Defying Death (7 page)

Death grunted.

Her attention returned to his sizable erection. “I
might take other samples from you.” She darted her tongue over her
bottom lip.

“Those other samples are ready to be taken.” His
eyes glittered.

She traced his hipbones. “I should wear gloves, find
a specimen container.” Taking the samples with her hands, with her
mouth, would result in cross-contamination.

He grasped her wrists, his grip achingly gentle.
“Not this time.” He placed her hands on his shaft. “Pleasure me
first. Poke and prod me later.”

Her fingers instinctively curled around his girth,
and a rumble rolled up her cyborg’s chest, his reaction
reassuringly humanlike. He liked her touch and she liked touching
him. His cock was soft skin over hard tissue, the contrast
enthralling her.

“You’re all organic here.” Her voice was husky.
Slickness covered his shaft. “And you’re self-lubricating.” That
was an efficient modification.

Death said nothing.

“I wonder what the lubrication is.” Deprived of her
devices, she’d have to rely on more primitive means of discovery.
She leaned closer and inhaled. “There’s a metallic scent.” She
flicked her tongue over his skin.

He groaned. His fingers folded into giant fists.

“Yes, I taste minerals.” His essence fizzed and
popped on her tongue. “And nanocybotics.”

“They’re concentrated in my cum and my saliva.”

His body must use traces of cum to slick his shaft.
She stroked him, enjoying the length of him. He was a cleverly
designed being. Even his cock head was broader than an average
human male’s, better able to seal sperm in his female’s womb.

Tifara ran her fingers over that part of him,
circled his rim, followed the veins on his cock. What would he feel
like inside her? She wiggled, her thighs brushing together, her
pussy embarrassingly wet.

“My female.” His voice reached down deep inside
her.

She was fully dressed. He was naked. Yet his eyes
blazed with lust, with desire for her. He saw her not as a medic
but as a female.

It was a thrillingly unique experience. No other
male had ever viewed her that way.

Tifara pumped him, sliding her hands from his base
to his tip.

“I need to breed with you.” He rocked. “Either with
your mouth or your pussy.”

She hesitated. To take him inside her was a huge
step.

“I want that connection with you.” Death met her
gaze, the yearning in his eyes tugging at her heart. “I don’t want
to find release alone.”

“Okay,” Tifara relented. “I’ll give you that
connection.” She dropped to her knees before him. “But you’ll still
find release alone. Sucking you off won’t make me come.”

“Won’t it?”

Tifara didn’t know. She was no longer certain about
anything. She licked his tip. His nanocybotics bubbled inside her,
multiplying, spreading.

He smelled of metal and aroused male. His heat
surrounded her. She laved the flat of her tongue over him, moaning
with pleasure. The damn cyborg stimulated all of her senses.

“I should be exhausted.” She nuzzled against his
balls, inhaling his unique scent. “Yet I’m not.”

“My nanocybotics give you strength.” Death threaded
his fingers through her hair. His big hands trembled. “And you need
me too much to wait.”

“I’ve never needed any being this much.” It must be
the virus but Tifara was past the point of caring. She pushed her
lips over his cock head and gently sucked.

His fingers twisted in her curls. “Need you. As
much.” His chest heaved as though he was fighting a battle with
himself. “My female. Mine.”

Tifara tongued his slit, delving into him, seeking
more of his delicious flavor. No two cyborgs had the same
nanocybotics. That was as individual as a set of human
fingerprints. Was their cum as distinctive?

She couldn’t imagine any male tasting better than he
did.

“More. Give me more of your hot mouth.” He pulled on
her hair, the pinpricks of pain arousing her. Her warrior was
impatient.

She shouldn’t find that as flattering as she did.
Tifara sank down, down, down on him. His tip tapped the back of her
throat. She covered his remaining shaft with her fingers.

“Worth it.” Death gazed at her with a thrilling
intensity. “This was so fraggin’ worth it.”

Tifara didn’t know what he was referring to but she
heard the wonder in his voice. She did that, inspired this tough
male’s awe.

He wasn’t thinking of killing now. She bobbed
against him, inhaling his cock and releasing, inhaling and
releasing, her cheeks indenting around his shaft.

