LyonsPrice (5 page)

As quickly as that, Lyon made his decision. She was coming
with them. Human or not, he wasn’t letting her go. His reaction to Archon’s suggestion
had proven that. Just the thought of another man touching her, caressing those
voluptuous curves, was enough to tip him into fury.

“Do we have control of the ship?” he asked, watching as she
picked up the pins he’d scattered over the floor of the cell and started to put
her hair up. Latent arousal flared into life as she shook her hair back, then
lifted her arms above her head to twist the heavy mass into a plait above her
head. The action tightened the fabric over her breasts. Lyon gritted his teeth
as blood pooled in his groin, his cock hard in a flash. What was it about her
that affected him so much?

“Yeah, locked down tighter than a Novariam’s horde.”

Good. Where are Eoin and Cael?
Confident now that
their internal communication net wouldn’t be interrupted, Lyon switched to
silent comms. If Cael was aboard, then she had the ship’s computer locked up so
tight it would take a team of human experts a month to wrestle control back.

Back aboard the
Chameleon
. We’re going to need to
hurry, boss man. These lanes are heavily patrolled. With this thing dead in the
water, we could get pinged any moment…

Archon didn’t need to complete the thought. Taking control
of an enemy craft was child’s play for three experienced cyborgs. Even the
youngest of their number, Cael, had a list of battle honors longer than Lyon’s
arm. But taking on an enemy battleship in their own territory was nothing short
of suicide. He’d rather avoid that if he could.

Where’s the entry point?

Knowledge flooded into his onboard as Archon transmitted a
schematic of the ship. Drilling down through the layers, Lyon easily found
where they’d breached the
Valkyrie
’s hull.

Watching like a hawk, he waited until Samara, blissfully
unaware of the telepathic exchange, shoved the last pin into her hair. Grabbing
her hand, he marched them both from the cell and down the corridor toward their
escape.

“Hey! What are you doing? Where are we going?”

She dug her heels in and pulled at his grip on her wrist. It
was like a fly buzzing around him. She had no chance of breaking his grip. The
only reason she’d managed to do so in the cell had been because he hadn’t been
expecting her to try anything.

Irritation swirling through his veins he turned, a scathing
comment already poised on the tip of his tongue. If she couldn’t figure out
what was happening after he’d already informed her that Archon was part of the
rescue team, then perhaps she wasn’t as intelligent as he’d taken her to be.

At his side, Archon got that “blank” look his section used
when someone had asked a dumb question, and moved swiftly ahead to avoid being
caught in the fallout.

The comment fell silent on his tongue as he registered the
fear in her eyes. It was well hidden, but to someone who could read her heart
rate and measure the dilation of her pupils, she might as well put a banner
over her head to announce she was scared out of her wits. His anger vanished.
She wasn’t a member of his crew, used to life-and-death situations every day of
her life. She was human and he had to make allowances for that.

Pulling her into his embrace, he wrapped an arm around her
waist. The hold pressed her petite, curvy little body flush against his.
Tucking his finger under her chin, he made her look up to meet his eyes and did
nothing to conceal the arousal that was turning him inside and out.

“We’re going home.”

Before she could answer, he ducked his head and kissed her.
Not hard, not demanding. This time he explored and took his time as he savored
the embrace. Immediately she opened up for him with a little shudder and a moan
that drove him crazy. It…she…was soft and gentle as she accepted him without a
fight. All his life Lyon had struggled and fought for everything. So to have
this one thing, to have her, without fighting was a balm to his jaded soul.

He groaned and pulled her closer to deepen the kiss. She
didn’t complain, settling her curves against the solid planes of his body. She
fit perfectly, as though she’d been made for him.

Jilan-ma.
Perfect match.

The cyborgs as a race were too young to have many myths and
legends, but there were a few. Most were centered about their creators, and
that one of the techs involved in their development was more than human. That
the human scientists were guided by something, or someone, divine during their
creation. That they weren’t the creation of the humans they despised.

