Defying Death (4 page)

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“You’re huge.” She placed her palm on his chest,
wishing it were bare. He shuddered, his reaction captivating her.
“Responsive.” She knocked on his body armor. There was no give in
his physique. “Solid.”

“Lethal.” His tone was dry. “Cyborgs are
manufactured to kill.”

“Yes. Yes.” Tifara waved her right hand. If he had
planned to kill her, she’d already be dead. “You have a metal
frame.” She squeezed one of his armor-clad biceps. “Covered by
muscles and skin.” She reached upward and touched his square
chin.

His face was warm. She’d expected it to be cool.

“You have circuits, as well as veins.” She walked
around him. The cyborg’s back was straight, his ass cheeks
clenched, his booted feet braced apart. “Processors and a
human-like brain.” She pressed on his nape. A compartment opened,
revealing an interface. She closed it again, more interested in his
organics. “An unrivalled immune system.”

He stood still, allowing her to examine him. His
fingers folded into fists, his knuckles whitening.

“Your kind doesn’t become ill.” She repeated his
earlier words.

Cyborgs, although half human, didn’t require medics.
They were a wonder of genetic engineering. The manufactured
warriors self-healed, their nanocybotics repairing any damage they
endured, no matter how severe.

“Yet you’ve infected me.” She faced him once more.
“How?”

“I didn’t infect you.” He scowled.

He
had
infected her. Her body ached, yearning
for his touch, seeking to be closer to him. “You’re a carrier,” she
concluded. “That makes sense. You’re designed to kill.” Tifara
drifted her fingers over the daggers strapped to his hips, the
sheaths built into his body armor. “If you don’t kill the enemy
outright, the virus you exude will complete the task for you.”

“I’m not a carrier.” His voice deepened even
more.

“I—”

His arms strapped around her waist. He pulled her
toward him, his chest flattening her breasts. The ridge in his body
armor pressed against her flight suit-covered mons.

Her cyborg was long and thick and very, very
aroused.

Which was impossible. He was a machine.

Tifara gazed upward and her breath hitched.

All of her knowledge of cyborgs had been obtained
from others, from databases of information, mostly text,
supplemented by the rare image. She’d heard that the warriors were
cold, logical, more robot than human.

This male, at a distance, appeared to be the same
way. He was unaffected, somber, blank, a machine waiting for a
command.

It was only when their gazes met that she saw his
true feelings. His eyes blazed with fierce emotion, a seething
passion barely contained by his stoic façade.

The medic in her wondered what would happen when
that façade cracked. The female in her wanted to be the one to
accomplish that feat.

She shook her head. It was the virus talking. She
had to focus.

Focus.

Sweet science, he was hard, like a bar of metal
against her.

“Ahhh…” She licked her bottom lip, wetting that
suddenly dry flesh with her tongue. His gaze followed the action,
intensifying, showing he was aware of her.

Tifara’s pussy dripped. J052154’s nostrils flared,
his intake of air as silent as he was.

Cyborgs had enhanced senses. Did he smell her
arousal?

“You’re a machine.” She needed to hear those words,
to reassure herself. “You don’t feel desire. I shouldn’t—”

He slanted his lips over hers, branding her flesh,
severing her sentence, and their two worlds collided, truth
decimating rumor, cyborg claiming human, male dominating female.
The cyborg didn’t merely feel desire. He
was
desire and she
breathed him in, inhaling his unique flavor, the tinge of minerals,
of the unknown.

Their tongues twined and tumbled. Bubbles popped in
her mouth. Energy flowed into her, his kiss more powerful than a
full rest cycle.

J052154 cupped the back of her head, not allowing
her to escape as he ravished her, stroking between her teeth with a
thrilling ferocity, an all-consuming focus.

She clung to his shoulders, shamelessly rubbing
against him, her always-active brain quiet for once, her entire
being swept into the kiss. The cyborg sank his fingers into her
hair, loosening the curls from the ties holding them back.

Tifara explored his mouth. It was familiar yet
different, human yet not. The tingling spread throughout her
body.

“You’re infecting me.” She pulled away from him.

“I’m not infecting you.” The kiss hadn’t softened
his lips. They remained hard, flat, disapproving.

