by Mina Carter
He flicked them a glance and the look in his eyes chilled her to the bone. If she’d harbored any notions about appealing to the hijackers better nature, it died a quick, painful death at that look. It was the sort of look that said he’d gut her just to see what her intestines looked like as they cascaded from the ruins of her abdomen.
A fist slammed into her face again, the knuckles creating a burning ring of pain around her eye. The force of the blow knocked her to the floor and she struggled to breathe through the agony in her head. The skin throbbed in time with her rapid heartbeat and she could feel the area starting to swell. Within seconds it started to close her eye. Survival instincts kicked in and she tried to scramble away, but it was no good. Her attacker was on her in a trice. Grabbing hold of the hair at the back of her neck, he hauled her to her feet and dragged her across the bridge.
“What do you reckon, Vos? Pretty little thing, ain’t she?”
Welch shoved her hard, so that she stumbled and fell to her knees in front of the man in the pilot’s seat. He flicked that cold gaze over her again and she shivered.
“Pretty enough. Don’t mess her up too much, I don’t want sloppy seconds.”
His fingers tapped over the console built into the pilot’s seat as he transferred his attention to the main view screen again. Risking a quick glance, the view told her that they were almost out of the system. From there it was a short distance to the jump points and she was fucked. No one would be able to track the flame once it jumped.
Welch grinned as he reached for her again. Her eyes watered as she let him pull her up again by her hair, but this time she was ready for him. Her legs under her, she pushed off as he yanked her up, lifting her knee to slam it into his groin. He was too fast for her, twisting aside with a curse and shoving her away. His heavy backhand caught her unawares, spinning her around and dumping her on the deck plates again.
Blood dripped from her bruised and battered face as she tried to get to her feet, her energy waning as despair filled her heart.
“Fucking bitch, you’ll pay for that. Welch’ll take it out of your ass. Literally.”
Welch grabbed her and hauled her upright again, but all the fight had gone out of her. She was alone on the ship, apart from the Aries, and she knew better than to expect the android to help her. As far as it was concerned, it would return to her quarters, and not finding her there, would simply wait until she returned.
Propelled across the bridge toward the conference area at the back, Welch threw her across the table and slammed a hard hand across her face to hold her, bruised cheek down, against the cool metal surface. His other hand moved to the back of her waist, shoving the stretchy pants and panties she wore down over her hips and exposing her nether regions.
“No no no no,” she whimpered, tears pouring down her cheeks as she felt about the table frantically. She was going to die in the next couple of hours, but she knew she’d wish for death long before it actually came.
Her fingertips brushed over something, but with her head turned the other way she couldn’t see what it was. A thin ray of hope broke through the clouds filling her head and she tried again, desperately reaching for it as the sound of Welch’s pants zipper reached her ears.
“You got a real nice cunt, all pretty and pink.” He leaned over her, hot puffs of breath washing over the side of her face as he panted. “I’m gonna split you in two with my cock, bitch. Make you pay.”
The object rolled into touch, her fingers closing around the slim metal barrel of a pen. Archaic given the computers built into the Starflame’s design, but right at that moment, Milly could have kissed her first officer, Cain, for his retro tendencies.
Spinning the pen in her fingers, she got a good grip on it and shoved her ass backward sharply. The thick, hot length of Welch’s cock stabbed into the back of her thigh, eliciting a masculine grunt of pain and leaving a slick trail of pre-cum that made her feel sick. She ignored the feeling, twisting to slam an elbow into his rib cage and biting his finger as his hand slipped. More blood filled her mouth, but not her own. Spitting it out, she bucked him off and stabbed backward blindly with the fist that held the pen.
Smack. Pop.
She felt the impact of her fist against his side and the snick as the pen-point broke through the skin and slid within. Wet warmth flowed over her hand as he screamed in agony. But she didn’t let up, snaking a hand between her thighs to grab his cock and hold him still as she stabbed back again and again.
Only one more blow connected as he hammered her back and head with heavy fists. Her face slammed into the metal table again and her vision started to gray out. Grim satisfaction filled her as the bloody pen slipped from her fingers. At least she’d done something, not just curled over and given up like a good little victim. This bitch had left scars.
“Fuck you! Bitch stuck me. I’ll fucking do her for that!”
Regret filtered through her as Welch stumbled away and she hovered on the edge of consciousness, listening to the roar of anger behind her. She should’ve taken up Johnny Ram’s offer of dinner, and to hell with the consequences.
The blows stopped and she braced herself, expecting the roar of the pulse gun any second, the agony as the bolt hit her and the blessed relief of death before they could inflict anything else on her. But it didn’t come.
Frowning, she slid from the table, turning and sitting in the ruins of her own blood-soaked pants to survey the rest of the bridge, trying to focus on the bellows of anger and rage.
The Aries was there, his face a mask of fury as he held Vos suspended above the pilot’s chair. The hijacker’s body shook, the legs doing a jig as blood and other fluids stained the blue fabric down to his boots and dripped off onto the floor. Even from where she was, Milly could smell the urine. There was a mop in the bridge closet just to the left of the main viewer, she thought absently, ignoring the clamoring in her head beyond the grayness of her obviously concussed state. She’d have to tell the Aries where it was so he could clean the blood and piss up.
