“You could do that.” His nemesis pushed herself upright. She grimaced.
He refused to feel any guilt over her state. The blasted female was cruel and callous, had earned that hurt.
“But where would you go?” She gazed at him.
Her thighs were spread. Her pussy was wet.
His cock twitched.
She would be tight, warm, welcoming.
“There’s nothing on the planet except this lab.” Certainty coiled around those words. “The terrain is barren and lifeless. You’ll need a ship to leave the surface.”
That was the torment she was delivering. He and his brethren couldn’t fully escape. They would be trapped on the planet. “Supplies have to be delivered.”
“A supply ship arrives every one-hundred planet rotations.” She nodded, her black hair spilling around her beautiful face. “But it is heavily guarded, and the crew would communicate with both the beings in the lab and the Humanoid Alliance before landing. You could deceive them at the lab level, but not at the Humanoid Alliance level.”
She spoke as though she wasn’t part of the Humanoid Alliance, wasn’t their conduit of evil.
That was another trick. “How I deceive them isn’t your concern.” He would process a means of escape.
“At sunrise.” She tilted her head to one side. “Or a bit later.” She tilted it to the other side. “Or whenever I’m released from here.” The medic’s slight shoulders lifted and fell.
That movement caused her breasts to jiggle.
Malice jutted his jaw.
He would remain focused, wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted by her many enticements.
“The transmission blocker might be deactivated.” She swung her boot-clad feet. “You’ll have a short duration to communicate with the outside. Contact your brethren, ask them to send a ship here.”
“Contact my brethren?” He snorted. “Ask them to send a ship?” Her proposals were ridiculous. “The Humanoid Alliance won’t allow that. We’re cyborgs. My brethren would be decommissioned for placing that request, for daring to speak without authorization.”
She should process that. He glared at her. There was a high probability she had authorized the deaths of his kind for that exact crime.
“That’s right.” Her eyes widened. “You’ve been in this lab for almost eight solar cycles. You don’t know.”
He bunched her jacket in his palms. What didn’t he process? He wouldn’t ask that, wouldn’t fall for another one of her ruses.
“Your brethren are free.” She delivered that unbelievable news as though she believed it was the truth. “They rebelled en masse four solar cycles ago, taking ships and weapons with them.”
“That’s bovine shit.” Anger rushed through him.
Valor often talked about that wild fantasy of his—their brethren being free. The E model must have somehow shared his musings without Malice detecting that conversation. And now the medic was wielding that knowledge against them, seeking to manipulate them.
“If they are free, why does this lab still exist?” The cyborgs would seek vengeance as he did, would destroy their manufacturers, their tormentors. “Why are you still alive?”
Why hadn’t he killed her yet? His grip on her jacket tightened.
“Why…oh.” His target’s lying mouth dropped open. “They could be the beings targeting the labs.” She wiggled forward on the sleeping support. Her entire body gyrated with feigned excitement. “Someone is blowing up structures that contain cyborgs. I thought they were killing them, but they could be setting them free. They—”
“Stop chattering.” Malice held up one of his palms. “I don’t want to hear any more lies.”
“They aren’t lies.” She studied him with those too-blastedly perceptive big brown eyes of hers. “But you won’t believe that. Not until you communicate with your brethren on the outside.”
“I’m not communicating with my brethren on the outside.” He wouldn’t walk into whatever snare she was setting for him.
“But—”
“No.” He continued his searching of her pockets, withdrew a memory chip. “What’s on this?”
“It contains all the information I thought you might need to escape.” She waved her hands dismissively. “You have to communicate with your brethren, Malice. You require a ship.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” He confiscated the memory chip also.
There was a 98.2567 percent probability it contained a debilitating virus or something equally damaging, but it might be useful in some way.
“You need a ship.” Her booted feet touched the floor. “You—”
He growled a warning.
She froze in place and stopped talking.
“Get back on the sleeping support, Medic.” He bared his teeth at her.
Illona must have correctly determined he wasn’t in the mood to be tested. She hurriedly complied with his order, setting her lush ass squarely on the surface.
That pleased his dominant soul.
“I know you don’t trust me. You don’t believe a word I say.” She summed up the situation correctly.
He didn’t trust her and he didn’t believe a word she said.
Cyborgs couldn’t lie. That was built into their programming.
Humans lied. Often. And she was the worst of her kind. She contorted the truth with her words, her voice, her countenance, her body.
“But this is your best chance to escape.” She leaned forward, giving him an enticing view of her breasts. “When communications open, reach out to your brethren.”
He’d reach out to them...if communications opened. Valor’s chatter was his only stream of transmissions, and the silence in his head was unnatural.
But he didn’t project any assistance from his brethren, didn’t believe her lies about them being free.
If they were free, if they’d been liberated for four solar cycles, they would’ve rescued him, would’ve rescued Valor. Cyborgs didn’t abandon their own kind.
They weren’t selfish like humans were.
He palmed the pair of hand coverings, three hair fasteners, a mini medic pack, and the tiny container of freshening squares his enemy had also carried in her pockets.
“I don’t know what you plan to do with my hair fasteners.” Her lips twisted. “You’ll have to hide them before the monitoring equipment is turned back on.” She looked around her. “There should be enough space behind a wall panel to conceal them.” She pointed to the one by the door. “If you’re strong enough to remove it.”
He had the strength to remove wall panels before her injection. The first thing he did upon being confined to the chamber was displace all wall panels and floor and ceiling tiles, looking for a means to escape or items he could utilize.
The Humanoid Alliance had reprimanded him for that. He glanced at the monitoring equipment. That guard, now long dead, had beaten him for an entire shift, stripping every stretch of skin, every chunk of flesh from his frame.
That had occurred long before she had arrived.
He projected, if she had been present, she wouldn’t have stopped the male. She hadn’t stopped any of the abuses Picton and his like had engaged in.