by Cynthia Sax
He set his female on the sleeping support. She murmured, her words indecipherable, and she burrowed into the horizontal surface, her arms held in an awkward position.
She couldn’t leave the chambers. Access was denied to her. There was no reason to bind her.
Crash released her wrists. She didn’t wake. He pulled her boots off her tiny feet. She didn’t stir.
He gazed down at his female. The fabric of her flight suit twisted around her lush body. He removed that too, revealing her curves, her pale skin, her adorable freckles.
His female was beautiful. And dirty. Crash located a cleaning cloth and gently ran it over her form, caring for her in a way she’d never allow if she were awake. Her lips curled upward. His Safyre enjoyed his touching.
Crash tossed the cleaning cloth to the side.
Lines etched between her eyebrows. Did she miss the contact? He stripped off his body armor and his boots, hooked the tubes to his wrists, and climbed onto the sleeping support. She wiggled backward, pressing her ass into his hard groin, and he groaned, wrapping his arms around her.
It would be a long rest cycle.
Cyborgs didn’t require sleep, not like humans, and she felt so good, so right. Crash lay beside her, his form folded around hers, and he listened to her breathe. His face was cushioned by her thick orange hair, the softest substance he’d ever encountered. Her scent coiled around him.
She stirred once more. “Crash.”
She knew who held her. Joy filled his warrior soul. “My female.”
“Need you inside me. Don’t want to be alone.”
She would never be alone again. He slid one of his legs between hers, making space for him, aligned himself properly and pushed inside her. Frag. His eyes rolled back in his head. She was tight, wet, his. Their moans meshed as he sank deeper and deeper.
His base pressed against her folds and she sighed, her breasts lifting and falling. Her body relaxed against his and her breathing leveled.
His female had fallen back asleep.
Crash held her, content merely to be inside her, to have Safyre in his arms. She needed that connection, needed him. He pressed his body against hers, savoring her curves, her erotic clasp on him.
There was nowhere in the universe he’d rather be.
He would never let her go.
Chapter Seven
Safyre woke to Crash rocking against her, his thick cock sliding in and out of her pussy. He’d taken her twice during the rest cycle, was now fucking her a third time, appeasing his start of planet rotation need.
She should be outraged. Except when she’d regained consciousness, she’d been moving also, more aggressively than he’d been. Her nipples were taut and her body was wet. “More, more, more,” was coming from her lips.
She was taking advantage of him.
Her cyborg wasn’t protesting, his mouth hot against her left shoulder, his arms around her. They undulated against each other, the tempo slow, leisurely, almost loving.
She could love this male, if their lifespans were different, if she had a future. Safyre covered his hands with hers. He spread his fingers. Hers fell into the spaces, linking them together.
They were so different, female and male, human and cyborg, heart-led action and processor-dominated caution, yet they fit physically, emotionally, spiritually. He gave her the grounding, the stability she had always sought, caring enough to confine her, to keep her safe.
She would miss that when she left him.
In this moment, she would relish the pleasure he was giving her, the connection with her big male. He rutted into her harder and harder, his muscle unrelenting, his metal frame even more so. Her back and ass heated with the contact. Her musk hung heavy in the air.
His nanocybotics fizzed and popped over her skin and inside her body. They hadn’t faded, strengthening with each transfer, reproducing within her.
They gave her strength, energy, amplifying her arousal. She clutched his hands, moving them over her breasts, needing his palms on her nipples. The ache for him had to be appeased.
He squeezed and released, squeezed and released, working her curves to the same rhythm as his thrusts. The waves of bliss flowing over her synchronized, meshing, stripping her control.
“Crash. Crash,” she panted his name.
“My female.” He dragged his lips over her back, sucking on her skin, as he rutted against her, slamming his cock into her pussy, escalating her passion.
Safyre pushed back, meeting him midway, selfishly taking from him, using his body. Emotion wrapped around her chest. She huffed, her lungs tight.
“I need. I need.” Her brain was scorched. She couldn’t find the words.
“I know what you need, my Safyre.” He lowered one of his hands to her pussy, found her clit and rubbed.
She screamed, jerking, splintering into a thousand points of light. Her inner walls closed around his shaft, and he roared, driving fully into her.
Cum spurted from his tip, setting off another explosion within her, the intensity dazzling, temporary blinding her. She quivered and shook. He thrust once, twice more and shuddered, his chest vibrating against her spine.
The ecstasy faded. Safyre stared at the far wall, wondering how the fuck she could walk away from this. And she did have to walk away from him. She had to find Nymphia.
“I’ve never been with someone like you,” she confessed.
“A cyborg.” His deep voice layered over her, warm and comforting.
“It’s more than that.”
“Ahhh…” Crash rested his cheek against hers. “I’m your male, the being you were meant to breed with. I’m unlike any other.”
He sounded certain and she believed him. “I have to leave you.”
“No, you don’t.” He sighed. “But I understand why you have to try. You love your friend and would do anything to keep her safe. I’d do the same to protect you.” He paused. “I would kill for you.”
That wasn’t a declaration of love but it was significant. “Why don’t you like to kill?”
