by Cynthia Sax
She watched.
She heard the touching exchange between Crash and his friend, how her cyborg had talked about love as though he had firsthand knowledge of the emotion.
She cringed as Gap ran toward the tunnel. Projectiles ate away his body armor. Blood streamed down his arms. The young cyborg flinched after each direct hit.
Then the view switched to Gap’s vision system. He rushed through the tunnels, talking about Nymphia and how good she smelled and Safyre tensed more and more, suspecting he was the cyborg who hadn’t returned.
I’ve located my Nymphia. Gap activated his lighting system and Safyre spotted her friend in the distance. Her hair was crazy. Her face was dirty, her flight suit torn. Fraggin’ hole, Crash. She’s beautiful. Do you see her?
I’m fighting, my friend, Crash informed him. Grab her and leave.
Nymphia stood, facing Gap with daggers in both of her hands, looking as large as she possibly could. Safyre recognized that defiant stance. She’d shown it to her, had practiced it with her hundreds of times on the playground, until she had perfected it.
“My Nymphia.” The adoration in Gap’s voice warmed Safyre’s heart. “Don’t be afraid. I may be a fierce warrior, much bigger and stronger than you are…”
Safyre smiled at the arrogance in his voice.
“But I would never hurt you.” He removed his arm protection. “I’m your Gap. Your Safyre is my friend Crash’s female.” He held out his arm, showing her the red scarf.
“She came for me.” Nymphia touched it and smiled. “I knew she would.”
Safyre’s heart clenched. There was no doubt in her tone. Her friend knew she wouldn’t allow her to die alone.
“And she sent you.” Nymphia gazed up at Gap with wide eyes. “This must be a dream, the most wonderful dream.” She grazed her fingers over his chin. “You’re the warrior of my fantasies, everything I’ve ever wanted in a male.”
She isn’t frightened of me, Crash. She thinks she’s dreaming, dreaming of me. Gap bubbled over with wonder. I’m the male of her fantasies, all she has ever wanted. I smell how much she wants me.
Act on your wanting for your female later, Crash replied gruffly. Retrieve her and return to the mouth of the tunnel. We’ve cleared a space.
“Your Safyre had to stay with the freighter,” Gap explained to Nymphia. “She trusts me. I’m special to her.” He relayed the words she’d spoken to him. “And she sent me to protect you.”
“You’re bleeding.” Nymphia’s fingers trembled as they skimmed over his bare arm. “I heard the gunfire. The fighting outside must be fierce.”
She’s touching me and I feel alive, more alive than I’ve ever been.
Gap, Crash growled.
“I’m scared. Hold me.” She tilted her face upward. “Kiss me. I don’t want to be alone.”
Nymphia’s expressive eyes filled the viewscreen.
“She loves him,” Safyre whispered. “She just met him and she loves him already.” It seemed unbelievable yet wasn’t that how it had been with her and Crash? She’d cared for him before they had even met. She had fallen in love with his transmissions, with his voice, his words.
She’s soft all over and she tastes like bliss. Gap never stopped transmitting, communicating with his friend while he was kissing Nymphia. This is what happiness is, Crash. You were right. I didn’t realize what it truly was until now. All these solar cycles, I thought I knew about joy but I didn’t.
Safyre reached out and clasped Crash’s hand.
Gap, you don’t have time for this now, her logical cyborg chided his friend. Return to us. Carry your Nymphia if you can’t stop touching her.
One more moment. Gap didn’t break the kiss. My Nymphia’s scared. She heard the gunfire. I’ll comfort her and then we’ll leave. A little more time is all we need.
Nymphia pulled back. “This can’t be real.” Her eyes glowed. “You can’t be real. I’ve searched my whole life for you, for this kind of all-encompassing love, this passion, and to find it here, in a tunnel, in the midst of a war, it can’t be.”
“It is.” Gap smoothed her eyebrows with his lips. “You’re my female.”
Oh, fuck. Safyre knew what was about to happen and she wanted to look away but she couldn’t. She had to watch the transmission to the end.
