Claimed by the Alien Warlord: A Science Fiction Alien Mail-Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 14)

by Lisa Lace

  The sedative was doing its job, keeping the soldier from getting up and continuing his destruction. Natasha wondered how much the chemical was slowing down his brain. When he looked at the devastation, it seemed as if he had no idea how it had happened. Maybe he didn’t realize what he had done. His flailing looked more like blind rage than anything conscious.

  “Come over here so I can examine you.” Natasha gestured to an old desk chair her father had brought down into the basement. With a grunt, Fury heaved himself to his feet, crossed the room, and dropped into the chair. It wobbled underneath his weight, but it held.

  Natasha pulled out a stethoscope and began to give the cyborg a basic physical. She could do these steps from memory. It would help to do something familiar, and Natasha wondered if the update had affected his body. The nurse listened to the thumping of his heart in her ears before she spoke again. “Describe the new information to me.”

  Fury held still as the nurse analyzed his body. Any soldier from Cyborg Sector would have had physical exams on a regular basis. “There was metal all around me.” His voice was hoarse, and his eyes were distant. “I remember a crash, then pain.”

  Natasha frowned as she hung the stethoscope around her neck. She fished an ophthalmoscope out of her pocket without looking away from the cyborg. Memories often came back in pieces as cyborgs became self-aware. Many cyborgs had been through a traumatic experience before their operations. She would have to check her father’s logs to see what had happened to Fury.

  “You’re accessing memories stored in your brain for a long time,” Natasha gently explained as she shone a bright light in his eyes. “You were gravely wounded before Cyborg Sector took possession of your body and implanted a biochip in your brain. The chip blocks off all memories of your previous life.” The manual said it was standard procedure to explain as much as possible and to be prepared to repeat yourself. It sounded like too much to process, but maybe things were different for cyborgs.

  “Are you a doctor?”

  Natasha hesitated. She was only a nurse, but the label was close enough to the truth.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you my commanding officer?” He searched her face, bright blue orbs querying her more intensely than his words.

  She hesitated again but immediately realized that she should never have paused. A violent cyborg like this one needed to know and understand his place without question, and he was likely to pick up on her uncertainty. “Yes, I am.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” she replied, more firmly this time. “I am your commanding officer.” Her voice sounded strange to her ears. The tone was both bold and angry, a perfect reflection of her emotions.

  “My commanding officer is a man.” Fury still sat perfectly still, though she had finished her ministrations. He carefully watched as she spoke.

  “The man died,” Natasha snapped, understanding instantly that the cyborg was referring to her father. “Now I’m all you’ve got.”

  Fury shook his head. “It can’t be you.”

  “And why not?” the redhead asked, putting her hands on her hips. Was it possible for a cyborg to be sexist?

  “You are too attractive to be a commanding officer.” The cyborg stood up from the chair, towering over her and instantly making her feel minuscule. At this distance, his musky aroma was overwhelming. It was a fragrance far better than the most expensive cologne smelling dark, earthy, and beguiling simultaneously. It made her shiver, and she couldn’t back away even if she wanted to.

  Natasha blurted out, “You are already my subordinate.” The short sentence seemed to be enough to satisfy the soldier’s sensibilities, and without warning, he bent forward to kiss her. He wrapped an arm around her waist, lifting her off the ground as he pressed their bodies together.

  Fury kissed with determination, his body revealing more than his words in a tiny movement. She could feel his cock pressing into the suddenly moist spot between her thighs, and she fought the urge to grind against him. Natasha found herself getting lost in his kiss the longer she let it last. Fury felt like a formidable man. She sensed he wanted to control her and perhaps even own her. It was an idea that any of her friends would have rejected instantly, but it appealed to her in a way that she would never have imagined before. She’d always been the responsible one, someone who had to make all the decisions and run the show. Natasha was ready to surrender.

  As Fury’s other arm curled around her body, Natasha came to her senses and pushed against his chest to break their lip-lock. He was big and sexy and amazing, but he was also an illegal cyborg. She had gone down there to work on his rehabilitation. Behaving that way with a patient at the rehabilitation center was a firing offense.

  “We can’t do that.” Natasha pulled away from the cyborg, still pushing against his chest with both hands to keep herself as far away from him as possible. His presence seemed to fill the room. “It isn’t right. Put me down, please.”

  Fury complied, setting her gently on her feet but not before she slid down the length of his body. “It feels right,” he argued.

  She had no time to enter into a battle of wills with him. He had stolen all the breath from her body with a single kiss, and it would take her time to get it back. Natasha wanted to give in and let him ravish her, but she also needed to get him under control. As a scientist, that was her job.

  “You have to do a lot of conditioning over the next few weeks,” Natasha explained as she smoothed her hair and pulled down her shirt, which had ridden up somehow and felt too tight. “I’m going to work with you on speaking and controlling your temper, as well as your physical movements. After that, we can move on to daily tasks.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Here, try this.” The woman handed him a tiny red thing. She kept one for herself and put it in her mouth.

