Things didn’t entirely go as planned. First, there were more tikas loose than he expected, so it took him longer to round them up and get them back in the perimeter. Then he replaced the relay, and it didn’t bring the force field back up. He took the relay back out and tested it. There was nothing wrong with it. Then he examined the one he’d removed, and it should have been working. He checked the slot where the relay connected to the system.
A metal tab had broken off that completed the circuit. How did that happen?
He was sure he had not broken it when he took the relay out. That meant it had been done before he took it out. The relay had to be removed before the tab was broken off---on purpose. But why? Tikas were not so valuable that people on Modonne stole them. If it were sabotage, what purpose? Korjh would just come out and round them up then put in a new relay.
Fuck!
The house was quiet when Zara returned with her purchases. She and Jodra found precisely the ideal silky smart stretch material to make the gown that Zara had designed for her. Zara had initially planned to sew it herself, but she still needed to make a pattern for the dress.
Zara and Jodra took the material and her design to the sewing factory. Jodra was scanned, and a bot created a pattern to fit Jodra and sewed the entire outfit while they had second meal at the café with Naomi. Even though they lingered at the restaurant chatting with Naomi, Jodra dropped Zara off almost two hours before she expected to return.
She could hardly wait to tell Korjh about it and show him how it turned out from the pictures on her tablet. She walked into the house, looking for him in the main rooms. The kitchen, dining, and lounge areas were open. She would have seen him right away.
When she didn’t see him, she carried her purchases back to their bedroom. The door opened automatically to admit her. She took them into her closet and put them on an empty shelf. As she came out of the walk-in closet, she saw a figure out of the corner of her eye, and she almost screamed.
Tydo was standing in front of the closed door. She knew immediately, he had slipped in behind her before it closed, because it was the only way he could have entered the master bedroom. Korjh didn’t trust him, so he commanded the house AI to only admit Zara or himself into the room.
“Good grief, Tydo! You scared the hell out of me,” Zara said and laughed nervously. “Do you need something?”
The sinister smile he gave her made her cringe inside like she was the prey and he the predator. Tydo stood between her and the only way out. The closets were no good because they didn’t lock, and the doors would not keep a cyborg out if they did.
Zara gave him an impassive look, trying to brazen it out by pretending she didn’t figure he wanted her. “I’m done in here. Let’s go out to the lounge, and I’ll get us a drink,” she suggested, walking toward him.
He didn’t move from in front of the door. Even if it had opened, she could not have slipped by him. He filled the whole doorway. Zara stopped in front of him willing him to move. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and stared down at her.
“I think you know what I want. I just want a little taste of what you’ve been giving my old pal Korjh,” he said. “I saved his sorry ass more than once. The least he can do is share---just once before I leave, and you never have to see me again. If you don’t tell him, I won’t.”
Zara frowned at him and said, “What exactly are you saying?”
“I want to screw you just one time before I go. Couldn’t you just spare one fuck for the guy that saved your mate’s life.” Tydo asked smoothly like it was an entirely reasonable request.
“Tydo, that’s not how it works. I’m not a bot or a pleasure professional,” Zara explained in a reasonable tone. “I have pledged myself to Korjh only because I love him.”
“I’m not asking for a lifetime commitment, just a little relief from this damn hardon I’ve had almost from the moment I saw you. Those big round tits and that ass of yours,” Tydo said and took a step toward Zara and gripped her arms. “Just let me dip my wick and get my rocks off. You don’t even have to look at me. I can take your pussy from behind. Just pretend I’m Korjh.”
“No, Tydo, you’re not listening!” Zara tried to twist her arms out of his grip, but he was holding her arms so tight it hurt. She was going to have bruises for every one of his fingers digging into her skin. “I appreciate that you saved Korjh on the battlefield, but he saved you too. It doesn’t mean I should fuck you for it. This is my body, and I decide who I fuck, and it’s not going to be you.”
“We could have done this easy, but I guess that’s just not going to happen.”
