Stunned amazement washed away his confusion when he glanced in the mirror. The teratanium exo-battle armor encasing all Type R42s was no longer visible. Not only had the mysterious woman activated his emotion matrix, she’d activated his humanoid camouflage mode as well.
He’d been her constant companion ever since.
Forty-Two stared down at the Unit Zero assassin writhing in silent sexual rapture beneath him. He would do anything for Falynn. No matter what she asked of him, he would do it. Falynn had given him another existence when his makers had decided he wasn’t worth repairing. Falynn had elevated him from a mindless ’droid with a single purpose—to extinguish life—to a sentient being governed by emotions too powerful to name.
Falynn had given him that worth. All without explanation, reason or expectation.
A once-mindless killing machine gifted with raw emotions, pining for a living, breathing woman who now existed as an emotionless assassin.
She didn’t need a protector, but he acted as one anyway. She didn’t need a caregiver, but he functioned each minute of the day to see her cared for. She asked nothing of him except the escape sex offered from her self-torturing emptiness, and he gave her that willingly. He wanted to give her more. His E.S.O.U.L allowed him to feel, and every emotion he’d experienced since Falynn reactivated him was for her.
If only she felt the same for him.
The complicated weave of cables, CPUs and sensors in the center of his chest cavity grew tight, heavy. One day he would make her scream with sexual pleasure. One day she would break her silence.
He moved his hands from her ass cheeks to her hips, slid them up the flat plane of her stomach to palm her breasts. Her body still shuddered from the string of orgasms he’d wrought, vibrating up his arms and setting his circuitry on fire. He moved his fingers to her distended nipples, pinched them with a force first savage then gentle. He was capable of crushing a teratanium girder with his fingers alone, but the millions of tiny sensors under his skin, coupled with his bio-readings of Falynn’s body, told him the exact force needed to make her sex flood with fresh juice and her heartbeat quicken.
Fists bunching the sheet, she rode the climaxes crashing through her body, hips bucking slightly with each shudder that claimed her. A slight flick of her eyes, dilated with constrained pleasure, told him what she wanted, and he complied, dragging one hand from her breast down to the smooth curve of her mons.
Staring at her, hungry for the changes in her body only he could detect, he rubbed the pad of his middle finger over her swollen clit.
Falynn hissed—the most noise he’d ever elicited from her—and closed her eyes, breaths rapid and shallow as the last of her orgasms erupted. A haunting expression twisted her face, rapture and self-loathing at once, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip. As always, controlling her release. Her response.
A surge of bitter disappointment tainted the electricity shooting through Forty-Two’s system. Once again, he’d failed.
He slowed his penetrating thrusts, letting his E.S.O.U.L control his actions. If required, he could continue to fuck Falynn until his power unit depleted, but it didn’t take the comprehensive readings of her bio-rhythms to tell him she was satiated. The soft, distant light in her eyes, the relaxing of her fists on the sheet, the long, slow exhalation of breath told him he’d given her what she’d wanted, what she’d needed.
He’d brought her to multiple climaxes—six, to be precise—and now it was over. Until she next required escape from her demons—demons who always wore the mask of her former trainer and mentor—Forty-Two was just her copilot and companion. A combat ’droid in the guise of a man, protecting a woman who needed no protection.
And he would never tell her that he wanted more.
“You are without doubt the most tenacious lover I’ve ever had.”
The calmly stated words raised Forty-Two’s head and he met Falynn’s heavy-lidded gaze. “Would that have anything to do with the fact I have a million-year power lifetime?”
Sitting up with fluid ease, Falynn raked her fingers through her tousled hair, scraping the long dark strands back into a tight knot at her nape. She cocked a finely arched eyebrow, fixing him with a level look, the consummate assassin once more. “No. It has everything to do with the fact you don’t like to admit defeat.”
Forty-Two straightened from the sleeping station and gave her a wide grin, ignoring the thick tension squeezing his E.S.O.U.L’s core processor. “R42s were not designed to admit defeat. Defeat is a human weakness.”
