Claimed By The Cyborg Commander: (Cybernetic Hearts #2) (Celestial Mates)

by Aurelia Skye

  Gwen nodded, hurrying past Carrie as the other woman entered the quarters. “That’s fine. Thank you.” She didn’t need to ask for directions on how to get back to the medical center, having memorized the route earlier despite her exhaustion. Perhaps even a mother’s instinct led her, but however she found it, she was there in less than a minute.

  The door was open, and she rushed inside to find JSN, OWN, and NKI standing around Britta’s bed. It was obvious her daughter hadn’t quite awakened yet, and she moved quickly to JSN’s side, curving her arm around his waist for support without thought. She leaned against him for a moment as she looked at the healer. “How is she?”

  “She’s doing fine. I minimized the amount of cybernetic material I used for the graft to the bare minimum, so she might need a day or two to rest and heal the rest of the way. I chose not to treat some of the minor burns, because I didn’t think she’d want to have odd spots of blue here and there. She should be waking up any time, since the sedative has worn off by now.”

  “Will she be in pain?” As she asked the question, Gwen bent forward to take her daughter’s hand. Her baby looked so small in the bed, though her skin was no longer the ashen gray it had been. It was more like its normal creamy brown.

  “She might have mild discomfort from the spots where we didn’t do a graft, but she’s on medication that should provide adequate pain relief. I’d like to keep her here overnight, but she should be fine to leave the medical center by tomorrow.”

  “How soon until she can travel?”

  JSN stiffened. “You’re leaving?”

  Gwen nodded. “I have to get back to the enclave and discover what happened.”

  “Will you be returning to the base afterward?”

  She looked at him when she heard the distress in his tone, squeezing his hand. “I had assumed you would come back with me to the enclave, but yes, I would like to come back to the cyborg base and try our experiments as soon as the situation is resolved. I’m sure you understand why I can’t just turn my back on events of the enclave at the moment, at least not once Britta is stable.”

  As JSN nodded, OWN answered her question. “She should be find to travel within two days.”

  Gwen let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, relief sweeping through her. Her daughter had been seriously injured, but it was a minor procedure to the cyborgs. A similar injury would’ve killed Britta if they’d had only their own technology and resources upon which to depend at the enclave. It merely underscored for her the necessity of forming a truce and maintaining peace with the cyborgs. The humans needed the cyborgs more than they needed the humans, and she hoped those in the enclave who were resistant to the idea of an alliance would soon reach that conclusion on their own.

  Britta’s eyes fluttered open, and she knelt on the floor to be closer to her daughter. She took Britta’s hand between both of hers and brought it to her mouth to kiss the knuckles as her daughter’s eyelids finally stayed open. Her gaze was unfocused for a moment, but soon honed in on Gwen, and a small frown wrinkled the skin between Britta’s eyes. “What happened, Mama?”

  “There was an…accident at the enclave.”

  “I remember an earthquake.”

  Gwen wasn’t certain if that was what they had experienced, and it certainly didn’t explain the fireball, but she just nodded. “You were burned in the process, but Jason’s,” The human name Carrie called JSN rolled off her tongue without thought, “Friends saved you. Would you like to see how?”

  Britta looked cautious when she nodded, but there was no sign of pain from the movement.

  Carefully, Gwen peeled back the blanket covering her daughter, relieved that the cyborgs were letting her handle this part. It was her first sight too, and it was a little disconcerting to see the skin on her hip and back go from creamy brown to a brighter blue than any of the other cyborgs. “Look how pretty it is.” It really was quite striking with the luminescent circuitry and circulatory system, but it was distressing as well. She held her breath as she waited to see Britta’s response.

  Britta trailed a finger down her hip before arching a brow. “It feels just like my regular skin.”

  “And the color will fade to a lighter blue within a day or two,” said OWN. “It just takes a little time to settle in.”

  “It looks so strange,” said Britta. It was difficult to tell whether she was upset or just making an observation.