“I feel you changing me.” Tifara touched the tip of
her tongue with her right index finger.

“Those are my nanocybotics.”

He didn’t deny that he was changing her.

“There was nothing in the databases that indicate a
cyborg’s nanocybotics could be transferred to another being.”

“You’re not another being. You’re my female.”

She didn’t know what that meant. And he likely
didn’t either. He was a warrior, not a medic. “It has to be an
airborne virus,” she concluded. “I’ve never reacted to any male
this way.”

An aerosol-based contagion was the only explanation
she could think of.

“The humans controlling you must have been injected
with antigens.” The Humanoid Alliance wouldn’t unleash a virus they
couldn’t control. “Which means a cure does exist. If I discover
what it is, I can stop this, save myself, others.”

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of beings on the battle
station had been exposed to him, had shared the same air as her
cyborg.

“I would
never
harm you.” He dipped his head
and laved her neck with the flat of his tongue, leaving a trail of
sensation across her body, sending the sensation he ascribed to his
nanocybotics fizzing over her skin.

“You wouldn’t harm me intentionally.” She pushed him
away, unable to think while he was touching her. “The Humanoid
Alliance has infected you and you don’t even realize it. Those
bastards. And they sent you to find me because, being a medic, I
come into contact with rebel warriors located all over the
sector.”

He grasped her wrists, lifted one to his mouth,
licked, lifted the other and did the same. “The Humanoid Alliance
didn’t send me to find you.”

Cyborgs didn’t have the ability to lie but they also
didn’t operate on their own. They followed commands, all of their
orders deadly. They were designed to kill, built to be one of the
Humanoid Alliance’s greatest weapons.

She stepped back, removing her body from his reach.
“It doesn’t matter who sent you. Not right now.” The battle
station’s Commander would want that information. Tifara didn’t.
“Finding a cure is our priority.”

She grabbed her handheld and scanned him.

J052154 moved toward her, his gaze fixed on her
lips, his gait smooth, soundless.

Dangerous.

Did he plan to kiss her again? Tifara backed up
slowly, her stomach fluttering with anticipation. “What are you
doing?” Her ass smacked against the wall. “I have to find a cure.”
Her excuse sound mortifyingly weak.

“You don’t have to find a cure. There’s no virus.”
He loomed over her. An enticing warmth engulfed her.

She leaned backward, maintaining eye contact with
him. “I—”

He pressed his finger against her lips, his touch
immediately stealing her breath and numbing her brain. “Silence.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Someone is approaching.” The
cyborg gripped the two daggers fastened to his hips, extracted them
from their sheaths.

He looked like he planned to use them.

Again.

He also planned to leave.

Alarm skittered down her spine. “You can’t exit the
chamber, not until we determine how the contagion is spread.” She
touched his hands and his attention returned to her, his gaze
darkening. “I’ll ensure the someone approaching doesn’t enter.”

His grip on his daggers didn’t loosen.

Crimson specks decorated the blade. That was the
Palavian’s blood, blood he’d spilled. Her panic escalated. “If you
stay here, I’ll…” She didn’t know what she’d do.

“You’ll… what?” His gaze lowered to her lips.

“I’ll allow you to kiss me again.” The words burst
out of her and she stifled a groan. He was a cyborg, one of the
best warriors in the universe, and extremely attractive. He likely
had females lining up to kiss him. Why would he—

“Agreed.” He nodded.

“What?” She stared at him.

“I’ll stay here and then you’ll allow me to kiss
you. But if he enters the chamber, he’s dead,” the cyborg
warned.

“I
know
that.” She specialized in viruses.
The air in the chamber was filled with his aerosols. By entering
the space, the male would become infected and, if she didn’t find a
cure, he’d die. “Let me handle this.”

J052154 hesitated for one more heart-pounding moment
then nodded, stepping back, back, back until he merged with the
shadows, disappearing from view. He continued to exude pheromones
at a phenomenal rate, arousing her to the point of distraction.

Tifara locked the doors and waited.

The control panel buzzed.

She ignored it.

“Open the doors, Medic Tifara,” Kend, one of the
medics, demanded.

