Resurrection Heart: Robotics Faction - Cyborg Mercenaries

by Clark, Wendy Lynn

  Logen tended the fire, snapping dried branches in half and adding them to the flames.

  Talia stood a quarter turn around the fire, in her usual guard position. Studded with weapons, her normal utility belt looped across her generous chest, knives sticking between her squeezable breasts, she was fully capable of covering them all from any danger.

  “Hey!” Iren waved at them. “Take a night off, you guys! The water’s fine.”

  Talia glanced at Logen. “Do you want to go swimming?”

  He jerked his thumb at the scars under his chest plate. “Nobody wants to see that.”

  She followed his gesture. Her gaze softened as though she were imagining his pectorals underneath his suit.

  The idea of her interest kindled a hot pulse of longing, immediately killed by the prison-issue stents, but spicy as a memory of a warm glow all over. Being around her was like pouring a glass of top-shelf whiskey and getting intoxicated imagining the taste.

  He sucked in a breath. Relaxing like this made him start to think things. Things that could never be, because of the stents, and because of his past, and because of who he was.

  “Besides, this is nice,” he said.

  “Nice?” She squatted down, poking the fire. “I guess. I don’t like the woods. Too many shadows.”

  “They scanned the area.”

  “Even so.”

  He wasn’t walking too far from his gun either. “Better than a shit-crusted city.”

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “My dad had a house on the beach.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “It was beautiful.” She drew a line in the ash. “I’m never going back.”

  Everyone knew she was counting the hours until she paid out. Not decades, like most mercenaries.

  “Sure you will.”

  “No, I mean...”

  He asked a question he knew he shouldn’t. One that crossed a line. “You fight with your dad?”

  “Not as much as I should have. I was a meek little girl.”

  He raised his brows.

  She pointed at him without looking. “Don’t laugh.”

  He lifted his palms in surrender. “People change.”

  “I met a guy at the beach house.” She talked fast, like she was about to lose her nerve. “He had a smooth tongue, a short temper, and a lot of friends. Before I knew it,” she put her hand in the shape of a gun, held it to her temple, and pretended to pull the trigger, “I was waking up in my first resurrection chamber, enlisted.”

  Blood beat in his ears. The stents worked furiously to sweep his emotions away, fast as it kept welling.

  He leaned forward. His long arms rested on his powerful knees, the standard uniform straining against his iron-hard, tensed muscles. “Give me his name and his location.”

  “He killed himself right after me, so it’s hard to say.”

  “Name, then.”

  “He liked long walks on the beach.”

  “Talia...”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t need anyone to fight this one for me, okay? I ever run into him again and I’ll kick his ass myself.”

  Everyone had their story of how they had been ejected from civilian life and woken up in the mercenaries. Mostly it was accidents. Starship collisions, environmental malfunctions, biohazards. In Logen’s case, stupidity.

  But nowhere could he justify a kind, smart, and prepared fighter like Talia losing her life to a lowlife asshole.

  “You never can know who to trust,” she said.

  The branch he had been intending to add to the fire splintered in his too-hard grip. The whole thing disintegrated, falling to chips between his boots.

  “Anyway, you’re about to pay out. Enjoy your freedom.” She rose to her feet again and swept her gaze across the glen. Her fingers curled around the shafts of well-loved blades. “Don’t fuck up and land in the mercenaries again.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “Trade you places, then.”

  “Okay.”

  She fixed on him. “You shouldn’t joke around.”

  “I’m not.”

  Hope dawned in her dark eyes as she understood his offer. For a brief moment, she was the young and innocent woman who had trusted too much and lost her future to the stupidity of a violent asshole.

  An asshole like him.

  No. He crushed that thought. He was different now.

  But then her hope faded and harsh reality settled like ash staining the night. “We can’t switch places. You’ve earned it. You’ve been smart and lucky and smart.”

  She had called him smart twice.

  “I have a good spotter.”

  Her brow lightened. “Flatterer. You double-checked my targets for years.”

  He was about to say something unwise about why he had done that, when Iren screamed.

  They both whipped to the waterfall, but he was only pointing at Daz, who successfully carried a multi-limbed aquapede back to the campfire. With comically exaggerated fright, Iren, still naked, ran to Vi and tried to jump in her arms. She dunked him under the water and half-drowned him.

  Logen’s shoulders relaxed.

  Hers did at the same time, and she released her grip on the gun in her hip holster.

  She shook her head, sharing his disbelief. “You’d think that guy never got off-planet before now.”

  He shrugged and faced the flames again. Maybe Iren had come from a restrictive planet. You never knew people’s backgrounds.

  Unless a person shared it. Like Talia had, just now, with him.

  She trusted him. Confided in him. Not anyone else. Him.

  Tingles ran up his spine.

  The stents squashed them.

  Daz chucked the aquapede on the fire. It sizzled and popped, and the others wandered over to watch the science experiment known as “barbecue.” Open fires weren’t exactly approved on an oxygen-rich spaceship, and wildlife wasn’t too common in outer space, either.

  Iren, wearing his pants again, claimed to have some knowledge of cooking, and flipped the carapace as it steamed.

