by Pearl Foxx
And that would be a surefire way to make him lose his tenuous control.
Tane stood and swiped the glass from his pants. After closing and locking his office door, he went out into the main room.
Chance sat at a table with a few of the other guys, counting credits and stacking them in neat piles. Others swept and mopped up the floor, and the waitresses bustled around with heaping bags of trash.
A long, low moan pulled Tane’s attention to the ring. There, Enver was still working on Steele. She was prone beside him, and he hunched over her with her arm cradled in his arms and a screwdriver between his teeth.
Tane walked over. Passing Chance, he said, “Double-check Hollywood’s counting. I don’t trust him.”
Chance chuckled as a cyborg across the table from him lifted his head and smiled broadly at Tane. Half of Hollywood’s face was as pretty as could be, and none of the guys ever let him live it down. But the plesh ended in a clean line down his nose, revealing the cybernetic half of him, which wasn’t nearly as good looking.
“Fuck you too, Taint,” Hollywood called cheerfully.
Tane growled, but Hollywood only laughed.
“If you don’t stop calling him that, he’ll kill you eventually,” Chance said quietly as Tane walked away.
He grinned. He’d been right to throw Kinyi out, no matter the hollow ache in his gut. This was his home. These men—these cyborgs—were his people now. His brothers.
“What’s going on?” he asked Enver as he stepped into the cage.
Another moan from Steele answered him.
Enver dropped the screwdriver from his mouth and flipped a lock of dark hair from his face. The dog tags around his neck jingled like little bells of death. Most vets didn’t bother wearing them after the Trans-Atlantic War, but he had never seen Enver without them. He glanced up at Tane. “Your girl really jacked up her arm. I’m not equipped to deal with human injuries this serious.” He scowled. “She should have messed up the other arm. At least then I could have rewired it.”
“Going for her human arm was probably the point,” Tane said. “And she’s not my girl. Get Steele cleaned up and out of here before Garvan comes down. He doesn’t need to see fighters on their backs.”
“Got it, boss.” Enver bent back over his work.
Tane left the ring and glanced around the room. The sun would rise soon behind the perpetual smog that hung low over Cyn City. They’d be treated to their own personal brand of toxic beauty, and it was always Tane’s favorite part of the day.
“I’m out,” he called. “Get this shit finished. Chance, lock up.”
“Yes, sir,” some called out. Others just nodded, focused on their work.
With one last glance, Tane went to the back stairwell leading out of the club’s basement. He climbed the steps with a weariness that always settled on his shoulders around this time. It felt extra heavy today.
Upstairs, the bar had long since closed. The chairs sat upside down on the tables like dead spiders, and the lights were off, save for a few sconces on the wall. The front windows and door had the gates pulled down and locked to ward off would-be looters, not that anyone would be stupid enough to steal from Garvan. Tane went out the back and locked all three deadbolts behind him, then pocketed the keys.
Once, during his early days in Cyn City, a street thug had tried to mug him. But word had gotten around quick. Tane was not one to be messed with. Better to mug people who couldn’t snap necks and backs with one hand.
He set off for home as the sun peeked out above the upper city’s sky-rises, casting a sickly wash of pinks and purples like fresh bruises across the puddles in the cracked street.
Chapter Five
Kinyi
Kinyi stuck to the shadows, which wasn’t hard.
The city was made entirely of shadows. Hidden alleys and roads that suddenly dead-ended created a labyrinthine mecca of bars, strip clubs, burger joints, and cynker parts shops. Even though she knew the sun had already risen, the upper city, where the upper-crust elite dwelled, blocked the light from trickling down into the lower city, the one sinking into the ground as the ocean slowly swallowed it.
The rich lived on the backs of the poor, and it disgusted her. As a member of a hive, she was accustomed to resources being shared and advantages being given to those who most needed them, not to those who kept others down. Equality and collective good were the driving principles she’d grown up with. This place was the opposite, a cesspool of degradation and oppression.
Her steps were nearly silent on the cobblestone road. She kept her hands in her pockets, her head bowed, and her scent downwind. Ahead of her, Tane walked home. His trench coat twisted at his calves, his stride naturally long and purposeful. His shoulders were relaxed, his breathing deep and even. He was perfectly comfortable on these gritty streets, stepping through a mass of gritty people. He dipped his chin at the homeless and dumped handfuls of credits into their bent metal cups. Vendors called out to him as he passed, and he waved back, stopping only twice to buy a thermos of coffee and a sandwich made of animal fat and gooey cheese. He ate and drank as he walked, and Kinyi smelled his contentedness even from thirty paces behind him.
A hollow ache built in her stomach the farther they walked. When Zayd had challenged her with this assignment, she’d assumed she’d bring the White Horn home. Failure had never been part of her vocabulary. But watching Tane, it dawned on her that she might not be able to convince him. Kladuu wasn’t his home anymore. Why the hell would he care what happened to it?
Lost in her thoughts for longer than she’d realized, she glanced around, searching for Tane’s dark coat and worn boots. They’d passed the street vendors and come to a quiet stretch of road. He should have been ahead of her at the next corner.