Faster than she thought possible, Tydo turned her around and grabbed both her wrists and took a something from his pocket and bound them together. It felt like a zip tie. It didn’t matter because he made it so tight it felt like it was cutting into her flesh. With her hands tied behind her back, she was utterly helpless to stop whatever he was going to do.
Tydo pulled her against him, and she could feel his erection against her butt. She was pretty sure he was going to rape her unless Korjh showed up before it happened. But where was Korjh? Why wasn’t he there to stop this nightmare? Had Tydo done something to him? That thought struck terror in her heart.
Zara squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stay calm. She could live through being raped if he didn’t decide to kill her when he finished. When he put his big hands on her breasts and squeezed them hard enough to hurt then pressed them against her chest wall.
Zara groaned plaintively then realized Tydo would take that as an expression of pleasure than the outrage she actually felt. He confirmed it by ripping open her top to put his hands on her bare breasts.
She started to cry. She remembered how effortlessly Korjh had ripped her jeans. If Korjh could, so could Tydo. The pants she had on would be easy compared to the jeans. His preoccupation with squeezing and fondling her breasts seemed to slow things down a bit.
“Hey, don’t cry little female. I won’t hurt you,” Tydo soothed, “it’ll be over before you know it.”
Then he pushed her down on the bed face down and started tearing her pants apart in the back. He thought she wouldn’t mind so much if he raped her from behind? Zara lay there sobbing “no,” over and over. Her torso was on the bed, and her feet were on the floor. Her ass sticking up in the air with her pants being torn off.
“Please don’t do this,” she sobbed.
“Just shut up and take it, bitch,” Tydo snarled. “It’ll be over before you know it and I’ll be gone before Korjh is the wiser. Just getting my share.”
Zara braced herself to be violated. She stopped crying. Then she thought she heard a familiar sound.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Suddenly, Tydo was no longer touching her, ripped away with a roar and a string of words in a language Zara didn’t understand. The binding on her wrists was ripped off, and Korjh murmured in her ear.
“Get the weapon.” Then he was gone.
Zara turned toward the bedroom doorway in time to see Korjh kick Tydo down the hallway. He was trying to get up from where Korjh had thrown him after pulling him off Zara. She tripped on her torn pants which had fallen to her ankles. She stepped out of them hurried out of the bedroom toward the com-room, pausing until Korjh shoved Tydo into the lounge.
She ran the rest of the way to the com-room and to the secret panel in the back. That was where Korjh kept all his weapons from his days as a warrior. Zara turned quickly around the room scanning for the gun that she had been taught to fire. She grabbed it and ran out of the com-room and stopped at the end of the hallway to locate Korjh.
They were in the middle of the lounge amid broken furniture strewn around them. The two cyborgs were throwing and blocking punches a phenomenal speed. Neither seemed to be able to get an edge over the other. Minutes passed then Korjh seemed to gain ground. As Tydo seemed to falter, Kojh pivoted in a kickboxing move and kicked Tydo in the head knocking him down.
Korjh advanced on Tyd
o and kicked him in the gut several times fast. Somehow, Tydo turned and drove a booted foot into Korjh’s middle, knocking him back into the wall. Lying on his back on the floor, Tydo threw his legs back toward his head and curled his body, so his knees were over his head and used his hands and forearms to push off the floor and flip onto his feet.
When Tydo leaped to his feet, Korjh advanced on him, keeping himself between Tydo and Zara. Tydo reached behind his back and pulled a big sharp combat knife and lunged at Korjh.
Korjh dodged and blocked him several times, but Tydo switched hands and jammed the knife into Korjh’s abdomen and between his ribs---two deep wounds. Korjh knocked the knife from Tydo’s hand, caught it, and stabbed Tydo with it twice before he sank to his knees. Both men were bleeding heavily, but Tydo was still on his feet.
Zara advanced holding the blaster as Korjh had taught her. “Tydo, stop right there!” she warned him. He gave her a look like he didn’t think she had the guts to shoot him. Then she fired and winged him.
