Defying Death

by Cynthia Sax

  She was the sole exception.

  Her waking cycles consisted of the investigations she loved, disproving theories and chasing genetic clues.

  Yet she lived for her rest cycles.

  That was when Death loosened his tight control over his emotions, showing her everything, roaring his satisfaction into the darkness. She always feigned sleep, instinctively knowing he wouldn’t let go if she were awake.

  This rest cycle would be different.

  She woke, straddling him as she always did. Death’s fit form pressed against hers, his skin gloriously bare. As was hers.

  He had stripped her of her garments while she slept. Before the rest cycle ended, he’d clean her, dress her in her tidied flight suit and medic jacket, set her on the chair beside his, and act as though they hadn’t rutted until their voices were hoarse and their bodies were sore.

  Going forward, she wouldn’t allow that. He’d acknowledge their bond, embrace his feelings for her. She didn’t expect to hear the words. She didn’t know if she was ready to say them to him. But he would show his emotions. Openly.

  She wanted that. She wanted him.

  Heat radiated from her cyborg, heat and that distinctive scent, a mixture of metal and male. Her clit pulsed to the beating of her heart. Her body craved the fullness only her cyborg could give her. Her nipples ached for his palms.

  She rubbed against him, seeking more pressure, more connection. His hard shaft parted her pussy lips. His cock head teased her clit, the rim in exactly the right spot. He massaged her ass with his fingers.

  Her cyborg needed this as much as she did. She mouthed his flat pecs, tasting minerals and salt. His feelings were trapped inside him. They had to be released.

  And she was so empty. She branded his shaft with her scent, her wetness. Death groaned, the low, deep sound exciting her.

  He didn’t bring her closer, didn’t push her away, allowing her to use his body. Tifara gazed at him though sleep-fogged eyes, the surrealist nature of their encounters making her brave. It wasn’t her grinding against her male, shamelessly taking from him, pushing his restraint toward its snapping point. It was the dream Tifara.

  Her breasts felt full, heavy, woefully unsupported, unloved.

  She pulled on Death’s wrists.

  He was a cyborg, more powerful than any human male, yet he followed her direction. She placed his palms on her curves. He cupped, molded, squeezed her breasts, weighing them with his fingers, and she murmured her approval, the pleasure exquisite.

  Tifara rocked into him, bouncing higher and higher, the muscles in her thighs straining. It was good but not enough. She needed him inside her.

  “Death.” Speaking made the encounter real, dissipating some of its dreamlike quality. If he wasn’t as far gone as she was, he could shutter his emotions, bury them deep inside him once more.

  But he was as entranced as she was. “What do you need, my Tifara?” Death’s eyes glowed, passion lighting their depths.

  “You.” Her clit bumped against his tip and she quivered. “Your cock in my pussy.” He didn’t move, his hands remaining on her breasts. “Now.”

  Tifara blinked, her words surprising herself. She’d never been so demanding with a lover, had never barked sex instructions at a male.

  Her warrior showed no signs he took offense. His lips quirked upward. He scooped his palms under her ass and lifted her.

  She grasped his shaft, positioning him properly.

  Death lowered her onto him and Tifara sucked in her breath. Although she’d had him many, many times, his size always surprised her. He was big, bigger than any other male she’d had, his broad cock head pressing against her inner walls, stretching her pussy hole until pain mixed with the pleasure.

  “Tight.” Tifara dug her fingernails into his arms.

  “You were made for me.” He wouldn’t allow her to retreat, pushing deeper and deeper, owning her body with his big cock. “You’re hot and wet, all mine.”

  The sensual slide continued, an intimate invasion she never fully recovered from, every fucking strengthening their connection. She tattooed his skin with pink crescent moons, relaying some of her pain to him, seeking to change him as he was changing her, rest cycle after rest cycle.

  Her intimate folds finally touched his base and his advance stopped. She was full of thick shaft. Tifara leaned forward, resting her forehead on his chest.