Silence stretched. Would he answer her question or was this yet another secret, like his plan to rescue Nymphia?
“I had a friend in the facility where I was manufactured.” He broke the quiet. “Endeavor had been positioned in the vat next to mine. I was closer to him than I was to any other being. We trained together. When I struggled at a task, he helped me. When he struggled, I helped him. We shared our thoughts, our dreams, our plans to escape.”
She said nothing. Her gut said his story didn’t have a happy ending.
“The last stage of our training required us to fight convicts, beings the Humanoid Alliance had condemned to death.” Crash delivered every word with a lack of emotion too controlled to be real. “Endeavor and I were battling ten humanoids. We were both showing off, trying to outdo the other. He made a misstep and was injured.” Crash swept his hands over her rounded stomach.
“He died from that wound,” she guessed.
“No. We’re cyborgs. His body would have repaired itself. The Humanoid Alliance, however, doesn’t accept mistakes. Only faultless warriors are sent to the front lines.”
Oh fuck. “Was he decommissioned?” Was he kept alive while he was sliced into pieces, harvested for parts?
“He would have been decommissioned if a council member hadn’t been visiting the facility that planet rotation. The trainer decided instead to show this human what cyborgs could do.” Crash shook with suppressed anger. “He pitted me against Endeavor, a battle to the death.”
They forced him to kill his best friend. She turned in his arms and gazed up at him. “You didn’t have a choice.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” He nodded. “If I had refused, I would have been deemed defective and decommissioned. They would have ordered another cyborg to fight Endeavor. That cyborg might not have been as skilled as I was. He might have inflicted more pain on my friend.”
“You ended his life quickly and the last face he saw was
yours.” She splayed her fingers over his chest. “He didn’t die alone.” She gazed at his gray skin. “That’s what worries me. That Nymphia could die alone, thinking herself unloved.”
“She won’t.” Crash kissed her forehead. “She knows you love her.”
“Endeavor knew you loved him.” She leaned against her cyborg. “You did what you had to do.”
“It changed me, how I viewed battle.” His voice turned bleak. “I’d fight the enemy and see my friend’s face. Every planet rotation, I’d kill him again and again.”
Safyre couldn’t imagine being forced to do that, to relive the most horrible experience of any being’s lifespan.
“You’re free.” She kissed his chest. “You don’t have to kill any more.”
“I vowed when I escaped the Humanoid Alliance that I’d never end another life. Killing is necessary to free my brethren.” He grimaced. “But I assign that task to cyborgs who enjoy it.”
“Like Gap.”
“Like Gap.” Crash dipped his head.
He cared for his friend as much as she cared for hers. “He’s obsessed with Nymphia.”
“He believes himself in love with her. I’ve given up trying to convince him that he’s not.” He shrugged. “It gives him some happiness.”
Crash and his cyborg brethren hadn’t had much happiness in their lifespans. Safyre looked up at him. They had been punished for the merest offenses, forced to end lives, killed for smiling.
“She might not return his love.” Her friend was more enthralled with babies than with males. “But she’s worthy of it. Nymphia is the sweetest, gentlest, most loving being I’ve ever known.”
“Her lifespan isn’t more important than yours.”
Only Crash would think that. “Fuck, warrior.” She softened those words with a smile. “You’ll make it difficult for me to leave you.”
“I’ll make it impossible.” He hugged her closer to him, surrounding her with muscle. “You won’t escape me, my female.”
She had to. Her friend was counting on her.
***
They snuggled for several more moments, cleansed their bodies, enjoying another bout of sex in that chamber, dressed and returned to the bridge.
There, Safyre chewed on a nutrition bar and watched Crash navigate, his back to her, his shoulders wide, his spine straight, his hair black. Even that much of him turned her on.
She should be thinking about escaping, not fucking. One of her ankles was bound to the chair. Her hands were free. Gap, Crash’s friend, chattered beside her about Nymphia. She could grab the young cyborg’s daggers and run.
But Crash would catch her before she reached the docking bay. If he didn’t and she reached that space, she no longer had a ship.
Those were excuses. She didn’t want to leave him. “Gap, at sunrise, you should have seen an emergency signal originating from Tau Ceti.”
“I did, Crash’s clever female.” An image of Tau Ceti filled the main viewscreen. “I’ve narrowed it to this area.”
A large circle appeared to the right. It was positioned outside of the settlement, in an uninhabited rural area. Nymphia must have thought she was safe. That could be why she’d slowed, leaving a space between her and the other volunteers. That gap had allowed the Humanoid Alliance forces to cut her off, to block her escape route.
“She’s close to the cyborg manufacturing facility.” Gap outlined the compound in gray. It was inside the settlement. “We could land here.” He placed a red dot between the two sites.
“We’re not landing on Tau Ceti.”
Safyre ignored Crash’s comment, studying Nymphia’s possible location. “That’s a big fuckin’ circle.” She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “There’s fighting in those tunnels. It’ll be dangerous.”
“Not for you.” Her cyborg’s voice was low, deep, and too damn arousing for her comfort. “You won’t be anywhere near those tunnels.”
She’d require help to search the area. Safyre glanced at Gap. She didn’t want to involve him but she doubted she could find Nymphia on her own.