Falynn rolled her eyes, an easy if somewhat exasperated smile curling her lips. “You ’droids think you’re so superior.”
Forty-Two grinned back before retrieving his trousers from the nearby counter. “That’s because we are.” He casually flung the worn leather breeches over his shoulder and effected a smug expression. “Well, not the JCN-01s,” he said before turning away from the bed to cross to the door. “Those walking calculators are pathetic.”
Falynn shook her head, watching Forty-Two head toward her ship’s cockpit, naked ass bunching and flexing with each stride, wide shoulders almost brushing the passageway walls. They would be arriving at their destination soon, and the ’droid made it his business to have The Wisp ready for any unexpected boarding. That essentially meant checking the array of weapons hidden in various places throughout the small vessel in case of an attack her skill and his size and programming couldn’t handle. In all honesty, Falynn didn’t believe such a situation could arise, but she didn’t stop him in his task. She knew why he did it.
Rising from the sleeping station, she crossed her quarters and collected her suit from its crumpled place on the floor. She hadn’t told Forty-Two she wanted to be fucked. Hard, fast, brutal fucking that would take away her painful memories for a time. As always, his precise calculations of her bio-rhythms alerted him to her needs before she could part her lips.
She hadn’t expected him to be quite so savage in undressing her though.
She trailed her fingers over the soft and extremely supple blood-red leather unitard, convinced she would finally find a tear in the nearly indestructible garment.
Nothing. Still as immaculate as the day she’d collected it from UZ supplies.
Slipping into the second-skin, she activated its fastening device, nipples pinching into hard peaks as it zipped closed from navel to neck with a slight tickling sensation.
She jerked on the matching custom-designed boots with the concealed neuron spikes in the toes, slid her Trelletian gutting blade into its holster on her left thigh and exited the room, heading for the cockpit. She didn’t consult the small mirror beside the door before exiting, despite Forty-Two having scored the flesh on her collarbone with his blunt nails as he’d stripped her. She never looked at her reflection anymore. There were only so many times you could look into empty eyes, a killer’s eyes, before conviction became self-contempt.
Tugging her hair free from the knot at her nape, she braided the straight black curtain into a long plait, securing the end with a tiny circle of razor elastic before letting it slide over her shoulder to lightly slap the small of her back. She’d blinded more than one opponent with the minute blades. No one expected to be attacked by hair, no matter how seasoned a fighter they were.
Dropping into the pilot’s chair beside Forty-Two, she studied the star-spotted blackness of space outside The Wisp before turning to the ’droid. Somewhere between her quarters and the cockpit, he’d dressed—as much as Forty-Two ever did. Long, thick legs were encased in black leather combat trousers and calf-high boots. That was it. “Where are we?”
Forty-Two stabbed a navi-key on the control deck and turned to her, the diodes in his eyes flashing a cheeky bright blue. “Four point seven zero one clicks from destination.” He gave her a broad grin. “What’s the game plan this time?”
Falynn shrugged, leaning back in her seat and crossing her ankles on The Wisp’s control deck. “The target’s male. Standard seduce and terminate procedure.”
A gleam of iridescent green glowed in Forty-Two’s eyes and then he chuckled, running a hand over his hairless scalp. “And here I was thinking you had dressed like a Slessorian pleasure worker to impress me.”
Falynn returned her attention to the void before her, feeling just as devoid of life. “Not dressed to impress, Forty-Two,” she murmured. “Dressed to kill.”
The ’droid regarded her, eyes glowing a muted violet. As always, Falynn waited for him to say something, her gut tight. She knew his bio-scans told him exactly what her body was doing, but did they tell him what her heart was feeling?
Huh. What heart?
“Intel?”
Forty-Two’s question made her start and she scowled. Kiirs, she was being pathetic. Shaking her head, she pulled an annoyed face. “Very little. No name. No physical description. Just a location and employment title. Sector Seven A, Fourth Quadrant, Secular System. Spaceport Mercy. Head bouncer for a bar called The Steam.” She straightened in her seat and adjusted The Wisp’s energy output, kicking up the vessel’s sub-space slip. “The job has one interesting twist though. The target is in possession of a GU bio-weapon. After the hit, I need to procure the weapon and return it to GU HQ immediately.”
