That damn cyborg had betrayed her. Astrid gazed at her private viewscreen, using it to locate the ship’s landing site. The lifeform scans had relayed there was a single being on board, one of his clan.
Vengeance hadn’t said anything about the warrior’s arrival. He must have known. According to her research, cyborgs communicated constantly through secure transmission lines.
Yet he hadn’t told her about it.
Which meant he truly did plan to capture her, to take her wherever he was going, without her consent. That wasn’t an act of a male who cared for her. Her heart squeezed. He continued to see her as his enemy.
She should view him the same way.
The small ship landed in a section of flat terrain. She’d blow it up if she had explosions left, but her supply had been obliterated during her cyborg’s attack.
Flopping down on the ground, she watched the vessel. The ramp lowered. The doors opened. A gray-skinned, blue-eyed warrior strode out, dressed in black body armor, guns in his hands, a smile on his face.
He was smaller than her cyborg, less impressive, a D Model. Some females might find him better looking, his countenance less primitive, more classically handsome.
He didn’t appeal to her.
Vengeance approached the newcomer, his head turning in her direction. That cyborg aroused her, her pussy becoming wet with one look from him.
And he was gazing at her. He knew she was there, was as aware of her as she was of him.
He didn’t greet her, didn’t offer an explanation, didn’t apologize for being the biggest ass in the entire universe. The unrepentantly naked and thrillingly hard male exchanged words with his fully clothed kinfolk, their voices too quiet to hear.
The newcomer glanced at her and laughed. She narrowed her eyes.
Fuck them. No one laughed at her. She was the Buoir Berserker.
They’d made jokes about the wrong warrior.
She aimed her long gun at the brute she’d foolishly trusted. Not having enough hate in her heart to kill him, she targeted his right shoulder, a non-lethal location, and pressed the trigger.
He jerked as the projectile struck him, blasting through skin and flesh, ricocheting off his metal frame. The warrior didn’t fall.
He did look over his shoulder and glare at her.
“You have no right to look at me that way, cyborg.” She lowered her aim. “I didn’t betray you.” She shot him in the left calf.
He staggered, the big brute refusing to go down.
The other warrior threw his head back and laughed, clearly enjoying the situation.
At least, someone was happy. Her lips flattened.
The male’s mirth abruptly ceased as his arm was grabbed. Vengeance unwrapped black strips from the stranger’s body armor.
“Fuck, no.” Her eyes widened. Those were restraints.
The brute planned to tie her up.
That was not going to happen. She shot him in his right calf. He howled.
She ran, pelting through the woods as fast as she could move. He chased her. The cyborg was silent, but she knew he was close behind her, every cell in her body sounding an alarm.
If she made it to the river, she might escape him. She could dive into the water, swim with the stream, lose—
A rough hand grasped her right arm, swung her around. Their bodies collided. She smacked into her cyborg’s chest, the impact pushing the oxygen from her lungs.
Before she could recover, he strapped his arms around her, securing her. She lifted her knee. He caught her leg between his thighs.
“You’re still too slow.” His voice was gruff.
“You’re still a brute.” She bit his chin, piercing his skin with her teeth. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
That would always, for as long as she lived, be a flavor she associated with him.
“I thought we would have more time.” He didn’t try to stop her attack, seemed to accept the pain she was inflicting upon him as his due. “The ship originated from a warship in the sector, not the Homeland.”
“But you did know a ship was coming.” She glared at him. He could have told her about it yet didn’t.
“I requested it.” His head dipped.
He wanted their time together to end. “Then leave.” She struggled to free herself, her heart hurting. “But you’re not taking me with you.”
“I have to take you with me.” He bound her wrists. “I have to prove the bond we have between us is temporary. It won’t last.”
“You don’t want it to last.” He didn’t want her. She pulled against the restraints, couldn’t break them.
“This isn’t about what I want.” He hefted her over his shoulder. She was a large female, yet he slung her around like she weighed nothing.
That turned her on.
And frustrated her. She drummed the toes of her boots against his chest. He caught her ankles, bound them also. She thumped her knees against him.
“Behave.” He squeezed her ass. “You’ll damage yourself.”
“Fuck you.” She bit his back.
The damn male chuckled. “You’re fierce, female.”
Female. She was no longer his female. She was merely a female. Astrid was glad he couldn’t see the emotional pain he’d caused her.
The damage she’d caused him had been physical. Blood dripped from his injured shoulder, streamed down his lower legs.
She pushed away the guilt. He deserved that agony, would heal.
Twenty planet rotations from now, he wouldn’t remember her. She, in contrast, would be hurting for solar cycles, perhaps forever.
“I hate you.” She gazed down at his clenched ass cheeks. They were perfect…like the rest of him.
“You don’t hate me.” He called her on her lie.
She glowered at his back. “I should hate you.”
“You don’t.” He walked with her, his gait smooth and steady, one of his hands remaining on her ass. She gazed behind her at a planet she doubted she’d ever see again.
Even if she was freed, she wouldn’t return to Second Buoir. Her kinfolk were dead, and there would be too many memories of him.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” she mumbled.
“Could she have killed you?”