“You’re my male.” Nymphia’s crazy curls surrounded her beautiful face. “Safyre knows me. She knew I would love you. That’s why she sent you to me. She knew.”
Tears streamed down Safyre’s chin.
Gap, get out of there, Crash yelled through the transmission line, his tone frantic. Now.
Gap’s gaze lifted. “It’s too late,” he murmured. The motion slowed as billows of green flame rolled toward them. Gap covered Nymphia’s head with his arms, folding his body protectively around hers. “I love you, my Nym--”
The explosion blasted off his skin, flailed his flesh, melted his frame.
And the viewscreen went black.
That nothingness gutted Safyre. She turned toward her cyborg, clung to him and sobbed, grieving again, this time for Nymphia, for Gap, and for Crash. They had both lost their best friends.
Crash said nothing, allowing her to cry. He didn’t hold her, his spine straight, his arms and legs stiff.
But his chest shook, soul deep tremors rocking his form.
And when her sorrow subsided and she gazed upward, there were gray trails on his blood-stained face. Her cyborg had been silently crying.
“Oh, Crash.” She splayed her fingers over his armor-covered chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” His voice was hoarse. “Didn’t you watch the footage? I encouraged him, telling him Nymphia would love him.”
“She did love him.” Safyre was certain of that. “And if you hadn’t said that, he would have continued to walk slowly. Nymphia would have died alone.” She paused. “Gap wouldn’t have died at all.”
“I encouraged his rashness.” Crash was determined to blame himself. “I should have been the one to retrieve her.”
“Gap wouldn’t have allowed that.”
“I should have followed him into the tunnel.”
“You stayed and fought because you had to.” Because she had put in a situation where he had no choice. “Three warriors were needed at the entrance. As you told Gap, Nymphia wouldn’t have survived the exit. She was human.”
“She didn’t survive.” Crash clenched his jaw. “If I had convinced Gap to return immediately—”
“Nymphia would have refused. She is…” Her emotions threatened to overcome her once more. “Was as stubborn as I am. And Gap was in love. He would have relented.”
“If I had followed him—”
“You’d be dead too.” She captured his handsome face between her hands. “And then I would have died because I couldn’t live without you.”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Your lock of hair was destroyed. I lost that too.”
He had to use his dagger. She forced him to kill. “I don’t care about that. I have more hair. I can replace it.” She couldn’t replace him.
“You care about your friend and I allowed her to die.”
“You couldn’t have stopped her death.”
“I failed you,” he said for the third time.
Softness, understanding and logic weren’t working with her obstinate cyborg. “Listen to me, you pain-in-the-ass warrior,” she yelled in his face. “You didn’t fail. I didn’t want my friend to die alone. Did she die alone?”
He blinked slowly.
“Did she?” she demanded.
“No.”
“Then stop that ‘I failed you’ nonsense.” She slapped his armor-covered chest. “I have no reason to be angry with you. You have a reason to be angry with me. Your friend died because of me, because I wouldn’t walk away from this mission, a mission I knew was impossible, a mission I knew would kill the being attempting it.”
He said nothing.
“That being was supposed to
be me.” Guilt filled Safyre. She stopped hitting him. “Fuck. I never meant to kill Gap. I didn’t. I thought I’d be the one to die. But that’s what happened. I killed your friend. I almost killed you.”
“You didn’t kill Gap.”
“I did. I killed him. You must hate me.” She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t see the truth in his black eyes.
“No.” There was no hesitation in Crash’s reply. “I don’t hate you.”
“You should.” Safyre turned and stomped toward the doors. “Because I hate myself.” She had to get away from him, away from what she’d done. “I was reckless and foolish and thought only of Nymphia and—”
She yelped as Crash lifted her in the air and pinned her against the wall. “You will not hate yourself,” he fumed. “I caused their deaths.”
