Synnr's Hope - Kate Rudolph Page 0,65

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