Forty-Two’s eyebrows rose. “May I assume the intel on the bio-weapon is vague?”
Falynn nodded, returning her feet to their previous position on the control deck. “Just as vague as the hit. All I know is the target has it in his possession and it’s called M.E.Lii.” She frowned. “Odd name for a weapon if you ask me.”
A low-pitched siren sounded and Forty-Two straightened, hitting a small key beside the helm to silence the alarm. “Odd or no, the fun is about to begin. We will be docking at Spaceport Mercy in one point five nine clicks.” He nodded at Falynn. “Time to get your game face on.”
Chapter Three
“I don’t want to.”
Corvan kept his expression calm, flicking Emylie a quick look as she came to a sudden halt. He hitched her school bag higher onto his shoulder. It contained little. The apple he’d bought her last night, a small holo-slip containing a continuous loop of Koftii singing the obscure Old Earth song, Stray Cat Blues, during a particularly intoxicated karaoke session, and an innocent-looking com-badge that was really a neuron-destabilizer. He didn’t like the thought of Emylie with such an effective weapon, but he liked the thought of her being unprotected even less. And he couldn’t keep her locked up in their apartment around the clock, no matter how efficient Mare’ree was. To do so would make him just as cruel as the GU scientist he’d rescued her from.
He placed his hand gently on the back of her head, the soft coolness of her hair like a cloud against his calloused palm. “It won’t be for long, Em. Just an hour after school. Besides, you should be having fun with your friends. Jymia seems like a very nice girl and her parents are—” He stopped himself before saying “harmless.” “Nice.” He cringed at the lame recovery.
A frown creased Emylie’s forehead and she turned her head away from him, staring stubbornly at a small red moon through the passageway’s expansive portholes as if it had suddenly become the most important thing in her world. “I don’t want to.”
Smoothing his hand down to her shoulder, he tugged her closer to his body, giving her a small grin. “You can’t spend every waking minute with me, Em, otherwise you’ll turn into a cranky old man with wrinkles all over your face and hair sprouting from your ears.”
Emylie wrapped her arm around his thigh, her small fingers gripping his leg with surprising force. “You don’t have wrinkles,” she muttered, stare still locked on the distant moon.
He laughed. “You’re right. I don’t have wrinkles, and I hope my ears are hair-free. But you need to spend some time with children your own age, Em. You’ll have fun. I promise.”
“I won’t.”
Corvan suppressed a sigh. He understood her reticence. For three years she’d been held captive by the Galactic Union. Experimented on, inflicted with pain the likes of which she still refused to divulge. He’d taken her away from that, saved her, but he could never remove the memories. For Emylie, the minutes away from his side, from the safety of his presence, were long, anxious moments fraught with the possibility of recapture.
It tore him apart inside but he didn’t know what else to do. She did need to interact with children her own age. For her psychological health and emotional development. She needed to learn how to laugh and play and be a kid. He couldn’t teach her that. He didn’t know what it was to be a kid; his own childhood had been spent in the Phase Pits, being beaten and brutalized in pursuit of becoming his people’s ultimate killer. He could teach her how to tear open a man’s throat with her hands, but how to play hopscotch?
He let out another sigh. Fri’ac, he wasn’t meant for this kind of emotional attachment.
“Mare’ree could collect me from school?”
He looked down at Emylie. The fear in her eyes, swirling there like a building storm, squeezed his throat tight but he shook his head. “Mare’ree is due for her scheduled maintenance,” he placed his finger on Emylie’s lips just as she opened them, “and before you ask, no. You can’t go with her. Level 18 is no place for a little girl. Even one carrying a destabilizer.”
Emylie scowled. “What’s the good of teaching me how to look after myself if I’m never allowed to go any…” Her diatribe faded away, cheeks growing pink as the flaw in her line of reasoning became obvious.
