Heartless

by Kate Rudolph

  But there was no way on earth, or in space, that a man could kiss like he did and not feel anything. If they hadn’t been under imminent threat of explosion, she wasn’t sure where that kiss would have ended. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted it to end.

  She set the water temperature to scalding and climbed under the stream. It wasn’t very strong, but the fact that she could take a shower on a ship, or at all, was a blessing she wasn’t about to reject. The slavers back on Fenryr 1 had been stingy with the bathing, and though they’d let her wash on Beznifa, she’d never escaped that oppressive sense of being watched. There was none of that here, only blessed warm water and complete privacy.

  And it was with that privacy in mind that Quinn found her fingers drifting lower as she let her mind wander back to the thought of Kayde occupying this same space, letting the water run over his muscles and thoroughly soaping himself until he practically sparkled. If she were a little braver, she might have offered to join him, to help him clean his back and make sure he didn’t miss all of those hard to reach places.

  For as long as they were on the ship, that would have to remain a fantasy. She barely fit in the shower stall alone, and she was sure that Kayde had to duck to get under the spray and his shoulders probably brushed the walls every time he moved. Yes, they’d be pressed up tight against one another if they tried anything in the shower, but there wouldn’t be enough room to get clean, let alone enough space to get dirty.

  But if the shower were just a little bigger... Quinn bit her bottom lip as her fingers brushed that sensitive point at the juncture of her thighs. She imagined a rougher hand, one that had gripped her close as they ran through the night, one that had promised her with a touch that everything would be alright. He would be gentle with her the first time, she was sure of it, treat her like she was made of something breakable, something that needed to be handled with care. But not broken. He never looked at her like she needed fixing, no he saw her strength.

  Her nipples tightened as her fingers played against her sex and Quinn trembled. She kept her mouth stubbornly shut, not wanting to be heard, even as she imagined her only companion’s lips raining down on her neck like the spray of the shower, even as she imagined his fingers replacing her own, preparing her for him and lighting her up in an explosion of pleasure.

  It had been so long since she’d felt free enough to do this. She pressed harder, almost defiantly, as she remembered why she hadn’t felt the urge or the right to take pleasure for herself. And as those thoughts invaded her mind, the release at the tip of her fingers fizzled out, leaving her cold and frustrated.

  She shivered and realized the cold was coming from the water, not her psyche. She made quick work of cleaning herself off and stepped out of the shower before chilly transformed into freezing. Quinn was glad the mirror was too fogged up for her to catch a glimpse of her own reflection. She could feel the tears pricking at her eyes and if she saw that vulnerability that had to be naked on her face she knew she would scream, or cry, probably both.

  She reared back a hand to punch the wall, but flattened her fist at the last moment, transforming it into a weak slap instead.

  Weak, just like she was. There was a hot guy out there who kissed like sin and looked at her like she was the last life support suit on a failing ship, and even as she spent her nights dreaming of him and all the wicked things he could do to her, she couldn’t even get herself off to the thought of him. All because of some stupid assholes who thought she’d make a great piece of property, who took and took and took things that weren’t theirs until she couldn’t remember what it was like to want to give.

  A harsh sound escaped her throat and Quinn collapsed against the door behind her, the small latch digging into her kidney. She didn’t care, she welcomed the pain. Anything was better than the stupid shame that she knew she didn’t deserve. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d fought every second of every day to keep her sanity, and she’d done everything she had to do to survive. And now that she’d finally found something that was worth living for, not just surviving, she didn’t know if she could grab and take it without breaking down and pushing it—him—away because of something she couldn’t control.

  Before climbing in the shower, Quinn had been playing with the idea of hunting Kayde down and seeing if he wanted to explore where that kiss could take them. Now she wanted to lock herself in her room and not come out until she made it back to Earth.

