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ONCE THEY STARTED SUCCESSFULLY completing assignments, the training drills began to all blur together. Lena knew it had been less than a week since she and Solan had spent the day in the village, but otherwise she had little track of time. They weren’t sleeping on a defined day and night schedule, and the house sometimes threw three or four missions at them in a single day. She couldn’t wait for this to be done. But she wasn’t going to complain about the minutes and hours she stole away with Solan.
In one mission it was up to her to keep Solan shielded from incoming blaster fire using only her wings. She wanted to curse up a storm. Why did they rely so much on their wings? Couldn’t they make some kind of shield for this? But she managed it, shifting the defense as Solan moved. He was in the middle of defusing a bomb. And she was especially proud of herself when she managed to maintain her wings and shoot her spark to take out one of the enemy who was laying down fire.
After that, Solan showed his appreciation in bed, laying her out and spreading her legs so he could feast on her sex. He took his time, and it was its own kind of torture, but the kind of torture that made her beg for more. And for mercy. He held her on the edge, teasing her mercilessly but not letting her come. Was it hours? She didn’t know.
She couldn’t keep track of time, she couldn’t think. Her entire existence shrank down to the feel of Solan’s tongue and fingers and the wicked things he was doing to her. She screamed in ecstasy when he finally showed mercy, calling out his name and making promises she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep.
In the next mission, she and Solan were the final two survivors in a crashing spaceship. There was no way to save the ship, but they had to prevent it from crashing into the heart of Osais. Most of the controls were shot, and neither she nor Solan were trained pilots. They didn’t have much time. If they didn’t change the ship’s trajectory at a high altitude, it would be too late. But they hadn’t yet broken through the atmosphere, and Lena remembered exactly how destructive the atmosphere on Earth could be to a ship. She hoped the same would be true for Aorsa.
They completed the mission, but they paid the ultimate price, burning up with the spacecraft.
That night, their lovemaking was slow and worshipful. They couldn’t stop kissing and touching each other. It was an affirmation that they were still alive, even if it felt like they had sacrificed everything. Solan entered her slowly and took his time, dragging in and out of her in agonizingly patient strokes. They came together, and when they were done they didn’t let go. They couldn’t.
Compared to the falling ship, rescuing a diplomat from a burning building was easy. Lena had more control over her wings now and was able to use them to pump smoke away from the diplomat and shield them all from the flames. Of course, the stairs they’d used to get up to the third floor where the diplomat was lying unconscious had broken down, and they had to go out one of the windows.
But by that point, Lena was learning to expect the tricks the house threw at them, and she didn’t even pause to get frustrated. The diplomat needed medical attention, and smoke burned in her own lungs, but the mission was a success. And when the simulation was over her lungs were as good as new.
She and Solan didn’t make it to their bed after that one. She trapped him with her arms in the hallway and dug her hand into his pants, wrapping her fingers around his thick cock and stroking. She remembered just how much he had tortured her with his lips, and she returned the favor with her fingers, bringing him to the edge, teasing his head and his stimulator, before loosening her grip and running her fingers lightly over his balls. By the time he was pumping into her hand, his teeth were scraping over her neck just the way she liked it and he was crying out in release.
And then they were in another Apsyn facility, infiltrating it and retrieving a document from an interior room. This was the most common task they were given. The details changed a little each time. First it was a research facility. Then it was a spaceship. Now it was some kind of office. But they always had to infiltrate and retrieve something. At this point, Lena was pretty sure she could do it in her sleep. The computer lady had to see they were getting better at this. Any day now they could be sent home.
What would that mean for their relationship?
Lena and Solan had given up on separate beds after their first night sleeping together, and after the last drill she was curled up next to him, one arm draped possessively over his stomach. She trailed kisses along his shoulder and tried not to imagine the bad things that could happen when they returned to reality. Would Solan suddenly have a problem with her? He had wanted to keep her secret from his family when they’d first started this thing. Would she still be his secret? She understood him better now, but that didn’t mean that her own fears had disappeared.
She sent a lick of her spark whispering through him and was relieved when he sent a bit of power back. She wanted the reminder that they were bound together on a deeper level. She wanted him to remember that he was hers. And when they made love that night she put her entire heart into it. There was no holding back when it came to what she felt for her Match.
No matter what happened in the coming days, she was going to fight for him.
