Dark Strength
Page 19
Balvan’s gaze lowered to Orol’s flushed face. His friend was a mess without Rhea.
The need to be with mates must be a modified humanoid trait.
Hopefully, multiple births wasn’t a modified humanoid trait. His little female would have challenges carrying merely one of his offspring. He was a big male.
Balvan envisioned the future while Orol continued his futile battle. His friend was foaming at the mouth by the time the medic exited the birthing chamber.
“Rhea and all three of the offspring are healthy,” she announced.
Balvan breathed a sigh of relief. A knot in the base of his neck unraveled, his concerns evaporating.
“But they are fragile.” The medic frowned at Orol’s talons.
“Orol would never harm his mate or offspring.” Kralj spoke for the winged male.
The medic sighed. “Then you may visit for a short duration.”
Balvan stood. Orol shot through the doors.
The medic glanced at the broken floor tiles, then at the cracked portal. She leveled a hard gaze on Balvan.
Fraggin’ hole. He was in trouble. He looked down at his big boots.
“We’ll talk about this later.” The medic uttered that ominous statement as she swept out of the chamber.
Balvan’s female was next to slip through the doors, her face pale, her lips flat. She saw him and her eyes lit up. He surged forward. Elyce rushed toward him.
Then she was in his arms and the universe made sense again. He lifted her high against his chest, covered her lips with his. She opened to him. He surged inside her, their tongues twining, the flavor of her filling his mouth.
Balvan kissed his female until she was breathless, clinging to him, her eyes dark with passion. When they were alone, he would ravish her, lick every scar, taste every part of her.
“You’re not alone.” A gust of wind blasted Balvan as Kralj walked past him, the Ruler heading with Dita into the birthing chamber.
His face heated. “No, sir.”
The doors closed behind them.
“We’re alone now,” Elyce whispered, her smile playful.
His body responded. He wanted his little female, intensely, his entire being aching for her touch.
But Orol was his best friend and he’d be hurt if they didn’t ooh… and ahhh… over his offspring. And Balvan did want to see the little males.
“Let’s view our newest warriors first.” He carried his female into the birthing chamber.
No one noticed their arrival, every occupant enraptured with the three babies batting their tiny wings, trying to escape from Rhea’s arms. Orol beamed as he helped his mate manage the trio. Paloma cooed at the little warriors, which seemed to excite them rather than calm them. Dita grinned. Even Kralj appeared happy, the shadows around his face lifting.
“They’re active little beings.” Balvan’s lips twitched. His excitement-seeking friend wouldn’t have to venture far from the domicile for action.
“They’re strong.” Orol’s chest puffed out. “And highly intelligent.”
“They must take after their mother, then.” Balvan teased his friend and the others laughed. “I won’t have to pull them out of air vents.”
“You had to do that once.” Orol didn’t take his gaze away from his sons. “Don’t pay any attention to Uncle Balvan. He has taken a few projectiles to the head.”
Elyce glanced up at Balvan.
“I survived.” He shrugged. Many of the modified humanoids had taken projectiles to the head. It wasn’t anything to get excited about. “Do they have names or are we calling them One, Two, and Three?” He changed the subject.
“This is Prazur.” Orol indicated the baby closest to him.
The baby in the middle howled, waving his tiny fists in the air.
“He wants to be Prazur.” His friend acknowledged. “Then his brother will be Kridlo.”
The baby farthest from Orol cried.
“You can be Kridlo.” Orol conceded, speaking to that baby. “That means your brother is Neba.”
All three of the babies wailed.
Kralj released a deep breath. “The offspring closest to you wishes to be named Dialo. The offspring in the middle has chosen Vietor as his name. The third offspring answers to Jeden.”
Everyone stared at the Ruler, including the babies.
“I can read thoughts.” Kralj’s tone was dry.
There was a stretch of silence and then the chamber filled with voices.
“Do they know I’m their father?”
“Are they hungry?”
“Do they need a covering cloth?”
Orol, Rhea, even Paloma peppered Kralj with questions, not giving the Ruler an opportunity to answer…if he wanted to, which Balvan suspected he didn’t.
Kralj might be all-knowing and all-powerful but he wasn’t all-easygoing.
