Blood dribbled, spread across his gray and brown clothes, darkening the roughly drawn design of a green wheel.
Mouth agape she watched the cyborg again stab the dalk before letting him drop, thud.
“What...how...” She gathered her wits. “Thank you.”
Leastwise, it was thank you providing he, mister cyborg, didn’t want her too, or the bear, or whatever the fuck these idiots all wanted from her.
“Can I offer you –”
“No.” Straight of back and straight of mouth, he examined her while wiping blood from the sword using a piece he’d torn from the dalk’s shirt.
“Mmmm,” someone said. “That tasted good.”
“What?” Flustered, she glanced about. “Who?”
“The sword, Smorg, can speak. Most of the time it’s rubbish so don’t listen if you don’t want to waste your days. I’m Ledderik. You?”
“Peasant.”
That had come from the sword. Her brows knitted, unknitted. Minor concern, compared to all else that happened.
“I’m Thorn, co-captain of the Jocelyn.”
The cyborg studied the rooftop.
A second lift beside hers, which he and the dalk must’ve used, was humming. So he came up with the dalk then killed it? Why not kill it in the lift? Had the dalk thought him harmless or a part of this craziness? For a second, she saw them both standing in the lift, side-by-side, pretending to ignore each other.
She could ask...which on second thoughts, might be a dangerous question.
“I should go?” She frowned, wondering at her uncertainty. “Of course I should. Thank you again.” Thorn nodded. She smiled and slightly bowed her head, edging back into normality despite the dead body and the green blood leaking from beneath it.
Run across the rooftops, find the checkpoint. Her tail twitched as she rearranged priorities. Let the law deal with this.
“I’ll make sure I explain you had to kill these two?” Again she frowned. “I know cyborgs can sometimes be doubted, and the s’kar have influence on BART. Now, excuse me, I have a rooftop run to do. A bear to deliver.”
He didn’t budge, only slid the sword home into the sheath and hung it across his back. He adjusted the fit, but for a fraction of a second his stern gaze drifted downward, brushing over her breasts where the dalk had torn her uniform.
Coolness told her there were gaps. Her mouth stiffened. She wouldn’t look.
“Death and mayhem. Bizarre attractions. You have a leg wound. And you’re off on a run?”
She shrugged. “It’s nothing. I know my capabilities.”
Bizarre attractions? Fuck, still not asking.
His spread-legged stance was terribly assertive and...masculine. My, my.
On his forehead she discerned a zigzag pattern in blue of something like teeth, hidden mostly by his hair. One eye did indeed glow red. His arm was a pretty marvel of cyborg engineering.
And...her nostrils were expanding, her eyes staying wide, her hair rising like a wave on the sea – she glimpsed the white fronds at the periphery of her vision.
My gods he looked...edible.
He rattled off facts.
“The dalk hacked the lift system, sped it up, which is why we got here first. He seemed so preoccupied that he didn’t care I was there. The molloks had their mating tentacles up and one is coming back up in that lift.” He gestured. “I hacked the system too so I could monitor things. In thirty seconds or less, that tentacled lust bucket will be there, and I can guarantee it’ll want to insert tentacle A into your part C.”
“What?” Her brain was swimming in mud. Tentacled what? How could he be sure?
“Listen to Led. He’s your hero of the day,” the sword drawled.
“Not-hero,” the cyborg said, half-turning his head. “You need help. You have a weird problem, s’kar girl. That intrigues me, and nothing’s done that for a very, long, time. Every male you pass wants to mate with you.”
That idea chilled her for a nanosecond, then...
He held out his hand.
“My name is uhhh, Thorn.”
“You said that.”
She should be scared of taking his hand.
“Come with me if you want to live, and not get impregnated with thousands of mollok wrigglers.”
That seemed a no-brainer. She took his hand. A frisson ran up her arm and warmed her, sauntering through the rest of her body, casually stirring parts of her that should never be stirred by a non s’kar. Yet she didn’t release his hand. It was his organic one and his fingers felt good nestled against hers.
She wet her lips and pointed. “That building is next.”
The lift doors began to open. Tentacles squirmed through the widening gap, seeking, pushing at the doors.
“Go!” She dropped his hand and sprinted.
She should have been disturbed by what he’d said, by a mollok wanting her, by everything. As they reached the edge and her front leg stretched into space, the wound awakened with fresh raw heat. Yet all she was thinking was that she really, really, wanted him to make the jump.
A s’kar could make jumps few others could. A mollok could never follow her.
They leaped together, the air whistled past, her tail trailing behind and helping her balance. They landed almost as one, and rolled to their feet.
Delirium made her feet light. She whooped and did a few small skips as she ran onward, her coat flying back and matching the float of his cloak.
The cyborg had more skills than the death ones. She couldn’t help wondering if he too had sexual ideas.
That would be bad. Wouldn’t it?
The wetness of her underwear and throb of her nipples seemed to be saying a huge no to that question.
And since when had she ever been ruled by her anatomy?
Chapter 4
Up close, she stole the oxygen from his lungs, his common sense, and his need to do bad things to people. Or at least to anyone except her.
So annoying.
