It angled left and skirted a shallow but perfectly clear pool with a bottom of rounded stones. Ripples marred the surface. The scent of pure water washed away her worries, her shoulders relaxed, her hands uncurled. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been.
A low waterfall dabbled musically at the far end, creating the ripples, and the birds swooped low across the surface.
Swimming is allowed was written in white embedded on a gold plaque at the edge of the water. On three sides a high wall of slatted rough timber enclosed the pool. On the fourth side where she’d entered, the corner of a one-story building had been opened.
A tiny lizard skittered past and zipped up the drainpipe leading down the wall of the bedroom. Up above globular lights backlit the foliage of trees shielding this place from the sky. If stars showed, she couldn’t tell.
White glass sections had been slid back to reveal a bedroom decorated with white, bronze and silver accents. A square bed hugged the floor and was no more than knee high.
She was almost afraid to breathe and thus disturb the tranquility of this bedroom. Black birds flew across the white quilt in silhouette. This bedroom seemed designed to be both private and a part of the outside garden.
She could swim but had nothing to wear. Ember looked down at herself, grimaced.
The dirt of a week on board the Leaf under water usage restrictions enticed her to strip off her boots and her damaged tights and return to the edge of the pool. A pale gray stone ramp led into the water. She let the tights slip from her fingers and waded in. Under her bare feet were mildly rough undulations in the stone.
Chapter 9
They beckoned and Hoss strolled after the three cybermonks to a door at the back of the room. He ducked through. Beyond was a smaller square room where a flock of spherical red lanterns bobbed and floated below the ceiling. A slim, white rectangular table sliced the center of the room from left to right.
The monks sat on the floor along the opposite side of the table.
They were short. Hoss decided it was polite to sit rather than stare down at them.
No chairs were visible. No windows either. The walls had the subtle look of a field of gray grass rising from the floor with insects populating the lighter gray sky above. The floor’s white tiles were patterned like waves.
He folded his legs and assumed a cross-legged position, grasped his knees.
“Would you like some tea?” Lightnyng asked, voice sputtering with static. That interference had to be deliberate, as if he tried to be different.
“Tea?”
“It’s an Old-Earth beverage.”
Hoss nodded.
A red-and-black pot sat on the table with steam misting from the spout. A shallow but hands-width cup was before him and each monk. In the background a string instrument began to play quiet solitary notes. Ting tang tchungggg. Pling.
It was probably real music to someone.
His kind preferred music that involved drums, blood, and sex. If someone lost a limb, there lay perfection.
“Your tea.” Erroar poured it into the cup before Hoss then filled the other cups. “We only drink to be sociable.” His teeth met in a perfect zigzag.
Meaning, they didn’t swallow?
They waited for Hoss to drink then each pretended to sip at their tea.
It tasted faintly of meat, like a soup. But then how much would these AI intelligences know of tea? He recalled hearing of tea and it was normally made from the leaves of a plant.
“Good.” He smiled and raised the cup then sipped again. Time ebbed and flowed as they each sipped and smiled. Were they waiting for him to speak? He didn’t need to.
Finally he lowered the cup to the table and clasped his hands in his lap.
He was a patient half orc and could outwait most humanoids, though AI might be different.
Stryng bowed his head and placed both metal strutted hands flat on the table. “We have some sensitive information and we thought this might benefit not just you but your...companions.”
That pause in his words was odd. Did they think he’d believe them uncomfortable in telling him?
“Go on.”
“While your companion, Ember, was distracted by the power failure in her blade, we managed to invade the upper layers of information in her data specs.”
He straightened, shifted his butt. The floor seemed to be growing harder. “She will not be pleased.”
Stryng tilted his head, the strands of pseudo-hair slipping across and covering much of his smooth face. “If she finds out she will not be surprised that we tried. The trail of our invasion ends at surface level. The only data we obtained was to do with recent weeks, video stored, audio. No programs were compromised.”
Should he believe that? Trust them?
“Why are you telling me?”
“Ember...” Lightning’s golden eyes sparked with drifting stars. “Is troubled, as are you and Baz Rutland. Your pasts are all so very terrible.”
Sob, sob. Hoss shrugged.
Erroar sliced his teeth together to the sound of screeching metal then parted them. “We think we can help.”
“Oh?” They thought they knew his secrets? A desire to rip out their mechanical hearts and feed them to something, like Erroar’s mouth, surfaced.
How dare they.
Video...recent weeks? Wait. That meant.
He glowered from beneath his thick eyebrow ridge, felt the base of his head horns grow warm. The hairs on his cropped mane prickled. “You dared to copy the video of me and her?”
His much-loved patience threatened to burn to the ground leaving only ashes.
“We did.” Erroar seemed to sneer.
Shocked at the dark emotion he read in those interlocking teeth, Hoss blinked. Couldn’t be.
“The girl has a fetish for big cocks, according to her own words. According to her past, there is more than you. She delights in visiting clubs and looking at large humanoids. Mating even temporarily would be of psychological benefit to all of you. You really should do this again.”
Stryng added, “We are giving Baz a big sxsynthflesh cock so he too can make her happy.”
