by Cynthia Sax
He jumped over a corpse, dashing forward, moving at cyborg speed. His female’s shooting grew wilder.
“I can’t see anything.” Frustration edged her voice.
He grunted, didn’t slow down. Her inability to see the beings around her was a good state for both of them. If she couldn’t visually lock onto the enemy, they couldn’t visually lock onto her.
A stray projectile zinged toward them. He twisted his body to the side, protecting his female from harm.
She gasped and fired in that direction. They had already passed the shooter. Her projectiles punctured the wall panels. His female cursed.
Killing Humanoid Alliance males was low priority. Arsenal’s internal timer relayed that. The explosives would detonate soon, blowing up the World-ender and them.
They had to leave. Now.
He slowed and stopped. The schematics told him the first escape pod should be…to the right.
He turned to face it, his female in his arms.
Fraggin’ hole. He stared at the space.
“It’s a storage chamber.” Vicuska stated that unfortunate truth.
Only the Humanoid Alliance would have the arrogance, the absolute and extremely foolish faith in their own superiority to convert a possible lifespan-preserving escape pod into a space to hold extra nourishment bars.
“There are other escape pods.” He ran as quickly as he could, conveying his female, not knowing if he would be able to save her.
All of the escape pods could have been converted. They could be trapped.
His internal timer counted down, relentlessly shaving precious moments off their lifespans, decreasing their odds of survival. One more obstacle, one more barrier between them and leaving, would kill them.
“I love you, my female.” He wanted her to know that, to hear those words from him. His caring shouldn’t be left uncommunicated.
She paused her shooting and looked up at him. “You must still be malfunctioning.”
“I’m not malfunctioning.” His systems were fully operational.
All of him was in top form. He dashed through the World-ender, navigating by the schematics, their surroundings blurring around them.
His female blasted some wall panels, her aim blind. “If I thought we weren’t going to make it, I’d tell you I love you too…because that’s the truth. But we’re not dying, so put that tight ass of yours in the highest gear, cyborg, and find us a functional escape pod.”
His ass was in the highest gear. He ran as he’d never run, his leg muscles straining with the effort, his form invigorated.
His female had said the human love words to him. His failure to protect her hadn’t lessened her caring.
The fantastical being in his arms loved him. His soul soared. A warrior could die happy knowing that.
He gazed down at her. Her head rested against his chest, her curls bouncing against his body armor. Her scent swirled around him. She punctuated her shooting with humorous words.
Joy coursed through him. It was so intense, so all-consuming he almost missed the escape pod.
He skidded to a stop, his boot heels denting the floor tiles. It wasn’t where it should have been, according to the schematics
The escape pod appeared to be operational. He opened the doors, carried his female inside the small space.
Lights activated. The control panel on the wall switched on. Everything functioned as it should.
Arsenal plopped his female on a multi-being seat. “Strap yourself in.” He returned to the control panel, placed his right palm on it.
That triggered the escape pod’s release. Metal scraped against metal. The floor tilted under his booted feet.
Vicuska squeaked, holding onto the edge of the seat. Arsenal rushed to her side, wrapped his arms around her, securing her to him.
“We’ll make it.” The fear in his female’s voice belied her words.
He couldn’t reassure her because it would be close, too close to predict whether or not they’d survive. Being a cyborg, he couldn’t lie.
Thrusters directed the escape pod away from the World-ender. They were moving quickly but they had a significant distance to travel before they were safe.
It wasn’t sufficient to merely leave the superweapon before it exploded. They had to get out of range of the debris.
Arsenal looked out the porthole. The image of the World-ender grew smaller and smaller.
He spotted no other ships, no other escape pods in the blackness of space. The Humanoid Alliance must not have found the explosives.
Or they might have found them and had deactivated them. Tension stretched across his shoulders. Had they failed in their mission, risked their lives for nothing?
“Arsenal.” Vicuska gripped his arms. “Shouldn’t the World-ender have blown up by now?”
“No, not yet.” He told her the truth. “But soon.”
His female was human, wasn’t equipped with an internal timer as he was. She didn’t know when the destruction should occur.
“I’ll count down for you.” He sought to relay that information. “5—4—3.”
She made a hurting sound and burrowed her face into his chest.
He rested his chin on top of her head, rubbed her back, trying to comfort her with his touch. “2—”
As designed, all of the explosives detonated at the same time. Orange and red flames engulfed the World-ender, fed by the oxygen it contained. It was a brief burst of brightness in the darkness, brilliant, beautiful, deadly.
The superweapon fractured into more than a million pieces, the force of the blast propelling the wreckage in all directions.
The escape pod rocked from the concussive blast. Vicuska slid to the side. Arsenal pulled her back to him, tightening his hold on her.
No debris hit them. No damage was inflicted on the escape pod. He allowed himself to relax, sagging against the back of the seat.
His female was safe.
She would remain that way. According to the information he’d extracted from the control panel, he calculated there was enough oxygen, nourishment and water to keep one human and one cyborg alive for fifteen planet rotations.
