Cyborg Nation

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  Gideon frowned. “All? You have one of each in your belly?”

  She chuckled. “Yes—not something I could do. I think your nanos decided to protect their ‘own’. It’s the only thing that makes any sense, because I did have a paternity test run so I could tell you positively who had fathered the babies when I found out I was carrying three and that’s what came up—each one of them carries the DNA for each of you!”

  The three grinned at each other uneasily, then Gideon frowned. “This is many at once,” he said slowly. “This is not as it should be, is it?”

  “It’s not common,” Bronte said. “But it happens—never like this, of course, but I can handle it.”

  Gideon looked unconvinced. “You are certain this will not … harm you?”

  “I’m not questioning my adoptive nanos anymore. I’m stronger and healthier than I ever was before. I’m carrying three babies, each by a different father, and they’re strong and healthy in spite of the fact that I was nearly killed. And they are part cyborg, not just carrying your human DNA. They will take care of everything. All we have to do is wait and while we’re doing that, I’ll make sure you three learn how to take care of them because there is no way I can handle the care and feeding of three at one time!”

  The three men exchanged a horrified look at that, but they didn’t argue.

  “We should go at once to arrange the contracts and this time make certain that they are properly registered so there can be no question!” Gideon announced. He studied her face for a moment. “You will do this?”

  She gave him a look.

  “Will you do this?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Yes!” She turned to look at Gabriel questioningly.

  “Will you contract with me?” Jerico asked as Gabriel opened his mouth.

  Gabriel glared at him.

  “Yes!” Bronte responded. Chuckling at the look on Gabriel’s face, she captured his cheeks between her palms and went up on her tiptoes to kiss his lips. “Absolutely, yes, Gabriel!” He grinned at her, folding his arms around her when she would’ve escaped and kissing her thoroughly. His expression was somber when he finally lifted his head. He swallowed audibly. “I love you, Bronte. I have missed you more than you can imagine.”

  Bronte felt her color fluctuate. Warmth filled her. “I love you, too!”

  She glanced uncomfortably at Gideon and Jerico when she finally pulled away from Gabriel. They were glaring at Gabriel indignantly and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “We should go now and sign the contracts,” Gideon growled, sending Gabriel one last resentful glare.

  “Yes! Right now!” Bronte agreed, and then abruptly remembered Caleb. He was standing where she’d left him, watching the four of them. She hesitated and then moved toward him. “Thank you for taking such good care of me!” she said when she reached him.

  Glancing up at her companions, she tried to urge them to thank him, as well, but saw they’d bristled and were glaring at him.

  “Anyway!” she said brightly. “I appreciate everything! We should go!” she told her companions. “I’m going!”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  As delighted as Bronte was that she had a home where they could live until they could make other arrangements, she knew even before they’d gotten there that it was going to be seriously crowded. She just hadn’t fully appreciated the size of her men!

  When they’d all crowded into the living area, Gideon, Jerico, and Gabriel stood looking around with varying degrees of doubt and displeasure. Bronte felt a mixture of eager anticipation and nervousness as it descended upon her abruptly that they were well and truly bound … and alone.

  “I should show you everything!” she announced brightly. “There are only two bedrooms and two baths, but I think we can make do until we find something bigger,” she chattered uneasily as they crowded behind her in the tiny hallway that connected the two rooms.

  “We should prepare a feast to celebrate,” Gideon said pensively as they all stood in the hall and glanced into the rooms.

  Instantly diverted by their stomachs, Jerico and Gabriel brightened and headed into the food preparation area. “I am sick of prison food! That is certain!” Jerico said, leading the way.

  Before she could follow them, Gideon hooked an arm around her waist, dragged her into the room she’d been using and closed the door firmly behind them. “That was....”

  “… Clever of me,” Gideon finished for Bronte as he settled on the bed with her and nuzzled his face against her neck, dragging in a deep breath of her scent and expelling it with gusty enthusiasm. “Can I help it if they are so easily diverted?”

