by Cynthia Sax
“That battle was the war.” Her cyborg appeared smug.
“Was it?” She gazed down at his hard cock.
His smile, instead of dimming, brightened. “We’ll fight another round then.” He set her on her feet and stripped, his haste making her laugh. “I’ll give you the first strike.”
“You’ll give me all the strikes.” She placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed downward. He was a cyborg, stronger, more powerful than she was, yet he didn’t resist, lowering his ass onto the sleeping support. “You’re on the defensive with this round, warrior.”
She slid her palms over the expanse of his chest, down his abs. His stomach muscles rippled, his metal frame not containing his need for her. Her lips curled upward. This warrior was hers and she would bring him to his knees.
She would sink to hers first. She kneeled before him, drifting her fingers over his hips, his thighs, deliberately neglecting the long thick cock jutting toward her. He spread his legs, a silent request to be touched.
She caressed his knees, swirling her fingertips over his skin. “Who are you hard for, Mayhem?” She slid her tongue over her bottom lip.
His gaze tracked the movement, his eyes darkening. “You. Only you, my female.”
Imee lifted her eyebrows. “Aren’t you going to resist me?”
“I’m resisting flipping you onto your back and driving my cock into your pussy.” He folded his fingers into tight fists. “You smell like freedom.” He breathed in, his nostrils flaring. “Like open space, unexplored planets, and danger.”
Fuck. He knew what she liked to hear. She bent her head, kissed one of his knees and then the other. “You taste like metal and male, hand-to-hand combat followed by fucking.”
“Breeding,” he corrected. “Warriors breed. Other beings fuck.”
“And Retrievers?” She dragged her tongue along his inner thigh, tasting more of him. “What do they do?”
“With their males?” His cock bobbed. “Anything they want.”
“They take what they want.” She repeated the act with his other leg, teasing him, enjoying the firmness of his muscles against her mouth. “Their males are the only beings they’d ever surrender to.”
“Their males treasure that surrender.” He lifted his hips, offering his cock. A bead of pre-cum formed on his tip.
She couldn’t resist that delectable offering. Imee leaned forward, flicked her tongue over him, and he twitched. She twitched also, moaning softly, his nanocybotics setting off sparks of bliss inside her, tiny explosions of ecstasy.
“Your touch slices through me, my female. I have no defenses.”
“We’ll have to work on that.” She curled her fingers around his base. That she had to supplement her cyborg’s control thrilled her. He wanted her so much; his machine side couldn’t help him. “We’ll train again and again.” She rubbed her scarred cheek over his length and his knuckles whitened. “Until--”
“Until my processors short-circuit.” His voice was low and deep and arousing.
She’d just come. She shouldn’t need to come again. But that was what her male did to her. “I like it when your processors short-circuit.” Imee followed the veins in his shaft with her tongue, nibbled around his rim. “It makes me feel powerful.”
“You have power. Mine. Everything I have is yours.”
“I don’t need your power.” She poked her tongue into his slit, searching for more of his essence. “I have my own.” She pushed her lips over his tip.
“Yes.” His eyes rolled backward in his head. “Take me, my female.”
She sank lower and lower, filling her mouth with hard cock, stretching around him. Taking him all was impossible. He was too large. She covered his remaining shaft with her hands and sucked.
He made a hurting noise. His ass levitated off the sleeping support.
She released him and he fell with a thump. His flesh glistened. Her mouth watered. She inhaled him again, cradling his shaft with her tongue.
“I have to touch you.” Mayhem cupped her head with his big hands. “You’re so soft, so wet, so mine.”
She wasn’t given an opportunity to reply. He guided her up and down his cock, setting their pace, forcing her to advance and then retreat, advance and retreat.
In this, as with their mission, she followed his lead. For the most part. She couldn’t resist pushing him, challenging him, smacking his shaft with her tongue, varying her suction.
Their relationship would never be tranquil. They were both warriors, fighting the galaxy and each other.
She loved that about them.
She loved him. Her emotions frightened her. But it was a good kind of fear, the fear of knowing she had something to lose, something worth keeping. He mattered to her. She mattered to him.
Mayhem drove her downward as he thrust upward to meet her mouth, humping her face with a breath-stealing ferocity. She leaned into him. His heat surrounded her. His balls smacked against her chin. The muscles in his legs flexed, his body becoming even harder. There was no give in his form, no leniency in his ravishment.
His out-of-control hair waved on top of his gorgeous head, a banner of freedom, of love. His eyes were as black as the pigment on his cheeks.
Her lips throbbed. Her jaw ached. She was lost, all of her focus on the male before him, pleasing him, prodding him toward the edge of release. The enemy could attack, the ship could implode, and she wouldn’t notice. He was her world.
She glanced upward, their gazes met, held, and the last restraint holding him together snapped.
“Imee.” He bellowed her name, driving into her. Cum propelled out of his cock, splattered against her battered throat and she screamed, coming as hard as he did.
