Rogue Cyborg Read online

“You cheer for him, but believe his fight is futile?”

  Braun was grinning, leaning forward, his gaze glued to the fight as Tane lifted the Prillon over his head and threw him halfway across the fighting grounds. The Prillon rolled to his feet and screamed a challenge in return, the sound echoing off the stands, rushing at the Atlan with cyborg enhanced speed. He scored a solid strike at Tane’s neck, although it barely shook the large Atlan. “Tane will win this fight and Gwen will refuse his claim. Once that is done, he will not protest my attempts to woo her.”

  I chuffed out a laugh and stared wide-eyed at my friend. “Woo her? What kind of word is that for a warrior? You sound like an old female.”

  The corner of his mouth tipped up. “That is the word of a warrior who will have the female’s thighs open wide and who will listen to her sweet cries of surrender as her wet pussy rides my cock for hours, draining me dry, taking my seed.”

  By the gods, that was too much fucking information. I had no response. I should have been able to cheer for Tane, but the tension in my shoulders and chest moved up into my throat and I couldn’t force myself to speak or move. I could only watch and hate every male here for his ability to claim her. And Braun for his strategy to fucking woo her.

  I shouldn’t have come to the pits. Part of me knew watching this was a bad idea. No warrior would ever be worthy of her. Not one on this pathetic prison world. But neither could I bear the idea of not knowing who she would belong to, who would be charged with protecting her. She was an addiction I had been unable to best since her arrival a few weeks ago. My interest in her completely unwanted and impossible. My cock was ruling my mind. I’d had to take it in hand in the shower tube often enough to will it down, but no matter how many times I sought release, my body remained hard and aching. For her.

  Leaning back, I crossed my arms and tried to look unaffected as I watched Tane’s fist connect with the Prillon warrior’s jaw, sending him reeling backward into the crowd along the fighting pit’s edges. The shouting warriors seated there propped him up and shoved him back into the center of the pit where Tane delivered another powerful blow. So far, he was besting the Prillon warrior without calling on his beast. The young Prillon male was fighting a losing battle and he knew it, the swagger leaving his step and his shoulders slumping when another warrior, Tyran, stepped between the two combatants.

  Tyran was a Prillon warrior and had a human female as his mate. Kristin. He shared her with his second, another warrior named Hunt. She was beautiful, and a warrior in her own right, like Gwen. I did not know how they could allow their female to work on missions hunting the Hive, but Kristin did so every day, part of a special group of warriors led by an Everian Hunter named Kiel.

  Unlike the young Prillon fighting Tane, Tyran was rumored to be the strongest cyborg on the planet with implants running not just through parts of his body, but imbedded deeply in both muscle and bone. He was a legend in the pits but had stopped fighting once he was mated. It seemed he had other, more pleasant ways, to ease his anger and aggression.

  I envied him the newfound method of release.

  Tyran stepped into the center and proclaimed Tane the victor. Braun settled back, more relaxed now that Tyran had arrived. That warrior would not allow things to get too far out of hand, and he was strong enough to handle Tane, even if the Atlan went into beast mode.

  “Told you Tane would win.”

  “It’s not over yet,” I reminded Braun.

  “Yes, it is. He didn’t even use his beast.”

  But he would. We both knew he would. “Stupid to challenge an Atlan,” I added, referring to the young Prillon.

  “Yes. None but Tyran, or perhaps the Hunter, could defeat one of us.”

  One of us. He included me among the Atlan ranks, as always, but I was not one of them. Never could be.

  The next two fights went as expected until four warriors remained. Tane, two Prillon warriors, and a male from Trion whose skin shone silver in the afternoon light. I had not met him, but he was rumored to be more machine than man, and his fighting instincts were superb.

  Tyran raised his hand, waiting for the crowd of warriors watching to quiet. “Here are the remaining four. Chance will decide their fates.” Tyran held out a deck of cards, face down. “Highest values will fight first.”

  The crowd cheered again as the warriors each drew a card and lifted it into the air. The two Prillon warriors would face off against each other first. Then Tane would fight the male from Trion. After that, they would be down to two and the champion would be the last male standing.