“Yes.” She peered around her cyborg.
The other warrior winked at her. She scowled back at him.
He laughed. “I’m Truth, Vengeance’s female.”
“I’m Astrid Ragnhild, the Buoir Berserker.” She lifted her body. “I kill D Models like you for fun, and I am no one’s female.”
The warrior, Truth, grinned. “I like you.”
“You don’t have the right to like her.” Vengeance growled. “She’s my captive.” He increased his grip on her ass.
“I won’t be his captive for long.” She told the other warrior. “I plan to escape him.”
“Will that escape involve blowing up my ship?” Truth’s eyes glittered.
“Perhaps.” She wasn’t ruling out that option. “I’ve depleted my stash of explosives, but there are other ways to blow up a ship.” She considered the problem. “I could jam the weapons systems.”
“That’s not optimal.” The cyborg shook his head. “The weapons system can only be jammed from inside the ship. You’d blow yourself up also.”
“That wouldn’t stop her.” Vengeance turned his body until she could no longer see the other male. “She’s willing to die if her death takes out an enemy.” He said that with a hint of pride. “Stop encouraging my captive and load the contents of the domicile onto the ship.”
“All of it?” Truth asked.
“All of it.” Her surly cyborg stomped up the ramp, carrying her into the vessel.
“The contents of the domicile are mine.” She yelled at his associate, irritated about her lack of control over the situation. “You have no right to touch them.”
“I’m touching them, Vengeance’s captive.” Truth laughed. “Those were your male’s orders.”
“He’s not my male,” she muttered. He was now nothing to her. “I will escape you, cyborg.” She told Vengeance as he moved through the ship.
“You’re too slow to escape me.” He entered a private chamber with her. “And where we’re going, it will be dangerous for you if you’re on your own.” He set her facedown on a large sleeping support.
“Where are we going?” She turned her head and frowned at him. Where was he taking her?
“We’re returning to the cyborg Homeland.” He sat beside her.
She didn’t know where that was, but she assumed she’d be surrounded by cyborgs there, cyborgs whose brethren she’d killed.
Fuck. She was in trouble.
“I thought cyborgs couldn’t lie.” She rocked. After a couple of attempts, she successfully rolled onto her back.
There was no pain. Her wounds had magically healed over the rest cycle.
“I have never lied to you.” Her cyborg sounded offended by that implication.
Which was ironic, considering she was currently tied up in his private chambers.
She twisted her arms to the side. Her fingers touched the hilt of one of her daggers. He hadn’t disarmed her.
That mistake would cost him.
“You said no one would harm me.” Yet he was delivering her to his brethren. “Wasn’t that a lie?” She struggled to extract the dagger.
“No one would dare to damage you.” His frown was fierce. “You’re under my protection.”
“You’ll protect me from millions of your brethren?” She rubbed the blade against her wrist restraints. “That’s beyond even your capabilities.”
“I’m a member of the Council.” His chin lifted, her cyborg’s arrogance appealing to her…too much. “I represent all of the C Models in existence.”
He was their leader. Shit. That was bad news for her. Her fingers trembled. The dagger slipped out of her grip. Pain streaked over her right palm. She sucked in her breath.
Her cyborg’s sensitive nose twitched. His face darkened. “What did you do?” He thundered that question, gathering her into his arms.
“It’s nothing.” Her voice was faint.
“You’ve cut your hand open.” He threw her dagger across the chamber. It pierced the wall panel with a twang, the handle vibrating.
Her male, being the beast he was, snapped the restraints with his bare hands, freeing her. Moving faster than any human could, he gripped her wrist, brought her palm to his lips, sucking as much of her wound into his mouth as possible.
It hurt yet felt good, stimulating her. She watched as he licked her sliced skin, removing the blood, replacing it with his nanocybotics.
“You care for me.” She repeated words she’d spoken to him before the ship arrived, before he had betrayed her.
“I’m trying to care for you,” he grumbled against her wound. “Why would you damage yourself, foolish female?”
The sleeping support quivered under her ass. The ship was moving. They’d left her clan’s planet, were speeding toward the cyborg Homeland.
Outnumbered and outgunned, on a ship he controlled, she was at his mercy and should be terrified. She wasn’t. She trusted him to protect her, to not hurt her.
“I don’t like being restrained.” She offered him an explanation he, a fellow warrior, would understand. “I can’t defend myself.”
“You can’t escape.” His gaze met hers, the concern in his eyes dissipating the tension within her.
“That too.” She forced a grin. “And it makes killing you more challenging.”
He sighed, his breath wafting over her palm. “The time for playing is over, Astrid. There are some warriors on the Homeland who hate humans.”
“You’re one of those warriors.”
“They won’t hesitate to kill a human female on her own.” He ignored her comment. “You must have a warrior by your side at all times.”
A warrior. Not necessarily him. Her heart ached. He planned to assign the task of guarding her to someone else.
“Why is it important that you prove our bond is temporary?” Her gut told her she wouldn’t like the answer to that question either.