Her gaze swept to the side, looking for Welch. He lay on his side, a few feet from the action in the middle of the bridge. His eyes were wide and unseeing, staring right at her from over the expanse of his own shoulders, his head twisted a full one-eighty.
A sharp crack brought her attention back to Vos and the Aries as the bot dropped the hijacker’s lifeless body to slump in the pilot’s chair. He looked at it for a moment, his face expressionless and his chest and arms covered in blood. Then he looked up, directly at her.
Milly sighed and gave up her tentative hold on consciousness, feeling her body hit the metal floor as blackness claimed her.
7
Johnny felt Milly’s gaze on him and looked around just in time to see those beautiful, chocolate-brown eyes lose focus. Her curvy body folded up as she slid to the floor—graceful even as she lost consciousness.
“Oh no you don’t. Stay with me, sweetheart.”
Ignoring the two bodies littering up the bridge, he launched himself across the space between them. Dropping all pretense of being anything close to human, he threw himself into a slide that would have made his old regimental Warball coach proud. But this time his goal was something infinitely more precious than possession of a mere ball.
He slid across the deck to where she was on the floor next to some kind of conference table. The small checkers in the metal deck plates caught at his pants and the skin of his side but he ignored it as his momentum took him right into her. Automatically he twisted and wrapped himself around her smaller frame, catching her before her head could strike the deck plating.
Adrenaline from the fight to take the bridge back still thundered through his body, filling his muscles with a restless, violent energy, but he held himself still, cradling the unconscious woman in his arms as though she were made of the finest porcelain. His chest supported her head and shoulders and his arm wrapped around her waist to hold her in place. Half reclining as he was, she lay against him as if
he were a human shaped floor pillow.
“It’s okay, baby. They’re gone, they can’t hurt you anymore.”
Words of reassurance tumbled from his lips as he checked her pulse and her breathing, no small measure of relief surging through him as his onboard informed him that they were all within normal parameters. He moved on, shifting to lay her down on the floor with gentle movements.
Swearing bitterly under his breath, he checked carefully along her limbs for any breaks. Why couldn’t he have been designed for something useful? He wasn’t a medic like the SAR enabled Taurus class. Demolitions was great, but when it came to rescuing his woman from rat-bastard hijackers intent on raping and killing her, what fucking good had it done him? He’d barely got here in time…
At least, he hoped he’d gotten here in time. The fact that she’d stabbed her attacker with—he looked over at the blood-covered object and had to bite back a grin of pride as he recognized it for what it was. The fact that she’d stabbed her attacker repeatedly in the gut armed with nothing more than an old-fashioned pen didn’t mean the bastard hadn’t managed to achieve his aim.
As gently as he could, he lifted her hips and pulled her panties and sweatpants back up. They were splattered with blood, not hers as far as he could see, but he figured she’d feel less vulnerable if she was covered up when she woke. He smoothed the band around her waist and looked up to find her watching him. Her eyes were wide and dark, too dark, the unfocused look in them worrying him a little.
Light concussion, minor bruising, his onboard informed him even as he smiled at her. “Hey, little human. How are you feeling?”
She blinked and shook her head, as though trying to shake something loose, but smiled in response. “Aries. I didn’t expect you…”
She started to sit up, but the color drained out of her face. In a flash he was there, hauling her into his arms to support her against his chest. A soft murmur of thanks escaped her lips as she leaned into him, her small hands curling around his upper arms, clinging in a way that fed the male animal inside. She trusted him, burrowing into his arms like a small animal looking for safety.
“Johnny, not Aries,” he corrected on an undertone, shifting so he could lift her in his arms. She was small and light, way too light if anyone were to ask him. During their conversations last night, when they’d rested between sex, he’d gleaned that her ex had told her she was fat, so she’d been on a diet since. Anger rose again at the thought. He’d wanted to rip the guy limb from limb again for making her feel bad about herself. Her curves were perfection itself.
She didn’t complain at the change in position, just wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her face into the side of his neck. He bit back a groan as her soft lips brushed against the skin of his throat, and his dick responded instantly. He was a freaking pervert. She’d just been attacked, possibly raped or near to it, and all he could think about was the soft couch in the captain’s office in front of them, about dropping her on it and spreading her soft thighs so he could get balls-deep in her wet heat again.
Her soft chuckle brought him out of his erotic daydream. “You do realize you’re just a bot, right? You’re not really Johnny Ram.”
Crap. More guilt piled on top of the shit way he felt by lusting after an injured woman. He’d lied to her hand over fist since coming aboard and she hated liars with a passion after the way her ex had treated her. Shame settled in his gut, making him feel sick. How the fuck was he going to get out of this? She was going to hate him for what he’d done, and now looking back, he had to admit it wasn’t his best plan ever.
Fucking prick, should’ve told her as soon as you got aboard.
No use crying over spilt tridirunium, he told himself as the door to the captain’s office slid open. He carried her through into the smaller room, enjoying the feeling of her clinging to him as though she trusted him to protect her from all harm far more than he should given the current circumstances.
