Defying Death

by Cynthia Sax

  They looked at her.

  Sweat trickled down Tifara’s spine. These were the most important words of her lifespan. She had to get them right. The fate of the male she loved depended on it.

  “Cyborgs don’t get viruses?” Repeating Crash’s words gave her more time to think. “Then what is this?” Tifara made a circular motion with her right index finger, indicating the two of them. “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a virus. Safyre is the perfect genetic host for your nanocybotics, as I’m the perfect genetic host for Death’s nanocybotics.”

  “And?” That wasn’t enough to satisfy Crash.

  She gazed at the other males standing around them, males without females, males willing to die to protect their friend, to protect a being they cared about.

  “Other warriors could search multiple worlds for many human lifespans and never find their females,” she paraphrased Death. “It’s a big universe.”

  The cyborgs mumbled.

  “But it doesn’t have to be.” She appealed to them from her position on top of her cyborg. “What if we pinpointed the genetic anomaly that made a human female the perfect host for a warrior’s nanocybotics? We humans keep databases with that data.”

  “We could access those databases.” One of the J models stepped forward.

  “We could find our females quickly and protect them,” another cyborg added.

  “They might be in danger as we speak.”

  That possibility seemed to alarm the warriors. They were all as protective of females as her warrior was. Tifara cupped his cheek. He turned his head and pressed his lips against her palm, that open display of affection thrilling her.

  “Can you do that—pinpoint the genetic anomaly?” Crash frowned.

  “If anyone can, it would be Tifara.” Safyre grinned. “She wasn’t boasting…much. She truly is the best in the universe at that sort of thing.”

  “Death, I might have to deny that last request of yours.” Crash walked away, heading in the direction of a giant freighter. “I have to discuss this with the cyborg council.”

  “I’ll join you.” Safyre winked at Tifara and hurried to catch up with her cyborg. “I have a few things to say to those assholes myself.”

  “This neck is safe. For now.” Tifara kissed Death’s nape. She gazed at it. “Your cervical spine is made of the strongest metal in existence. How could he have cut through it with a blade?”

  Death said nothing.

  A wave of cold swept over her. “That’s why he had multiple swords.” Her voice rose. “He would have hacked at you until he severed your head from your torso and you would have felt everything.” She sprinkled his neck with fervent kisses, imagining his pain, his anguish. “I would have been dead, unable to protect you.”

  “You would have been alive,” Menace contributed. “The stubborn ass planned to toss you off his back. I was given the task of catching you.”

  “What?” Tifara yelled.

  Death turned his head and glared at Menace. The cyborg raised his hands and slowly backed away, taking Ada-971 with him.

  “Let me get one message through that metal-encased skull of yours.” Tifara rapped her knuckles against his stubborn head. “If you die, I die. I’d end my own lifespan before I lived without you.”

  He stood, taking her with him. “What about your destiny—to stop an outbreak?”

  Tifara swung around his body, needing to say this to his face. “That’s not my destiny.” She released his shoulders, trusting him to catch her. He did, his reflexes cyborg fast. “You’re my destiny, Death.” She cupped his cheeks. “You’re my fate.”

  “You’re my everything.” His voice was sinfully deep. “They will reprimand me, female. They have to.”

  “They will reprimand us.” She stroked her thumbs over his skin. “We’re in this together.”

  Death walked with her toward a huge white boulder. “I won’t allow them to damage you.”

  “And I won’t allow them to damage you.” She’d fight for him, kill for him, if that was necessary. “I doubt they’ll take such extreme action.” She wasn’t confident about that. They had planned to execute one of their own. “They need our help to locate females for their warriors.”

  “And for themselves. None of the council members have females.” Death sat, placing her on his lap.

  Cyborgs watched them. She saw wistfulness and envy in their expressions. They all wanted what Death had—a female to love and care for.

  “If you help them locate more females, the virus you’re trying to stop will spread.” He nipped at her right earlobe with lip-covered teeth.

