Doryan

by Kate Rudolph

  Doryan

  Mated to the Alien

  Kate Rudolph and Starr Huntress

  Want more sci-fi romance from Kate Rudolph? You can get a free, full length novel by joining my reader club. Sign up now!

  More by Kate Rudolph

  Mated to the Alien

  Ruwen

  Tyral

  Stoan

  Cyborg

  Krayter

  Kayleb

  Shayn

  Braxtyn

  Doryan

  Doryan © Kate Rudolph 2020.

  Cover design by Kate Rudolph.

  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Kate Rudolph.

  www.katerudolph.net

  Table Of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Preview Soulless: Detyen Warriors Book One

  About Kate Rudolph

  Are you a STARR HUNTRESS?

  Also by Kate Rudolph

  Chapter One

  A DIM STREETLIGHT FILTERED in through the window as Doryan opened the door to his current lodgings. After six months he should have been thinking of it as home, but there was too much wrapped up in that term for him to get his head around.

  Lodgings. Quarters. That he could handle. Anything more had long been out of the question.

  He shut the door as quietly as he could to avoid waking anyone up, then slipped his shoes off and stashed them in their place before padding silently across the open living room towards the stairs.

  He would have made it, too, if it weren’t for the bag full of something heavy that he stumbled over. No matter how many years of training he had, he didn’t suddenly have perfect night vision. He let out a grunt as pain climbed up from his naked toes and stabbed into the rest of his foot. Two deep breaths and it was gone, but the damage was done.

  A figure jumped up from where she’d been sleeping on the couch, the whites of her eyes clear even in the dim light, her expression wild and body tense.

  “It’s me, Manda,” Doryan said quietly.

  Her ragged breaths were as loud as blaster shots, but they calmed after a few moments. “You were out late. Again.” It wasn’t exactly an accusation, but it was more than an observation.

  And it was another reason Doryan should have changed lodgings months ago. Manda had needed them when they were stranded together, bound into slavery and desperate to survive. But even though they’d been free and on Earth for months, she still clung.

  Another man might have offered her comfort. Might have become some sort of adopted older brother to the teenager who so clearly needed family. But Doryan didn’t have the capacity. He’d sacrificed it more than half a decade before to fight a war, only to be abandoned when he was no longer convenient.

  “I was out late,” he confirmed. “You should be asleep in your room.” But it didn’t take emotions to understand why she wasn’t.

  “I had another nightmare,” she said.

  “That isn’t surprising. After what you experienced, nightmares are common. Have you talked with someone about seeing a counselor?” If she’d been part of the Detyen Legion she wouldn’t have had a choice, but she was a sixteen year old human. There was no superior officer to command it, not even a parent.

  “You’re impossible to talk to,” she said, but something soft laced her words. “Why were you out so late?”

  “You should go to sleep,” Doryan insisted. He didn’t have an answer for her and she didn’t need one anyway. And instead of staying to chat he continued on his way towards the stairs.

  Walking through the kitchen he saw Dekon sitting at the counter, drumming his fingers against the hard surface. Dekon NaZade was the twin brother of one of the people who had rescued him and Manda six months ago. Though they were identical in looks, Dekon was said to be the more cheerful of the two. That was the rumor, at least; Doryan had never seen the evidence. Then again, he was very bad at reading emotion.

  All soulless were.

  It was a blessing and a curse. Detyens like Doryan, and like Dekon, were doomed to die at the age of thirty if they didn’t find their mates. Dekon had years yet before he’d be forced to pay the Denya Price. Doryan’s time had come and gone.

  “You shouldn’t dismiss her concerns like that,” Dekon told him. “She cares about you. We all do.”

  Doryan wasn’t sure how to answer. Why did they care? He wasn’t family. Sure he’d helped them in a time of need, but it had been his only way to ensure he got out of a nasty situation. Any debt between them had been repaid.

  “She needs to learn not to rely on me,” he said. “We’re no longer in danger.”

  Dekon’s jaw tensed and he took a deep breath, but he didn’t try and talk sense into Doryan. Sense. That was what they called it when they couldn’t understand his points. But all he had was logic now.

  “Is there any news of her family?” he asked. The NaZades and their mates had been searching for information for six months, but Manda’s parents had left Earth sometime after her abduction in an effort to search for her. No one knew where they were.

  “Vita spoke to a friend who might have information. We should know more in a week or so.” There was something Doryan couldn’t identify in Deke’s voice, but that wasn’t unusual and he dismissed the thought almost immediately. “Oh,” Deke stopped him before he could continue upstairs. “Captain NaPyrsee called again. He demanded that you return his call by the end of the day tomorrow or he’ll have officers here to retrieve you by Friday morning. He sounds like an asshole.”

  He is. It was on the tip of his tongue to make the reply, but Doryan snatched it back in time. Soulless didn’t talk like that. And he could be wrong. NaPyrsee had his reasons.