His stomach churned at the thought of what would have happened had he been even thirty seconds later and the guy that she’d stabbed had managed to get hold of that pulse gun.
The door slid shut behind them with a soft whoosh, cutting the smell of raw meat and excrement in half. The smell of a gut wound, particularly one where the bowel had been damaged, was unmistakable.
Careful not to jostle her in case she had some internal injuries he didn’t know about, Johnny settled her onto the couch and crouched next to it. His hand felt too big and brutish, like a bear paw, as he smoothed the hair back from her cheek and hid his wince. Her face was battered and bruised, but bizarrely, pride filled him. Against huge odds, his little human had put up a fight worthy of any cyborg female.
“I am Johnny.”
“I think you may have convinced yourself of your own cover story,” she said with a smile. Her pupils remained dilated, and the way her hands clung to the cushions of the couch said she still felt dizzy, but she looked at him with the sharp intelligence and wit he’d come to expect from her.
He ignored her little smirk in favor of catching her gaze with a direct look. “Milly, look at me. I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I have to ask… Did he… Did—”
Fuck, he couldn’t even say the words, the question sticking in his throat like a Hyborian vole with its digging claws stuck in the dirt around its body.
“No, he didn’t manage to…”
Relief surged through him, so intense he could practically taste it. Apart from her face and shoulders, she was unmarked anywhere else, but the possibility of internal damage, something he couldn’t detect without the expanded sensors of a medic, had haunted him.
She swallowed, her throat working convulsively as she cast a glance toward the door and the bridge beyond. Pushing on the cushions, she tried to get up. “We need to get the ship turned around. Who knows where they have us headed.”
“Sit down.”
Hands as gentle as he could make them, he pushed her back down onto the soft couch. She struggled, but she was no match for his enhanced strength. It was like a week-old kitten pitting strength against a full-grown tiger. Not going to happen.
“You need to rest, I’ll deal with it. Just give me the central access code for the ship comp.”
She lay back with a sigh, closing her eyes for a second. When she opened them, the look she shot him worried him to the bone. Despite the dazed frown she was wearing, it was far too sharp and perceptive.
“You know, you sure don’t act like a bot. Not any bot I’ve ever known anyway.”
Fuck. This was it. He needed to come clean. Now. But she was still speaking and her words hammered into his guilt, shaping it into nails for the coffin of his conscience.
“You say you are Johnny. But that’s stupid. If by some strange chance you are, then that would mean you and that woman back at the shop, Cyn, both lied to me.” She frowned again, shaking her head as though to clear it, the sparkle of tears clear in her dark eyes. Then she laughed, her voice shaky. “No, that’s just silly. Why would you both go to such lengths to deceive me?”
Because I’m a fucking idiot who was only thinking with his prick.
He couldn’t say it, and it wasn’t because the words were stuck in his throat, it was because he knew as soon as those words left his mouth, he was done for. Even though she was half concussed, she was still sharp as a tack. Another deception, even one that had ultimately saved her, would be too much on top of what had just happened.
“I’m not like any bot you’ve ever seen before, that’s why.”
The half-lie tripped off his tongue easily as he plucked the medkit from the wall by the couch and opened it. Movements swift with the ease of long practice, he started to clean up the cuts on her face.
“I’m an Aries J-five-three-seven-alpha-bravo with an advanced intelligence chip and enhanced cognitive and social abilities.”
She gave him a blank look, which wasn’t surprising, since most of what he’d said was grade-A bullshit. Most, not all. He�
�d told her exactly what he was. He just wasn’t referring to android technology.
“I look, think and act human. I have the ability to make independent decisions and my programming allows me the freedom to form my own personality,” he elaborated as he dabbed gently at the cuts on her face with the antiseptic cleanser pads.
“I operate up to and outside the normal directives of most bots…” Mainly because he wasn’t one, but in his little speech he hadn’t claimed to be. Not outright.
She nodded, sucking in a sharp breath as he tended to the bruising at the corner of her lips. He muttered a soft apology, his gaze riveting to her mouth. Feeling an utter pervert, he moved in to kiss her. A surprised murmur escaped her throat as he brushed his lips over hers, backward and forward, trying to be as gentle as he could when all he wanted to do was part her lips and drive into the softness he knew awaited him within. Reassure himself she was alive and revel in the fact as he took her, his bigger body covering hers protectively.
A shudder rolling through him, he reasserted control over himself and pulled back. Her eyes were dark, a darkness and heat that had nothing to do with her concussion.
“I can form attachments and react to situations appropriately,” he whispered, all the while hoping she’d put two and two together and realize what he was trying to tell her. “Like wanting to rend those two out there limb from limb when I saw them hurting you…”
She winced, the haunted look returning to her eyes as she flicked a nervous glance at the office door. He kicked himself. Way to go, genius, just remind her she was nearly raped.
Galvanized into action, he reached out and smoothed his thumb over her cheekbone, sliding it down to flirt with the undamaged corner of her lips.
“Or wanting nothing more than to carry you down to your quarters and carry on where we left off.”
