by Kate Rudolph
Synnr’s Saint
Zulir Warrior Mates
Kate Rudolph
Want more sci-fi romance? You can get a free, full length novel by joining my reader club.
Sign up now!
Coming Soon
Synnr’s Hope: Zulir Warrior Mates Book Two
These warriors are on the verge of war, and their only hope is in the hands of their human mates!
Find out more!
Synnr’s Saint © 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
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
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Preview Soulless: Detyen Warriors Book One
About Kate Rudolph
Also by Kate Rudolph
Chapter One
THE FALL COULD KILL her.
Emily Saint’s heart tripped over as she looked past the ledge to the drop below. A dozen feet? Twenty? She didn’t know for sure, but one wrong step, one twist, and she’d be tumbling down to the hard ground and no one would be there to save her. Her stomach was in knots, roiling up and down as she considered just how badly this could go. Her body had once been a powerful tool, ready to follow every demand she pushed at it.
But that had been years ago.
She took a breath and let her eyes fall closed. She didn’t need to see the gathered aliens below. And that had been quite the revelation a few months ago. Aliens existed. And they were complete jerks. Now a hundred were gathered below her, watching, waiting for her to fail. They looked almost human, and with her eyes closed she could pretend that they were. She didn’t have to see the electric wings that blinked in and out of existence. But she couldn’t ignore the crackle of electricity in the air.
She wanted to fly.
A light came on, haloing her on her perch, and there was no more time for hesitation. Emily dove, reaching for the bar and latching on, flipping around as it swung over the audience and the hard floor below. She let go and flipped to the next ledge, letting her body remember what it was supposed to do. Her muscles ached with the effort and sweat pooled on her tight clothing, but she barely felt it when she was flying like this. She didn’t have wings, but this had to be almost as good.
She flipped in place, her back facing the ledge and her feet landing within an inch of certain doom. That always made the aliens below gasp, and Emily felt satisfaction at it. She might have been just a human, someone they didn’t even see as a person, but she could stun them with tricks she’d been training to do since she was a child. A single backflip? No problem.
And when she flipped again she sailed off the platform, reaching out at the last moment to catch with her fingers. It hurt, the skin catching and her bones jarring, but she kept moving, flipping and spinning her way through the air until she made it to the ground. She hadn’t been a trapeze artist back home, and she’d hated the uneven bars, but now she used those skills every day.
The floor, though? She was made for that.
She finally made it down and felt the small spring. It wasn’t as big as a competition floor, maybe half the size, and she couldn’t gain the speed she needed to execute the best moves, but in the last six months she’d adapted. Her first pass involved a twisting flip and a layout that looked much fancier than it was. Her coaches would have yelled at her for being lazy, for not executing it perfectly, but the aliens she was in front of wanted flash, not perfection, and that was all Emily could offer.
Another pass led to a round of applause that almost made Emily smile. She’d forgotten the rush of performance after giving up gymnastics, but every night when she went out she was reminded. And she could almost forget why she’d quit.
She didn’t land the next flip, flailing to the ground to even greater cheers from the aliens. Her failures were even better than her successes, as far as they were concerned. Emily stuffed the bitterness away. That would only get her hurt, or worse. As long as she was their pet performer, they treated her... okay. It could be worse.
So she played it up, limping a bit and grimacing, letting them think she was close to done. They had to be salivating at the thought of her being taken away by the medic that hovered at the edge, ready to take the broken performers backstage. But her ankle barely twinged. Not even a sprain. She’d performed on much worse.
But the aliens didn’t want her to recover. Not yet.
She limped into the next move, doing forward rolls and a cartwheel. Anyone could do that, and the aliens knew it. The grumbles were starting; soon they’d lead to chants and calls for her to be yanked off stage. Emily let their frustration flow through her, let it wash away the pain as she leaped high and flipped.
That shut them up.
And when she did it again she stole a cheer from someone in the back. She wasn’t down. Not by a long shot.
She didn’t fall again, but as her performance wound down, her ankle started twinging some more, and when she finished the final pass she was favoring it a little, but not enough to let them see. Her true pain was her own. She wasn’t going to put it on display for her captors.
It was all she had left.
In the end they cheered. They always cheered. And a part of her hated the way it made her feel inside, the way it lit her up and made her bask in their applause. Her body tightened and she couldn’t stop the smile. She looked out and it was the same crowd as always, aliens who watched captive humans like they were trained animals. No one special.
Who was he?