Tifara stifled a groan. Since she’d been promoted to
head of the team, Kend had devoted himself to making her life
miserable, questioning every decision she made, disrespecting her
in front of the others.

She placed her hand on the control panel. “There’s a
possible virus in this chamber. Until I clear the space, the doors
remain closed.”

“You believe everything is a virus.” Kend’s tone was
condescending. “I watched the Palavian as his fellow warriors
strapped him down to the sleeping support. He had a simple torso
wound. That was it.”

He had more than a simple torso wound now. She
glanced at puddle of blood surrounding the corpse. “As your
superior.” She pulled rank, “I order you to return to your
station.”

Metal clicked and the doors opened. Kend, the ass,
walked into the chamber, a smirk on his face. He’d used the
override code.

“That act of disobedience has killed you, Medic
Kend.” Tifara shook her head.

“You see viruses where there are none.” The male
rolled his eyes. “You’re irrational and prone to hysterics. The
Commander will realize that soon enough.”

“You don’t feel it?”

“Feel what?” Kend laughed. “The certainty that
you’ll be reporting to me before the solar cycle ends?”

He didn’t detect the cyborg’s presence. “What does
this mean?” She mused out loud. “Is it because you’re male? Are the
aerosols bound to his pheromones? Can only a female detect
them?”

The darkness altered around Kend and Tifara’s eyes
widened. Oh, no. “You don’t have to hurt him.” She addressed the
cyborg in the shadows. “He doesn’t know you’re here and I can heal
him, stop the contagion.”

“Are you talking to yourself now?” Kend grabbed her
wrists. “Have you lost your mind?”

Hands reached out of the shadows, clasped Kend’s
skull and twisted, the movement so quick—fingers and features
blurred. The snap echoed in the small chamber and the human male
fell to the floor.

“No, no, no.” Tifara rushed forward and pressed her
fingers to Kend’s neck. “There’s a pulse, faint, but I might be
able to save him.” She turned to grasp a prolonger.

Warmth splattered over her flight suit. She looked
back at her patient. Blood gushed from his neck.

“
What
did you do?” She glared into the
blackness. “There was no need to slit his throat. Kend hadn’t seen
you.”

The cyborg emerged from the shadows, his expression
blank. “It was necessary.”

“Death is never necessary.” Tifara waved her fists
in the air. She had become a medic to stop death, to ensure no
being’s life ended as abruptly and as unnecessarily as her
mother’s, as her brothers’ had. She was doing a shitty job. “Stop
killing beings. I had this handled.”

His little
female was unhappy with him. Death caught her waving fists, folding
his fingers protectively over hers. He wasn’t certain why.

The Kend male had touched her. Her. His female. The
insolent human had to die.

The Palavian had dared to do the same, damaging her
fragile skin. Death had lost his temper, something he rarely did,
and he had killed him too quickly. The male should have suffered
more.

Death lifted Tifara’s hands and examined her wrists.
The red marks had vanished, his nanocybotics healing her.

“Kend had been exposed to your virus. True.” She
continued to talk, her soft voice flowing over him like a splash of
freshly spilled blood, fluid and warm. “But I could have saved him
and, even if I couldn’t, I would have learned from him.”

Other beings feared him. Not this female. Even when
his actions horrified her, as his killing seemed to do, she didn’t
hesitate to tell him what she thought.

“I would have confirmed how the virus is
transmitted.” She held up one finger. “Learned how quickly his
symptoms appeared.” She added another. “Though he claimed he
couldn’t detect your presence. Why is that?”

“He’s not my female. That’s why.” Death pulled her
closer to him, folding her lush curves into his hard frame. She was
covered with fabric, wore a white jacket over a light blue fabric,
yet he felt her softness, her sheer femininity. “You’re the only
being who can detect my presence.”

She blinked, his medic appearing adorably flustered.
“You don’t know that.”

“I know that.” He breathed deeply. “I smell your
arousal.”

Pink pigment swept over her beautiful face. “And you
didn’t smell anyone else’s arousal. Kend is…” She winced. “Was
male. Your aerosols might only be detectable by females. He could
have been affected and wasn’t even aware of it.”