Cyborg Doms: Fane (11 page)

* * * * *

Fane ran his hand over Tamara's bottom. The smooth flesh goose bumped beneath his palm. He licked his lips. The taste of her lingered there, bringing instant arousal. He wanted to stay snuggled against the woman he loved, bathing in the joy of intimacy. With a sigh, he pressed his face into her hair, inhaling her scent. "I have to go.

Jace is in trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Tamara stretched in his arms. "I thought you pair could get out of anything."

I have no choice . . . I have to tell her the truth.
"I haven't been completely honest with you." Fane sat up. "Truth is . . . as crazy as it sounds . . . we're from the future. We escaped and used a wormhole to travel back in time to here. Our boss, Gryd, followed us. Don't ask me how. I thought the wormhole was random, and we destroyed all our tracers."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Tamara's fingers clawed at the sheets.

"After all that's happened, you still don't trust me, do you?"

Cupping her cheek, Fane rested his forehead against hers. He stared into her eyes. Nothing would spoil this. He would destroy Gryd if he came between them now.

"I didn't want to scare you off. Having a relationship with you means everything to me.

You may think it's premature to say this . . . but I want you in my life. I know all this information about my past is hard to believe. To be honest, babe, I already trust you with my life."

"If you really want a relationship with me, Fane, I need you to trust me. There can't be any more surprises like this . . . do you understand?" Tamara moved away and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She lifted her head and glared at him. "Say I believe you . . .
Jesus,
it must be true; nobody could possibly make up a story like this .

. . . Okay Fane, I
believe
you." Tamara rubbed the bridge of her nose. "What does this mean?" She met his gaze. "Intergalactic war?"

Taking her shoulders, Fane frowned. "No, Gryd thinks he owns us. He's here collecting his lost property. I'm not going back to that hell-hole and neither is Jace." He shook his head slowly. "Gryd is a twisted son-of-a-bitch. He wants me to kill Jace to entertain his friends. I'm not returning to Terros 9 with Gryd . . . I'd rather die."

"How did you escape?"

"Gryd sent us on a mission to find females. I'm guessing he thought we went off course and got sucked into the wormhole."

"Explain why you were supposedly collecting females."

She'll never understand if I tell her the truth.
"Gryd contracts females from other planets for short-term employment." Fane ran a hand through his hair. "Gryd's trying to contact us. Jace thought he had destroyed all evidence of our existence. So, I have no idea how Gryd tracked us here, but he's coming, and he won't give up until he finds us."

Fane watched Tamara consider the problem. She got out of bed and paced the room. Her naked body was spectacular. He wanted to kiss her pink cheeks, crush her delectable lips with his, and run his fingers through her red, tousled hair. He sat on the edge of the bed and fought to concentrate. "Jace wondered if you could make him appear to be dead."

"No, but I do have something that will knock out Gryd long enough for you to deal with the problem."

"How do you plan to get close enough to disable the man?" Fane scratched the stubble on his chin. "He'll have guards for protection. Our only hope is for Jace to disable the cyborgs protecting Gryd. Then we'll kill the bastard."

"I'm not going to condone killing the man. If I have a way to tranquilize Gryd, could you drop him off the ship, on some deserted planet where he can't do any damage?"

Fane frowned. "Gryd would cause damage wherever he went, but yes, for you I'll drop him off
somewhere
in space." He smiled down at Tamara. "So what is your plan?"

"Are you able to make yourself immune to a gas if I give you the components?"

Tamara met Fane's gaze. "I have nasal filters, but they won't work if you intend to speak to the man."

"Jace would be able to come up with something to neutralize the gas and upload it into our AIs."

"How long have we got?" Tamara gazed at the alarm clock.

Fane shrugged and got to his feet. "A couple of hours at least; Jace thinks Gryd's ship is in orbit."

"We need to shower." Tamara ran both hands through her hair. "You can grab some breakfast for us at the deli next to my surgery, while I collect what I need. No one will be around this early on a Saturday. I can set everything up in a few minutes. Then we can face this asshole together."

Fane closed the distance between them and took her shoulders. "You can't come with us; it's too dangerous."

