Heartless

by Kate Rudolph

  Not with Kayde. He tortured her with care, taking things almost agonizingly slow until she had to beg him for more. His offer to use restraints had only sent her mind reeling with dozens of ideas of the things they could do to one another, but she hadn’t yet been brave enough to bring that up again.

  Putting the sex aside, their trip after leaving Beznifa was much more companionable than before. They spent their time together, they talked, they shared meals, they developed something between them that Quinn wanted to last long after they stepped off the ship. Maybe it was the weak, incomplete bond holding them together, or maybe it was just Kayde and the way he was her anchor. She wanted to go anywhere with him, do anything, but another part of her was afraid that when they landed everything would change, that he would go back to being that wooden, robotic man who’d intrigued and frustrated her all the same. She didn’t want him to pull back, to stop showing affection when they were around other people.

  But she also knew that where they were going, the people would expect him to be soulless. And he’d told her of the harsh penalties that came when the soulless acted out. If they thought he was unstable, if they didn’t believe that she was his mate, they might execute him. When he’d told her that, she’d insisted that they try to seal the bond. She’d been determined that she wanted him to make love to her, to claim her fully. That had been the night of the panic attack, where he pressed one finger inside of her and she showed him just how much of a head case she was. He never let her see if this bothered him, never made her feel bad about her limitations.

  And because he was so considerate of all of that, she didn’t let him know her fears. If he closed off from her when they landed, she’d find a way to deal with it. She’d handled rejection before, she could take it again.

  Though Quinn had practically moved in with Kayde, spending every night since their first together in his bed, she still kept her things in the room she’d claimed for herself. It was more of a storage issue than anything else. Rooms on the ship were tiny. There was only one drawer where Kayde could place his belongings. Her own simply wouldn’t fit beside his.

  She rolled out of bed on the sixth day since they’d first made out and got dressed. A look at the clock told her it was late morning by ship time. Kayde had no doubt been up for hours already, and normally he would have woken her up with kisses, even if they only had time to make out for a bit, not enough to take it further. Before boarding the ship, she would have thought they’d be able to make their own schedules, to take all the time in the world to do what they wanted and to fit any necessary duties in around their moments together.

  But though Kayde had his emotions back, he was still a warrior, still trained to make a schedule and stick to it. He was up with the dawn—metaphorically, seeing as they were far from any star system—and doing his exercises, checking their coordinates and fuel levels, doing everything that it took to run the ship. Quinn, in contrast, slept a bit later and mostly puttered around when she wasn’t at Kayde’s side. The ship still wasn’t designed for entertainment, but that mattered less when she had a Detyen warrior to keep her company.

  After getting dressed Quinn made her way to the cockpit to find Kayde sitting in the pilot seat, a blank expression on his face. Her heart stuttered for a moment, all her fears rushing back, but when he saw her he gave her a small grin and everything was right again. “You should’ve woken me up earlier,” she said, taking her seat beside him. She automatically reached out for his hand and they laced their fingers together, letting them hang in between the seats.

  “You seemed peaceful. I didn’t want to wake you if you were going to get a full night of sleep.”

  Quinn’s insomnia hadn’t gone away, even if she was sleeping better than she had in a long time. But now that Kayde mentioned it, she realized he was right. She had gotten several hours of uninterrupted sleep and felt more rested then she could imagine. “You’re going to spoil me. No one’s ever—never mind.”

  He looked at their joint hands and kissed hers. “It is my responsibility and pleasure, denya.” She thought he was going to say something else, but he let their hands fall back between them and they lapsed into silence. They’d had many moments like this over the last few days, sitting silently, enjoying each other’s company with no need to talk. Conversation still didn’t come easy to Kayde after years of barely talking to anyone, and Quinn didn’t feel like she needed to fill the silence. It wasn’t that they didn’t talk; they’d spent hours doing that, but they could also sit quietly by one another without any awkwardness. She kind of loved it.

  But the silence was different; there was something loaded about it and she realized that Kayde was holding something back. He practically thrummed with tension and while she had discovered a great way to get him out of his own mind for a bit, that wasn’t going to work for the moment. “Is something wrong?” Her instinctual urge to add with me or with us still sprang up, but she managed not to say that part out loud.

  “We should be within communications distance of headquarters. I’ve been sending out encrypted messages for the past few hours and I’ve heard nothing back.” She knew it was bad when he used that emotionless, even tone. He was trying to be better about it, but at a moment like this she understood the urge to suppress every emotion, to keep the hurt at bay.

  “How long ‘til we get there?” She never wanted to land, never wanted to give up this magical world she was living in with Kayde, but that was selfish and she wouldn’t want to stop him from reuniting with his people.

  “Three or four hours. I have the ship’s cloaking on high, which means we have to move slower. If their defense system picks us up, they might think that we’re an enemy scout. But we can’t go in without cloaking in case...” He trailed off, but Quinn understood what he wasn’t saying. They couldn’t go in without cloaking because it might not be a Detyen military contingent waiting for them. They could be flying directly into enemy territory.

