by Susan Hayes
He did his best to hide the hurt. It might have worked on someone without her ability, but she could sense the pain within him. Everything he told her had happened years ago, but the wounds hadn’t healed. Not completely. “And Rantz. You said the two of you weren’t well-suited. It was more than that. Wasn’t it?”
“My anrik was a selfish, reckless bakaffa who saw me as little more than a servant. His family, on the other hand, expected me to be his caretaker. They considered it my sworn duty to protect him from threats, particularly ones brought on by his own bad judgment.”
Shadow touched his arm in a gesture of comfort. “No one should be treated like they have less value than anyone else. I’m sorry your family did that to you.”
“So am I. I think my father and Marik eventually regretted their decision to leave things to my mother. After Rantz died and I decided I wanted to try my hand at trading, they gifted me with the Chism’ah, that’s my ship. I believe it was their way of apologizing. They even transferred some koldar to me after my mother insisted that I be cut off from the family funds.”
“What? Why would she do that?” Shadow turned to face him and he drew her in closer until she was pressed against his chest, her face tipped up to look at him. It was an intimate moment, but his eyes were dull and full of remembered pain instead of the lust she’d expected. She wrapped her arms around his torso and hugged him.
“Because she had convinced herself that I let Rantz die because I wanted to be free of him. Not that she cared about the death of my anrik or that it should have meant I would never have a mate. She resented the loss of prestige it represented.”
“But you didn’t.” She might not know much about Kade, but nothing about him struck her as the kind of male who would kill out of spite or pettiness.
He shook his head. “I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen. I was always trying to talk him out of taking wild risks. He’d been sheltered from the repercussions of his actions his whole life, protected by his family’s wealth and power. Lightning doesn’t care who your family is, though. He went out storm diving, got soaked, and instead of stopping, he kept flying.” Kade sighed. “Stupid fool was hit by a bolt of lightning. He didn’t survive the fall.”
“And some blamed you?”
“His family claimed I’d failed in my duty as his anrik. My mother believed it. Others did too—not many, but enough I was an embarrassment to my family. We were all happier once I left.”
She looked up at him, sensing the regret and loneliness he hid behind his charming smile. It changed the way she saw him, adding depth to his features and making her like him even more. “I won’t be.”
He cocked his head. “Won’t be what?”
“Happier once you’re gone. You’re a trader. Your livelihood is out there.” She tipped her head up to the sky. “Which means you’ll be leaving me behind. I’ll miss you.”
“You’ll have Denz.” His words were flat, but at least there was no anger in them.
“Maybe. But even if I do, I’ll still miss you.” And she realized with a moment of perfect clarity that no matter how much she liked either male, neither of them could replace the other. She still had no idea how this was going to work, but she was more determined than ever to try.
Kade stroked a hand up her back, not stopping until his fingers were tangled in her hair. “I’ll miss you, too, my dyna.”
“Then I hope your ship is a fast one, so you won’t spend too much time away from here.”
He laughed. “She is, indeed.” Then he smiled down at her. “I need permission to kiss you now.”
Her breath caught in her throat, but she managed to whisper. “Granted.”
He pulled her in tightly against his hard body and then leaned down slowly and claimed her mouth with his. It was as if someone had dipped her in rocket fuel and set her ablaze. His kiss was slow and sensuous at first but contained a hunger as well as a sense of barely restrained need.
She let her hands roam over him, learning the play of muscle and sinew and exploring the supple softness of his skin. She could sense only a little of what he was feeling, like tiny bubbles that popped as they reached the surface. Desire. Excitement. Surprise. Even a flash of happiness, or something like it. Or maybe those were her feelings. They were so tangled up with each other she couldn’t be certain, and she was enjoying herself too much to worry about it.
She parted her lips, letting him take the kiss deeper, and a low groan of approval came from deep within his chest. His fingers tightened in her hair, drawing her head back as his tongue slid into the depths of her mouth to dance with hers.
It felt like forever before he raised his head again, both of them panting and flushed as they looked into each other’s eyes. She didn’t want to let go of him and didn’t want him to stop kissing her. She wanted to take back everything she’d said about getting to know him first and let him have her right here and now.
He gave her a rueful smile that made it seem like he’d read her thoughts. “I know. But if we do this, I’ll be taking away what little choice you have. I’m a very imperfect male, but I can do that much for you.”
“Imperfections make things interesting. If we were all perfect, life would be terribly dull.”
He laughed and kissed her again, gentler this time. “I have no idea what the future holds for us, but I can promise you this much. It won’t be boring.”
“I hope it’s not as interesting as today has been, though.” That made her pause. They’d only met today. She checked her onboard systems. In fact, they’d met ninety-eight minutes and forty-two seconds ago.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s hard to believe that all of this unfolded in the last few hours. Ninety-nine minutes ago I didn’t even know your name.”
“Imagine what we’ll know about each other by this time tomorrow.”
