Synnr's Hope - Kate Rudolph Page 0,7

Aorsa will be open to you.”

“How long will that take?” Lena tried not to compare everything to Earth, but she only had the one frame of reference.

And Crowze’s wince told her she’d be waiting awhile.

“Thank you,” she said again. It wasn’t exactly what she wanted, but it was a start.

She left him there and headed out, surprised to find Zac pacing in front of the house. He jumped when he saw her come outside. “Oh! Hi.” His pale cheeks blushed easily and his eyes darted around like he was guilty of something.

If she’d been interrogating him, she’d know she was onto something. But she just said “Hello.” She was in a slightly better mood, now that she’d taken the first step to finding a job, but she still wasn’t feeling chatty. Luckily for Zac, she wasn’t feeling rude either.

He was a bit younger than her, closer to Emily’s age, and had been working on a PhD in Literature at Notre Dame when he’d been taken. The two of them had been snatched around the same time, Lena in 2006, Zac in 2007, which made conversation with him a bit easier and less prone to minefields about technology or the state of politics. Lena was pretty sure Emily, who had come from 2019, had been joking about some of the things she’d said.

But the world had always been a crazy place.

“Crowze is inside if you needed something.” She nodded back toward the door.

Zac’s eyes bugged out and he shook his head. “No, that’s fine.” He cleared his throat. “I was just going for a walk.”

The grass where he’d been pacing for some time was flat. But Lena didn’t call him on it. “I heard Grace is giving another Aorsa 101 session this week,” she offered.

How did his cheeks get even pinker? Seriously, the guy should never play cards. “Is that so?” He could not pull off nonchalant.

And Lena didn’t have time to torture him. “See you later, Zac.” She didn’t offer to walk with him and he didn’t head back with her. She could deal with the solitude.

When she got back to her room a thick envelope was waiting on the ground in front of her door. Lena tried to make sense of the words, but her translator only worked on spoken language.

But Emily had a pair of glasses in her office that could help her read.

Lena snuck into the office and snatched them up; Emily wouldn’t mind. She looked back down at the paper and it was a bit disorienting. The words still didn’t look like English, but her mind understood.

She ripped open the envelope and read the first line of the thick paper.

MATCH COMPATIBILITY RESULTS

Match compatibility? When had she—oh. She hadn’t wanted to be tested for Match compatibility, but she hadn’t been given the choice. The now dead captain of Oz’s ship had commanded that all humans be tested. And since they already had Lena’s DNA from hooking her up to machines to keep her alive, she hadn’t been able to prevent it, unlike the rest of the humans.

She had a Match?

Curiosity got the better of her, and Lena’s eyebrows shot up as she read the name of her potential soulmate.

Well.

That was interesting.

PEACE. QUIET. THEY were the things Solan loved about his small cottage on his family’s estate. He’d been living alone there since he’d reached adulthood and he couldn’t imagine anything better.

It wasn’t much. Four bedrooms, a dining room, an atrium, a sitting room, and a large kitchen. Enough for a small family. Perhaps a bit too much for him, but with that much space he could truly enjoy the quiet.

And he wouldn’t have it for much longer. In only a couple of years he’d be expected to step into his mother’s place as the head of the family and lead the Zadras. He didn’t want it.

It felt like a betrayal to even think it, but he didn’t. He’d been a soldier for his entire adult life and he was good at it. He knew the rules and regulations, knew the chain of command. He knew who had his back and where to shoot his spark. Sure, there were politics and backbiting, but it was nothing like the intrigues the aristocratic families got up to.

At least he wouldn’t be expected to take a seat in the government. That was a small relief.

The display on the wall chimed and lit up, informing him of a lunch appointment with his mother. He wondered if other families set appointments like his,