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.