by Lucas, Naomi
He could study the layout of the mines and the footage taken of the bugs.
Hysterian turned away and went in the opposite direction.
Reviewing the ship’s feed in his head as he walked, his crew was all where he expected them to be. Horace and Daniels were sleeping in their bunks. Pigeon was in the lounge ahead of him—the smell of cheap coffee in the air—and Raul and Alexa were in the menagerie.
Except Raul was already up and at his desk, and Alexa was still in bed.
I want to see her.
He crept past the lounge and descended the stairs toward the laboratory. A soft, gasping moan pricked his ears.
Hysterian stiffened, listening. The moans built then slowed, followed by a rasping breath. It sounded like sex.
Alexa and Raul? Angry, he strode into the lab.
He half-expected to see Alexa bent over her desk and Raul atop her. Even though he knew she still slept. His fingers twitched to tear the image in his mind and beat Raul’s head against the wall until there was nothing left. For a microsecond, it was real.
Finding Raul jacking off to porn, was, to say the least, a fucking relief.
With his back turned to Hysterian, Raul had no idea that his captain stood behind him watching him yank his cock, itching to shatter his skull.
Hysterian tamped down his anger as Raul’s arm jerked. Disgust filled him for the second time that morning. It wasn’t because of what Raul was doing—so out in the open as he was—but that Hysterian had been doing the same thing not a few minutes prior.
That, and Alexa was mere yards away and could stumble upon Raul in the act.
That she shared a room with him.
Co-ed rooms—with locked privacy screens—had never mattered in the past, but now it pissed him off. A screen wasn’t enough. Alexa shouldn’t have to worry about her crewmate. Hysterian swallowed the need to throw Raul against the wall and punish him for being a disgusting creep and stalked to his and Alexa’s quarters.
Had they fucked?
He needed to know. It was his right to know. He was the captain, after all, and if his crew were fucking, it was good to be aware of it. That’s what Hysterian told himself as he neared the room. He and his brethren all had an annoying trait where they needed to know everything that was happening around them at all times. It was embedded in their codes.
Control. It was all about control. When dealing with animal DNA, control was precious, priceless, sanity.
But this wasn’t about control… This was about something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Annoyance? Envy?
Jealousy?
He couldn’t have his one female subordinate become pregnant on her first requisition cycle. At least not by Raul… And fuck, not with a cock as small as the one he saw in Raul’s hand.
Hysterian inhaled deeply, scenting the air.
He smelled Raul’s musk and the chemical aroma of the lab, but he needed to scent the room. His jaw ticked. He was going to throw Raul in the brig if Hysterian found out the man had fucked Alexa. The idea alone made him want to turn back and make his presence known.
He couldn’t smell sex.
That didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
Without Raul noticing, Hysterian opened the door to the quarters and walked in. The door slid silently shut behind him.
His eyes went straight to Alexa’s bunk and the privacy screen securely in place. Was she asleep? The cadence of her breathing and her heartbeat indicated she was.
Sex was the last thing he smelled in the small chamber. Alexa’s hair dye—and only her dye—filled his nose. The stuff was shit incarnate but so fucking welcome when the alternative could’ve been dried cum, sweat, and moldering arousal.
Raul gets to live another day.
Hysterian knew he should leave but stared hard at the privacy screen blocking Alexa from him.
In his mind, Alexa was two different entities. On one hand, he saw her as the frigid, quiet, subordinate that she presented to the world. With her hair tightly pulled back into a bun, no makeup, and wearing a uniform devoid of the merest wrinkle. If he didn’t know she was flesh and blood human, she would’ve passed as one of his kind.
A Cyborg. A damn good one.
On the other hand, her other entity, the one he’d glimpsed on occasion, was entirely different. I didn’t fucking hire this other one.
So why had he heard her voice in his head last night?
Hysterian glared at the privacy screen between them, willing it to dissolve into dust.
I like it when she calls me captain...
