Resurrection Heart: Robotics Faction - Cyborg Mercenaries

by Clark, Wendy Lynn

  She traced her fingers along the long, hard shaft of his desire, and encircled the delicate root. Hers. That was how she felt.

  He sucked in a breath and rolled her over.

  The sheets flew everywhere, and they tangled in a hot, sweet mess that set her to laughing with delight, and stroking the rippling muscles of his wide, bronzed, scarred back.

  That was the thing about scars. Resurrected people didn’t have any. You couldn’t get them unless you’d lived long, and Logen was a survivor. She had a few now too. She traced every scar, and kissed them. Hers.

  He returned her kisses and traced her body, lowering to her neck, sweeping his tongue across her bare skin, across her shivering belly, to the aching hot vee between her legs. He licked the inside of her thighs, raising a blistering awareness of shivering need, and then paused, stroking her desire, studying her beauty.

  She lifted up on one elbow. “Have you ever done this before, in this body?”

  He seemed to be considering his answer, or maybe just the view some more. “No.”

  Not that she had a hell of a lot more experience, but at least she had something. “Did you want some pointers?”

  A half-grin tugged at his mouth. The mirth reached his eyes, warming them. “Sure.”

  She took a deep breath to guide him, and then he dipped his head and amazing, delicious, incredible sensations poured over her, intoxicating and satisfying and even more aching, and the only pointers she had to give were, “More,” and, “Yes,” and, “Oh, yes,” and, “Oh, oh, ohhhh, yes,” and so forth.

  And then he was using his fingers, and his thumb, and squeezing her ass, which she didn’t know needed to be squeezed, but it felt so fucking good, and then she dragged him up, because she needed him right now, the full length of him.

  He eased into her, slowing when she slowed, and easing out again, until the interminable stretching sensation receded into the mists of needing him right fucking now, there, deeper, and there was a release and a shock that built back into her squeezing his ass to drive him to the right place. There. They both let out a breath in a whoosh.

  Here was the man she loved, buried all the way in her body, connected on the deepest level. Forever and ever.

  He tangled his fingers in her hair, same as she had done to him. He kissed her, long and slow. Content right there, together, for the rest of their lives.

  Delicious sweetness danced at the edges of her consciousness. She wasn’t done yet.

  She wrapped her legs around the well-muscled thighs and rubbed against him. Pleasure lanced her molten core.

  He groaned and buried his mouth in her hair. “Talia.”

  Yes. That was what she wanted.

  She chased her pleasure, guaranteeing his. Setting the rhythm and pace, she worked as he slid in, wet and hot and so masculine. He lifted her so high she touched the perfect white purity of their union. It exploded like confetti in her body, glittering goodness, white and holy and wonderful, and she cried out his name as they tingled all the way back down to the bed, and the ship, and being wrapped in his warm, safe embrace, finally one.

  They slept.

  She woke a hundred years later, or perhaps just twenty minutes, to the summons. The commander was hoping to confirm their course before they took off for the final destination.

  Logen was already awake, studying her.

  So cold, when no one was looking, he warmed under her gaze to become the beautiful man she loved.

  She blinked and yawned sleepily, and then lifted her lips for his welcome kiss.

  He brushed his lips against hers.

  She felt the soul-tug of rightness. This was, finally, how it was all supposed to be.

  They rose and dressed, him easing into his duds stowed in the gear locker at the foot of the tumbledown, repurposed asteroid-fishing trawler, dressing next to her the same as they had done for decades. Maybe his hand brushed hers for longer, and maybe the gaze in the locker mirror held hers for a touch of extra kindness. They had made it, finally, back to the team.

  But, down the narrow hall and up the small ladder to the captain’s command deck, only Iren and her old boss, Sirus, waited to greet them.

  Logen shook hands with the smaller, wiry CO and accepted a back-pat. He asked the same question Talia had asked when they’d been picked up, but with less angst. “Iren. You feeling okay?”

  The grunt had dark circles under his eyes. He flicked a black earplug. “So long as I keep this signal-canceling device in my ear, no problem.”

  “So where is everybody?”

  “Navina paid out,” Iren said bluntly, shocking them. “She put in the ear-device-thing, stole our old shuttle, and took off. And Vi elected to go with the robots under their control rather than stay with our team.”

  “They left us?”

  “There’s more to it.” Sirus took over. “Our next project is retrieving Daz. Our spies tell us he’s definitely heading for the prison planet. We’re not sure if they’re hiding him in prison in case he breaks the stents, or if they are using him for a different purpose.”

  “Such as?” Talia asked.

  “Prisoners are stented. As you said, it would be a hell of an army, and any of us would make a brutal general.”

  It was hard to imagine lazy, peace-loving, pacifist Daz leading a war. But he was a mercenary. He would never be able to live with himself if he woke up and realized what they had forced him to do.

  “We have to save him,” Logen said, speaking before she could.

  Sirus eyed him hard. “You paid out.”

  “I don’t care. I give it all to Talia.”

  “Logen—”

  Sirus interrupted, “Leaving Talia aside, if you paid out, would you reenlist as a volunteer?”