  “I’ll call him in the morning,” he said. It was long overdue. Doryan should have reported back to the Detyen Legion as soon as his wounds healed upon his arrival on Earth. Waiting a week or so for the bruises and stiffness from his brutal treatment to fade was one thing.

  Six months was desertion.

  But Doryan knew the most likely response to his return to the Legion. Retirement. Death. And though desires were anathema to his kind, he wanted to live. Something about the months of his detainment in space had changed him, had ripped open something that was supposed to be gone until nascent tendrils of the impossible seemed to be growing.

  He didn’t feel. He couldn’t. It was an even greater death sentence than he’d face if he returned. And it could be a sign of deterioration, a deterioration that could harm the people who’d taken him in and treated him like one of their own.

  It could harm Manda.

  “I’ll call him in the morning,” he repeated before retreating up the stairs.

  He didn’t want to die
, but perhaps it would be better for the world if he did.

  AMY DALISAY LOOKED at the past due amount on the bill in her hands and then scowled at her accounting software. They’d have enough to pay it… if the last two clients would pay their damn invoices! She tossed the bill on her desk and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling and letting her dark hair hang down.

  Damn clients wouldn’t be so stingy about payments if she waved her blaster in their faces.

  “You can’t shoot our clients,” said Kyla York, her best friend and business partner.

  “Not even a little?” Amy asked, already knowing the answer.

  Kyla just rolled her eyes. She sat at her own desk scrolling through news articles on her holo tablet and not paying any mind to Amy’s fidgeting. She was used to it after so many years.

  Amy looked back at the accounting software and tried moving around a few numbers. If they put off paying the power company they might be able to eke out a little more time. She glanced up at the overhead light and let the feel of the air conditioning blow over her.

  No. That wouldn’t work.

  Half a dozen years in business and now they were months away from folding. How had it come to this? Sure, PI work wasn’t necessarily flashy. And, yeah, tracking cheating spouses and other liars didn’t exactly bring in a ton of credits, but it had been enough.

  Until now.

  Two months away from closing their doors. Two invoices shy of bill payments. Not even Amy’s meager savings would keep them afloat for long. She’d used that up two years ago the last time things had gotten tight.

  If she couldn’t use her blaster, maybe the damn clients would respond to her fists.

  “You can’t punch them either,” Kyla muttered.

  Amy glared. They knew each other too well. That’s what you got when you went into business with your best friend. “Between the two of them they owe us thousands! That’s rent and bills and your damn paycheck. You sure I can’t rough ‘em up?”

  “And they’ll pay.” Kyla swiped the holo display to the side so she was looking directly at Amy. “Eventually. They always pay… eventually. Remember who said we should consider firing them as clients?” Her eyebrows drew up, making her eyes comically big.

  “And these two clients brought us our last six referrals,” Amy countered, though she wasn’t sure how she was now defending them. “If they don’t pay within a week I’m going down to their offices and giving them a piece of my mind.”

  “As long as it’s your mind and not your fists, I don’t care.” Kyla turned back to her news reports and then hummed. “Now here’s what we should do.”

  “What?” Amy peered over at the holo but couldn’t figure out what Kyla was looking at from across the room.

  “Humans, on the whole, have been disappointing clients, wouldn’t you agree?” She grinned.

  Amy shrugged. “Are you suggesting we work for cats?”

  Kyla laughed. “Aliens.”

  “Aliens?”

  “Aliens.” She waved at the display until it expanded enough for Amy to read. Detyen Legion Enters into Treaty with United Sol Forces.

  The Detyen Legion. Everyone knew about them now. It was hard to ignore when hundreds of aliens showed up on Earth out of nowhere and then helped defend it… from a threat they’d brought with them. Or not. Reports varied as to whether or not the Detyens had caused the latest threat. Amy had spent an entire week worrying about it, but it had been more than a year, closer to two, since the Detyens arrived and she had bigger problems to deal with.

  Like her bills.

  “Why do you think they’d pay?” she asked. The alien population on Earth was relatively small. The Detyen Legion had probably doubled it or more when they arrived. They now represented the largest alien presence on Earth, and even though most of them were based in D.C., same as Amy and Kyla, Amy had never met one.

  “Why do you think they wouldn’t?” Kyla shot back.

  Amy just glared at her own screen. “Okay, no reason to think they wouldn’t yet. But how do you suggest we pitch ourselves? And what do they even need a pair of PIs for? Lots of cheating spouses in their ranks? Do they even care?”

  “We can handle more than cheating spouses.” Kyla crossed her arms and glared. “You know I’ve been wanting to expand for awhile. Broken relationship cases are making me doubt that love can last beyond the first bloom of lust.”

  “Ky—”

  Kyla just shook her head. “Whatever. What do you say?” She scrolled further. “Look here.” She flicked her wrist until a picture hovered over them of two Detyen men and two human women standing in front of a heavily wooded area that kind of looked like a summer camp. “This article says a new Detyen settlement is opening in upstate New York and they’re inviting people to come check it out. Tickets are available for a weekend getaway. And it’s cheap.”