  Every single one of the four looked smug. Confident. As if Gwen already belonged to him. I wanted to jump into the pit and pummel them all into dust, but I didn’t dare move, not even to frown. Stone. I must be like Stone.

  A woman’s bellow of rage filled the air and the cheering crowd of warriors went silent.

  The door built into the side wall of the fighting ring was flung open, striking the side with a loud bang as Gwen marched into view wearing full battle armor. Her hair flowed down her back like black flames and fury rolled off her shoulders in almost perceptible waves. Eyes narrowed, muscles tense, she looked like a warrior goddess, too beautiful to be real. My breath caught, my cock lengthened at the sight of her.

  Two other human women, both mated to Colony warriors, stood behind her in formation, like a strike squad, but they paled in comparison to Gwen’s fire and I ignored them easily.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Gwen yelled at Tane, clenching her fists. The giant Atlan Warlord actually flinched, as if he were a small boy being scolded by his mother.

  Tane looked confused, then bowed before her. “My lady… I—”

  “Don’t you dare my lady me!” She marched up to his towering form, completely unafraid.

  Next to me, Braun could barely contain his laughter, his shoulders shaking quietly as he watched the drama unfold. I wanted to punch him as well… for being right, for understanding more about Gwen than I had.

  Covered in sweat and blood, the four warriors turned as one to face her, closing in, pleading their individual cases. I could not hear what they said, but none of it pleased her. Her hands moved to her hips, her head tilted to the side as if she listened and considered their words. But her eyes were like fire, feminine fury shining brightly. Fuck, she was gorgeous.

  Braun’s increasingly smug smile had my hands clenching into fists of my own as he leaned back and put his hands behind his head, stretching. Resting. Amused.

  I looked back to Gwen, afraid if I kept my gaze on Braun I would punch that knowing and very possessive look right off his face. The males in the pit had lost any chance they had with her now. Braun just had to wait until she pulverized them all and then step in.

  Gwen’s gaze darted up into the stands and Braun held his breath as her attention flitted over him, then moved to me.

  Air trapped in my lungs, her gaze like a physical blow, the gaze narrowing, her cheeks flushing even darker.

  Yes, I wanted to be the one to put color in her cheeks. I had to wonder how far down it crept beneath her armor, if her nipples were that same deep shade.

  It was over in half a second. The glance. The look. The stare. The intensity.

  Gwen looked away, rolling up the sleeves of her uniform shirt, although I had no idea why. Her voice, when she spoke, was not overly loud, but cold. Hard. “You want to fight? Okay. Let’s roll.”

  Moving almost too fast to track, Gwen lifted the closest Prillon warrior and threw him even farther than Tane had thrown his opponent earlier. The Prillon offered no resistance, rolling to his feet after he landed, keeping his distance. When the other three warriors backed off with their hands out in front of them, clearly refusing to touch her, she kept pace, shoving the Trion warrior in the chest. She attacked in silence, each strike of her hands on male flesh loud in the distinct quiet. The warriors watching had no idea what to do. Cheer? Cringe?

  The silence seemed to enrage her
, for she yelled as much at the crowd as she did the four fools left in the fight. “Come on. Fuck all of you. You wanted to fight. Let’s fight.”

  “Gwen, are you sure about this? I think we should wait for Maxim.” Rachel, the governor’s mate who stood near the open doorway, tried to plead with the irate female but to no avail.

  “Get out of here, ladies.” Gwen looked over her shoulder at the other two human females, motioning them away with a graceful wave of her hand. “This has nothing to do with you. These idiots should know exactly who they’re messing with. Who they’re fighting over like dogs would over a piece of meat.”

  Kristin, Tyran’s mate, burst into laughter, taking hold of his hand and leading him away when he would have interfered. Shocked, I watched the strongest male on the planet let the small human female—his human female—to pull him away from the fight. Braun had been right; Kristin believed herself independent, in control of her mate. He was allowing her to lead him away.

  Looking back over her shoulder, Kristin had a huge, happy smile on her face. “Go get ‘em, girlfriend.”