"Oh, yes I can. You need me. Tell Gryd . . . . Tell him I'm one of the females you collected…or whatever. I don't have to speak . . . do I? He will have no idea I'm carrying the gas. He won't see the nasal filters either."

Fane pulled her hard against his body and crushed her lips with a searing kiss.

He lifted his head and gazed down at her. Her delicious mouth curled up at the corners.

Their eyes met, and he grinned. "
You
are some gutsy lady."

* * * * *

An hour later, they rendezvoused with Jace at the Strand Hotel. Fane detailed Tamara's plan, and Jace got to work uploading an anti-gas response program into their AIs.

"We already have something similar for drugs." Jace smiled at Tamara. "Our manufacturers didn't want us to have any pleasure from recreational drugs, and poisons don't have any effect either. Alcohol is the only thing that affects our bodies.

The bastards gave us that little consideration. Anyhow, to make a long story short, I treated the gas like a poison." He grinned. "I've used their technology against them."

Fane rubbed the stubble on his chin. "We can't risk allowing Gryd into the city.

There is no telling what damage he may do to the timeline."

"Then we go out to the woods and wait." Jace shot Fane a grin. "We could make Tamara look like a Vallion female. I will inform Gryd we crashed, and your AI is damaged."

"How do you plan to change me?" Tamara stared up at Jace.

"I've already purchased some cosmetics to disguise you. It will be easy to put a few leopard spots on your face and neck."

"What will you do when this is over?" Tamara glared at Jace. "Go back to rescue your friends on Terros 9?"

"I'm not going back to Terros 9. My life is here now, with Fane." Jace met her gaze. "I'm planning to kill Gryd on his own ship and jettison his body into space."

Fane moved to Tamara's side and slipped an arm around her shoulder. "Tamara won't condone killing him."

"Really?" Jace turned away and gazed out of the window. "She may change her mind when she meets Gryd."

"Do you think Gryd will have a battalion of soldiers with him, Jace?" Tamara leaned against Fane.

"Not a battalion—my guess is that he brought two others with him." Jace turned to face them. "They are in a starship, similar to the one we arrived in. It's too small to carry more than eight. He plans to pick up two females and us, so he can only have two, maybe three men with him. This tells me he believes we'll cooperate."

Fane rubbed the back of his neck. "Can you pick up who he has with him?"

"Not yet, but I will when he drops into range. Gryd is using the ship's computer to communicate with me." Jace smiled. "It won't be the two men I incapacitated or any of the other cyborgs on Terros 9. I made sure of that before I left by destroying the pilot program database. So it has to be a couple of new pilots. Before we left, I picked up some information about a couple of new recruits from Javronia. Gryd had them doing some real kinky stuff at the Labinia Conference." He pushed the hair from his face. "If they came from my old unit, they will be able to override their AIs. This being the case, I'll try to convince them to join us. I can't see this being a problem, to be honest. By now, they will be as sick of Gryd as we are. As soon as they agree to go along with our plan, I'll upload the gas protection program into their AIs. The process is simple and takes about a millisecond."

* * * * *

Tamara stiffened in Fane's warm embrace.
Kinky things at a conference?
There was more to Terros 9 than she thought. What else had Fane neglected to tell her? Good heavens, would he ever tell her the truth about his life on Terros 9? Her emotions were all over the place. In truth, she had fallen for the man. The sex was phenomenal. She could give up Whips
to have him in her life. In time, he would grow a little and learn to accommodate her need for domination. She had enjoyed his sex play, the way he took charge,
but,
if he continued to withhold important things about his past life, how could she ever trust him. "Fane, before I agree to get myself completely involved in all this, are you
sure
there's nothing else you need to tell me about your life as Gryd's slave?"

"It would take months to cover everything that happened over the past four years. For now, you'll just have to trust me. When we reach the ship, everything will be new to you and no doubt a little frightening. You will be witnessing technology far beyond your time. Gryd will arrive in a starship . . . your people don't build spacecraft like these for another thousand years." Fane rubbed her arms. "Just stick to the plan, and everything will go smoothly. Gryd is an idiot, and he won't be expecting an attack. The gas will take him, and it will be over in a few minutes."