He reached down and squeezed his aching shaft, already feeling the pressure building again. Torturous pressure. Pressure he shouldn’t have to be dealing with because he’d spent half the night cycle draining his body.
I’m a Cyborg, and this is my fate?
Disgusted, he dropped his hand and turned away. He’d gone too far. It should be Raul throwing him across the room and bashing his head in. Hysterian was just about to slip out when he heard a moan.
He paused.
Bedding ruffled behind him, followed by the dreaded swish of a privacy panel being opened.
In a blink, he pivoted and pressed his hands on the other side of the privacy screen to stop it from opening farther.
Alexa sighed and pushed harder. He kept it in place.
“Oh, come on,” she grumbled.
Hysterian closed his eyes and cursed.
If she pops her head out, she’s going to see me. He had no explanation whatsoever to give her—or Raul—if Hysterian was discovered in their room. Alexa jerked at the screen again.
“Not today, please, not today,” she begged.
His brow furrowed.
Then she jerked the screen closed and Hysterian took the chance to hide. In a flash, he jumped up and into the unused bunk above Alexa’s, rolling to the back. He heard the screen opening back up below him just as he quickly closed his.
He did something he’d never done before. He fucking prayed. He prayed to every god and devil out there to be anywhere else in the universe than where he was right now.
Alexa moved out from her bunk with a mumble, and Hysterian’s body tensed as if readying for battle. He tempered his systems to keep quiet. He’d never hidden from anyone or anything in his long, mechanical life. The room’s private lavatory door opened, closed, and he slumped with relief. When the bathing unit turned on, he shoved the screen open.
Then Raul walked in.
Their eyes met.
Raul came to a halt. “Captain…?”
Hysterian calmly climbed from the bunk and straightened out his suit.
“Raul,” he responded.
Raul couldn’t look more confused or shocked to see him, but to Hysterian’s relief, having Raul find him was a lot less embarrassing than Alexa finding him.
“Umm… Can I do something for you? Do you need something? How did you…” Raul trailed off, his face going red. He glanced at the bunk Hysterian just climbed out of.
“Yes, you can. You can keep this between us,” Hysterian said. “In fact, I order you to keep this between us.”
“Yeah, of course. Wait. What am I keeping between us?” Raul’s eyes drifted back to Hysterian.
“That you saw me here at all.”
“Are you and Dear—”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
Hysterian wished he’d surrounded himself with a crew that didn’t give a fuck what anyone else was doing as long as they were doing their job.
But Raul stood in his way, and didn’t look keen on moving, so Hysterian had to give him some fucking answer to his question. And soon. Alexa wouldn’t be showering forever.
Showering…
Hysterian paused, adjusting his audio to listen to the spray of water through the wall. The water was cold. He’d used it all. He didn’t sense a temperature shift in the small room beyond.
He refused to imagine the soaking wet female under it… How
close he was to her. How cold she must be…
“Captain?” Raul stared at him with wrinkles deepening between his brows.
“I insist you keep this between us.” Hysterian shut Alexa and what was happening behind him from his mind. Wet, cold, or not. Her comfort wasn’t his problem. “I have a tendency to… wander when I’m seeded into the network. I don’t pretend it isn’t a problem, but it shouldn’t affect you or anyone else in my command,” he lied.
“You wandered into the empty bunk above Alexa’s?”
Hysterian glowered.
The bathing unit turned off.
“Yes.”
Raul’s lips twitched, and to Hysterian’s dismay, Raul smirked. “Riiight.”
“Get out of my way,” he ordered.
“If you’re not here for Alexa, are you here for me, Captain?” Raul crossed his arms, mischief in his eyes.
“Get out of my way, or you’ll be spending time in the brig.”
Raul stepped to the side, grinning now. “Yes, Captain.”
