by Cynthia Sax
“Fuck you.” She summoned her remaining spirit. “I’m worth a dozen of you.”
Zloy glared at her.
The Balazoid snapped his whip, regaining both of their attention. “You can beat what’s left of it after the hunt.”
Zloy nodded, his expression smug. “Get up, you lazy slut.” He hefted her to her feet. “It’s time to earn your thirty-five thousand credits. Give us a show.”
“I’ll show you my ass…as I escape you. Forever.” Her body swayed. She’d spent the entire shift kneeling on the cold hard floor. Her legs threatened to buckle under her.
“I’ll win our bet.” The splotchy-faced male crowed. “The slut can’t stand on its own. It won’t make it out the door.”
“I’ll push it out the door.” Zloy shoved her toward the exterior exit.
The other males jeered at her, pinching her sides, breasts, ass as she progressed. If they did that to give her a reason to run, it was unnecessary. The possibility of freedom was the only incentive she needed.
The door opened. Warm air swept into the chamber. The outside called to her. She breathed deeply. It smelled like liberation.
Zloy smacked the flat of his right hand against her back, that impact propelling her forward. “The hunt starts—”
Needing every moment possible if she was to escape, Greer didn’t wait for the rest of his words. She ran. Pebbles dug into the soles of her feet. She ignored that pain, sprinted in the direction of the nearest settlement wall.
Beings stared at her, their heads turning as she passed them.
A solar cycle ago, her naked state would have mortified her. No one except her long dead mother had ever seen her without garments.
Her duration with Zloy had cured her of any shyness. He enjoyed parading her in public while she was bound and garmentless. The bastard had showed her bare body to the beings who’d once respected her, inviting them to touch her.
And many of them had done that. Beings she once dined with, beings she’d believed thought highly of her, had squeezed her breasts and ass. She was a slave, an object to do with as they pleased. Her protests, her cursing, her yelling, hadn’t stopped them.
She didn’t care what they thought of her now. Freedom was her sole goal.
Her nudity would make her easier to track. As would her red hair. She grabbed a covering cloth off a horizontal support, draped it over her head, wrapping the fabric around her form as she moved.
The staring lessened.
She navigated through pathways. The muscles in her legs strained. Sweat beaded on her face, dripped down her spine. She held her breasts close to her chest, giving them extra support as she ran.
Stone stretched into the blue sky. The walls of the settlement were too high to climb. But she had discovered a hidden door during her explorations as a girl. She squeezed through a tiny opening between a domicile and the wall, hurried down a ramp, turned left.
And she abruptly stopped. All of her clever plans crashed around her soul.
Stones covered the place where the door had once been.
She pressed her hands against the surface, needing to feel it to believe it. The mortar was wet.
Shit. Zloy must have blocked the exit after her previous escape.
The next closest exit was the main gates. Her stomach twisted as she retraced her steps, returning to the pathway. She could reach them.
She had to reach the gates if she was to survive.
The pathways became more and more crowded as she ventured into the central part of the settlement. She dashed between beings, bumped against a tall female, almost fell. Her companion yelled something Greer couldn’t decipher.
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Her gut said the Balazoid was following her. She felt his presence, detected the proximity of evil.
Fear meshed with her determination. She pushed herself to run faster.
As she turned a corner, her feet slipped out from under her. Rock grated against her right side, shredding her skin. Pain streaked over her.
She righted herself, continued to move. Her lungs burned. Her heart pounded.
Freedom. She could almost taste freedom.
The pebble-covered pathways tore into her feet. She must be leaving a bloody trail behind her. There was nothing she could do about that. Concealing her footprints would take too much time.
A whip snapped and her body jerked, instinctively reacting to the sound. Fuck. She wouldn’t make it. He’d catch her before she arrived at the gates.
Unless she lost him.
She veered to the right, entering the market. The open space was packed with beings and merchants’ stalls. She rushed around them, bumped into a couple of beings, instinctively apologized.
That was a remnant of her former life, when she was treated as a freeborn female, not as a slave to be hunted in public. She hadn’t thought to escape then, had foolishly believed her father’s promises to set her free, had served him diligently until the end.
Only to discover he had never thought of her as anything other than a slave, an item to be sold. By the time she realized that devastating truth, it was too late. Zloy, with his cronies, had arrived to take ownership of her.
Her nightmare had begun.
And it continued now. Her covering cloth caught on something, almost flipping her onto her ass. She yanked on the fabric. It remained snagged.
She looked over her shoulder.
The Balazoid gazed back at her. His blood-red eyes glowed with triumph. The tail of her makeshift garment was clutched in his pale hands.
Shit. Shit. Shit. She threw off the covering cloth and darted frantically forward. There was no destination in her mind. All she knew was she had to get away from the male hunting her.
Beings gawked at her naked form. A male lunged toward her.
“Looking for me, red?” He grabbed her by the waist.
“Fuck you.” She spun out of the stranger’s arms, sprinted away from him, fleeing the Balazoid.
“I like them feisty.” He laughed, acting as though she was his plaything, an object placed in the market to entertain him.