His brethren should be able to rescue them in that duration.
Arsenal breathed in his female’s musk, savoring her unique scent, knowing he’d enjoy it and her for many solar cycles to come.
They would have a long, nearly endless future together. The two of them would love, laugh, perhaps manufacture offspring.
They would be happy.
“We completed our mission, cyborg.” His female beamed at him, her beauty striking him like a blow to the gut. “The Humanoid Alliance can’t use that weapon to kill ever again.”
He brushed his lips over her forehead.
“They won’t destroy precious life-sustaining planets, won’t cause the deaths of millions of innocent beings…because of us, our action.” She hugged him. “We did that.”
They did that together. The two of them.
“I’m feeling positively heroic.” She grinned. “You should feel that way also.”
“I’m feeling loved.” He confessed. “That’s better than heroic.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Is it better?”
“It is.” Determined to demonstrate that to her, Arsenal captured his female’s lush lips.
She opened to him, welcoming him into her hot, sweet mouth. Waves of pleasure, of the most exquisite joy swept over him.
The assignment given to them by the Rebels, by the cyborg council, had been completed. The World-ender had been destroyed.
His self-appointed mission to love his female, to protect her, would never end. He would be fulfilling that task for the rest of his almost limitless lifespan.
That gave him a happiness he could never sufficiently express in words to anyone, including Vicuska. Arsenal didn’t have the vocabulary to relay how he was feeling.
He’d merely have to show her.
Chapter Six
Arsenal was right.
Feeling loved was better than being heroic.
Vicuska broke the kiss, pulling away, her lips humming, and she gazed at her cyborg. His face was a mess, grooves of red streaking over his cheek, blood dripping from a deep gouge on his forehead.
“You’re hurt.” She opened a nearby wall compartment and looked through it for a medic pack. “You need pain inhibitors.”
“I need you.” He hooked his arms around her waist, drew her to him.
She needed him too, her body craving his touch. “Fucking you won’t ease your pain.”
“It will ease my pain.” He covered her chin and throat with fast, hard kisses. “When a cyborg shares his nanocybotics with his female, he creates more.” He unfastened her flight suit and branded that exposed skin with his mouth also. “That accelerates the repairing of any damage he has endured.”
“You’ll heal faster if we fuck?” She wrinkled her forehead. That sounded fabricated.
“Yes.” He grabbed the lapels of her garment and yanked. Fabric tore, his aggression exciting her. “I’ll repair faster if we breed.”
That must be the truth. Cyborgs couldn’t lie.
“Then breed with me.” She arched her back, offering him the use of her body. “I want to ease your pain.”
She also wanted him but healing him was more important than her desire. He needed release, needed her. She wouldn’t fail him.
Not this time.
He stripped off his body armor, revealing golden skin, defined muscles, and her regrets about not completing the one task he’d assigned to her vanished.
The shuttle craft was gone. She couldn’t undo that damage. He was here. She could decrease his torment.
“My female.” He covered her form with his.
She tilted her hips. His hard cock pressed against her wet pussy lips and her eyelashes fluttered, that contact sublime.
“You’re with me.” Arsenal’s words were edged with fierce emotion, his hold on her intense. “You’re alive.”
Her heart squeezed. That horrible howl, the wetness on his cheeks in the demolished docking bay had been for her. Her normally stoic cyborg had believed he’d lost her and he’d released a grief that shook the chamber.
He loved her
“I’m with you.” She ran her hands down his back and he shuddered. “And I’m alive. I failed to protect the shuttle craft.”
“I don’t care about the shuttle craft.” He moved over her, gliding his shaft along her soft folds. “I care about you, only you.”
“And I care about you.” She wrapped her legs around him, hooking her booted feet over his ass. “Only you.”
Her planet rotations of rushing into danger were over. She wanted to live a long lifespan with her cyborg, find some sort of peace.
Have world-shattering orgasms.
She undulated under him, caressing his fit physique with all of her, brushing her nipples over his chest, bumping her hips against his, colliding and bouncing away from him.
His nanocybotics bubbled inside her. Seeking to heal him, she licked a wound on his right cheek. He flinched.
“Am I hurting you?” Was her tongue too rough against his injuries?
“You’re repairing me.” He turned his head, offering his other cheek.
She laved his cuts with the flat of her tongue, tending to him. He tasted of blood, metal, and male, her male. She nipped his chin.
A rumble rose from deep inside her cyborg. He rubbed his body against hers with greater urgency, his muscles flexing, the friction warming her.
It wasn’t enough…for either of them. “Take me.” She lifted her hips. “Let me heal more of you.”
“I’m not damaged there.” His honesty made her smile.
“If you don’t fuck me soon, cyborg, I’ll be damaged there.” Her need for him was building. “Give me that big cock of yours. Fuck me like only you can.”
“No other male will touch you.” His eyes blazed.
He drew back, aligning his tip at her entrance. She gripped his shoulders, trembling with anticipation.