  Fury took the object out of her hand. It was small and red, bigger on one end and tapering to a point on the other. Numerous tiny dots studded the outside of it, each perfectly spaced. She had told him it was food, and the idea rang bells in the most distant part of his brain, but it didn’t make the red object seem any more familiar. He copied the woman’s actions, put the object in his mouth, and moved his teeth up and down.

  An explosion happened on his tongue. There was moisture, texture, and flavor. He had tasted this before. Fury felt his eyes widen with surprise. He reached out for more.

  The woman laughed as she handed him one from the box in her hand. “They’re called strawberries,” she said. “Do you remember them?”

  “Remember” was a word Fury couldn’t find in his database. He had heard Natasha say it several times. At first, he thought she was talking about the information in his computer system, though she used an unfamiliar term. Eventually, Fury realized she meant the flashing pictures and loud noises that were flooding into his brain from somewhere else. He didn’t like these data sets. They were uncomfortable and confusing. What good did it do to concentrate on information that was incomplete?

  “Don’t eat too many of them at once or you’ll upset your stomach. I love the way the word sounds. Strawberry.” She popped another one into her mouth. Natasha’s lips wrapped seductively around the fruit before it disappeared.

  Fury shook his head again. He hoped she wouldn’t make him say anything. No matter what she said, he was the leader here. He had proven it with his actions earlier when he had dragged her to the floor and fucked her.

  Since the upgrade, it had become impossible to look at the female without recalling the experience. Fury had played it over and over again, seeing it multiple times from his perspective. He had felt her body tense in his arms and around his cock, squeezing the release out of him. The cyborg wanted to do it again, and his cock strained against his pants every time he replayed the memory.

  For now, he was content to let the woman flutter around. Her fingers felt soft and gentle as they checked his heartbeat, looked into his eyes, and touched the sensitive area on his back where the life suppo
rt system once connected with his body. Her scent made Fury want to bury his face between her breasts and inhale. It was the aroma of something deep and inviting, the smell of what they had done together, but she hid it underneath other essences that were easier to detect. The cyborg knew it was there, and he wanted more.

  “Can you say my name yet?” Natasha tipped her face to look at him sideways. She tried to encourage Fury to speak with her big blue eyes. She had been trying to get the cyborg to say her name ever since she had asserted herself as his commanding officer.

  Fury knew it wasn’t part of the rehabilitation program, but he let her play the game. “Yes.”

  “Okay, do it then,” she encouraged. “Natasha.”

  “Na-tasssh-ah.” The word was difficult for him to pronounce. He didn’t want speaking a word to make him look weak; that was why he had refused thus far. He was the alpha, and it was only a matter of time before she submitted to his will.

  The redhead clapped her hands and squealed with pleasure. She moved in her chair, breasts bouncing enticingly. Fury wanted to make her squeal again but didn’t want the reason for her cries to be a feeble attempt at saying her name. Fury reached out to put his hand on the curve of her waist. He wanted to curl his fingers around the curve of her body and press his palm against the flat of her stomach.

  She slapped his hand away. “No! I’ve told you that’s inappropriate.”

  He slowly pulled his hand back, letting her know that the decision to withdraw was his, not hers. “You say no now, but you’ll say yes later.”

  Fury’s biometric display indicated that Natasha’s pulse was quickening. The temperature of her body had instantly risen, especially in the places he wanted to touch most. They lit up in a dazzling display of red on his infrared sensors, making him want her even more.

  “Just no,” she argued. “We have work to do if you want to control your emotions and become something resembling a human again.”

  Natasha kept repeating the phrase like it would make a difference in his actions. The woman wanted him to be “human again.” He didn’t understand what she meant. Fury recognized her as human and recognized himself as something that was not. He complied even though he didn’t understand her. When he was human, would she let him put his cock inside her again?

  As Natasha reached for another box of food, sharp pains flooded his head. Fury clutched at his skull with his hands, wanting to rip out whatever was causing the sensations. The pain came every day ever since the download. Sometimes it was worse and other times the feeling was only mild discomfort, but a flood of information always followed it. After the incidents, he saw the pictures Natasha wanted to discuss.

  He sat in a machine holding a wheel in his hands. Around him, glass and metal flew through the air as the machine spun around again. A woman sat next to him. She had black hair and equally dark eyes, and she would have been beautiful if she weren’t screaming and flinging her arms in the air. The machine stopped with a dull thud, landing upright. Fury felt a stabbing pain in his torso. He looked to the woman in the seat next to him, but she was still. Blood dripped down the side of her face, and her eyes stared blankly in front of her. She was dead.

  “Are you still there? Come back to me, Fury.”

  Blinking, the cyborg found that he was still in the laboratory with Natasha. She leaned forward and put one hand on each of his shoulders as he clutched his belly. Her hair tickled his cheek, and her shirt had gaped open on top, but he was too distracted to pursue anything. Gingerly, Fury pulled his hand back from his stomach, waiting for a gush of blood to rush out. But his palms were clean. There was no trace of the blood he had seen only moments ago. Fury looked up at Natasha and automatically wiped a bloodless hand on his pants.

  “It’s okay,” she said in a high voice, a purr of vibrations that always seemed to flow right into him. “It’s just a memory from a long time ago. Nothing will hurt you now.”

