Damaged (Planet Alpha) (5 page)

Chapter Five

“Reiyn! Shit, snap out of it. Is this the person we’re supposed to rescue?” Cori undid the binding sealing her glove to her suit. “He’s a Xyran. This can’t be right,” she muttered to herself as she fussed with her glove. Once she got it off, she
attached it to her waist so she wouldn’t lose it in the zero gravity and stood there uncertainly. She didn’t want to touch the alien in the pod. His skin looked grey, like a corpse. His mouth hung open, displaying his forked tongue. How could this be the one who’d sent the distress signal? The underground network was fragmented and barely organized. The only thing everyone agreed on was the emergency signal. And no one, absolutely no one, would ever give it away to a Xyran.

“He is the one,” Reiyn whispered.

If it weren’t for their suits’ audio amplification, she never would’ve heard him.

“How do you know?” she demanded, making herself float closer. There wasn’t much room. Her skin crawled at being so close to the creature. The only Xyrans she could stomach were Sky’s half-Alphan bondmates, because they seemed more Alphan than Xyran. Jaxt and Zoen were honorable and rational. Most Xyrans were neither. They were murderous barbaric slavers. She would know. She’d suffered enough at their hands.

“I know—” Reiyn broke off, his voice cracking.

She stared at him. He’d gone even paler than before. “Shit,” she said, when she realized he wasn’t going to be any help. She looked around the pod. Nothing indicated whether the Xyran was the one who’d initiated the distress call until her eyes landed on the tiny ship’s computer display. There it was: the coordinates they’d followed.

“Shit,” she muttered, hooking her foot around a handle on the wall. She towed herself closer and crouched down, making sure she wasn’t going to go spinning off.

He’s a Xyran
. Maybe I should just let him die.
She glanced up at Reiyn. He’d taken off his gloves, fortunately, and was moving toward her. She steeled herself and touched the Xyran’s face. It was ice cold. He didn’t even twitch. Her stomach felt like someone had stuffed it full of broken bricks. She took a deep breath and made herself think about this situation rationally. There had to be a reasonable explanation for how a Xyran had ended up floating in the middle of nowhere with the underground emergency distress beacon pinging from his escape pod.

“This is how the slaves on Xyran got away, isn’t it? Because he helped them escape.” She touched the Xyran’s face again. Still cold. “That’s the only explanation. No one else has access to them except another Xyran,” she said slowly.

Reiyn nodded, going to his knees besides the alien.

Damn.
This changed everything she’d ever known. Cori had often wondered how the slaves on the planet and colony moons managed to get away. Having Xyrans as part of the underground escape route made sense intellectually—how else would they escape if there weren’t sympathetic Xyrans willing to defy their ruling tribe? On the other hand, all her instincts screamed
danger.
She’d been abused for too many years at the hands of sadistic aliens who looked just like this one.
But I can’t let an innocent man die, even if he’s a Xyran. If I did, that would make me no better than they are.

“We need to reverse the cryo-sleep,” Reiyn murmured, hands going to the controls.

“Wait!” Cori said, putting her fingers over his. “I’ll do it.”

He looked at her. She didn’t know what he saw in her face, but he nodded and let her tap the buttons. She needed to prove to herself that while she might be damaged, she wasn’t so broken that she couldn’t see past her own prejudices.

“It’s working.” She touched the alien’s neck, waiting to feel a pulse. His grey skin felt dead. She suppressed a shudder and watched the display. When three-quarters of his blood had gone back into him, she let go, not sure what to do next. Reiyn crouched motionless next to her, like a human statue. His face, like usual, gave nothing away. She bit her lip and put her hand on the alien’s cheeks, willing warmth to flow back into him. “Come on, you can do it,” she muttered, shaking him a little. “Come on.”

“His name is Kyuk,” Reiyn said, unexpectedly.

She glanced at him, confused, but then the alien twitched, eyes fluttering. Cori slid her hands down to his neck. His pulse was thready, but steady. His skin color was still greyish, but it had a warmer cast to it. She hoped that when he woke up he would adjust his appearance to a human-normal flesh tone, but knew that it was unlikely. Many Xyrans either couldn’t or wouldn’t control their skin color very well and cycled through colors that corresponded with different emotions. Sky’s bondmates were unusual; their control was perfect.

