by Cynthia Sax
“The Humanoid Alliance made my mom’s death look like an accident.” She lifted her chin. “You could do the same with mine.”
That had been his original plan, a plan that was blown to bits the first time he touched her.
“This is for the best, Vapor.” Her words were weighted with sadness. “The Mira the Merciless act is growing harder and harder to maintain. The Humanoid Alliance will discover my lies, execute me, perhaps torturing me first. This way, it’ll be quick.”
What is she talking about? Raw asked.
The others were as confused, pelting him with questions.
Vapor ignored them, concentrating on his female. “And the cyborgs you’re trying to save? What will happen to them?”
Trying to save? Strive growled.
“Add them to the list of beings I’ve failed.” Mira’s eyes shone with unshed tears.
“Hold it together, female.” His voice was gruff. “And put the gun down.”
“That’s one command I can’t heed.” Her smile was wobbly. She was so blasted obstinate and brave, reckless and his. “Thank you for putting me first, for not betraying me. You’re the most honorable being I’ve ever known.”
“Mira—”
“Goodbye, Vapor.” She pressed the trigger.
Nothing happened. He exhaled, the weight on his shoulders lifting. His processors had known she was in no danger. His heart had worried.
She tapped the trigger again and again. “What the fuck?” Mira gazed at the barrel, tried once more, slapped the gun against her thigh, made another attempt to end her life.
She was determined to carve his heart from his chest and that enraged Vapor. “You will not kill yourself.” He scooped her into his arms and hurled the gun at the wall. It shattered into several pieces. “You’re mine to kill.” He brought his face close to hers. “How many times have I told you that?”
“I don’t recall you ever saying that,” she looked him in the eyes and lied.
Fraggin’ hole.
“The truth.” Vapor draped her over his right shoulder and whacked her ass hard. “That’s what I want from you.” He cuffed her again and she shrieked.
They needed privacy, a safe place to talk and to touch. He turned toward the exit.
“Vapor, you can’t leave with her.” Ace dared to step between him and the door. “We have to discuss this. Strive is right. She knows too much, could talk to her father, get us all decommissioned.”
She would never intentionally cause another being’s death. But they didn’t know that. “Talk to Ace, female.” Chattering wasn’t Vapor’s strength.
“No.”
His palm connected with her ass. “Tell them why you’re assigning Strive and Grin to a socialite, why they’re to be her playthings.”
“They won’t be her playthings.” She glared at him. “They’ll be her guards. Lydna, the socialite I’ve chosen, believes they’re machines, unable to think for themselves. I plan to remove their tracking devices before their assignment. It should be easy for them to escape during the ten planet rotations. Lydna will be so ashamed that she misplaced them, she won’t draw their missing status to any being’s attention. They’ll have time to completely disappear.”
Vapor gazed at her, openly displaying his admiration. His female was cunning and beautiful, her eyes glowing with a cock-hardening ferocity.
“She sought to save you from decommissioning.” Thrasher looked at Strive. “And you wanted to kill her.” His lips curled.
“I didn’t know that,” Strive mumbled, bowing his head.
“I didn’t know that either, but I believed Thrasher when he said he had doubts.” Ace nodded at the cyborg. “And I trusted Vapor’s judgment when he declared her worthy of protection. Humans lie. We’re all aware of that. We didn’t realize that sometimes they lie to help cyborgs.”
“I lie to help others,” Mira had the courage to correct her defender. “I don’t care that you’re cyborgs.”
“Because you see us as beings.” Ace understood.
“Mira won’t betray us.” Vapor rubbed his human’s lush ass. “She hates the Humanoid Alliance as much as we do.”
“They killed my mom,” she whispered. “And Pepe and Aumakua and Aumakua’s male and Carr and…”
Mira continued to list names, emotion wrapped around each death. Vapor held her, stroking her body, seeking to ease her sorrow, only now fully understanding the depth of her caring.
