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  The other man stepped into the cell. Like Lyon, he had a tattoo on his cheek, but unlike Lyon, he had a more slender build, with shoulder-length blond hair and looks that would raise the pulse of any red-blooded woman. Apart from Samara…she didn’t feel a thing when she looked at him.

  “Boss man, you done with the chick? Because we have a bit of time and if she’s hot—”

  Lyon was snarling as he turned. Violence in every line of his body, he grabbed the other cyborg by the throat and propelled him into the wall behind. “No one touches her but me. Understand?”

  Archon gasped for breath as Lyon’s hand clamped around his throat. His heels thudded against the metal bulkhead of the cell. Samara gasped and stepped forward without thinking to lay her hand on Lyon’s arm.

  “Understand?” Lyon snarled into Archon’s face. His whole body was rigid with tension and fury as he tightened his grip. Archon’s face started to go blue.

  “He can’t speak. Let him go. Lyon, please?”

  The soft request broke through the red haze of fury. Abruptly Lyon released his hold, letting Archon drop to his knees, coughing and spluttering. All cyborgs were hardy, but none of them could stand up to a Leo for long. The best they could do was hope to outrun the heavier class and stay out of range. Even that was an achievement. Big as they were, Leos were fast.

  “Nanites’ balls, man. I got it. You only needed to say it once, not break my neck to prove it,” Archon gasped as soon as he was able to speak. Rubbing at his neck ruefully, he looked up and smiled as he looked Samara over, an instinctive male reaction to a beautiful woman.

  Lyon snarled again. He knew what Archon saw. Samara’s dark hair cascaded over her shoulders and her curvy frame filled the ship-suit in a way that would whet any man’s appetite. Particularly a randy Gemini’s. He stepped between Archon and Samara, pushing her behind him.

  “Whoa. She’s pretty. That’s all. Not touching, I swear!” Archon protested at Lyon’s challenging look. Why he was reacting this way over a quick shag, he didn’t know, but one thing was for sure…there was no way Archon or any cyborg was laying a hand on her. Not while he had breath in his body.

  Archon glanced around, looking at anything other than the woman who was peeking around Lyon’s shoulder. His gaze landed on the cuffs abandoned on the narrow bunk and he grinned. “Pretty and persuadable, it seems.”

  “No. Just not familiar with mag-cuffs.”

  Lyon turned to Samara, swept a quick eye over her appearance and then sighed. She looked like a woman who’d been thoroughly loved. With brisk efficient movements, he zipped her suit up as far as he could to conceal her cleavage. He didn’t want Eoin or Archon drooling over her or he’d have to break some bones.

  “Put your hair back up,” he ordered her in a soft tone. Her eyes were wide and dark with apprehension and the tension that hummed through her body was wary now. Not a problem, he’d soon sort that out in his quarters tonight.

  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.

  The captain reached the back of the squad, which parted like water to let him pass. Lyon took advantage of the distraction, grabbed Samara and shoved her behind him, holding her in place with a hard hand on her wrist.

  “I’m sure you’re not trying to inflame the situation here solely over your…dislike of cyborgs. Are you, Corporal?”

  Hawkins’ gaze shifted sideways to his superior officer. The agony of indecision was written on his face as his eyes flicked between the cyborgs and the captain.

  “Because in case you hadn’t noticed, they do have a hostage…”

  Samara, who’d been busy trying to prize Lyon’s grip from her wrist, looked up and waved helpfully. Lyon resisted the urge to close his eyes and shake his head. Game face on, he smiled tightly at the captain.

  “That’s not all. Cael, drop the mute.”

  A dry, measured tone filled the air in the corridor; the sound of the ship’s computer. “Self-destruct sequence initiated… Three minutes, twenty-four seconds to self-destruct.”

  The announcement dropped into a silence so complete Lyon was surprised tumbleweeds didn’t roll past. It was a desolate wasteland of soundlessness as Captain Marisol–Lees fixed Lyon with a steely gaze.

  “Well played, Colonel.” A wry grin twisting his lips, the captain inclined his head. A lock of dark hair fell over one eye. “Now what do I have to give you in exchange for the release of my ship?”

  Lyon didn’t let any hint of his surprise show on his face at being referred to by his rank. His files would be sealed; Combined Fleet Command didn’t like people having access to the complete FUBAR they’d made of the cyborg project, so Marisol–Lees wouldn’t have seen that. Which left the only other option… He could read the code on Lyon’s cheek.