LyonsPrice (8 page)

He’d picked Samara instead and, despite knowing he was going
to get hauled over the coals for it when they got back, he wasn’t sorry. His
flippant comment to Cael earlier had been dead on the mark. He and the rest of
his kind were disposable, the perfect cannon fodder. He’d been designed, pulled
from a tank and taught to kill. His body was filled with implants designed to
make him the perfect soldier, but he wanted to be more than that. Deep within
him he wanted it all to have a meaning, for his life to have a purpose. He’d
despaired of finding it until he’d kissed Samara.

Now he knew. His life wasn’t meaningless or void of purpose.
The way she touched him, the way she kissed him…the way she made him feel when
she did.
That
he’d go to war for. He’d fight and kill for the way she
looked at him. As though he was worth something more than the sum of his parts
or his ability to kill. As though he was a normal man.

He sighed, the sound drawn from the bottom of his enhanced
lungs, and pushed off the wall to walk into the main cabin.

“Oh looky here, lover boy’s emerged.” Archon quipped,
turning in his seat to grin at his commanding officer.

“Didn’t think you were ever going to come up for air. She
must be a damn good fuc—” He stopped as Cael, sitting behind him, clouted him
soundly around the back of the head. “Hey! What was that for?”

Lyon grinned as he replaced Archon in the copilot’s seat
next to Cael. “Looks like a lover’s tiff to me.”

“Fuck off! You think I’d let that male tart anywhere
near
me?” Cael scoffed and turned her attention to the console in front of her. Not
quick enough to hide the blush over her cheeks though. Lyon smiled to himself
as he realized the lay of the land there. He’d thought there was something
simmering between those two.

“She loves me, really. She’s just in denial.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now fuck off and do something useful, like man
the guns so your brother can get some sleep.”

Lyon shooed the loud-mouthed Gemini off and accessed the
flight plans. They weren’t far off the system they were holed up in at the
moment. He knew it wouldn’t be long before they had to move again. Somehow the
Fleet always managed to find their location. They’d even resorted to tagging
grain supplies with location beacons. He wrinkled his nose, what a waste of
good food.

“Okay, we need to do a sweep before we get too close. Last
thing we need is to bring the Fleet right onto our doorstep.”

Cael flicked him a look out of the corner of her eye and
smiled. “Already on it, boss man. Scan thirty percent complete.”

Lyon settled into his seat and allowed himself to relax.
Their mission was nearly over and even if he hadn’t managed to get to talk to
his initial target, they were all free and clear with no causalities or loss of
equipment. And to boot, he’d picked up something far more valuable than
supplies.

Samara. Not only was she something he’d protect to his dying
breath, but she was a certified medic. Something they needed with a few of
their women pregnant and nearing term. There were few things in this life that
scared Lyon. Having to deliver a baby was one of them. Best leave that to the
professionals, and from the records Cael had pulled from the
Valkyrie
’s
mainframe, one of Samara’s specialties was midwifery.

A smile curved his lips again. He’d left her curled up in
his bed sleeping. A soft feeling spread out from the center of his chest as he
recalled the way a lock of her hair had fallen over her face. Alarmed, he initiated
a diagnostic scan of his systems and then canceled it immediately. It was her,
the soft feeling was all centered about Samara.

“Fuck.”

Short and succinct. That was what he liked about Cael, she
didn’t mince her words.

“What is it?”

“We got a live bug on board.”

That got his attention. Somehow Fleet had managed to get
something on the shuttle.

“How the
fuck
did they manage that? We didn’t take
anything on board…” He paused at the same moment Cael looked at him, sorrow in
her eyes.

“Boss, the signal is coming from your cabin.”

* * * * *

The door crashing open startled Samara from her light doze
instantly. The small room was suddenly filled with large bodies. Only this time
there were no smiles. Anger swirled around the small space and stole all the air
from her lungs. Cael and Lyon stood by the ruin of the door. Cael’s face was
perfect and blank, the expression in her eyes hard enough to send a shiver of
fear down Samara’s spine.

