by Lucas, Naomi
“Where are we headed, Captain?”
He pushed off the door frame. “Earth.”
She shuddered.
He strode to her and twirled a curl of her hair with his finger. “We have vaccines to deliver, remember?”
“Yes.” She glanced at the closed door of her old quarters. “I should dye my hair if we’re going back.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Half-breeds aren’t allowed on Earth.”
“Mine is.”
The smug assuredness of his eyes had her believing him. Still, even if she believed him, she wanted reassurance. Life had just begun to right itself, and she was still afraid that maybe it was all a dream, that she was going to wake and be back at Dimes.
“And the other Cyborgs?” she asked.
“Your records show you’re human, Alexa. No one has to know, especially them. Unless you tell them outright, they won’t immediately know.”
“They’ll know when they see my hair,” she deadpanned.
“They’ll assume you like the look. No Cyborg would ever willingly work with or for a Trentian, that’s what they’ll believe. You will be with me, under my protection. No male or female of my kind would go after you for that reason alone, despite what you are.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. And there’s more,” he said, changing the subject. “There’s a coder who might be able to…”
Her scalp pricked when his fingers tugged on her hair.
“To help you?” she offered for him when it looked like he wasn’t going to finish.
“I won’t hope,” his voice lowered. “Not again.”
Alexa squeezed his hand.
Though she feared going back to Earth, she knew if she stayed with him, she would have to go back to the humans’ home planet time and time again. It went with the job. She wanted to keep her job. She earned it. It paid well, and she really liked her captain.
But handing her life over to Hysterian was something she couldn’t do all at once. She was willing to build a life with him out in space, on this ship, but she needed the same from him.
She decided she wanted something in return. Pigeon made her happy. Hysterian had promised to forget that Pigeon helped her escape. Could he forgive Horace as well, and the others?
She coveted the precious moments that made her happy, and despite trying to keep away from her old crewmates, they’d made her happy.
She missed her family.
Hysterian was petting her hair when she asked for the gift. “I want the crew back. All of them, even Daniels, even Raul.”
His fingers stilled. “Why?”
“I miss them.” She didn’t know how to tell him how she felt. It was strange, and a little sad. This need to have them back, to have everything the way it was before she… Alexa swallowed.
“I killed Daniels.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Why?”
Hysterian watched her closely. “He was here under false pretenses and he threatened you.”
Alexa shuddered.
“Don’t kill any more of the crew,” she said. Hysterian had killed many people long before they had even met; she knew being with him that he would kill many more.
His eye twitched.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Raul may or may not be alive.”
She threw her hands up. “You killed Raul?”
He caught her hands in a vice-like grip. “No, but I may have touched him and left him to the whores on Libra.”
Alexa’s mouth went slack. “We have to go back! We have to make sure he’s okay…”
Darkness flooded Hysterian’s gaze. “He doesn’t deserve your worry.”
“Raul isn’t a bad man… He’s my—”
“Your fucking what, Alexa?”
“My friend.”
Thirty
They stopped at Libra and picked up Raul. Raul, shouting obscenities at seeing Hysterian was dragged aboard the Questor while Alexa watched aghast. She could have her friend, but only under Hysterian’s rules.
They were never to be alone unless they were working in the menagerie, and even still, Hysterian made sure to let Raul know he’d be watching his every move. Raul, in the middle of filing a complaint with the authorities about being attacked by Hysterian, dropped them when Hysterian paid off all the man’s debts.
Neither of them were entirely happy about the situation, especially Raul, who had become very aware of Hysterian and Alexa’s relationship. Still, he stayed.
The money was too good.
Horace was easier. As Hysterian’s second-in-command, Horace only needed to have a drink with Pigeon to be convinced to come back.
Alexa got her family. Hysterian made sure of it.
He would make sure of it…
In return, he not only won more of her trust, but also her happiness. She smiled more each day. And during the night shift, the morning shift, the evening shift, he relished in her, happy knowing she was here, on his ship and in his arms.
But he hadn’t been able to touch her.
Not in the way he needed to, that they both needed him to. He always wore his nanocloth covering now to protect Alexa when she forgot he was dangerous, when she was so desperate for affection and comfort that she touched him.
For a time, he wondered if she was addicted to him. But she never sought his bare skin, and so he refused to dwell on it.
With each passing moment, Hysterian’s need for her affection grew. She was the fantasy in his head that played out on loop, but with each play, his hands were upon her body. He would take her mouth and drink her down. He would feast on her flesh, slide his tongue over her curves, and spread her pale thighs.
He would kiss her there, lick her, stretch her with his tongue, and then he would secrete all over the lavatory shower unit, climaxing at the same time as the water burned off his flesh.
Sweetness bloomed from her, scenting the air, and it made him ravenous. Even if it was just in his mind.
It was all he thought about when he wasn’t lavishing her with gifts.