***
THE COMFORTING GREEN light over the kitchen door told Solan he had enough time to make breakfast for himself and Lena. He took full advantage, using the stove to grill up some meat and chopping up some vegetables that she was sure to enjoy. Lena was in the shower, but she would join him in a few minutes. He felt good, confident. They were beginning to mesh as a unit and he hoped their scores reflected that. They would get to leave the facility any day now. He hoped. He wanted to be with Lena in the field, wanted to do real work. He didn’t want to spend his days obsessing over a red or green light above the door.
They were a strong unit. If they were trusted, they wouldn’t screw up again.
And he wanted to bring his relationship with Lena into the open. He had been a fool to stipulate that they had to keep it secret. He couldn’t pretend that every hang up he had about his father and Matching had disappeared over the last two weeks, but he had come far, and things grew better by the day. He liked Lena, he respected her, she was his Match. He wanted all of Osais to know that.
He realized there was a weight in his pocket that shouldn’t have been there. He reached in and clasped the necklace he’d purchased on their day in town. Maybe it was time to give it to Lena. He wanted to see it around her neck. He wanted to shower her in jewels and finery. Though nothing about the woman he had come to know said that was what her heart desired. Perhaps he could still spoil her just a little.
The feel of the necklace in his hand triggered a memory. The man in the village with the scar on his lip. He had seen him before. At the Apsyn research facility on Kilrym where Lena and her friends had been held. He’d been one of the guards there. His team hadn’t killed everyone. That hadn’t been the mission objective.
What was an Apsyn guard doing in a backwater Synnr village?
He turned away from the pan on the stove. “Computer, can you pull up surveillance footage from the town café from one week ago?” The town was heavily surveilled, though they didn’t know it. They were too close to the training facility to leave anything to chance.
“That information requires a security clearance of level three or higher,” the computer informed him.
Of course it did. “Override code Zadra. Entering biometrics.” There was a scanner on the wall that took an imprint of his hand and his eye. His military rank was high enough for the information, and his family name opened doors that he otherwise wouldn’t be able to go through. “Bring up surveillance footage from the café in town one week ago. Early evening. Scan Zulir male, aged twenty-five to forty, distinctive feature is a scar on his face.”
“Scanning.” A holographic display appeared in front of the wall, scanning through all the footage that Solan had requested.
A foul, burning smell assaulted his nose, and Lena came in with a curse. “What the fuck? Get that off the stove.” She removed the pan before he could turn around.
“Braz.” Solan waved his hands around, hoping that would help disperse the smoke. At least they weren’t being judged outside of the missions. No one was paying him to cook.
“Holy shit, I know that guy. He was one of the people holding us.” Lena approached the hologram and stared at it, keeping a couple feet back as if she was afraid he could reach out and grab her through the projection.
The computer had frozen on the image of the man that Solan had seen in the village. “He was in the café a week ago.” This was bad. This was very, very bad.
“Any chance that’s his good twin?” Lena asked with a grimace.
“Not likely. There’s no reason for an Apsyn to be in this village. Not a good one. The nearest Apsyn settlement is on the other side of the moon. I need to report this.” While Aorsa was mostly populated by Synnrs, there were a few Apsyn settlements scattered across the land. The same went for Kilrym, which was mostly the home of Apsyns with the exception of a few Synnr villages. “Computer, call central command.” Solan wanted to rush into the village and find this man, find out what he was doing, but they needed to let someone in charge know what was going on.
A second hologram appeared, this one of Major Ozar. “Is there a reason you’re using your override code on city surveillance?” she asked instead of a greeting.
“Yes, ma’am. I recognized a person in town from my last mission on Kilrym. Lena can confirm. He has no reason to be on Aorsa.” Solan had the computer relay the surveillance data.
“One moment.” The major looked away from them, and while he could see her lips moving, he couldn’t hear anything. She had put herself on privacy mode.
He wanted to volunteer to go investigate with Lena. He wanted to jump right in. But they had to wait for the order. It chafed. But they were in remedial training for a reason, and if he ignored the rules they were bound to be drummed out of the military. He really hoped the major let them go.
“It will be a couple of days before I can get a team out there,” she said once she was done reading his report. “Your scores have improved greatly since you began your training. I’m trusting you with this. There is no backup coming. Go into town. Find this man. Confirm his identity. And keep it quiet. We don’t want to tip the Apsyns off.” She spoke quickly, rattling off the orders and giving Solan and Lena a real chance to prove themselves.
“We won’t disappoint.” They couldn’t.
“I know,” she replied.
Lena was standing beside him, rocking on the balls of her feet.
He grinned. “Ready to go hunt an Apsyn spy?”