“Only if we talk more than we kiss. Do you have anywhere you need to be tonight? Or can we sit here and converse some more?” She wanted to know all about him. What foods did he like? Where had he learned to pilot a ship? How often did he make the trip from Vardarian space to the colony? For that matter, how long did they have before he needed to leave?
“I hadn’t thought to ask, but when do you need to go away again?”
“Usually I make my delivery, take new orders and leave after a few days. There’s no rush, though. I can stay a few weeks.” His jaw tightened for a moment and his lips pressed into a momentary grimace. “Fraxx. But I will need to make a short trip up to the orbital platform soon. I’ve got a meeting with someone. A special customer.”
“That’s a short trip for you, but it’s still off-limits for me. I think River and the other cyborgs are trying to get permission for us to visit there eventually, but for now, we’re all stuck dirtside.”
He folded his wings away and then sank down into the soft grass, taking her hand and drawing her down with him. He seemed more distant now, but he kept hold of her even as he stared off into space.
“I’d take you with me if I could,” he said a few minutes later.
“Thank you. But even if I could leave, I don’t know if I would. I’m just getting used to this place. So for now, I’m happy to stay here. I’ve got so much to learn about…well… everything. The only skills I have are all ones I never want to use again.” She’d been created to be a killer, but from the moment she had been freed, she’d known that wasn’t what she wanted to be. Nyx, the cyborg she’d been cloned from, had made another choice and become something else. If Nyx could do it, so could she. She was done with death and violence. She’d already had enough of that to last a lifetime.
They continued talking after that, their conversation wandering from topic to topic with both of them sharing stories of their lives and experiences while offering up small pieces of themselves. They stayed until the shadows lengthened and the coming sunset painted the sky with splashes of pink and red.
They landed back at the colony just as twilight deep
ened to true night, but neither of them was ready to say goodbye. Instead, they walked the streets, talking and laughing, stealing kisses and letting the hours pass until they felt like they were the last ones awake on the entire planet.
Only then did he walk her home to the simple fabricated habi-pod she’d been assigned when she arrived.
Their kiss at the door was enough to make her reconsider waiting, and she almost gave in to the temptation to invite him inside. She didn’t, though. They still had time, and tonight had been perfect just the way it was.
“I have work to do in the morning, but if you’re free in the afternoon, I’d like to see you again.”
“I have nothing on my schedule for the next few days, and I’d like to see you, too.” She’d already cleared her calendar, which hadn’t had much on it.
“Then I will message you the moment I’m free. Enjoy your time with Denz.” He stepped back and gave her a tiny bow. “Sleep well, my mahaya.”
“You too.”
He laughed as he unfurled his wings from beneath his vest. “I doubt I’m going to sleep much, but I will try. Only because if I do, I’m sure I’ll dream of you.”
She watched him fly off until he vanished into the night sky before going inside. There was no chance she was going to sleep tonight. She was too wound up and sexually frustrated for that to even be a possibility.
It was going to be a long night, and tomorrow morning, she had a date with Denz.
“This is what happens from taking Skye’s advice,” she muttered to herself as she stripped out of her clothes and tossed them into an empty corner for the servo-droid to collect. They’d be cleaned, folded, and put away before dawn.
“Then again, I can’t really blame her for what happened. She said talk to him. I’m the one who asked him out after I’d been claimed by my fraxxing mate.”
She walked into the sanitation cubby and turned on the shower. Cold water only. “I wonder if I can blame the sharhal for that decision, too.”
She stepped under the chilly spray and hissed as it hit her overheated skin. She knew it wasn’t the mating fever that had made her reach out to Denz today, but maybe it had helped her find the courage to ask. If that was the case, it would be worth the sleepless night she had coming. Because tomorrow, she’d get to be with Denz.
6
Denz was up before dawn, which wasn’t surprising. The Drift was on a twenty-four-hour schedule, but it didn’t line up well with the twenty-six-hour cycle here on Liberty. He’d started transitioning back to local time on the trip home, but it would take him a few days to readjust completely. He was still adjusting to the heavier gravity, too. The platforms and space stations that huddled together at the edge of civilized space still kept to the standard time keeping and gravity of Earth, a planet many of its denizens had never set foot on.
Then, there’d been his constant thoughts about Shadow. He kept expecting to get a message telling him she’d changed her mind, and he couldn’t figure out how he’d feel if she did. Relieved? Rejected? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was counting down the minutes until he could see her again.
It all left him too distracted to work, so he got dressed and went for a run. It felt good to be outside, every stride moving him forward instead of the mindless grind of a treadmill. His mind quieted, and he fell into a peaceful state with nothing but the physical workings of his body—lungs pumping and legs burning.
When more footsteps came up behind him, he didn’t bother looking back to see who it was. He didn’t need to. Most cyborgs didn’t see the point in running as exercise. That was something you did when you needed to get somewhere in a hurry, or when they were trapped on a station with no other way to blow off steam. The Vardarians didn’t run at all. They flew. That meant only a handful of beings would be out this early, running for the joy of it. He waited for the pair of cyborgs to catch up.