Clothes, jewels, stones, guns, fresh fruits, fresh coffee, and chocolate from every planet. The crew. Even Raul was a gift—one Hysterian hadn’t wanted to give.
But she wanted the one thing he craved as well: his touch, his kiss, untainted by poison. And it was the one thing he couldn’t give. They’d been lucky so far with her recoveries—she’d never gotten a full dose of him, thankfully—but if she ever did, she might not survive the third time.
He was adamant that would never happen, although Cyborgs could still make mistakes.
So as the weeks rolled on, and Earth remained billions of miles away, he’d begun to avoid her for fear that he’d lose her all over again.
Alexa’s smiles wavered when she realized what he was doing.
It had taken a lot longer to get to Earth than he originally planned…
Hysterian clenched his hands as a cybernetic doctor, and his team of coders, peeled off the skin on the back of his neck and plugged him directly into a supercomputer. A computer made specifically for the very task of correcting the hundreds of millions of codes in his systems. For the first time since his creation—as the cryoliquid pooled around him to keep him from overheating—his mind went blank.
The last thing he saw was Alexa the first day he met her.
He awoke three months later.
Disoriented, his systems surging to life, Hysterian slumped forward onto the ground as the liquid drained. He gasped as three months of information poured into him instantaneously. His fingers curled against the metal floor.
Naked, wet, and cold, he immediately thought he was secreting profusely—like he had when he’d awoke the first time, killing one scientist and putting another in a coma—but after a moment, sense returned and he wiped the cryoliquid off his face.
“You’re awake,” a voice he knew all too well said.
“No kidding,” Hysterian spat. “Where’s Alexa
?”
Nightheart grabbed his arm and helped him rise. “With the rest of your crew, housed in the EPED suites. How do you feel?”
Hysterian glanced at the doctors, scientists, and even the coders who’d helped build a supercomputer strong enough, fast enough to take on the webs of codes and DNA that made him who he was. Cypher was among them.
Of course he was.
Hysterian looked down at Nightheart’s hand on him.
Hysterian waited for his glands to open, to release poison he didn’t want to be released, but as the seconds passed, nothing happened.
“Hotter,” he demanded.
Nightheart heated his hand.
Hysterian’s glands remained closed.
It wasn’t until he forced them open that he secreted, and even then, what pooled from his body was anything but poisonous. It was as benign as water. Something his poison didn’t do unless it was out of range from him and out of his body for a length of time.
“Is it…”
Nightheart released him. “You tell me.”
Hysterian ordered his nanocells within him to change. They did. He opened and closed his hand, his body jittering with excitement.
Years he’d waited for this. Years he’d searched. No one had access to the resources Nightheart had, and Hysterian cursed himself for not approaching his brother sooner. Instead, he’d made the best and worst mistake of his life…
Alexa.
He was out the door and seeding into the EPED’s systems within the next moment. Voices called after him, but he outran them, heading straight for the one being in the universe worth waiting for. His body groaned, his joints springing, air breezed over his naked form, and he felt freedom.
Pure, perfect, delectable freedom.
He smelled her before he saw her. Entering the resident staff housing floor, gasps followed him as people and androids dodged out of the naked Cyborg’s path.
“Alexa,” he called.
She shot out of her room the second her name left his mouth.
She halted, staring at him, face etched with worry. He stalked toward her, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her back into the room.
It may have only been a blink since he’d last seen her, but a blink was more than enough for him to suffer.
Skin bare to all the universe, Hysterian laid her on the rumpled bed of her dorm and covered her with his body. She cried pretty little tears from seeing him as her fingers whispered sweetly over his damp skin. Starved, he gripped her hair and tugged her head back until their eyes met.
Her beautiful hair glinted teal from the light of his eyes.
He rubbed it between his fingers. It felt like heaven.
“You waited,” he said, making her aware how trapped she was now, his legs and elbows caging her body under his.
She could have run again while he was out, and it had taken a lot of coaxing on her part to convince him to turn off. Even though he’d pulled away from her for fear of hurting her again, he had needed her to reassure him again and again.
Because he’d kill every last being in the EPED building, Nightheart included, if he awoke and she wasn’t there. Alexa had laughed at the threat.
She had a lot left to learn about his kind.
“Of course I waited,” Alexa said.
Her hair shimmered, clear around his fingers. “You didn’t dye it.”
“You destroyed all the dye. Nightheart said it no longer exists anywhere. I hate you both,” she muttered playfully.
He didn’t actually care if she dyed it or not anymore, as long as she stayed right where she was. Hysterian manually shut down his systems, the ones that didn’t matter, and focused entirely on Alexa.
Her face softened as he took her in. He couldn’t look away. She was beautiful.
“Alexa…”
Her tongue peeked out to swipe her bottom lip.
