Chasing Mayhem (6 page)

“We’ll breed after I return from my adventures.” His eyes gleamed. “I’ve killed the innocent also, Imee. We do what we have to do to survive.”

“I chose to kill the innocent.” When she started retrieving, she had twelve solar cycles, had never held a gun, hadn’t the skill or knowledge to apprehend violent rebels. “That’s the difference between you and I.”

“Chose. In the past. Not choose.” The male was too intelligent for her comfort, picking up on that word.

“I could choose to do so again.” If she didn’t make quota.

“There will be no need for you to do that.”

He was right. She had skills now and her arrangement with Kralj. Her shoulders lowered.

Mayhem reached upward and brushed his fingertips over her scarred cheek, a light comforting caress. More of her defiance and her pain faded.

They strolled through the districts. He asked questions about the beings, about the structures, and touched her. Constantly. Stroking her back, nuzzling into her hair, brushing his shoulders, his hips, his thighs against hers.

She felt almost normal, as though she was one half of a couple, a female spending time with her male. Residents gazed at them. Children played. The sun lowered, kissing the horizon, painting the sky pink, orange, red.

“I don’t like you.” She said that more for herself than for him.

It felt like a lie.

“I like you.” Mayhem leaned over and skimmed his lips over her forehead.

She shrugged him away from her. “No one likes me. I’m a Retriever.”

“You’re more than that.”

“No, I’m not.” She increased the distance between them. The cool evening air swept over her skin. “It’s all I am and all I will ever be. The job comes first.” Her family depended on her. “We’ve passed through all of the districts.” She changed the topic. “Did you sense your friend?”

“He isn’t here.” Mayhem didn’t appear concerned. “If he’s on the planet, Kralj is certain he can locate him.”

“He can.” Imee didn’t doubt this. “He--”

An arm wrapped around her neck, severing her words. A gun pressed against her cheek, hard enough to leave a bruise on her skin. “Stand back,” a male ordered Mayhem, drawing her backward.

She didn’t know the male’s name. He was new to the Refuge, which explained the attack. No long-term resident would dare to touch her without Kralj’s approval.

“I know you’re hunting me.” His face was striped, green and brown. He was a Tau Cetian. “I’ve heard about you.”

“Let my female go.” Mayhem’s expression was blank, his eyes hard. His hands hovered over his guns.

He was fast but not fast enough. If he made a move, the male would shoot.

And she’d die. The gun was too close to her ear.

“If you’ve heard about me.” She slowed her words, keeping her tone calm. “Then you know I don’t hunt any being without getting permission from Kralj first. He hasn’t given me permission to hunt you.”

“You’re lying.” The male intensified his grip on her neck.

“Not. Lying.” Imee clawed at his arm, unable to breathe.

“Damage my female and you’ll die.” Mayhem moved his hands from his guns to his daggers. “Slowly.” He extracted the blades from the sheaths. “Painfully. You’ll wish she had returned you to the Humanoid Alliance.”

“I’m not going back.” The Tau Cetian hauled her away from Mayhem.

Blackness encircled her vision, edging out the light. Imee gazed at Mayhem, focusing on his handsome face, wild hair, dark eyes. She might die this planet rotation.

But not without a fight.

Mayhem’s lips whitened.

Did he suspect what she planned to do?

She silently counted to three and flung herself backward. The gun slid along her cheek. Warm liquid splashed over her skin.

It wasn’t her blood. The Tau Cetian hadn’t fired his gun. He howled, falling over, taking her with him.

“Imee.”

There was the sound of bones cracking and she could breathe again, air rushing into her aching lungs. Her neck throbbed with pain. Her throat burned. The blackness retreated.

The Tau Cetian screamed again and again and again. Imee lay on the pathway, her arms and legs limp. She didn’t have the energy to look in his direction, couldn’t see what Mayhem was doing to the male.

The screaming stopped.

“My female.” Mayhem pulled her onto his lap. His lips covered hers. His breath pushed into her. The bubbling sensation she’d forever associate with him coursed inside her, easing her agony.

Nanocybotics, he’d called them. He licked over her chin, her neck, laving her injured skin with the flat of his tongue, spreading those nanocybotics, spreading the pain relief.

