Indulgence (109 page)

The echo? Yes. What’s causing that?

Rage could think of only one cause.
I’m infected. I’m
closing down my transmissions. It’s too late for me but it might not be for
you. Goodbye, my friend. Fight well.

Rage—

He closed the line. Fraggin’ hole. The virus had entered his
processors. He didn’t have much time left and he knew how he wanted to spend
it. Rage stalked toward Joan, stripping off his body armor with each step.
“Female.”

She’d unfastened her flight suit as it had been restricting
her breathing. The glimpse of pale skin through the gaps in the fabric hardened
his cock.

“Sir?” Joan gazed up at him, love reflecting in her eyes.

He captured her face between his hands and covered her lips
with his, kissing her, knowing it might be the last time. She opened to him as
she always did, following his unspoken commands, and their tongues twined,
tangled. She tasted of sweetness and female and even when his processors
fractured, he knew he’d never forget her.

She was a part of him. He pushed her flight suit over her
shoulders, baring more of her skin. Joan murmured against his lips, lifted her
hips, allowing him to remove the garment completely.

No other female would have surrendered like that to him,
without a single protest, with no hesitation. He mouthed over Joan’s rounded
chin, down her neck, feeling the pulse of her veins against his tongue.

No other female smelled as good. He inhaled her unique
scent. He’d been angered when the cyborg female dared to touch him. He belonged
to Joan. Only she had that right.

He cupped her breasts, relishing their weight, their
softness, and she moaned, arching into his palms, her responsiveness exciting
him. Rage laved his tongue over the swell of her curves, squeezing and
releasing, squeezing and releasing. She filled the silence with words of
encouragement, sank her fingers into his hair, holding him to her.

He sucked first one nipple and then the other into his
mouth, tugging on the taut pinkness, drawing louder cries from his female. Her
musky scent intensified. He could taste her need on the tip of his tongue.

He lit that fire within her. He gazed down at her with
pride. Vector, that other C Model cyborg, had less scarring, was more skilled
with words, yet he’d invoked no desire in Joan.

Rage worried her nipple with lip-covered teeth. He was the
sole cyborg to arouse her, had aroused her the moment they met, and her need
hadn’t faded.

“Rage.” She bucked, her attempts to dislodge him ineffective
and adorable.

“Be still, female.” He pressed her backward, onto the
horizontal support, and continued his explorations, worshipping her stomach.
She was more voluptuous than she’d been this morning and that appealed to his
primitive nature.

She was fertile. He didn’t have to taste her to know that.
Logically, he knew they couldn’t create offspring. Instinctively, he was driven
to try, to claim her.

He threaded his fingers through the curls covering her mons,
enjoying the contrast of brown hair against white skin, and opened her to him.

Frag. He breathed in. Her scent was intoxicating.

Rage pulled her ass to the edge of the horizontal support.
She murmured about precarious positioning and falling. He ignored her concerns,
bent his head, and licked her from ass to clit.

Joan cried his name, squirming under him. Her flavor
exploded on his tongue, straining his already fractured control. His ball
ached. His cock was as hard as his favorite dagger.

Be.
His transmission lines opened.
Be. Be. How.
Know. You.
A stream of babble flooded his processors.
You. You. Be.
The tone was happy, the words quick.

He was losing the fight against the mysterious virus. Rage
closed the line once more. The transmissions ceased, the only sounds coming
from his lust-dazed female.

Thank the designer. He nuzzled against her clit, teasing her
with his mouth and tongue, seeking to lose himself in her.

“Yes.” She spread her thighs wider, giving him access to
more of her.

Rage licked each delicate pink fold, savoring her taste,
paying homage to her female form. She was everything a cyborg could want, warm,
wet, willing, loving. He poked his tongue into her entrance and she shrieked,
clenching her pussy walls around him.

Rage speared into her again and again, searching for more of
her moisture, more of her. He wanted to become one with Joan, wanted to climb
inside her, to barricade himself within her. Maybe then they could defeat the
enemy stalking them, slay the virus chipping away at their lifespans.

