Her Cold-Blooded Master

by Lea Linnett

Helik’s breath hitched. “To Manufacturing?” he asked, hopefully. That’s where she would be safest, far away from him.

  But Ellie’s brows dipped, her eyes narrowing with hurt. “No,” she grit out. “I’m going wherever I want to go.”

  He stepped forward, his hand outstretched, but pulled up short when she flinched. “Please, Ellie, you need to understand. I just want you to be safe.”

  “Do you even want me to stay?” she asked, ignoring him, and his chest constricted so painfully that he thought he might faint. He wanted nothing more than for her to stay. It was his own selfish desire to have her close by that had made him suggest she stay in the Senekkar at all. If he had his way, he would draw her in close, wrap her in a cocoon of blankets, and hide them both away from the world—but he couldn’t. If he wanted her to stay at his side, he could never feel her skin on his again. He couldn’t put her in danger like that again.

  He’d decided that he would never let his mistakes with Calli repeat themselves.

  But he didn’t say all of this.

  “I can’t make you stay,” he said, subdued. “And I can’t make you go home. But please consider it. The Senekkar isn’t safe.”

  Ellie’s expression sank into one of disappointment, her eyes glistening. “I’m not something you can put in a box and dust off when you have someone to impress,” she murmured. “You don’t own me, Helik.”

  And with that, she turned, and the buzz of the door was like razors against Helik’s ears as she slipped through it. For the first time in months, the penthouse was silent, and despite the freshly repaired heating system, it had never felt so cold.

  29

  Ellie’s chest was tight as she hovered in front of the simple door in a simple apartment block, far less opulent than Helik’s. She tried to tell herself that her shortness of breath was just a symptom from the long walk across the Senekkar, or her fear that no one would answer the door, because the reality would put her in tears again.

  She pressed her hand against the door panel, hoping someone would answer. Dusk was falling outside the building, and Ellie didn’t relish the idea of finding somewhere to sleep out in the open. She bit her lip; leaving her wristlet behind at Helik’s may not have been her smartest idea, but she’d been struck with a fear that Helik would use it to find her and forcibly drag her to Manufacturing. Now she wondered whether giving in to her paranoia was worth giving up easy access to her credits.

  With a shaking hand, she activated the door panel again. If this didn’t work, she’d have to try and make it to Scott and Devis’ place, and with the amount of reporters milling around the building, she might be better off just admitting her relationship with Helik to the enforcers herself.

  She glanced around nervously while she waited, wishing there was more light in the hallway. Many of the fluorescents that dotted the ceiling were broken or flickering, casting odd shadows around the walls, and Ellie couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something odd about the place. It was too quiet. Panicking, she slammed a hand against the panel for the third time, pressing her ear to the door.

  The scuff of footsteps answered her and she jumped back, the door opening seconds later to reveal Cara, her brown eyes wide.

  “Ellie? What are you doing here?”

  She floundered. She’d spent hours on the walk over devising what she would say, but in the moment, words failed her. Cara’s gaze flicked to the satchel still on Ellie’s back and softened.

  “You wanna come in?”

  Ellie nodded, gratefully following the other human inside. The entryway was awash with light, wrapping her in its comforting embrace and beating back the shadows of the hallway.

  “So what happened?” asked Cara, herding her down a narrow corridor towards the same kitchen they’d all sat in after the Christmas party.

  Ellie shrugged. “I just… left.”

  The brunette raised an eyebrow at her.

  “We… had a disagreement,” Ellie hedged, choosing her words carefully.

  Cara frowned, but didn’t press the issue, instead sidling past and leading her to the kitchen. Ellie paused as she entered, spying someone sitting at the small table.

  It was Taz, Cara’s sister, seated with one booted foot on the chair beside her. Her dark eyes narrowed when she caught sight of Ellie, pulling her up short.

