Abiogenesis (7 page)

It seemed unlikely that they had. She was willing to admit that she’d had a great deal of prejudice where this generation of cyborgs, the CO469, were concerned, mostly because of the company’s propaganda machine. As the blond with the curly hair had pointed out, though, she’d taken her fair share of them down. Taking a cyborg down was no simple task, however. Typically, she spent months tracking and then studying the subject before she devised a plan--only a fool leapt in with guns blazing when they were facing a foe as potentially dangerous as these rogues.

She had seen nothing to make her believe the CO469 were that much different than the generations before or since them. Either this particular phenomenon she’d witnessed since she’d been taken aboard Reuel’s ship was rare even among them, or the ones she’d killed had actually been ‘acting’, or, possibly, whatever it was that made these so very human had had the effect of actually making some of them truly insane.

It was possible, of course, that those she’d tracked had been on some sort of mission for the rebels, but she was more inclined to think they’d been loners and knew nothing about the rebels.

None had ever admitted it, in any case, which certainly seemed to whittle at the numbers the rebels might have put together. If she added to that the difficulties that seemed inevitable given the shortage of females and the all too obvious instincts of the males to try to find a female to breed with, it looked like a recipe for disaster to her.

She supposed, given that the CO469 was particularly partial to attacking the company and had yet to focus on anyone or anything else, provided it didn’t get in their way, she could see the company’s stance where they were concerned. By law, they were responsible for removing potentially hazardous or defective product anyway, but she began to feel that there was more to it than that.

Their fear seemed excessive now that she thought about it. Either they knew they’d crossed the line and created a generation of cyborgs that were as close to human as made almost no difference at all, or there was something about these cyborgs that was potentially far more dangerous than their relatively small number suggested.

The question was what?

And was it possible that it was in any way connected to what had happened to her?

She wouldn’t have thought so except for Reuel’s interest.

If she hadn’t been half starved from lack of food, dehydrated from little water and dead on her feet, she would’ve realized that she’d ‘surprised’ Reuel with amazing ease. Of course, she hadn’t realized until she was upon him that he was a cyborg--she wouldn’t have known it then except that she’d seen his face so many times she would’ve had to be a blithering idiot not to recognize him instantly.

He had not been suffering any of the debilitating effects that she had, however, and his vision and hearing were many times more acute than her own. If he’d been human, as she had supposed, she wouldn’t have questioned whether or not she’d actually managed to sneak up on him. She should have questioned it the moment she’d recognized him, because it was very unlikely that she’d caught Reuel off guard.

He’d been waiting for her.

She should’ve known finding that ‘guide’ had been too goddamned easy!

She didn’t know how much Reuel knew that he wasn’t telling her, but she was about to find out.

Snatching the saber from the scabbard of the man sitting next to her, she leapt upward almost in the same motion, landing on the table, the point of her blade hovering just above where Reuel’s heart would be if he did as she expected and leapt to his feet.

He didn’t disappoint her.

Behind her, she heard the scrapes and crashes that told her the others had leapt up, turning their chairs over as they grabbed their weapons. Silence fell as they froze, just as Reuel had frozen. "It was a set up," she said through gritted teeth. "You were waiting for me."

Instead of answering her immediately, Reuel’s gaze flicked to the cyborgs behind her. "Get back. This is between me and her."

Listening, she heard them shift indecisively. Finally, they moved back a couple of steps. None of them moved far, however, and none left.

It didn’t matter. She was going to die anyway. She rather thought she liked these odds better than the odds she’d be facing if she let them get her all the way to the rebel camp. Five to one might not be much of a chance, but it was better than 500 to one. "What’s the game plan, Reuel?" she demanded, prodding him with the point of the saber.

"I was waiting," he admitted.

"Why? How?"

"We’re plugged into the company’s system. We monitor all of their activities."

"So you knew they were after me and you knew the sector of the city where they’d lost me. They were out looking for me?" she asked, jerking her head in the direction of the cyborgs behind her.