  “I think it’s lovely, and it shows that you’re a survivor.” Gwen patted her daughter lightly on the hip before pulling the blanket back to cover it. “You understand it was necessary?”

  Ever practical, Britta nodded. “It’s fine, but I’ll have to get used to it. Do you think Pollux will tease me?”

  Gwen struggled to hide a grin. “He might, but we’ll tell him not to.”

  Britta arched a brow, giving her a skeptical look. “Like that will work.”

  “Who knows? Maybe he’ll be jealous,” said JSN.

  Britta’s eyes sparkled at the thought, and a full smile crossed her features. “That would be neat.”

  Gwen did laugh then, a combination of amusement and relief leaving her almost giddy. It was a good thing Britta had a pragmatic personality, because it would serve her well in this situation. She doubted her daughter would spend too much time fretting over the differences, except perhaps when she got older. For now, it was likely to be easily forgotten, though she would certainly monitor Britta’s attitude toward the skin grafts in the coming weeks to make sure her daughter wasn’t just hiding mixed emotions or outright negativity about the technology that had saved her life.

  She stayed with Britta for two hours before her daughter’s eyes started to drift closed, this time a naturally induced need for sleep rather than pharmaceutically encouraged. It was only when she stood up that she realized how sore her back was from having sat on the edge of the bed in almost the same position for the last two hours.

  The medical staff and JSN had left her with Britta after the first few minutes, but it was obvious JSN had been hovering somewhere, because he was at her side moments after Britta had fallen asleep. She took the hand he extended before leaning against him. It felt good to have his strength to rely on, especially since hers was battered after what had happened with Britta and could have happened to Pollux too.

  If his older sister hadn’t shielded the little boy with her own body, Pollux would have been in the bed beside her. The realization nearly made her knees buckle, and she clung tighter than ever to JSN, spending a moment orienting herself before she could walk. “I should probably eat, but I just feel exhausted again.”

  “You’ve been through a lot. I could bring a dinner tray to my room, and you could rest while eating before sleeping.”

  Gwen nodded, feeling a bit like a weakling since she had technically rested most of the last few hours. It was likely stress and the aftermath leaving her so drained, and she appreciated having a partner to look after her. Having stood on her own two feet for the last three years with no one else to lean on from time to time, she was happy to allow someone else to look after her, albeit temporarily.

  That it was JSN was a bonus, and despite everything that had happened, she couldn’t bring herself to regret having saved Carrie and brought the cyborgs into the enclave. Perhaps today’s accident wouldn’t have occurred, but if it had, her daughter would have died. And if it hadn’t, they would’ve continued existing as they had been, their home slowly crumbling around them, as they faced an ever-growing risk of extinction.

  The cyborgs as a whole represented new hope for the humans, but it was JSN himself who represented the greatest hope for her. She had been afraid to feel like this again, but now that she was in the throes of falling in love with him, most of that fear had eased. There was still the fear of losing him, and the agony of parting under such terms, but it was balanced by the knowledge of how much joy he would bring her and her children.

  He left her at his quarters, and she took a
seat at the table while she waited for him. Pollux wasn’t in attendance, and she battled her way through the comm system until she finally tracked down Carrie, who confirmed her son was with her and the dogs, and would be for a while yet unless Gwen wanted him back right away.

  “No, it’s fine as long as you don’t mind entertaining him for a while. I could use more rest.”

  “It’s no problem. He’s adorable, and Penny and her babies appreciate the company. They’re fawning all over him and vice versa.”

  She chuckled as she ended the conversation just as JSN appeared, the door opening with a hydraulic hiss to announce his arrival before he stepped over the threshold. He brought two trays to the table and set one in front of her, and it was only as she lifted the lid she realized it was just the two of them—at least for the next while. Did she really want to spend all that time sleeping?

