Dark Warlord (Refuge Book 5)
Page 6
Genine shook her head. They had learned nothing during their adventure. She would have to guard them closely.
They would have to guard them closely. She gazed up at Batu. “You have made me the happiest female in the universe also.”
Her Warlord’s lips lifted into one of his rare smiles. “We are home, gerel.”
The clone females cheered.
Epilogue
Three hundred and twenty-one planet rotations later, Batu’s place in the clone community was established. He and his gerel were responsible for protecting the small settlement and accompanying residents on their excursions outside its boundaries.
His free time was utilized hunting, challenging his mate to skills competitions, rutting. He had nourishment and beverage, sport and purpose, passion and love.
Batu’s lifespan was all a Chamele Warlord could ask for and more.
This planet rotation, like many others before it, he trained a group of clone girls while Genine, sitting cross-legged on a nearby boulder, watched.
“Raise your swords,” he instructed.
Wood smacked against skin as the mock weapons were raised. The girls giggled, teasing each other, their chatter nonstop, their little bodies wiggling with excitement.
That excitement had nothing to do with their training. Batu stifled a sigh. A cloning ceremony was occurring this planet rotation and all of them were focused on the next generation.
“Pair up with another fighter and practice attacking and defending.” He walked toward his female. “When the elders call you, you are dismissed.”
“I cancelled training on the planet rotation of the last cloning ceremony also.” Genine smiled at him, the admiration in her eyes easing his frustration. “Their minds are on babies, not on learning to defend themselves.”
“Their minds should always be on defending themselves.” They would protect the girls when they could but they weren’t always with them.
“Is your mind always on defending yourself?” Genine jumped off the boulder, her boot heels ringing against the compacted sand.
“Always.” His cock hardened. They would mock fight and then they would rut.
Once they found a private place.
The clone elders had expressed their disapproval of anything more carnal than hand-holding in public. Rutting wasn’t part of their culture.
They didn’t know what they were missing. Batu’s gaze followed his gerel.
“We’ll test your theory.” She retrieved something from the boulder. “And we’ll test this.” She donned a black leather hand covering. There were long thin blades protruding from its fingers.
She wanted to be like him. Vastly amused, he resisted the urge to kiss his adorable mate.
“Your pseudo claws won’t assist you, my little human warrior.” He deliberately taunted her. “You’ll never defeat me.”
“Oh, I think I will.” Her smile was smug. “You’ll surrender before this battle is over.”
He laughed, entertained by his gerel. “That will never happen.” He would defeat her and then take his reward, ravishing her until her screams of pleasure faded her voice.
Batu extended the claws on only one of his hands. He’d keep the battle even, give her a chance.
His gerel attacked. He caught her constructed claws with his. Metal clinked against reinforced keratin. One of her blades snapped off, falling to the ground.
“Shit.” She backed away from him, gazing at her hand covering as though it had betrayed her. “I have to find a better way to attach the blades.”
“Your contraption will never work.” No manufactured claws could ever equal his. Batu waved his natural weapons, the sun’s rays glinting off their deadly tips.
“It has to work.” She attacked again.
He easily defended himself. Another blade snapped off. “Why does it have to work?”
“If it doesn’t work…” she attempted to push him back with her three remaining claws, “…training our child will be solely your responsibility.”
“What?” Batu froze in place, unable to trust his hearing.
“I refuse to be excluded from the process.” His gerel, not noticing he had paused the battle, stabbed his palm with her finger blades.
Pain coursed through him, sharp and intense. “Stop fighting for a moment.”
“I was expecting you to defend yourself.” Genine tugged on her pseudo claws, trying to extract them from his flesh. They snapped off. “You had time to do that. Do you want to hurt yourself?”
“I want you to repeat what you said.” Batu pulled the blades, one by one, out of his palm. The hurt was minor compared to past wounds.
“I was expecting you to defend yourself.” She yanked the hand covering off her fingers, her expression disgusted. Her contraption had failed her, as he’d predicted.
“That’s not the sentence I want to hear.” He licked the blood off his palm. The nanohumanics in his saliva would hasten his healing. “And you know that.”
“I refuse to be excluded from the process.” She reached for the daggers strapped to her hips.
“The battle is over. You’ve won.” Batu, for the first time in his long lifespan, no longer cared about being victorious. “Repeat the line before that one.”
“You heard it correctly.” Genine played with her daggers’ hilts.
Every part of him hoped he had heard it correctly. “I want to hear it again.” He gazed at her beautiful face, needing to hear the words from her lips.
“If it doesn’t work, training our child will be solely your responsibility.” His gerel’s gaze held his, her eyes soft with emotion. “We’re having a child, Batu.”