But he wasn’t there.
Kinyi stopped and looked behind her. His scent had faded from the air, and all she smelled now was Cyn City’s perfume of mold and decay.
She’d lost him. Like some adolescent male bumbling about in the sky, she hadn’t been paying attention, and she’d lost her prey.
“Son of a bitch,” she hissed, fisting her hands. She wanted to punch something. Hard.
She turned to slam her hand against a nearby brick wall.
Two violet eyes stared back at her from the dark alley’s entrance. A pair of hands reached out and jerked her into the darkness.
Her body was swung through the air, and she grunted, fumbling to find some purchase to mount a defense. She hit the alley wall hard and bit her tongue. Her body, already bruised and battered from the fight, screeched in protest. A heavy, solid, immovable weight settled against her hips and thighs, pinning her to the wall. One callused hand bound her wrists above her head.
She twisted and fought, but she wasn’t going anywhere. With a growl building in her throat, she went still and stared up at him.
“What the fuck, White Horn?” she spat.
“You were following me.” His violet eyes blinked down at her, completely unperturbed by her efforts to free herself from his grasp. It didn’t look like it cost him any effort at all to restrain her.
“No shit.”
“Why were you following me?”
She threw her weight into a hip twist but barely moved an inch off the cold, wet wall behind her.
Tane didn’t even budge at her effort.
She sighed. “Because we need to talk.”
“We’ve already talked. And I told you to fuck”—he leaned in close, bringing his mouth within in an inch of hers—“off.”
No one had ever spoken to her that way and lived. Especially not with such promised violence contained in the rough, rumbling quality of their voice. It made her heart buck, and beneath the thin material of her dress, her nipples hardened against his chest. Without a conscious thought, she arched into him. Her nerve endings sang with dizzying force at the contact. His scent curled around her cellular membranes and rooted itself firmly in her mind forever.
His nostrils
flared, no doubt smelling her arousal.
She smirked up at him, waiting for him to kiss her.
But he only smirked back. He wasn’t even hard. And normally, just the smell of her desire drove unmated males into a frenzy.
She frowned.
“Don’t pout,” he said, still grinning. He was mocking her. “It’ll give you wrinkles.”
“I don’t pout, and I do not have wrinkles.” She threw her strength into ripping her hands away from his single-handed hold. She tried to bring a knee up to smash his stupid, stoic balls, but she hardly even moved. Huffing, she sagged back against the wall.
Her dress had ridden up her thighs, revealing a peak of the black lace underwear. If Tane noticed, he didn’t show it. The bastard.
“It looked like you were pouting.”
Abruptly, he released her. She stumbled and nearly fell into a puddle. Of course, Tane didn’t move to catch her. He would have let her fall into the scummy water and laughed.
Fire and acid sang in her blood. As a female Draqon, she couldn’t shift, not even partially, but she felt it. She felt her Draqon spitting and hissing fire inside her. Claws pressed up beneath her nails. She wanted to eviscerate this cocky asshole.
“We’re going to talk about Kladuu whether you want to or not. Commander Gideon’s forces attacked us. Blew the hive to pieces. Killed nearly thirty Draqons. Sparklings. Females. And he’s no doubt coming back. He’ll take the planet and pillage it for every relic he can find. There won’t be anything left. There won’t be any of us left.”
Tane rocked back on his heels and settled his hands into his coat pockets. “Sounds like a real pickle.”
Kinyi rubbed her aching wrists. She would have even more bruises now. “First of all, stop using stupid human phrases. It makes you sound like an inbred Hyla. Second, we need your help. What aren’t you getting about that? Zayd and your queen sent me here to find you—”
“I have no Queen.” His eyes sparked, threatening to turn completely black. “And I already told you that if you and your people knew what really happened that day, you wouldn’t want my help. There’s a reason no one knows the truth besides me. They’re all dead.”
Something slimy coiled in Kinyi’s belly. He was right. No one actually knew what had happened during that battle with the Arakids far out in the southern reach of the mountains where they bordered the vast desert lands. The fight’s remnants had been nothing but charred mountainside. There hadn’t even been bones to collect aside from a few castaway Arakid legs left to rot in the sun.
But the battle had ended the war with the Arakids. After that, they’d surrendered their claim on the southern mountains and retreated back to the desert. It had been a victory, even though so many mated pairs and warriors had been lost. The tale was that the White Horn had been the last one left, and he’d single-handedly taken on the vast Arakid army.
He was the reason the Arakids’ numbers were so low. Why they guarded their young like precious jewels. He’d almost wiped out an entire species on Kladuu. He’d ended the war.
But what if he hadn’t? The thought wormed into Kinyi’s mind, and she couldn’t shake it. What had really happened out there on that burnt mountain?
“You don’t need me,” Tane said, pulling her back to the present. He stepped back, watching her as if he knew where her thoughts had gone. “You don’t want me up there fighting. Trust me.”