  Gwen smiled then, coldly. Darkly and full of menace. “Oh, I will. I’m going to kick ass and take names.”

  I had no idea why she needed the names of warriors already familiar to her, the Earth slang beyond me, but I had a feeling it wasn’t anything good.

  Chapter 2

  Gwendolyn Fernandez, The Colony, Ten Minutes Earlier…

  * * *

  The hammer I swung was at least four feet long. The heavy, blunted end was designed to pulverize rock in the caves beneath the Colony’s surface. Designed for an Atlan or a Prillon warrior, not a five-foot-five female from Earth.

  Had I been normal—still fully human—I wouldn’t have been able to lift it, let alone swing it in a wide arc and bring it crashing down on the wall in my friend, Kristin’s, living room.

  I’d been at it for over an hour, and barely broken a sweat, or worked the edge off my frustration. I was a hamster on a wheel on this stupid planet, and every oversized man-child here thought I not only needed a keeper, but wanted a big, bad alpha male to tell me what to do, what to eat, what to wear. Some Prillon had offered to put a collar around my neck so he could read my emotions or some shit.

  The thought made me feel violated. The chaos of my mind was not a pretty place right now. I definitely didn’t need to give a Prillon warrior—or two—access to the inner sanctum. What they’d find would probably scare them. Hell, most of the time the thoughts running through my mind scared me. Thus, me beating the shit out of Kristin’s wall.

  I swung the hammer again, harder, taking down a chunk twice my size with one blow. I didn’t hear the door open, but it must have, because I was no longer alone.

  “What the hell, Gwen? When I said I wanted the wall torn down to make this space bigger, I wasn’t thinking right now, and I wasn’t thinking you’d do it.” Kristin’s voice broke through the noise I made while smashing the wall to bits. I looked over my shoulder at my friend, the dust swirling around me like I was Pigpen from the Charlie Brown cartoon. Kristin wore the familiar body armor, as if she’d just come back from a mission, which she had.

  “Don’t worry. I closed the door to the baby’s room so no dust would get in there.” Kristin had a little one, a beautiful baby girl and two doting mates who treated her like a goddess.

  But she was allowed to go on missions. To hunt for the Hive. Her mates had to be the only reasonable aliens on the whole damn planet.

  And she wasn’t even a cyborg. She was one-hundred-percent human. A volunteer. An Interstellar Bride sent from Earth when she’d been matched to her primary mate, Tyran, a tough as nails Prillon who had about the same amount of cyborg tech as I did. Tyran was strong. Super strong. One of only two warriors on the planet I wasn’t sure I could best in a fight.

  And he already had a mate. Kristin. My thoughts shifted away from him. Not that I’d go after a guy who was mated, but he definitely wasn’t interested. He only had eyes for Kristin. And that was how it should be.

  The other male on the Colony who melted my butter? Well, he was a loner. Quiet. Massive. Everyone I’d asked said he was an Atlan, but there was something different about him. Something that made my body clench with heat and my pussy ache with emptiness. Of all the males I’d met since being denied a return to Earth and basically left out here to rot, he was the only one who interested me in the slightest.

  Makarios.

  So, of course, he was one of the few who’d shown absolutely no interest in me. None. Not one stolen glance. No eye contact. Nada.

  Big fat zero.

  The only thing that saved my shattered ego was that he didn’t seem to talk to anyone—male or female—except the two other Atlans he’d been with when the trio had escaped from the Hive. Braun, Tane and Makarios. The three Atlan Musketeers. All three of them were gorgeous, I had to admit it. But there was something about Makarios that put me on edge.

  The others called him Mak, but when I looked at him, I pretty much just stopped thinking. Even his name was erotic. I wanted him. I wanted him to unleash some of that restrained control all over me. I didn’t want forever, just long enough to scratch an itch or two. My sexual dry spell extended all the way back to Earth. Too long to go without a man-induced orgasm. Or two. Hell, with Mak, it would be at least three, I was sure.