  But she couldn’t do that. Even in the midst of her pity party, her inner survivor was stirring, demanding that she get back out there and take what she needed, that she not roll over and let those men who had tried to take everything from her win. Quinn groaned and dried herself off roughly with the towel she’d found. It was rough enough to have been made of sandpaper, but the abrasive surface was distracting enough to momentarily clear her mind. By the time she was dry, she hadn’t figured out what the hell she was going to do about Kayde and the attraction she didn’t know how to act on, but she was no longer on the edge of a panic attack, so she called that a win and did her best to not think about it anymore.

  Sleep. Sleep in a bed she knew was safe, knowing that tomorrow she’d wake up on a safe ship with no one that meant her harm. That was what she needed. She could deal with the rest in the morning.

  Decision made, she stepped out of the shower and almost ran into Kayde who was holding two trays, both of them laden with some of the best food that their dinky food processor could make. Her mouth watered and she had to clench her fists by her side to keep from reaching out and grabbing one of those trays away from him. Did he really need to eat that much? No wonder he’d been insistent they make the supply stop.

  “I loaded the foodstuffs into the processor,” he told her. “I thought you might be hungry, so I was going to leave this by your room.” He nodded to one of the trays.

  Quinn’s heart cracked, and this time it had nothing to do with lust. She’d never had someone take care of her like that, and she didn’t know what to do with everything that it made bubble up inside of her. “Thank you,” she finally choked out. She tried to reach for the tray, but with her dirty clothes and toiletries, she needed an extra arm if she was going to manage carrying it all.

  Kayde saw her struggle and kept the tray to himself. He hesitated for a moment, the look something she’d never seen from him before. As a matter of fact, she realized that he hadn’t been wearing that neutral expression she was used to since they’d stepped on the ship. It was like something in him had caved and all of his emotions had come rushing out, showing themselves on his face just like he was a normal person. On someone else, what she saw from him would have been subtle. On Kayde, he might as well have been announcing everything he was feeling with flashing lights and noisemakers. “There is a small table in my room,” he said. “We could eat together.” He offered it cautiously, like he expected her to say no.

  They hadn’t made a habit of sharing their meals, and before her shower and her freak out, Quinn would have jumped at the chance to spend more time with him and to see where the night would take them. But now she was about ten seconds away from exhaustion and she knew she only had enough energy to stuff her face and then collapse. “I don’t think I can do more than eat,” she admitted. “The day, everything, it’s all catching up, you know?” That was as close as she could manage to come to admitting what was actually wrong.

  Maybe another person, a human, would have let her deflect the invitation gracefully, but Kayde wasn’t that man. “Then just come eat. There’s no need to talk.”

  “Just eat?” she asked. “Not...” She couldn’t bring herself to list off all the things she both wanted and was terrified of doing.

  Kayde held up one of the trays. “Just eat,” he promised.

  “Let me drop this in my room.” She held up her clothes. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  And, true to his word, they just ate. The silence was loud around them, all the little sounds of the ship filling the
spaces where they weren’t talking. But it wasn’t uncomfortable. And when Kayde took the trays away, they still hadn’t said anything to each other, but Quinn couldn’t make herself leave his room. He came back and stopped short when he saw that she hadn’t left. “I thought...”

  “I am really tired.” She felt the need to justify it, more to herself than to him. “My brain, it’s all jumbled up right now. And I feel—” She made a sound of frustration, unable to articulate what she was trying to say, to ask.

  “Would you like to sleep in here?” her alien offered, nodding towards his bed. “I can sleep on the floor, and this way we can be sure that we’re safe together. No one is separating us again.”

  When he said it like that, Quinn heard a promise she wasn’t sure he meant to make and her heart hurt with the want that pooled deep in her soul. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” she barely whispered. “I think I’d like if you didn’t.” It was one thing the slavers hadn’t managed to take from her. For all the horrors they’d inflicted, they’d never made her sleep beside them.