She sucked. He found release. She came, and sucked harder, drawing more nanocybotics-infused cum from his body. This repeated again and again until she’d drained him dry and he’d splintered her brain into pieces and pulverized those bits under his big boots.
“I love you, my female.” Mayhem slipped off the sleeping support. His knees smacked against the floor and she winced. Her warrior didn’t appear to notice the pain. He pulled her against him, strapping his arms around her, his big form trembling.
“I love you, Mayhem.” That truth escaped her lips before she could stop it.
He stiffened.
She did also. Shit. Shit. Shit.
She was a Retriever. Beings hated her. Saying the words, expressing her caring, her love, put Mayhem at risk. Her enemies would know how she felt, target him to hurt her…as the Commander had targeted her loved ones to hurt her, control her.
“You love me?” Mayhem leaned back and gazed at her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She feigned ignorance, unable to look at him. “Your hearing system must be malfunctioning.”
“All of my senses are fully functional, my female.” A smile spread across his face. “And my recording system is operational also.”
She frowned, seizing on that as a diversion. “You recorded us while we were fucking?”
“While we were breeding.” He acted as though there was nothing wrong with that. And she supposed there wasn’t. Neither of them was shy about their passion. “You love me.” The male wouldn’t be distracted, fixated on that dangerous phrase. “I’ll play it back to you.” He reached for a personal viewscreen.
“Do not play it back.” She knew what she’d said.
“I’ve played it back six times already.” Mayhem pushed her face against his chest. “The personal viewscreen was for you, my female.”
She rested her cheek against his left pec, listened to the triple beat of his cyborg heart, and tried to forget she’d ever said the words.
“What made you fall in love with me?” Her cyborg wouldn’t allow her to forget. “Was it my breeding skills? My fighting skills? That I allowed you to seek vengeance on the humans?”
“You didn’t allow me to do anything,” she grumbled.
“It must have been my
breeding skills.” Mayhem swung her into his arms and jumped to his feet, impressing her with his strength yet again.
Blasted male.
“You’re an ass.” She balled her fingers into a fist and punched him in the gut.
Skin smacked against skin. Pain coursed up her arm. Her wild cyborg laughed.
He dove onto the sleeping support, twisting in the air to land on his back. She bounced on top of him.
“You love me.” Mayhem flipped a tendril of her hair over her shoulder and placed his palms on her bare ass.
Imee pressed her lips together and drummed the toes of her boots against his shins. Yeah, she loved him but she wouldn’t say the words again. She cared about him too much to take that risk.
“We should breed fully.” His cock must have liked his idea because it hardened, pressing against her stomach. “I want to hear you say it again, louder this time.”
“That won’t happen.”
She was right. She didn’t say it again. Moments later, she screamed ‘I love you’ at the top of her lungs.
Chapter Seventeen
Five planet rotations later, Mayhem watched his female as she paced in front of the main viewscreen, preparing to address her fellow Retrievers.
He’d secured a private transmission channel for the exchange, ensuring the Humanoid Alliance didn’t intercept their communications, and he’d covered his model number once again with black pigment. None of the females on the transmission would know he was a cyborg.
His female had covered her sequence numbers also because they were a team, she’d told him, and because she no longer belonged to the Humanoid Alliance. She had punctuated that statement by throwing a dagger at the wall.
She was fierce. She was also, at the moment, extremely nervous. Worry lines furrowed her forehead.
“You’ll excel at this, my female.”
“Of course I will.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I excel at everything.”
He lifted his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
She walked across the bridge, back and forth, back and forth, her boot heels ringing on the floor, her hands gripped behind her back.
His female was agitated and he didn’t know why.
“I’ll be here to protect you. There’s no need to be scared.” Mayhem deliberately provoked her, seeking to find the source of her emotional damage.
Imee glared at him.
He grinned back at her.
“I didn’t say I was scared.” His female didn’t say she wasn’t scared either. “But words aren’t weapons I’ve been trained to wield.”
She stopped and gazed at the main viewscreen.
Thousands of images of females were displayed there, human and humanoid, originating from Humanoid Alliance-controlled planets across the galaxy. Each image had the Retriever’s sequence number and her name below it, identifying her.
Mouths moved but the bridge was quiet, the only noise being the sound of Imee’s breathing. The auditory system wasn’t yet functional. It would be activated once the transmission to started.
Any communications he had with his female would be private.
Mayhem waited for Imee to share her damage.
“They must have seen the footage,” she finally said, waving her hands at the Retrievers’ images. “We sent it last planet rotation.” That footage had been altered to ensure his cyborg status remained secret. “They know they’ve lost their families, the only beings they have. What do I say to them? How do I ease their pain?”
Ah. His softhearted female worried for the other Retrievers. “You tell them they’re not alone.”
“But they are alone, Mayhem.” Imee gazed at him, her beautiful brown eyes bright with emotion. “I have you. They have no one.”
Her claiming of him warmed his heart. “They have you and they have each other.”
“Why would they care that I’m here for them? They don’t know me and I don’t know them. We’ve never spoken, never met.” His female didn’t understand.
“You know them better than their families ever would have.”