Furious, Hysterian stormed past him. Raul followed. Hysterian made it halfway across the room when his twat of a crew hand opened his mouth again. “So, Captain, if you’re not here for Alexa, you don’t mind me pursuing her?”
Hysterian was across the room in an instant with Raul pinned up against the male locust’s habitat. Murder. Hysterian was on the brink of committing murder.
Raul’s eyes bulged as Hysterian slid him up the glass by his neck. Raul grabbed Hysterian’s hand, struggling to get out of his grasp.
He kicked and squirmed, coughing.
Hysterian watched him struggle. Sputter, spittle, saliva, he enjoyed it all. Raul’s face went beet red, and when his kicks slowed, Hysterian dropped him.
Raul fell to the ground, clawing at his neck. Hysterian looked up and came face-to-face with the locust. Its four large arms thumped the glass.
Raul coughed and gasped in equal measure.
“I don’t give a fuck what you do with Dear. You can have her. But if you ever get in my way or question me again, you’re off this ship, and I don’t care if you have a way to get home. Are we clear?”
Raul nodded.
“Good. Now get the fuck up and clean yourself. I can smell your cum all over you. It’s stinking up the entire lab,” Hysterian spat. Without waiting for Raul to rise, Hysterian stormed out of the menagerie.
His tongue pushed at the inside of his lips.
His mouth twisted into a sneer.
What the fuck am I doing? How the hell had he ended up in this situation?
Alexa wasn’t for him. She ticked none of his boxes. And above all, she was his subordinate.
He wiped her from his head and vowed to keep her from it and his fantasies going forward. Because if he didn’t, and he didn’t find a better outlet soon, he was going to lose his mind, and someone was going to die.
Six
Alexa stared down at her coffee. The muddy brown liquid had cooled since she’d gotten it from the food replicator, but she couldn’t make herself get a fresh cup. Tension had sunk into her bones, and it worsened with each day.
Raul had barely looked at her over the last two days. She had emerged from their shared quarters to find him flushed, coughing, and rising from the ground by the locust’s enclosure.
“I think I’m getting sick,” he’d told her.
She had rushed toward him, thinking the locust had hurt him somehow. “You need to get to medical!”
She hadn’t wanted to get sick herself, but she also cared for her coworker’s wellbeing. If he’d been sick, she’d have to pick up the slack, and with all that had happened, she was already bogged down.
She hadn’t made any progress on getting closer to Hysterian. At least in the way that could gain her the information she needed to destroy him.
Twice now, she’d missed her opportunity to explore the bridge. Alexa kicked herself for not taking advantage of Daniels’s snooping and searching Hysterian’s chamber when she had the chance. Nothing had happened to Daniels afterward, so he’d gotten away with it. She felt like a failure.
She’d been in the same space with her enemy for a while now, and nothing had happened. In her mind, she’d always thought finding a way to hurt Hysterian would be easier.
“No,” Raul had grunted his reply. She’d tried to help him, but she could neither convince him to get checked out nor get him to talk to her further. Raul hadn’t looked her way since.
Something must have happened.
Raul being quiet was strange.
Alexa swirled her cup.
She missed the company. She can’t believe why. I don’t even like Raul. But now that she’d spent the last cycle in silence, she missed noise, missed the sound of a human voice, missed conversation. She glanced around the lounge, hating that even here, she was alone.
Pigeon was right. Space takes a toll.
There’s no noise, no life, out in space. The sounds of air pressure and steam vents were all she had to keep her company. Maybe she should play music in the menagerie during the day… Maybe music would help. Alexa thumbed her vitamin D pill before putting it in her mouth, swallowing it down with her cold coffee.
She was even braving running into Daniels for company. She wasn’t afraid of him—they hadn’t spoken since the incident—but she also didn’t want to rehash the threats. As for Hysterian, Alexa was certain he wouldn’t be wandering into the lounge.
She hadn’t encountered him either since he had returned with the vaccines. Their strange interaction replayed in her head often. The terror of almost being caught, the way he’d studied her, and the confusion she felt when his eyes glowed and his brow slickened with sweat. It had all happened so fast.