She clung to his shoulders and tilted her head, giving him more access to her, needing more of his healing. “Mayhem,” she croaked, her voice raw, harsh. She’d thought she wouldn’t survive. He’d saved her, a Retriever, a being not worth saving.

“What were you thinking, my foolish female?” He coated her with healing wetness.

“Cheek. Disfigured. Not killed.” If the Tau Cetian had fired his gun, the projectile would have blasted her face off but she would have survived.

“Fraggin’ hole.” Mayhem’s laughter was shaky. “You’re almost as wild as I am.”

She tried to laugh. It came out as a groan.

“You have internal damage.” He cradled her in his arms and leapt to his booted feet, not even grunting with the effort. “You need more nanocybotics.”

“Take her to her chamber in my domicile.” Kralj appeared to their right, his long black leather coat swirling around his legs. “I’ll clean up the mess.” He kicked a mound of blood, guts, and body parts, all that was left of the Tau Cetian.

Mayhem nodded, the motion curt, and he carried her from the scene, moving so quickly, so silently she questioned her senses. He wasn’t human. She studied his square chin. She didn’t know what he was but she knew one thing. “You saved me.”

“I allowed you to be damaged.” His face darkened even more.

“And that bothers you—that I was damaged?” She pushed the words past her lips. No one else cared if she was hurt. 

“You’re my female.”

That was his explanation for everything. She rested her bruised cheek against his body armor-clad chest. His gait was smooth and steady.

“I’ll do a better job of protecting you, Imee.” His words held the weight of a vow. “Delaying our breeding was a selfish decision. I won’t risk your lifespan so I might have a couple solar cycles of adventure. I’ll claim you fully, repair you, give you all of me.”

Imee could protect herself. She didn’t need to be claimed, to be owned by yet another being. And when the sun rose, she’d capture Mayhem and trade him to the Humanoid Alliance for credits, perhaps earn the reward of seeing her family.

But this planet rotation, she’d be his female and allow him to claim her. She’d pretend she was normal, worthy of caring, of being saved. Imee traced a vein in his neck with one of her blood-covered fingers.

They’d break yet another one of her rules and fuck. She’d allow her target inside her, cradle him between her thighs, arch against him, brushing her breasts over his bare chest. They’d steal a moment of pleasure, of companionship, from a lifespan of loneliness.

“Take me, warrior,” she whispered.

Mayhem’s lips curled upward.

Chapter Five

He’d almost lost his female this planet rotation. Mayhem walked through the settlement, Imee’s curvy body cradled in his arms, his constantly battling female alarmingly docile.

She hadn’t been still when the Tau Cetian pressed his gun to her cheek. If Mayhem hadn’t thrown his dagger, cutting off her attacker’s trigger finger, she would have been hit in her beautiful face with a projectile.

She could have died.

Mayhem passed a heavily armed Dracheon warrior. The silver-scaled male stared at him. He glared back, silently daring the other male to attack, seeking to vent his rage, to fight and maim and kill.

Much to Mayhem’s disappointment, the Dracheon flicked his forked tongue and retreated, disappearing into the darkness.

Courageless male. He huffed.

There would be other beings, watching, waiting for them to make a mistake, for him to leave her alone. There always would be.

His female was a Retriever. Even if he left her on a peaceful planet, if there was such a place in this messed up galaxy, beings could hunt her down and try to kill her. Knowing that, he couldn’t store Imee at an unsecured location and trek around the galaxy, seeking fun and adventure.

He had to claim her, keep her safe.

The machine half of him recognized that for what it was—an excuse to do what he truly wanted, touch her, breed with her, make her his. The organic half of him didn’t care, as long as she was his.

Mayhem strode toward the doors of Kralj’s stronghold.

“No.” Imee slapped his chest. “Too public,” she croaked, her voice serving as a reminder of his failure. “Around back.”

He hesitated, wanting every being on Carinae E to know she was under his protection. Entering the busy structure with her in his arms would accomplish that.

“If they think I’m weak.” She inhaled raggedly. “They’ll wait until I leave the Refuge and attack me.”

Mayhem brushed her hair away from her face, the tendrils long and straight, as black as the sky above them. “I wouldn’t allow them to damage you, my female.”