Death moved also, his expression strained, his lips
set in a grim white line. She gazed up at him, captured by the
concentration on his handsome face. All of his focus was on her, on
this moment.

They collided and drew apart, repeating this action
again and again. Some of the tension in his face eased.

That was unacceptable. She slapped his shaft with
her tongue, striving to push him closer to the edge, to drive him
insane with desire.

His pace increased until he fucked her mouth wildly.
His balls smacked her chin. She gripped his hips, holding on, his
frame unrelenting under her palms, a reminder that this was no
human she was sucking off. A cyborg was driving his cock between
her lips.

She ratcheted her suction higher and a low whine
rose from his throat, like a ship ripping loose from its holding
bay. His rhythm became unpredictable. He lunged forward, pulled
himself back, varying his speed and angle.

All signs of the cool, calculating machine had
disappeared. He was gloriously organic, a creature of passion, of
fierce emotion, more savage with his loving than any human she’d
encountered.

It drew a corresponding response from her. Her pussy
throbbed. Her nipples ached. She tingled all over, her skin
shimmering with sexual awareness, with wanting.

It was too much. Tifara cupped his balls with one of
her hands. She had to end it.

Death thrust deep. She squeezed.

He gritted his teeth, skin stretched over his
cheekbones, and he pushed farther into her, coming silently. Hot
cum splattered against her battered throat. She swallowed and
swallowed.

And screamed around his cock, her world imploding,
collapsing like a dying star into itself. Pleasure, unlike any
she’d ever known, ravished her, tearing her soul apart. Lights
flashed in her brain. The bridge spun around her.

She swallowed and screamed, swallowed and screamed.
He poured endless amounts of himself into her and she took it all,
every drop laced with bliss. Her body shook. Her pussy clenched
around nothing.

His nanocybotics rushed through her, a wave of
energy, of possession, of change. She gazed up at him, her eyes
wide with disbelief. He was altering her very structure. She had no
scientific proof to back up this claim, but she knew it was
true.

“Mine.” Death lowered to his knees and pulled her
into his arms, pressing her face against his chest. His heart beat
in triple time. “My female.” He petted her back, the heat of his
palms felt through her layers of clothing.

It could have been the flush of orgasm, she
reasoned, gazing unseeingly at his square chin. The intensity of
her release could have created the illusion he’d changed her.

But she’d seen viruses work that quickly. With some
outbreaks, patients died within five breaths of infection.

She knew, in her heart, in her soul, that he had
further infected her.

Not that she felt like she’d die. Bliss shrouded her
soul. She felt invigorated, euphoric, floating on a cloud of
bliss.

Tifara glanced at Death’s face. A hint of a smile
curled his lips. His eyes gleamed, the brown depths lit with gold.
He wasn’t worried either. He appeared almost happy.

The nanocybotics within her didn’t fade.

She continued to change and she suspected she’d
never change back.

Alarmed, Tifara lifted her head. “We can’t do this
again.”

“We
will
do this again.” Satisfaction
softened his words. “Many times.”

“No, we won’t.” She pushed on his shoulders, needing
distance from him to think, to comprehend what had happened.

He didn’t move.

“I feel you inside me, Death, even more than I did
when you kissed me.” Panic swelled inside her. “Your
nanocybotics—”

“Will replicate inside you, never dissipating.” He
petted her, as though seeking to calm her with his touch. “They’ll
repair your cells. You won’t show signs of aging.”

“What?” Stunned, she rested her forehead on his left
pec. “You’re telling me that I’ll live forever?”

All of her friends, all of her family had already
died. Her gaze drifted to the white scarf wrapped around the
armrest of Death’s chair. It looked achingly similar to the one
she’d given Safyre. But it couldn’t be because her friend was dead.
Her patients, future and past, would die too.

And she’d live an eternity alone.

“You won’t die of natural causes.” Death’s grip on
her curls tightened. “And, while there is life in my body, I’ll
protect you from other threats.”