  Bronte looked up at his smiling face as he lifted his head to study her. Her throat closed with sudden emotion as she lifted a hand to stroke his face. “I was so afraid I’d ruined everything and I’d never get the chance to tell you how much I love you.”

  His expression tautened. Doubt and relief warred in his deep blue eyes. He frowned uncertainly as he stroked her cheek in return. “You did not say that only to convince them to release us?” he asked slowly.

  She looked at him questioningly, feeling her heart swell in her chest until she could scarcely breathe. “Why would I say it and not mean it?” she asked gently.

  His frown deepened. “I do not know. Because you thought it was what we needed to hear?”

  “Did you … need to?”

  His face twisted with anguish. “I know you believe we do not have the capacity to feel as you do … even as the others of our kind do. But all that I could think of at first when they took you from us was that I was … lost, that I should be taking care of you and I did not know how I would exist if I did not have you to take care of. I could not get it out of my mind … because all Gabriel and Jerico would do was say what I was thinking myself. I do not want you to believe that I am only repeating what I have heard others say, heard you say. I feel love for you, Bronte. I know what it is. And I am afraid that you do not feel it for me because I am … what I am.”

  “I love you because you are what are, Gideon—the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me in my life.

  He dipped his head to align his nose with hers, staring at her eye to eye. “This is truth?”

  “From the bottom of my heart!” Bronte said, smiling. “Can we fuck now?”

  His head rocked backwards in surprise. She waggled her brows at him and he chuckled. Leaning away from her, he skated a hand down her body lightly until he’d cupped her mounded belly. “This will not hurt you? Or our babes?” he asked doubtfully.

  She studied his face lovingly. “This is one of the many reasons I love you, and why I don’t doubt that you love me, too. No, Gideon, it won’t hurt either me or the babies … but I’ve almost forgotten what it was like and need you to remind me.”

  He reminded her with a kiss first, hot, sweet and then urgent and demanding and all the while he caressed her body with magic fingers and palms that brought her to the brink of madness and held her enthralled. And when he’d removed his uniform, and settled against her again, he caressed every inch of exposed skin until she was burning and breathless and then tormented her by slowly peeling her clothes from her and lavishing her with the feel of his mouth and tongue on her breasts and mound. She gasped, moaned, writhed beneath him with exquisite pleasure, fighting the growing excitement that threatened to spill over.

  “Now, Gideon! Please!” she begged, pulling at him.

  He slipped his arms beneath her shoulders, propping himself on his elbows to watch her face as he probed her body with his cock, found her opening at last, and entered her. “I told you once that I could make you beg for me,” he murmured hoarsely as he delved her body, pressing slowly into her until he filled her. “I did not know then that you could make my body beg for yours also, that I would begin to crave the feel of you so much that I would feel sick with wanting you.”

  Her body thrilled at his words, quickened with urgency, tightened around his flesh convulsiv
ely. She groaned, arching her head back against the bed as she began to quake in climax. Uttering an echoing moan of ecstasy, he began thrusting faster as her climax triggered his.

  They were still drifting on a blissful cloud of release when the door opened. Bronte cracked an eye and then lifted her head when she saw Jerico and Gabriel in the doorway, rigid with anger, both wearing expressions of misuse.

  “Is the feast prepared already?” Gideon asked groggily.

  “Oh, Gideon! You really shouldn’t provoke them!”

  * * * *

  The smell of raw timbers mingled with the lingering scents of their picnic luncheon as they lazed around the blanket they’d spread beneath the shade of a large, spreading tree that would shade the front of their home once they’d completed it. Full and completely relaxed, more than half asleep, Bronte lay with her head in Gideon’s lap, watching him stroke his hand over the mound that jutted from her abdomen. It had certainly blossomed, she thought with quiet pride.

  It was the abrupt tension in Gideon that first alerted her.