  “What do you need me to do?” They had talked about what might happen when they met the Detyen Legion, but now that it was about to happen Quinn couldn’t get over how real it felt. In a matter of hours they would answer the question that had been haunting Kayde and his team for months.

  Kayde squeezed her hand. “Just sit with me,” he requested. “There’s nothing to do now but wait and see.”

  TWO HOURS LATER, THEY received their first communication from Detyen HQ. Kayde offered his identification information and was ordered to drop the ship’s cloaking and proceed with caution. He could read the apprehension thrumming through his mate, but he had no way to comfort her. They didn’t know what they were flying into, or what his people would choose to do to him once they realized he was getting his soul back, and Kayde could not lie to Quinn and offer her false hope. Things could go very wrong very quickly, but no matter what they did to him, he trusted they would keep her safe.

  When Detyen HQ, or the moon it was housed on, rather, appeared on the horizon, Quinn stiffened. She shot him a look and a smile. “One last chance to turn around,” she offered.

  “At this point they could easily chase us down,” he replied. And they would. Detyen HQ was a closely guarded secret. Toran hadn’t been sure that the Detyen leaders would let the rescued human women off the planet when they were forced to take shelter there after their escape from Fenryr 1. But with battle raging around them, they hadn’t been in a position to argue when it was time for the women to go.

  “No matter what happens, I don’t regret coming with you.” She had a half smile on her face, and it took Kayde a moment to realize that she had been teasing when she told him they could turn around. She understood just as well as he did what the outcome of the next few days might be.

  “We will be okay,” he promised, even as they both knew he could easily be wrong. “I won’t give up on this, no matter the obstacles.”

  Her smile turned sad, and her eyes got a little watery. “Me too.”

  He leaned in and kissed her. It
was meant to be a small peck, but her hands came up and held his cheeks tightly, and his own arm wrapped around her. They kissed with desperation, with a depth of emotion that Kayde hadn’t known was possible. This wasn’t about sex, wasn’t a prelude to anything. It was a kiss they both gave knowing that it could mean goodbye. But Kayde refused to let it hold that meaning. He gentled his grip on her and made himself pull back as the exchange between them softened. They were both breathing hard when they separated, and Quinn’s cheeks were flushed.

  “I want to try sex again.” It burst out of her, the words running together in a panicked confession.

  If they weren’t minutes away from breaking atmo, Kayde would’ve been tempted to pull her back out of the cockpit and take her up on her offer. Instead, he forced himself to give her an eager smile. “Tonight,” he promised. “Once we’ve been assigned quarters and have a proper bed.”

  Quinn blew out an unsteady breath and nodded. “Tonight,” she agreed.

  Kayde turned to his controls. Now he had to make sure that whatever happened, they spent the night together. They approached the moon at a steady pace, and though Kayde was looking for the defensive satellites that normally circled HQ, he saw nothing artificial in the sky around them. They must have been destroyed in the battle a few months ago and not yet replaced.

  If he were the praying type, Kayde might have said one before beginning his final descent to the planet. The lack of satellites didn’t bode well, even though he was in communication with Detyens over his comms. He prepared himself for destruction, knew that he could be flying into a situation where he might encounter only the few survivors of his kind, those lucky enough to survive the battle, but unable to repair headquarters or find a way to leave.

  Cloud cover was heavy, and they came in through a thick snowstorm, the weather a cold reminder of home. Sierra and Iris had both promised the team that winters on Earth could be just as dastardly, but the heat of summer back there had been worse than any frigid night he’d spent at home.

  As the snow cleared, he could see evidence of the battle with the Oscavian warship everywhere. Outbuildings sat in tatters, the destruction looking so fresh that Kayde would not have been surprised to see black smoke billowing from the decrepit piles of stone. But among the evidence of destruction, there were also signs of growth. A crew in full winter survival gear operated heavy machinery that was busy clearing one of the destroyed buildings, and a separate group was building up a communications tower that had fallen. Kayde counted at least ten Detyens on the ground, and there were sure to be dozens if not hundreds more inside.

  His hands unclenched from where he was gripping the controls too tight and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding. His people were alive, damaged, but unbroken.

  At his side, Quinn was silent, but she let out her own relieved breath only moments after him, as if she had been waiting to see how he would react to the state of his home.

  They were directed to land in a field outside of the central administrative building. The snow was densely packed, mixed with ice and some kind of rock to give them a hard enough surface to set down. It made the landing a bit tricky, as the field was actually a plateau with a steep drop off at one end. The wind outside buffeted the ship, whistling around them and welcoming Kayde home. But when he looked over at Quinn, he realized that this little moon had stopped being his home a long time ago. His home sat next to him. And wherever she went, he belonged.

  “Are they going to freak out about you?” she asked in a tone that told him this was one of the things that had been bothering her for some time.

  “They might.” He could not offer her a comforting lie, especially when his people’s reaction would be evident in a matter of minutes. “Trust me.”

  Quinn gulped. “Always.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand before bringing it up and swiping a kiss across her knuckles. If they had time, he would’ve given her a proper kiss, the proper reassurance that they would make it out of this. He’d tell her with his actions, even if he couldn’t manage it with his words, that his people would see her as the hope she was, that they would do nothing to harm her. But already Kayde could see a line of warriors coming towards their ship armed well enough to take out a fleet of Oscavians.

