Dante smiled. He remembered the young woman, also remembered that he loved her.
After she rolled her eyes, Steel threw him a glance as if to ask for his opinion about this “completely implausible character.” When she saw him looking back at her, she snapped from the chair so fast she almost tripped.
“Dante?”
“That would be me.” He coughed. His throat felt tight and raw.
She rushed to his side and sat on the edge of the mattress. “You’re awake. I thought you’d never…” A smile pulled her mouth wide. He could not remember seeing her smile that way. Lovely. The grin disappeared right away, as if she had forgotten herself. “Man, you scared me. When I got you out of that place, you were… It was bad, Dante.”
Dr. Sharpe. The Grid. The tank. He struggled to sit, but she would have none of it and pressed him back into the mattress. “How did you find me?”
Another smile, this one not as nice. “I figured it out after Six made it look like you’d burned that place down, the mission. I snuck in.”
“You could have been killed.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you there. Plus, Six messing with you was partly my fault. I clean up after myself, okay? Always have.”
Dante squeezed her hand, and, after a moment, she returned the gesture. “Is the compound destroyed? What happened?”
“You could say that. There’s a big hole where the bunker used to be. The Grid is still on though, but there’s more and more people getting their ID implants removed.”
Dante ran a hand over his face. The stubble surprised him. “How long was I unconscious?”
Steel’s eyes unexpectedly welled. She fussed with the blanket, tucking it tight under his arm. “A long time, Dante.”
“How long?”
“Seven months, two weeks, one day. Give or take.” She tried for a valiant smile.
Seven months? And she had taken care of him all that time, bathed him, fed him, shaved him? Where had she found the credits for food and the things he saw in the room? How dangerous and lonely and despairing it must have been to watch over a comatose patient.
“I want to see for myself.” He sat, and this time she did not try to stop him. He had to see. He had to make sure. “Please, help me see for myself.”
“Sure.”
She helped him get up from the bed. His knees creaked painfully, his neck ached as though someone had it in a vise grip and his feet felt swollen and sore. But the old, familiar pain from the data ports in his spine was gone. He rubbed at the formerly tender spot in his nape. Nothing. No metal disc and those vicious little claws digging in his flesh.
“I took care of those,” she muttered without meeting his gaze. “They’re all gone.”
Dante wanted to hug her and never let go. They made their silent way to the old observatory, or what he thought would be the observatory but turned out instead to be a circular, interior courtyard. The roof was gone, most of the rubble cleared, but some still remained piled high against the brick wall. So much work for one person. He squeezed her hand and brought it to his lips for a tender kiss.
“There.” She stood back from him and shoved her hands in the pockets of her pants. Back to her guarded self. He would remedy that. He owed her so much.
Dante took a deep breath and looked at the home of his youth. Above the roofs to the north, what had once been an urban mountain with a compound oftentimes referred to as a bunker was now a jagged plateau. He could see right over it at the rest of the city beyond. Shuttles and larger crafts flew low over it, something they never would have been able—or allowed—to do before. He turned back to Steel and extended his hand to her. Shoulders looking tight and drawn, she approached, cautiously, as if she expected something bad to happen.
Dante took her hand out of her pocket and held it in both of his. Raising her chin so she would meet his gaze, he rested his forehead against hers. What could he say to express his gratitude, for saving him, for destroying the monstrous place of nightmares, for taking care of him after it was all done when it would have been easy—and understandable—to leave him? How could he ever thank her properly?
“Thank you,” he whispered.
A brusque shrug answered him. He smiled, tilted his head slightly and pressed his mouth to hers. Steel parted her lips, returning the kiss. Dante wrapped his arms around her slender frame and squeezed as hard as he dared. She fit so nicely against him. Perfect fit.
“I fixed your showerhead too,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
“You have fixed many things in my life, Steel. I will never be able to thank you enough.”
“I’m sure we can find a way.” Her shoulders quivered. Was the hardened, bristly young woman laughing?
He would love to see this. In fact, he would love to know everything about her.
About the Author
Nat Gray used to spend inordinate periods of time camping out with five hundred men, walking when she would have preferred driving, and jumping off high places with half her weight in gear attached to various parts of her body. After twelve years in the Canadian military, Nat decided to recycle all her skills and became a writer. Seriously. After many awards, including the 2007 Romantic Times award for best futuristic, Nat is well on her way to her ultimate goal—world domination.
You can browse her books or follow her on her many travels at www.nathaliegray.com.
Look for these titles by Nathalie Gray
Now Available:
Killing Silk
Metal Reign
Armed and dangerous…
Zero Factor
© 2011 Stacy Gail
A Cybershock Story
Born a psionic—a rare human prized by the government for her gifts—agridome worker Via Brede lives by two simple rules: slip into stealth mode whenever the cybernetic-enhanced militia is near. And never remove the gloves that block her psychic ability.
During a routine delivery, a tear in her glove connects her with what should be her worst nightmare. A meched-out soldier with bulging muscles and a scarred face that makes her heart pound like a pneumatic drill. She also envisions his death in an attack that happens…now.
