by Kate Rudolph
Sandon sat with Gren and Tyann and motioned for Kendryk and Dru to take seats opposite them. Kayde plastered himself against the wall, and when Sandon nodded at him, he knew that his presence was sanctioned. He wasn’t about to be cast from the room.
“Tell us what you know,” Sandon commanded.
Dru sucked in a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. It was longer than regulation length, had grown down around his ears as if he hadn’t been able to trim it since he’d been gone. He still wore the Oscavian jacket, and after a moment he slipped out of it, revealing that he was wearing a thin black, wraparound top that had been torn near the neck. Kayde caught sight of a bandage under his clothing and a healing wound danced from his wrist to his elbow. Whatever had happened to him since he disappeared, he’d seen battle.
“Laurel and I were held at an Oscavian research station. She... she’s—” He couldn’t bring himself to speak of the injured woman. “They performed tests on us. And—”
Sandon cut him off. “You can give the full report later. Who is coming?”
“Brakley Varrow. He’s a butcher that claims he’s a scientist, and he has an entire fleet. They could flatten the base in a matter of minutes, and that is if our defenses were at a hundred percent.”
Kayde stiffened at the name. He didn’t realize how obvious it was until everyone in the room looked at him. “Do you have something to say?” Gren demanded.
“Nyden Varrow was an Oscavian of a similar nature working on Earth with Yormas of Wreet.” When everyone looked at him blankly, Kayde realized that he’d never given them the man’s name. “My team back on Earth has evidence that he was involved in the destruction of Detya.”
That sent the room into a frenzy. Half of the occupants turned to Kayde, wanting more information, while the rest turned on each other, trying to find out who knew what. They were only silenced when Sandon slammed a fist down on the table and brought the room to order. “You might have said something before,” he said pointedly.
Kayde had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that Sandon and his cohort had been too busy imprisoning Kayde and his mate to listen to his report. “Nyden Varrow is dead,” Kayde said. “But he said that Yormas wasn’t working alone, and he did mention a brother.”
Sandon acknowledged that with a nod and turned back to Dru. “What do you know?”
“They’re coming,” Dru repeated. “Laurel and I pissed them off, and they knew that we’d come here. She heard them. They haven’t attacked again because the base wasn’t a threat. They knew you couldn’t pursue them, and they’ve been monitoring things since they left.” Dru flattened his fingers on the table and his jaw was set as if he could barely keep from lashing out at anyone.
“How are they monitoring us?” asked Gren.
“I don’t know. But we found reports. They know things they shouldn’t be able to know. Laurel thinks there’s a mole. Brakley liked her,” he sneered out the name. “He didn’t think she’d turn against him.”
“Are you absolutely certain that they’re coming?” Sandon asked, his eyes flashing red for a moment.
Dru just nodded.
Sandon sat back in his chair. “We have to evacuate. Our defenses are too weak. They’ll kill us in an instant.”
“They know about our secondary rendezvous,” Dru said, hanging his head. “There’s already a force waiting there.”
The secondary location was meant to be a place to gather in the event of an evacuation. It was little more than a dusty rock near a little used jump point, but it was good enough for the desperate.
“We have other contingencies,” said Sandon.
Dru pulled a data chip out of his pocket and placed it on the table. “And they know all of them. This information isn’t kept on any server. It’s memorized by those on the recovery teams. The second we leave this place they’ll pick us off one by one. Varrow has been waiting for months to do this. Laurel and I barely escaped. We managed to stall them, but they’re coming.”
“If we can’t run, then we have to fight. We have no other choice.”
But that wasn’t exactly true. Kayde leaned forward and took everyone’s attention again. “I have an idea.”
Chapter Twenty
QUINN COULDN’T STOP pacing. Her nerves had been strung tight from the moment the siren went off, so things should have gotten better when everything went silent and the lights stopped flashing. Somehow that only made it worse. She didn’t know how long a battle was supposed to take, but she was pretty sure something should have been going on outside her window. But all she saw was snow. No soldiers, no Kayde, no nothing.
Minutes ticked by into hours and two or three must have passed while she waited. How she didn’t tear her hair out, she’d never know. At some point in the endless time of waiting she used the communication station on the wall to try and figure out what was going on. But though the controls looked simple enough, she couldn’t find anyone who would speak to her.
The denya bond pulsed in her chest, a reassuring cord that bound her to Kayde even though they were so far apart. Wherever he was, she was sure that he was okay. If the bond were telling her anything differently, she would have gone crazy.
She wondered if she should leave the room and try and track him down, but that was the move of a desperate woman. If they really were under threat of battle, she knew she would be helping no one by getting in the middle of it. She could barely shoot a blaster, and she remembered too well her scuffle with Kayde when she had first boarded his ship. It felt like a million years ago; she didn’t recognize the woman she’d been back then, and if she told that woman that she’d been going crazy hoping to be reunited with Kayde, that Kayde was her mate and she was in love with him, the Quinn of a few weeks ago would have laughed in her face.
The comm screen on the wall came to life and Quinn rushed over, hoping someone was about to give her answers. But it was a prerecorded message, something she figured out with a little bit of embarrassment when she tried to speak and was completely ignored.