He’d killed countless beings but thought about very few of them. She kept each face in her heart, revisiting the pain, the loss.
He’d protect her tender heart, her loving soul, her lush form.
Is my female safe here? She’d be safe from the humans. Guards seldom entered the final stage holding structure. But his cyborg brethren could still be a threat. He wouldn’t surround her with enemies.
“I’d protect your female with my life.” Strive stood, voicing his allegiance both to Vapor and to Mira.
“That’s apt since she seeks to save that life.” Thrasher shook his head. “I’ll protect her also.”
“As will I,” Ace added.
One by one, the cyborgs stepped forward, swearing to safeguard her. Mira, a human, had earned the loyalty of his brethren.
Before this planet rotation, Vapor hadn’t thought that was possible. The hatred for their masters ran deep within each of them.
Yet she’d won them over, his female.
“Then we stay.” Vapor carried her to his docking station.
“You took out three cyborgs in that battle.” Thrasher fastened his tubes, giving Vapor a much needed boost of inputs. “I’ve never seen you fight like that.”
“He’s the best,” Mira murmured.
“You’ve given your female your nanocybotics.” Ace breathed in. “I smell them on her. Could that have created more?”
Vapor shrugged. “That sounds like a logical explanation.” He lowered his armor-covered ass to the floor, setting Mira on his lap.
“We could test that theory.” He didn’t like the way Thrasher was eying his human.
“No, we couldn’t.” Vapor folded his body over hers. “No one touches her.”
Thrasher chuckled. “We don’t want to touch her. As Ass says, she smells like you.”
Ace shoved Thrasher. The two argued and wrestled, punching arms and slapping asses. Their conversation turned private, as it often did.
Vapor was, once again, an outsider, though he was no longer alone. He gazed down at his female. Her eyelids were lowering, her face soft. She’d had an event-filled planet rotation.
“You can rest, Mira.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I have you.”
And she had him.
* * *
Moments passed. Vapor held Mira as she slept. He was content to be with her, to have the quiet moments of togetherness.
Cyborgs cast envious glances in his direction. They coveted what he had—a female, companionship, a caring stronger than any he’d experienced.
His brethren discussed the plans for their escape. They would be treated like the rest of the supplies—loaded onto the ship at the end of the planet rotation, stored there over the human’s rest cycle, transported off Tau Ceti at sunrise.
That would give Vapor plenty of time to slip out of the ship, complete his mission, and then return. All he had to do was figure out his mission.
He caught his friends’ gazes. She’s not our target.
We realize that. Thrasher sat beside him. What do you plan to do with her?
I don’t know. He brushed back her curls.
Ace claimed a spot of floor close to Thrasher. You can’t stay on Tau Ceti. Her people will kill you. You can’t take her to the cyborg Homeland. Humans aren’t allowed to live there.
You could live on another planet with her, outside of Humanoid Alliance control, Thrasher suggested.
Mira would know where those planets were. Vapor gazed at her beautiful face. She’d helped beings escape the Humanoid Alli
ance.
Those beings left their home planets with very few material possessions. They didn’t have custom-crafted garments, sun stones sparkling in their hair, domiciles located in highly secured compounds.
If she escaped with him, he’d keep her safe. He would die for her if that were required. But she’d be an outcast, not a member of high society, and she wouldn’t ever have the offspring he knew she wanted. He couldn’t give those to her.
An honorable male would step aside, allow her to find a more worthy mate.
He suspected Mira would make that sacrifice without hesitation for him. Vapor had thought her lies indicated a lack of integrity. It indicated the opposite. She’d do anything to protect the beings she cared for, to make them happy.
Vapor didn’t know if he was that strong, if he could let his female go. He wanted her, needed her, couldn’t imagine his life without her.
He played with her hair. His friends sat with him, chattering about planets and females and possible alternate targets.
The sun will rise soon, Ace advised. If your female is discovered here, questions will be asked.
We’re leaving. Vapor draped Mira over one of his shoulders and stood.