His mouth watered.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
“Yes, princess,” he groaned and sank into her. Sensation erupted over him as her lips softened against his, opening to give him access to her body. A body he’d worship for the remainder of his days. A body that didn’t seek his touch out of addiction, a body that didn’t tremble in fear. Divine, refreshing like a cold drink of water slipping down a throat that had never experienced such pleasure, Alexa opened up for him.
Hysterian slipped his tongue in her and coaxed her ever further, mesmerized in the feel of her.
He ran hot. She ran cold. Together, they were perfect.
When she gasped, he rose up and undressed her, caressing the velvety curves of her body as he did, and when she was once again beneath him, as naked as he was, Hysterian spread her thighs like he’d done a million times in his head before.
Except this time, sensation pulsed through him, electrifying his senses.
He’d come the moment he saw her, his cock rigid as he ran through the EPED. He’d come again when he threw her over his shoulder and he’d brushed her flesh the first time. And he did it now as he opened her slick sex with his fingers.
Twitching, bulging, reverence consumed him as he leaned forward and licked her long and hard.
Alexa buckled, screaming his name. He covered her in his saliva, he gripped her knees, and he aimed at her exposed flesh each time he came.
He preferred it this way, watching his seed trickle over her skin. He rubbed it in and hardened when it didn’t affect her. It would never affect her.
Hours passed, and he was lost in the way Alexa’s body felt, drinking from her mouth, between her legs. And when his little half-breed got too hot, he fed her water from his mouth.
He enjoyed her for hours as a man, not as a Cyborg, nor a frog. Or any other fucking thing he was in his black soul. He savored her because at the edges of his mind he knew he didn’t fucking deserve her, or her forgiveness for what he’d done, or the pain he had caused her.
But he was ready to spend the rest of his life trying to earn her.
She thought she needed to earn forgiveness from him. It was incredulous. She had no idea what was in store once he convinced her who the real bad guy was between them. He was certain it wouldn’t take long. Raul would have an accident one of these days that he wouldn’t recover from…
A painful accident.
Alexa’s eyes hooded with pleasure, and Hysterian lined up his cock to her opening.
Her eyes widened. She clutched the bed, panting. “Finally?”
“Finally,” he rasped. “A child?”
A smile tugged at the corners of her swollen lips.
He shared her smile. If she wanted a family, he’d give her a real one.
She moaned sweetly as he pushed into her, spreading her where his fingers and tongue had just spent hours exploring. And still, she squirmed with a twitch of discomfort. It was sublime.
His mind exploded.
He came hard, roaring, terrifying her, filling her with his seed. Her and only her, forever. She writhed, her quivering sheath stealing his senses. Hysterian fucked her until her eyes rolled back into her head and her body was nothing but a mess of endless orgasms.
Until he was certain his seed took hold inside her. That it had trapped her egg as surely as he trapped Alexa beneath him. He connected to the nanocells in his seed, making her his completely.
Then he washed her hair, fed her, and worshipped every inch of her body.
Afterward, Hysterian put her to bed, and he held her flush to his chest while she slept.
He’d never been more content, not in all the years since he’d been brought into this world. He never imagined a heaven like the one he had lying against him.
Eternity without heaven to look forward to nearly destroyed him.
Alexa had come to kill him. Instead, she had given him the greatest gift.
A new life.
He sold years of his life to Nightheart for the chance to touch another without hurting them. If Hysterian had known what else he would find working for the EPED, he would
have sold those years long ago, he would give up everything for Alexa.
He held her tightly to him, allowing hope to swim through his soul. Content. Finally.
“I love you,” he whispered into the darkness.
“I love you too,” she responded.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Dark Hysteria, Cyborg Shifters book 8, the princess and the frog. If you liked the story or have a comment, please leave a review! I love reviews :)
If you’re excited and wondering when Cyborg Shifters book 9 is coming? Click here!
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Naomi Lucas
Turn the page for a sneak peek at Viper, Naga Brides Book 1… A sexy, dystopian SciFi romance with cunning alpha aliens who hunt down their human brides!
Viper (Naga Brides)
Long have we been alone.
Without brides, without females to warm us during the long nights. Without sweet mates.
But we see them, from afar, brides that could be ours. Kept away from us by walls and weapons. Females we long for greatly.
Obsessively.
Human females.
And the one with red hair? I want her. I saw her first. I will fight to the death for her.
She is MINE.
So, we’ll come together and make an exchange with their men that will benefit us all.
After that?
To the winner goes the spoils…
Let the hunt begin.
But the red-headed female is MINE.
Buy Now!
Turn the page for a preview of the first chapter!
Thirty-One
Chapter One
The Pact
Vruksha
“Our truce ends after they release the females,” I growl, peering at the males around me. The King Cobra’s mane flutters, the Boomslang nods. Others react; some don’t respond at all. I take their silence as agreement.