Cyborgs were hard to kill, but without his combat armor, Korjh’s blaster could kill him if she hit him right. Korjh had told her where cyborgs were vulnerable. That blaster could take out a cyborg or a man’s heart and a chunk of lung tissue with one shot. Without immediate medical assistance, a cyborg could die.
“Get out, Tydo or the next shot will blow your head off! Take the aircar and go back to Sezrop. We’ll send a drone with your stuff. Leave now, or I will kill you!” she yelled, holding the weapon pointed steadily at his head.
When he still hesitated, she fired another bolt that whizzed by his ear so close he could feel the heat. “I missed on purpose. That was your last warning. Leave. This. House.” She stepped forward and leveled the business end right at Tydo’s face. She was only about ten feet away. It was not likely for her to miss.
The cold rage in her eyes, the way she held the blaster pointed, her stance, and the set of her jaw told Tydo she had been trained to use the gun.
“All right,” he said, holding up one hand and clutching his side where Korjh had stabbed him. “Don’t shoot. I’m going.” He backed toward the doorway, watching her and worrying that she was going to shoot him anyway.
When she heard the ground level door closed, Zara went to the entryway to be sure Tydo actually left. Zara gave the command for the house AI to allow no admittance to Tydo Flann and to return the aircar as soon as Tydo exited the vehicle in Sezrop.
It all happened in just about two minutes from when Tydo stabbed Korjh and Zara forced him to leave before she could put down the weapon and go to her mate.
“Korjh what can I do?” She squatted beside him as he clutched at his wounds with one hand and balanced on his knees on the other hand. Blood was dripping between his fingers onto the floor.
“The nanites with fix this. Help me up, I just need to lay down and put some pressure on it the to stop the bleeding,” he rasped.
Zara put his right arm around her shoulders and braced herself, using her legs to lift upward and brace his arm to help lever him up to a standing position. Once on his feet, he could walk down the hall to their bed. When he was lying on the bed, she ran to the bathroom to get a towel to apply pressure to the wound.
That’s when Korjh noticed her tunic and bra were ripped open and she was wearing only her panties. The tunic gaped open baring her breasts as she leaned over him and pressed the folded towel over his wounds.
“Aw, baby, did he rape you,” Korjh asked bitterly. “He planned this and I fell for it.”
“No, he didn’t rape me,” Zara assured him. “He ripped my clothes, and he would have, but you got to him before he could. Hon, are you sure those nanites can fix you before you bleed out?”
Korjh closed his eyes and queried his internal computer to assess his condition. The bleeding was starting to slow as the nanites accelerated cell growth and knitted his tissues back together.
“Korjh?”
“I’ll be okay sweetheart. That bastard knocked out the force field around the tikas pen, so I had to go round up the tikas and put in a new relay. But it wasn’t the relay. He must have done it on his midnight walk that last night when he said he just needed to get out of the house. He took out the relay and broke off one of the contacts,” Korjh said. “When I saw that, I figured he did it to get me out of the house so he could get to you.”
“And we came back earlier than I had planned. I came in and took my stuff to the bedroom, not knowing Tydo was here alone. He must have been hiding and followed me into the bedroom before the door closed behind me,” she said. “First, he asked nicely. When I declined politely, because I am mated with you, he tied my hands behind my back and started ripping my clothes and groping me.”
“Bastard!” Korjh gritted. “You should have killed him.”
“I scared the crap out of him,” Zara laughed as she continued applying pressure to his wounds. “I put a shot right by his ear---exactly where I aimed it.”
“I don’t know what the hell made him think---in any world that it was okay to rape someone else’s mate or any woman,” Korjh growled. “It goes against our programming. He has dishonored our corps as well as himself. I should have remembered that he carried that blade in a sheath at the small of his back. I was so angry.”
Zara lifted the towel to check his bleeding, and it had stopped to her relief. He seemed to be breathing more comfortably as the pain lessened.