He thought most of the stories were total crap. Wishful
thinking. But there was another myth, one he’d already half believed in. That
for every cyborg there was a perfect match, a soul mate, out in the galaxy
somewhere, waiting for them.

Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her delicate hand
cupped the back of his head. His body, already hard again, pulsed with need and
her delicate touches inflamed him like none before. All he could think about
was getting her back to his ship, holing up in his quarters and taking at least
a month getting to know every inch of her luscious body.

“Er, boss man. I hate to interrupt what is obviously an
intimate moment. But we really do need to get out of here.”

Lyon sighed as he tore his lips from hers. The soft sound of
frustration and her pout pleased him immensely as he set her back on her feet
from where she’d been all but plastered over him.

“We do. Come on,” he said, Samara’s hand clasped firmly in
his as he started down the corridor again.

Chapter Four

It took them a few minutes to approach the entry point. They
strode past dumbfounded crewmembers, but Lyon ignored the gawking and towed
Samara behind him.

They didn’t encounter any resistance along the way. He
hadn’t expected any. Cael had control of the ship’s computer systems and for
any non-enhanced human to go up against even one cyborg, never mind a group of
them, would be suicide.

Suicidal or not, when the trio rounded the corner nearest to
the entry point, they came face to combat visor with a group of heavily armed
marines. Archon snapped his rifle into his shoulder almost as quickly as Lyon’s
eyebrow rose toward his hairline. Either the
Valkyrie
’s marines really
had been brainwashed into thinking they were the “best of the best” or they
were insane. His money was on the latter.

“Stop right there. We’ve got you covered.”

I see they’re going for original
, Lyon shot over the
team’s commlink. He shifted position slightly, mostly to shelter Samara’s
delicate form behind his heavier build, but also to provide him with better
balance if this came to close quarters combat.

He hoped it would.
Really
hoped it would. After
scratching one itch with the gorgeous woman behind him, he was just itching to
scratch another—namely the need for bloody, brutal violence.

“So I see.” Lyon folded his arms over his broad chest as he
faced the squad in front of him.
Cael, tell me what I’m looking at.

“Did you actually want something? Or are you just here to
give us a nice little send-off?” His eyebrow had no sooner settled down to its
normal position than he was lifting it again.

Eight-man squad. Projectile weaponry…can’t be energy,
I’ve got all the ship weapons locked down nice and tight.
Cael’s voice was
brisk and businesslike as it filled, not his ear as the link was built directly
into his cybernetic implants, but his mind instead.

“You’re not getting off this ship, you cyborg bastards,” the
marine at the front spat, his face and voice filled with hatred. It was a
reaction Lyon and all his kind were familiar with. A good old human reaction.
If they didn’t understand it, they had to destroy it.

“Now, now…” Lyon paused and checked his rank. Corporal.
Christ, he even outranked the guy. Not that he’d retained his rank after
escaping from the facility they’d been holding him in. That probably had more
to do with the fact he’d nuked the place flat than the actual escape though.
“There’s no need for such language with ladies present, now is there,
Corporal?”

“Fuck you. Get your hands in the air!”

“Are you always this eloquent? Or do you work at it?”

He didn’t bother to move, just watched the small group of
marines with an implacable gaze. He’d been told once he had a gaze on him that
would give a rattlesnake a headache. He wouldn’t know. He’d never understood
why someone would want to give a snake a headache.

Despite the corporal’s bravado, the rest of the group didn’t
seem quite so confident. Sure, on paper the odds were stacked in their favor.
Eight against two. When those two were combat-experienced military-grade
cyborgs, though, the odds weren’t just twisted; they were screwed six ways to
Sunday. A fact that appeared to have bypassed the corporal without so much as a
wave and was no doubt the reason the seven marines around him looked like they’d
like to disappear up their own asses.

“Corp…” one of his buddies spoke up, his face plainly saying
that he’d clocked the lack of reaction from the two cyborgs. Hidden behind
Lyon, none of them would be able to get a bead on Samara’s reaction. At least they’d
better not anyway. If they could see her, then they had line of sight, which
meant she was in danger.