She stirred, mumbled about being sleepy and it being too early, snuggled deeper into his body.
He was hard, desiring her with a circuit-burning intensity, but his female needed her rest. This planet rotation would be as trying for her as the previous one had been. Breeding would have to wait.
Strive accessed the control panel at the exit. I’ll go with you, help you guard her.
That wasn’t necessary. Vapor was fully healed and could protect Mira himself. But he didn’t argue, recognizing the cyborg’s wish to make amends, to do something to show his loyalty to Vapor and to Mira.
Stick to the shadows. This advice wasn’t required. Strive might be operating suboptimally for a cyborg but he could avoid the clumsy humans.
Vapor exited the structure with Mira, running through the darkness. Strive followed him.
Some of the guards were gathered near the illuminated entrance to the compound, consuming a foul-smelling fermented beverage, talking about the purifying, mocking the locals’ pleas.
If his female were awake, she’d whip the males with her tongue, make them scatter. Then when they were in private, she’d cry, inflicting damage with her tears. This time, the wounds would be to Vapor’s heart.
He tightened his grip on her sleeping form. Once they escaped, she wouldn’t have to conceal her tender side. She could embrace the soft heart hidden behind her strong exterior.
They reached the domicile without incident. Mira continued to sleep.
“Wake up, female,” he murmured, lowering her to her feet.
“Mmm…” She swayed against him, her eyes closed.
His little human wasn’t the most cognizant at sunrise. “You have to enter your domicile, Mira.” Vapor tried to smooth her mussed hair. It was a telltale sign that she hadn’t slept on her own sleeping support. “You must cleanse yourself and change your garment.”
“Don’t wanna.” She clutched his body armor with her hands.
She looked so adorable. Vapor couldn’t resist kissing her. He covered her lips with his. She sighed, opening to him. Their tongues slid together, a tender embrace he never wanted to end.
Vapor cradled her face between his hands, rousing her with patient passion, building her desire one skim of his lips at a time. Her fingers crept upward, curled over his nape. Her nipples tightened. The scent of her musk intensified.
“Want you.” She opened her eyes. The lust he saw in them weakened his knees. “Take me, Vapor. I’m so empty, so hollow. Fill me.”
Fraggin’ hole. He wanted to. “I’ll fill you later. This isn’t the time or the place.”
She blinked once, twice. “You don’t want to breed with me?”
“I want to breed with you.” Vapor wanted nothing more than to plunge his hard cock into her warm, wet pussy. “But I won’t risk your safety for a moment of bliss. You’re my universe, female.”
“But—”
A guard is approaching, Strive warned.
Vapor sensed the humanoid. “Go.” He turned Mira and pushed her toward the domicile’s entrance. “Hurry.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. He gestured toward the door. Mira sniffed, lifted her chin and swept through the entrance.
She was angry with him. Vapor waited for a moment, ensuring she didn’t need him. That ice-cold rage would give her strength, help her maintain her façade. That image would protect her when he couldn’t.
Strive hissed at him through the private transmission lines.
I’m leaving. Vapor gazed at the door one more time and then stalked back to the final staging holding structure.
Chapter Fourteen
Obeying her cyborg’s orders, Mira followed her usual beginning of the planet rotation routine, tidying herself, optimistically changing into a long white garment with a full skirt, in case they had an opportunity for a quickie.
That must be his plan. She wandered down a random pathway, hiding her sexual frustration under an impervious expression. He hadn’t awakened her in time for them to have one last fuck and he’d want one.
Wouldn’t he?
Mira strode faster, turning left, right, right, left, not heeding where she was going, trusting Vapor to eventually find and follow her. She couldn’t think of possibly never touching him again. That would cause her tears to fall and Mira the Merciless didn’t cry. Ever. She had to maintain her act, had to protect Vapor and his friends.
She walked and walked and walked. Her rebellious warrior didn’t join her. She passed the final stage fighting ring. It was empty.