  It was a tight fit, but when Kayde slung an arm over her and she let their legs tangle together, they managed to find a comfortable position, and before Quinn knew it, she was drifting off, feeling safer than she’d felt since before she’d been stolen from Earth, and restful in a way she couldn’t remember managing before. If she could spend every night like this, her sleepy brain thought, she just might call that heaven.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “HAS ANYONE SEEN QUINN lately?” Sierra Alvarez asked her gathered team at the Detyen suite in Washington, D.C. Her mate, Raze NaFeen, sat by her side, his arm slung casually over her shoulder as each of them reviewed data they’d been gathering about possible sightings of Ambassador Yormas of Wreet. Dryce was fixing lunch in the kitchen and looked up over-the-counter, shaking his head slightly. Iris Mason, Toran’s mate, sat on the floor surrounded by printouts of all of the data they’d managed to extract from Yormas’s partner, Nyden Varrow. Toran leaned against the wall and watched his mate, a small smile on his face.

  He shook his head at Sierra. “I don’t think so. She was supposed to come to dinner earlier this week, but something must’ve come up.”

  “She didn’t call to cancel?” asked Iris. She didn’t look up from her papers while she spoke, sorting them into neat stacks.

  Everyone in the room thought for a minute, and no one could remember hearing from Quinn. “The last time I saw her,” said Dryce, bringing a plate of food out from the kitchen, “was when she had that thing with the other girls from Fenryr 1.”

  “They’re not from Fenryr 1,” Sierra interjected. “It’s not like they shared a sorority.”

  “What’s a sorority?” Raze asked quietly, but not quietly enough to keep the question from being heard from everyone else.

  Dryce’s expression lit up. “I’ll tell you later,” he promised.

  Sierra glared at her mate’s brother and Dryce blew her a kiss, unrepentant. “When was that? That meeting?”

  Dryce thought for a moment, chewing on a carrot in delicate bites. “A bit more than a week ago, I think. Yeah,” he nodded to himself, “it was before Kayde left.”

  A tense silence hung in the air at that pronouncement. After Toran had announced Kayde’s departure, he and the other Detyen men had gotten into a huge fight about it. Toran had pulled rank, but Raze and Dryce had the numbers and they had gone a few days without speaking to one another. They still didn’t agree with Toran’s decision to let Kayde go, but they were moving past it as best they could. With Kayde already gone, they all realized, arguing was pointless.

  “You don’t think...” Iris didn’t finish a thought, but it caught the attention of everyone.

  “What, denya?” Toran asked, his voice going soft.

  That tone got Iris to look up and she shot her mate a bright smile. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Is it possible she went with Kayde? Dryce just said that no one has seen her since he left the planet. Maybe she decided to tag along.”

  Toran’s expression turned stony. “I hope that’s not the case.”

  “Why?” asked Raze. “Do you think he’s a threat?” Raze had grown protective of Kayde in the months since Raze had regained his soul. He and Sierra had spoken about it several times. Kayde was a reflection of who Raze had been and who he would still be if he hadn’t met Sierra. It broke Raze’s heart to see everything that Kayde missed out on by sacrificing his soul, and it was his most secret wish that Kayde could find his denya and be saved just like Raze.

  “Kayde wanted to leave the planet for a reason,” said Toran. “He said it was loud here. Too distracting for his senses. And I suspect there was a specific person he was trying to avoid.”

  Quinn. No one said it, but it was obviously Toran’s conclusion.

  “Kayde was stable,” Raze insisted. “Even if she went with him, he wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “You can’t know that,” said Dryce. “The soulless... They...” He couldn’t seem to find the right words to say what he wanted to say. Probably as he remembered at the last moment that his brother knew more about the soulless and Dryce ever would.

  “I know Kayde,” said Raze, stubbornly.

  Sierra squeezed Raze’s thigh in silent support. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she broke through the growing panic in the room. “There’s no reason to think that Quinn and Kayde are together right now. Yes, it’s strange that Quinn hasn’t contacted any of us, but that doesn’t mean that anything bad has happened. She’s an adult, and we’re not her keepers. I’m going to call some of the other survivors and see if any of them know where she is.” She kissed Raze on the cheek and took her communicator into the room that had been assigned as his when he and the Detyens had come to Earth. Raze’s main residence was in her apartment, but sometimes they crashed in the Detyen’s suite when they worked too late and were too tired to make the drive home.