They were having a child. He stared at her. “You’re certain?”
She nodded. “I’m certain.”
“You’re certain.” Batu swayed as though struck. “We’re having a child.” He would have a gerel and a little warrior to protect. “We’re having a child.” He tilted his head back and yelled that wondrous news to the sky.
The girls stopped fighting and turned to face them, their eyes wide.
Batu ignored them. He rushed toward his gerel and lifted her off the sand, burrowing his face into the curve where her neck met her shoulder.
“We’re having a child.” His happiness threatened to overwhelm him, his chest swelling until it almost exploded. “We’re having a child.”
Batu swung her around, repeating that sentence, unable to construct another thought. He had once been alone, had nothing to live for, no one to safeguard, and now he had a family, a future, love.
“I won this battle.” Genine threaded her fingers through his hair, a smile in her voice. “You surrendered.”
“You won every battle.” He carried her toward their domicile. “Because every battle I’ve ever fought was for you. I merely didn’t know it at the time.”
“You know that now.” She kissed his forehead.
“I feel it in my heart.” The joy his gerel had given him lit up the darkest corners of his soul. “I love you, warrior female.”
“I love you, Warlord.” Genine smiled down at him.
Batu smiled back at her. He had won many battles but his mate was his most valued prize. He would cherish her forever.
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Other Books by Cynthia Sax
Refuge Series
Dark Thoughts
Dark Flight
Dark Strength
Dark Fire
Cyborg Sizzle Series
Rel
easing Rage
Breathing Vapor
Being Green
Crash And Burn
Defying Death
Chasing Mayhem
Jumping Barrel
Hers To Command
Ghost of a Machine
Seeking Vector
Knowing Zip
Taking Vengeance
Releasing Rage - Excerpt
Kralj, the hero of Dark Thoughts, appears briefly in the Cyborg Sizzle series. Here is an excerpt from Releasing Rage, the first story in that series.
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Joan pressed her hands against the exterior wall panel of his chambers. The thick metal door slid open. She stepped into the firewall square. The door behind her closed and she authorized the interior door to open.
A buzz swept over her. No, not simply over her. Into her. She gasped, her inhalation of air drawing more of this unknown presence inside her.
It was too much, almost suffocating. Joan swayed, lightheaded. “Do not faint. Do not faint,” she repeated to herself, closing her eyes.
The rolling under her feet gradually stopped. She opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. Crimson spray covered everywhere she looked. Gore was splattered into the farthest corners, hanging from the ceiling. Cleaner bots scrubbed the walls and floor.
This was why she felt dizzy, she reasoned. She smelled and sensed this butchery.
C899321, the being she had been told was responsible, stood in his uploading dock, a cable inserted into his nape, his towering form naked, covered with blood, his long black hair dripping with it.
He turned his head, locked his gaze with hers and she sucked in her breath. There were worlds of agony, of rage, in those bright blue eyes. This was no rational, logic-driven cyborg. This was a man, an animal, crazed by bloodlust and pain.
“They thought to pacify me with the use of a human female?” he thundered, his deep gravelly voice clawing across her skin, awakening parts in her she didn’t realize slept. “I’d kill you before I allowed you to touch me.”
This insult didn’t hurt her the way he’d intended. Joan knew she wasn’t the slim tiny female males desired. She was solidly built, good breeding stock, as her mother had once said.
She discarded his words and focused on the torment in his tones. He hurt. Horrifically. Her fingers twitched, the urge to reach out to him, to comfort him, tremendous. Judging by the flex of his powerful biceps and thigh muscles, by the anger radiating from him, he wouldn’t appreciate that response.
He also wouldn’t listen to any command she issued. A reprimand, verbal or physical, would add to his hostility. Some being had already tried to restrain him and failed. The reportedly unbreakable wrist and ankle cuffs attached to the frame of the uploading dock had been shattered, rendered useless.
Joan discarded four solar cycles’ worth of theory on how to handle malfunctioning cyborgs, realizing now that the academy experts knew nothing.
Her late father, however, had taught her how to deal with wild beasts.
“I would never touch you without your permission.” She lowered her gaze, showing submission, recognizing C899321 as the dominant male he was. He’d seek to harm any aggressor, to protect himself and his territory. If she wasn’t female, she suspected she’d already be dead.
“I also would never hurt you.” Joan stuffed a couple of cleaning cloths into her pockets and dropped to her knees, into a puddle of red. The moisture soaked through her flight suit. “I’m here to serve you, to clean you.”
She slowly crawled forward through the liquefied remains of the previous engineer. Having lived on an agri lot and spending the last solar cycle in the waste processing chambers, guck no longer fazed her.
