Synnr's Hope - Kate Rudolph

CHAPTER ONE

OKLAHOMA CITY, EARTH | 2006

Lena Richardson was seeing red. If Phillips wanted to accuse her of being dirty he should come out and say it. No more of this nice-guy bullshit. She wasn’t Fuller. She knew shit all about what Fuller had been doing. They might have been partners, but that was it. They’d never been friends.

And here Fuller was screwing her out of her biggest bust and possibly getting her arrested.

Fucker.

She’d been in interrogation all day and needed a drink and three full days of sleep. Her body ached and she regretted her choice of shoes. She didn’t normally wear heels, but she’d wanted to make an impression. Now she couldn’t remember what that impression was and her feet ached enough that she wanted to saw them off for a bit of relief.

Her car was parked at the end of the block and she only had a few dozen more feet to go before she made it to the sweet relief of her driver’s seat.

When the hairs on the back of her neck tingled, she wanted to ignore it. But her training wouldn’t let her get away with something so stupid. She reached for her gun before she remembered it had been confiscated while she was suspended. Any other time she would have had a non-government issue side arm with her, but not today.

Stupid shoes. Stupid Fuller.

Just because she didn’t have a gun didn’t mean she was defenseless, and whoever was coming up behind her was about to learn that.

Lena didn’t stop moving. She didn’t give away that she knew someone had her in their sights. Maybe the troublemaker wouldn’t come for her. Maybe she’d make it to her car before anything happened. The best way to get out of trouble was to not get into it in the first place. And this close to the office she was just as likely being tailed by an agent as by a criminal.

A puff of air on the back of her neck was her only warning. There’d been no footsteps to give her attacker away; she hadn’t seen anything. But Lena didn’t hesitate, twirling around, reaching out, and latching onto something to give her leverage.

But there was something wrong about the person behind her.

Were they a person?

She reached back and her hand met nothing but shadow. When she tried to hit again, it was like fighting the darkness itself.

She wasn’t going to stick around to figure out what was going on. Lena wheeled around and ran.

The darkness was faster. It engulfed her whole, and in seconds, she was out cold.

CHAPTER TWO

OSAIS, AORSA | ABOUT 80 years later

The last six months had sucked. Or eighty years. Lena still wasn’t sure how to square the passage of time in her mind. She was still the same thirty-four year old who’d been walking down the streets of Oklahoma City on that fateful night, and she’d spent six months as the captive of aliens intent on using her for their twisted experiments.

But apparently she’d been away from Earth for nearly eight decades. No one could tell her the exact year on Earth, but it took slaver ships anywhere from seventy to a hundred years to cross the galaxy and drop humans off near Kilrym and Aorsa, the domains of the Zulir. Some species were long-lived enough that the trips made sense. She and her fellow captives had been put in stasis to prevent them from aging during the trip.

Was her entire family dead?

Lena shoved that thought into a tiny compartment in the darker recesses of her mind. If she thought about what had been stolen from her, she was going to go mad with grief and anger, and she couldn’t do that. She had things to do.

Okay, she was lying to herself. She had nothing to do and it was driving her almost as crazy as the rest of it.

A bony hip jutted against hers and Luci shot her a questioning look. “Everything alright?” the girl asked. She was eighteen and looked younger, though their time as Apsyn prisoners had toughened her up. Luci reminded Lena of her little sisters and she’d made it her job to keep Luci safe.

They were safe now. Protected.

Alone.

No. Not dwelling.

“I’m fine.” Lena pasted on a smile. “It’s not me you should be worried about. Emily looks about ready to fall over.” It was true. Unlike Lena, Emily Saint had plenty to do. She and her mate, Oz, were preparing for the war between the Synnrs and Apsyns that everyone