“You’ll kill beings.” She would be forever linked to
him, a killer. “You’re not a medic. How can you be certain I’ll
live forever? Yes, your nanocybotics might repair my cells now but
how do you know that five planet rotations, one solar cycle, or
five solar cycles from now, they won’t turn on my cells and attack
them?”

He opened his mouth, paused, then pressed his lips
together. His forehead furrowed with thought lines.

“You don’t know.” She shook her head. “You’re
infecting innocent beings and you have no idea what the
consequences are.”

“You’re the only being I’ve
infected
.” His
eyes blazed with anger. “And it isn’t a virus.”

“It is,” she insisted.

He gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “It
isn’t.”

“It has to be.” Tifara gazed at him. “Stopping an
outbreak is my destiny. When I had ten solar cycles, an outbreak
spread throughout my home planet. There was no cure so the Humanoid
Alliance quarantined the area, not allowing anyone in or out. One
by one, my mother, my brothers, my aunts, uncles, cousins,
grandparents, friends, became ill. I tried to care for them but
they grew sicker and sicker. They were in horrible pain.”

He scooped her into his arms and relocated to his
chair, setting her on his lap.

She rested her cheek on his bare chest, drawing
strength from his heartbeat. He was there. She wasn’t alone, not
like she’d been then. “They’d scream with agony, blood dripping
from their ears and eyes. I thought that was horrifying. But then
they started to die and the silence was even scarier.”

The urban center had been quiet, still. Transports
were abandoned in pathways. There was no response on the
communication devices.

“I couldn’t bury the bodies. There was very little
open ground.” And she hadn’t the strength to break it. “At first, I
moved the dead to one, then two, then three domiciles. Soon, there
were too many bodies to relocate.” That had felt like another
failure.

Death rubbed her back, his palms large and warm and
comforting.

“Their bodies bloated, split open, rotted. The
smell.” She trembled. “I’ll never forget it. There was no one to
talk to.”

“You talked to yourself.”

“I had to. The quiet was driving me mad. I was
alone, the sole survivor.” Being in an urban center, she’d raided
domiciles for nutrition bars and containers of liquid, but every
space held bodies, their faces twisted in pain, the smell clinging
to her skin, her garments. “The Humanoid Alliance had to be certain
the virus had run its course. They waited until the bodies were
bones, picked clean by invertebrates. An investigation team found
me.”

They’d studied her, discovered she had a genetic
anomaly. She’d been the key to the cure they’d been searching for.
They said it had been fate, destiny that she survived.

“My family didn’t die for nothing.” Tifara lifted
her chin. “I was meant to live through that outbreak and I’m
destined to stop the next one. If this isn’t a virus, this can’t
happen.” She swirled her hands in a circle between them. “I
shouldn’t be here and I shouldn’t be with you. You should return me
to the battle station and—”

“I’m not returning you.” Death’s arms tightened
around her waist. “You’re mine.”

She waited for him to say more.

He didn’t. Her cyborg wasn’t a chatty being.

Tifara didn’t mind his silence. She’d grown
accustomed to talking to herself and felt guilty whenever she
talked over other beings.

With Death, she didn’t have that problem.

“Yes, I’m yours. I’m your partner,” she assured him.
“We’ll work together to find the cure. Don’t you worry.” She patted
his arms.

He grunted.

That sounded like he wasn’t worried but he should
be. He was contagious.

“We should compile the data we have.” She leaned
back into his body, her eyelids growing heavy. “We don’t have time
to waste.”

He was warm and smelled good and she hadn’t slept
much during the past few planet rotations. She closed her eyes,
only for a moment. Telling him about her family had been
emotionally draining.

And the deaths, those were always tough on her
heart. “We.” Tifara yawned. “Yes, we.” She struggled to find the
next word. “Should.”

She drifted into the blackness of a deep dreamless
sleep.

His female
was asleep. Although she mumbled random words, talking even during
her rest cycle, her cognitive processes were offline and her face
was soft. She was unaware, vulnerable, trusting him to protect
her.

His chest expanded with pride. He would. He wouldn’t
allow any being to touch her. She fought their connection, spoke of
returning to the battle station and curing her link with him, yet
eventually she’d accept it, accept him. She was his.