Whaaaat?
The monks fell silent. His brain did too. Shocked, he’d swear he could hear the ticking of something inside one of them, smell the soup they called tea, feel his own heart thudding at his chest.
Apart from that this room was eerily silent and scentless.
That was all? What they wanted to tell him?
He rose in one motion, bumping his head on a red lantern that’d floated too low. The thing burst on his horns and fluttered down in fragments of paper.
“I don’t do instructions, you fucking...bots!”
He should not have said that, should’ve simply left without words. His anger had overridden sense.
Fuck.
Still angry, he left them behind him, stomping from tea room to welcome hall and out the doors before he realized he had no idea where to go.
This was their city, their home, if AIs were into homes.
They certainly were into collecting orc and human porn.
She liked big cocks! Hah!
A guttural grumble began in his chest and he struggled to stop it tearing loose, becoming a roar.
Luckily a small, multi-legged bug-bot trotted up and distracted him. The friendly wave of its forelimbs made him grimace. He could squash it. Wanted to. No. At first he refused to follow and only watched it scamper away.
Hoss put both hands up and gripped the base of his horns, growled to let out some of his frustration. Frustration, no longer was it anger. How dare they presume he would seduce her on their say-so? How dare they. He was not a feral.
His breathing slowly calmed.
Wherever this bot went, she would surely be at the end of the journey.
His feet thuds made a rhythm for the thoughts plaguing his head.
He must tell her of their treachery. What they’d copied. It was his duty.
They’d
given Baz a big cock? Just so he’d appeal to Ember? It made his thoughts wrench about as he tried to understand how this could be. Wrong. It shouldn’t matter but it was so wrong.
If she was to be with any male, it would be him...he. Human language was pieces of shit. Orc anger and grammar were a poor mix.
Clearly Baz was...just...wrong for her.
He already knew she had a thing for big males, but he couldn’t take advantage of her vulnerability.
Even if...
Even if the memory of her before him, partly naked, pushing onto his cock, writhing as she came, her breasts heaving and sweaty...remained front and center in his brain all the long way to where he was led.
He could feel himself inside her.
* * * * *
The songbirds had grown courageous and flew closer to Ember than before. One with orange feathers landed on the far edge of the pool and eyed her a moment before dipping its beak into the pool and drinking delicately. She dared not disturb it and leaned back against the pool’s edge, delighting in the cool, cleansing feel of the water playing on her bare legs.
This was paradise.
“Definitely,” she said to herself.
After a while she allowed her eyelids to lower and she began to feel relaxed and warm, despite the cool water, to feel alive and throbbing with energy. Every breath swarmed with a background, muted excitement.
How odd. This wasn’t normal.
A scent pervaded the air and burgeoned, strengthening with the passing of the seconds. Yes. It was partly this that excited her.
She could smell him coming.
Chapter 10
The three cybermonks clustered around the table.
Erroar lifted the lid of the teapot and sniffed. He couldn’t smell very well. Stryng had those sensors. “Did we do this right? He didn’t seem to appreciate the tea.”
“It was from a recipe handed down from Old-Earth, though it was described in a poem.” Black specks sifted down through Lightnyng’s eyeballs, like miniscule black rain. “Do those work?”
“Poems? What does it matter?” Erroar clacked his teeth, grinned. “Oh I do I love my teeth.”
“We noticed,” the other two chorused.
“It probably doesn’t matter.” Lightnyng reached up and pulled down a floating lantern. His hands pressed on it from each side and his metal fingers popped through the red surface as he slowly crushed the globe. “The game is afoot. We have set the cat among the pigeons. I wonder how long it will be before the DNA-targeted aphrodisiac affects her. I expect things to get very interesting.”
“Chase and capture. Run and hide?” Erroar asked.
Lightnyng dropped the shredded lantern. “We can hope for this. Humanoids and orc are predators at heart. They love the chase. I misted the aphrodisiac into the air above her bed and in the pond. I see she has already immersed her body.”
“Yes. Soon there will be anarchy. Sex. Violence perhaps. All three are likely with a combination of humans, orcs, and cyborgs.” Erroar reached in and stirred the liquid in the pot with a metal finger. “This was songbird tea, yes?” He rattled on without waiting for an answer. “Was that a metaphor? I am wondering if this songbird tea was supposed to have them in it.”
He lifted his finger from the steaming liquid and peered at the sodden mess of feathers stuck to his finger.
“Perhaps not.” Lightnyng inclined his round head. “Poems are a mystery to me. Let us not forget to get the DSU from her. Whether she is dead at the end of this or not, there is a possibility she will destroy the data on it before we can harvest it.”
Erroar shook the wet feathers from his digit then gnashed his teeth. Tiny curled slivers of metal fell to the table. “If she does we should make tea from her.”
“Mmmm,” they all agreed. Their minds had synched for a few seconds, and they spoke as one being. “Another tea party would be nice.”
“We should have one to celebrate the results of the Prediction when this is over.” Stryng walked away and lifted his head. “Have you noticed? An anomaly in the library? A thing that shouldn’t be there? A thing that flies.”