“Fuck you, warrior,” she spat, wiggling, not truly wishing to be free. “I caused Nymphia’s death by not talking her out of this cursed Tau Ceti placement and I caused Gap’s death by encouraging his love for her, a love that turned out to be very real. If you used those processors of yours once in a while, you’d know all that, but no—”
Crash covered her mouth with his, his kiss hard and unforgiving, a punishment she embraced. He ground his lips against hers. She refused to open to him, tugging hard on his blood-stiffened hair.
Her cyborg growled and slammed his body against hers. Air whooshed from her lungs. She gasped and he plunged inside her, spearing her tongue with his. They dueled, pouring all of their anger, their grief into the embrace. It was raw. It was ragged. It was exactly what she needed.
He ripped at her flight suit, shredding the fabric. She plucked at his body armor. “Take this off.”
He didn’t move.
“I said take it off.” She bit his bottom lip and pulled on his flesh.
Crash howled and yanked on his collar. A crack echoed. He yanked again and again. The sound repeated and his body armor fell to the floor, broken into large pieces.
Safyre’s breath hitched. The material was touted as being indestructible yet it had been destroyed during the failed rescue mission. How was that possible?
She lowered her gaze. His skin was the palest gray. He’d wounded his entire form, every part of him, even the parts covered with body armor.
“You almost died.” Fear meshed with her rage and her sorrow. “You inconsiderate ass.” She slapped his chest hard, leaving pink palm prints on his gray skin. “You would have left me alone.” She hit him again.
Crash caught her wrists and stretched her arms above her head. “I didn’t leave you alone.” He leaned forward until the tips of their noses touched, directly meeting her gaze. “You were surrounded by cyborgs, cyborgs more capable than I am.”
She lifted her chin. “Are any of those cyborgs my male? No. You are, asshole.”
“Maybe one of them should be your male.” Crash lowered her until her booted feet touched the floor. “I wasn’t able to protect your friend. What makes you think I can protect you?”
“I want your company, not your fuckin’ protection.” She wrenched her wrists free from his grip. “I can protect myself.”
“You’re reckless.” His face darkened. “If I hadn’t agreed to help you, you would have tried to commandeer the freighter on your own and gotten yourself killed.” He moved forward.
Safyre backed up. “You’re an arrogant male. You didn’t save me from anything.” Her ass bumped against the console.
He pursued her, crowding her against the metal. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m alive.” She smacked his chest. “Are you taking credit for that?”
“The credit belongs to me.” Crash loomed over her. “I stopped you.”
“That’s only because you’re my fuckin’ warrior, my fuckin’ male, and you were fuckin’ there.” Safyre hit him again and again, trying to slap some sense into him. “If you leave me, I’ll take even more risks.” She’d have no reason to be cautious. “I’ll die and it will be all your fault.”
“You won’t die.” Crash grabbed her wrists. “Another cyborg—”
“Another cyborg couldn’t stop me.” She kicked his shins. Her blasted warrior didn’t flinch. “He couldn’t control me.”
“He could. He’d be a cyborg.”
“He wouldn’t be my cyborg.” She slammed her chest against Crash’s. Pain radiated from the contact. She grimaced.
He roared. “You’re damaging yourself, foolish female.”
Crash spun her around, placed his right palm between her shoulder blades and pressed down, forcing her to bend over.
“I’m your foolish female.” She widened her stance. “It’s your duty to control me.” She tilted her ass upward and glared over her shoulder. “Do your damn job, warrior.”
He gripped her hair and pulled her head back, his dominance exciting her. “I’ll teach you caution.” He prodded her entrance with his cock head.
“You can’t teach me shit,” she snapped, pushing him even more, wanting this. “Put up or shut—”
He slammed into her and she screamed, the sudden fullness surprising her. Nothing on this or any other planet felt as good as his cock.
Crash froze. “Did I hurt you, my female?”
She was back to being his. “Fuck you, asshole.” She propelled herself backward, impaling herself even more on his hardness.
Crash growled, clasped her shoulders, holding her in place, and thrust deep. She grunted, feeling the impact.