Locke’s typically ho-hum mission goes sideways when the stunning, green-eyed bubble farmer plants a sensual kiss that sets fire to every one of his remaining man-nerves. He also sees her vision. His own commander is about to kill him.
He needs Via to find out why. First step is to get her to Old Las Vegas without succumbing to a raw, sexual need that burns in him like fever. Getting there will be a snap. Getting out alive—and winning her trust—might be a little tougher.
Warning: This title contains mild violence, blow-your-mind Psionic sex, buns of steel (literally) and the usual hanky-panky at a bordello. Author is not responsible for side effects, including locked-and-loaded hunks taking your dreams by force.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Zero Factor:
Via knew her life was over. If she were honest with herself, part of her had known it the moment she had left the safety of the agridome. People like her could never put themselves in a position where they would be within spitting distance of the militia, much less work hand in hand with them. To do so was akin to bathing in jet fuel, then playing with a lighter.
And yet she had gone. Like a lamb to slaughter, she had gone.
It was okay, though. As long as she could save the others, she could be at peace with what had to be done now. Not that she was some kind of freaky saint or anything. It was just that as she’d sat in the transport drowning in images of what was to come, she had reached a very basic conclusion—she would rather die than live with the knowledge that she could have done something, but didn’t.
So she wasn’t a saint, and she sure as hell wasn’t even nodding acquaintances with that thing called bravery. If anything, she was too much of a coward to live with the guilt of surviving while everyone else got blown into unrecognizable bits.
“Via? What the hell—?”
She heard Weddo’s shocked voice, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was focusing on what she knew, what she saw, and pushing it with all her might into Locke. She wasn’t sure if she was doing it right. Hell, she didn’t even know if she was doing anything more than simply kissing a stranger and making a ginormous ass of herself. She had only done this sort of thing once before when she was fifteen, and it had been a total accident back then.
By degrees, the frenzied panic boiling through her blood eased like a tight fist unfurling, and new, thoroughly unexpected sensations began to seep in through the smothering veil of fear. For just a heartbeat the universe seemed to pause, a collective holding of breath while even the sound of the bustling city’s daily life came to a gentle stop. For Via, there was only this fragile moment as her mouth molded to his, and a shocking thrill of pleasure bloomed like fireworks in her brain when his lips softened and returned the pressure with interest. Her booted feet barely touched the ground as she kept her arms wrapped tightly around his strong neck, and delight mingled with relief when his free arm curled about her waist to bring her fully against the rock-solid length of his battle-hardened warrior’s body. His breath was warm, his taste tantalizing. The seductive nuzzling of his silk-over-steel lips against hers invited her untutored mouth to explore deeper, and she saw no reason why she should resist when she knew they were living on borrowed time.
A tremulous note of discord whispered from her psyche into his, a never-ending ricochet rippling noiselessly between them. The pleasure bounced back and forth as well, doubling and trebling as it went, but threaded through it was what the vision had shown her. But that was okay too. If this was to be her last moment of life, she was determined to pour every ounce of joy, vitality and pleasure she could into this kiss. If anything, she was happy for this final opportunity to go out with a bang.
“Lieutenant Locke, attention!”
It was the strangest thing, was all Via could think while her pulse pounded in her ears and in the lips that had become the most sensitive part of her body. It was as though she and this man—a militia man, for God’s sake—had discovered that with a kiss, they could create a magical little sphere where only they existed, and nothing of the gritty, desperate, dangerous place that was their world could encroach on their private slice of perfection. Then her lips drifted like a dream away from his, and the restless throb of the ever-bustling city once again filled her ears. But nothing felt the same. She wasn’t the same. As mad as it sounded, she felt changed from the inside out.
Were kisses supposed to change the world?
Via opened eyes she couldn’t remember closing, and gazed up in dazed confusion at the man she held with all the passionate fervor of a long-time lover. Where was the explosion? Had she interrupted the sequence of events? Was everyone safe?
Everyone except her, of course. Her safe life was officially over now that she had revealed to a gun-toting jarhead member of the militia that she was a psionic.
Dayum.
“What the hell are you hick farmers feeding your oversexed women?” Colonel Fynn raged at Weddo, who was staring at Via in horrified disbelief. Her eyes shimmering with the chaos churning her insides, she could only shake her head. There was no time to explain her behavior. There was no time for anything, except…
Maybe there could be one last way out.
When she looked back to Locke, his flat, not-really-human optics were still trained on her as if he didn’t know how to look away. “Kill me,” she whispered in a rush, and watched his cyberoptics widen in surprise. It was probably the stress that made her think there might have been an impossible flash of emotion there. “If you have even one ounce of compassion left in that meched-out body of yours, please kill me. You’ll be doing me a favor.”
Slowly he shook his head while Fynn yelled at Weddo, “You’re a—”
“Please.” She grabbed the muzzle of his pulse rifle and angled it under her chin with the surreal calm of one who had no other choice. “Do it.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You’re crazy.”
“No one will blame you. I attacked you.”
“Attacked?” His head continued to shake. “That’s not what I’d call it.”