  She smiled. “It’s a love virus, the best kind.”

  He grunted.

  They sat on the rock and waited to hear their fate. She talked about the next steps in their study of cyborg-human genetics, sharing some of her more extreme theories. Death listened as he always did.

  His tension didn’t ease, his muscles like stone against her, flexed, ready to respond to any threat. The cyborg council was the primary source of the danger.

  Finally, Crash walked toward them, his hand in Safyre’s. Both of them looked solemn.

  “That’s not good.” Tifara worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

  Death pulled her closer to him.

  The other cyborgs gathered around the boulder, forcing Crash and Safyre to stop strides away from them. The males’ unspoken message was clear—they would fight to protect her, to protect Death.

  “The cyborg council offers you the choice of death or a lifespan in incarceration.” Crash’s voice was flat. “You’ll be restricted to a small, heavily guarded compound on the Homeland.”

  “With my female?” Death asked.

  “With your female,” Crash confirmed. “The two of you would share this reprimand. Humans are not normally allowed on Homeland. But the council would make an exception for your female as her movements would be severely limited and constantly monitored.”

  “The fuckers won’t allow you to leave the planet.” Safyre had a low tolerance for authority. “You wouldn’t ever fly.” That, for Tifara’s pilot friend, was a fate worse than death. “You’d be stuck on the fuckin’ surface.”

  Tifara wasn’t as concerned about that. Being restricted to a compound on a planet wasn’t very different from being restricted to the medical bay of a battle station.

  “No being would damage my female?” Death remained focused on her safety.

  “Not physically.” Safyre’s orange hair waved. “Emotionally, she’d be trapped, her wings clipped.”

  Crash cast her a speaking glance before returning his attention to Death. “No being would ever damage your female. We require her skill to find the genetic anomaly. She’ll have the most advanced equipment we can steal, every resource we can give her.”

  “Except her freedom,” Safyre muttered.

  Tifara had never truly had autonomy. Her entire lifespan had been dedicated to science, to her patients, to preparing for the next outbreak.

  But her cyborg might view the situation differently.

  “You have a choice—lose your freedom or lose your lives,” Crash bluntly stated. “That’s the best we could do.”

  Tifara gazed at her beloved male. “You’d never kill again.”

  “The most intelligent female I know, a female I respect and love, vowed to find me a new less bloody destiny.” Death’s lips curled into a small smile. “You’d be safe. You’d never lose another patient. At least once a rotation, you’d suck my cock.”

  “That’s too much fuckin’ information,” Safyre muttered.

  “We’d breed between testing your theories. I’d spend every moment with you.” He tapped the tip of her nose and she blinked. “I’d be happy.”

  Her heart melted. “Would you be happy?”

  “I would, my female.” His smile spread, his joy transferring his entire face, crinkling the skin around his dark eyes, creasing lines around his mouth. “We choose to lose our freedom.”

>   “Fuck me.” Safyre’s eyes widened. “I didn’t see that happening.”

  “I did.” Tifara laughed. “It was our destiny.”

  Death captured her face with his big palms and kissed her soundly, communicating the way he did best—with passion-fueled action, not words.

  Epilogue

  Twenty planet rotations later, Death sat half a chamber away from his female and watched her chatter with her friend, Safyre. The two females had laughed and cried and laughed some more, their range of emotions, openly expressed, fascinating him.

  He could gaze at Tifara all planet rotation, part of him still unable to believe that she was his, that he lived, would spend a lifespan with her.

  Crash, sitting beside him, stared at his own female with the same intensity. Safyre pointedly ignored him. Tifara cast the E model a hard glance and slid her hands downward, searching for pockets she no longer had.

  “If you find a medic jacket on a mission, bring it back to Homeland with you,” Death instructed. There were no medic jackets on the freighter.

  “When I do that, will she stop looking at me like I killed a being?” Crash grumbled.