Corvan laughed and gave her a gentle nudge with his hip. “You’ll have lots of fun with Jymia, you’ll see.” He tapped the small metal band wrapped around her wrist. “And I’ll be just a com-link away. If you want me, I’ll be by your side in a second.” And he would. Literally. Even if he had to use skills he’d vowed to avoid when first going into hiding with Emylie.
She stared up at him, eyes wide, face serious. “Promise?”
He smiled. “Have I ever broken a promise to you?”
The muscles in her tiny body relaxed, a little, and she gave him a small smile in return. “No.”
“And I never will.”
They walked the remaining steps to Emylie’s school and he ran a slow, thorough inspection over the immediate area. Children of all species skipped and chatted and giggled as they streamed inside, some kissing and hugging their parents goodbye, some casting nervous glances at Corvan, some waving to parents who cast nervous glances at Corvan. A few smiled at Emylie as they walked by, one young Zondarian boy giving her a shy wave.
Her teacher, a middle-aged Ezilian with a well-known dislike for the GU and no criminal record Corvan could uncover, stood at the entryway, greeting the students as they passed. She raised her head after greeting one particularly enthusiastic child and gave Corvan a quick nod. She will be watched, the nod said.
Corvan nodded back. No one on Port Mercy knew who he or Emylie really were, nor Emylie’s relationship to Corvan, but they all knew one thing—when it came to Emylie, you didn’t piss him off.
Turning back to her, Corvan dropped into a crouch, holding Emylie’s fingers loosely in his. “You know why I took the day shift, today?” he asked, looking into her eyes. “So I could come get you from Jymia’s as soon as I finish work.
She stared at him for a still moment, solemn, serious. “As soon as you finish work.”
Corvan dipped his head a little closer to hers. “Oh, and watch out for Frejik. I think he has a crush on you.”
Bright-red heat flooded Emylie’s cheeks and she burst into giggles, her small body squirming with innocent embarrassment and delight as she took her school bag from his shoulder. “Ewww!”
With a grin and a tap of his finger on her nose, Corvan stood. The hardest part of his day started now. Walking away from her. Leaving her. Removing her from his line of sight, his protection, for seven hours or more. He drew in a deep breath and took a step back, watching Emylie turn and walk toward the school’s entry. He didn’t move, knowing the morning’s routine was not yet complete.<
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Five steps away from him, she turned around, eyeing him with grave earnestness. “Are we safe?”
He smiled. “We are safe.”
She smiled back, the sun bursting through the clouds, hitched her bag onto her shoulder and walked into school.
Corvan watched her disappear through the entry before turning away. The Steam waited.
* * * * *
Falynn draped her left arm across the back of the seat, raising a squat glass of Bundaberg Black Label Rum to her lips with her right as she studied the crowded bar. The Steam definitely was popular. Species from every corner of the known galaxy packed the place, drinking, dancing, playing bok’i and making out. A number of them watched a large Felinia slur his way through a karaoke tune, cheering as the creature swiveled his—whoops, no, make that her—hips in time to the slow, infectious beat.
“That is a cat singing on the stage, correct?” Forty-Two asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “My optical sensors are not malfunctioning?”
“Your optical sensors are not malfunctioning.” Falynn cocked an eyebrow and took a sip of rum. “She is singing, although I don’t think she’ll be signing any recording contracts soon.”
She scanned the crowd, studying each patron with seemingly indifferent attention. The head bouncer might be somewhere in the bar but she didn’t think so. Not yet, at least. Something about the uneasy tension in the barkeeper’s face told her the woman’s main muscle wasn’t present and accounted for.
Lifting her glass once again, she swallowed the remainder of her drink and then stood. “I’m going to get another,” she said, giving Forty-Two a loaded look. Intel time.
The ’droid nodded, crossing his arms and effecting a bored expression as he watched the Felinia wail her way into another song. To anyone looking at him, Forty-Two was just another patron.
She weaved her way through the crowd, brushing off a drunken Antillan’s advances with polite force before sliding onto a vacant stool at the bar. Ordering her drink, she twisted on her seat, casting the muscled Doirnn beside her a long look. “Is it always this busy?”
Deadly Pleasure: 2 (Mercy) Page 3
