Cyborg Nation (7 page)

She got up and moved to the work area to clean the remains of her food into the incinerator unit and clean her plate and utensil. It was something to do, at least, to occupy her hands and mind. Hearing the dull clank of the others’ plates and the stirring of movement, she wasn’t startled when she felt a presence beside her. She turned to discover it was the one with green eyes and he was holding a stack of plates. She reached to take them from him.

“It is my turn to clean up.”

She didn’t look at him. “I might as well have a turn, too. God knows I don’t want to be thought useless!”

“You are a doctor and much needed. Your place in our society is assured, as are your comfort and well being.”

They could tell her that forever and it wasn’t going to make her feel any less threatened! They were cyborgs, for fuck’s sake! They already had an unfair advantage! Even supposing these mythical children that needed her care appeared—and she couldn’t figure out how they thought
that
was going to happen in this little community they were working so hard to build—it wasn’t as if she could guard either her knowledge or her experience from them. They would learn—a lot faster than she had—and then they wouldn’t need her!

She wasn’t really surprised to discover when she looked up at him that tears blurred her vision. She was deep down scared and depressed besides. “Oh!” she snapped sarcastically. “Well
now
I feel all better!”

As she looked at him angrily, the tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks.

A frown drew his dark brows together as his gaze followed the path. When he met her gaze again, his face had darkened and grown taut with fury. She had just enough time to feel faint when he whirled abruptly on his heel and stalked across the main cabin. Grabbing Gabriel by the shoulder, he snatched him around to meet the fist he slung at him.

Bronte’s jaw dropped as the loud, meaty sound hit her ears like an explosion. Gabriel flew backwards, skidding across the table they’d been eating at moments before and sending the glasses filled with water flying in every direction.

“Jerico!” Gideon bellowed, launching himself from the pilot’s seat and barreling toward the two men just as Jerico launched himself on top of the fallen man … or tried to … with his hands extended toward Gabriel’s throat. Quicker than thought, Gabriel brought his knees to his chest, caught Jerico with his feet and catapulted him across the small room. He slammed into the cabinets only inches from Bronte. Uttering a squeak of fright, Bronte dropped the dish she’d been holding and whirled to run.

Leaving complete mayhem behind her, she dashed into the rear cabin and looked around frantically for a place to hide. She’d already dashed toward the bathroom when she skidded to a halt at the realization that it was very likely the first place they would look for her. Besides, it didn’t have a lock.

She whirled, whipping her head from side to side in a frantic search for possibilities, dimly aware that the sounds of a fight were escalating not diminishing, as if all three men were now in the midst of battle. The space under the bunk was small, but she thought she could get under it. The problem was, under the bed would probably be their second guess if it wasn’t the first.

Racing to the clothing locker, she popped the door open, gauged the size of the shelves and decided she could just squeeze into the bottom area. Grabbing the clothing from it, she had already tossed them over her shoulder before it dawned on her the scattered clothes would be a dead giveaway. Snatching them up again, she looked around a little wildly and finally threw them under the bunk. She scraped the hide off of her arms and shins climbing into the cubby hole at the bottom of the clothing locker, and it was a miserably tight fit besides, but she managed to get in to it.

Closing the door behind her was even harder. Persistence paid off, though. Cramped as she was, she had no difficulty retaining body heat. Despite the shock and fright that had her shivering, she began to grow warm fairly quickly. She couldn’t hear the fracas from inside the locker—not nearly as well anyway—but she counted that as a good thing, covering her ears with her hands for good measure. The moment she did that, it completely drowned out everything except her heart beat, which was pounding like tribal war drums.

She was too scared at first to even consider what had happened with anything approaching cognitive thought. She couldn’t get the violent images out of her mind, though. Over and over, like a damaged vid that kept hitting a bad spot and replaying everything before, her mind vividly recreated Jerico’s fist slamming into Gabriel’s face, Gabriel flying backwards across the dining table, Jerico flying backwards across the room and the expression on Gideon’s face that promised even more fist slinging. Closing her eyes only seemed to make it worse, though how that could be the case when she was trapped in the dark already she couldn’t imagine.