  The cyborg stared into Natasha’s eyes. She looked sincere. Whenever he saw Natasha, he usually wanted to do things to that sweet mouth, but not this time. When she brought him back from the broken place in his mind, he wanted only to look at her beauty and use it as an anchor.

  CHAPTER 17

  The mornings were always the hardest.

  Once Natasha was ready for work, there was little time left to dash down to the basement and see Fury. Usually, she only had a chance to glance at him in his cell before she left for the day. It wasn’t worth it to activate him so she could say goodbye, then be forced to turn him off again. It wouldn’t be fair.

  This day was different.

  Natasha had set her alarm an hour early to make sure she had enough time, even though she knew it would be a struggle to go to work. She rushed through the shower, omitting the deep conditioner and forgetting to shave one leg in a hurry to get dressed. Her hair was still dripping wet when she entered the kitchen to scramble several eggs and put four slices of bread into the toaster.

  She had agreed to let Fury stay outside of his cell for the entire day. He had been spending longer and longer periods of time disconnected and with Natasha when she was home in the evenings. Rehabilitation required him to learn how to live like a regular human. Sleeping in a box like a vampire all day was not normal. The two of them had explored the entire house, with Fury asking more questions than she could answer.

  “How does a microwave work?” Fury asked one day after Natasha heated up some burritos.

  “I have no idea. It just does what I need. Kind of like you.” The cyborg scowled at her, but Natasha wasn’t going to learn the inner workings of every appliance just to satisfy his curiosity. She did, however, make a mental note to look it up later.

  After that came the dishwasher, the oven, the coffee pot, the alarm clock, and her phone. Fury looked at each of them closely and carefully with a look in his eyes that suggested he was analyzing them.

  This morning, she called down the stairs, “Breakfast is ready!”

  It always sounded like a herd of elephants had entered the house when Fury came up the wooden steps from the basement. He was an enormous man wearing military boots, and he planted each foot firmly as he moved through the house. Natasha was going to have to replace the stairs soon.

  Fury threw open the basement door and stood uncertainly at the top of the steps. He had always ascended with Natasha before, and it threw him off to climb by himself even though that was part of the plan. The cyborg crossed the room awkwardly and sat down in a dining chair.

  Natasha set a plate of eggs and toast in front of him then retreated into the kitchen to fetch a steaming mug of coffee. At some point, she would have to make him get it on his own. Natasha told herself that she didn’t want to make things too difficult for him. After all, he was already eating in a different part of the house and using a fork.

  She was aware of cyborg eyes watching her as she gently stabbed a bit of egg and put it into her mouth. Fury hesitantly copied her, holding the fork awkwardly in a meaty fist and scowling at the plate. The redhead peeked through her eyelashes to see his reaction.

  Fury chewed the egg for a moment before sitting up in his chair. He stared down at the plate in awe and then quickly jabbed at the eggs again. His fork clanked loudly against the plate and sent some of the food flying off onto the placemat. The cyborg didn’t care about making a mess. He enthusiastically started to shovel food into his mouth.

  “Those are called eggs,” Natasha explained, feeling her heart rise in her chest to see Fury enjoying breakfast. “They’re scrambled with a little bit of milk and cooked on the stove. You should try the toast, too.”

  The soldier nodded and stabbed a fork into the crusty bread. Fury managed to pick it up, but before he could take a bite, the toast tumbled back down onto the plate.

  “You can pick it up with your hands,” the nurse clarified. “Like this. See?” She grabbed her piece of toast and took a bite, watching as Fury mimicked her actions. “Do you think everything will be okay if you’re b
y yourself? I know you’ve probably been feeling trapped down in the basement, but it’s going to be very different from what you’re used to.”

  Fury shook his head and swallowed. “Different is good.”

  “Do you remember what I said about going outside?”

  He had a blank look on his face. Natasha guessed that he remembered a time when they had looked through every window in the house. Fury had been interested in each one and eagerly moved to each window to see how the view changed. He was loading the information into his internal maps, figuring out his location and trying to relate it to Cyborg Sector. He had put a hand on the front door and was about to go outside before she had stopped him.

  “I remember you said don’t do it.” He filled his mouth with a bit of egg.

  “That’s right. You’ll have to stay indoors. I know it looks exciting, but if someone finds out about you, we will both be in big trouble.” In her head, Natasha scolded herself for sounding like a parent talking to a child. Fury was going to remember what it was like to be human soon enough, and he might already detect her condescending tone.

  Finishing up breakfast and putting the plates in the sink, Natasha picked up her purse and keys. “I’ve made you a few sandwiches; they’re in the refrigerator. Help yourself to anything else you want to eat. Do you remember how to use the phone if you need to call me?” She had shown him how to use the old landline her dad had insisted on keeping around and programmed her phone number on speed dial. She refused to leave him here without a way to reach her if something went wrong.

  The soldier nodded as he polished off his meal and swallowed a final gulp of coffee.

  “I’ll come home right after work, I promise.” Her chest felt like it was made out of lead. The closer she got to the door, the harder it was to breathe. It was going to be a long day.