“Emergency evacuation procedures are in place. Please proceed to exit three to board your waiting vessel. You are authorized to carry with you one bag of personal belongings. All food and medications shall be provided by the fleet. Proceed immediately. This is a full evacuation. Proceed to exit three.” The message repeated three times before going quiet. Quinn tapped on the screen to try and call someone, anyone, to get more information about what was going on. Unsurprisingly, her calls went unanswered.
But if this place was being evacuated, she wasn’t going to get left behind. Especially since Kayde was out there, and surely she could find him if she wasn’t stuck in her room. She didn’t have anything to carry with her. They’d been forced to leave their belongings on the ship with the promise that things would be delivered later, but that had never happened. She pulled on her coat and gave the room one last look to make sure there wasn’t anything she should take with her.
There wasn’t.
She had no idea how to find exit three, but as soon as she was in the hall it became clear that wouldn’t be an issue. Lights on the floor guided her in the right direction and a few Detyen families with small children walked in front of her. They had to be going to the same place. Quinn got disoriented as she followed the lights in the people. It wasn’t like she had a map of Detyen HQ, and Kayde had never gotten around to explaining the layout.
Quinn passed by two huge doors with small windows set into them at eye level. She looked over and saw the infirmary, almost completely abandoned, two rows of beds empty except for a single occupant. A human occupant. Quinn gave the families she was following one look before she pushed through the infirmary doors to see what another human was doing at Detyen HQ. She got close to the bed and had to bite back a shout surprise when she saw who was sitting there.
Laurel. The lost survivor, the one who had been abandoned. She was here. She was alive. Was she okay?
Quinn wanted to touch her to re
assure herself the woman was real, but she kept her hands close by her sides and loomed over the bed. Laurel wasn’t hooked up any machines and she seemed to be breathing steadily. Whatever was wrong with her, Quinn hoped the Detyens could fix it. She’d been through enough bad things for several lifetimes, and Quinn was sure whatever had brought the young blonde woman here, she’d had a hard path to follow.
A bright green Detyen rushed into the room and shooed Quinn away from the bed. “You shouldn’t be in here. We’re evacuating.”
“She was my...” Quinn wanted to say friend, but she hadn’t earned the right. “Is she okay?”
The Detyen sighed and gave Laurel a quick look. “We’re doing everything we can,” she said. “I’m optimistic. Now get out of here.”
Quinn didn’t argue. She turned around and went back the way she came, almost slamming into a golden colored Detyen who seemed ready to enter the infirmary. His eyes widened when he saw her. “You are well?” he asked, failing to keep a hint of shock out of his voice.
“Yes?” It came out more of a question, but, Quinn realized, she was coming right out of the infirmary in the middle of evacuation and that could confuse anyone.
The Detyen recovered quickly. “Good, good,” he said. “Your mate sent me to get you. I’m to make sure you stay safe.”
Warmth suffused her, even if she wished that Kayde himself had come for her. Still, she couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her lips. “Really?”
The Detyen looked at her for a moment before finally nodding.
“What’s your name?” If he was here to escort her back to Kayde, it would be nice to know what he was called.
“Denmen,” he said. “Come, we must move quickly.”
He took off and Quinn followed close at his heels. They didn’t go in the direction she’d been heading, but maybe Kayde was waiting for her somewhere else. Besides, Denmen surely knew this place way better than she did. They walked for several minutes and something tickled at the back of Quinn’s mind, something wrong. They’d passed by two families, both of them heading in the opposite direction, and each time they got close, Denmen turned to her, giving his back to his fellow Detyens, as if he didn’t want them to catch a glimpse of them.
That was weird.
He led them to a door which had a bright red warning sign on it in a language that Quinn couldn’t read. “Are you sure we’re supposed to be here?” It felt like they were deep in the building and far from any exit, far from the evacuation ships. She didn’t like this at all. Why would Kayde not be on or near one of the ships?
“What exactly did my mate want you to do?” she asked slowly, refusing to take another step. She really didn’t want to go through that door.
Denmen turned towards her. “I’m to see you safely to the ship. Dru will meet you there.”
Dru? Who the hell was Dru? “That isn’t my mate’s name. I think I should go back.”
The confusion was back on Denmen’s face. “Aren’t you Laurel? You’re human.”
“What do you want with Laurel?” And since when did Laurel have a mate?
Denmen reached towards the side and Quinn was sure he was going for a blaster. She didn’t give herself a chance to hesitate, turning on her heel and running away before he could grab her or get a shot off. Something was wrong. She needed to find Kayde.
THE EVACUATION WAS going smoothly, but Kayde could feel a growing sense of dread in the back of his mind. He was working to load up one of the supply ships, and once the final crate had been secured he ran down the ramp and straight to where Sandon was standing, coordinating the evacuation. “The eastern wing of family quarters has been completely evacuated,” he told Kayde. “We’re sending all of them to the ships at exit three.”
“Is Quinn with them?” They’d been placed in that part of the family wing, so she should be near an evacuation ship by now. He had wanted to get her out of their quarters himself, but to undertake an evacuation this quickly, all hands were needed. They ran these drills once a month and had all of the supplies on standby, but the real thing was always more difficult.