  Death stroked her back, rubbing his hands soothingly over her hair and spine. “Cyborgs might not believe in destiny or fate but this is where you are meant to be, where I am meant to be, inside you, your heat around me. I would kill to keep this.”

  He would. She knew. He’d given up his brethren, his home, his future, to be with her. “You don’t have to kill to keep me. I’m yours,” she admitted.

  Death stiffened. “You’re awake.”

  He’d pull away from her now. She clenched down on his shaft and gripped his shoulders. “I’ve always been awake.” She met his gaze squarely. “And you’ve always known that.” He was an intelligent being. “You don’t have to conceal any part of you while you’re with me.”

  “I can’t,” he admitted. “I’ve tried but I’m weak—”

  “Our connection is strong,” she corrected.

  “I put you at risk.”

  His concern for her safety pulled at her heart. “Then you’ll have to protect me.”

  Pain flashed in his eyes. “I’ve failed others.”

  He was thinking of the Erinomean girl. “You didn’t stay by her side. Do you plan to leave me unprotected?”

  He shook his head, his expression grimly determined.

  “Then you won’t fail me.”

  The severe set of his lips didn’t ease.

  “We’re alone.” She didn’t expect him to reveal his emotions in front of witnesses. “You’ve bred with me every rest cycle since we met. You don’t put me at risk then and nothing has changed.”

  He gripped her chin and tilted her face upward. “Everything has changed.”

  He covered her mouth with his, his kiss firm yet gentle, sure yet sweetly apologetic. Her lips parted, surrendering to his dominance.

  His tongue and nanocybotics swept inside her, a current of energy-infused lust surging down her throat, not stopping until it reached her fingers and toes, warming her all over.

  He was right. Everything had changed. He was trusting her with his emotions and she would never abuse that trust. She’d protect him as he protected her.

  Tifara sucked on his tongue, drinking him in. They were a team, a couple. Some of that was genetics, but they fit in many other ways.

  Those other ways would be explored later. She glided her hands up his arms. Fucking him, kissing him was her focus now.

  She contracted and released her pussy muscles, massaging his cock, and he murmured his approval, his words muted by her mouth. Fuck. He felt good, his length as unrelenting as his metal frame.

  Death moved her up and down him, acting as though she weighed nothing. This was no human male inside her. He was a cyborg, half man, half machine, able to lift her without tiring.

  Tifara had always been conscious of her size. Death made her feel small, delicate, feminine. There was no doubting his desire. His cock hardened even more inside her.

  “Yes, Death, yes.” She arched her back, dragging her nipples along his chest, and his lips flattened. He ravished her harder. Her ass bounced against his thighs, all points of contact heating, the burn delectable.

  “So right. How you feel. Harder, yes,” she called out in encouragement, her mind scrambled by their rutting. Sweat beaded on her skin. He bent his head and licked the swell of her breasts, his tongue rough and hot. Tifara trembled, rippling her inner walls over his shaft, pulling an excitingly animalistic grunt from her cyborg’s throat.

  Death burst into frantic action, humping her in earnest, impaling her again and again on his thickness. She panted, each drive downward pushing the air from her lungs. The warrior touched virg
in flesh, reaching a part of her no other male could.

  “Yes.” Tifara clutched his shoulders and held on. “Yes.” Her pussy hummed. Her curves jiggled. Tremors of need rolled over her.

  These grew in intensity, shredding her grasp on reality. She gazed upward, drawn in by the flashes of gold in his eyes. The bolts of energy surged to the rhythm of his fucking, exciting her, pushing her closer to the edge.

  “Death.” She sealed her lips over his chin and sucked.

  He growled. His chest vibrated against her breasts, teasing her taut nipples. His fingers splayed under her ass, his fingertips pressing into her skin. His cock bobbed inside her.

  Fuck. He was fierce.

  But so was she. Tifara hung onto him with her lips, her arms, her legs, not relenting with her full-body assault. He slammed her down on him and she squeezed him with her inner walls.

