Exquisite Possession: A Dark Scifi Romance (The Machinery of Desire Book 4)

by Cari Silverwood

  “You’re going to like this, going to love it. Feel me in you, fucking you, feel pleasure like never before.” He searched for that low, compelling tone that’d resonated in his voice the day on the beach…

  He needed this to happen.

  Maybe he willed it into being, for the crystal warmed, sputtering hot, warm, hotter. His fingers clutched it closer, wrapping every possible atom of the surface of his hand to the stone. He gritted his teeth, clamping down. Flesh to stone. Flesh. Stone. He found the last of its heat.

  Then he drove harder into her, no going back, no withdrawing.

  No mercy.

  He broke in, grunting, sweating, shoving past her resistance, sliding, and he crammed the word, “Enjoy,” through his teeth.

  Lust ran amok. Lust mind-reamed them, slathering them, drowning them, as she opened her mouth to gasp and he roared. Keening, babbling nonsense, she shoved back at him. His cock throbbed, swelled. His balls squeezed. Another thrust and they’d be in his throat.

  Gods.

  Choking on how she felt around him, he sank deep. Now he had her.

  The buck and groan of her. The squeals each time he entered and withdrew.

  His cock was rigid, a spear penetrating, unstoppable and full of cum. He jarred her forward then held her in place with a hand on her belly, for the wires vibrated, stretched. A torrent poured from him. His cum, drenching her, as he held himself inside, then pulled out a little. Cum, running down her shaking thighs and legs, sticking them together. He jammed in again, panting, planting his cock in her once more. Claiming. Then Fern climaxed. Though pain savaged her, the climax overwhelmed all, screwing with both of them, fucking them twice over.

  Her mind and his, entangled.

  Gasping, she slumped into the wires.

  He held her up by throat and armpit, begging her silently to find her legs. The chains above shook as she did.

  Finally someone clawed him off her, dragged him away. Snorting back tears and whatever clogged his nose and throat, he heard the judge speak.

  “When the hour hits, when it’s an hour’s travel to the Chasm, get him and the truck off this mech. You’ll drive ahead of us, mech. Talk to my enemies and convince them to bow to me and I will vow not to obliterate them – scav, mekker, king, and grounder. Do this, and she will be in your arms when you return.”

  Yet he knew by the sneer on the man’s face that the chances of that being truthful were zero or close to it.

  Screaming defiance, he was shot with something that stunned him and made him convulse, then wrapped in netting and chains. They left him on the floor, his cheek stuck to the floor by his own drool, rocking slightly. Even paralyzed, he could appreciate the fluid perfection of the KI-mech’s gait.

  Still wrapped, once they halted, he was carried off the squatting KI-mech via a ramp, down to the earth below, and injected with an antidote.

  Dumped and left beside a truck with a kick and a spit.

  He ripped at the net and the unlocked chains, feeling them loosen, untangling them fast but not fast enough.

  “Do what it says on the paper stuffed in your shirt. Drive like your life depended on it, mech-shit. ’Cause it does.” Another kick to his leg, and they returned to the ramp, running, keeping their weapons ready in case he recovered too fast.

  He couldn’t, quite. Bellowing, he sprang to his feet and flung away the chains.

  They’d raised the ramp, and the KI-mech straightened its four mammoth stumps that were its articulated limbs, rising far above tree-height. It stomped, once, gouging a mound from the ground, toppling and breaking the back of a tree. Another casualty.

  The next would be Fern, for Aunt M clambered out a door far above, with Fern in his pincer-limbs, still sewn to the circle, her body an X surrounded by wires that silvered in the sun’s rays.

  “Fuck yoouu!” he screamed, fists balled at the sky, shaking, with his arms wound into veined monstrosities by his rage.

  The tears came as he screamed, as he pounded the earth. His fists bled, scoured, raw, soiled with dirt and bashed grass.

  He stared, fists planted in soil, sightless, chest heaving, moisture dropping off his nose.

  Nothing he did here was helping.