She’d never noticed anyone before, not after the first night where she’d tried to remember everyone. But tonight she saw a man sitting at a table and watching her with such intensity that she felt stripped bare. And she didn’t hate it. He clapped, and their gazes locked. She couldn’t make out too much about him. His skin had that same iridescent sheen as everyone else’s, and he probably had colorful wings that could flash out of his back whenever he felt like it.
He was the same kind of alien as everyone else in the room. But he wasn’t looking at her the way the rest of them did. She knew interest when she saw it.
It should have frightened her. Her captors had been terrible, and they’d performed hundreds of tests on her and forced her to perform for them, but they’d never sexually assaulted her, never given a hint of lust.
She wasn’t afraid of him, though.
But she’d always been a fool.
Emily walked off the stage with a flair and disappeared behind a door where another alien attendant waited, scowling at her and waving her towards one of the performers’ rest rooms. She had another show to perform tonight and if she didn’t treat her ankle soon she’d break herself. And she didn’t want to think about what might happen if she wasn’t able to tumble.
A blonde form walked by her, knocking into her shoulder, and Emily glared as Grace made her way down the hall. She liked to pretend they weren’t all prisoners of these aliens, liked to sidle up to them and preen. Emily wouldn’t play that game.
She opened the door and sank down onto one of the chairs beside Lena, another human. The older woman—she was somewhere in her thirties compared to Emily’s twenty-four—gave her a grin, but they said nothing. Their captors didn’t like it when they talked.
Good pets didn’t.
But Emily wasn’t a pet. Even after six months of captivity. She was going to find a way out.
Somehow.
MALSAN OZAR NEEDED to remember he was in enemy territory. He couldn’t get caught staring at the captivating human soaring through the air as if she had wings of her own. And he certainly had to hide his body’s reaction to her.
The Apsyns saw anyone who wasn’t Zulir as an animal, incapable of thought or feeling, and certainly not worthy of attraction. They made their captives perform for audiences and probably kept them as slaves, though the practice was meant to be illegal.
Of course, non-Zulirs weren’t protected by Apsyn law.
But Oz was a Synnr, and he wasn’t here to watch the show.
He finally managed to tear his gaze away from the human, right before she walked off stage, and he had to hope those sitting at tables around him didn’t notice. He was in this club for a reason, and it had nothing to do with the spellbinding performances.
His Apsyn companion finally rejoined him, sliding a drink to Oz with a smile. To an outsider, there was nothing to differentiate Apsyn from Synnr. Their differences were political and philosophical, not physical. The Zulir were a people divided. And war was coming.
But he had to finish this mission well before then. He wasn’t going to fail this time.
“So what do you think?” Xydion asked with a leer. He’d quickly taken to Oz, shepherding him around the city and showing him all the best places.
“I hadn’t expected so many humans,” he said, glancing back at the stage. But the performer was gone, replaced by another who seemed to weave fire with her fingertips. It was all sleight of hand, not even a Matched Zulir could manage that, but it seemed to entertain the crowd.
Xydion laughed. “They were rescued from their planet. All these beasts who waste their resources and destroy their homes. They should be happy to be in a civilized place.”
Oz didn’t have to bite back a retort, he’d been trained well enough so the hateful language didn’t sting. A distant part of him wondered how Apsyns couldn’t look beyond differences to see the beauty of other species, but if he asked questions like that his cover would be blown and an important asset would end up dead. “We don’t have performances like this back home,” he said honestly.
Xydion slung an arm over his shoulder. “You’re not in the countryside anymore, friend. And there are no Synnrs here to spout their useless moralizing. Perverts,” he scowled. “I’ve heard they try to Match with lessers. As if they could appreciate the bond.”
If their intel was correct, Apsyns wanted human Matches just as much, even if they weren’t willing to share in an equal partnership. He knew he should say something, should validate Xydion’s hatred before the man started to feel judged, but Oz couldn’t manage it. He’d met plenty of humans back home in Osais and there was none of the so-called perversion that Xydion seemed to be imagining. And a Match... well, that was the kind of thing made of dreams.
They weren’t exactly rare, but they weren’t common enough that anyone could expect to meet their Match, either. Oz knew a handful of Matched people, and most of them had been introduced through the Synnr Matching system. He assumed Apsyns had something similar.
Oz didn’t know what it would be like to be connected to someone like that on a molecular level and he was afraid to find out. A Matched man’s mind wasn’t his own. He shared it with his partner, the bond weaving them tighter than anything else in the universe until they could perform as one, letting the spark of their lives flow through them and amplify much stronger than anything a single person could hope to produce. The Matched could be terrifyingly powerful, their electricity crackling all around, enough to kill a platoon.
Oz could go far if he had a Match.