She hated the stranger, hated all of them. If…when she escaped, she’d live in seclusion, far away from other beings. No one would ever treat her like an object again.
The tip of a whip snapped by her feet. Terror streaked up Greer’s spine.
She ran blindly, smacked into a human child. The youngster fell to the hard stone.
He looked up at her and wailed.
That pitiful sound coming from his baby face touched her hurting soul. She paused for a heartbeat, reached out to pick him up.
A whip cracked and pain sliced through her back, the agony scorching hot and mind-numbingly intense. Her body arched. She fought to remain on her feet.
“Nooo.” She screamed that word, fighting fate, determined to be free.
The child stopped crying and stared at her. His eyes were wide and innocent, as hers had once been so many planet rotations ago. One of his thumbs slipped into his mouth.
Greer couldn’t die in front of him, didn’t want to die at all. She propelled herself forward, doggedly placing one foot ahead of another. Blood streamed down her bare legs, that warmth a vivid contrast to the coolness in her core.
The crowd parted before her. As she passed them, they turned and watched her with open fascination. Their faces blurred a bit. A mother pulled her daughter away from her, as though worried being a slave was contagious.
There was a crack. Another streak of pain raced along Greer’s unprotected back as the whip carved into her skin. The force of that strike drove her to her knees.
But she didn’t remain there. She placed her palms on the pathway, pushed herself upward.
A third crack flattened her once more. Her chin hit the stone. Her teeth pierced her bottom lip. She spat blood, tried to rise.
The fourth snap of the whip almost rendered her unconscious. Blackness edged her vision.
“The thirty-five thousand credi
ts were well-spent.” The Balazoid’s black shiny boots appeared before her. “I enjoyed the hunt and I will enjoy breaking you.”
There wasn’t a speck of dirt on his footwear or a hint of emotion in his frigid tones. She hurt all over, was naked and dirty and covered with blood.
And her tormentor, her torturer was unaffected. The hunt had been enjoyable for him.
Anger banished the darkness, pushed her to continue moving. The whip cracked. The impact drove her downward. Pain colored her vision crimson. She lifted her battered body off the stone pathway once more.
Humans and humanoids circled them. Their faces were flushed with excitement. Their eyes were bright. They expected a good show.
The Balazoid delivered that entertainment, giving them what they wanted.
He snapped his whip again and again, stripping the skin from Greer’s form, and the crowd cheered. Not one of the beings watching them attempted to help her. They rejoiced in her agony, felt no guilt over her suffering.
To them, she wasn’t a being. She wasn’t like them, worthy of respect, of care, of life.
She was a slave, an object.
That was the only thing she’d ever be.
Greer crawled, dragging herself forward by her fingertips. The whip rained upon her. The pain it inflicted consumed the little energy she had left, extinguishing the fire within her.
Destiny was fuckin’ undeniable. This would be her last planet rotation of living.
She had one dream—to be free.
And it would never come true.
Chapter Three
“Nooo.”
Pain and rage and terror wrapped around that one-syllable word. Dissent’s back straightened. A precious female was being damaged physically and emotionally.
And she wasn’t merely any female.
She was his female.
His response to her voice proved that. His cock hardened. Energy surged through his circuits. A part of him that had previously been inactive came online, shifting all of his programming, all of his sense of purpose.
Dissent had found the one being he was genetically compatible with.
And she was being damaged. She required his assistance, his protection.
“Hold him.” He pressed Nibbler’s cage against Truth’s chest. The offspring remained inside its confines, was happily devouring fruit and threatening to kill everyone in his vicinity.
“You can’t protect every being in the sector.” Truth repeated that statement.
“I will protect this being.” Or he would die seeking to do that. “She’s my female.”
“She’s your female?” The D Model gaped at him.
Dissent said nothing. The other warrior’s auditory systems were fully functional. There was no reason to confirm what he had communicated.
And there was a reason not to confirm it. His female was in danger. Every passing moment could make a difference between her living and dying. He ran at cyborg speed toward the origin of the scream, pushing beings out of his way as he moved, not caring who he damaged.
Saving her was his sole mission.
A loud crack sliced through the noise. It repeated again and again.
Dissent growled. He recognized the sound.
The Humanoid Alliance had whipped him and his brethren, slicing through their flesh until their frames were exposed. The pain had been excruciating, had almost shorted his systems.
The humans had laughed and joked, mocking him. They had enjoyed the carnage.
He would enjoy the carnage as he removed the whip wielder’s arms. His fingers folded into tight fists. No one whipped his female and survived.
The scent of blood and tantalizing female flavored the air as he neared her location. It was an intoxicating combination.
There were two tasks cyborgs were manufactured for—waging battle and breeding. This planet rotation, if he was fortunate, he would do both.
Dissent reached the edge of the crowd and the certainty he’d kill someone increased to 100.0000 percent. He howled, unable to constrain his rage.
A form, barely recognizable as female, crawled on the stone pathway. His lifeform scans relayed she was human. His visual system couldn’t confirm it.