  “I would.”

  He spoke so swiftly, so truly. But in this case, he spoke for the both of them.

  “And Talia can pay out instead,” Logen said a second time, emphasizing it.

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “You have your own good news, Talia.” Sirus handed her contract papers.

  She held them in her hands with disbelief. “It isn’t.”

  “It is.” Sirus grinned. “You can have your old civilian life back. Your brother paid out your contract.”

  Sunlight burst from her heart, shining in the middle of her chest, bathing her in unspeakable happiness. She hugged the papers. Although it was only in her imagination, she smelled seaside air and heard her brother’s carefree giggle echo through the beachside house.

  He had loved her that much.

  “We’ll miss you,” Iren said.

  She opened her eyes. Three men regarded her with mixtures of hope and well wishes. Iren smiled painfully, Sirus beamed, and Logen’s quiet gaze wrapped her in steady, solid love.

  She released the papers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Iren snorted and reached out. “In that case, I’ve got some place to be.”

  She snatched them away from him. “Nice try. I’m still paying out. Then,” she held Logen’s gaze, “I’m going to volunteer.”

  Logen clasped her hands. “Me too.”

  Iren gagged. “Can they do that?”

  They looked at Sirus.

  “Sure.” He grinned without having any clear idea, and they all knew it. “No problem.”

  She hugged Logen.

  Then, she pointed at Sirus. “My conditions are that I have to be stationed with Logen at all times, my brother is my beneficiary of any rewards, and I want two months’ paid vacation to visit him. No matter what.”

  “Deal.” Sirus shook hands and looked at Logen.

  “Same,” he said. “And we have to rescue Daz from prison.”

  “It’s our first order of business, now that we have an assembled team.” Sirus shook hands with Logen, welcomed them both officially to his team as volunteers, and headed into the battered kitchen area to find a drink to celebrate.

  “Are you all nuts?” Iren finally burst out. “You hat
e the mercenaries! Both of you are miserable, fun-hating assholes. Why would you ever volunteer?”

  “I’m a volunteer,” Sirus chimed in from behind him.

  “You’re a crazy old man.”

  She looked at Logen. “My life is here. And until we get the rest of our team back, it doesn’t feel right to leave them.”

  Before, there was a risk that Logen would get promoted, or she would. Or they would get split up. Without a contract like he had with Daz, there was no guarantee.

  Now they were together. Guaranteed.

  She hoped.

  “You’re nuts,” Iren repeated.

  “Why so much protest from yet another volunteer?” Sirus asked.

  They all stared at Iren.

  Iren rubbed his temples with guilt. “I have a reason though. To get these damned controls out and kick some robot ass.”

  Logen took a seat at the broken old bench, tugging her down next to him and between his knees, still protecting her, even though they were safe. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  “Glad to hear it.” Sirus cracked open a beer. “Now that we’re all back, here’s your debriefing.”

  “That’s not regulation,” Iren said.

  “No fucking shit, newb.”

  Iren looked like he wasn’t sure whether to take offense, seeing as he’d been a member of their group for over a decade and, from his perspective, Sirus was the newcomer.

  Sirus poured them all a tumbler of the slithery, yeasty brew, and Iren seemed to let the slight go.

  “Logen, not only do you have to be stationed together, but you also have to keep Talia with you 24/7,” Sirus said, starting the briefing off strong. “She leaves your side for even one second, the Robotics Faction can mind control you. I can give you the same device Iren has, but there’s always a risk it’ll fall out or the Faction will figure out how to circumvent it. She’s the only way to keep you safe for certain until we get those completely deactivated and removed.”

  Logen tugged her closer. “Yes, sir.”

  “Agreed, sir.” She cozied up to her Gun.

  This was an assignment they could both commit to, and the smile behind her old CO’s tone, even as he casually assumed command, showed happiness at their happiness.

  “On to Daz. We can’t get to him before he’s processed into prison. Our only plan is to break in and bust him out.”

  Was that even possible? They sat in their seats, considering the problem. Prison planets were constructed to be impervious. A full army couldn’t simply break out, much less break in.

  And then there were the Wardens.

  “What’s our backup?” Logen asked.

  “Us.” He eyed them each soberly. “Us alone. Until our communications go through. We’re too far from the rest of the corps.”

  “Impossible,” Iren said.

  “We’re the only ones standing between free humans,” he indicated himself and Talia, “and the entire human race being converted into robot-controlled cyborgs.”

  Shit.

  “There is one ray of hope. A scientist researching how to remove the stents has just had a breakthrough.”

  “Great—”

  “Unfortunately, she was researching on the prison planet. She has since disappeared. It’s possible that she, and all her research, is going to become Daz’s next victim.”

  No.

  “We have to get to Daz first!”

  “That’s impossible,” Sirus said, and softened it with his trademark optimism. “But, Daz could run into another person like you, Talia, who has the ‘corruption gene.’ Corruption, in this case, is corrupting robot controls.”