  “Taz, this is Ellie. You met her at the party.” Cara gestured for Ellie to sit, and when she did so, Taz leaned forward, shaking her hand. The two sisters shared a look, and Ellie momentarily felt a pang. She missed Lena, and the wordless conversations that came with being someone’s sister.

  Taz stood, circling the table. “Nice to meetcha, Ellie, but I gotta go check on something.”

  Ellie didn’t watch the woman leave, and instead fussed with her satchel, pushing it beneath her chair.

  “You want a drink?” asked Cara.

  “Just water, please.” Ellie realized that she was parched. She’d been walking for a couple hours, crossing the city to the one place she thought might let her stay for the night, and where a lone human would go unnoticed.

  With the pleasantries out of the way, Cara sat down adjacent to her, leaning an arm on the table. “Are you all right?” she asked, sounding softer than Ellie had ever heard her.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine, really. I just… couldn’t stay there. And I couldn’t go anywhere else, so…”

  Cara’s eyebrow twitched, and she could see the woman putting two-and-two together. “So you heard about Scott and his boss?”

  Ellie looked down at the table, the issue still a sore spot for her. “Y-yeah. It’s terrible.”

  Cara made a disgruntled noise. “Terrible is right. I knew Scott was an asshole but that is…” She shook her head in disgust. “I could barely keep my breakfast down when I saw that picture.”

  Ellie’s tightened her grip on the hem of her skirt, but said nothing.

  “Was that what you argued about?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ellie could see the other woman watching her carefully, and felt her heart begin to beat somewhere in the vicinity of her ears. She had this bit well-rehearsed, but that didn’t stop the sensation that the walls of the kitchen were crushing in around her.

  She shook her head. “Oh, no. I saw the headlines on some billboards while I was walking through one of the squares.” That was a half-truth: she had seen the headlines on her way here, but Cara didn’t need to know wasn’t her first time seeing them. “No, Mr. Kaan and I just had a disagreement about the work I was doing.”

  “He didn’t hurt you?”

  Ellie blanched. “No! No, nothing like that. Just felt like I shouldn’t have to put up with it anymore, y’know?”

  Cara frowned, but leaned back nonetheless, relaxing the pressure in the room by a degree or two.

  “Well, I’m glad you came here. We’ll keep you safe.” She paused, and then, “If you wanna talk about it, I’m here.”

  Ellie nodded, mumbling a “Thank you.” The soft creak of what must have been Cara’s boss’ footsteps above them caught her attention, echoing through the floorboards of the old apartment. She turned to Cara. “Your boss is back from vacation? Is he okay with your sister staying here?”

  The other woman shrugged, tapping her fingernails against the table, and Ellie noticed she was wearing fingerless gloves. “As long as we keep out of his business, he doesn’t really give a shit,” Cara explained, and Ellie nodded again.

  Cara was acting strangely subdued again, Ellie noted. She was nothing like the gossipy, loud creature that Ellie had hung out with over the last few months. She sat relaxed in her chair, her brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, her arm laying calmly on the tabletop.

  “It must be nice,” she ventured, “getting to have your sister around.”

  Cara’s eyes lit up, a soft smile reaching her lips. “It really is. Are all of your family back in Manufacturing?”

  Ellie hesitated. “S-sort of. My guardian is there.” She dropped h
er eyes to the table. “My sister is in prison.”

  Another half-truth.

  “Prison?” Cara sat up in her chair a little, her tone concerned. “What happened?”

  “She got caught stealing. There wasn’t enough food on our table when she lost her job at the factory, so…”

  “No parents?”

  Ellie shook her head. “No. They died a long time ago.”

  There was another creak in the ceiling, but this one made Ellie pause. It had seemed to come from two places at once, as if there was more than one person upstairs. When she looked at Cara, the woman was also looking up, a slight frown on her face.

  “Does he have company?” Ellie asked, and instantly regretted it when a familiar, hawkish gaze flicked to her.

  “Maybe. Tell me about your sister.”