Her overconfidence cost her. She’d been so certain the threat was behind her, she hadn’t realized that Reuel was only waiting for a fraction of a second’s inattention. The moment she nodded in the direction of the cyborgs at her back, her gaze flickered away from his. He struck the side of the blade in her hands so hard with the palm of his hand that the vibration traveled all the way up her arm in a numbing shockwave. She leapt from the table even as he made a dive for her. Landing on the deck in a half crouch, she pivoted so that she was facing both Reuel and the others.

One of them--the blond that had given her the evil eye from the time they’d boarded--snatched his saber from its scabbard and tossed it to Reuel. Reuel caught it, but it seemed a more reflexive action than intentional. He glanced down at the saber as if undecided whether to keep it or discard it. Dalia made a lunging swing at him while he was distracted.

He parried it, but again she sensed that it was an instinctive action of self-preservation.

She didn’t have time to dwell on it, or figure it out. The only chance she had that she could see would be to take him out. The corner of the room where she’d positioned herself ensured that no more than one or two of them could come at her at once, while still giving her enough room to maneuver.

It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was better than nothing.

As Reuel rolled from the table and landed on his feet, she swung again. Again, he met the swing, parried it, but he made no attempt to follow it up. He moved to one side, trying to force her to move further into the opening. She wasn’t falling for that one, however. She held her position, attacking once more in a flurry of strikes that forced him back.

The numbness in her arm from that first hit had subsided, leaving pain in its wake. She shifted the blade to her other hand, hoping the pain would recede enough that she could switch back. She was almost as good with her left hand as her right, but almost, she felt sickeningly certain, wasn’t going to be good enough.

Parrying her strikes, he shifted again, moving to her other side. Again, she faced him, refusing to allow him to work her out of the corner, but his new position made it necessary for her to switch hands again.

He’d seen the weakness, she realized with dread, switching, gritting her teeth and trying to ignore the pain. This time, instead of merely meeting her thrusts, he launched an attack. Dalia met the flurry of strikes, but she was forced to give ground inch by inch. At almost the same moment she realized he’d forced her into the corner, she lost her death grip on her saber.

He swung, she parried, but the shock wave that went through her arm paralyzed her fingers. Her blade went flying across the room. She watched its path, expecting to feel the bite of his blade any moment.

Instead, to her surprise, he tossed his sword aside, grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her back. He was breathing almost as heavily as she was, but she had the distinct feeling it had little to do with either fear or exertion. His expression was as black as a thundercloud.

"Secure the weapons," he growled through clenched teeth without bothering to turn his head. "The next man I see wearing one is a dead man."

Securing both her wrists in one hand, he urged her forward by lifting up on her arms until she had to lean forward, or move, to ease the pressure.

"Do I make myself clear?" he demanded in a growl as he faced the others.

The two nearest the door saluted and left abruptly. The two who remained collected the sabers from the floor, saluted, and departed behind the others. Without a word, Reuel pushed her toward the door and down the corridor. When they reached his cabin, he dragged her over to the locker at the foot of his bed and opened it. The scrape of metal against metal caught Dalia’s attention. She turned in time to see him pull a length of chain from the locker. On either end was a manacle.

The moment he clamped one around her wrist, she wrenched free of him and swung the chain, which had a manacle on the other end, as well, at his head. He caught it mid-air. Wincing, he grasped her around the waist and tossed her backwards. She landed on the bed with a bounce. The mattress, soft and yielding, cushioned her fall, but it also hampered her effort to gain a stance that would allow her to launch another attack. Before she could right herself, he launched himself at her. The impact laid her out flat, stunning her.

Straddling her, he sat upright, grasped her free hand and clamped the manacle around it, then caught the chain in the middle and secured it to a bolt in the bulkhead above the head of the bed.