  Death howled, bucking upward. Hot cum spurted from his tip, splattered inside her and she screamed, euphoria smashing over her, a sonic wave of pleasure nearly flattening her.

  He captured her lips with his, severing the sound, and he pushed even deeper, filling her with his essence. She writhed, her pussy convulsing around his thick cock, coaxing every last drop from his rigid form.

  Lights and color spun around her. His nanocybotics flowed into her mouth and her pussy, triggering more changes within her. She didn’t know what she was, what she was becoming, but she knew she was no longer entirely human.

  Tifara collapsed against her cyborg. He stroked her hair, supported her weight, murmuring words of comfort, of reassurance into her throat.

  The bubbling sensation engulfed her from head to toe. Even her scalp tingled. And her need to touch him, to be near him, hadn’t abated. In mere moments, she’d need him again and he’d need her.

  And she didn’t have to act like she was asleep during their encounters. “There. That wasn’t that bad, was it?” Her tone was unapologetically smug. “You showed some emotion and we survived. We weren’t sucked into the nearest black hole or attacked by a fleet of Humanoid Alliance ships.”

  His eyes gleamed and his lips curled upward.

  “What? Is that a smile?” She touched his lips, joy blooming inside her. “I believe it is. You’re not grim as fuck now, are you?”

  His lips flattened.

  “Oh Death. I understand why you’re grim.” She skimmed her lips against his. “And I won’t tell any other being you smiled. It will be our secret.”

  He pushed her head down, against his chest. “Sleep.”

  “I’m not tired.” Tifara snuggled closer to her very warm male. “I like that we have secrets.” She shifted against him. “Between us,” she clarified. “We shouldn’t keep information from each other. Trust is essential for a good relationship.”

  He tightened his grip on her.

  “We have to—”

  Death scooped her off his lap and plunked her in her own chair.

  Her ass smacked against the hard surface. She glared at him. “What the—”

  “We’re not alone.” He leaned forward and placed his palms on the console’s control panel. The image on the main viewscreen changed. An object was amplified.

  “It’s a ship.” She gasped, her outrage dissipating, morphing into concern. “Can they see us too?”

  “We’re cloaked.”

  “We can see them. Aren’t they cloaked?”

  “I’m a cyborg. I can penetrate any concealing mechanism. ” Death’s arrogance would be amusing if the situation wasn’t so perilous.

  For the beings in the other ship.

  Tifara, confident in her destiny, wasn’t concerned about Death or herself.

  An image appeared on the bottom left side of the main viewscreen. It was rotated, flipped, expanded. Blobs of bright orange and yellow were positioned between gray and black structures.

  “Are those lifeforms?” she guessed.

  He nodded.

  “There are quite a few of them for such a small ship.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “All of the humanoids seem to be in their private spaces, their extremely tiny chambers.” That couldn’t be comfortable. “Except this one.” She pointed to a lifeform. “He’s in the hallway, right outside his chamber. And she’s not in her chamber either.” Tifara indicated a second lifeform. “I’m assuming she’s on the bridge.”

  Silence stretched. The ship moved closer to them.

  Death tapped on the control panel. His lips flattened into a thin white line.

  “You’re not going to blow their ship up, are you?” She worried. That was an action her violence prone cyborg would take.

  He grunted.

  That sounded like a ‘yes.’ “There’s no need to do that. They might not see us.”

  He said nothing.

  “Blowing up their ship will draw attention to us.” She tried a different tactic. “Why do that if it’s not necessary? You’re a cyborg. They’re humanoid. You can react faster than they can. If they raise their shields or power up their weapons, then you can shoot them out of open space.”

  His gaze slid to hers.

  She widened her eyes, putting as much pleading into her expression as possible.

  His lips twisted.

  She interpreted that as agreement. “Thank you.”

  They waited. Tifara thought about the ship, about the unique configuration, the tiny chambers, the humanoids staying inside the small spaces when they had a much larger vessel to explore.