  Ellie took a sip of her water. “Nothing much to tell, really,” she said. “I feel like I haven’t seen her in so long. She was the only thing keeping me in Manufacturing.”

  “Not your guardian?”

  She frowned, that tight feeling in her chest growing even more vise-like at the thought of her family. Suddenly, she missed Augusta more than she ever had since leaving Manufacturing. She imagined going back there, and wondered if Augusta would crow about being right about the Senekkar, or just pull her into a wordless hug and set her down with a needle and thread. She gulped back the wave of tears that threatened to spill over and answered, “She didn’t want me to come here, either. And we didn’t leave on great terms.”

  “Have you tried calling her?”

  Ellie’s gaze dropped to the table. “I can’t. Her electronic house phone only does emergency calls. I don’t even know if she would want to speak to me,” she confessed, glancing at Cara. “I feel like I messed everything up. This program was supposed to be a fresh start, but lately it just… hasn’t felt right.”

  Cara was still watching her, but her gaze had softened. “The levekk never really wanted to help us, you know,” she murmured. “They just wanted to play master and servant for a while, using us as cheap labor like they always have.”

  Pain flourished anew in Ellie’s chest, Cara’s words making their mark dead-center in her heart. Helik may have showered her in gifts, may have held her close and promised to protect her, but did he really care about her? She’d come into this program thinking that Helik wanted to change things, but now she doubted. Could he always just have been worrying about himself? His own career?

  Maybe Ellie had always been a product. Something he owned. Something he could show off to the others but that he was scared of losing.

  Her fingers gripped her glass, her heart aching. Leaving had been the right thing to do, she told herself, but it still hurt.

  She was brought back to herself by Cara shifting in her seat, her brown eyes piercing her.

  “Come with me,” she said, rising from the table. “I’ve got someone for you to meet.”

  Ellie blinked with confusion, but rose to follow, and to her surprise, was led up the staircase. “I thought this was off-limits,” she said.

  Cara shrugged. “It was.”

  They reached the top of the stairs and turned, entering a large living area with a small bar up the back and a sprawling selection of chairs and sofas nearby. Ellie paused in the doorway, her eyes widening.

  Before her, scattered around the room—some sitting, some standing, and some curled up on the floor—were sub-species. They were a riot of color, some human and some alien. By the bar was a trio of xylidians, their dark clothes blending in with their inky black skin. Cicarians were dotted about the room, ranging from pale greens to reddish purples, and a pindar and a human sat with their backs to one wall. There was even a Calideez martian sitting in one corner, an airtight suit keeping his slimy skin from infecting the furniture.

  And crouched before a thick, old-model broadcast screen, fiddling with the large buttons on its side, was Anna. The girl’s face lit up when she saw Ellie, and she bounced to her feet.

  “Ellie! What are you doing here?”

  She caught herself staring with her mouth agape, and snapped it shut, although words still failed her. She turned to Cara. “W-what is this?” she stuttered.

  Cara smiled, crossing her arms. “We’re known as the Lodestars. And we’re going to make the levekk wish they never landed on Earth.”

  ---

  Helik stood in the middle of Ellie’s bedroom, his bare claws piercing the rug and his eyes scanning the empty surfaces. The entire room had been cleaned out, the bed made, everything spotless. The only mark Ellie had left behind was the chrome sewing machine on the desk and a small pile of clothing patterns on the bed. He stepped forward, running his clawed fingertips over the machine. They scraped the metallic surface, barely audible, but in the quiet of the apartment they sounded more like the screech of rusted gears to Helik.

  He dropped his hand, moving to perch on the edge of the bed. He’d barely set foot in here since Ellie started living here, he realized—or maybe since it was built. It had once held his grandmother’s collection of human art before his mother disposed of it all. And while Helik had looked at the works once or twice, he’d never fully understood their appeal. Now, he wished he could view them again and appreciate them fully.

  He sighed, dropping his head into his hands. He tapped the plates just above his temples a few times, the hollow knocking reverberating throughout his skull and clearing his thoughts a little.

