Cyberella: Preyfinders Universe (30 page)

The very idea was potent. The second twitch his cock gave made her clench in reply and she whispered, “Oh.” Lust was incarnate in his flesh. His touch electric.

“Fuck me, please.” She sucked on her lip, wriggled a little, begging with more than words.

One of his hands clawed into her ass, stilling her.

“With my cock, Ella. With
this
cock...” He grappled the rope tighter, thrust into her a little. “I thee wed.” Then he slid into her to the very depths, pulsing into her, shoving through her flesh and making her his, connecting them as one. “I wed all of you, all your imperfections and all of your perfections. All of you, my Ella.”

Blinded, in blackness, she translated and knew beyond any doubt, his world was only her. As her world was him.

“Let me be your light, girl, forevermore.”

The fucking commenced in an incessant rhythm, an unchallengeable force that would only stop when he came.

She strained back at him, curving, was pummeled and rocked, and had her clit abused as she plummeted into orgasm. When he freed her clit from the teeth and kept fucking her, she lay spent on the sofa, panting, his soft vessel, his woman, while he mounted her and rutted.

There was making love and there was fucking with finesse. This was the latter.

His shaft slid home one last time and she felt the swell of his cock, in that moment before he came, then the more exquisite swell of his cum spurting into her pussy.

The force of that tingled jaggedly through her, unfurling like tendrils into every atom of her being. Intricate joy. Irrevocable.

She came again, writhing, her teeth locked in the sofa material as she strived to weather this strange new ecstasy.

Bondmated.

Torgeir lay over her, wrapped around her and still inside for a long while before he moved.

“Done.” His kiss stirred her hair then he placed more kisses on her sweaty back.

“My hands?” she murmured.

“Mmm. What a pity I have to untie you. You’re like a beautiful jeweled fucktoy with red rope on you.” But he sighed and began to untie her.

She grinned at his sentiment. “I liked the wedding vow.”

“It said what I needed to say.”

The last of the rope came off. The blindfold was slipped off her eyes and he climbed onto the sofa with her to spoon. “Just so you know, my Ella. If you ever run away from me again, I’m chaining you to me.”

“Hmmm.” She squirmed against him, appreciating his muscles and body at her back. “I think I’d like that.”

His hand smacked onto her ass. “Try me. I speak truth.”

Her smile spread through her, quietly, like the blossoming of a field of flowers in the warmth of spring sunshine. Finally, she’d found serenity with a man she adored.

They lay in comfortable silence, though to her it was also an exhausted silence. Her eyelids were drooping when he spoke again.

“I have a present for you. I brought it with me thinking, maybe, we had a chance.”

His arm rested over her and she found his hand and held it, fascinated by his fingers, by the weight of them, the warmth, by how they were his and she had the right to again hold them.

“I’m sorry for what I did. I don’t think I can ever say that enough.”

“Shhh. My gift. I brought you a new cybernetic foot to replace the one you have. I want to get rid of that one given you. I want you to wear mine.”

“I understand.” She still had the one Verok had given her. If she hadn’t been in the midst of hating herself so much, she would have replaced it herself. “Thank you.”

“It’s also time to tell you that Concer has had us under surveillance. They watched us. It was unavoidable as I had to convince them you were mine in every possible way.”

Fuck.
No other word would do. “Now even?” She frowned out at the open wall and the rectangle of bright daylight.

“Yes.”

Some pervert was watching her now? Though really, she guessed she’d just been a pervert too. This was a Day of Perverts, it seemed. “Can we turn over?”

He chuckled. “No. I’m comfortable.”

She harrumphed and shut her eyes. “If this turns up on the universe’s equivalent of YouTube I will be most unhappy.”

“Poor thing.” He loosed his hand from hers and trailed his fingers down her side, tickling her. “You also have to do something for Concer. I’ll tell you what it is later. It’s important and will get them off your back, until they need your services again, I would think.”

That intrigued her. Whatever could it be?

The ballroom below was packed with dancers, though most were no longer dancing and were looking up at Ella. The orchestra played the last notes. The platform the throne sat upon was hardly high enough to look regal so the engineers had constructed this island balcony. It was temporary, but good enough for speeches.

The castle was surprisingly neat and elegant with no signs that a gory battle had taken place here several months ago. The hole in the ceiling was gone, the chandeliers polished. The marble-like flooring was exquisitely shiny.

She could almost forget she had been here before having her foot surgically removed and bullets shot at her. Or that she’d ripped out bits of someone’s heart.

That had been...

The room paled as her blood seemed to flood from her head to her feet. She shivered. Torgeir stepped closer, his hand smoothing up and down the bare back of her white gown.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Ella sucked in air. “Yes. I can do this.” Her foot was no longer the Verok version. She had a man by her side, they loved each other fiercely, and she was stronger than any wan, flower-plucking and singing girl with a butterfly fixation.

As she turned to survey the audience, the delicate layers trimming the bottom of her gown swished against her thighs. The internal comm whispered
go
in her ear and she straightened.

This ballroom was for show. Out there, listening, were the rest of the people of the Meek Crusade, in their thousands of ships, almost a million cyborgs or cybernetically enhanced people. If they kept going, in their slow but inexorable advance, the crusade would end up at Earth and, by the time they reached it, it would resemble the descent of a cloud of locusts on a tender crop of corn. Nothing would be left. Every system they went through suffered riots and shortages as supplies were strained. Every system added more ships, more people.

“People of the crusade. I am here as simply Ella, a cyborg like you, a woman wronged by the man who began this quest to reach Earth and perhaps inherit it. I was kidnapped, forced to accept surgery, and threatened with forced bondmating in order to further that one man’s dream of what his life should contain. He wanted a princess from Earth and thought I should be his.

“He was so very wrong, as I’m sure you will agree.