The whole encounter had been unusual.
His eyes… In all the years she chased Hysterian, she had never seen his eyes glow teal. He’d always had dark, glistening, malicious eyes in her imagination. She recalled one of the strippers she’d questioned outside Dimes mentioning his eyes…
‘They glow bright when he’s worked up.’
Alexa sighed. What had worked him up? She didn’t think she’d given herself away. My heart was pounding but that wouldn’t affect him. Would it?
Cyborgs were calculating beings. His eyes left her with questions she was afraid of answering. Raul said he was defective.
Alexa chewed on her bottom lip and then cursed for caring at all. If he was defective, that was good for her. She was more than willing to put the defective thing out of his misery.
Defective might make it easier for her to find a way to kill him.
But his eyes had been beautiful in that moment. So beautiful that she couldn’t stop thinking about them, and why they’d become that way. She wanted to see them again, and she hated it. When she dreamed last night, it had been about his eyes, and how mesmerizing they were, not the cold-blooded killing machine that needed to be unplugged.
She ran her hands over her hair. If only it was that easy!
At least it’s not hot. She couldn’t suffer being in a space bubble that was warm on top of everything else. Alexa gathered the loose strands of her hair and redid her bun.
“Morning,” Pigeon grunted as he walked into the lounge.
Alexa dropped her hands and sat up, excited to see Pigeon. Pigeon was her favorite. “Morning.”
He yawned and grabbed a cup of coffee, joining her. His presence brought her comfort.
“You getting used to this life yet?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He laughed, taking a sip. “Not convincing at all, Dear, but still good to hear. I’d be better off myself if Daniels and Horace didn’t snore all night long. You’d think they’re trying to power the damned ship at night.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Raul snores too.”
Pigeon peered at her over his cup. “You look like you could use better rest too?”
Idle talk. Any other day, Alexa would’ve shut it down or found a way out of it, but today
she welcomed it.
“I’m plenty rested,” she said. “The coffee is terrible, though.”
“Isn’t it? I call it barely drinkable scum. You’re lucky you’ve managed to get some rest. The transition can be brutal.”
“I guess so.” Alexa looked down at her drink.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just waking up.”
Pigeon set down his cup. She glanced up to find him scrutinizing her. Alexa stopped from shrinking away, afraid that he saw through her lies and to the secret she kept so close. That if he stared at her long enough, he’d see what she really was under her fake hair, fake…everything.
Suddenly, she wanted to tell him. She wanted to blurt out everything. She wanted someone else to share her burden. Alexa shook, stamping down her wants. She couldn’t afford to trust anyone, especially someone she barely knew. One small mishap and her life—her quest for vengeance—was on the line. Years and years of patience…over.
She’d also be putting Pigeon’s life at risk if she came clean. She couldn’t do that.
“You know you can come to me if something happens. I’m not like these young men. I’ve been there and done that, and found it tiresome. You remind me of my daughters.”
Alexa perked up. “You have daughters?”
“Three, in fact. They’re on Earth living their lives.” He waved his hand. “They’re grown now, have families of their own. My ex hates that I no longer have to pay child support. She hates it even more that I won’t return to Earth and be with them where I’m an easily accessible cash cow. I took crew work to pay for my children, and now it’s all I know.” Pigeon shrugged. “They’re better off without me.”
“How can you say that? Do you know?”
“I’m a geezer. I’d just be a burden to them.”
“I would kill to be with my father. If they want you home, you shouldn’t assume they’re lying.”
Pigeon’s face shuttered. “Is he gone? Your father?”
Alexa dropped her eyes to her cup again. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I lost my parents a long time ago, and I still miss them to this day.”
“It’s fine.” Alexa swirled her coffee some more. “I’m sorry for your loss as well. I miss mine too, though I never knew my mother.”