She’d thought for certain she’d enraged Jerico by being so snippy and sarcastic. Well, she supposed she had. She shuddered. She wasn’t sure if it was the violence itself or the horror she felt that men
that
big were strong enough to sling each other around that had her shaking like a leaf. Both, she decided.

It wasn’t as if she had never seen violence. She’d seen the end results of it many times when she’d interned. She’d seen a lot of actual violence, but as a
spectator
staring at news clips or entertainment vids, not real life right on top of her violence.

The door of the locker opened abruptly. Bronte squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. After a moment though, when the door didn’t close again, she opened one eye a crack to see what was going on.

Gideon was crouched on the floor, studying her. Bronte stared back at him with a mixture of embarrassment, distrust, and fear. Jerico and Gabriel joined him, peering at her with expressions she found impossible to interpret.

All three men were breathing deeply from exertion, their hair wild and their faces battered and bleeding. After staring at her for several moments, the three exchanged accusing glares.

“Do not even think about it,” Gideon said in a low, warning growl when Jerico and Gabriel bristled at one another. The two men turned to glare at him, but they subsided.

“Soldiers get rowdy when they have been too long from action,” Gideon offered.

Bronte stared at him. Apparently he recalled that they had seen ‘action’ only the day before when both Jerico and Gabriel had been shot escaping with her. “It was a long flight to Earth,” he added uncomfortably.

He blew out a breath of irritation and turned to glare at the two in question. “Go and clean up the mess and repair the damage to the mid-section.”

Neither man looked terribly pleased by the order, but they shot to their feet, saluted, and left. “Are you hurt?”

Bronte thought that over, but the only injuries she could claim were self-inflicted when she was trying to get away from the fight. When he asked, she felt twinges, bruising from slamming into everything in her path in her mad dash to reach safety. “No,” she said finally instead of pointing out that that was because she’d had enough sense of self-preservation to get as far away from the battle as fast as she could. If she’d been caught in the crossfire they could’ve knocked her head clean off her shoulders, or landed on her and crushed her.

“Can you get out?”

She couldn’t prevent a blush as his gaze assessed the space she’d crammed herself into. The question, though, was did she want to? And could he make her get out if she didn’t want to?

He took the locker apart shelve by shelf. She wasn’t certain if the shelves had been designed to be removable, but he removed them anyway. When he’d removed the shelves, he reached in, grabbed her by her upper arms and hauled her out.

Chapter Five

Bronte had to lock her knees to keep from falling when he set her on her feet. She winced as she straightened, every muscle and joint in her body protesting from being cramped up so long.

Apparently he saw the wince. He moved his hands over her, carefully checking bones and joints for breakage, she supposed. Just as she was lulled by the gentleness of his touch, he grabbed the front of the suit and ripped it open from neck to crotch. Bronte sucked in a sharp breath of surprise, too stunned even to protest as he casually stripped the suit off of her. By the time she’d caught her breath, she discovered that he was
still
examining her, her flesh now instead of the bones, though why he thought he needed to when he could see at a glance that she wasn’t bleeding was beyond her. A frown drew his brows together as he examined the long bruises on her forearms and those on her shins from her dive into her hiding place.

“Get dressed,” he said finally and moved away.

Relieved, Bronte bent to grab the suit puddled around her ankles and pulled it up, shoving her arms into the sleeves. She was still trying to align the mesh on the front closure when his hand closed around her wrist. Without a word, he dragged her toward the bunk. She tripped over the pant legs as they reached the bunk, sprawling across his lap as he sat down and tugged her toward him.

She nearly impaled herself on the scalpel he held in his hand. Fortunately, he could move fast. He dropped it before she could fall on it. He gave her a reproving look as he righted her—as if she’d dove toward the thing on purpose!