“We need to get him into the med-sack,” she said, dispelling thoughts of enraged Xyrans with crimson skin. She didn’t need to remember that right now.
No flashbacks,
she admonished herself. She reached for the sack, but Reiyn beat her to it, unsealing the package so that it billowed out next to the alien. The cryo machine clicked off, and Cori detached the tubing from the alien’s arms. “This is going to be awkward. We may be in zero-g, so he won’t be heavy, but he’s going to be floppy.”

Reiyn frowned at her. “I will do it.” He lifted the creature’s shoulders effortlessly and waited while Cori arranged the sack. He guided the alien inside
, and they sealed it, then put their gloves back on.

“We’ll have to get some food into him,” Cori said, grabbing one of the med-sack’s outer straps and fastening it to her torso. “Maybe even some IV fluids.”

“He will not need such things,” Reiyn said arrogantly.

Cori paused. Reiyn was already heading for the porta-lock with the med-sack. He tugged
, and Cori floated behind him, attached to the ties. “You never told me that the distress call included his name,” she said, a gnawing suspicion growing in her gut.

He looked back for moment. “It did not.”

Cori grabbed one of the handles on the escape pod’s wall. “Then how did you know it?” She stared at Reiyn, willing him to tell her the truth.

Instead of replying, he stared back at her, the glow from his helmet lighting the mild brown of his eyes. As she watched, horrified, his skin of his face slowly changed from human-normal to a soft copper, the same color as his fake, lying eyes.

****

Reiyn wrestled Kyuk into the sleeping quarters. Now that they were back in ship’s gravity, the unconscious Xyran was a heavy, dead weight. He dragged him in far enough so that once he got Kyuk out of the sack, all he’d have to do was roll him into bed. At some point, Cori must have removed the bunks, because there was only one sleeping area now: a large mattress set into the floor along the far wall. There wasn’t much room to walk around the mattress, but there was enough for him to get Kyuk out of the med-sack and onto the bed. He unsealed it and peeled it away from his long-lost blood-kin’s face. Kyuk breathed slow and steady, but his color was still mostly grey. He needed to wake up.

“You’re a Xyran,” Cori said from the doorway, her voice low and cold.

Reiyn glanced over his shoulder. She’d taken off the EV suit and stood there with a pulse gun pointed at him. She looked beautiful. She’d finally loosened her long blonde hair from her severe braids. The strands kinked around her shoulders prettily, the exact opposite of the expression on her face. She looked like she wanted to kill him. He let go of the sack, wishing he’d had time to take off his suit. He had no way to defend himself like this.

“I am half-human,” he said quietly, putting his arms out, palms up.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Half.”

He nodded, watching her gaze flick down to Kyuk.

“And him? Is he half-human too?” she asked.

Reiyn shook his head.

Her face tightened. “Ah.” Slowly, so slowly he knew she must surely be questioning herself even as she moved, she lowered the pulse gun. “You’re a lying bastard.”

His nostrils flared before he could help himself. He had no right to his anger. She was correct. He didn’t move.

“How do you know him?” She jerked her chin at Kyuk.

“I was a slave on Xyran. He was a Xyran born just barely above slave status, to an aging warrior who died soon after his birth. We were friends. Survival is easier when you are not alone.” Reiyn wondered if she would believe him.
So few words to describe such a life-altering relationship,
he mused, wanting to touch his blood-kin. He could hardly believe they were both alive and together again.

Cori pursed her lips, then shoved her weapon into the holster on her thigh. “Why should I believe you? You lied about everything else.” She ran a palm down her hip suggestively.

He knew she referred to the sex they’d had just before flying off to rescue Kyuk. “I did not lie about everything. I hide my Xyran blood on Earth because it is the only way to survive.” He glanced at Kyuk. “The only way to survive and also help others escape the same fate I suffered.” He looked back up at Cori. “Since my escape, I have tried to live an honorable life. I may be damaged—” He gestured to his back. “But I am not a barbarian.”