Her gaze slid from his. “And if you’re not there?”

“I will never leave you.” He’d decided that.

“You won’t have a choice.”

“Ah.” His processors finally computed what she was saying. She planned to capture him, to return him to the Humanoid Alliance.

Mayhem wanted to ask why. Why did she hunt rebels, beings who were merely trying to survive, who sought to make their own rules, live their lifespans as they wish, where they wish? Why did she carry a severed finger in her breast covering? Why was she denying their connection, the bond of a female to her male?

But his Imee had been damaged and demanding those answers might cause her more pain. “There is always a choice,” was all he said as he changed his route, circling the structure to enter the back doors.

They were guarded by a large winged male. His numbering sequence was similar to the green gatekeeper’s, his origins and species unknown. The stranger nodded to him and stepped aside, not uttering a word.

The interior was dimly light. Mayhem’s vision system adjusted immediately. His female squinted. “My chamber is--”

“To the left.” He turned in that direction, tilting her upward to not bang her head against the wall of the narrow corridor. “I smell you.” Her distinct scent was imprinted on both his humanlike brain and his machinelike processors. He followed its trail through the structure.

“And you can see in the dark.” She rubbed her thighs together. Leather brushed against leather. The musk of her arousal filled his nostrils. She wanted him as he wanted her. “Are all of your senses enhanced?”

“Compared to a human’s?” The door to the chamber was manual also. It creaked as he pushed it open. “Yes. I could track you with my eyes closed, my female.”

She breathed deeply, her generous chest rising. “I can’t smell you.”

“I have no scent.” Scent was a weakness. It allowed beings to locate him.

Mayhem gently set Imee on the sleeping support. The surface was wide enough for both of them, covered with fabric almost as decadently luxurious as her skin. In the privacy of her chamber, his tough little female indulged in her preference for softness.

The rest of the space was plain, the walls bare, the furnishings comfortably sparse. Cyborgs had very few material possessions, only their body armor and their walking arsenal of guns, daggers, swords. He wasn’t accustomed to being surrounded by objects. “You have no weapons.”

“I have none on display.” Imee reached under the sleeping support and extracted a gun. “Weapons are no use to me if my enemies can find them.”

“You’re a clever female.” Mayhem smiled, pleased at her resourcefulness.

“You won’t think I’m clever when I shoot you.” She pointed the gun at him. The setting was on stun, telling him that his little Retriever preferred not to kill beings, even her enemies. Her heart, he suspected, was as soft as her sleeping support.

Which made her role as a Retriever even more illogical.

“We’ll play with your weapons later.” He leaned over her, bracing himself upward with his arms. “First, I must repair you.”

Bruises shadowed her cheek, the damage greater around her neck.

“How do you plan to
repair
me?” She pressed the gun’s muzzle against his chest. “With your nanocybotics?”

“They’re concentrated in my saliva.” He traced the darkness on her cheek with the tip of his tongue and she trembled under him. “And in my cum.”

Her eyes deepened in color until they were almost black. “You must be popular with the females.” She brushed the muzzle on her gun over his chin back and forth, back and forth.

“There are no females.” He laved her cheek, covering her with his healing nanocybotics, with his scent, marking her as his. “Only you.”

Her lips parted and her eyelids partially lowered. She was so fraggin’ beautiful, with her black hair and golden skin, her scar a testament to her strength.

He shifted over her, resting his hips against hers, his cock hard, constrained by his body armor. She caressed his jaw with the barrel of her gun.

“I feel your nanocybotics bubbling inside me.” She worried her bottom lip with her blunt white teeth. “When will they fade?”

“With you?” Mayhem sucked on that abused flesh, pulling, pulling, pulling, and letting go. “Never.” Constant breeding with her would ensure they never dissipated. “You’re made for me.”

“Am I?” She lifted her hips, pressing her mons against his cock, their bodies frustratingly separated by her ass coverings and his body armor.

“Yes.” He licked down her chin, over her damaged neck, devoting his energies to that expanse of delicate skin.

She tasted of salt and female. Mayhem nuzzled her neck and rubbed his chest against her breasts, teasing her taut nipples through her leather top.

“Yes.” She arched into him, resting her gun on the nape of his neck.