Bad things were his specialty.
He was centuries old and she was young. He was cyborg and not quite human. She was s’kar. He was ruthless and loved killing, torturing. She was...not meek, didn’t faint at death or gore. Efficiently practical, he supposed, but she was an innocent by comparison. He loved making the innocent cry.
The next building had a rooftop party going on, which could be a problem.
To her right, the sun played peek-a-boo with the ragged horizon of atmosphere-scraping buildings. The soft mauve and pink light painted her, cut her away from the environment she passed through as if she were special, from beyond this pedestrian world.
He blinked and looked ahead. Also the law was still not coming.
Was that deliberate? Had someone planned this so that whatever they wanted to do would not be interfered with by law enforcement? Dalks were not usually skilled at hacking, even if it had been only a museum.
His next glance was cursory but thorough.
Such long lithe legs and those red boots and red coat – white birds flew across the back and down the sleeves. The frayed uniform exposed her. One rip revealed glimpses of the swell of a breast. She jiggled and flowed, and jiggled. Much of her did.
Even her tail was sexy with that white tuft at the end and fine white fur. His sxsynthcock was doing its thing but luckily black concealed.
They leaped and rolled, made the jump to the party building easily.
“You can go,” she murmured, jogging to a halt. “We’ve reached civilization.” The curve of her gesture encompassed the party-goers. “My checkpoint isn’t far. Thank you for your help.”
Ledderik cringed at the thank you. No one thanked him, except Zarblu.
Music jammed the air, banging at his skin, mingling with voices. Multicolored light from overhead globes swept over the drinkers and dancers. Arms and tentacles flailed to and fro, in time to the beat.
Molloks and humans and others. Among them would be males, perhaps a few species of the hermaphrodite
and multisexual persuasion.
Not safe for her.
He thought to grab her arm but she was moving, approaching the party as if she owned it.
“This is not wise.” He took long strides to catch up then found himself inexplicably slowing.
Thorn transformed. Into a goddess, he’d swear it, dead.
Where her boots contacted the roof the very dust and dirt levitated, rising to above ankle level. The air shimmied about her, leaving a quivering wake as evidence of her passage. Sound muffled, as if his ears were covered, until all he could hear was the crunch of her boot soles, the heave of her warm breath and his, and the thud of blood. He was seeing close-up the effect she’d had in the bar – only this was worse. He smelled her heady femaleness.
Her hair came alive and writhed, as if washed by the thickened air.
Her clothes fluttered backward as they had when he and Thorn had leaped and run. Threads frayed and visibly unwound, untangled, ripped away and vanished into the dusk.
Ledderik wondered if he’d taken a few hallucinogens and forgotten the antidote. But no, this was her doing.
*This is not normal.*
Yeahhh. You can see it too? he asked the sword.
*Despite the fucking awful POV you gave me by shoving me behind your back? Yes. I conjugate fractal images, steady them for motion flaws, and then shazam I have situational awareness.*
“Squash the sarcasm. So what is this?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“I’ll have to think on it.”
Was the sword withholding? It’d have a finger-sized memory. “Never mind.” Ledderik sprinted.
Those on the fringes of the party had noticed Thorn’s approach. They peeled away, turning and shifting their attention to her by eyeball and tentacle, by sensory frond, and possibly also with a flock of dronelike airborne receptors in the case of at least one alien.
They surged slowly, but he’d bet his left synthflesh testicle they’d soon get some velocity under them.
“Not that way!” He clutched at her coat sleeve. At least this wasn’t disintegrating. “What...are you?”
“A hot babe?” Smorg interjected.
“How would you know?”
“May the Gods of Cybernetic Swordsmithing melt me if I lie but I can detect something about her.”
Ledderik grunted. Smorg was male? Figured.
He spun Thorn and saw her eyes were strangely different – bluer than fine pyrinean ceramics. When his fingers connected with her cheek, a sizzle of pure lust shot through him and probably out the other side. His cock risked blowing circuits as it strained to get even more erect.
He rocked in place, struggled for control, yet gained it. If he did anything to her, like dragging her away and doing stuff, it would not be here.
“We have to go elsewhere,” he said roughly, steering her in the direction of another building.
Though she’d staggered as she spun, she stayed with him. “This...” She indicated the people drifting their way. “Is fascinating.”
She sounded dazed or drunk, like some spaced-out elf from an antique D&D cabal. Perhaps on this new power she had over males?
“Come!” He bullied her into jumping to other building, though they had to climb down a level to do it – clinging to the building’s ornate façade while the lights of a floating advertisement cube cast luminous text over their faces and clothes.
Buy Starfriendly Insurance and get free alien disease upgrades.
“A little late,” he muttered.
Once they reached relative safety on the new rooftop, he pulled her to a stop.
The ad had followed them, drawn to their body heat, but now drifted away, leaving them in the gathering darkness, if not silence.
He turned, surveying for threats.
Muffled dance music, long shadows, and deserted – except for overhead flyer cabs, a flock of AI-feral dronelets basking in the last of the solar energy, a cyborg with blood-lust and a s’kar girl with...
Something unknown.