If she thought Cael was bad, seeing that same expression on
Lyon’s face nearly paralyzed her. Icy chills stomped up and down her spine in
heavy boots, extending frozen fingers down her limbs to make them shiver.

“W-what’s happening?” she forced out through fear-numbed
vocal cords. Clutching the sheets tight to cover her naked body, she scrambled
up the bed until her back hit the wall.

The two cyborgs advanced and the threat of danger and
violence intensified. Samara’s heart slammed against her rib cage so hard she
was sure it would burst. She sought Lyon’s gaze, desperately looking for that
expression in his green eyes that had told her she was safe with him. The empty
expression she found was devoid of softness, filled with anger and a darkness
she didn’t want to put a name to instead.

“Why don’t
you
tell
us
?” His voice was sharp,
a hairsbreadth from a snarl, and his fists clenched and unclenched at his
sides. He swept a contemptuous look over her, from the tousled hair atop her
head to the bare feet peeking out from under the sheet and everything in
between.

“I can’t believe I let a
human
fool me,” he sneered.
“What did they give you? An Altarian pheromone shot to ensure I’d bring you
along for the ride? I’ll bet you didn’t argue much, did you? A chance to get it
on with a cyborg, I heard that was the number one fantasy among women in your
pathetic species.”

Samara’s heart froze in her chest, the organ stilled by the
malevolence in his voice and skewered clean through as his words hammered home.

“What? No! No one gave me anything.”

Terrified as she was, her voice was high-pitched and
panicked. She was in a room with two pissed-off cyborgs, creatures designed to
kill. She’d be nuts not to be terrified.

“Lyon, you brought me along. The captain asked what you
wanted. You said me,” she tried to remind him, but his expression was shuttered.
He wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, his green-eyed gaze was wandering over
her body darkly. She drew her knees up, pulling the covers tighter as she
shivered.

That wasn’t a good look. Unlike when he’d looked at her
earlier, this wasn’t the look of a lover. No, he was assessing her like she was
a side of beef. Cyborgs weren’t cannibals, were they? A frown hit her. They
didn’t think of themselves as human. Was it cannibalism if they counted
themselves a different species?

“So where is it?”

She squealed in fright as he reached out and latched a hard
hand around her ankle. Kicking and screaming, she tried to get free, but her
pitiful strength was no match for him. Had he been human, she might have had a
chance with a few solid kicks from her free foot, but he wasn’t and shrugged
the blows off like they were no more substantial than an insect buzzing around
him.

He dragged her down the bed toward him, ignoring all her
struggling and cries. She managed to keep the sheet wrapped around her, just,
and flinched from him as he reached out to touch her. This wasn’t the man who
had held her in his arms and made love to her all night. The difference scared
her more than she was prepared to admit.

What an idiot. You should have listened to all the
stories. He’s done with you now and he’ll kill you without a thought.

“It will go easier on you if you tell us where it is.”

His demand was little more than a growl as he pulled at the
sheet. Gasping she tried to cover up again, but he pulled at another section to
reveal more of her pale skin. Heat flooded her at being treated like an object
as he ran hard hands up her legs. She risked a pleading glance up at Cael only
to find Archon in the doorway as well, his expression as hard as his
companions’.

“Where what is? I don’t know what you’re going on about.
Please, you have to believe me!”

She twisted, trying to push his hands away, but he just
grabbed her wrist in a grip hard enough to make her whimper in pain. Shoving
the sheet up to mid-thigh, he carried on searching. She pressed her lips
together, ignoring the burning in her wrist.

If she twisted a little, the pressure eased up, but left her
vulnerable to whatever he wanted to do to her. Bitter amusement filled her as
cruel fingers traced over her thighs. Who was she kidding? He could do whatever
he wanted to her anyway, no matter if she had her hands free or not.

“What’s this?”

His fingers stopped on her upper thigh, pressing against
something buried under the skin. She resisted the urge to squirm at the
discomfort.

“It’s a contraceptive implant.” His lip curled back, but she
carried on. “I-I’ve had it for years. It’s nothing.”