“You don’t want to be dirty.” Joan kept her head bowed, her voice calm and soft. “That would interfere with your mechanics.”
She filled the silence with a flow of reassuring words, telling him she meant him no harm, that she was there to help him. Joan kept her gaze lowered, concentrating on his feet. He stood with them braced apart, preparing for an attack, ready to defend himself. His feet appeared human except much, much larger, his metal frame concealed with skin. When not covered with blood, that skin would be gray.
The current J models could pass for human, designed not to frighten the general population. The C models were clearly cyborg, from their giant stature to their unnatural skin tone. Some engineers found them to be scary and primitive. Joan didn’t. She associated C models with safety, with caring, with C345925’s unexpected act of kindness.
Joan knelt in front of C899321. Her heart pounded so loudly, she suspected with his superior senses, he could hear her.
Moments passed. She remained motionless, allowing him to look at her, to smell her, to become accustomed to the sound of her voice.
He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, signaling his readiness and she spoke. “I have a cleaning cloth in my pocket.” She held up her hands, showing him her empty palms. “Can I remove it?”
She waited and waited and waited. He said nothing.
“I told you I wouldn’t take action without your consent.” She wasn’t foolish. Touching a wild thing without permission resulted in death.
“Yes.” His voice was impossibly deep.
“Thank you.” Joan slipped her fingers into her pocket, slowly as to not spook him, and extracted a blue cleaning cloth. “I value your trust.” She opened the enhanced fabric, stretching it tight, allowing him to examine it. “May I clean your feet?”
There was another long pause.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” No male should have a voice like that, like an endless night filled with decadence and sin. She resisted the urge to wiggle her ass, her pussy moistening, her nipples tightening, and focused on her task, cleaning his ankles, heels, every toe, talking as she did so. The cyborg lifted first one foot and then the other, allowing her to swipe the cloth over his soles.
The fabric sucked up the blood, rearranging the molecules into air. His skin was soft, warm, surprisingly scarred. Joan frowned. “Your nanocybotics must have been suppressed when you were damaged. There should be no marks.”
She traced a long slash on his right foot. It was an old wound. “The enemy found a way to do this.” That alarmed her. This flaw in his defenses put her cyborg at risk. “Why wasn’t this development covered in any of the information bulletins I’ve viewed?” Engineers should be working on a countermeasure.
“Are you mentally deficient?” His tone was harsh. “You must be if you volunteered to breed with a C model cyborg.”
Joan gritted her teeth at his assumption about her role. “I’m your engineer, not a breeding female.”
“You lie.” He snorted softly. “Your uniform is gray, not blood-red, and if you were truly my engineer, as you claim, you’d know my damage was inflicted by my previous handlers.”
“I was positioned in the waste processing chambers. That’s why I wear a gray uniform.” Signaling to everyone her lowly status. “And why would a handler hurt you? Our job is to ensure you operate at optimal efficiency.”
“Why would they hurt me? Because they’re cruel humans and I’m a disposable cyborg. Because I operated outside specifications. Because they wished to duplicate my kill rates. Do you need more reasons?”
They’d experimented on him. She gazed at his toes, absorbing this knowledge. Blood had dripped down his legs, coating them with crimson once more. “May I clean your legs?”
He sighed, his muscles flexing and releasing. “You clearly need to be told everything. I must be cleaned from the top down.”
She knew that. “You’d agree to me cleaning your face?”
“Do I have a choice?” His words were bitter.
“Yes.” Joan looked upward, meeting his gaze. “You know how best to maximize your kill rates. Within these chambers, I serve you.”
His eyes flashed with blue currents of energy. “Stop with your lies. I won’t believe them.”
“You
’re bigger, stronger, think you’re more intelligent.” She lifted her chin. “Why would I lie to you?”
“I’ll test you, little engineer, and if you fail, you’ll die.”
* * *
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About Cynthia Sax
USA Today bestselling author Cynthia Sax writes contemporary, SciFi and paranormal erotic romances. Her stories have been featured in Star Magazine, Real Time With Bill Maher, and numerous best of erotic romance top ten lists.
She lives in a world filled with magic and romance. Although her heroes may not always say, “I love you,” they will do anything for the women they adore. They live passionately. They play hard. They love the same women forever.
Cynthia has loved the same wonderful man forever. Her supportive hubby offers himself up to the joys and pains of research, while they travel the world together, meeting fascinating people and finding inspiration in exotic places such as Istanbul, Bali, and Chicago.
Sign up for her dirty-joke-filled release day newsletter and visit her on the web at www.CynthiaSax.com
Keep in touch with Cynthia using the following links:
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