  “It’s ready when its shell turns red.” He handed his forked branch to Daz. “Want the honor?”

  The medic set his feet and used his upper body strength to lift the steamed dinner up off the coals.

  The branch snapped. The aquapede fell into the hottest part of the fire and started to smoke.

  Everyone laughed and screamed and scrambled. Iren warned them it would become overcooked and inedible. The others scattered to all compass points to find something to get it out of the flames, leaving Talia and Logen again.

  Iren stuck his hand into the flames, then jerked away, rubbing his palm on his leg. He turned to Logen. “I’ll bet you can grab it and flip it out so fast you won’t even get burned.”

  Well, that was unlikely.

  “I’ll bet you.”

  They watched their dinner brown, then blacken.

  “I’ll bet you Talia’s shirt you can get it out,” he said.

  “Hey,” she snapped.

  “I’ll bet her shirt you don’t even get burned.”

  “You can’t bet my shirt.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the already shirtless Iren. “Bet your own damned shirt.”

  “Talia will kiss your burns and make them better.”

  “You kiss him,” she said.

  “He doesn’t care about my kiss.”

  Logen studied the flames, more to shut Iren up than to give in to the bet. The aquapede was heavy. It rested on coals. He would definitely burn something.

  “She’ll kiss you,” Iren told him again.

  Talia frowned at Iren.

  Logen looked at her, intending to reassure her that he wasn’t going to do it. But, instead of meeting his eyes, she reddened and looked away.

  His breath stuck in his throat.

  The crackle of the fire grew quiet and
the roar in his ears grew loud.

  She tightened her elbows against her body, and muttered something like, “He doesn’t care about my kiss either.”

  But that was lip reading, because he heard nothing.

  Logen stepped forward, plunged his hand directly into the flames, gripped the charred aquapede around its central carapace, and tossed it out.

  His hand turned white, then red. Pain screamed up his nerve endings, abruptly shut off by the stents. Only the pound of his heart, beating hard against his hard chest, still had sensation.

  Talia and Iren stared at the aquapede in amazement.

  A smile started to crack Iren’s face and he raised his fists in excitement, dancing over to check his prize.

  She snapped, “Dammit, Iren,” and moved to Logen. “Let me see your hand.”

  No pleasure remained from her indecision the instant before. She looked directly into Logen’s eyes and cussed him out for being a dumb-ass.

  All of the hairs singed off, and blisters were starting to rise on the palm and fingers.

  She delicately touched one. “Does it hurt?”

  Her touch was angelic. Like air. “No.”

  “You toasted your nerves. Medic!”

  Everyone came running back. The aquapede tasted like burnt tires, which Iren assured them was no fault of his cooking. Vi glared at the three of them and made Iren run laps. Daz treated Logen, bitching about using up supplies on stupidity.

  “Iren started it,” Talia said, eyes red. She was obviously tired and irritated by the whole thing.

  “Iren’s an idiot. Don’t let idiots goad you into becoming the same.”

  “Might be too late,” Logen said.

  “You’re a better man.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t fall into old habits just because we’re having a little holiday here.”

  He accepted his older brother’s lecture since it wasn’t the first time Logen had done something stupid because someone else goaded him into it. And it wasn’t the first time Daz had picked him up.

  “Be the better man.” He finished spraying the skin regeneration cream and wrapped Logen’s hand in second-skin bandages. “I’ll leave the scars as a warning.”

  “Oh, don’t be an ass,” Talia snapped. “What’s the point of leaving a scar?”

  “Like a string on his finger. A little reminder.”

  “Is that an approved medical opinion?”

  “What are you still doing here, Talia? Are you trading in your spotting oculars for a med pen now?”

  “I care about my gunner’s trigger finger, thank you very much. We’re not rationing the cream.”

  Not like one more scar would be noticeable. He already had a shit ton from the missions when they’d had no choice but to ration. Times when he’d happily take another scar in exchange for his life.

  Logen squeezed his brother’s shoulder with his good hand. “Thanks.”

  Daz looked at him with long-suffering concern. “Only four more weeks. We’ll pay out by the time this assignment ends. Don’t falter, okay?”

  He nodded, promising Daz not to falter. Not to get talked into anything stupid. Not to fuck up.

  Daz eyed the silver medallions on Logen’s temples. They symbolized the last terrible falter, when he had committed the unforgivable act that stripped his emotions and his ranks and forever locked him in Hazard Zero, dragging his brother down with him.

  Talia took Daz’s side. “Don’t do something stupid in your last four weeks.”

  “Yeah, like go off somewhere with Talia,” Iren said, as he jogged by.

  She rounded on him. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  Iren kept jogging.

  A sardonic glint entered Daz’s eyes as he took up the joke. “It means...”

  He trailed off and a strange expression came over his face. Whatever he was about to say, he didn’t say it.

  Good.

  Logen had stents now. So no emotions would cloud his judgment longer than the few seconds it took for them to activate and remove them, leaving him clear-headed again.

  His older brother packed up his medical supplies and rejoined the others at the fire.

