“If you’re referring to me, I don’t swoon over anyone.” She extracted the tracking device, set it on the sleeping support beside him, and moved to his other arm. “And I’ve seen Malice in that state.” That had been one of the cruel experiments the Humanoid Alliance insisted she lead. It had required removing all his skin and flesh down to his frame. “If I was predisposed to swooning over him, which I’m not—” She lifted her right index finger. “—I would have still swooned over him when his mechanics were visible.”
He had been very shiny…and intriguingly smooth.
She rubbed her fabric-covered thighs together. They couldn’t have fucked, not in any traditional way, but that would have felt…interesting against her skin.
Her pussy dripped and her face heated with shame.
What was she doing? She was a medic, damn it. She shouldn’t be thinking arousing thoughts like that, not while she was tending to a patient.
Valor, that patient, her cyborg’s friend, had tilted his head to the side, was studying her. “Are you proposing a human female could desire me as much as you desire Malice?”
Illona’s cheeks approached the surface temperature of a sun. “I’m stating that there will be human females who desire you. That’s a certainty. I’m not saying I desire your friend.” Though she did want Malice. Very much.
She ached with yearning, missing his hands, his taste, his everything.
“I smell Malice on you.” The E Model’s dark eyes glittered with mirth.
Stars. This discussion was mortifying.
“He doesn’t trust me.” She blurted out that truth. “Your friend questions almost every word I say, and I can’t blame him for that.” Her shoulders slumped. “I hurt him. Severely. Again and again.”
“Picton hurt him. Severely. Again and again.” Valor shrugged. “Malice doesn’t trust him either.”
She was placed in the same category as the guard, and that struck at her heart. The male was everything she despised in a being.
“But Malice has never hated Picton as much as he has hated you.” Valor’s gentle smile didn’t take the sting out of that devastating statement.
Illona winced. She wasn’t in the same class as the guard. Malice hated her more.
“His extreme response to you wasn’t caused by the physical damage you inflicted on him.” The E Model met her gaze. “Cyborgs are accustomed to pain. We also expect betrayal, especially from your kind.” His tone communicated he shared Malice’s low view of humans. “His hatred was due to the other emotions you make him feel.”
“He wants me.” As she wanted him. “I’m a female and he—”
“The previous medics were also females.” Valor shook his head. “Malice didn’t want any of them. He has only desired you.”
She blinked once, twice, three times. Her cyborg only desired her. She was special to him in some way. “Why am I diff—”
“You’re his female.” Valor’s words became clipped. “And you have to return to him. Now.”
“I have tasks to complete.” Her schedule wasn’t decided by one dominant male. “Malice will have to wait for a few moments.”
His friend frowned. “Medic Illona—”
“I’m reattaching your limbs before I leave the chamber.” The Humanoid Alliance would kill her for doing that, but she suspected she was already a dead being walking.
Valor stared at her. “You would do that for me?”
“I should have done that for you a solar cycle and a half ago.” Her tone was brusque. The yearning in the warrior’s eyes increased her guilt over the delay. “But you weren’t ready to escape then.”
“We’re not escaping this planet rotation either.” He sighed. “You should wait to reattach my arms and legs.”
She set aside the tracking device she’d extracted from the second arm. “I’m reattaching your arms and legs now.” She doubted she had many moments of life left. “The Humanoid Alliance might direct someone else to remove them…or they might not. They might be concerned with other issues.”
Like uncovering whether or not Medic Febris had been working alone.
When they determined her friend hadn’t been acting on her own, that she had been partnered with her, they would shift their focus to capturing and killing her. Removing Valor’s limbs might be a lower priority for them.
And she wanted to make him whole before she died. He would be one more being helped, healed. The act would have made Medic Anahit, her mentor, proud. It would offset some of the damage Illona’s temporarily alignment with the Humanoid Alliance had caused.
Her lifespan would have meant something.
She picked up Valor’s right arm. “I should scan this first, ensure—”
“Three humans are heading toward the chamber.” Valor looked toward the door. “They’re coming for you. You have to prepare for that confrontation, not reattach my limbs.”
There was nothing she could do to prepare for that confrontation. She couldn’t hide. The sleeping support wouldn’t shield her form from view.
The chamber had been designed so beings couldn’t conceal their presence.
And she couldn’t fight three foes. “They could be coming for you.”
Reattaching Valor’s limbs might give him a chance against them. She skipped the scans, the examination, other safety precautions, and pushed the arm into the socket. It snapped together. Energy coursed along his circuits, lighting the limb.
“I feel my arm.” His tone held marvel. He curled his fingers and splayed them. “Medic Illona, you should—”
“I should attach your other arm.” She rushed to the other side of the E Model. “You’re right about that.” She picked up that limb. It was as heavy as the first one. “If you have to make a choice, choose yourself. Be free. Take Malice with you. Escape this place and—”
The door opened.
“Put down the arm, Medic.” Picton’s voice grated along her spine.
She shoved the arm into its socket. It clicked. She turned around.
The guard stood in front of the door. Nelson, one of his cronies, was positioned to his left. That male had his gun drawn, was aiming it at the cyborg.
Bonin must have been the third human. He would be waiting in the hallway, ready to re-open the door when their horrid mission was completed.
They must be seeking to decommission Valor.
“Don’t damage it.” She spread out her arms, seeking to protect the cyborg. “I need the machine to be fully functional for my next experiment.”
“Stun the machine.” Picton issued that order.
Nelson pressed the trigger.
Her form was too slight to block the bolt of energy. It passed her.
Valor jerked and then went completely still.
He wouldn’t, couldn’t, help her safeguard him. Illona slipped her hands in her pockets. She was on her own, would fight to the death to keep the E Model, Malice’s friend, alive.
“Your experiments are over, cunt.” Picton sneered at her. “We’re not damaging the machine. Yet.” He drew his reprimand stick, his torture tool of choice. “We’re damaging you.”