10. Zyrus

10

ZYRUS

My eyes flashed open, ready for the threat.

But there was no threat, only Astrid looming over me, her eyes wide with worry, her hands pressed firmly against my chest. "What the hell was that?" she demanded, her voice laced with a mixture of concern and urgency as she clutched the fabric of my shirt tightly.

I was lying on the ground, my body aching. The last thing I remembered was Astrid's lips pressed against mine, the silken taste of her even better than the memories I'd lived with for the past eleven years.

I reached for her, my body commanding me to take another taste, to continue exactly where we'd left off until all that I knew was her. The warmth of her lips still lingered, igniting a desperate need to reconnect, to recapture that fleeting moment of perfection.

Astrid scrambled up to her feet, out of kissing range.

Very well.

I stood, the world momentarily blurring at the edges as I fought to maintain my balance. "What happened?" I asked as I tried to figure out just how I'd gone from kissing my mate to lying unconscious on the floor.

"What happened!" Her eyes were wide, arms gesticulating. "We kissed for three seconds, and then you passed out like you'd been shot! I thought someone snuck into my room and attacked you. Are you sick? What's going on?"

I hadn't kissed a woman in eleven years. My memory might have been a bit rusty, but unconsciousness had never been part of the process before. The sensation was disorienting, as if my body had short-circuited from the intensity of that brief connection.

"I'm not sick," I insisted, though my voice wavered slightly. My mind felt … different. It was as if pinpricks of pain and bursts of something indescribable were waking it back up after years of dormancy. A flood of sensations and that had been asleep for so long now surged within me. Despite the confusion and the oddity of it all, I was certain—this was no illness.

"Maybe you should sit down. Let me get you something to drink." She pointed towards the couch with a look on her face that meant arguing was futile.

My mate wanted to fuss over me. I would let her.

She came back with a glass of water that was fizzing with something. "It's a vitamin supplement. It can't hurt."

I drank. The citrusy flavor was an explosion on my tongue, but I ignored it as best as I could, my soulless training kicking in. There was always a fear among our superiors that strong flavors, scents, or other stimulus could set us off, though I'd never heard of a soulless Detyen descending into madness because his meal supplements tasted like something other than sawdust.

"I'm fine," I insisted. More than fine.

I wanted.

From the moment I saw her, I knew that I should want Astrid, but now I could see just how feeble that was. It was nearly a physical sensation now, something tugging deep within me and demanding that I reach for her, that I do what it took to take her, to taste her, to keep her.

"Your eyes turned red," she said. She sat in a chair across from me, as if she feared sitting closer might lead to something else.

If she was close enough to touch, I wouldn't resist. I wouldn't even try.

"That happens sometimes." But not to the soulless. When Detyens felt extreme emotions, our eyes could turn red. When our emotions died, we lost the ability to do it.

In the presence of my mate, my emotions were reawakening.

"What's going on, Zyrus?"

It was another opportunity to tell her about our past and who she was to me. But with my newly awakening emotions came something else: doubt. Would she believe me? Could she possibly understand what this meant? What if she didn't want a mate?

"I want to kiss you again." I couldn't bring myself to give her the truth, but I could tell her this.

"Absolutely not. Either you have some weird fainting space disease, or kissing me caused you to pass out. We're not experimenting with that. You should go to medical and get checked out." Her expression was fierce and worried.

"I don't need medical." It had never been spoken between my soulless brethren and I, but we did our best to avoid the medical department. If news of our lives here reached the Detyen Legion and they cared enough to come looking, we'd be dead. It wasn't worth the risk when we could mostly treat ourselves.

She looked ready to argue, but then she shook her head and muttered something I couldn't quite make out. Possibly men . "Then get some sleep. If you pass out on me again, I'll drag you to the doctor myself."

* * *

I didn't want to go to work. Strange. Every shift that I'd ever scheduled had simply been something I knew I had to do, but today I walked there with a healthy dose of reluctance.

My allotted days off were running low, and if I wanted to keep my job, I needed to show up for a few shifts. No one had tried to attack Astrid in the last few days, and she'd promised to keep to her quarters and contact the others if she needed to leave.

I wanted to stay and guard her. It mattered far more than any shift in the janitorial department could.

But Astrid had insisted she would be fine and perhaps the space would be good for her. In the last two days, she'd looked at me as if I might fall to pieces if we so much as brushed up against each other.

All I wanted to do was kiss her again.

It had consumed my thoughts. And my dreams. No longer was I consumed by the memory of our meeting so long ago. Now all I could imagine was our future and what it might bring.

If she could let me near her.

The shift went by quickly, even with my desire to leave. Feelings were strange. I didn't know how I'd forgotten that, but as I dealt with them, the thought circled my mind.

Every minute dragged into eternity when I wasn't thinking of Astrid. But thoughts of her could make the day pass by in moments. Then I'd remember she was back in her quarters and nowhere near me, and it would stretch unbearably again.

I didn't like this.

But after interminable hours, I was heading back, determined to show her that I was as healthy as ever and prove that one kiss would not take me down.

I didn't realize I was being followed until I was halfway to Astrid's room, my mind still preoccupied with thoughts of her. Then the back of my neck prickled with awareness, a sensation I'd grown to trust over my years as a warrior. I slowed my pace, focusing my senses, and realized that someone in an ill-fitting maintenance uniform was creeping several meters behind me, their footsteps barely audible in the quiet corridor.

I could lose them easily enough; I knew every nook and cranny of this outpost. But my body was aching for activity after hours of forced inaction, muscles tense and ready. A fight would be better than nothing, I reasoned.

I would have reveled in this once, but that part of me was still deadened, still sleeping. I laid in wait with soulless silence, and when my pursuer turned a blind corner, I pounced.

If I expected an easy fight, I was sorely mistaken. He punched out with surprising speed and precision, landing a solid blow to my side that had me grunting in pain and momentarily winded.

Then it was on, a flurry of movement in the dimly lit corridor. I ducked and dodged, my body remembering old training with no need to think about it. I managed to deliver a sharp blow to the side of my attacker's knee that made him stagger—a small victory. But he recovered quickly, going right back at it with renewed vigor. He tripped me up with a swift leg sweep, sending me stumbling and reminding me that I was years out of practice, my movements rusty compared to his fluid grace.

But I couldn't back down, my pride and survival instinct kicking in with equal force. I regained my footing, fists clenched and muscles coiled, ready for the next exchange.

So did he, his stance mirroring mine, a testament to his determination. The air crackled with tension as we circled each other.

I refused to lose.

And so did he.

We were in a public corridor, the stark metal walls and harsh lighting a reminder of our place. Station security could come running at any moment.

My opponent got in a lucky shot that sent me right to my knees. The impact reverberated through my body, and before I could gather my wits to get up, he smoothly pulled his own blaster from its holster. With practiced ease, he aimed and shot, the energy bolt hitting me square in the chest.

The pain took a moment to bloom, a brief instant of numbness before agony exploded through every nerve ending. Then it was all consuming, a white-hot fire that spread from my chest to the tips of my fingers and toes. I couldn't move my limbs if I tried, my body refusing to respond as the paralyzing effects of the blast took hold. All I could do was lie there, gasping for breath, as the world around me began to blur.

Was this it? Had I failed so quickly?

Astrid.

I had to get to my mate.

She was in danger.

But my attacker knew he had me, and he hooked his arms under my boneless shoulders and dragged me a few meters down the hall to a recessed alcove. He pressed a button on the wall, and a chute opened.

He dumped me in, and I landed with a thick thump in a foul-smelling soup of food waste.

Then the walls started closing in as the compactor came to life.