  Tifara had no issues with killers. Death was a killer and she loved him. It was whom the warrior had planned to kill that had upset her. “She’s protective of me,” Death said smugly, making no attempt to hide his joy.

  “She’s like my Safyre that way.” The warrior’s tone was rueful. “If some being had considered executing me, that would be no seeking of forgiveness. She would have killed that male.”

  Death’s softhearted female wasn’t a killer, though she had inflicted damage to safeguard him. “You were following orders.”

  “Neither of them sees it that way.”

  Their females were human and non-military. They hadn’t been designed to be loyal, to obey commands. Death could count on one hand how many times his Tifara had followed his instructions.

  Crash’s female was more independent, openly rebelling against the E model. She would have chosen death over incarceration.

  Some of Death’s brethren would have done the same. They had waited their lifespans to be free, to be able to make their own decisions, to follow their own orders, and they wouldn’t have relinquished that liberty.

  They were fools.

  The compound Death and Tifara would be assigned to, Crash had relayed, was one of the most secure locations in the universe, guarded by cyborgs, on a planet inhabited only by his brethren, in a sector controlled by the warriors. They couldn’t leave but the enemy couldn’t reach them either.

  They would be safe and he’d have more moments with her. Death gazed down at Tifara’s nodding head, admiring the way her curls bounced against her shoulders. He’d be there to ensure she was cared for, protected, loved.

  If they were fortunate, they might create offspring.

  All of the offspring created thus far had been male, but that didn’t stop Death from envisioning a female offspring with her mother’s coloring and constant chatter. He would safeguard that tiny being also, holding her chubby fingers carefully in his, ensuring she never knew fear or pain.

  His lifespan would be filled with smiles and laughter, happiness and love.

  He rumbled with contentment.

  Tifara turned her head. Their eyes met. He allowed all his caring, all his passion to show.

  She gave him a cock-hardening smile, hugged Safyre one more time and hurried toward him. Her flight suit pulled tight across her thighs and breasts.

  “Death.” Her gaze flicked to Crash. “Safyre’s male.”

  The E model’s lips flattened. “Death’s female.”

  Death smothered a laugh. The warrior didn’t like being addressed as females were, by relationship, not by name, but Tifara hadn’t been the originator of that idea. Safyre was the female creating trouble.

  Death’s female saved her big brain for medical research and pleasing her male. “Come.” He swung her into his arms, enjoying the feel of her. “I have to scan you.”

  “Using the modified private viewscreen?” Her eyes glowed.

  “No.” He’d use his tongue, scanning every part of his female. Death carried her into the hallway, the doors opening and closing around them.

  Warriors lingered in the narrow space, the freighter filled to capacity. They gazed at him with envy and flung jibes at him through the transmission lines, offering to carry his female for him, volunteering their services if he was unable to please her.

  That foolishness didn’t concern Death. None of them would dare to approach his Tifara. They’d seen how he’d been willing to die for her. If they touched her, he’d kill them and not process twice.

  “I can walk.” She kicked out her feet, her right boot almost connecting with a J model’s head. “I’m not helpless.”

  Death grunted. He liked carrying her and she liked being carried. It freed her brain for other things.

  “Safyre, Nymphia, and I were all compatible with cyborgs.” Tifara’s lips drooped as they always did when she thought of the friend she had lost. “There were thousands of orphans yet we were drawn to each other. Could it be possible that we somehow sensed our common genetic anomalies?”

  Cyborgs had been trained not to question, but to obey. His female, in contrast, questioned everything. Death entered their sleeping chambers with her. He’d protect her right to do that.

  Their chamber was the smallest sleeping space upon the freighter and it doubled as a laboratory, devices strewn over every horizontal surface, but it was theirs exclusively. Others had to share accommodations.

  The sleeping support was covered with pieces of private viewscreens. Death couldn’t wait. He stripped his female bare, discarding her flight suit, her boots, and propped her against the wall.

  “What are you doing?” His Tifara left her science stupor.