Joan rocked against him, holding onto his shoulders,
panting, too lost for words. Her inner walls constricted more and more. She
needed to come and he yearned to give her that release.

Rage returned his attention to her clit, brushed against the
sensitive nub once, twice. Her breath hitched with each slow swipe.

“Joan.” He looked up at her, meeting her gaze. Her eyes
widened. His clever female knew what was coming.

Rage fluttered his tongue over her.

She screamed his name and drove her hips upward. A rush of
liquid streamed from her pussy. He fastened his lips over her entrance and
slurped lustily, tasting her fulfillment, quenching his thirst for her.

She was magnificent, worth the grim future they now faced.
He drew her into his arms and rubbed her back, soothing her as she calmed.

Beeeeee.
The virus screeched across Rage’s
transmission lines.
Beeeeee. Beeeeee. Beeeeee.
The word drilled at his
processors, the volume loud, the tone fraught with an irritating mixture of
fear and sadness.

Rage closed the lines, securing them. If the virus continued
at this rate, he soon wouldn’t remember the code to reopen them. That means of communication
would be cut off from him.

He’d be less cyborg, more like his human female.

“I have to breed with you.” He couldn’t process that fate
right now. Rage pushed his hard cock into Joan’s pliant pussy, engulfing
himself with her softness, her heat.

She tilted her hips, easing the slide, embracing him with a
knee-weakening passion. He watched her beautiful face. Her eyes widened and her
cheeks flushed as he took her, sinking into her up to his base.

She felt too good. He gritted his teeth. Her inner walls
rippled over his shaft, the aftermath of her first orgasm stripping his
restraint.

“Fast.” It wouldn’t be one of their more leisurely
breedings. Rage pulled out to his tip and slammed back into her, jiggling her
curves.

“Yes, fast.” Joan gripped his shoulders and pulled herself
upright. “And hard.” She wrapped her legs around his waist.

That was all the permission Rage needed. He rode his female
with a relentless determination, retreating, advancing, retreating, advancing,
intent on driving the concerns from their minds.

She called for more, more, more, bouncing her heels against
his ass, clawing at his shoulders and he gave it to her, unleashing the primal
creature inside him.

Was this savage need to own each other due to the virus? It
could be. His machine was partially incapacitated, offline, his organic half in
control. Joan would sense that, respond to the change in his nanocybotics.

Whatever the reason, the result was magnificent. Her pale
skin glistened with sweat. Her curls stuck to her cheeks. The wildness in her
eyes called to him.

He increased his pace, swaying the horizontal support with
his thrusts. Still she begged for faster, harder. He didn’t give it to her. His
unwavering need to protect her, to keep his female safe, stopped Rage from using
all of his strength.

He couldn’t stop the impending release. Rage drove into her,
ground down, and as she screamed her release, he came, pumping his seed into
her heated pussy. Pleasure ripped its way up his spine, coursed through his
veins.

He pushed deeper. Joan fought him, her strength pleasing his
inner warrior, and he subdued her with his hips, chest, hands.

“Rage.” She became still, her head falling forward, her skin
slapping against his chest.

“I love you, Joan.” He wanted to say the words before the
virus erased them from his processors.

“Do you?” His little female gazed at him with wonder.

“I do.” Rage kissed the tip of her nose and she blinked.
“I--”

The door opened. He turned, instinctively shielding Joan
from the potential threat.

“You’re finally finished.” Doc helped another cyborg push a
machine over the threshold. The newcomer was covered from head to toe with
fabric, a mask partially concealing his features. “Surge wanted to interrupt
you while you were breeding but I like my skull where it is. Plus, we’ve never
observed a cyborg-human breeding. Are human females always so vocal?”

“No.” Rage scowled. Joan was unique. “Keep your distance.
I’m infected.”

Behind him, his female inhaled sharply, the scent of her
fear burning his nostrils.

“How can you be certain?” Doc studied him. Surge, his
assistant, touched the protective mask he was wearing, as though to ensure it
remained in place. “What are your symptoms?”

“The virus has attacked my processors.” Rage felt Joan’s
soft hands on his bare back. “At first, I heard echoes over my secured
transmission lines and then single words, varying in volume and tone.”