But what if it meant giving up a part of himself?
Xydion had been talking. He’d gone on for more than a minute before Oz realized he wasn’t paying attention. Some of it seemed to be the same braz about Zulir superiority, while the rest was planning where’d he’d take Oz to get him well and truly drunk.
“And we’ll end the night at mine. You need to meet my partner. She’s been looking for some fun and I promised I’d bring you around.” His hold on Oz tightened.
Another time, another man or woman, another prospect, and Oz might have been interested, but he wasn’t about to crawl into bed with Apsyns. His cover didn’t need it and he doubted he could maintain the charade... or an erection.
“Later,” Oz promised with no intention of following through. He pushed up from his seat. “Where I’m from we praise the performers, even if they can’t understand it.”
Xydion seemed ready to argue, but he just gave Oz a withering look. “This is the city, boy, things aren’t the same.”
But the country bumpkin that Oz was pretending to be either didn’t know or didn’t care, and he took off toward the stage with a shrug. No one was guarding the door, which he found a little odd considering it wasn’t locked. Did they think the humans were too stupid to manage to get out? Or did they have other means of keeping them in place.
He didn’t want to think of what the Apsyns might be doing to them, but he’d have to if he wanted to get the asset out from wherever they were keeping her.
He’d walked a long way down one hallway before anyone tried to stop him. An Apsyn woman with frizzy hair and a frazzled expression stepped in front of him. “This area is for employees and performers only,” she said. “Please return to the lounge.”
Oz put on his best smile and let his accent sink into the broader tones of the countryside. It either charmed or annoyed people, and all of them underestimated him. “I wanted to give my compliments to that flyer that came out.” He wasn’t sure of the right word. Zulir performers could use their wings to stay airborne for much longer and do more complex tricks. A human didn’t have wings, so was she really flying? But it had been impressive in its own way. She had to be fearless to perform when she couldn’t catch herself if she fell or missed her target.
“The performers do not meet with the audience,” the woman scowled. “We don’t want to agitate them. They can be fragile.”
There had been no fragility on that stage.
“We’ve never had humans in my village,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I just wanted to see one up close. I didn’t know they could do that.”
And the woman’s expression softened just enough. Charmed. Good. “They’re down the hall. You can look through the viewer but don’t go in the room. And if you get caught, you didn’t see me. Got it?”
Oz gave her his brightest smile and she continued down the hall, shaking her head.
He kept moving in the opposite direction, but he didn’t go where the woman had pointed. A part of him did want to go and see if he could find the performer and perhaps learn her name. But nothing could come of it. He had a responsibility and it didn’t involve rescuing a random human who knew nothing about the upcoming war. Maybe he could bargain with his captain to get her out, but Oz knew his captain. He was almost as bad as the Apsyns when it came to non-Zulirs.
Oz had
to let her go.
It hurt more than he expected.
But where was the asset?
He was acting without a map or a plan, and it could all end in disaster. But she had to be here somewhere and they needed to establish contact. She knew they were coming. And she had to want out.
He’d stick his head into some rooms, but he couldn’t count on getting lucky again. His charm only went so far. The first door he opened was a closet stacked high with fabric and rope. The next room revealed a handful of humans sleeping in a big bed, piled up for warmth. They didn’t have blankets and they looked cold.
Apsyn bastards.
He put his hand on the sensor to open a third door, but it slid open without his command.
And there stood his performer, her bright gray eyes wide.
Chapter Two
HOLY HELL.
He was bigger than she imagined.
Hell.
Damn.
Shit.
Her coaches hadn’t liked her cursing when she was a kid, even if they’d swear a blue streak, and sometimes the words still felt unnatural. But right now they were warranted. A scream got caught in Emily’s throat. What was the point? It wasn’t like someone would come to help. If he was back here, it was because someone had let him in. Had he paid for access? Was her bleak existence about to get even worse?
All the stories about alien abduction back home had involved probing. And though none of the aliens seemed inclined to do that to her now, was that about to change? Or were humans too horny for their own good, obsessed with all the gross things that could be done to them when they were powerless?
She didn’t want that.
But she might have wanted him.
At another time. In another universe.
He was tall. Over six feet, definitely, maybe even edging in on seven. And that gave him more than a foot and a half on her. God, she felt short, even more than usual. Then again, she barely scratched 5’1”. And he was just as broad. His shoulders took up most of the doorway, and though his clothes were loose fitting, she didn’t miss the muscles. She’d been around plenty of muscular guys before. Gymnasts might have been short, but they weren’t exactly dainty, but this guy put them to shame.