He thrust, hard, driving into her up to his base. She shrieked with surprise, with joy, with wonder, their physical connection strengthening the link that always existed between them, their two souls meshing as one.
“You’re mine.” His voice lowered. His forehead rested against hers.
“I’m yours.” She brushed her lips against his.
“When I thought I had lost you…” A tremor rocked him.
“You didn’t lose me.” She touched his face. His wounds were already closing. Had she done that? Had she healed him? “From now until the moment we leave this life, I’ll always be with you.”
They were a team. They belonged together. Parting had been a mistake, one she would never duplicate.
“I saw the debris, the remnants of the shuttle craft and I processed you couldn’t have survived that.” His breath wafted over her lips. “It damaged me more than I’ve ever been damaged. The pain…” He paused.
“It was bad.” She prompted him.
“It was excruciating.” He lifted his head, the agony reflecting in his eyes slicing at her. “If I could have terminated my lifespan, if my programming had allowed that, I would have done that.”
Fuck. She would have lost him. Her grip on him tightened.
“I decided to remain in the World-ender.” Those words carried the weight of a confession.
He had decided to die with her. That was how much he loved her, how much he cared.
Tears burned her eyes. “That would have been foolish, not heroic.”
He shrugged.
She took a ragged breath, then another until she wrangled her emotions under control.
“I didn’t die and you didn’t remain in the World-ender.” She pushed that foregone fate aside. “I saw the Humanoid Alliance bring out the big guns. While they were arguing about using them, I disobeyed your orders, slipped out of the shuttle craft and into the hallway.” The males didn’t notice her escape. “I waited for you to return to me.”
Hiding in an alcove, she had watched for his big form. After the blast, during the chaos that followed, she didn’t hear him, the explosion temporarily deafening her, and she didn’t see him but she had felt his proximity, her body coming alive in his presence.
“I knew you would return to me.” Cupping his chin, she met his gaze. “I might ignore your commands.” She summoned a smile. “But you always accomplish what you say you’re going to do.”
“I couldn’t not return to you.” He pulled out to his tip. “You’re my home base, the center of my universe.” When he slammed back into her, her form shook.
She gasped. Pleasure coursed through her.
“I love you.” The way he said those three words made her pussy drip.
“Love. Love. Love.” That became his battle call as he retreated and advanced, retreated and advanced.
He rode her with a thought-numbing fervor, demanding her full attention, everything she had. She rose up to meet him, her muscles straining.
Sweat beaded on her skin, wet her curls. She dug her fingernails into his shoulders. That pain seemed to excite her cyborg. He rutted into her faster, driving her backward again and again. Her ass smacked against the leather seat.
They were alive, they were together, and they were in love. This fucking was a celebration of all of that, a glorious recognition of how fortunate they were…to survive, to find each other, to experience a happiness few others would ever know.
Passion weighed on her and she struggled for breath. Her breasts slapped against his chest, sending pulses of titillating hurt through her form. He was hard, so hard all over. It was a reminder he wasn’t completely human, was built for endless exertion.
But he was no cold-hearted machine. Her cyborg dangled on the edge of release, his eyes gleaming, his biceps bulging. With one squeeze of her pussy, she could sever his control, make him come.
She raked her fingernails over his back. He bucked.
His rhythm lost its smoothness. The skin pulled tight over his countenance.
She held onto him as he ravished her, plunging deep, deep, then shallow, deep, shallow, deep. His lips pressed into a thin white line as her warrior waged war with himself, fighting to return to his original tempo.
That muted his declarations of love.
Those words weren’t needed. She knew how he felt about her. His unspoken but fervent adoration shone from his eyes and echoed in her heart.
“Love. Love.” She took up the cry, her voice thin, her message powerful. Desire swirled around them, pushing her to the brink of complete surrender.
Her arms and legs shook. Her inner walls closed around his shaft.
“Cyborg?” She clung to him, the force of her need overwhelming her.
“My female.” He thrust deep and swiveled his hips.
She broke, exploding like the World-ender, shattering in his hands. His name was torn from her lips, piercing the quiet. Needing to hang on to someone, something, she clenched down on him.
He howled, pushing into her, filling her with all of him. Cum shot from his tip. It hit her flesh and the blast of pleasure sent her reeling.
She writhed and twisted, battling with the bliss. He pinned her to the seat, not allowing her to fall, joining her in fulfillment.
She squeezed him and released, squeezed and released, taking every drop of him until there was nothing left, until ecstasy had silenced her voice and stolen the last bits of her resistance.
He grunted and collapsed, his weight flattening her. She held him, welcoming that loving burden, stroking his back, smoothing the grooves she’d left on his skin.
He was with her. They had both survived their dangerous mission.
“I love you, cyborg.” She whispered that against his neck.
“I love you, female.” He sounded thoroughly sated.
They lay, their limbs entwined, his body on top of hers. The triple beat of his cyborg heart pounded against her right breast, reassuring her. He was alive and healthy, his wounds minor.
The mission hadn’t been devoid of casualties. “We lost Nora.”