Ledderik took her by the shoulders, daring that weird frisson that sent a shockwave into him. He leaned over her to study her face. “What are you?” he asked again, though last time it’d been more rhetorical.
While he held her, some energy drained away, wound down, like an engine that’d switched off.
Her mouth was open and she seemed to understand. Her fingers curled over his, holding him.
He rarely allowed himself to close in with anyone like this, unless it was for work.
His list of possible bad things to do to a female resurfaced.
*Psionics* Smorg ventured.
What’s that? You mean like empaths? Levitation – that sort of thing? Throwing objects by mind?
*Perhaps*
“You’ve encountered it before?”
*Not sure.*
“Are you talking to me? Or your sword?” Thorn asked, eyebrow twisting. She uncurled her fingers from him and looked embarrassed.
“Sword.”
She was aware, her hair was behaving normally, and her eyes had lost the faraway blueness. Though her costume wasn’t so easily repaired.
Smorg was definitely evading. Doing a search of his memory should not be that difficult.
Having words with you later, he told it. Something like a raspberry sounded in his mind.
Ledderik stepped away, feeling the want in the fingers of his organic hand as he lost contact with Thorn. Addictive, this girl was. He didn’t mind as long as he could control his urges. Seriously, his dick seemed to be responding of its own accord, even as he took in her state of undress, the hints of curvaceous female under the somewhat shredded white uniform.
Okay, not so much hints as distinct warnings.
He liked this, her shape, always had liked females, just his dick was not him.
Thorn paced toward where a room-wide section of plasglass was set into the roof floor. She hugged her coat around her, wrapping it across her front. Light suffused through the plasglass, reflecting off her face.
He joined her and found himself looking down onto a floor of milling people, several stories below.
“Shoppers?”
“I guess so.”
Time passed, and he waited, sure she wanted to say more.
He could be a cyborg with patience. He’d waited months for the confession of one man, though that had been more than a century ago. Zarblu had curbed such tendencies. He wondered if he had gone soft.
After all, he had Thorn alone.
No one would know if he disposed of her.
But why should he?
He sighed. He hadn’t grown soft. He’d always had reasons for killing, just they were flimsier than most needed, and he was so very good at achieving his aims.
“Why...” she began hesitantly, “...are you the only one who doesn’t want to fuck me or kill me?”
Fuck – how dirty that word sounded coming from her mouth.
“Ahhh. That would be because I don’t like my cock. It’s new,” he explained. “And it just isn’t mine.” He tilted his head. “Plus when I kill I have reasons. I’m a little set in my ways. I like doing things...correctly.”
“How many have you used it on? If you don’t mind saying.”
Thorn was definitely practical.
“None.”
It took her a while before she said more. “I have a problem you can help me with.”
There was that unseemly help word again.
“If you want to. My naming ceremony is tonight. This...thing that’s happening will interfere, and what you just said makes asking this simpler.”
“Oh?” He smiled. “What can I do for you?”
*I know I know* Smorg piped up, sounding excited.
Quiet.
“Explain – how do I explain?” she muttered. “My sexual cycle has come earlier than I expected. Normally it’d just mean I might attract a few s’kar and that’s nothing. It wouldn’t interfere with the ceremo
ny. But this. This...” Thorn shook her head. “It’s strange. I cannot predict what might happen. Being different is not considered okay among s’kar. And attracting others...other species, is very, very wrong.”
She stared at him, looking more than a little lost.
“Yes?”
“They might disallow my naming. I’d lose the captaincy of Jocelyn to Baldor. I might never be named. I have to get my father’s ship and his last name, Ironhand. He was Nomad Ironhand.”
“Ironhand?” He lowered his head, peering at her past his brow. It seemed a cyborg name.
“Yes.”
Liquid shone at the lip of eyelid and eye. Tears, impending tears.
So he had some leverage over her. She needed him.
He was going into LoL, remember. What use was this leverage to him?
“What do you need done? Someone terminated?”
He’d had his last-day fun, killed a few...legally, but it was still nice to have one last fling and if he was lucky she –
“I want you to fuck me.”
Ledderik blinked, managed not to swallow his tongue. “Why? Why do you want that?”
“I know!” Smorg again.
He hissed through clenched teeth. “Speak again, Smorg, and I will toss you over the side.”
Still hugging the coat to herself, Thorn rattled out the rest of her explanation.
“Our cycles don’t end until we mate, with a male, with a...” She gestured at him, at pants level, where his wayward cock was still being all stiff. “One of those. Once that’s done it will give me a week, I think, before the next phase hits.”
He nodded, speechless, but thinking through this, digging up the vaguely familiar facts. If not pregnant, the s’kar cycled repeatedly for a while, then went asexual for another half-year, as calculated by the phases of their original planet.
It might not work. He was equipped with an artificial cock and he wasn’t s’kar. Somehow, he was disinclined to point this out. His list of things to do before he went to LoL was now one item longer.
“When?”
“Now is best. I barely have two hours before the ceremony starts.” She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her wrist. “We might have the law descending on us soon.”
“Once they get their fingers out of their asses,” Smorg suggested.
Blade (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 3) Page 3