Elyce brushed her fingertips over Balvan’s chest, that decadent touch redirecting his attention. “No one would miss us right now.” She met his gaze. “And the waiting chamber is empty. We can be alone there.”
She didn’t have to make that suggestion twice.
“I love you, my little female.” He carried her out into the space.
She leaned back, lightheartedly kicking her feet, a glorious smile on her beautiful face. “I love you too, my big male.”
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Website: CynthiaSax.com
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Other Books by Cynthia Sax
Refuge Series
Dark Thoughts
Dark Flight
Cyborg Sizzle Series
Releasing Rage
Breathing Vapor
Being Green
Crash And Burn
Defying Death
Chasing Mayhem
Jumping Barrel
Hers To Command
Ghost of a Machine
Seeking Vector
Knowing Zip
Releasing Rage - Excerpt
Kralj, the hero of Dark Thoughts, appears briefly in the Cyborg Sizzle series. Here is an excerpt from Releasing Rage, the first story in that series.
* * *
Joan pressed her hands against the exterior wall panel of his chambers. The thick metal door slid open. She stepped into the firewall square. The door behind her closed and she authorized the interior door to open.
A buzz swept over her. No, not simply over her. Into her. She gasped, her inhalation of air drawing more of this unknown presence inside her.
It was too much, almost suffocating. Joan swayed, lightheaded. “Do not faint. Do not faint,” she repeated to herself, closing her eyes.
The rolling under her feet gradually stopped. She opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. Crimson spray covered everywhere she looked. Gore was splattered into the farthest corners, hanging from the ceiling. Cleaner bots scrubbed the walls and floor.
This was why she felt dizzy, she reasoned. She smelled and sensed this butchery.
C899321, the being she had been told was responsible, stood in his uploading dock, a cable inserted into his nape, his towering form naked, covered with blood, his long black hair dripping with it.
He turned his head, locked his gaze with hers and she sucked in her breath. There were worlds of agony, of rage, in those bright blue eyes. This was no rational, logic-driven cyborg. This was a man, an animal, crazed by bloodlust and pain.
“They thought to pacify me with the use of a human female?” he thundered, his deep gravelly voice clawing across her skin, awakening parts in her she didn’t realize slept. “I’d kill you be
fore I allowed you to touch me.”
This insult didn’t hurt her the way he’d intended. Joan knew she wasn’t the slim tiny female males desired. She was solidly built, good breeding stock, as her mother had once said.
She discarded his words and focused on the torment in his tones. He hurt. Horrifically. Her fingers twitched, the urge to reach out to him, to comfort him, tremendous. Judging by the flex of his powerful biceps and thigh muscles, by the anger radiating from him, he wouldn’t appreciate that response.
He also wouldn’t listen to any command she issued. A reprimand, verbal or physical, would add to his hostility. Some being had already tried to restrain him and failed. The reportedly unbreakable wrist and ankle cuffs attached to the frame of the uploading dock had been shattered, rendered useless.
Joan discarded four solar cycles’ worth of theory on how to handle malfunctioning cyborgs, realizing now that the academy experts knew nothing.
Her late father, however, had taught her how to deal with wild beasts.
“I would never touch you without your permission.” She lowered her gaze, showing submission, recognizing C899321 as the dominant male he was. He’d seek to harm any aggressor, to protect himself and his territory. If she wasn’t female, she suspected she’d already be dead.
“I also would never hurt you.” Joan stuffed a couple of cleaning cloths into her pockets and dropped to her knees, into a puddle of red. The moisture soaked through her flight suit. “I’m here to serve you, to clean you.”
She slowly crawled forward through the liquefied remains of the previous engineer. Having lived on an agri lot and spending the last solar cycle in the waste processing chambers, guck no longer fazed her.
“You don’t want to be dirty.” Joan kept her head bowed, her voice calm and soft. “That would interfere with your mechanics.”
She filled the silence with a flow of reassuring words, telling him she meant him no harm, that she was there to help him. Joan kept her gaze lowered, concentrating on his feet. He stood with them braced apart, preparing for an attack, ready to defend himself. His feet appeared human except much, much larger, his metal frame concealed with skin. When not covered with blood, that skin would be gray.