  Gwen ate the food as quickly as possible, noting JSN did the same. Perhaps his thoughts had drifted in the same direction as hers. As she finished almost her last bite, she said, “Carrie calls you Jason.” At his nod, she added, “You don’t mind?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “It doesn’t bother me at all. It makes her more comfortable, and it’s a good name. It feels more personal.”

  “Should I call you Jason?”

  He paused for a moment before grinning. “I think I’d like that. I’d particularly like it when we’re very close.”

  She pushed aside the tray, noting his was already empty as well. “Should I call you that now? And would you like to be especially close?”

  Jason didn’t hesitate to push aside the tray and go around the table to join her. Gwen was already rising to her feet as he reached her, but he lifted her the rest of the way out of the seat and into his arms. His mouth slammed down on hers, and they exchanged a deep kiss full of needy hunger. She clung to him as he swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

  Her clothes yielded easily to his skilled fingers, though she had a little more trouble removing his. Her hands were shaking with anticipation, and she kept fumbling. Once he provided assistance, he was soon as naked as she was, and they crashed onto the bed together. Myriad emotions swept through her as she clung to him. Relief, desire, and the need for comfort were chief among them. The most prominent emotion she experienced made her chest ache and filled her with warmth. It simultaneously made her want to laugh and cry, and though she refused to identify it, she knew deep inside it was a lot like love.

  There was no hesitation or fumbling as they moved together, bodies soon fused to make them one temporarily. She arched against him, matching his pace and rhythm, as their gazes locked. She was almost afraid to label what she read in his eyes, and even more afraid it was showing in hers as well.

  They were the words she wasn’t quite ready to utter, so she closed her eyes to avoid temptation. When he increased his pace while slipping his hand between their bodies to stroke her clit, she surrendered to the sensation and pursued the release building inside her without opening her eyes.

  She hovered on the cusp of orgasm as his body stiffened, and his shaft spasmed inside her. His response pushed her toward the precipice, but it was his words that finally sent her over the edge.

  “You’re my mate, Gwen.”

  She shuddered in ecstasy as she clung to him, finally allowing her eyes to open. And collide with his gaze again. “Jason, I…” She trailed off, still not ready to say the words, but certainly not planning to deny them either. Instead, she simply breathed, “Yes.” It was enough for now, and his relief was obvious when he sighed before gathering her close. Tremors still occasionally shook their bodies, but it wasn’t enough to keep her awake. Snuggled against her cyborg mate, and reassured that Britta would be fine, she slept deeper than she could remember doing so for a long time.

  ***

  It was harder than she expected to part with the others at the cyborg base as they headed out two days later. She would see them again when she returned to conduct the cloning experiments after settling the situation at the enclave, but it was surprisingly difficult to walk away from Carrie, OWN, and the others.

  Pollux and Britta clearly felt the same way, and her son clung to Penny for a long moment, getting a face full of doggie licks, before Jason managed to coax him away. Britta clung in a similar fashion to NKI, clearly having bonded with the female cyborg healer during her time in the infirmary.

  Their pace was necessarily slower, but they lucked out and avoided encountering any synthetics during the five hours it took them to travel back to the enclave. She led them through the opening in the rock face that connected with the system of tunnels built by previous generations, long before the enclave had been put into use seventy years ago as a shelter to protect the last of humanity deemed worthy of surviving.

  A few minutes later, they entered the antechamber that served as the hub for the enclave, finding it almost deserted, which was unusual. As Gwen looked around, searching for members of the enclave, she waited for a feeling of satisfaction at returning home to fill her, but nothing came.

  The enclave was the same place she had lived all her life, but it didn’t feel like home any longer. It had never been especially welcoming, but it’d been a safe haven that shielded them from the synthetics and the cyborgs before their ceasefire. Now, it just felt empty, and that had more to do with the changes in her than the lack of people gathered in the antechamber.