  Awesome. It wasn’t that she had lost the genetic lottery; she had won hands down. She was corrupting robots. “Can I hack into electronics?”

  “Can you?”

  “Not that I’ve ever noticed.”

  “Then no, probably not. But do let us know if your power extends itself.”

  Logen squeezed her. “You’ve corrupted me.”

  Well, that wasn’t too bad either.

  “What about contacting the rest of the mercenary corps?” Iren asked.

  “Bad Company is on it.”

  Logen lifted a brow.

  “Sure,” Iren said, falling into the second’s position almost naturally. “Because they did so much for us last time.”

  Yes, the Bad Company CO beat Logen.

  But he had dropped the tractor, and gathered the intel, and had also outrun the initial assault on the planet in a weaponless shuttle, and then reconnected with his main ship and out-maneuvered the continuing assault, saving his unit and all the biologists from the fate suffered by the Misfits.

  He was a different unit, but they were still part of the same corps.

  Sirus paused, a half-smile on his face. “You know what our old motto used to be? We all go home. It doesn’t matter what we have or don’t have, who we’re facing or our odds. We all go home.”

  She firmed with that memory, mouthing it silently. Next to her, she saw Logen’s lips moving the same. It had been a long time since anyone had said it. That was what she had missed about Sirus.

  “We’re going to go to get Daz first,” Sirus said. “Navina’s home planet may already be collaborating with the Robotics Faction, so we’re going to get her next.”

  “Wait. You let her pay out, because you’re planning to convert her into a double-agent?” Iren asked. “Because I know you let Talia and Logen pay out, because you knew they were going to reenlist.”

  Sirus grinned and shrugged. To anyone who didn’t know him, he looked so reckless. So careless, but at the same time, as Iren had pointed out, so insidiously clever.

  “What about Vi?” Talia asked.

  Maybe her tone was plaintive, or maybe she had just imagined this final reunion differently. It was so hard to believe that Vi had abandoned her. Abandoned all of them. Almost as hard to believe as Daz trying to kill her and even going so far as to shoot Logen. Almost as hard to believe that fourteen years ago, Sirus had abandoned them.

  He hadn’t abandoned them. He’d been fighting the Robotics Faction all of this time. She had to have more faith in her team. Perhaps Vi had a story as well.

  Talia was willing to take it on faith.

  Logen rubbed her back.

  “We’re going to get Vi,” Sirus said.

  “I think she’s done with us,” Iren said. “She didn’t fight when she got converted. It was like she welcomed the stents.”

  “We’re not done with her.” A thread of steel firmed his tone. Declaring a campaign, willing them onto it despite fear, regret, opposition. They were up to it, his tone said. And they all straightened.

  They were going to stop the Faction. They were going to free their soldiers from the mind control of the stents. They were going to reunite their team.

  Sirus finished his beer and set it upside down on the table that had seen plenty more. “Any more objections?”

  Iren considered it.

  She and Logen finished their beers, the familiar yeasty promise uniting them in a shared past and a determined future. Iren followed their example, making a face at the bottom-barrel flavor, and also slamming it rim-side down. They all leaned in, a single team, four of them against the entire fucking universe. A CO, a Grunt, a Gun, and a Spot in the lowest pay level of the merc corps with the shittiest equipment, including an old fishing ship piloted by a half-crazed swashbuckler with the tractor bolted somewhere to the outside.

  Talia snuggled into Logen’s arms. She absolutely loved it, and from the tightening of his grip and Iren’s more chipper determination, she knew they did too. Together, they would walk to the ends of the worlds, if that was what it took to save their team.

  “You’ve got another question,” Sirus told Iren, reading him like a book.

  “Yeah,” he said. “When do we start?”

  Sirus grinned. “Right now.”

  * * *

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  About the Author

  Wendy Lynn Clark is from the vibrant green Pacific Northwest. She writes contemporary and science fiction romance with sexy heroes and undefeatable heroines, as well as sweeping epic fantasy and creative nonfiction. Her words are infused with wonders from her travels—teaching in Japan for three years, earning her MA in Brighton, and studying abroad in Greece. When she’s not hiking in the Cascade mountain range, she’s writing on her couch with a steaming cup of tea and her two snuggly calico cats.

  Her books are a mix of soaring imagination, blockbuster action, and thrilling romance. They are recommended for anyone who enjoys a well-told story with a happy ending guaranteed.

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  Robotics Faction Series

  Have you checked out the other sizzling books in the Robotics Faction series? Click here to get started: http://www.wendylynnclark.com/series/robotics-faction/

  Android Assassins Series

  Liberation’s Kiss

  Liberation’s Desire

  Liberation’s Vow

  Liberation’s Mystery

  Origins Series

  Liberation Origins

  Liberation’s Passion

  Cyborg Mercenaries Series

  Resurrection Heart

  Resurrection Hope

  Resurrection Love

  Resurrection Need

  Resurrection Dream

  Sneak Peek of Liberation Origins

  Special Note: This is a prequel story featuring Sirus’s sister. You can also see him in Liberation’s Desire caring for his niece (Emprezia’s daughter) Mercury.