy’s house than slave over those factory machines every day!”

  She closed her mouth with a snap, looking horrified. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  Lena looked away. “No, I…” She sighed. “You’re right. I wouldn’t want you in a factory anyway.” She crossed her arms. “I just… I worry about you.”

  “Augusta checked the contract—it looks legit,” Ellie continued, but Lena bit her lip.

  “Don’t do it,” she found herself saying, leaning forward again. “Come with me and we’ll get you a job in one of the less industrial cities. You won’t have to clean some guy’s house. Maybe we can get you a place in a clothier’s.”

  But Ellie was shutting her eyes, her shoulders slumping. “Lena… This is a really big opportunity for me. I don’t…”

  “What about off-planet?” Lena finally said, words tumbling from her lips almost desperately now. “I can get us a transport. We can get the hell out of here and make new lives!” She ignored how the idea of doing that with her sister alone made her stomach tie itself in knots. “It’ll be a fresh—”

  “Lena, no!” Ellie yelled, her voice breaking and her hands curling into fists. “Would you— Would you stop trying to control me?! My whole life, y-you’ve been doing everything for me. I want to do this for myself!” Her hands were bunched in her dress, her eyes skittering away, and Lena sat back in shock. “I’m already of age…” Ellie finished.

  Silence fell like a cold blanket over them. Lena had always kept her sister close, always protected her—not once had she thought that Ellie might not want that. She looked down, biting her lip. All this time, had she been holding her sister back?

  “Y’know I was worried about you too, Lena. First, you’re sent to prison, then I hear you’ve been kidnapped by an alien—or gone with him willingly? You get to go off and have these crazy adventures with a levekk and I can’t even work for one?” Ellie’s voice was small, trembling, but when she met Lena’s gaze, her eyes sparked with determination.

  “Ellie, the levekk are—” Cold, monstrous, alien. …Kind. Lena choked on the words. “They’re not safe!”

  “Are you serious?” Ellie’s voice wobbled, half disbelieving, half exasperated. “Weren’t you just telling us about how the levekk you were with wasn’t so bad? That he was normal? Maybe that’s true for a lot of them.”

  Lena’s mouth worked, her hands shaking. She had said that. She knew that. But Kormak was different from the kings on their thrones who looked down at other species as if they were peasants. He’d left that behind.

  And even then he’d…

  She turned to the older woman, who was taking an extraordinarily long time to brew their coffee. “Augusta? What do you think about this?” Augusta hated levekk. It was her stories that had instilled the fear of their rulers so deeply in Lena and Ellie’s brains, for better or worse. Surely she’d be able to talk Ellie out of it. But Augusta just shook her head, her pale eyes closing in defeat.

  “We’ve had this argument before,” said Ellie. “I’m not budging.”

  “I’m not your mother. I can’t stop either of you,” said Augusta, and gave Lena a significant look.

  Lena wasn’t proud of what she said next, but with the gulf widening across the table and Kormak’s words still clinging icily in her heart, her nerves were raw. She felt as if the last strand of rope she was holding onto had snapped, and now she was falling.

  “Come with me. Don’t make me go alone.”

  Ellie’s face was pained, the light from earlier dulled and waning. “Lena, you already left me alone when you got yourself thrown in prison.”

  Lena’s heart broke for the second time that day.

  Her one job, her one purpose, had been to support her sister. Keeping her safe and unharmed had been Lena’s only priority since their parents passed. And she’d failed. She looked up at Ellie and saw the determination there. She was terrified, for a moment, reminded too much of the way Kormak had stalked grimly away from her. But as she held her sister’s gaze, she saw that this was different.

  Ellie’s eyes were lit up with promise, sparking with excitement. As Lena stared at her, her sister’s face cracked into a small grin. “I’ll be fine, Lena. I’m nineteen. It’s time for me to start making my own decisions.” Lena’s eyes dropped, but were refocused by Ellie grabbing her hands across the table. She turned Lena’s fingers over, revealing the golden speckles that dusted her fingertips. “You’ve already done so much for me. Maybe it’s time you lived for yourself.”

  Lena felt tears in her eyes, and then Ellie was up and around the table, pulling her into a hug. She cried quietly into her younger sister’s knitted sweater, aware of the solid, comforting presence of Augusta leaning against the kitchen counter.

  In just a few months, everything about her home had changed, but it wasn’t gone completely. She could still enjoy these last few echoes of it before she left.

  26

  Kormak woke to a throbbing skull and the uncomfortable burn of rope around his wrists.

  Whoever had attacked him, they knew what to aim for. The sides of his head lacked the bone-like plating that covered the rest of his skull, and his internal ears still rang with the force of the blow. Pain curled like fingers through the right side of his skull, and when he opened it eyes, he found it difficult to balance himself.

  He wasn’t in danger of falling over though. He was on his knees, with each wrist bound to something sturdy on either si
de of him so that his arms stretched out diagonally towards the floor.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the pain for a few seconds before he opened them. In the ensuing moment of clarity, he cast his eyes up to survey the room.

  He was still in Malcolm’s penthouse. That answered the question of what he was tied to—it was the legs of Malcolm’s desk. When he leaned back, he could feel the slight resistance of the wood against his spine.

  Someone had brought a battery-lamp in with them, and the light glinted off a figure standing just a few steps in front of him.

  “He’s awake,” someone murmured, and Kormak saw the light shift wildly as the figure spun around, moving forward to crouch in front of Kormak’s nose.

  He’d hoped, for just a second, that the figure might be Malcolm, but as they drew in close, all hope of that faded. It was a xylidian, her shiny black carapace reflecting the light more clearly than glass. The xylidian spoke.

  “Good to have you with us, Kormak.” Her voice was metallic and grinding, typical of a xylidian. They always sounded as if they were talking through a comm.

  There was something familiar about her, but he couldn’t figure out what.

  He squinted at her. His neck ached as he tried to lift his head; he suspected his assailants had sneaked in a few extra shots after he passed out earlier.

  The xylidian smiled, showing off red teeth. “You don’t remember me, do you? I don’t suppose I was all that worthy of notice at the time. Just another poor kid scooped up by Malcolm’s generous hands.”

  “We all were,” Kormak replied, trying to focus. She’d mentioned Malcolm. Maybe he could still find him.

  “Why do this then?” she asked, voice hard.

  Kormak frowned, but remained silent. Whatever she was talking about, throwing around blame this early on was a bad sign.

  “All Malcolm ever tried to do was make life better for us,” she said, rising to her feet. “I didn’t believe it at first—a human looking out for all sub-species? I thought it was a joke. But then I met him. I met you.”