  They moved cautiously forward, avoiding the roped-off section that contained damage from the explosion the other day. Cleanup efforts were clearly underway, but it was going to be a slow-going task, especially with their lack of resources.

  The familiar hum of Leith’s chair announced his approach before he came into sight, and he joined them a few seconds later. He looked haggard and had clearly lost a lot of sleep.

  Guilt prickled at her for leaving him to deal with the aftermath, but what choice had there been? Britta was her top priority, coming well above the enclave, and Leith was her second-in-command. She moved closer to him, an expression of sympathy on her face. “You look dead-tired.”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “How’s Britta?”

  The little girl stepped forward and answered for herself, flashing him a big smile. “I’m fine. I have blue skin. Do you want to see?” At Leith’s indulgent nod, she turned slightly and lifted her shirt to show him a section of her back. As OWN had promised, the color had faded, and the vascular system was also less bright, though still luminescent.

  “That’s pretty cool. Does it hurt?”

  Britta shook her head at Leith’s question. “Not anymore. It did for a while the first day, but I don’t remember much of that.”

  “I’m sure that’s for the best.”

  Pollux moved around his sister to put his hand on Leith’s leg and get his attention. “I got to play with Penny and her puppies. Carrie said I could have one when they’re ready to leave their mama, as long as my mama doesn’t mind. That’ll be exciting. I can’t wait to bring home my puppy.”

  Gwen laughed. “That’s a discussion we haven’t had yet, Pollux.” Seeing the way his face fell, she quickly added, “I don’t see a problem with bringing home a puppy, but it’s something we need to talk about and figure out, okay?” At his nod, she turned her attention to Leith again as Jason slipped an arm around her waist. “What did you find out? What caused the fire?”

  His eyes narrowed, and his lips compressed. “Sabotage. Someone deliberately rigged the area to blow by deliberately overloading the circuits in the environmental system in that area. We’re just lucky whoever did it wasn’t aware of the weak points in the structure, or the entire enclave could have collapsed around us if they had targeted the right systems.”

  Jason had stiffened beside her. “One of the humans deliberately tried to kill us.”

  Gwen turned her head, intending to refute the assertion, but found she couldn’t. Reluctantly, she nodded instead. “It sounds like it, and they didn’t care how many humans they k
illed in the process.” Her neck popped when she looked back at Leith quickly. “Did we have any casualties?”

  He shook his head. “Britta was the worst injury, aside from the cyborgs. I assume they all healed?” At Jason’s nod, Leith also inclined his head in response. “We’ve been busy with diagnostics, and the structure’s still intact. We’ve only lost a little more integrity, and we’re in no imminent danger of the enclave collapsing around us.” He grimaced. “At least until the next earthquake.”

  Jason shifted, and Gwen looked at him. She started to ask what was on his mind, but he began speaking before she needed to.

  “I spoke with the general, and we believe we might be the reason for the uptick in seismic activity. The surge coincides with the time frame of when we started excavating bastnäsite from the mine above you.”

  Gwen frowned. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  He looked sheepish. “I was going to discuss it with you yesterday, but…you needed your rest. Obviously, we had no idea your enclave was down here, or that it would affect your people in such a way.”

  Gwen nodded, accepting his words as truth. “Does that mean the seismic activity will reduce again since you’re stopping the mining?”

  Jason winced. “That’s the problem. We can’t stop, at least not until we find a new source of monazite or bastnäsite from which to extract the terbium that keeps us alive.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “And this enclave keeps my people alive.”

  Jason nodded. “For the interim, until we find a better solution, we’re going to minimize excavation. We have enough terbium reserves for a few months, so we’ll focus on the areas we’ve already cleared with blasting and not go any deeper for now.”

  “Or you could just stop,” said Leith with a sneer. “You do have months’ worth of terbium, after all.”

  Jason nodded. “We do, but it quickly dwindles when you aren’t replacing it with more. Would you not worry about next season’s crops if you had enough to get you through this year’s needs?”