  Valerie was the first of the survivors to come up in the list of Sierra’s contacts, but she scrolled quickly past that information. She still got a bad taste in her mouth every time she remembered the look Valerie had given her when she discovered that Laurel wasn’t on the ship while they were escaping from the Detyen HQ. If Valerie hadn’t been the one to come up with the idea of leaving Laurel behind, she didn’t have a problem with it. CJ came up next and Sierra was more than happy to talk to her.

  CJ confirmed that she hadn’t seen Quinn in more than a week, not since the night where she and her fellow survivors had met up over drinks. “She got weird at one point,” CJ remembered. “Not drunk weird but weird weird.”

  “Weird how?” That was too many weirds and the word was starting to lose meaning.

  “She cut out the back of the bar and went to the alley for some reason. Then the rest of the night she was looking around like she expected someone to be watching her.”

  “Did you see anyone watching her?” Sierra asked. Why had no one said anything before now? Then again, she wasn’t friends with most of the survivors, she was just a reminder of all the trauma they’d been put through.

  CJ thought for a moment. “I thought there might’ve been an alien, he kind of looked like one of those Detyen guys. The scary one.”

  There were only four Detyens, was it really that hard to remember their names? “Which one is the scary one?”

  “The blue one.” CJ only paused for a second, not giving Sierra time to interject that three of the four Detyens they knew were blue, including her mate. “The one who always looks ready to cut somebody.”

  Kayde. The default expression of soulless Detyens could be a bit violent-looking, especially if someone didn’t know why they looked that way.

  “So you haven’t seen her since that night, and Kayde might have been there?” Sierra asked to confirm. “And did she say anything about her plans? Was she going to go anywhere?”

  “That’s right. Wait,” CJ said like Sierra had anywhere to go. “She said something about gettin
g a gift for Muir. That kid is messed up.”

  Sierra bit her tongue to keep from saying anything about the degrees to which all of the survivors were messed up.

  “I think she wanted to go back to the ship that brought us to Earth. I know it was like a week ago, but that’s the last thing I remember her saying. I hope it helps.”

  Sierra disconnected the call. She rested her communicator against her forehead and considered her next move. She really hadn’t thought that there was any possibility that Kayde and Quinn were together. Why would they be? But given what CJ said, and Toran’s concern that Kayde had been fixating on Quinn, it was looking more and more possible by the minute.

  Sierra wanted to put a call in to the field where they had been storing the ship, but she didn’t have the authority to request the security feeds that would tell her if Quinn had shown up. Instead she scrolled down to another contact and barely hesitated to add to the list of favors she could never hope to repay. “Dad?” she said when he answered. “I need your help.”

  IN A PERFECT WORLD, Quinn would’ve slept through the night cuddled up tightly in Kayde’s arms. It didn’t happen exactly like that. For one, the bed really was too small for two people. No matter how she wedged herself, at least one limb was hanging off the side and she always felt like she was one deep breath away from crashing to the ground. Maybe if she’d been willing to plaster herself up against Kayde, clinging to him like they were glued together, it might have worked out better. But she had never been a clinger; she got too hot when she was sleeping, and waking up covered in sweat was the exact opposite of sexy.

  In that same perfect world, sleeping beside Kayde would have cured her insomnia. Knowing a giant warrior lay right beside her should have made her feel safe and protected and able to turn off. Consciously it did, when she was asleep? Not so much. She would drift off, content in the knowledge that Kayde was right there and he wasn’t about to be taken away. But then came the nightmares and that sensation of hopelessness, of knowing that no one was coming for her. They weren’t memories, not exactly. Instead she’d find herself in a deep hole, unable to climb out, or stuck in a bricked up wall, with no way to call for help. Sometimes she could see the people who put her there, but most of the times they were just shadows and distant laughing voices.