Chill (Klance Warmth series Book 2 of +4)

1: Chill on the Wind

When Lance first convinced him to escape the Galra and run away to who-knows-where space, Keithek had doubted they would succeed. But honestly, the chance of living a life of freedom had been lucrative. Compared to a life of endless discrimination and hatred and an inevitably uncomfortable death with the Galra, what Lance offered was a shining star of hope. That faint hope had fueled Keithek's desperation to escape. Now, he was living in an ancient Castle, with members of a long dead race that wasn't actually dead, mated to one of them, and a member of a team of intrepid paladins piloting giant mechanical Lions that together formed the mythical Voltron. It was amazing.

Amazingly awful.

Keithek lay limply across the couch in the paladins' lounge gasping for breath and sweating profusely. He and the others had spent the past several vargas dodging weapons fire from the Castle in one of Allura's many  attempts to get them to form Voltron at will. The crazy princess had raised the Castle's particle barrier, preventing them from returning to their hangars until they had formed Voltron. Thankfully, the Green  Lion's paladin was the tech genius and figured out the codes to turn off the Castle's formidable defenses and lower the particle barrier. He'd  taken his sweet time about it though, Keithek thought in annoyance.

He glanced over and saw Lance sprawled across the bench further down with one leg thrown carelessly over the back cushion. Lance was just as tired and strained as the rest of them. Allura had shown no favoritism towards him even though they were siblings. She made them all suffer equally. Even Pidge's new pet robot had been slightly damaged to th  green paladin's endless frustration. He currently sat next to Lance's foot tinkering with his new pet.

They'd all gotten a break the morning after defeating the battlecruiser to search the debris for any survivors and usable drones or technology. Pidge had insisted on it.  Fortunately for the paladins, or Team Voltron as Hunk had designated their ragtag group, there were no drones or living Galra left in the  mess. However, Pidge was upset that most of the technology had been thoroughly obliterated. All except for a single, small Galra hoverbot. The discovery of the small bot had made Pidge's quintant.

The green paladin had subsequently spent all of his free time reprogramming the hoverbot and upgrading its innards in ways Keith couldn't hope to understand. Whatever Pidge had done worked though. The little robot  glowed green now instead of the distinctive Galra crimson and followed Pidge around like a child followed its mother. Pidge was thrilled by the hoverbot's actions and had promptly named it 'Rover.' The two had never been seen apart since. It was a regular technophile love affair.

Keithek closed his eyes and allowed himself to sink into the cushions tiredly. They hadn't quite gotten the hang of forming Voltron at will every single time yet, but they were getting there. It seemed they all needed to feel the desire to survive and fight in order for them to merge and  form Voltron successfully. It had worked when that Druid-built atrocity of a Robeast arrived on Arus the previous quintant and attacked. Keithek suspected Haggar was behind that Robeast. It was simply too strong for the average Druid or group of Druids to create. They would have lost to it without question had the black paladin not stepped in.

The halfbreed was still intimidated by the Champion. Shiro. He'd asked to be called Shiro. That was another thing: Shiro was a lot nicer than Keithek had ever imagined him to be. He held himself like an alpha, but was gentle with the younger paladins and the refugees in a way that wasn't alpha-like. It was more reminiscent of a beta. Shiro even  respected Keithek and made an effort to hear the halfbreed's input before making any decisions. It was a nice change to the horrid  conditions onboard the Galra battlecruiser.

The refugees had been another story entirely. They had not been entirely kind to Keithek and while he understood, it had still hurt. Strangely, they had shown the same fear of Shiro. They'd called him Champion too. They also provided Team Voltron with a surprising tidbit of information about the former  Champion of the arena. It turned out, Shiro had wounded one of his own crew members in order to enter the arena as a gladiator in the first place.