“Locke, you come to attention, you worthless bastard!” Fynn was all but frothing at the mouth while the rest of his troops closed in on the uncharacteristic knot of chaos in their midst, wary and confused. “What do you think you’re doing, soldier, falling for a classic diversionary tactic while the enemy closes in?”
“The no-goods are dispersing, Colonel.” Locke’s voice was oddly remote, as though he was only half-aware of the words coming out of his mouth. And all the while he stared at Via as if the next beat of his heart depended on it. “Look around. Even an untrained eye can see there is no enemy out there.”
Fynn turned an alarming shade of puce, making Via wonder if anyone had ever mustered up the cojones to contradict him. “The moment any soldier thinks that, they become worse than a liability. They become as bad as the enemy itself.” In sheer contempt, Fynn threw the cigar he still held at Locke’s feet. “Lifers, fall back double-time.”
“Bomb!” Locke suddenly shouted and waved at Weddo and the others. “Get in the transport, now!”
“Wait, I stopped—” Via’s protest was cut off as Locke’s free arm clamped around her waist like a vise, and she let out a strangled gasp when it felt like the lower half of her rib cage was crushed. Then, without warning, he leapt an easy fifteen feet off the raised loading dock in a mind-boggling show of inhuman strength, landing on the ground beside the dock so hard Via’s teeth clicked together.
“Get down!” Locke’s roar was superfluous, for his massive warrior’s body crouched over hers like a smothering blanket until she was forced into a fetal position, her head pushed down so far her chin gouged into her chest.
“But I stopped it—”
Via’s strangled protest was interrupted once more by an explosion above them. A sickening, hellish wave of heat billowed out over their heads. The concussive force made her eardrums quake like aspen leaves as the air pressure heaved out, then sucked back into the loading dock, as if a mythical giant were pulling in a massive gulp of air and holding it. Then the world went strangely still, while her stunned brain rattled around in her cranium like a tiny marble caught in a washer’s spin cycle.
Rule number one: Run from the Shadows. Unless one knows the secret that will save you.
Ghost in the Machine
© 2011 Barbara J. Hancock
A Cybershock Story
I live in a world of waifs and shadows. Live might be an overstatement. I scrounge and scramble and survive in an atmosphere made thick and gray by the ashes of the Fallen. And sometimes I dream of sunlight. My parents were taken, even though they followed all the rules. Never scavenge at night. Never talk to Shadows. Don’t fight the Sweepers. Run. Run. Run.
Now that they’ve taken my little brother, Douglas, I’ve realized I’ve only been surviving for him. I have two choices: Follow him or lie down and die. I can’t just quit after years of struggle. I wouldn’t know how if I tried. Determination is all I have left.
And then I meet him.
He claims to be a rogue who can help me find my brother. It’s got to be a lie. But I don’t run. I stop. I listen. And I make a deal with a Shadow even though I know it will mean the death of me.
Never talk to Shadows.
But no one ever told me what would happen if I kissed one.
Warning: May cause fantasies of forbidden kisses from dark heroes who balance on the edge of evil. Where shadows wait and ashes fall…
Enjoy the following excerpt for Ghost in the Machine:
He looks so heroic treading with purpose through the ash, every bit as graceful as I am not. I remind myself the lean muscle that glides beneath his skin was turned to dust years ago, but the reminder doesn’t help. He has held me with those strong hands. He’s saved me with that lithe body. I no longer tingle where t
he spider’s venom dripped, but everywhere Gabriel touched me seems permanently sensitized.
Heat rises in me as I acknowledge a different kind of tingle than I’ve known before. If talking to a Shadow is dangerous, surely desiring one will be deadly.
We walk forever. Past crumbled buildings and long-dead alleys. I try not to stare at him, but it’s a lot like trying not to breathe when a Shadow is passing—you can stop for awhile, but soon enough your lungs start to burn with the need for oxygen.
My eyes need to soak up his mystery. For the first time, I see how ash doesn’t settle on him. Not on his hair or his clothes or his skin. He has a physical form. I’ve felt it. I blush with the urge to feel it again. But the ash doesn’t touch him. I’ve lived with Shadows always, but I’ve never noticed this about them.
But his gleaming dark curls and shining armor, I notice.
In comparison, I’m filthy, covered in soot from head to toe.
I try not to think about it. I’m doggedly following Douglas into the jaws of death. But as the dark night turns to gray day, the ash that coats me bothers me more and more. Just as when I fought the spider and after when I thought about an ashen grave, it seems a claiming and a giving up.
Irrational. A fancy brought on by fear, exhaustion and hunger. Every third step is a stumble now. Each blink threatens to become a long sleep. And still I trudge on. It isn’t until my forward momentum stops that I realize I’ve collapsed. My head is so light it seems as if it might float to the gray-choked sky.
I can see Shadows.
They move behind windows of nearby buildings, up and down crumbling sidewalks, across a crosswalk and back again. They’re uninterested, stuck in mindless repetition. I see them almost as a whole entity. Like a shifting darkness that fills the outer edges of my world. But when might one or more unglitch and come for me?
Gridlock: A Cybershock Story Page 9