  It was well known that he didn’t want a mate. The rumor-mill claimed he’d recently tried to escape the Colony—obviously, that hadn’t worked—and that he wasn’t even Coalition, but one who was cast out from Rogue 5. Maybe he was part Atlan and part whatever sexy beast roamed the Rogue 5 moon’s home planet of Hyperion. All I’d ever heard about Rogue 5 was that they were a bunch of pirates and smugglers who belonged to very strict gangs. No loyalty to anyone but each other. The talk I’d heard said that originally, Mak had only been captured by the Hive because he was sitting in the brig of a Coalition ship when the Hive attacked. That he was nothing more than a Rogue 5 criminal with really bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time and he ended up with Hive integrations and a life stuck on the Colony.

  But when I looked into his eyes, I didn’t see a criminal. I saw a restlessness and rage I understood all too well. We were the same, me and Makarios. Trapped. Prisoners.

  Freaks.

  I swung the hammer. Harder.

  The section of wall burst into a cloud of dust...

  …and the ceiling splintered out in a web of hairline cracks above our heads.

  “Holy shit, woman. That’s enough!” Kristin closed the distance and took the hammer from me. I grinned when she was forced to drop it with a loud oomph. “How the hell did you even lift that thing?”

  “Superfreak, remember?” I’d broken into her quarters to take care of the wall for her while she was out. Her idea to have it torn down one she’d shared in a late-night gab fest over a cup of Atlan wine, one of the few true pleasures to be found on this God-forsaken planet. And knowing she was off somewhere fighting while I resorted to breaking and entering to keep myself occupied somehow made the destruction less satisfying than I’d hoped. Still, it was better than going back down to the governor’s office and arguing with him again. And a hell of a lot better than going down to the cafeteria and being eye-balled like the prize broodmare at a horse show.

  “Stop saying that. If you were such a freak, every male on the base wouldn’t be trying to get your attention.”

  “Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that I’m the only single female within light years of this place, could it? Last two people on a deserted island. Remember that game?”

  Kristin laughed. “Oh, yeah. I always chose Detective Amaro.”

  I nearly choked, but coughed instead, waving at the cloud of dust settling around me to cover my reaction. “Seriously? From that crime show?” The detective was a very popular character on an Earth crime drama on TV. At least it had been when I left Earth. He was a badass who always got the bad guy. And I knew Kristin used to be FBI. But still. “
Really? Why?”

  Kristin’s eyes closed and a dreamy expression came over her face. “His eyes were so intense. You know? And he had that uniform, and those handcuffs. The gun. He was just strong and sexy and—”

  “Bossy and dominant and just like Tyran and Hunt.”

  Kristin opened her eyes, laughing now. “I guess so.”

  I tilted my head toward the bedroom. “Do I need to ask if all the bindings on the corners of that bed are for you or your mates?”

  “I’ll never tell.” She looked back down at the mess on her floor but I couldn’t miss the blush on her cheeks. There was no doubt she was well-satisfied by her mates, with or without restraints. “But I think you might need a little bit of attention from a special investigator of your own, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen.” I pointed at the rubble on the floor. “You wanted this little remodeling done and I needed to work off some steam,” I replied, inspecting what used to be a wall. The whole thing was broken to bits.

  The sturdy wall hadn’t stood a chance against my strength. My cyborg strength. The Hive had turned me into a certified bad-ass. The Bionic Woman. Whatever building material was used crumbled beneath the swing of the sledgehammer like a dried-up gingerbread house under the destructive glee of a toddler’s foot. Yeah, being strong, like wicked strong, was a good thing. I didn’t have to worry about some guy getting handsy—if I didn’t want it—and I could completely take care of myself. At the same time, it was the reason I was so pissed off, taking out the wall between my friend’s living room and dining room areas.

  Kristin sneezed. “Steam? Let’s call a spade a spade, sister. What you need isn’t going to be found in here.”

  I frowned. “Yeah, well, it got you the big room you wanted.” I pointed to the almost completely demolished wall.

  “True.” She nudged a larger piece of refuse with the toe of her boot. “I’m guessing you’re not going to clean up the mess?” she asked, tapping her finger to her lips.