Pushing her back so that she plopped down on his knee, which was behind her, he caught one wrist and straightened her arm. “Hold still,” he said, a thread of irritation in his voice as he picked up the scalpel he’d dropped.

Bronte shot to her feet, or rather tried. He hooked his other arm around her waist and held her, giving her a look that dared her to move. She would’ve jumped to her feet again anyway except that the second time, he grabbed the sleeve and slit the excess fabric before she had time to try to snatch her arm back or jump to her feet.

“Oh,” she said weakly when she realized he was only trying to cut the suit down to size.

He sent her a dry look as he caught her other arm and cut the end off of that sleeve. Feeling more than a little sheepish, she lifted her leg and placed it across his opposite knee when he’d finished trimming the sleeves. He sent her a look, but instead of pointing out that she could trim the pants legs as easily as he could—which she belatedly realized—he merely pinched the fabric up and trimmed the material off just above her ankle.

“I can do that,” she said uncomfortably as he reached for her other leg.

He ignored her, grasping her ankle and lifting her leg. The move overbalanced her. She made a grab for him as she felt herself tipping backwards and clawed three furrows across his chest before she managed to hook her hand around his upper arm and catch herself. Fortunately, it wasn’t deep enough to draw blood, only to raise welts. Feeling a little nauseated, she checked under her nails for skin anyway.

He was glaring at her when she looked up from examining her nails. The look made her uneasy, especially after what had happened the last time she’d hurt him. Reaching over, she rubbed her fingers over the welts soothingly and leaned down to blow on them for good measure. “Better?” she asked hopefully when she straightened again.

He rolled his eyes heavenward. Shaking his head, more as if from disgust than in answer to her question, he caught her waist, as if he meant to set her away from him. Instead, he paused once his hands had settled on her hips. He seemed to wrestle with himself.

“We are not accustomed to being around women … only other soldiers like ourselves,” he said haltingly and then frowned. “Disputes are often settled with fists, especially when there is no officer around—and no danger of ending up in the brig as disciplinary action. Not one of us would harm you—not intentionally. Beyond the fact that we are under orders to bring you back safely—and it would mean our lives if we failed—we do not make war on women.” His gaze flickered over her. “But you are human....”

Frowning, she looked away from him.

He caught her face and made her meet his gaze. “Frail compared to us—even our women. In the heat of battle....” He broke off and shrugged. “You were wise to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, but you do not need to hide. No one will come after you. No one will turn their anger on you. The next time, just return to the cabin and wait for the argument to resolve itself.”

She gave him a look of disbelief. “But you....”

Something gleamed in his eyes at the reminder, but she didn’t think it was amusement. “I did not say you did not have to concern yourself that there would be
no
consequences for your actions, only that you need not be afraid that we will hurt you.”

He almost seemed to shrug. “You are in no less danger aboard this ship in that respect than you would be in any other if you were to find yourself among men—human men—who have not touched a woman in a very long time.

“Men, I might add, who have no mate waiting for our return and little prospect of finding one.”

Bronte stared at him in disbelief. “Well! If you think the prospect of being gang raped by three men is any less of a threat than being beat up, you certainly don’t know a damned thing about women!”

He closed his eyes, as if seeking patience.

Or maybe not. His eyes were blazing when he opened them again, and not with anger. “I never said anything about rape, Bronte. Believe me when I say you would be more than willing. I know exactly how to touch you and where to touch you. There is nothing about human sexuality that I do not know. I could give you more pleasure than you ever imagined possible and when I took you, you would be begging me to.”

Bronte opened her mouth to dispute that despite the fact that his words, in and of themselves, without a single touch, had made everything inside of her go warm and liquid and quivery. His lips curled, as if he was waiting for her to issue the challenge trembling on the tip of her tongue. It gave her pause.

She still had to
fight
the urge to issue the challenge, not because she doubted for a moment that a denial
would
be a challenge to him but because she had an insane urge to see if he could do what he claimed.