  Dreading what he’d see, he raised his head, climbed to his feet, swaying like a drunkard, sniveling. No one would see his stupidity, or that a mech could cry.

  She was swung into place, fastened to the nose by M, his dirty disgusting traitor of a friend. Program flaw or not, he hated M as much as he did the judge in that grim moment.

  JI spat to the side, wiped roughly at his eyes.

  “Fuck you,” he whispered, “fuck you all,” finding comfort in the humanoid curse. “I have to go, Fern.”

  Tears still made inroads down his face, trailing through the spatters of dirt and the blood he’d wiped there.

  Now he had to drive. There was no other answer to this, yet.

  The KI-mech was igniting all engines again, lifting a foot pad.

  He threw himself into the truck, started it, and it lurched forward, engine whining in protest. Least it functioned. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the judge had given him a vehicle with no engine.

  He wove through trees and tore along makeshift roads, and the boom and crack of the KI-mech’s feet followed him.

  To the Chasm then. He’d settle this there.

  Somehow, he would bring this to a conclusion.

  There would be death and destruction, and he’d likely eat the judge’s brains, raw.

  That was when he discovered his extra passenger – a mechling had dropped onto the passenger seat. He eyed the green-and-white creature with the fluffy tail. Skunk, unless his memory was faulty.

  Chapter 33

  Fern hung in the air, swinging a little, trying to remember to breathe deeply. The metal circle had been attached to the front of the mech. Attached firmly, she prayed.

  Breathe. Not breathing conflicted with life. She wanted to live, didn’t she?

  Well now, that was a question she had no answer to.

  Great view up here, if nothing else recommended it to her.

  Fuck, all of her hurt. The blood had dried but her skin was going purplish around the points of insertion.

  Look at the pretty birds, Fern. She breathed deeper, coughed, squeaked in staccato, and had to wonder if the blinding pain was edging her closer to death. The birds probably wanted to eat her.

  Only thing keeping them away was Aunt M, lurking around the curve of the nose.

  The multiple pains from the wires looping under her skin brought her back to life, gasping and sometimes screeching, if she dared relax. Since JI had left her, the only good additions to her wired and suspended situation, was some padding under the manacles, so they didn’t wear away her wrists or ankles, as well as a chain at her waist that stopped her swaying from side to side.

  Aunt M had applied all of those, and she suspected it was not due to orders.

  He was possibly sneaking around his orders. Doing them correctly but adding things he wanted to do also. Like saving her skin.

  Which wouldn’t help her in the end. This would kill her.

  She really wasn’t breathing well.

  “Aunt M!” she hissed. “Come here, you bastard thing. Talk to me.”

  Was he locked out here too? It might be sensible of the judge. Considering what was heaving into view, and how lethal Aunt M could be. She squinted.

  A flock of landships; a few ramms; a bunch of scav trucks bristling with weaponry; and some more sedate grounder vehicles in a convoy of one, two… She made herself count them all…twenty-one. Add the truck she presumed JI was driving because they’d informed her of his role in this, haring along at speed. And her, tits out and naked, and stuck here like a star.

  “And a partridge in a pear tree,” she sang, giggling and feeling dizzy.

  If she puked down the front of the KI-mech, the judge would frown. If only that was a true and good revenge. No, she needed to eviscerate him
with a blunt spoon, and feed him in small pieces to the birds.

  “Shoo!” she shouted at one that landed to the side.

  Which was when Aunt M scuttled closer, appearing from where he’d been skulking.

  The bird flew off. The KI-mech lurched a teensy bit, and she screamed, then let herself whimper quietly. Suck in the air. Ignore the pain. Breathe.

  By the time she recovered enough to raise her head, Aunt M was next to her, clinging to the struts and small ledges on the KI-mech.

  “I am sorry, Fern. I’ve been told not to give you aid once you are fastened here.”

  “But…not before this, which is how you managed to help me still?” she asked, hoping, licking along her dry lips.

  “Yes. This is correct.”

  “I see. I’m sorry, Aunt M. You’re forced to do this, same as JI was, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I am actually sad, I think. I hate this.” His limb waved vaguely. “But with the king dead and the KOL sigil on the judge, I am bound to obey him.”