Dalia jerked her head upward to stare at the bolt, tugging on the chain, but she had a bad feeling that both the chain and the bolt had been made with her in mind and that she would have little chance of freeing herself from it.

Reuel grasped her face in one hand, pinching her cheeks as he forced her to look at him. "Don’t ... ever ... try ... anything ... like ... that ... again," he said through clenched teeth, enunciating each word slowly and carefully.

"Afraid it’ll make you look bad in front of your men?" she spat at him as the shock wore off and anger and frustration surged through her again.

"Because I’m afraid you’ll hurt my child, you little fool," he ground out.

Chapter Seven

Dalia stared at Reuel blankly while dozens of questions crashed in on her, too many and too rapidly for her to give voice even to one. "Yours?" she gasped, feeling the shock give way to fury. "Yours! You son of a bitch!" she screamed, heaving upwards suddenly in an attempt to buck him off.

She caught him by surprise, surprised herself when she succeeded and he fell off of her sideways. Drawing her knees up, she kicked at him, landing both feet flat in the middle of his chest and shoving him backwards on the bed. He caught himself as he rolled toward the edge, grabbing her ankles ... or rather the legs of her trousers. To her surprise and his, the trousers slipped from her waist and he rolled off onto the floor, taking her trousers with him.

Growling, he leapt to his feet and dove for her again. She managed to get one knee and one foot planted against his chest, but it was an awkward position and didn’t give her enough leverage to launch him. He grasped her knees, forcing them apart and wedged himself between her legs.

Panting, she glared at him in furious silence.

He glared back at her.

"That’s what he meant when he said it wasn’t human," she said tightly, discovering to her horror that she suddenly felt curiously close to tears.

Some of the anger left his face, but the emotions that flickered in his eyes confused her--hurt, relief, pride in quick succession. Before she could question him further, he shifted upward, covering her mouth with his own in a kiss that was both possessive and angry.

Surprise held her still. A confusion of sensations immersed her in an unbreakable grip, undermining the anger that lingered, or perhaps magnified by the adrenaline pumping through her that her anger had produced. His mouth was hot, seductive, as was his tongue as he forced it between her surprised lips and raked it across her own, inducing a response that encompassed her entire body as his taste and scent filled her. She struggled against it, fought to hold to her anger and supplant the temptation to fall under his spell, writhing and bucking against him, trying to twist her face away and break the kiss.

Her efforts only seemed to incite him. He ceased his exploration of her mouth and began to thrust his tongue in and out rhythmically, mimicking the thrust and retreat of the sexual act with his tongue and her mouth. The motion, his taste, and the imagery he evoked, combined to drown the last ounce of willpower from her, supplanting her anger with a growing sense of desperation. She closed her mouth around his tongue, sucking him.

Her response shattered the last vestiges of his control. Wrenching his mouth from hers, he grasped the neck of her tunic with both hands and parted it as if it had been no more substantial than paper. Dalia gasped. The moment he covered her breast with his mouth, however, she completely lost track of any protest she might have thought to make. The heat of his mouth, the teasing nudge of his tongue evoked much the same response from her body as his fingers had when he had teased her before, except many times over. Her head swam. She had to struggle to draw breath into her lungs. Her awareness narrowed to focus on the sensations rioting through her and little else.

Frustration surfaced, briefly, when she discovered her restraints prevented her from either holding him to her or thrusting him away, and she was of two minds about which she wanted worse. The powerful sensations tearing through her as he moved his mouth from one breast to the other, teasing her, lathing her with his tongue, nipping her with the edge of his teeth were almost beyond bearing, but neither did she think she could stand it if he stopped.

"Reuel," she gasped his name, in supplication, reaching a point at last where she felt she would die if he didn’t stop so she could catch her breath. "Don’t! Please!"

For a moment, she thought he was deaf to her pleas. Slowly, he lifted his head and his gaze locked with hers. She swallowed with an effort, feeling her body cry out with demand the moment he ceased to tease her. "Oh god! Don’t stop!"