  Struggling to lift her head as both Gabriel and Jerico stiffened and slowly came to their feet, she saw that Caleb was striding boldly toward them along the narrow drive that led up the construction site. It was just as well she did, because Gideon surged abruptly to his feet, as well.

  Grunting, feeling like a turtle turned on its back, she rolled onto her side and pushed herself to a sitting position, watching the men worriedly.

  Caleb halted while he was still several yards distant from them, his gaze flickering to her briefly before settling on Gideon.

  “You have a reason for being here?” Gideon growled challengingly.

  Caleb’s face hardened. “Yes. To challenge you to a test of fighting skills.”

  Surprise flickered in Gideon’s eyes.

  Bronte’s heart leapt into her throat and tried to choke her.

  “There is a purpose to this contest?” Gideon asked coldly, the challenging growl of his voice suggesting he knew the answer already.

  Caleb’s gaze moved to Bronte. “If I best you, then you will allow me to court Bronte.”

  “She is our companion,” Jerico said, his voice as cold and bristling with threat as Gideon’s.

  Caleb faced him unflinchingly. “There are only three of you. She can accept a fourth.”

  “There are plenty of others who could also accept a fourth!” Gabriel snapped. “And more who have no more than two!”

  Caleb’s hard jaw clenched, bringing a muscle there taut. “I want Bronte.”

  Bronte felt her face heat as his gaze met hers for a long moment and then flickered over her, lingering almost as long on her belly. Indignation filled her. “Well! If you’re hanging out for a brood mare, this one is already well bred!”

  Amusement flickered in his eyes. For a split second a pair of dimples appeared in his cheeks. “I will not say that breeding you has never entered my mind,” he retorted, his voice husky with promise—and no sense of self-preservation, “but you have far more to offer a man than only that. It is you that I want. As your man said, I could have looked elsewhere if I was only seeking a breeding mare.”

  Mollified, Bronte smiled back at him before she thought better of it. Her men, she discovered, were studying her through narrowed eyes when she glanced at them guiltily. She shrugged apologetically.

  “Mayhap instead of a challenge of skills, I will slay you and feed your corpse to the carrion feeders,” Gideon ground out.

  Caleb’s face tightened. “And mayhap I will kill you and take your place!”

  “Let’s don’t do this!” Bronte exclaimed in dismay, trying to struggle to her feet.

  Ignoring her, Gideon, Gabriel, and Jerico exchanged a long look. Gabriel shrugged, turning to look Caleb over with interest. “You are not a Hunter?”

  Caleb’s face reddened with anger. “I am not,” he ground out.

  “I did not think so. What do you think, Gideon?”

  “I believe that I will see if he is all mouth,” Gideon said coldly, pulling his sword from the sheath strapped to his back. “And then we will see if he worthy of our Bronte.”

  “God! Not the swords, Gideon!” Bronte exclaimed in dismay.

  He turned to study her for a long moment and then fixed Gabriel with a hard look, jerking his head toward the half finished structure behind them. Nodding, Gabriel strode to Bronte, scooped her into his arms, and began to bear her away at a brisk stride. “I will show you around our home.”

  “I don’t want to see the house!” Bronte said angrily, feeling her heart clench in fright as she heard the clang of blades behind them. “Make them stop!”

  “When I have you safely in the house,” Gabriel promised.

  “Now, Gabriel! I mean it! Put me down! I’ll stop it!”

  “This is why Gideon told me to take you into the house,” Gabriel said chidingly.

  “He didn’t tell you anything!” Bronte hissed angrily.

  “I knew what he meant.”

  “I know you knew what he meant! You three are always doing that! I don’t suppose it occurred to any of you that this might not be what I want?”

  “Then you can send him on his way when Gideon is done with him.”

  Bronte glared at him. “It’s bad enough that the three of you are always pounding on each other! Now I have to look forward to you hacking at each other with swords?”

  “We would not use swords against one another.”

