Zero’s Heart
Lathar Mercenaries: Warborne
Mina Carter
New York Times & USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Copyright © 2020 by Mina Carter
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Also by Mina Carter
About the Author
1
“Jesh!”
Zero jerked awake, bathed in sweat and ready to kill.
He fought his sheets blindly for a second, even as his onboard computer informed him no one was in the room. No threat, just him. With a groan, he flopped back on his bunk, breathing heavily as his bio-organics calmed down.
It was the nightmare again. The one he always had filled with fire and explosions… with pain and faces he couldn’t remember. Faces distorted, the three men seemed familiar but didn’t register in his memory banks. Not anywhere. Shouting, they reached for him, concern on their faces, but he couldn’t hear them properly before he fell backward into darkness.
He closed his eyes and shoved his hand through the short spikes of his hair. The dream was always the same, like a memory even though he knew it wasn’t. Other than that, all he knew was that the men were real, not figments of his imagination and none of them were Jesh.
The problem was, he didn’t know who the fuck Jesh was, or why he screamed the guy’s name.
With a groan, he hauled his ass out of his bunk and padded over to the door.
Query, he directed to his internal systems. How long have I been asleep?
Duration of sleep period was three hours, twenty-five minutes and seventeen seconds, the smooth voice replied in his head. It was his “other” side, the computer buried in his brain that controlled the parts of him that weren’t organic. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Exhaustion pulled at him but there was no point staying in bed. He wouldn’t sleep again.
Recommend return to sleep cycle, the onboard insisted. He silenced it with a hiss of irritation. The last thing he needed when he was running low on sleep and high on frustration was a nagging little voice in the back of his head.
The door cycled slowly, irritating him even more, and he stomped down the corridor toward the galley. It was empty. Good. With the mood he was in, he’d rip the head off his crewmates if they so much as breathed the wrong way. And for a being who could literally hear the biological processes of his crewmates’ bodies—especially the day after curry night—the danger was genuine.
He didn’t need to search the freezer unit for what he wanted. No one would dare touch his triple-chocolate caramel fudge ice cream. Not if they valued their lives.
“Oh, baby… come to daddy,” he crooned, bending down to reach for it.
“Whoa! That was so not an image I needed! Pants, Zero. They’re a thing. My mate could wander in here.”
He stood, spoon already in his mouth to find Talent, the unit’s newest member behind him. The tall male was sleep-rumpled, his chest bare. Scratches on his chest and dark marks around his wrist announced he was mated. Zero instantly quashed the jealousy that snuck up on him. Not because he wanted Lizzie, Tal’s little human mate, but because he’d all but given up hope on any woman looking at him that way. What woman would want a half-machine monster?
“Is that ice cream?” Tal asked, his gaze sharpening on the tub under Zero’s arm. “Chocolate?”
“No,” Zero deadpanned. “It’s… iridean squash, with… err… cartorian bugs. Not tasty at all.”
Tal’s eyebrow winged up. “You know I can read Terran. Right?”
“So?”
“The tub says ‘triple choc’ on the side.”
Zero gave a mock-growl and sighed. “Lizzie wants chocolate?”
Talent wagged the field tin he held in his hand. “Sent me in to make field cake. She’s “peckish.” And it’s more than my life is worth to argue with the boss. So… make with the goodies.”
Zero grumbled under his breath and offered the tub. Wrapped in a thermo-sleeve, it wouldn’t melt too quickly.
“Thanks, brother. She’s very crabby when she’s hungry.”
“Hangry,” Zero supplied automatically. “Humans call it hangry. Like a cross between hungry and angry.”
He had no idea how he knew that; he just did. Like so many other things, the thought arrived, fully formed, from his memory banks. And that was just typical. He could remember random, useless information, but nothing important… like what the fuck he was or where he’d come from.
“Really? They have such an odd language construction,” Tal commented as he spooned ice cream into his field tin. He looked up, studying Zero suddenly. Eyes narrowing, his movements paused.
“Are you okay? You look tired… and I thought only the watch officer was up.”
Zero shrugged and plonked his ass down on the bench, waiting for his ice cream back. “I can’t sleep sometimes. No biggie.”
“As the medical officer aboard, I’ll make that decision,” Talent said firmly, still spooning. Zero got worried about the level of ice cream left. How much could one tiny human woman eat? Then what the guy said registered and he looked up, shaking his head.
“Uh-uh… yeah, no. For the rest, yes. Me? No.” He balanced the spoon on the end of his nose, crossing his eyes to look at it. “I’m not Lathar. Machine, remember? Don’t need a medical officer. I need a mechanic.”
Talent handed the ice cream tub back. Zero checked the level, and enough was left to send him into a sugar coma… for all of 2.3 seconds before his systems purged the spike.
“In that case, it’s a good job I have some engineering training. Isn’t it? Now talk. Or I’ll go get Lizzie. After you put some pants on.”
Zero blinked. “That’s low, using your mate as a threat.”
It