  Death didn’t answer. She was an intelligent female. She knew what he was doing, her musk heavy in the air. He removed his not-yet-repaired body armor, freeing his hard cock.

  “You said you’d scan me.” She placed her soft hands on his chest and he shuddered, her touch felt down to his balls. “I should—”

  He covered her lips with his, swallowing her sure-to-be lengthy list of shoulds. She moaned, letting him into her warmth. Their tongues caressed, stroked, stimulated. Nanocybotics fizzed.

  Her mouth continued to move, sounds coming from her throat. His lips curled upward. She was talking while they kissed.

  If his female could do that, he wasn’t seducing her vigorously enough. Death rubbed his shaft over her mons, his chest over her breasts. She wrapped her legs around his waist, offering him the wetness of her pussy lips.

  He rumbled his acceptance, running his shaft along her warmth, angling his sensual attack so his rim teased her clit. She gasped in his mouth and trembled. Death grinned. She sucked on his tongue, drawing him deeper into her.

  They played, kissing, brushing against each other. His little female trusted him to hold her, to not allow her to fall, her confidence in his abilities warming his heart.

  He was a powerful warrior, the chosen leader of the J models, yet with her, he felt even more formidable, invincible, as though he could battle the rest of the universe and win.

  And he felt loved. Caring shone from her big brown eyes, warmed by passion.

  Death bred without entry against her, coaxing her desire higher, his lips sealed over hers, their breaths shared, one. Her breasts were soft, her nipples tight. Her scent swirled around him.

  Each encounter with her was a miracle, as mystical as stories of stars collecting spirits. He’d thought when he faced Crash that he wouldn’t have another breeding session with Tifara, never hold her again. He’d never been so happy to be wrong.

  Frag. He had to be inside her. Death pulled back, prodding, searching for her tight pussy hole. Finding it, he slid his tip inside her and gritted his teeth, her embrace on him delectably snug. He pushed deeper, moving slowly, relishing how her warmth swept up h
is shaft, the exquisite squeeze along his length.

  “So good,” Tifara murmured encouragement, clinging to his shoulders. “So thick and hard. I’m full, Death, full of you.”

  He buried himself up to his base and waited for her to adjust to his invasion, mouthing over her forehead, cheeks, lips and chin, covering her beautiful face with his nanocybotics. Her skin turned pink. Her eyes glowed.

  “We’re made for each other.” Her husky voice rasped along his skin. “Genetically. Physically. Intellectually. Emotionally. You’re my perfect male.”

  “I’m a killer.” He rocked against her, trapping her against the hard wall and his harder body, shielding her from any possible attack. The enemy would have to go through him to get to her and he was a cyborg, built for battle.

  “I’m a medic.” She smiled, her lips plumped from his kisses. “I’m female and you’re male. I’m human and you’re cyborg. I live in my brain and you’re a being of action.”

  She was yielding curves and he was unrelenting muscle. “We’re different.”

  “And that’s what makes us perfect for each other.” She nudged his chin with her head. “We seek what we genetically need to improve.”

  The big brain of hers continued to function. Death increased his pace, drawing more wet heat from her core, more passion from his female.

  They bred against the wall and his entire universe revolved around his Tifara. She was his everything, the reason he was alive, the reason he was manufactured.

  “Yes. Oh. Death. Yes.” Her sentences became single words, her thought processes shutting down. She carved her fingernails into his shoulders, bounced her heels against his ass. “Good. This. Good.”

  He lowered his head and pounded into her, knowing she could take it, that her full figure was built for his breeding, that she was designed for him in all ways. She was the female he was meant to claim, to cherish, to love.

  Her ass smacked against the wall. Their hips clicked together. His chest flattened her breasts. She called out one-word instructions. “Harder. Faster. Lower. Yes. Death. Yes.”

  The entire freighter would know he owned her and she owned him. Death grinned, his joy unfettered, as wild and free as their breeding.