“Are the words transmitted quickly without ceasing?”

“Yes.” The virus talked more than his female.

Doc exchanged a look with his assistant. “We’re infected
also.”

Joan whimpered.

“Instruct your female to lie on the horizontal support and
cover her body with this.” Doc handed a blue cyborg-sized scanning blanket to
Rage. “Hurry. I can’t predict how long our processors will continue to
function.”

“I killed them, Rage.” Tears streamed down his female’s
cheeks. “And I killed you.”

“We’re survivors,” he reminded her. Would they survive this?
He didn’t know. Rage wrapped her in the blanket and set her on the horizontal
support. “Be strong for me, Joan.” He brushed her curls away from her face.

“I will.” She gazed at him, her eyes shining with trust.

She expected him to fix this. He turned to the other
cyborgs, opening the lines of transmission. The virus howled incessantly.

You’ll talk to me through the lines.
As Rage
transmitted, the virus’ processor shorting wails settled into a low cooing.
You
won’t upset my female.

Keep her still.
Doc shifted the machine. The
viewscreen faced away from Rage.

He couldn’t see it and that frustrated him. Rage stood by
Joan’s side, stroking her hair, half listening to her murmured regrets while
half listening to the cyborgs’ transmissions.

See that?
Surge tapped the viewscreen.
That looks
like--

I know what it looks like but it isn’t possible.
Doc
leaned forward.
Magnify it and display a reference image, one taken from a
manufacturing vat.

Surge touched the screen and stepped back. They both stared
at the image.

Doc? Is my visual system malfunctioning or are the images
almost the same?

If your visual system is malfunctioning, mine is also,
because the differences are minor.
Doc rubbed his hands over his face.
All
the research claims this can’t happen, yet the proof is before us and it
explains the symptoms.
He spread his fingers over the viewscreen.

The faint heartbeat.

The fourth life form reading.

The virus began to howl.

His possessiveness.

Possessiveness is a C Model trait. But it does explain
her hunger.

They knew something, weren’t sharing it with him, and the
noise was battering Rage’s processors.
What explains the symptoms?
What’s
wrong with my female?

My. My. My. Be. How.
The virus babbled.

See how he responds to Rage’s transmissions?
Doc
sounded excited.
He recognizes him, has been hearing his transmissions from
his beginning.

He’s highly intelligent.

He? Rage frowned. Did viruses have a sex?
Answer my
questions. Will my female survive?

The virus squealed, its tone joyful, and the cyborgs
laughed. They fraggin’ laughed while his female was ill!

“Stay still, little engineer.” Rage brushed his lips over
Joan’s forehead and stomped toward Doc and Surge. They didn’t look away from
the viewscreen, watching it as though they’d never seen anything so intriguing.

Rage pushed Surge out of his way. “Let me see it.” He gazed
at the image. It looked like a misshapen humanoid with a giant skull and a
shrunken little body.
That
was inside the female he loved, feeding off
her, infecting every other being around them?

“What type of parasite is that?” He touched his stomach. Did
he now have one of those creatures inside him too?

“Parasite?” Joan’s face turned pale. “Get it out of me.”

“Parasite.” Surge smiled.

“Technically, he
is
one.” Doc appeared as
irrationally happy. “And judging by how quickly he’s growing, he’ll be out of
you in mere planet rotations, Rage’s female.”

“We might have to remove him.” Surge tapped his fingers
against his chin. “She’s human. She might not be able to carry him to term.”

“True.”

Rage’s frustration levels spiraled higher and higher.
“Will.” He picked Doc up by his neck. “She.” He shook the cyborg. “Live?”

“Yes,” Doc croaked. “Not virus. Offspring.”

“What?” Rage dropped him. “
That’s
your diagnosis?”
Were they idiots? “Cyborgs can’t produce offspring. I know. I was in the
breeding programs, was paired with twenty-two human females and one hundred and
fifteen cyborg females. None of those pairings were successful.” He narrowed
his eyes, questioning Doc’s credentials. “Where did you learn about repairing
cyborgs?”