“Next planet rotation, when my female sends the signal, we’ll be closer to the planet,” the young cyborg noted. “I’ll be able to locate her exact position.”
“Good.” Safyre relaxed. She’d wait until then to escape. If the area were small enough, she wouldn’t have to involve Gap. She’d put only herself in danger.
Her gaze returned to her cyborg. She didn’t want Crash to lose any more friends.
“You’re not locating her.” Crash read her thoughts.
“I am.” Gap assumed Crash was talking to him. “She’s my female. I must protect her.” His tone was touchingly grave. “It’s my duty.”
“Any female would be honored to have you protect her, whether she belongs to you or to another male.” Safyre boosted his ego while trying to douse his obsession with Nymphia.
“I’m young and handsome.” Gap’s ego needed no boosting. “My skill at killing is improving, has almost surpassed Crash’s.”
“Almost,” her equally arrogant cyborg pointed out.
“My Nymphia will love me.” Gap nodded. “I will have a female of my own. We’ll produce offspring. Neither of us will ever be alone again.”
The wistfulness in his voice pulled at her heart. Crash must want that also. She gazed at her cyborg’s shoulders. As she did. As any sane being would.
She hugged her body.
“Are you wearing my female’s scarf?” Gap leaned toward her.
“I won’t remove it until I see her.” Safyre rolled her sleeve up and held out her arm. “It’ll smell even less like her this planet rotation.” The scarf had been sanitized in the cleansing station also.
The young cyborg bent over the cloth and inhaled. “I smell her. She smells like how I imagined the Homeland would—like sunshine and warmth and forever.”
He talked about the Homeland, a planet ruled by cyborgs, a place they’d all dreamed of while they were captive. She’d never heard of such a planet. It was yet another one of their secrets.
A secret she now knew. Crash could never let her go, she realized. Her newly gained knowledge of cyborgs would put his entire species at risk. He had to restrict her freedom.
Was that the only reason he claimed her? He said she was his, whatever that meant, and he desired her but many males had done that. Those males hadn’t loved her.
Could cyborgs love? Did they have that capability?
She shouldn’t care, she reminded herself. She was escaping.
Safyre listened to Gap fantasize about the home he’d build for Nymphia, the names of their children, all of them more cyborg than human, the skills he would teach them. Many of these skills involved killing.
He dreams more than Nymphia does, she mused through the private transmission line. She liked having that connection with Crash.
Before we freed ourselves, that was all we could do, her cyborg replied. A multitude of voices talking over each other filled the line.
It was irritating as all fuck. Can they hear me?
No. The feed is relayed from another line more modern cyborgs use.
She listened. There are too many voices talking at once.
Humans can’t process multiple conversations? Crash sounded surprised.
No. Cyborgs could? Do you talk with others while you’re talking with me?
You are my priority, my female.
That wasn’t a no. Her lips twisted. She wanted all of his attention.
I’ll design swords. They’ll be beautifully engraved and perfectly balanced, able to slice through the enemy with no resistance, a male voice shared.
My female will have hair like fire and breasts larger than my hands and she’ll look at me as though she sees no other being, another voice said.
I’ll be first on the battlefield, lift my hands to the sky and feel the sun on my skin, knowing that I’m free, that I’m fighting because I wish to fight.
Their dreams were touchingly s
imple. Many of them involved fighting or females or offspring. The females your friends visualize bear a striking resemblance to myself, Nymphia or Tifara.
They’ve seen very few females.
That explained Gap’s obsession with her friend. But they haven’t seen Nymphia or Tifara.
Cyborgs share critical information.
He shared the images of her friends with his male buddies? My personal images aren’t critical information, asshole. She crossed her arms under her breasts. Those were private files.
You’re angry with me again. Crash stated the obvious.
I’m not happy. That was an understatement. You carry on multiple conversations while you’re talking with me and you share my secrets with all of your brethren.
I’m a cyborg, he replied as though that explained everything.
It didn’t.
“Gap,” Safyre interrupted the young cyborg’s unending flow of words. “I’ll give you some advice. What happens between you and Nymphia should stay between you and Nymphia. Unless” she waved her right index finger “she gives you permission to share that information with your cyborg buddies.”
His forehead furrowed. “Why wouldn’t she give me permission? I’d be sharing the information to protect her and to help all cyborgs.”
“When you talk with her,” she ignored his reply. “Only talk with her, not with hundreds of other beings. Give her your full fuckin’ attention.”
“I’m to shut down all of the transmission lines?” Gap stared at her. “How will I know if she is in danger, if the enemy is attacking?”
Crash laughed softly and Safyre gritted her teeth.
“I can’t believe my Nymphia would want that, Crash’s female.” The young cyborg rejected her advice. “She’s a logical, intelligent being.”
Crash laughed harder.
“Aargh.” She bent over and plucked at the bindings around her right ankle. “That’s it. I’m escaping.” Her restraints were secure, unable to be undone. “Give me your dagger.”
The doors opened behind her. “You can have my weapon, Crash’s female.” Death strode across the bridge. “We require entertainment and it’s amusing to watch the E model cyborg chase you.”