The current J models could pass for human, designed not to frighten the general population. The C models were clearly cyborg, from their giant stature to their unnatural skin tone. Some engineers found them to be scary and primitive. Joan didn’t. She associated C models with safety, with caring, with C345925’s unexpected act of kindness.
Joan knelt in front of C899321. Her heart pounded so loudly, she suspected with his superior senses, he could hear her.
Moments passed. She remained motionless, allowing him to look at her, to smell her, to become accustomed to the sound of her voice.
He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, signaling his readiness and she spoke. “I have a cleaning cloth in my pocket.” She held up her hands, showing him her empty palms. “Can I remove it?”
She waited and waited and waited. He said nothing.
“I told you I wouldn’t take action without your consent.” She wasn’t foolish. Touching a wild thing without permission resulted in death.
“Yes.” His voice was impossibly deep.
“Thank you.” Joan slipped her fingers into her pocket, slowly as to not spook him, and extracted a blue cleaning cloth. “I value your trust.” She opened the enhanced fabric, stretching it tight, allowing him to examine it. “May I clean your feet?”
There was another long pause.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” No male should have a voice like that, like an endless night filled with decadence and sin. She resisted the urge to wiggle her ass, her pussy moistening, her nipples tightening, and focused on her task, cleaning his ankles, heels, every toe, talking as she did so. The cyborg lifted first one foot and then the other, allowing her to swipe the cloth over his soles.
The fabric sucked up the blood, rearranging the molecules into air. His skin was soft, warm, surprisingly scarred. Joan frowned. “Your nanocybotics must have been suppressed when you were damaged. There should be no marks.”
She traced a long slash on his right foot. It was an old wound. “The enemy found a way to do this.” That alarmed her. This flaw in his defenses put her cyborg at risk. “Why wasn’t this development covered in any of the information bulletins I’ve viewed?” Engineers should be working on a countermeasure.
“Are you mentally deficient?” His tone was harsh. “You must be if you volunteered to breed with a C model cyborg.”
Joan gritted her teeth at his assumption about her role. “I’m your engineer, not a breeding female.”
“You lie.” He snorted softly. “Your uniform is gray, not blood-red, and if you were truly my engineer, as you claim, you’d know my damage was inflicted by my previous handlers.”
“I was positioned in the waste processing chambers. That’s why I wear a gray uniform.” Signaling to everyone her lowly status. “And why would a handler hurt you? Our job is to ensure you operate at optimal efficiency.”
“Why would they hurt me? Because they’re cruel humans and I’m a disposable cyborg. Because I operated outside specifications. Because they wished to duplicate my kill rates. Do you need more reasons?”
They’d experimented on him. She gazed at his toes, absorbing this knowledge. Blood had dripped down his legs, coating them with crimson once more. “May I clean your legs?”
He sighed, his muscles flexing and releasing. “You clearly need to be told everything. I must be cleaned from the top down.”
She knew that. “You’d agree to me cleaning your face?”
“Do I have a choice?” His words were bitter.
“Yes.” Joan looked upward, meeting his gaze. “You know how best to maximize your kill rates. Within these chambers, I serve you.”
His eyes flashed with blue currents of energy. “Stop with your lies. I won’t believe them.”
“You’re bigger, stronger, think you’re more intelligent.” She lifted her chin. “Why would I lie to you?”
“I’ll test you, little engineer, and if you fail, you’ll die.”
About Cynthia Sax
USA Today bestselling author Cynthia Sax writes contemporary, SciFi and paranormal erotic romances. Her stories have been featured in Star Magazine, Real Time With Bill Maher, and numerous best of erotic romance top ten lists.
She lives in a world filled with magic and romance. Although her heroes may not always say, “I love you,” they will do anything for the women they adore. They live passionately. They play hard. They love the same women forever.
Cynthia has loved the same wonderful man forever. Her supportive hubby offers himself up to the joys and pains of research, while they travel the world together, meeting fascinating people and finding inspiration in exotic places such as Istanbul, Bali, and Chicago.
Sign up for her dirty-joke-filled release day newsletter and visit her on the web at www.CynthiaSax.com
Keep in touch with Cynthia using the following links:
Website: CynthiaSax.com
Newsletter: Taste of Cyn newsletter
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Twitter: @CynthiaSax
Blog: TasteOfCyn.com
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