“Some cyborgs believe there is one being in this universe genetically compatible with them, one being with whom they can create natural offspring.” He licked her already-closing wound. “They believe this bond is permanent, cannot be broken by the cyborg or the female.”
“That female might be human, the enemy.” She was that being for him. Astrid gazed at the warrior before her, their connection palpable, undeniable, lasting.
But he didn’t believe in it, didn’t believe they were destined to be together, forever. He continued to fight their link, was determined to prove it to be false, a trap laid by his adversaries.
“If the female is the enemy and the bond is temporary, giving her full rights, full access to the Homeland could lead to invasion.” He held her hand to his lips, his tender touch belying his critical words. “My brethren could be enslaved once more, tortured and killed. I can’t risk that.”
He had already lost many of the warriors he cared about…as she had.
She pushed away her sympathy for him. “To prevent the human females from gaining full access to the Homeland, you have to prove the bond is temporary.”
He dipped his head.
“The easiest way to do that was to bond with me, fuck me, pretend to care for me.” And she had fallen for his act. Her lips twisted. She was a fool. “It was all a plan.”
“That wasn’t my plan.” His face turned an interesting shade of gray. “My plan was to show my brethren I could resist my female.” His gaze lowered. “I failed in that mission.”
It must have irked her arrogant male to have to admit his failure. “You couldn’t resist me.” That soothed her battered pride. “Your lust for me was too strong.”
“Yes.” His admission was barely audible.
She studied his handsome face. Her warrior was attempting to protect his brethren. That was admirable. And he wanted her, his cock hard even now. He admitted to caring for her, had vowed to protect her, to never harm her.
She couldn’t hate him, her desire for him burning bright.
“You’re no longer my enemy, Vengeance.” She wanted him to know that. “I understand why your brethren killed my clan. My war against the cyborgs is over.”
“Not every female is as honorable as you are.” He pressed his lips against her palm. “To protect my brethren, I must break our bond.”
Her cyborg was set on this foolhardy course. Being a stubborn male, he would fight his need for her with everything he had, would do everything he could to sever their unique connection.
She was just as determined to show him he was wrong. Their link was permanent, special, never to be replaced. She felt that truth deep within her soul.
Her lifespan had been spent fighting. Saving their budding relationship would be her biggest battle yet.
But victory would be hers. Having spent planet rotations observing him, she had learned his weaknesses, would use those against him, wouldn’t accept defeat as an option.
“You can untie my ankles.” She held up her feet. “I won’t try to escape.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Do you plan to kill me?”
“That would be fun.” She grinned. “But no, I meant what I said about my war with the cyborgs being over. I won’t kill you or your handsome warrior friend. I won’t blow up your ship. I won’t summon my big bad Rebel buddies and, with their assistance, take the two of you captive, to use as my private fuck tools.”
She paused.
“I can’t promise you I won’t torture you, however.” Because she planned to do exactly that.
“You will only use me as your private fuck tool.” Vengeance snapped the ankle restraints, his strength and his possessiveness thrilling her. “Truth is not for you.”
“Isn’t he?” She wiggled her feet, savoring her freedom. “I thought that was the point you are trying to make—our bond isn’t permanent, which means any male could be for me.”
Her cyborg’s face darkened. “You won’t fuck other males and I won’t fuck other females. That was our agreement.”
“You agreed to that.” She couldn’t conceal the triumph in her voice. “I didn’t.”
“You will agree to that.” He gripped her face.
“No, I won’t.” She moved closer to him, her lips a breath away from his.
He glared at her. She smiled back at him. A rumble rolled up his chest, that savage sound making her pussy wet.
“You’re mine. Only mine.” He captured her lips, his kiss fierce, demanding. She granted him entrance, unable to deny him access to her body.
He invaded her mouth. His fingers sank into her hair, his hold on her tight. Their tongues battled, attacking, fleeing, pursuing. She slid into his lap, straddling his hips.
They moved together. She was fully clothed. He was naked, his cock pressing against her leather-clad mons, the pressure exquisite.
She rubbed against him. He growled into her mouth. Pulling her head back, he dragged his lips along her neck, the hint of teeth, a trace of danger, causing her toes to curl in her boots.
He nipped and sucked on her, her male marking the territory he considered his. She clasped his shoulders and swiveled her hips against him, showing him what he would be giving up if he severed their bond, destroyed their relationship.
The passion between them was rare. She’d fucked enough warriors to recognize that. It was too good to let go.
He was too good. She moaned as he mouthed over the scar on her neck.
“We should stop.” She raked her fingernails along his back, leaving pink trails on his gray skin.
Energy surged in his eyes. “We’re not stopping.” He pushed her down on the sleeping support, covering her with his big form.
“You want to sever our connection.” She unfastened her chest covering, freeing her breasts, the chamber air cool against her curves. “You can’t do that if we continue to fuck.”
Every sexual encounter, every exchange of nanocybotics, strengthened their link.
“We’ll sever our connection later.” He ravished her breasts with his hands and mouth, the fizzing and bubbling on her sensitive flesh making her writhe, the pleasure intense. “Right now, I want to fuck you. Hard.”
“Yes.” Her lips curled upward.
The war had only begun, but this first battle was hers.