  She cleared her throat, blinked away tears. “I…forgive you.”

  He flourished limbs. “I am grateful, but you must not give up.”

  Fern hiccupped. “Ouch. Fucking ouch.” She sighed, while dreading the tug of the wires from her chest movement. “That is hard to do, M.”

  With a hiss of hydraulics and a winding down of servo-motors, the KI-mech halted, smoothly, thank the gods.

  They’d reached the gathering place.

  Beyond was a town, and behind it mountains rose in irregular bumps and angles, against a sky writhing with waik blue. The Chasm was in those mountains. Climb the road winding its way upward and you would find it. Pilf had spoken of his pilgrimage here, where he’d been given a mission in life. His son had died and he’d come here for guidance, wished on a waik crystal, and thrown it into the Chasm.

  He’d told her she was his mission. It was why he’d saved her.

  “So this is where the Aerthe is closest to the surface?” she murmured, not really wanting an answer.

  She would die happy, knowing she’d reached the ultimate tourist spot on this planet.

  There was nothing she could do to stop whatever the judge intended. She’d played her one card, commanding a mechling, and lo it had worked. There was one scrabbling at the wall behind her, inside the KI-mech. It would not harm anyone, no matter what. It could not disable the mech – that was too great a task. It could not even come out here and kill her.

  Chapter 34

  The truck almost tipped as he steered it to the left, toward where the ramms with the royal symbol were parked on level land. He braked, hard, sending clods of dirt flying, then leaped out, with the truck still rolling.

  It stopped eventually. He paused to straighten his shirt. Humanoids and mekkers liked decorum, neatness. If he galloped in looking dirty and panicked, they were more likely to ignore his words.

  He had to convince them.

  Behind the line of ramms were gathered exactly who he needed. The king, from the royal guards surrounding him, a few male and female scavs who appeared to have an aura of leadership, a grounder who…well they were smart of dress, in a long blue coat and pressed clothes, but a woman, which should not be a problem, but he knew the attitudes of the mekkers here.

  Fern could lord it over many of them, and they were all talking at once, their anger palpable, audible.

  He needed to stop thinking of her. Calm. When she was strung up hanging off the advancing KI-mech? His somber mech demeanor was long gone.

  He’d panic but internally. One day he would sort these emotions into order. For now, straight face, pretend.

  The scavs let him among them even though the mekker guard scowled.

  “Are you talking about that?” He jerked his head toward the mech thundering across the terrain. A loud cheer from the crowd made him turn. It’d halted.

  Fern was still there. Swallowing he looked away.

  “Osta?” A tall scav in gray and green with a burst of black hair about his head had noticed him. “I am Thak Desher, warband leader. Where do you come from? The mech?”

  “I do, yes.”

  Slowly, that information silenced them. Everyone turned to him.

  “Sirs, I come from the KI-mech. That can take out every war vehicle you have and suffer not a scratch. You need to talk to Judge Ormrad.”

  “Those are bold words.” Mako Laste stepped from his circle of guards.

  He knew the mekker well from his time spent monitoring the royal landship from his derelict position on the roof. Emery’s man, previously a king-in-waiting, and now he wore the black-and-red armor of the king, embellished with the symbolic writing of mekkers.

  “They are, but I have met the judge and seen inside that war machine.” JI raised his head and voice. “He wants you all to sign a blood contract, swearing loyalty to him!”

  “Or?” Thak asked.

  “Or he will do a demonstration, I imagine, knowing the judge. People will die.”

  “So you suggest we simply give in?” Thak stared past JI. “Who is that displayed on the front of the mech? Some condemned enemy? A warning to us? It looks like a naked woman.”

  He sniffed, drew on his courage. “It is. That is Fern, a human, and she is mine.”

  “Then I think I see how much weight to put on your words. We should attack, Mako. Surprise him. If we damage the legs it will topple. Yes?”

  Mako glanced at JI then turned to study the mech. “Who can possibly know? It may be largely dysfunctional. I’m assuming this was found buried?”