“I can tell you also that his idea of journeying to Earth is a false desire. Earth is no magic planet that will fix all your wrongs. Those among you who have listened to the news will understand what this crusade does to the systems it passes through. You will do the same to Earth. You will not be a blessing. You will not be welcomed. You will destroy what you go to worship.”

There were grumbles from below. The hard truth was not being welcomed. She knew her powers well by now and subtly began to exert them, not just on these people closest to her, but on whoever listened to her speech at this moment in time. The slowing of the signal was unavoidable by the laws of physics, but it would be effective enough.

“Earth is not the answer, but I can tell you what can be, if...if you are prepared to work for it. But we all know that hard work and persistence, love and respect for others, is what is truly the answer to most questions.

“There are now thousands of planets devoid of humanity because the Bak-lal killed or transformed those they captured. Those planets are ready for new life, new owners, ready for people willing to do what is needed to make them their home. Concer will give tracts of land to any who step forward,
and
if you wish to fight to clear one of the still-infested planets, you will gain even more. The choice is yours. Take this chance. Be someone you can be proud of and make a place, a home, for yourselves, your children, and your descendants for thousands of years to come.”

She put everything into her final words through her empathic and persuasive communication powers.

“I and my bondmate, Torgeir Rakkel, will be joining you.” She raised her hand and the crowd below raised theirs also. “I hope to see some of the brave among you on
Jorburr 5.

“Good evening, and thank you for listening!”

The cheering was deafening and followed her and Torgeir as they left via the small footbridge.

“Well done!” He squeezed her hand. “Well done, my love. Though it’s premature, I think you’ve saved the lives of millions.”

“I hope so.” She beamed the biggest smile ever but after a few steps her idea brought her to somberness again.

“Have you seen Mimi lately?” she asked, going off on a tangent while she found her bravery.

“Yes. She’s stuck on the bulkhead in the galley ceiling in
Zeus
. The cook is worried.”

“I see. Tell him not to catch her then.”

“Already done.”

“Good. Ummm, I have something else to ask of you.”

“Yes?”

He stopped in the hallway and turned to her, taking both her hands and kissing the knuckles of one. “Tell me, beautiful girl.”

This might not go down well.

“I wish to try to fight the Bak-lal if you still go out there to clean up more planets.” She knew he wanted to do that, though it made her fearful.

His mouth tightened. “Why. What can you do? Ohhh...” The light had dawned perhaps. “Your powers?” He looked at her from beneath his brows.

“Yes. Those. I know it may not work but if it does, I could greatly weaken factory queens. I want to do this.” She added quietly, with conviction, “I need to. Please.”

His frown slowly died to be replaced by consternation and sympathy. Torgeir gathered her into his arms. “Okay. We can see if Concer can test you for this. The factory queens may have nothing of compatibility with your powers though. If so, I will make you stay home and safe.”

She nodded, pleased with this. “I agree. Thank you.”

“Yes. I’d rather you stay home and make me babies, but...” He sighed dramatically.

“If I bite you, it will be totally deserved.”

“True.” She felt his laughter though he was silent.

“There’s something I should say to you, my sir, that I should have said long ago.” She glanced downward, past his arm, at the metal contours below her ankle. Her new foot tucked neatly into her black, high-heeled shoe. “When I lost my foot, I resented this so much, having to be a true cyborg. I wanted to be human, as I had been. It made me despair, all those months we were apart, and losing you too –”

“Heyyy.” He tilted up her chin and kissed her. “You know you will always be my one and only, yes? You’re my Ella. I love you as you are.”

“I do now. I do.” She blinked back tears. “But...what I wanted to say is that this foot you’ve given me, I don’t care what it looks like. If I never get artificial skin, I will still wear it proudly because it’s what
you
gave me. That will always be enough for me – that it’s your gift.”

Then she rose on her toes and kissed him, slowly and intricately, until she was breathing fast.

“Good. I want to make you happy. I don’t care about that at all. Even if you get a metal butt, I won’t care...well, maybe that would bother me. You have such a great butt.” He squeezed her to him and, with his chin resting on her head, he said softly, “Be happy or else.”

She giggled. “Shhh.”

“Come, my princess, we have much to do. Planets to make safe. And later on I have to molest you again. So much molesting and all so I can admire my bondmark upon your pretty breasts.”

She smiled, holding his hand as they walked along the carpet. Her nanogeers scampered along her digits to the skin of his palm only to return at her urging. Her awareness expanded to encompass all those who might fall under her aegis, if she so chose. She had skills and powers but, with Torgeir to help her, she would steer a righteous path through the universe.

The warmth of his hand in hers would forever remind her of his beautiful heart.

She raised his hand and pressed her lips to the back of his fingers. She wanted to tell him how much he meant to her. She wanted the best words. There were long, devout words she might use, words dedicated to love. She rejected those. She let him embrace her hand again and sneaked her little finger between two of his, because that made her feel she belonged to him.

When she leaned her head on his shoulder, she knew what to say.

“You mean everything to me.” Then she added in a whisper, “My love.”

His answer was in his glance and the brief glistening of his eyes, and in the way he interwove their fingers so firmly she’d need the strength of a giant to undo them.

Sometimes the simplest words were the best.

Cari Silverwood is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling writer of kinky darkness or sometimes of dark kinkiness, depending on her moods and the amount of time she's spent staring into the night. She has a lethal curiosity that makes her want to upend plots and see what falls out when you shake them.

When others are writing bad men doing bad things, you may find her writing good men who accidentally on purpose fall into the abyss and come out with their morals twisted in knots.

If you’d like to learn more go to
www.carisilverwood.net

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Also by Cari Silverwood

Preyfinders Series

Precious Sacrifice (Originally published in the anthology, Kept)