Crimson covered her body. Her skin had been shredded. Her head was down. Her hair was drenched in blood.
Yet his tiny female continued to drag herself forward by her tattered fingertips, attempting to escape her attacker. She was strong. She was alive.
And she was his.
He turned all of his attention and the full brunt of his anger on her attacker.
A Balazoid male followed her. An energy whip was gripped in one of his pale hands. A small smile curled the humanoid’s lips.
The male was deriving joy from torturing the female. Dissent’s anger escalated, his present fusing with his past. Many of the Humanoid Alliance males had exhibited the same elation when they had tormented him. They delighted in his pain and suffering.
The Balazoid’s red eyes shone with a maniacal glee. The humanoid raised the whip, seeking to inflict more damage, more agony on Dissent’s female.
Rage rushed over Dissent, shutting down his logic, spurring him into action. He bellowed at the top of his enhanced lungs, propelled himself forward, seeking to stop his female’s tormenter. Permanently.
The male turned his head. His eyes widened. “Cyborg.”
“I’m her cyborg.” Dissent extracted daggers from the sheaths on his body armor.
The Balazoid had enough time to process what would happen, but not enough time to prevent any of the damage. Dissent jammed the blades into the male’s shoulders, piercing the protective garment.
The male screeched. Dissent cut through skin, carved through flesh.
The Balazoid’s arms fell to the stone. The energy whip cracked and snapped as it rolled, released by the male’s twitching fingers.
His female’s torturer continued to shriek. Blood spurted from his shoulders, where his limbs had once been. The tentacles covering his skull writhed.
If Dissent had no other concerns, he would slice the Balazoid into strips, wait until he bled out, to end his lifespan. The male deserved a slow and painful death.
But his female was badly damaged. She required and warranted his full attention.
He pushed his need for vengeance aside, sheathed his daggers, picked up the whip. “This allows you to put distance between yourself and the target.” He flicked the tip across the male’s face, leaving a mark as red as the Balazoid’s eyes. “You can kill while inflicting the most pain upon him or her.”
He snapped the whip twice, removing the male’s ears. The Balazoid’s screeches grew louder.
The beings around them watched, saying and doing nothing, as they had said and done nothing while Dissent’s female was lashed. If he had the time, he’d kill them all.
He vented his anger on the Balazoid instead, striking hard, wrapping the energy whip around the male’s neck, then increased the power until it sliced clean through that part of his opponent.
The high-pitched noise coming from the Balazoid’s lips stopped. The male’s head toppled to the stone. His body folded in two, his legs kicking.
Blood pooled around him.
The male was dead, would never torture another being.
Dissent tossed the whip aside. “No one touches my female.” He told the crowd.
She was his to protect, his to defend. And he would utilize all of his skills to do that.
He turned toward his damaged human, crouched by her small form. Fraggin’ hole. The wounds on her back were deep. She must be in extreme agony, would require pain inhibitors.
Doc, my female requires repairs. He transmitted that message and images of his little human not only to the medic but also to all of the cyborgs in the settlement and on board the Reckless. His brethren should be aware of her existence and of the shift in his priorities.
She was now the most important being in the universe to him and her well-being ranked high
above his role on the ship and his mission to explore Altair Alpha.
Truth has secured a small domicile for you. Doc sent the coordinates to him. I’ll examine her there.
I’ll transport her to that location. Dissent gazed down at his female.
She reached out a trembling right hand, gripped a groove in the pathway before her, dragged herself forward, leaving a trail of red behind her. His strong female continued to try to escape her tormentor, not knowing he was dead.
“You’re safe.” Dissent covered her tiny hand with one of his much-larger palms. “He won’t ever damage you again.”
“Don’t touch me.” She yanked her hand away from his. “I’m not going back.” Her voice rang with defiance. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
He smothered his smile. She was a fighter. He admired that.
“The Balazoid is dead.” He slipped one of his arms under her waist, lifted her slightly. Pebbles were embedded in her skin, were damaging her. “I killed him.”
“Let me go.” She squirmed.
“Be still.” He murmured that command, seeking to calm her. She’d scraped her body raw against the stone.
He slid her onto his knees. She hung over his legs, facing downward. He yearned to see her countenance but couldn’t flip her onto her shredded back. That would cause her pain.
“I won’t be still.” She wiggled less vigorously. Her energy must be waning. “I won’t break, not under your hand nor anyone else’s.”
“I have no desire to break you.” He curved his fingers over the collar around her nape and held her in place, preventing her from falling, from further damaging herself.
“You want to fuck me.” She spat out those words, as though wanting to breed with her was worse than desiring to break her. “Then do it. Get it over with. And release me.”
She had ordered him to breed with her.
Dissent froze.
Both his machine and his organics bellowed to claim her. His female was damaged. Crimson dripped down his legs and gathered around his booted feet. She could bleed out before they arrived at the structure temporarily obtained for them.
The nanocybotics in his cum, the part of him that facilitated fast repairing, would restore her to full functionality, ease her pain, expand her natural lifespan to the human’s concept of forever.