  JI nodded. “But in perfect condition.”

  “An assumption. Maybe a lie even,” the grounder leader had stepped up to speak her piece. “Even if you convince us you think you speak the truth, Osta, we still would be foolish to lay ourselves at this judge’s feet and kiss them.”

  The scavs erupted.

  “We kiss no mekker feet!”

  “To the Chasm with that thing. Lure it close, and Aerthe will kill it for us!”

  JI listened to the arguments, wishing he had another crystal.

  And what would he have done with it? There was Ryke even, at the rear, nodding solemnly to him.

  Would he have forced them all to surrender? If so, would that be right?

  Mako half-turned from the discussion. “If you have nothing solid to show us, you may go, Osta. My men will escort you out.”

  He left without fuss, and moved outside the line of ramms, staring at the horizon dominated by the red mech. Somewhere, somehow, there must be a way to…

  What? Bring it down? That would kill Fern as well as the mech. The judge might survive, but she would die. He needed the impossible.

  Scavs emerged from the meeting and ran to their trucks. They hopped in and accelerated away, brandishing weapons and yelling defiance.

  There was his answer. A battle was imminent.

  “There’s going to be a fight, scav.” Mako arrived at his shoulder. “I go back to my ramm. It might be safer for you there.”

  He shook his head. “No. Thank you.”

  “I am sorry for your woman.” He clasped JI’s arm. “I hope today will end well.” Then he strode off, followed by his men. Several of the other ramms turned on their engines and rose from the ground. Picking up speed, they climbed into the sky, their distinctive rears with the plethora of holes was the last he saw of them before he looked away.

  The green-and-white mechling scampered over and huddled close to his feet. The fur tickled. No shoes, he remembered. They hadn’t bothered returning them to him.

  He was lost. The sky circled him, clouds dark and brimming with rain, spots of wetness landing on his face and arms. The occasional reflection of intense blue laced the clouds where they faced the Chasm.

  Lost without this human girl, who’d let him touch her in a way that had gone beyond sex to an intimacy he had never suspected could exist. What must she be experiencing at this moment? It would be awful. Though the distance was too far for h
im to sense her emotions, he had an imagination, nowadays.

  Fern was alone, in pain, and suffering far more than any person would wish to feel.

  He ached for her and fell to his knees for the second time, pressed his palms to the earth. If only this world had the answers. The Chasm was supposed to grant wishes, within reason. But not always and sometimes not well.

  He looked to her again.

  If he had a good long gun, he could hit a target on the KI-mech.

  He could grant her death. Would she thank him? Was this truly love, for he wished it was he up there, suffering.

  The ramms were flying in a random pattern but curving down to attack – dark flecks against the sky. The scav trucks were barreling over the countryside, firing already, and any second, any second, his nails bit his palms, they might kill Fern.

  The KI-mech moved, a flare of blue haloing the far side as if a weapon had fired from the flank he could not see. A strand of interrupted blue spewed in an arc from some weapon on the side facing him. Every scav truck was hit and flipped, exploding, sent tumbling through the air, to land and throw men and machine everywhere, in pieces. The ramms were hit a millisecond later and blatted from the air, howling down in flames, spinning and gouging the land where they ploughed across it. Trees cracked and toppled.

  Another weapon sent a line of red lancing toward one of the smaller landships. A knife carving cooked meat, it split the landship into two, in a downward angle from bow to stern. The upper section slumped, collapsing in a fiery explosion, sliding to the ground. Flames ascended, as did pieces of the ruptured ship.

  No screams. It was too far away.

  The mech ceased to fire and all he could hear was the sounds of secondary explosions, then a few people from the scav force began to yell.

  The only pluses, the king had remained behind in his ramm, and Fern was untouched. Not a single projectile or missile had struck the mech.

  Pristine, it waited. The air around it was distorted by the heat rising from it.

  For the first time he noted Aunt M, tiny at this distance, crouching beside where Fern was displayed. The mech had angled slightly and revealed M. He was outside and vulnerable.