She blinked once, twice as she absorbed his words. “As you know me.”
“They’ll never know you as I know you, my female.” Mayhem winked at her, seeking to lighten the mood, return a smile to his Imee’s face.
Her lips twitched. “Stop thinking about your cock for a moment.”
He breathed deeply, inhaling the musk of her arousal. “I’ll stop thinking about it if you do.”
She scowled at him.
She didn’t deny she was thinking about his cock and she didn’t vow to stop.
“We’ll breed after this communication, my female.” Mayhem reached under his seat and removed the translucent repository holding her mom’s hand. “If they question your grief, if they believe you don’t know pain as they do, show them this.”
He held it out to her, his fingers shaking.
“Why was this under your chair?” Imee snatched it from him. “It isn’t to leave our chamber. If something had happened to it, I vow. I would--”
She stopped talking, staring at her mom’s hand with widening eyes.
His stomach twisted. Was she angry with him? Did he make her emotional damage greater? “I studied your culture. Some females, when they’re manufacturing offspring, wear the armlet on their wrists.”
When he’d opened the translucent repository and slipped the armlet on what was left of her mom’s wrist, Mayhem had been extremely careful. The contents hadn’t been disturbed more than was necessary. All of her mom’s fragile flesh remained intact.
“Oh, Mayhem.” Imee flung herself into his arms, hugging him so vigorously; for a moment he thought she was attempting to strangle him. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” His female scattered kisses over his neck and face. “That you did this for me, for my mom, my dad…”
She didn’t have to finish her sentence. Mayhem felt the dampness on her cheeks, the way her body shuddered against his. His little Retriever didn’t show her softer emotions readily. He knew what his actions meant to her. “Your mom is now wearing her armlet. According to your beliefs, your mom and your dad will be together for all eternity.”
That belief defied logic but it seemed to give his female comfort.
“They will have each other. Always.” His Imee sniffled. “The Humanoid Alliance might have separated them in life but they didn’t part my mom and dad forever. ”
“No, they didn’t.” Mayhem rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping the moisture off her skin. His female wouldn’t want the other Retrievers to see her tears. He was the sole being she trusted to view them. “We ensured that didn’t happen.”
“We did.” Imee’s lips lifted into a satisfied smile and the weight on Mayhem’s chest lightened. Returning the armlet to her mom’s wrist had repaired some of his female’s damage, granted her some peace. “We should release her into space above my home planet.”
We should. By the way his female gazed at the translucent repository, she didn’t want to take that step, not yet.
“There’s no urgency to that action. We’ll release her when you’re ready.” If keeping her mom’s severed hand brought his female happiness, he would ensure that there was always a place for it on their ship.
She rested her head on his shoulder, tilted the translucent repository to the left and then to right, making the light reflect off the armlet. Mayhem petted her long black hair, skimmed his fingers over her shoulders and back.
“My mom and dad loved each other.” His female gazed at her mom’s hand, her eyes soft with memories.
“I love you.” Mayhem hadn’t fully understood that emotion before he met Imee.
“I--”
She snapped her mouth shut and glanced at the main viewscreen. The other Retrievers couldn’t hear them but his female always leaned toward caution, while he leaned toward chaos.
“You don’t have to say the words, my female.” He bent his head and kissed one of her shoulders. “I kn
ow how you feel.”
“You don’t know.” She shook her head. “You have no concept of the depth of my feelings for you, what I would do to keep you safe.”
He did know. He’d seen what she’d sacrificed for her family. Mayhem’s chest heated. All of that love, that passion was now directed at him.
He was the most fortunate warrior in the galaxy.
“Imee.” Should he give her the other objects he’d crafted for her? Was it the right moment? Or should he wait until--
“The contents of my container allowed us to reunite my mom and my dad after their deaths.” Imee bounced off his lap and Mayhem’s opportunity to give her the gifts was gone. “We might be able to give the families of the other Retrievers the same peace. That’s something.”
“It is something.” He watched her. She was something, something rare, something special, fierce and gorgeous and kind, although she tried to hide her soft heart.
Imee plunked her mom’s hand down on the console. “Let’s do this.” She straightened to her full height. Which wasn’t very high. “Open the frequency.”
He grinned and did as she commanded.
“My fellow Retrievers.” His female braced herself as though she was facing an attack, her booted feet set solidly on the floor, her hands clutched behind her back. “We can speak freely. This is a secured line. The Humanoid Alliance doesn’t have access to it.”
One of the females signaled that she wished to speak. Mayhem opened her frequency.
“The Humanoid Alliance can sit on a dagger and rotate,” Kutta yelled, her lips curled into a snarl, showing her pointed teeth.
Mayhem closed that frequency, opened another.
“They tricked us, manipulated us, took away everything we had,” Nikaalate, another female, added, waving her tiny fist in the air.
“I have no one left.” Tears streamed down Loa’s brown and green striped face. The Tau Cetian female was barely grown, her cheeks round and her chest flat.
“You have beings left.” Imee’s voice was brusque. “You have thousands of your Retriever sisters.”