“I’ll be right back, love,” Zara said. “I want to get a sponge to clean up the blood and dressing to cover your wound. I want to get rid of these ruined clothes and get my robe.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She was back in five minutes dressed in her robe, carrying a small bowl of water and antibacterial cleanser, first aid supplies, and scissors to cut off his ruined shirt.
The solution was warm and soothing as Zara gently sponged away the congealing blood from his abdomen. Blood had also seeped down onto his customary cargo pants spreading the blood down the left side of his lower abdomen. The blood hadn’t dried yet, and she needed to get them off before it did and they stuck to his skin.
Korjh couldn’t lift up or move much so she could slide his pants off. Instead, she unzipped them and sponged the blood off his lower abdomen and got a fresh hand towel and put it between his blood-soaked pants and his skin. By then his wound was dry, and Zara could see that it had closed almost as though it had been done by surgical glue.
After she put the supplies away, she came back and laid down beside Korjh with her head against his shoulder just listening to his deep even breathing. She dozed for a few hours until the house AI signaled that the aircar had returned… empty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Zara woke with a start from what she thought was a nightmare, but it wasn’t. Tydo did try to rape her, and he stabbed Korjh. The blood stain on the bed where he’d lain was the proof.
She got out of bed and padded barefoot into the bathroom where Korjh was in the shower. Zara shed her robe and hung it up then stepped into the shower with him. “How are you feeling?”
“The wounds are healed. Mist.” He turned to her and took her face in his hands and tenderly kissed her lips. “Are you all right, Zara?” he asked, looking at her intently.
“It’s all pretty surreal---except the blood. That scared me more than anything,” she said and drew in a shuddery breath.
“I wish I’d killed him,” Korjh growled.
“I couldn’t,” Zara said. “But I wanted to hurt him.”
“I’m sure he was hurting as much as I was,” Korjh asserted and took her into his arms, pressing her body against his.”
“I’d say you were pretty evenly matched,” Zara said. “A least he’s gone.”
“And I sent his stuff on the drone this morning,” he said, studying her expression. The moment he pressed her delightful body against him he went hard and knew she could feel it.
“It’s okay, Korjh. You’re my husband, and I want you.”
&n
bsp; “Now?” he sounded uncertain.
She took his hand and put it on her mound. He slid a finger gently between her petals, and she was wet and slick. “What do you think?” She grinned. “Yes, I want you now. Something almost happened, but it didn’t. You’re the one who got hurt.”
“I’m okay,” he murmured and lifted her up so he could slide his cock into her wet center.
Zara wrapped her legs around him and rubbed her taut nipples against his chest. He sure felt good. She hugged him as he pressed her back against the wall and hugged his cock inside her.
He was still looking at her with a concerned expression, but she smiled at him and kissed his mouth. Korjh gripped her buttocks and started thrusting in and out of her gently at first then gradually harder.
“Yes!” she cried, “give it to me hard. That’s the way I like you. Ah! Ah!”
At that point, they forgot about everything but the sensations of their bodies slamming together each time he filled her to the hilt, and she cried out in triumph with each one. Soon they were climbing the summit as their passion pushed them higher toward that familiar pinnacle of ecstasy they usually reached when they joined in love.
They stopped thinking of before or after, only the now was relevant.
“Oh! Ooooh!” Zara exclaimed suddenly as the first exquisite contraction of her release hit her. Then Korjh soared with her.
“Oh, yeah!” Zara sighed. “Now I feel much better. I think I might need you to do that again later,” she murmured by his ear then nibbled on the lobe.
Zara hoped he didn’t realize she had brazened it out, in the beginning, refusing to let what Tydo did taint what she felt with Korjh. By the time they finished, she was all in, her spirit soaring in triumph as they found their release so close together.
She smiled a sigh and looked up into his eyes just before she pressed her mouth to his in a long slow kiss that made him throb inside her as she contracted around him. As the kiss ended sometime later, Zara decided she wasn’t waiting one minute longer.
Korjh's Bride Page 11