They closed the distance in seconds, putting on a burst of speed no purely organic being could achieve. Edge appeared on his right, and Striker on his left, both of them slowing down to match his pace.
“Welcome back,” Edge said.
Striker didn’t say anything, but the big blond nodded in greeting, which was about as friendly as the cyborg got. Whatever he’d endured in his time as a test subject, the scars made him distant and slow to trust.
“Good to be back. I missed breathing air that’s never seen the inside of a recycling system,” Denz said.
Edge grunted in agreement. “Shipboard air has a funk to it. Like each breath you take still carries a trace of all the places it’s been, and all the beings it’s passed through.”
“Exactly. How have things been here?”
“You want to talk or run?” Edge asked.
“Both.”
“Then first, we run.” Edge pointed to the livestock pens that were just visible in the distance, the massive animals inside already stirring in the early light.
“See you there.”
The two cyborgs took off at a speed he couldn’t hope to match and wasn’t expected to. They lapped him the first time before he made it a third of the distance, both of them laughing as they flew by. He sprinted the rest of the way and managed to reach the stockyard before they could catch him a third time. He might not have cybernetic implants, but the medi-bots in his blood gave him a host of advantages, including better endurance and a faster recovery time. Even so, he was still breathing hard when the two males joined him.
The gharshtu milled and honked inside their pen, with the nearest ones glaring at them over the top of the fence and daring them to come closer. That wouldn’t happen. The big animals were delicious and laid eggs the size of his head, but their beaks were strong enough they could snap his leg and they all had an oversized claw on their middle toe that could bring down anything they perceived to be a threat… or a meal. The thought reminded him he needed to follow up on a few inquiries he’d made about replacing their last mental health specialist. It wasn’t easy to convince someone to move to a new colony where most of their patients would be emotionally disturbed cyborgs. It only got harder when he had to admit that the last being to hold the post had been eaten.
“Do I want to know why we’re having this conversation close enough to the pens we can’t be accidently overheard?” he asked Edge.
Edge flashed him a tight smile. “Because I don’t need any more gossip making the rounds on my side of the river.”
“Your side? You know there are no sides here. That’s supposed to be the point of this place.” This was not a new conversation, but each time they had it he hoped it would be the last time.
“We both know that’s the ideal, not the reality.”
Denz didn’t want to have this argument again, so he cut to the chase. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s the defense grid. Some of my….” He stopped and corrected himself. “Some of us resent what it represents.”
“You don’t want to be protected? More than a dozen ships have been located in-system with their transponders deactivated in just the last few months. Three of them tried to land in unsettled areas, and those are just the ones we know about. Once the grid is up, we’ll be able to see them all and have a means of keeping them off our planet.”
“And we’ll be locked down, unable to leave.”
“That was always part of the agreement. You know that.”
Edge gritted his teeth. “I was in cryo when River made that damned deal. I didn’t agree to anything, and neither did the rest of us.”
That wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t entirely wrong either. By the time they’d been rescued, most of the cyborg males were already in cryogenic storage in preparation for being moved. Only the Interstellar Armed Forces had gotten there first, and the scientists had fled, leaving their experiments behind. The female cyborgs had been afraid of the more violent males. They’d suggested leaving them asleep until they were all somewhere stable and safe. They’d chosen River to speak for them and then
gone into cryogenic suspension too.
It had taken longer than anyone expected to find a home for them, and some cyborgs resented the limitations River had agreed to. Edge was one of them. The way they viewed things, all River had done was get them transferred to a better prison. Denz understood their point of view, but he didn’t share it. Then again, he was allowed to leave the planet. They weren’t.
“I don’t see the point in having this conversation again, but we can if you want to. You’ll complain the deal was done without you. I’ll point out that setting up the agreement got my kinsman killed and nearly cost River her life. You’ll express frustration at the limits you are required to live under. I’ll remind you that without River and the Vardarians, you’d still be in cryo.” Denz shrugged. “The facts don’t change.”
Striker chuckled, the sound coming out low and raspy. “He’s not wrong.”
Edge glowered. “First fraxxing thing you say in three days, and you take his side?”
Striker smirked and stayed silent.
“There are no sides here. Just a bunch of beings trying to build a life together,” Denz said.
“Only some of us aren’t allowed to live anywhere else,” Edge retorted, but there wasn’t any heat in his words.
“Not yet.” Denz had a flash of insight into what Edge was really here to talk about. “She’s fine, by the way.”
“Yeah? You saw her?” The cyborg’s shoulders relaxed a little.
“Saw her. Talked to her alone more than once. Chance is happy. She’s got a job, friends. Even a boyfriend who adores her.”
“And they’re going to let her stay out there?”
“They are. I made sure of that.” Chance had managed to escape the colony a while ago. She’d lived her entire life as a captive on the research station, and the wide-open spaces of Liberty terrified her to the point she almost never went outside. While her departure caused some initial problems, things were smoothed over now, and she was free to live a normal life.
“That’s good. She deserves to be happy.”
