Heartless

by Kate Rudolph

  She’d wake with a start, and when she woke the miracles promised by Kayde’s presence finally made themselves known. She wasn’t disoriented, wasn’t panicking on the edge of an attack. When she woke, she knew she was safe, and the remnants of her nightmares were blown away like they were nothing more than dust. Then she’d settle back onto the bed and the whole cycle would start again, drifting off to sleep knowing she was safe, drowning in a nightmare, then waking up assured of Kayde’s presence. It happened three or four times, until the last time she woke up and Kayde wasn’t sleeping beside her.

  A glance around the room settled her almost as quickly as sleeping beside him. There weren’t any knickknacks to remind her of Kayde’s presence, but his scent had permeated the place, and it was almost like the air was hugging her. She was about to throw the covers off and escape to her own room when the door opened and Kayde stepped inside. He looked at her for a long moment, and his expression gave nothing away. Were they back to that then?

  “I had hoped that you would sleep longer,” he said, standing in the doorway as if he wasn’t sure he should enter his own quarters. “It’s only been a few hours since we jumped to FTL. I was just checking to make sure everything was in order.”

  His expression might’ve been shuttered, but he was talking more than he had before they’d been detained. That was good, Quinn liked that. It was no fun to travel with an android that had a malfunctioning communication chip.

  “A few hours is more than I usually manage,” she confessed. “I actually slept pretty well.”

  “You woke up several times,” he said, revealing that he hadn’t slept as soundly as she’d thought. Then again, he was a trained warrior, and probably slept lightly by default.

  “It happens, I’m used to it. Have you had breakfast?” She didn’t want to talk more about why she couldn’t sleep. They both had to know the reason, and dwelling on it wouldn’t fix anything. She couldn’t quite bring herself to look at him. The memory of the kiss and everything that came after hung in the air between them, and Quinn didn’t know how to handle it.

  “No, my scheduler notes that I do not need to eat for another ninety minutes.”

  “But are you hungry?” How was that a complicated question? “Why does your scheduler need to tell you when to eat?” Maybe he really was an android, though she had never heard of one that could bleed before.

  Kayde stared at her, and though his expression didn’t shift from the same blank look he always had, she thought she saw thoughts flashing through his eyes, a hundred a minute, as he came to some sort of conclusion, making her realize that she had asked a much more complicated question than she thought. He finally entered the room and let the door close behind them. He took a seat at the small table beside his bed and faced her. “I am soulless.”

  Quinn remained quiet. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she could tell it was a big deal, that this confession was something momentous, and maybe something he shouldn’t be telling her. But she wanted to know, desperately needed to know. In their short time together something had shifted within her, had rearranged her priorities until finding out everything she could about Kayde was up there with her need for food and water, and definitely above sleep.

  “Have the others told you much about the Detyens?” he asked after it was clear she wasn’t going to respond to his confession.

  Quinn knew a little; the information would’ve been difficult to avoid given that she had been working around the Detyens for quite some time. “I know that your planet was destroyed, and that you’ve been searching for the people who did it for a hundred years. I know there aren’t that many of you left, and that some of you have mates. Human mates, like Sierra and Iris.”

  “So no one has told you about the denya price?” he asked.

  Quinn shook her head, not liking the sound of that.

  “You’re right that we take mates, the recognition is immediate. And until recently no one knew that humans could be mated to Detyens. There aren’t many Detyen females left. Since the destruction of Detya, more men have been born for some reason, and in the immediate aftermath of the destruction, many of our women were lost in a tragic ship crash. It’s been killing us slowly ever since. Without mates, Detyens are doomed to die at the age of thirty. Without that bond, we cease to be. When Detya still existed, the price was more of an inconvenience. There were entire systems created to ensure that mates found one another. Only a small percentage of the population failed to find their denya. But it was still tragic.”

  Quinn’s mind reeled at this confession. Dead at thirty? That was so young. How did they live like that? She didn’t know what she would do if she knew her life would be cut short just because she couldn’t find the right person in time. And Kayde... She didn’t like to think of the world, of the universe, without him in it. Even if she wasn’t his mate, she’d rather someone else have him than see him die.

  Her mind drew up short at the thought. When she started to hope that she might be his denya? But now she knew it was impossible. If they recognized their mates on sight, wouldn’t he have said something by now?

  “How old are you?” she managed to ask, and was proud that her voice to tremble. She was really asking a different question. How much time did he have?