  He had to let Ellie go, but it was so hard.

  She would never again sit in here drawing patterns and sewing clothes. She would never bustle through the house leaving clouds of dust in her wake. There would be no more strange smells and aromas coming from the kitchen. These things were gone, and he desperately wanted them back.

  He could track her. The wristlets the humans were given all had software built in so they wouldn’t be lost. And so his team could find them if they abandoned their posts. It had been a condition of funding for many of his donors, who hadn’t trusted the humans in the Senekkar.

  But he couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t imagine disrespecting her in such a way when it was clear how badly she wanted her freedom. And how much she no longer wanted him in her life.

  It was for the best, he repeated to himself yet again. It was selfish to miss these things when they would inevitably lead to Ellie getting hurt. The hole in the window was only a small part of it; there was only so much distance a couple could keep from each other. Someone would have noticed an out-of-place glance or a wandering hand eventually, which would have led to a far worse end than this one.

  And Helik would have caused the ruin of yet another human.

  But as he sat in Ellie’s room with his eyes closed, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she belonged beside him. He could even smell her, just faintly. She hadn’t spent as much time in this room as of late, but still her scent clung to it, a soft, musky aroma beneath the sharp sting of chemicals.

  To think that he’d once thought of her scent as an invasion, something that was infiltrating his space and polluting his home. He’d laugh if the thought didn’t pain him so much.

  He abruptly stood, sending the pile of clothing patterns flying, and cursed at himself. He almost left them there, unable to bear the idea of picking them up one by one and seeing the effort she’d put into everything, but something made him pause. Beneath the pile, invisible until now, was a box. A familiar box.

  He brushed away the remaining sheets of paper, taking it in hand, and grimaced. This was the levekk dress he’d had made for her. His apology from the night of the Christmas party. Of course she’d left it behind. It was obvious in hindsight that she was never overly fond of the thing, but seeing it now still made Helik’s heart ache anew.

  His clawed fingers were shaking as he hooked them beneath the lid, easing it up to view the traitorous garment. Why he lingered, he wasn’t sure, except to maybe torture himself. He could look at the dress and imagine it clinging to Ellie’s sof
t, pink skin, and think of how she’d look whilst wearing it, leaning against him at a networking event or a family gathering like she belonged there, with no one daring to say otherwise.

  That was a future that could never have happened. Not even if she’d stayed.

  But as he trailed his fingers through the fabric, his eyes widened, first with surprise and then with horror.

  There was something hard and cool resting between the layers of the dress, and when he folded them back, the item winked mischievously in the light, like it knew it was out of place. The sight of it made Helik’s stomach turn.

  It was Ellie’s wristlet. And it wasn’t on her wrist.

  She’d left it on purpose—there was no other way it could have found its way into the garment box—and now she was out there in the Senekkar, with no shelter and no credits. He couldn’t find her even if he tried.

  Helik gasped, unaware that he’d stopped breathing. Panic clawed through him, all of his simmering fears now bubbling to the surface again. He snatched up the wristlet and fled the room, turning it about in his clawed fingers even as he ordered his own wristlet to call Roia.

  He stormed into the living room, trying not to notice the markers of Ellie’s absence—like the pot sitting on a lower shelf in the kitchen at the perfect height for Ellie to retrieve every night for cooking, or the fridge, no doubt still full of leftovers. His breaths were short and agitated as he waited for the call to connect, and before he knew it, he was pacing again.

  The call clicked through.

  “Helik. Sorry for the lack of updates.” Roia’s voice was clipped, and he could hear the ebb and flow of her PR team’s voices in the background.

  “She left her wristlet,” he snapped, almost crushing the offending hunk of metal in his fingers.

  The comm was silent, only adding fuel to Helik’s panic.

  “Roia!”

  “I’m sorry.” He heard a deep breath, and felt his anger abate for a moment. Roia wasn’t usually one to act surprised unless she was truly shocked. “Who left their wristlet?”