He didn’t pause, didn’t show any more signs of remorse. Her cyborg pistoned in and out of her, fucking her with a mind-frying intensity.
He had lost all control and she loved it, needed it. They both did, the grief and frustration and anger of the planet rotation combining into one glorious, primal, soul-reaching rutting.
She folded her fingers over the edge of the console and gritted her teeth, her desire rising quickly. Her pussy hummed. Her ass burned, spanked by his hips.
Still he possessed her, venting all of his dark emotions onto her willing form, humping her hard, his pace fierce and frantic. Safyre struggled to catch her breath, her head growing light, her brain filled with thoughts of him, of them.
She’d almost lost him this planet rotation. She would have never known this connection, this pleasure.
Crash lowered his body over hers, his heat and scent wrapping around her, bonding them even more. She arched her back, leaning into him. His chest slid along her skin, moisture slicking the surface.
Fuck, that felt good. Safyre panted, her chest tight with passion, with love. She was surrounded by him. His breath wafted over her neck. His shaft plunged in and out of her pussy. His balls slapped against her to the tempo of their fucking.
Her gaze lifted to the black strap wrapped around her arm. If he hadn’t returned, that would have been all she had left of him. He could have been, he could have been…
Damn it. Crash could have been with Gap and Nymphia. Dead. Lost to her forever.
But he wasn’t. He was with her, inside her.
She had to concentrate on that, on him.
“Harder,” Safyre urged. “Fuck me harder.”
“My female.” Crash’s voice was low and deep and oh-so-arousing. He increased his pace, heating her ass with every thrust.
Fuck yeah. She pushed against him. This was what she wanted, needed.
He snapped his hips, gliding his body over hers. Her cyborg was reassuringly warm and alive, hard in all ways a male should be hard.
And he was strong. With each drive forward, her thighs struck the console. That demonstration of power thrilled her. The pain was an erotic reparation. The bruises would remind her that he’d survived. She survived.
They were alive. Not every being was but they were.
That was worthy of celebration.
“Crash. Crash,” Safyre called, telling every being on the freighter who was inside her, who had her and who would always have her. She was close, so fucking close, her pussy const
ricting around his shaft, her control frayed.
“My female. My female,” he returned with a battle cry of his own, declaring his ownership. She was his. He was hers. She—
Crash thrust deep, his teeth grazed along her neck, and Safyre shattered, screaming. She bucked upward, meeting a wall of solid chest.
Skin smacked against skin and he roared. Hot cum spurted from his tip. His nanocybotics hit her flesh and the tiny bits of her that had survived were pounded into stardust.
Lights flashed. Safyre shrieked and writhed, her inner walls clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing his shaft. Each cycle brought more nanocybotics, more him, more bliss. Her arms and legs shook.
Crash shuddered and collapsed, flattening her smaller form. His frame was hard and heavy, built to endure. His chest heaved, each breath a confirmation that he lived.
Moments passed. They remained entwined, connected, one. The scent of sex and hot cyborg filled the air. She lay docilely under him, content and sated.
“You won’t be reckless with your lifespan.” Crash wrapped his arms around her, lifting her. “I won’t allow it.” He claimed the chair behind them and set her on his lap.
“There’s only one way to ensure that, warrior.” Safyre leaned back against him. “You have to stay with me.” She needed him.
“I won’t ever leave you, my female.” He pressed his lips to her neck, shoulders, back, peppering her skin with kisses. “Even if you choose another male.”
“I won’t choose another male.” She loved him.
“If you do—”
“I won’t,” she snapped. “Suggest that again, Crash, and I will lose my shit. You’ll experience a level of anger you haven’t yet seen.”
He tightened his grip on her and covered her with fervent, hard kisses, apologizing with his lips.
She accepted his adoration, outwardly treating it as her due, inwardly treasuring his touch. Her warrior wouldn’t respond to gentleness, to soft words and forgiveness. He needed her strength, the distraction of her rage, her passion.
Nymphia and Gap were gone but Crash remained. She would hold onto him with both hands, never letting go.