  “I’m thirty-three,” he answered, confusing her even further. “I’ll get to that,” he promised. “A long time ago, long before Detya was destroyed, a scientist had several children. One by one they reached their thirtieth birthdays, and one by one they perished. None of his children could find their mates, and the scientist was desperate to find some way to save them. When he had only one child left, a daughter, he made a breakthrough. On the night before her thirtieth birthday he performed a procedure and the next morning she woke up, even though she didn’t have a mate. Except something went wrong. She murdered her father, destroyed his laboratory, and then killed herself after leaving a message saying that what had been done to her should never be done to anyone else. What she didn’t know was that the scientist had sent his data off to one of his friends. The friend was so horrified that he never did anything with the information he had. And the story became a legend, barely more than a myth, until Detya was destroyed and my ancestors grew desperate. They had no hope of finding mates, no one on the military ship was compatible with anyone else. They searched for survivors as best they could, but one by one they began to die off. Until someone discovered the scientist’s research. They took a vote and agreed to try the procedure out on a few candidates. It worked, removing what the scientist had called the soul. Creating the soulless allowed the soldiers to live longer than they should have. But it did come at a price. For the Detyens, the soul is the seat of our emotions, and the heart of the denya bond. Those who allow their souls to be removed sacrifice all emotion, all joy, all hope, all pain so that we may serve our people for a little bit longer. And none of the soulless had ever found their denya. Until Raze.”

  “Raze? Your Raze?” Quinn was trying to make sense of this story, but her heart ached as she realized everything that he had sacrificed for his people. It was greater than his life. It was something she couldn’t imagine giving up.

  “I think he would refer to himself as Sierra’s Raze,” Kayde said wryly.

  Quinn sat up straighter. He didn’t sound like an emotionless robot anymore. “And is Raze the only one who has found his mate?” She tried to keep the hope out of her voice, tried to speak neutrally, but she feared she failed miserably.

  Kayde’s eyes met her and they glowed red. “Not anymore.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN have sex.” Quinn didn’t mean to blurt it out, but panic bubbled in her and her thoughts cascaded in the wake of Kayde’s confession. Mate? Her? Him? She’d barely begun to hope it was possible before all the reasons it wouldn’t work started shouting at her. What kind of mate would she be if she couldn’t even get off by herself? “You shouldn’t pick me, you should find someone better.
Someone who isn’t broken.” Tears threatened to fall and Quinn wanted to scream. She thought she was over this shit. She was safe from the slavers, she didn’t have to worry about going back there, so why was all of this crap hitting her now?

  She didn’t see Kayde move, but suddenly he was beside her, one hand tentatively resting on her shoulder. She leaned into him, unconsciously at first and then she burrowed in tightly, seeking his warmth, his scent, everything about him that settled the disquiet in her bruised psyche. “Even if I could choose,” his voice rumbled around her, “there’s no one else I would want. Since the moment I saw you, you’ve been in my thoughts. At first I thought it was some kind of curse, a fixation hounding me that could lead us both to ruin. But now I know that there is no place in this universe I belong, except for at your side.”

  She cried just enough to get Kayde’s top wet, but not enough to get all blotchy, thank God. With Kayde sitting right there it was impossible not to calm down eventually, but it was still a lot, almost too much, to take in. “Why did you do it? Was it your choice?”

  For a second she thought Kayde wouldn’t understand what she was asking, but he caught the thread of her thought easily enough. “Yes, all of us who sacrifice our souls choose it. There is an application process and not all applicants are accepted. We need to fall into certain diagnostic parameters for the safety of everyone involved. And I chose to do it because my people needed me. There aren’t enough of us left and I never thought there was a choice. I was a prime candidate for the procedure, it would be a dereliction of duty to pass on the opportunity.”

  Had she ever felt that strongly about anything? Quinn might have agreed to a devil’s bargain like that in the darkest days of her captivity, but she didn’t think anything could convince her to give up her emotions, whatever passions she possessed, when she had an entire life to live. Then again, Kayde hadn’t had a life to live, he’d been given less than half of a human’s. “Did you ever regret it?”

  His hand moved, stroking her hair, playing with the thick strands. “Once it was done, I felt nothing, so even if I wanted to second guess my decision, I couldn’t. And now that I am beginning to feel again, now that the bond is reaching out from you and pulling me out of that darkness, I can’t regret a moment of it. It’s brought me to you.”

  Quinn wanted this to be the perfect moment. They’d found each other, had saved each other in their own ways, and now they could come together and celebrate the connection that had been blossoming between them for some time now. She’d felt it long before she climbed on this ship and embarked on this journey, and every day she spent with Kayde only strengthened the bond that she’d never before realized could exist between two people. This wasn’t love, not like she’d been taught to recognize it. It was something deeper, something cosmic. They’d been born on different planets, to different species, and yet here they were, holding each other and revealing secrets they didn’t share with anyone else.

  But just because she yearned for this connection, didn’t mean it solved her biggest problem. “You deserve a mate who can let you touch her.” It stabbed at her heart to imagine someone else with Kayde, and even as she was trying to make a noble sacrifice, Quinn didn’t think she could give him up.

  Kayde tilted her head up and brushed his lips against her forehead. “I’m touching you now,” he pointed out.

  “You know that’s not what I mean.” She wanted to believe that he had a point, that any apprehensions she had would dissolve so long as she was with Kayde, but wounds like hers didn’t heal just because she wanted them to, just because she really liked a guy and wanted to be with him. Trauma like that couldn’t be fixed with a mind over matter attitude. Suddenly she regretted not going to those therapy sessions she’d been prescribed after she’d made it back to Earth. Maybe then she wouldn’t be in this situation.

  “We don’t need to do anything you don’t want to do,” Kayde assured her, even as she could feel a line of tension in the way he held her.