Cori stared at him so long he wondered if she was reconsidering her decision not to shoot him. He couldn’t decipher her expression, and that alarmed him. An unpredictable female could be dangerous.

“Get him onto the bed. I’ve got some fluids and a couple of protein bars in the galley. She abruptly pivoted and walked away.

Reiyn stared at the empty doorway, then bent back to his task.

****

An hour later, they were on their way to the nearby system to conceal the ship within an extensive asteroid field. Reiyn sat with Kyuk, willing his long-lost friend to wake up. It wasn’t easy, this waiting, especially not after the scare they’d just had. Not long after he’d managed to get Kyuk into bed, multiple alarms had gone off, sending him running for the bridge.

“Xyran raiders,” Cori had told him tersely, fingers flying over the display. “We’ll hide in here.” She stabbed at a set of coordinates.

Reiyn had admired her quick thinking. On the screen, small dots had displayed the raiders that’d found the escape pod. The Xyrans had clearly been combing the vicinity for them. They wanted the ship that had somehow opened the pod and extracted the survivor. Reiyn knew immediately that if the Xyrans found them, neither his nor Kyuk’s blood would spare them from torture. Cori would become a slave once again, only this time, as an adult, she would be used as a breeder.

“We can’t outrun them,” she’d snapped when he’d asked. “This ship is old. Much older than those warships.”

Their only hope of survival had been to hide. Cori had programmed the ship to shoot them toward the asteroid field,
and then she’d powered down everything except life-support, making them, in essence, just another rock. Now it was just a waiting game.

“Did he wake up yet?” Cori asked him, edging into the sleeping quarters.

“No.” Reiyn shook his head, twisting to look at her.
Still angry.
She stood with one hand on her knife.
At least she put the pulse gun away,
he thought. “Have we arrived?” he asked her, wondering if she would ever let him touch her again. He wanted to. He wanted her even more now. He could smell her from here: warm vanilla and a hint of lemon. He could almost feel the warmth from the blood flowing through her veins, even though several feet separated them. He remembered what it had felt like to fuck her and had to suppress the spark of heat that filled his cock. She would definitely not take it well if he tried to approach her now.

She sighed. “Yes. We’re just another hunk of stone rolling in the deep.”

“Good.” He turned back to the bed. Kyuk’s skin had gradually warmed in color. He looked almost human. Reiyn had already removed the IV Cori had insisted Kyuk needed, and he had to admit, it had probably helped. Given the danger of cryo-sleep and the long odds for living through the revival process, Reiyn had been forced to agree that the extra nutrients hadn’t hurt.

“He may kill us both, you know,” she said, drawing him out of his thoughts. “When he wakes up.”

Reiyn frowned. “Impossible.” His blood-kin kill them? Never.

She snorted. “Really? You don’t think he can take you? Trust me, he can. A full-blooded Xyran wins against the puny humans every single time. Hell, they usually win against the Alphans, too, and they’re just as big and strong as Xyrans. Honestly, I’m amazed the Xyrans didn’t crush the Alphans centuries ago.”

“I am only half-human, woman,” he said, unable to stop himself. “But I spent my childhood on Xyran. I would not have survived if I could not fight as one of them.” Anger slipped through his voice. He ruthlessly quashed it. Wild emotions had no place in his life. He ignored her commentary about the Alphan-Xyran war. She was right about that, after all. He’d thought so many times.

“He’s waking up,” Cori said, pointing a toe at the bed.

Reiyn whirled around. Kyuk was frowning, eyes moving beneath his lids. “Kyuk? Can you hear me?” he asked, lightly touching his blood-kin’s hand.

Kyuk startled, then turned his head from side to side. When Reiyn glanced up at Cori, he wasn’t surprised to see that she had her blade out. He raised an eyebrow at her, but she didn’t look at him. She was completely focused on the Xyran in her bed. When he turned back around, Kyuk had his eyes open. His skin flared crimson, then blue, and then settled into flesh-tone. Reiyn ignored Cori’s startled curses and touched his blood-kin again. “Be at ease. You are safe. The beacon worked.”