  “Just against anyone that might decide they want to join us?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “There is always the possibility that someone will challenge us so long as we are only three and there is a place for another. I never was easy in my mind that we were only three.”

  Bronte gaped at him. “You were expecting this?”

  “We had thought that he would come sooner. It was clear that he wanted you … to us, if not to you.”

  Her shock didn’t last. “But … this is no way to settle the dispute! Someone will get hurt … badly. I’ve seen the way you all swing those swords!”

  “That was different. There was no doubt that that was a fight to the death when the trogs attacked. This is merely a contest to judge his skills as a fighter. We must be certain that he is not only willing to protect, but as capable of protecting you as any of us. He is a good man, but he has not had the fighting experience that we have. He was among the last produced and we had already been fighting for many years before he came.”

  Bronte’s eyes narrowed. “Why did you ask him if he was a Hunter if you know so much about him?”

  “Because the Hunters were the last. I could not be certain.”

  “What do you have against the Hunters?”

  He caught her gaze as he settled her on her feet at last. “Aside from the fact that they were designed to kill us?” he asked wryly. “They believe they are superior to us,” he added angrily. “And I do not want to share you with someone you might love more than me.”

  Bronte searched his face, knowing it wasn’t that the Hunters thought they were superior but the fact that the cyborgs felt inferior. “I couldn’t love anyone more than I love you,” she said gently. “Don’t you know that?”

  He stared at her with a mixture of uncertainty and tentative hope. “You do not think so?”

  She shook her head. “I know so. After all we went through together, no one could break the bond we forged.”

  He hauled her roughly against him and kissed her ruthlessly. She smiled up at him when he lifted his head at last. “Now will you go stop them?”

  He smiled back at her. “No.”

  “Damn it, Gabriel!” she snapped, pushing at him and trying to go around him.

  He chuckled, hooking his arm around her waist, carrying her full circle before he released her. “I love you, Bronte … but, no.”

  Grinding her teeth, she pushed his hands away and paced, trying to peer over his shoulder to see what was going on. He kept pace with her, blocking her view. “I c
an not stand the suspense!” she said finally. “Go and make sure Gideon isn’t hurt!”

  The scrape of a booted foot on the foundation heralded the end of the battle.

  “Oh ye of little faith!” Gideon quoted wryly.

  Letting out a gasp, Bronte rushed around Gabriel and fled to Gideon, trying to examine him for injury. He grabbed her, hauling her upward for a gusty kiss that quickly turned far more hungry than merely affectionate when she surged readily against him and kissed him back with fervor. Heat spread through her rapidly as he explored her mouth with his tongue and her body with his hands with equal thoroughness.

  “Tease,” she murmured without heat when he broke the kiss almost reluctantly and lifted his head. Nuzzling her face against his hard chest, she settled her cheek over his heart, savoring the warmth of his embrace as much as his kiss.

  When she finally opened her eyes, she saw that Caleb had followed Gideon to the house. He was watching her and Gideon together, his expression unreadable. She met his gaze for a long moment and then examined him for injury. Relieved when she saw that he had no more than a few small cuts, she pulled away from Gideon and looked up at him questioningly.

  He nodded at Caleb almost cordially. “He has an excellent sword arm.”

  Bronte lifted her brows at him, but turned to look at Caleb again as Gideon moved away from her. Caleb smiled at her almost bashfully, and then glanced uneasily at the other men, who’d retreated only a short distance to watch, Bronte discovered, mildly annoyed.

  Caleb cleared his throat. “I would like....” He stopped, frowned as he reconsidered and started again. “Would you consider contracting with me?”

  A mixture of amusement and irritation flooded Bronte. These men had no subtlety at all! “You’re very sweet, and very handsome,” she said slowly. “I will consider it, but …I like to be courted!”

  Caleb looked confused and happy and uneasy all at the same time.

  Bronte turned to look at her men, a slow smile curling her lips as she met their gazes one by one. “You should ask them how to court me. They are very good at courting. I loved the way they courted me.”