  “It’s a Retriever ship.” She realized. “My friend Safyre told me about Retrievers.” Her mood sobered as it always did when she thought about the friend she’d lost. “They work for the Humanoid Alliance, capturing rebels and other beings, returning them to be sentenced and reprimanded.”

  Death’s body stiffened.

  “She has a full ship.” Tifara hastened to reassure her trigger-happy male. “Every chamber is filled. She won’t be interested in us.” She hoped. “And she can’t see us, remember? She doesn’t know we’re here.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “We’ll wait and watch and take action only if she does.” She concentrated on the image of the Retriever’s ship, willing the female not to notice them.

  Safyre, her friend, hated Retrievers with a burning passion, thought them the lowest of the low, but Tifara merely saw precious lifeforms, beings she could save.

  She held her breath as the ship soundlessly drifted by theirs. It was frighteningly close yet there was no indication that they were detected. The Retriever’s ship didn’t slow or react in any way.

  It passed without incident and she exhaled heavily. “That was—”

  “The ship is turning.” Death changed the angle on the main viewscreen, allowing them to look behind their vessel.

  The Retriever ship was turning. The speed of that turn accelerated, the ship moving faster and faster. Then it dropped, corrected, held for a moment, tilted to the right and to the left.

  “What is happening?” Was that normal for an attack? Tifara’s expertise was healing. She knew very little about battle or flying.

  Another lifeform scan appeared on the main viewscreen. This time, all of the lifeforms were out of their chambers. “What is that?” She pointed at the huge yellow and red blob at the end of a hallway.

  “Fire.”

  Tifara did know fire on a ship was a bad thing. “We have to help her. They’ll all die if we don’t.”

  “They’ll all die if we help, every being except for her.” Death’s eyes shone with suppressed rage. “She’s hunting rebels. You could have been one of her captives.”

  “But—”

  “The rebels she captured won’t be reprimanded, my female.” He steered their ship farther away from the Retriever’s vessel. The image in the main viewscreen grew smaller. “They’ll be sent to a cyborg manufacturing compound.” His voice was flat. “Newly manufactured warriors will be forced to fight them, to kill them. I could have been one of those warriors. I could have been forced to fight you,
my own female, in the ring. I would have had to kill you because if I didn’t, some other warrior would and he might not end your life as quickly, as painlessly as I could.”

  “Oh, Death.” Tifara crawled into his lap and petted his chest, trying to comfort him.

  He wouldn’t have had to end her life. Dying in a fighting ring wasn’t her destiny.

  But he’d been forced to kill others and that must have hurt her cyborg. Her heart ached for him. She stroked his skin with her fingers.

  “We’re not helping her.” Death’s tone told her he wouldn’t relent on that. “And you should return to your seat.”

  “We’re not helping her,” she agreed, ignoring his comment about returning to her seat. “Rescuing the Retriever will doom the others to death. And—”

  The Retriever’s ship exploded, bursting into a million pieces, and Tifara jumped, shocked, surprised, horrified. Debris, fragments of metal, shot outward, reaching toward them, deadly fingers of shrapnel flying in their direction.

  Her heart raced. Their ship rocked. Alarms sounded. Red lights flashed.

  “Are we hit?” She clutched Death’s arms.

  “The damage is minor. The ship remains functional.”

  The Retriever’s ship wasn’t functional. It had been blown to bits.

  Had the female and her passengers survived?

  “They could have ejected.” That was possible.

  The sound coming from her cyborg indicated that was unlikely.

  But he didn’t know. Not for certain. Tifara clung to that tiny sliver of hope.

  Their ship moved farther and farther from the wreckage. She swallowed her suggestion that they look through the wreckage for escape pods. Death would kill any beings brought on board. Another ship would have to help them.

  Tifara curled up in Death’s lap and pressed her ear against his chest, listening to the comforting thump, thump, thump of his triple heartbeat, and thinking of their future. He rested his chin on top of her head and gazed out the main viewscreen.

  He watched the blackness of space.

  She watched him. Her cyborg appeared as grim as he usually did.