  “Why do they look like they’re about to shoot their way on board?” Quinn asked. Her hand squeezed against his, possibly to keep herself from trembling.

  “It’s just a precaution,” he hoped. “Go and put on one of the survival suits. It will keep you warm enough until we get inside, it’s too cold for your regular clothes.”

  Quinn looked at him for several beats before nodding and getting up from her chair. She went back to do as he said while Kayde radioed the communications tower and let them know that both he and Quinn would be wearing survival suits, their faces obscured by the helmets meant to keep them safe. The operator on the other end of the communication acknowledged his information and instructed him to remain unharmed while exiting the ship. Kayde gave a final confirmation before disconnecting communications to join Quinn in getting into a survival suit.

  When they were ready, they went to the main door and stood side-by-side. Kayde hesitated, even if there was no point to it. His people were fair, he knew. But they had firm rules, especially when it came to the soulless, and if they thought he had gone mad, become unstable, he knew exactly what would happen to him. But it was too late to turn back. He pushed the button beside the door and began to open with a hiss, a ramp extending out and sloping down gently to where it met the icy, snowy ground.

  Kayde and Quinn walked out with their hands raised in a universal sign for peace.

  All the warriors wore full body armor, their faces covered to make them unidentifiable. Kayde thought he could identify two of the six people in front of them based on the modifications to their uniforms, but he didn’t recognize the other four.

  “Identify yourselves,” the leader of the warriors commanded, his voice muffled by his helmet.

  “My name is Kayde NaDetya, warrior of the Detyen Legion. I bring with me my denya, Quinn Porter of Earth.” He said it loudly, proudly claiming Quinn as his in front of his people, even if she was not yet fully his in truth.

  The warriors froze in shock, and even the wind died down at Kayde’s declaration. Every single one of those warriors knew who he was, knew what he was, and unless word of Raze’s mating had spread throughout the Legion, they would all think his claim impossible.

  As one, the warriors lifted their blast rifles and aimed them all directly at Kayde. Beside him Quinn stiffened, but if she said anything it was muffled to silence by her survival suit.

  “Repeat your identification,” demanded the leader.

  “Kayde NaDetya, and my denya, Quinn.” Not a single rifle moved as he repeated who he was. Whatever these warriors have been expecting from him, this possibility had clearly never crossed their minds.

  Before he could reach out to stop her, Quinn stepped in front of him and two of the rifles twitched, as if unsure what kind of threat she posed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? He’s one of you.” The words were a little muffled by her survival suit, but the emotion came out loud and clear.

  “Step aside,” said the leader of the warriors.

  Quinn’s spine stiffened in determination. “No.”

  A whisper of surprise threaded through the warriors, and based on the reaction to Quinn’s declaration, Kayde was able to determine which of the six were soulless. Only two of them, the one to the left with a blue patch on his shoulder, and the one directly next to the leader. They wouldn’t fire unless directly ordered, but any of the other four might take initiative.

  Kayde lifted his hand to pull Quinn back, but stopped moving when the warriors shifted their focus to him.

  “Step aside, human,” the leader repeated. “We mean you no harm.”

  “And I will not let you harm my mate,” Quinn told them all, and despite the gravity
of the situation Kayde’s heart flew free. He did not know what he had done to deserve this woman, but he would spend every day of his life making sure that he was worthy of her.

  “Step. Aside,” The leader repeated again, losing patience with Quinn.

  He knew his mate well enough to know that she would not back down, so Kayde stepped up beside her and grabbed her wrist to keep her from doing anything dangerous. He spared her a half second’s glance and gave the slightest of nods to try and reassure her that everything would turn out all right.

  A flurry of movement at the entrance to the administrative building caught his attention and Kayde turned to see a group of three men dressed in survival gear, but not holding weapons, approaching them. A tribunal, elders of the Legion who were responsible for maintaining its laws and protecting its people. They alone could pass judgment on Kayde, and one way or another he and Quinn were about to be judged.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE FIRST TIME QUINN had landed at Detyen HQ, it seemed like a paradise. Then again, sitting inside an active volcano would’ve seemed like a paradise compared to Fenryr 1. Back then she hadn’t cared about the snowstorms, especially since she and her fellow survivors been confined to the inside of the compound from the moment they set foot on the planet. But now she was already tired of this place and wanted to go home.

  They were pointing blasters at Kayde. One of their own people. What the hell had he done to them? Anger burned within her and she wanted to scream, wanted to charge of the warriors in front of them and give them a piece of her mind, and more than one piece of her fists. It didn’t matter that they could cut her down in a second, her anger had transported her to a place beyond logic and pain, a place where she would do anything to defend Kayde.

  And that thought steadied her. The only thing she could do to defend him right now was remain calm. Or at least seem calm. She couldn’t quite manage to actually be calm when people were aiming weapons at her mate. The rightness of that word settled within her and despite the anger, despite her fear, she couldn’t suppress her smile. At least her helmet kept anyone else from seeing in. Smiling at this moment was so far from appropriate she wouldn’t be shocked if they shot her on principle.