Skinny and Fin half rose out of their chairs, everything else falling away as they watched their leader carefully. Waiting for his next move. They’d all seen him angry but never this furious. He’d always kept it together before. Always. So much so, Skinny had a side-bet with Fin that he had Izaean blood somewhere in his family tree and that one day he’d blood-rage out. It said a lot about the bat-shit crazy nature of the Warborne that they actually looked forward to the possibility of that happening.
Then he shook himself, like a deearin shaking water from its back.
“Find out how many and where,” he ordered. “If they’re going to do that to females, they don’t fucking deserve them.”
“Jesh!”
Zero jerked awake, screaming again and convinced he was surrounded by fire and pain. His onboard argued with him as it gave constant readings on his surroundings, reassuring him his body temperature was normal and he wasn’t sustaining the epidermal damage he thought he was.
But try as it might, his onboard couldn’t get a foothold against the survival instincts screaming at him. The battling instincts, biological and cybernetic, kept him locked in place, his two halves vying for control. The glitch usually had him shorting out and already he felt his senses start to fade.
Then a soft hand landed on his shoulder, sliding around to his chest as a soft body pressed against his back.
“Hey,” Eris murmured, her voice rough with sleep. “I got you. Don’t worry.”
He sighed, all the tension draining out of his body at her touch. It managed what his onboard could not, reassuring him that the dream was just a dream. He wasn’t burning alive. He covered her hand with his, pressing it over his still-thundering heart as he closed his eyes and worked on calming down.
She was here. Everything would be alright. Everything was alright.
Her soft lips brushed against the side of his neck and she laid her head against his shoulder.
“I had nightmares when I first came out of the military,” she said in a soft voice. “The accident that damaged my legs? It was in battle. I caught a grenade on my right leg. The armoring was substandard, parts made down to a price.”
He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand as she told her story, not interrupting her. Several times during their lovemaking she’d pushed his touch away from her scars. Especially a big starburst one on her hip. Instinct told him it was important not to push and just let her go at her own pace. She reminded him of C…
The thought slid away before he could grasp it. Normally he’d have been frustrated but now, with her here, it didn’t matter. He was more interested in her story than his unreliable hide-and-seek memories.
“I couldn’t move, so my unit left me to cover the rear while they took the objective,” she carried on, and he registered the change in her voice. The tone was flatter, monotonous, as though she were merely an observer rather than a participant in the tale. “They walked into an ambush… somehow the enemy had shutdown codes for their suits. That wasn’t even supposed to be possible. They were supposed to be on tight-ray modulation and uncrackable… but they did.”
She shuddered as she leaned against him. “I had to listen as they were cut down, unable to move, unable to help them. In the end, I cut the motors free so I could drag myself to them… give some covering fire. But I was too late. They were already dead.”
The deadness in her voice tore at his heart. “What happened then?” he asked softly.
“Medical evacuation. When I got back to base, the powers that be told me I had PTSD and hadn’t heard it right. That I was making up stories because of survivor’s guilt.”
He growled in the back of his throat, but she shushed him up. “It’s in the past.”
Her lips brushed his shoulder again as she cuddled closer. “So I know what it’s like. I’ve been there. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
The sigh punched free from his chest before he was aware it was there. Lifting her hand, he kissed her knuckles. “Thank you. For being here.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly, not moving from her position against him. He felt the soft curve of her breasts against his back and the steady beat of her heart. A sense of guilt hit him hard and fast.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” he argued, only to get a soft, sleepy chuckle in reply.
“We’re just talking. Not much exertion in that. Is there? We had our gentle exercise earlier, remember?”
His lips curved, and he twisted quickly. A second later, she was in his lap, a soft squeak escaping her.
“The nightmare made me forget,” he lied, gaze on her lips. “What gentle exercise was that?”
Her eyes darkened as she smiled up at him, lifting her lips for a kiss. “Oh dear. Memory problems. Perhaps I should call the doc…”
“I think all the treatment I need is right here,” he murmured, lowering his head and claiming her lips for a long, slow kiss.
They didn’t come up for air. The slow kiss exploded into torrid need and he turned them over, making her straddle him. They both gasped as he slid inside her again, and he spent the next few hours proving just how good a cyborg’s memory was…
Zero really was the sexiest man she’d ever met.
Eris lay on her side, still warm and comfortable in a nest of the blankets on the bunk. They still held the warmth of his body and his scent, so she was in no hurry to leave them. Not when her view was so lovely as well.
Zero moved around the tiny cabin with the kind of grace some big men had, and it fascinated her.
“These rooms are tiny… for you guys I mean,” she commented, watching him clean his teeth. The