  Talia lingered beside Logen at the edge of the water. “What he said.”

  He accepted her scolding with a smile.

  She poked his hard chest. “Seriously! Don’t let Iren talk you into anything stupid now.”

  He caught her finger in his good hand.

  She froze.

  But she didn’t pull away. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, and her gaze fixed on their linked hands. He maneuvered to slide their fingers together, palm-to-palm. Connected.

  She lifted her eyes as far as his chest. There, her embarrassment seemed to stick. Her dark eyes unfocused and her lips parted.

  Standing together, he could have stayed like that a hundred years. Close to her. Fingers intertwined. Wishes almost linked.

  But this was as close as she got.

  Logen didn’t fool himself. Even if she had been enticed by Iren’s idea, actually kissing a guy like him, with the evidence of his crimes on his face, right after telling her past, couldn’t put her in a romantic mood.

  He was the king of wishful thinking.

  Logen squeezed her fingers and let her go.

  She blinked.

  “Thanks.” For her concern, for her kindness, for letting him pretend. He meant it.

  She rubbed her thumb across her fingertips and didn’t reply.

  His combat boots made the lightest sound, graceful as a cybernetic soldier was forced to be, as he left.

  The others ranged around the fire, except for Iren, who was still running laps around the small grotto.

  Logen checked his gun on his thigh, and the angle of the moon against the stars, time and navigation—

  Talia ran up behind him.

  He turned to her.

  Her face burned red and she gasped for breath, despite only crossing a few short strides. Determination glowed in her eyes. That determination was one of the things he loved the most about her.

  She eased up to her tip-toes and cupped the back of his neck.

  He started to duck to her level. Had she spotted something only for his ears?

  She reoriented his face and her lips brushed his.

  The world stopped.

  Her lips felt soft and sweet and so good. Her breath smelled like vanilla, sweet and spicy. The moon suspended between them, a force of gravity pulling them together. Her lips on his. Her body soft against his chest, her breast pressed against his, her fingers insistent on the back of his neck. Her sweet beauty. He craved a deeper taste.

  The night heated to a hundred degrees. The flickers of yearning in her sweet fingers, so beautiful and so hungry, lit a match in his body. He wanted to trace her lips with his tongue, wanted to plunge into her mouth, wanted to mold her body to his, wanted to tangle his fist in her luscious dark hair.

  And then it was over, and she was steady on her feet again, her determination burning hot as her desire. “You don’t have to stick your hands into flames, okay? Just ask next time.”

  Her words struck his skull like a gong.

  A small smile curved her sweet lips. Accomplishment joined her determination. She nodded to herself, as though pleased she had overcome her resistance and done it, and she turned and stomped back to the bonfire.

  He walked more slowly.

  Denial remained. Had she kissed him and told him she might do it again?

  Yes.

  A slow unfurling of hope took root in the long-dormant soil of his chest and lifted a bright green sprout towards her unfailing light.

  His cock, silent and immobile all these many years, twitched.

  Impossible.

  But also undeniable. It twitched again.

  And then the feelings flooded in.

  For the first time since the stents went in, his emotions welled, hot and pulsing, and remained. Her
sexy body swayed in front of him, and his mind filled with her. Blood pulsed in his cock, fed by her delicious scent and the memory of her softness. As the heat grew, so did the piercing throb in his chest. Talia was beautiful. So beautiful. And she had kissed him. His pulse raced, faster and faster.

  He wanted to kiss those cheeks, and follow the blush down her neck to the place it met her delicate collar, and then he wanted to nibble kisses all the way down her body.

  The stents did nothing to stop his feelings. It was as if they had been shut off.

  He felt like a man again.

  His hand ghosted over his gun, his eyes swept the woods, his nose scented for danger, and she burned bright in the center of his world. Brighter than the bonfire. Brighter than the hottest star in the spattered night sky.

  He would guard her with his life until the end of time. Nothing bad would happen to her. She would pay out and get back her well-deserved freedom.

  He swore it.

  She was the most precious thing in the entire universe. He would guard her with his life.

  Chapter Three

  Talia knew Logen had stents. That’s why her kiss all those weeks ago hadn’t meant anything to him. The tall, broad, powerful gunner wasn’t interested in her romantically.

  Being around him filled her veins with gasoline.

  He was different from all the rest. She wanted to tickle him until he smiled. She wanted to lick his forbidden skin, trace those knotted scars to his masculine center, find the bulges under his plate armor, fill her palms with his massive pectorals and taut buttocks, and rub herself on every part of him. She wanted to claim him for her own. Her body slicked with hot, pounding readiness whenever he strayed too near.

  He couldn’t feel anything. Her hopeless crush could never be returned.

  That made him safe.

  Except something had changed. His stents had malfunctioned and he had killed her.

  Talia passed a fitful night in Medical. Every time she jerked awake, she had to face the truth all over again.

  Now it would be an additional fifty years before she could pay out and see her brother. The one who had ended her had been the one man she would have trusted with her life.

  She was a fool. A weak, stupid, helpless idiot.

  Talia slept attached to a monitor that set off an all-base alarm any time her heart stopped.