  Quinn barely stopped herself from scoffing. “I’ve seen how the others act around one another. I’m pretty sure they start humping the second we turn our backs.” It came out bitter and Quinn hated herself for it. She hadn’t realized that she was jealous of that connection they had, but now that the same bond was within her grasp and she was scared to reach out and take it, she found that the thought of the other mated pairs made her angry.

  “Believe me, they don’t always wait for privacy.” Her alien was definitely learning the finer points of sarcasm. She wondered what he’d been like before. Would he be that man again? Or something new? He hesitated before his next words, his hands rubbing idle circles on her back as if soothing a wild animal. “Have you... tried anything since you’ve been back? With—” he swallowed and Quinn was almost certain he was trying to bite back a possessive urge to growl, “anyone else?”

  The jealousy he was trying to suppress should have scared her. It should have turned her off. It wasn’t sexy, and others did shit like that as a sign of ownership. She’d been owned before and she’d rather die than let it happen again. But when Kayde got that look in his eye, it was different than the humiliation of captivity. It was a kind of protection that she’d never known she would want. “There hasn’t been anyone I wanted to do anything with.” Except you. She caught his eye to make sure he understood those unsaid words. She swallowed hard before continuing. “I tried... in the shower... I was thinking of you.” At that confession, Kayde practically purred and the sound sent a shiver down her spine and straight to her core. Quinn didn’t try to bite back the gasp of want that escaped. She wanted to give him whatever reactions she could, even if she couldn’t give him everything. “But then I remembered what they did to me and it ruined everything. I don’t want to invite them into bed with us. I don’t want to remember the things they did when I just want to feel you.” She didn’t cry that time, thankfully. She’d never been one for tears, and the last few days had wrung her out until she had nothing left.

  “I will never push you,” he vowed. “If you tell me no, tell me to slow down, tell me to get out of the room and not come back, I’ll do as you say. You have my word. If it’s never more than this...” He paused for a long moment, making Quinn wonder what he wasn’t saying. “Then we will only do this.”

  “You’re holding something back,” she accused. “You can’t just be happy about this.”

  Kayde’s arms tightened around her and she settled in against him, lying against his back. “The denya bond needs to be sealed,” he said. “That is normally done through sex. But there must be another way. I can already feel the bond inside me,” he took her hand and placed it just under his heart, “right here. It isn’t fully set yet, but it’s calling out to you, connecting us already.”

  That sounded nice, sounded perfect, and it explained the knot that Quinn could feel in her own chest. But it brought up an even bigger question. “But what if it never happens? Are you in any danger? You gave up your soul to gain a few more years. I’m not letting you do that again. Knock me out and fuck me if you have to, but you don’t go back to being that robot that I first met. That... that would break my heart.”

  Kayde nuzzled her. The longer they kept in contact, the more he seemed to kiss her, to claim her, like he couldn’t help himself. He’d gone from cold machine to cuddly bear so quickly that she was still reeling, trying to catch up. “I will always hold your heart safe,” he promised. He pushed up as if he planned to rise from the bed.

  Quinn shot a hand out and gripped his arm. “Wait.”

  He froze.

  “I want to try,” she said, finding a well of bravery that had been hiding somewhere deep inside of her. “I don’t know how far I can go, I don’t think I can let you... that we can go all the way, but I want to test the limits. To see where I am right now. To see where we can go from here. Will you let me try?” She felt naked, half sitting, half laying on the bed, a raw nerve exposed and vulnerable.

  Kayde s
at back down. “Anytime, denya. We will do what you want, and I promise, no further.”

  That should have settled her nerves, made her feel better, like she was completely in control, but Quinn practically shook as she made room for Kayde on the bed. It wasn’t really necessary, as he’d made his own space when he’d been sitting before, but she needed to do something or she might just jump out of her skin. They sat side by side, both looking forward, barely touching. Quinn was transported back to her teenage years when she hadn’t had a clue what she was doing, and she’d been doing it with boys she shouldn’t have been giving the time of day. Everything was so good between her and Kayde when they’d spontaneously kissed, when they embraced. But now that she was sitting here, deliberately inviting him to do more, she wasn’t sure what she could handle.

  She glanced at Kayde and he looked back at her, patient, his eyes simmering with want but tempered, holding himself back. There was a wild beast buried inside of him, she’d seen it when he’d fought, felt it when he held her against the wall and plundered her mouth. It thrilled and terrified her, and she wasn’t sure how she would react if it escaped. He said he could control himself, but could he really? Even then? He was a being of passion and strength, one who’d basically cut off a limb out of loyalty to his people. Could something that powerful really be caged?

  Yes, she could see the reassurance he was trying to tell her silently. It could. He was power... and control. And if he had to hold himself back to give her what she needed right now, she was absolutely certain that he would. He could give this to her, let her find herself again. Quinn vowed that she would; she made the promise to herself, afraid to voice it just now and hear whatever reassurance Kayde would give her. She was going to get better, was going to find a way to give every part of herself, no matter what it took. He deserved it, and so did she.