His eyes glittered as he reached down and pulled a knife
from the sheath on his calf. All the blood drained from her face, leaving her
lightheaded. She couldn’t even whimper, she was too scared. This was it, he was
going to kill her, right here and now.

“When was it last changed?” Lyon demanded, trying to keep
his voice level despite the distaste surging through his veins at the thought
she’d been using contraception. She was a lying little human bitch, but still,
procreation was procreation. It was the one perfect thing any being was capable
of and something he and his kind had had to fight their own design to regain.
The thought that she’d callously denied any chance of conception added to the
flames of anger swirling through him.

“I-I…h-h-had it done last w-week,” she stammered, lying
pliant under him. Her eyes were wide and fixed on the knife he held in his
hand. “Please, it’s j-just an implant.”

Boss, back off with the blade. She’s terrified.

Cael’s soft warning filtered through his anger. He snapped
his gaze up to Samara’s face. Cael was right. Samara’s face was pale and
bloodless and her pupils dilated. Her heart pounded as tremors shook her delicate
frame. He moved his hand, putting the knife out of sight. Her gaze followed it,
and then stayed fixed at the area where it had disappeared from view.

She was in shock. Deep inside something twisted as he
realized he was scaring her. He let his anger sweep the feeling away. How
pathetic was that? If she wanted to play games with the big boys, then she had
to be prepared to get hurt.

He let go of her wrist, expecting her to start fighting him
again. Instead she let her arm drop to the bed and just lay there. Frowning, he
hooked a finger under her chin and pulled it around so she had to look at him.
She didn’t offer any resistance, her eyes blank and unfocused, like she didn’t
see him.

It’s just shock. She’ll be fine.

Pushing the sheet out of the way, he focused on her thigh
where the implant was embedded. How had he missed it? He knew every inch of her
body, had been over it with hands and lips, but he hadn’t spotted this.
Contra-implants should be sub-dermal, just under the upper layers of the skin,
not this deep. For it to be this deep meant that someone didn’t want it found.

Cael, what’s the medical procedure for contraceptive
implants?

Her reply was a stream of information on how to insert and
remove implants. He looked at Samara’s thigh again, but didn’t see the satin
skin nor the enticing curve as it flowed into her hip. Instead he used his
onboard comp to display an anatomical diagram over the limb. He needed to cut
into her flesh to remove the thing. The longer it remained active, the longer
they were all in danger.

He moved to rest the tip of his knife against her skin. The
soft whimper from her lips twisted his heartstrings. What if she didn’t know?
Her leg would have been numbed when they replaced her implant. She may not have
noticed the difference between the placement of the old and the new. He hadn’t
noticed and there was no way his exploration of her body had been casual.

He started to press down, but stopped. His hand was shaking.
A frown creased his brow as he stared at it. A quick check of his subroutines
and hardware confirmed the limb was within operational standards. He pressed
down again. The blade parted the skin and a bead of blood rolled down her skin.

His hand still shook.

Boss, let me. Go take a breather, okay?

Cael was at his elbow, holding her hand out for the blade. A
sigh rumbled through his chest and escaped over his lips. He couldn’t do it.
For the first time in his life, he couldn’t achieve the mission objective. He
looked at Samara spread out over the bed. As furious as he was with her, he
still couldn’t hurt her. She was the enemy and all he wanted to do was pull her
close and protect her. How pathetic was that?

He handed the blade over and stood to let Cael take his
place. Grabbing a med-kit from the wall, she knelt by the bed and rifled
through it. Withdrawing an anesthetic, she administered it with quick,
efficient movements and picked the knife up again. Lyon hovered, his hands
clenched into fists at his side. He couldn’t watch, but he couldn’t walk away
either.

In the end, Cael made the decision for him. She looked over
her shoulder and fixed him with a cool, gray stare.

“Boss, breathing down my neck isn’t going to help. You
wouldn’t want me to slip with this—” She wagged the knife, which suddenly
resembled a butcher’s meat cleaver, at him. “Now would you? If you want to be
helpful, go and get Eoin for me. And make sure Archon isn’t doing something
stupid. Like rerouting us to the Kilian pleasure resorts or something.”