After allowing Jace to cover her face and neck with leopard spots, Tamara stood looking at her refection. She glowered at Fane. "Is this what you consider beautiful on your planet?"

"The Vallions are descended from cats. There are many different females in the universe and beyond, all beautiful in their way but none as lovely as you." Fane brushed Tamara's mouth with a kiss.

Tamara shook her head and picked up her backpack. The tiny, glass, gas cylinders hung from a silver bracelet concealed under the sleeve of her blouse. She followed the men from the hotel room. They rode the elevator down to the lobby and left by the main entrance. Their flybikes waited outside in the parking lot. She pushed on a helmet and climbed on behind Fane. Within ten minutes, they were deep in the forest.

"We'll leave the bikes here and walk to the clearing. If we get separated, we'll meet back at the hotel." Fane removed his helmet. "Gryd will soon pinpoint our position; he's very close." He took Tamara's hand. "We'll have to go into space to find a place to drop off Gryd, but it will only take a couple hours. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

A shiver ran down Tamara's back. She forced a smile. "Yes."

Fane stepped away and joined Jace a few paces away from her. The next second, their clothes changed into body-hugging, dark blue uniforms. Tamara gaped at the two men.
I don't believe it.

"Fuck you, Fane . . . you didn't tell her about our abilities, did you?" Jace strode toward Tamara. "We didn't mean to scare you . . . God . . . I'm sorry."

She looked from one tragic face to the other. She rubbed her temples with trembling fingers. "I don't think anything you two do surprises me anymore, to be honest . . . but before we continue, is there anything else
important
about the pair of you
,
I should know?" She shot a glance at Fane. "Anything that has a bearing on our relationship?"

"Not really. Well, nothing else I
care
to explain at this moment." Fane gave a shrug. "Whatever I say will be strange to you. You're from a different century. Some ways of life are normal in our time. It's difficult trying to take this
primitive
Earth into consideration every time I do or say something."

Nothing he cares to explain?
Tamara stalked off, pushing the branches out of her way and heading deeper into the forest.
Her face stung from the small cuts inflicted by the branches.
Primitive? Well, la-de-da.

"Tamara," Fane bellowed. "The clearing is this way."

Drawing a deep breath, Tamara spun around and stamped back to Fane. She completely ignored the hand he offered and marched along behind Jace. She swiped at the scratches on her face. When this was over, she would have a long chat with Fane.

Relationship—he
wanted
a relationship—well, no way would she consider this
arrangement
until he came clean and told her about his past. Lord, space ships, time travel, cyborgs—what would happen next? She had begun to feel like she had fallen down a rabbit hole into another dimension. Her stomach clenched. What was she getting herself into with these weird men?

On the perimeter of a wide clearing, they stopped and waited in the shadow of a huge oak tree. In this beautiful place, peace surrounded her. In the clearing, sunlight from a cloudless sky streamed down upon the lush grass. Buttercups and tiny, white daises mingled in the waves of green strands, a feast for the butterflies and black-and-yellow-striped bees darting from bloom to bloom. The familiar scents of the forest, of flowers and damp leaves, soothed Tamara's shattered nerves.

She touched Jace's arm. "Do they make cyborgs exclusively from men from Earth? Are many other races out there? You have unusual features, so I'm assuming you are from a different planet."

"Yes, many different races have AIs in our time. There are many different types of Humanoid throughout our galaxy. Only people from Earth are referred to as human.

I'm from Javronia, so strictly speaking, I'm not human. On Javronia, we evolved from faeries. On earth, faeries are mythological . . . most likely the myth started because Javronians visited your planet many centuries ago." He laughed. "My guess is Gryd evolved from a pig, but don't quote me on that."

Tamara swallowed hard. She looked at Jace in disbelief. "You're . . . not . . .

human . . . you came from faeries . . . oh—my—God."

"I'm human." Fane ran a hand down her back. He laughed. "Well . . . I used to be."

An hour later, Jace indicated he had received a message from Gryd, informing them of his imminent arrival. Tamara's heart began to race. Calm down, she told herself.
What is there to worry about?
She considered the situation for one horrifying second. Hell, she was standing waiting for a
spaceship
to land, one carrying a deranged psychopath. No, she had nothing to worry about, nothing at all. After all, she had two