Mira’s stomach fluttered with the beginnings of panic. Where was he?
A boom rocked the open space and the pathway shook under her feet. She clasped the side of a structure, struggling to stay upright.
Oh, fuck. Not again. She couldn’t deal with more explosions, more death, not alone. Vapor wasn’t here to help her manage her emotions.
The noise faded and the ground settled. There were no bodies lying lifeless, no blank eyes staring up at her. She wasn’t in danger.
Not that Vapor knew that.
She sniffed and continued moving. Hun leaned by the door to the holding structure, drinking from a beverage container, his face red.
“I need K000156.” Mira needed him in more ways than one. “I have to leave the compound.”
“All that’s left are the two cyborgs you rented to that council member’s wife.” Hun’s words slurred. He was drunk out of his mind and the sun wasn’t even midway in the sky. “K000156 got deployed with the rest of its batch.”
“What?” She must have heard him incorrectly. “No, you’re mistaken. Deployment isn’t until later this planet rotation.”
“Listen.” Booms echoed in the distance. Tremors ran through the ground. “Hear that?” Hun shuddered. “Fuckin’ explosions. I hate them. One moment, you’re fighting. The next moment, you’re splattered to pieces. And you can’t do shit to avoid them.”
Mira hated explosives also. “Do you have a point to this story?”
“The locals are fighting in the tunnels below us. Bet you didn’t know that, huh?” Fear edged the trainer’s voice. “The sneaky bastards dug tunnels underneath the districts. Nowhere is safe.”
She did know about the tunnels. “Do I care about the locals? No. What happened to my cyborgs?”
“That captain transporting your cyborgs arrived early.” Hun took another long drink of his beverage. “He was in a hurry, wanted to get off the planet before it explodes.” He held up his hands. They shook. “His words, not mine.”
Vapor had left. Without a good-bye, without a kiss, without a touch.
Hold it together, female, her cyborg’s voice echoed in her mind. Mira pushed her emotions back down, sealed them with a layer of ice.
“This is very inconvenient.” She gazed at the hold
ing structure one more time. Her warrior was gone. Mira turned and walked away.
“What about the other two cyborgs?” Hun called after her.
“I’ll deliver them later. I’m too angry to speak right now.”
That was the truth. She was angry and sad and hurt and completely devastated. Vapor had been deployed. Meeting him at the docking bay wasn’t feasible. It was a highly secured area and her visit would be noted.
Mira had to let him go, had to accept that she would never again see his rugged face, never kiss his lips, never feel safe, protected, loved.
She stomped into her domicile, thumped along the hallway, entered her chambers, locked the door and flung herself on the sleeping support.
She loved her cyborg. Mira realized that now. She loved him and he was gone.
Gone. Fuck. She wished she could tell him how she felt, how important he was to her, how he was her universe also, her only reason to smile. He was her lover, her friend, her confidant.
Mira hugged her knees to her chest, recalling the scent of Vapor’s skin, the solidness of his male form, the gruffness of his voice. The rest of her lifespan would be spent alone. Untouched. Hated. No other being would know the true her.
Tears ran down her cheeks.
In the past, before she met her cyborg, she would have sucked the sadness back into her soul. She would have funneled her sorrow into anger.
But Vapor had shown her that there was nothing wrong with grief. If he were here, he would spank her until she cried, until she vented all of her dark emotions.
Until she thought clearly once more.
She had to continue the Mira the Merciless act, had to pretend not to care, be cruel to others, lie. Vapor and his brethren remained on the planet and she wouldn’t put them at risk by changing her persona.
Mira chewed on a nutrition bar. She would deceive the worlds long enough to ensure he was safe, far away, hopefully happy, and then she’d bring down the Humanoid Alliance. She didn’t know how, only that she’d achieve that goal or she’d die trying.
Vapor would approve of that also. He had been shocked that she hadn’t sought vengeance for her mom’s death. A being with honor would have taken that action.