As he faced down the armed squad, he wondered why he wasn’t
using her as a human shield. With one of their own in the fray, particularly a
female, there was no way the testosterone-driven group in front of him would
open fire.

“What?” the corporal snapped, his voice high with tension.
Lyon watched a bead of sweat detach itself from his skin to roll down it.
Great, a twitchy one. Just what they needed.

Cael, get eyes on the action in this corridor and bring
the internal defenses to bear. Initiate the ship’s self-destruct sequence, but
keep it on silent countdown until my mark.

“You know what the boss man said. We gotta wait until he
gets here unless they start something.” Both cyborgs looked from the tense
squad commander to his slightly more intelligent subordinate and back again,
like some sort of bizarre tennis match.

Aye, Colonel. Just try to avoid getting shot, would ya?
We’ve only got what’s aboard until we get back to Redemption Bay and patching
up bullet holes with a portable kit is a bitch.

He allowed amusement to fill his mind, smothering the grin
that wanted to spread. His lips quirked slightly, which the twitchy marine’s
gaze immediately latched on to. He lifted his rifle half into the air, the
muzzle wavering in the air for a moment as he glared at Lyon and Archon.

Adrenaline flooded Lyon’s body, filling his muscles and
getting his body ready for the fight he knew was coming. Beside him, Archon
tensed, the slight movement almost imperceptible, but he’d been part of Lyon’s
section for years. Like the rest of his team, Lyon knew the Gemini’s reactions
inside out.

“Who’s to say they didn’t start something?” the corporal
said silkily, the threat implicit. “They’re cyborgs, remember? Bloodthirsty
killers.”

Shit. Fear joined the adrenaline in his veins as he saw that
thought working its way around the group at light speed. Not for himself or
Archon. Cyborgs were the ultimate disposable warrior. Built in a lab and
matured in a tank, every part of their hardware was designed to be replaceable.
A useful feature they’d stuck with even after their freedom. Short of a
starship weapons battery, there wasn’t much that would take them down
permanently.

But the woman sheltering behind Lyon wasn’t built the same.
Pathetic,
lack of redundancy, dependent on her original design
, his mind tried to
argue, but he squashed the thought. She was unique, a one of a kind. Something
fragile that needed to be protected.

Obviously she didn’t think along quite the same lines,
because the next second she was stepping around him to fix the corporal with a
steely glare.

“Who’s to say they didn’t start something? How about me,
Hawkins?
I’ll
say they didn’t start anything. What you going to do…shoot
me as well?”

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Lyon’s heart stopped. She was
trying
to get herself
killed. Grabbing her arm, he yanked her back behind the protective bulk of his
body and added a glare for good measure. The one she gave him back was blistering.
If it had been a weapon, she’d have gutted and flayed him alive. Holding his
gaze in warning, she deliberately stepped around him again.

“Well, Hawkins? You planning on getting rid of the witnesses
as well? Me and your whole troop?”

She walked toward the corporal as she spoke. Lyon wasn’t
sure which of them was the nuttier; the twitchy corporal or the frankly insane
woman he’d been trying to protect.

The muzzle of Hawkins’ rifle swung around, aiming straight
at the center of her chest. Helpfully, Lyon’s onboard comp fed him details of
what would happen to Samara if the marine fired. It didn’t make for a pretty
picture. He’d already started to lean forward, hand outstretched to wrap around
her upper arm when another voice broke into the conversation.

Cold and hard as space, it cut through the tension in the
corridor like a whip. “That’s a question I’d very much like answering as well,
Corporal Hawkins.”

The marine squad tensed en masse. Their eyes were all dead
center, watching the two cyborgs, but Lyon could tell their attention wasn’t
actually on them. Instead it was riveted to the slender man in a Fleet
Captain’s uniform walking down the corridor behind them.

Captain Marisol–Lees. The guy in charge of the ship. He
looked younger than Lyon had expected. His face was unlined and his longer than
regulation dark hair didn’t show any hint of gray.