The others only shook their heads, leaving Stryng puzzled. Normally they all received the same data. He pulled down one of his braids and made to suck on it, but he didn’t have a mouth. Instead he sniffed it then put it to his mesh ear. The plastic had a faint tangy scent.
“Perhaps I will get some teeth too.”
Erroar let out a low buzzing laugh, that sounded as if it had been dredged from the dark, jungle-moist chambers beneath the city of Verd. “You would like them.”
Chapter 11
Hoss walked through a gap in a wall.
There she stood, in the middle of a pond, half naked. A siren. A mermaid. Many planets had mythologies of female creatures that lured a male into water. In days of old, his kind might’ve eaten such a delicacy, bones and all. After fucking it.
Okay, she wasn’t half-naked, she had her tights off, nothing more.
In rut, it was more than enough for this mixed-breed orc.
He groaned at the sight of her gleaming wet thighs. His big cock surged, filled with blood and lust, and became much bigger. His heart almost stopped working. He thumped his chest, hard, just to make sure it kept going. The thud made her turn.
The pout of her red lips.
The swell of her breasts almost bursting from the confines of her top.
The way that little skirt brushed the water’s surface and reminded him of what lay beneath.
Mindful of how her mouth was at almost the right level for cramming it with his cock, Hoss ventured closer.
He swallowed when she heaved in a slow breath that left her mouth slightly open. He glimpsed tongue tip. Her gaze seemed to take forever to navigate from groin level to his face.
“Hello.”
There was a rasp in her voice. He’d clearly heard a rasp.
Damn the monks for putting memories of sex with her into his head.
He squatted beside the pool then on instinct reached out, open-handed. To his surprise she touched his hand and smiled, her fingers falling away at the edge of his palm. He stopped himself from grabbing her, just.
“Come on in. The water is beautiful.”
“Orcs and shags aren’t into water, Ember.”
“But you’re dirty aren’t you? I know I am...was.”
Oh the subtexts in those words.
“Ember...”
She wrapped her fingers over his thumb, proving again how small she was compared to him. Just seeing her holding him there, those little fingers, her implied femaleness next to his galumphing great maleness, it made his balls ache harder. Then she tugged at his thumb. Without taking his eyes off her, he leaned to the side, anchored his other hand on the ground, and slipped into the pool, boots, black camo suit, and all.
The water was a shock at first, though it barely splashed above his knees. With little hesitation he reached out and cradled her jaw, with a hand to each side, and he held her so as he bent to kiss her.
Softly. Gently. His lips barely pressing.
Though it was all he could do not to tear off clothes – his, hers, and fling them aside.
When her hands touched his hips, the low purr in his throat was new for him, as much a shock as the temperature of the water. He’d fucked a lot of women, but never purred. Shags did it, not orcs. It bewildered him.
When he ceased to kiss her, her eyes were wide and locked to his, yet...
She pulled away, took a small step back, sending the water swirling.
“Wait.” Hand palm-out, she cautioned him. “Is this me?”
What did that mean? Of course it was her. At the prospect of a potential mate escaping, his rut went into overdrive. Blood surged to his temples, his cock, his muscles, and he grabbed both shoulders to kiss her again, with force this time.
For a second, only a second, she struggled, and a squeak escaped her mouth before he covered it entirely. Her hand arrived on his cock and h
e felt her strive to pull down and strip away the camo suit. He undid the fastening one-handed while still kissing her, eating her mouth, consuming her.
The rut was bad. It fucked his brain, always did. Red-raw male desire. He would’ve fucked her anywhere, any way, any hole, if not for her apparent unwillingness. It helped him brake his lust, just a little.
Just...
Barely...
He broke the kiss again, curled his big hands around her waist.
“Hoss, I want to...”
Her scent magnified in his nostrils, overwhelming and fertile.
Seduction, who needed that? Growling, he stooped and grasped her neck with his teeth, careful not to tear her. Human female skin was delicate. Her hands wrapped over his horns where they merged with his scalp. When he lifted her higher, parted her thighs, and let his erect and freed cock push between her legs, her moans intensified.
His suspicion that she had no panties was proven correct. Her cunt felt slippery against his shaft. Her natural wetness had been partly washed away by the pool and he much preferred pure female cunt-juice.
He fake-fucked her a few times, not trying to get in, then swung himself and her in a one-eighty turn to place her on the pool’s edge, sitting with her feet dangling in the water. The damp skirt had rucked up, been caught between her bare ass and the stone on the pool’s rim.
Her pussy and slit were revealed.
Nothing wrong with savoring the sight, though his cock bobbed and ached some more. It wanted to plow in without so much as a please open up for me.
“Hoss?” Her hands tensed where they’d wrapped over the stone lip. Tensed, released.
The strained sound in her voice made him tear away his cuntward gaze and look at her face.
“Yes?” He cupped her breasts... “What is it?” He squeezed those full tits then nipped at the neckline with his teeth, dragging it past that point of no return where her breast simply had to pop out. Nuzzling her there should be next. Drool gathered in his mouth. “Yes?”
Steel (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 2) Page 5