He started to walk away, but Kinyi stepped in front of him, blocking the alley’s entrance. She was cornering a bull. “Is it your madness that scares you? Is that why you’re down here? You’re not the first. Males go mad. We deal with it—”
“Don’t,” he snarled. There was plenty of space between them, but Kinyi felt as if he’d reached out and grabbed her throat, cutting off her air with a single word. “Don’t speak to me like I left because I was simply afraid. I did not leave because I was weak or ashamed or scared. It’s easy for you to be righteous, but you’ve never felt your mind turn against you. Your body turn against you. You’ve never known true madness, and you never will, no matter how many times you see it happen to a male. There’s a reason they turn into shells of their former selves. There’s a good fucking reason, and I didn’t want that to be me. I left, Kinyi, and I’m not going back.”
He started toward her, and this time, she stepped aside, letting him pass. He walked out into the faint lighting of the street, his shoulders hunched beneath his jacket, his dark skin gleaming in the few rays of sunlight.
“They’re going to die,” Kinyi said quietly after him.
He paused but didn’t turn back.
“The humans will take everything, but before they do, they’ll have to kill us all, because Zayd won’t surrender. The Vilkas’ Alpha won’t surrender. The Katu won’t either. We’re ready to fight together. For the first time, we’re united as Kladians, and no one is willing to back down.”
He glanced back, his violet eyes finding hers.
She lifted a shoulder. “So, we’re all going to die.”
For a second, his eyes glimmered, and she knew he was thinking of home—his true home. She imagined he was transported back to the mountains and the cool air, the steam of the springs, and the laughter of the hive. Perhaps, deep inside him, he felt the residual hum of the others’ minds in his. Of course, she couldn’t know for sure, and in the next moment, he blinked the look away.
Her hope died with it.
“I can’t help you, Kinyi,” he said, turning back to the street. “Don’t follow me again. This is your last warning.”
Chapter Six
Tane
Kinyi’s words haunted Tane’s sleep. Even after he’d given up on resting, their echoes followed him around his small flat. They dogged his every step as he brutalized his body in a workout that left him drenched in sweat and blood, his hands torn, his knees raw. He showered beneath the pounding stream of icy water. Even when his leg muscles quivered so much he had to sit beneath the water flow, he still heard her words.
“So, we’re going to die.”
He’d heard her acceptance, and perhaps that was the worst part of all. That was the true phantom after him. It wasn’t just the promise of the words. Anybody could have said them and he couldn’t have cared less, even if he’d known they were about Kladuu. But hearing them from Kinyi, on her lips, with that fucking acceptance on her tongue, bothered him.
He’d known she would be a problem the moment he’d smelled her. Her scent was like the tangy, almost bitter citrus fruits he bought from the street vendors that always made his mouth raw. Most people used them to clean the grime from their windows because the acid in the fruit chewed right through it. But he ate them. He savored them. And he endured having a sore tongue for days, but he lived for the days when the vendors had them for sale.
He’d pay the price of pain over and over because they were fucking delicious.
Kinyi smelled just like them.
That evening, he went to work. The upstairs bar was already well into its night of business. The bartenders nodded to him as he passed, and the waitresses, with their short skirts and high breasts, gave him bright smiles. He’d never once dabbled in the well of waitresses. They were all too young and too damn hopeful. They saw him as a way out, a way up. If they could land him, they would be saved from working at a bar where metal hands wandered, the tips were small, and the work was hard.
But they still smiled, and he still nodded back because he couldn’t bring himself to be a complete asshole, which maybe strung them along in the cruelest way.
He made his way downstairs. The basement was clean and quiet. The cage’s metal fence gleamed, and the mat was as sanitary as it could get after the morning cleaning crew had scrubbed it within an inch of its haggard life. They could always buy a new one, but Tane liked the rust-colored stains, the rips and tears, the marks of age and wear. It added to the atmosphere, and Tane understood that mat well.
Some days, like today, he identified with that beaten-down feeli
ng all too easily.
Before he reached the back room’s door, it opened and Chance stepped out.
“Don’t you ever go home?” Tane asked.
Chance let out a soft snort. “Somebody has to do the work.”
“You gunning for my position?” Tane stopped in front of the young cyborg and crossed his arms over his chest. Back in the day when Chance had first started working at the club, they would spar. It was the only time Tane had come close to finding an opponent or a fight like what he’d had back on Kladuu.
“Every day,” Chance said with a smirk.
Tane laughed and walked around him. “Good to know.”
Chance called out, “You won’t like what you find back there.”
Tane groaned. “You’re fucking with me.”
“She was waiting outside when I got here.”
“She’s crazy,” Tane muttered.
“Maybe you should listen to whatever she has to say.”
He leveled a long look at his friend. “Why do you say that?”
Chance shrugged. “Seems important if she’s so persistent. Look.” He held out his hands. “I’ve never asked and you’ve never told, but we both know you’re not from around here. She’s not from around here either. If you have shit you need to take care of, then go take care of it. I can run this place until you get back.”
Tane’s mouth fell open slightly. He’d always thought he’d been good at hiding his secret, but Chance had seen through his act all along. But if the secret had to be out with someone, he was glad it was with this cyborg.