  “Is this somehow connected to the Legion?” It was one thing to work for a large organization and quite another to work for two random guys.

  “Uh…” Kyla’s face scrunched up as she scanned the article. “Not… exactly? But there’s a chance they show up, right? And it couldn’t hurt to get our foot in the door.”

  Could it? What really were the chances of anyone from the Detyen Legion being there? Amy couldn’t know. Neither could Kyla. “Shoot me that article?” she asked. Kyla nodded and a second later it appeared on Amy’s tablet. She scanned through, looking for anything that would give her a hint of the plan’s worthiness.

  Aha!

  “Look at the last paragraph. An official from the Legion said they are fully on board with the settlement and officers will be attending the grand opening. This really might be a good idea.” She looked up at Kyla, grinning.

  Kyla glared. “I have them from time to time.”

  Amy stuck her tongue out. And then she got serious. “But this is next week and we can’t both leave the office. What if we get walk ins? Can’t exactly turn down any paying gigs.”

  “Then only one of us goes. I’d be happy to.”

  “So would I.” A few days out of the city? Sounded like paradise.

  “Flip for it?” Kyla suggested.

  Amy nodded. Kyla got out a big coin and Amy reached into her own pocket, fingers tightening over a slim device. Kyla tossed the coin in the air and Amy pulled out her mini blaster. “Heads,” she yelled as she shot.

  Kyla cursed at her and rushed the smoking coin. Both sides had been obliterated. “I win!” Amy smiled.

  Kyla rolled her eyes. “That’s cheating. You suck.” But they both knew Amy was going. Kyla could cheat next time. “I’ll make you a reservation,” Kyla muttered.

  Chapter Two

  DORYAN PUT THE COMM call off until after breakfast. That much stalling was easy enough. Captain NaPyrsee wouldn’t want to be woken by Doryan’s call, after all. But once all the dishes were washed and put away Doryan couldn’t come up with any more excuses.

  He made the call in the privacy of his room, not sure what he’d be ordered to do, but certain that his companions didn’t need to hear it. In a matter of minutes he was answered by the captain’s assistant and patched through to his direct line.

  NaPyrsee’s age would have surprised people in the human military, but the Denya Price had a way of accelerating things. The captain was a year or two shy of thirty, but the stress of his job had aged him so he looked closer to Doryan’s age, with lines around his eyes and a permanent scowl.

  “NaVayn,” NaPyrsee greeted, sneering out the word. “I’ve been trying to contact you for weeks.”

  Doryan didn’t respond, and since he hadn’t asked a question NaPyrsee wouldn’t expect him to.

  “Your absence has been noted in your file and you will be evaluated upon your return. I require your presence at the new Detyen settlement. I will forward details of your assignment.”

  The Detyen settlement? He’d seen a report about the place but hadn’t thought much of it. But why would the captain want him to meet there? It was h
undreds of kilometers from the Detyen Legion offices and there wouldn’t be many, or possibly any, officers there. No one would be qualified to evaluate him. And if NaPyrsee wanted to retire him quietly, there were better options.

  But the soulless didn’t ask questions. They weren’t supposed to do much independent thinking. It was better for everyone that way, or at least that was what the Detyen Legion taught. In the past few months Doryan had gotten used to asking questions. But falling back on old habits was simple enough. And he could not disobey a direct order.

  “I will be there, sir,” he confirmed.

  “See that you are.” NaPyrsee disconnected the call without another word, leaving Doryan to wonder if something strange was going on or if he was merely incapable of understanding the emotional undercurrents of the command. Maybe he would ask Deke.

  He didn’t immediately report his imminent departure to the NaZades. They would be disappointed, he was certain, and by delaying he could, perhaps, spare them some of that pain. It was another sign that his condition might be deteriorating. He shouldn’t be capable of concern, and yet here he was.

  When dinner rolled around, Doryan had decided to tell the family. But before he could open his mouth, Deke jumped in to talk, practically vibrating out of his seat. Deke, Manda, Doryan, Shayn, Naomi, Vita, and Brax were all huddled around the dining room table and eating pizza, a dish that had become a family favorite after Manda had requested it one night. They didn’t gather for dinner every night, and even when they did Doryan often made himself scarce, but this could be his last night with them and he would not miss it.

  “We’re ready for launch!” Deke finally announced, grinning broadly.

  Manda was mirroring his enthusiasm while everyone else just looked at him questioningly.

  “What?” Braxtyn, his twin brother, finally asked around a mouthful of cheese. His denya, Vita, elbowed him, and Doryan thought he heard a muttered manners.

  “The settlement!” Deke declared. “Announcements have gone out and tickets are on sale. It’s taken them years to get it ready, but now we are.”