Sandon consulted a tablet he was holding, his face grim. “No, she hasn’t been counted at the exit yet.” He tapped on the screen several times before shaking his head. “I just reloaded the roster and she’s not there.”
“I’m—”
“Go,” Sandon agreed. “You won’t be able to focus until you know she’s safe. I understand.” He couldn’t, Sandon was still unmated, but at least his sympathies lay with Kayde. “We’re closing in on the end of evac. Once the ships start to go, you know what’s going to happen.”
Kayde nodded. They couldn’t stop the Oscavians from coming, but they could make sure there was nothing useful for them to find. Once the ships were in the air, the fleet would engage the self-destruct mechanism and level HQ to rubble. “I’ll confirm we’re safe once we’re on a ship.”
Sandon nodded and let Kayde go. He ducked into one of the buildings and ran toward the exit where Quinn was supposed to be waiting. His sense of anxiety grew with every step he took and he wished he had a vehicle to cover the distance faster. He was sweating under his coat, but he hadn’t bothered to remove it. All of the heating systems had been turned off in preparation for the evac. They didn’t want people lingering indoors when they were supposed to be outside.
At exit three all of the families of the Legion were standing in straight lines, waiting to be waved onto the waiting ships. Even the children stood at attention, tiny would-be soldiers who had been forced into this life just as Kayde had been. Would his and Quinn’s children face this same fate? Or would they be able to build something better for their family once the threat of Yormas of Wreet was dealt with?
They hadn’t had time to discuss it, newly mated as they were, but Kayde wanted that family with Quinn, a passel of children, a safe place to live, and a bright future not bogged down by the debts of the past. Perhaps another man might have been disappointed that the place he’d called home for his entire life was about to be destroyed, but Kayde couldn’t mourn. This place was as much a curse as it was a shelter. It wasn’t a place to settle and grow, it was a place to remember and plot revenge against a generational wound that couldn’t be healed.
It was time for the Detyens to move on, time to make a new home, a true home.
Kayde greeted the commander and asked about Quinn, but the man hadn’t seen her and he didn’t have time to chat. Undeterred, Kayde walked among the families, trying to see if his mate was there and simply hadn’t been counted yet.
“But what kind of alien was she, mama?” a child’s voice asked, stopping Kayde in place.
“I’m not sure,” his mother replied. “I’ve never seen one like that before.”
“How could she be on the base?”
Kayde approached them slowly. “Did you say you saw an alien on the base?” It was almost strange to think of Quinn in those terms, but they were both alien to each other in their own ways. If the Detyens had never seen humans before, they were in for a shock.
The little boy backed up against his mother but gave Kayde a wide-eyed nod. “It followed us to the infirmary.”
Kayde looked up at the mother for confirmation and she nodded. “Don’t call them ‘it,’” she told her son. “I think she was a woman.”
“Thank you,” Kayde told them, and they both looked at him like he’d grown a second head. He left them there waiting to board their ship and headed back indoors. By the time he got to the infirmary, the only human he saw was Laurel being placed onto a gurney by the medical team, who had her tied down and had placed a large bag of supplies between her feet.
“You need to get out of here,” the head doctor told him. “The ships are leaving soon.”
“Have you seen another human?” he asked. Where in all the hells was Quinn? Was it possible she was still in her room?
The doctor nodded. “I told her to head to the ships,” she said. “We need to move this one. Excuse me
.” The team took Laurel, leaving Kayde alone in the room with no hint of where Quinn had gone off to. He needed a sign, a hint, some kind of trail.
A newly formed sense tugged at him and Kayde placed a hand on his chest, rubbing at the spot below his heart where the denya bond nestled deep inside him. A spike of pain shot through him and pulled him deep into the heart of the compound.
Quinn was there and she was in trouble.
Chapter Twenty-One
QUINN DIDN’T HAVE THE best sense of direction and she really didn’t need the Detyen HQ to prove it to her. She took turns at random, just trying to put distance between herself and Denmen. He wasn’t firing his blaster, but that was only a small blessing. Why the hell had he lured her away from the infirmary? Why had he lied to her? What did he want with Laurel?
Thoughts swirled around in her head, but she didn’t have long enough to get a firm hold on any one of them. She was too busy concentrating on the sound of her feet pounding against the concrete ground and the way it was shaking her teeth. She sounded like a wild animal and any soldier worth his rank would be able to track her by hearing alone. She was screwed.
Kayde, where are you? She wanted her mate so bad that she could scream. If he were here with her at least she wouldn’t be alone. He would be more than able to handle one treacherous Detyen.
Oh God, she hoped there was only one. What if Denmen had friends?
No. No time to think about that now. She’d only dealt with him, and if someone had been waiting for them beyond that door she didn’t want to know. She could only deal with so much at once.
She rounded a corner and her eyes widened as she almost ran straight into Denmen, who was running right at her. On instinct she ducked and rolled, pulling off a maneuver she never would have been able to manage if she thought about it. She sprang back up to her feet and kept running. Her heart was going fast enough to give her a headache and her lungs were about to explode, but she couldn’t stop.