Warrior's Wife (11 page)

Angry tears streamed down her face. She yanked open the dresser drawer and tugged on a pair of her favorite bikini panties in plain white cotton. The sports bra and cushy athletic socks were equally perfect. Damn mechs knew everything, right down to her bra size. She pulled on a knit jumpsuit and low-heeled boots that fit as if they’d been custom-made for her.

Forgiveness still had a long, rough road to travel, but the boots looked amazing and felt even better. Pride sent her on a detour to the bathroom. A trace of jasmine brought images of riding Horace flickering through her mind. She blocked the painful reminder of how easily she’d accepted them and bathed her face in cool water. She brushed her hair and her teeth. What she really needed was a week at a posh spa. While she was nowhere near ready to enter beauty pageants, her eyes were clearer and her skin less blotchy than she’d expected. Twelve solid hours of sleep had worked a minor miracle.

California was a long ways away and travel was treacherous. She needed the mechs. As ashamed as it made her, she’d have a hard time resisting the sex. But she was so done with their fake romance.

She drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly then repeated the calming exercise a couple more times. Finally ready to face the hovering mech in the hall, she crossed into the bedroom.

Rufus hurried to her side, tail wagging.

“Hey, I promised you a better name. Any ideas?”

He cocked his head and watched her expectantly.

“How about Tobias?”

His forepaws lowered, his rump came up and his tail wagged.

She flicked away another silly tear at his playful pose. “Right, Tobias it is.”

The dog was totally fake, but she couldn’t help responding to him. Maybe that’s how the mechs were too. Except their fakery had been deliberate and she wasn’t anywhere near ready to overlook it.

The fluffy droid followed her out to the vacant hall. Gideon must’ve gone downstairs. She hesitated at the stairway Marcus had carried her up and reversed direction. An impulse made her explore the other rooms. Each door opened to reveal spacious bedrooms. They were clean and furnished but stripped of linens and curtains. At the end of the hall, the last door revealed a narrow stairwell. She descended the steep stairs with the pet at her heels.

At the bottom of the stairs two doors waited. She hesitated.

Marcus’ voice came from somewhere on her right. “Food’s packed. Horace is fueling the tanker. We’re ready to roll as soon as Tori shows.”

Nuh-uh, she needed some space before she spent hours locked in a cab with any of the mechs. But she wasn’t stupid. There was no way she was leaving the safety of the house unarmed. She backtracked, crept into the living room and crawled to the couch.

She’d nearly given up the search for her old boots when she spotted one half under a delicate side table. Her luck held. It was the right boot and her backup knife was still tucked between the lining and the outer leather. She palmed the weapon and used the front staircase to hurry upstairs. A quick trip took her to the back stairs. She edged down the narrow steps, staying close to the outer wall and slipped past the kitchen door without a single creak. Carefully she opened the other door and stepped into a breezeway. She slid the knife into her right boot, adjusted the cuff and let the crisp night air clear her head and soothe her ruffled pride.

The mechs were soldiers doing a job. She got that. She’d go back in a few minutes, after her hurt feelings didn’t sting quite so much. Tobias wagged in approval.

Tori trotted down a winding garden path with the pup at her heels.

Chapter Six

Marcus pursed his lips to whistle, checked Gideon’s scowl and reconsidered the tunes. He lowered his voice and leaned to include Horace. “Shouldn’t we be working on Tori’s birthday?”

Seconds ticked by. Gideon’s jaw clenched and his crossed arms rippled with tension. Aside from his usual signs of mech frustration, the team leader didn’t respond to the hints he’d tossed out. Not a good sign. Given the boss spent the last couple of hours with the most beautiful, fantastic woman ever,
not a good sign
didn’t begin to cover it.

“Tomorrow is the big day. We’re still going to wow her, right?” Horace added a brave prompt.

“Yeah, we’ll make her birthday special.” Gideon made a visible effort to lighten up. He uncrossed his arms, stretched and popped his back before lightly punching Horace’s shoulder. “I have everything for a traditional end-of-days-era prime-rib dinner.”

Relieved by Gideon’s new attitude, Marcus tipped the kitchen chair back on two legs. “What about a cake?”

The triad’s leader frowned in concentration. “Of course it’ll be chocolate.
Reine de Saba
is delicious, but I’m leaning toward
Gateau au Chocolat,
rich, delicious, yet light. I hope the eggs are fresh enough.”

“Been meaning to ask, who do we owe for all this?” Marcus waved to indicate the well-stocked pantry, refrigerator and freezer.

“I made lists and supplied the grunt labor. Nigel handled material delivery.”

“Don’t act as if what you did doesn’t count. You made this place safe and clean and amazing and wiped out half your neural net and the mind link. You’re lucky you didn’t rack up more serious cellular damage,” Horace scolded.

“Yeah, sure.” Gideon’s brow lowered. “See what’s keeping her, pal.”

After Horace left the kitchen, Marcus asked, “Why send Horace? You should go.”

“She’s not happy with me.”

“All the more reason to get your ass in front of her and work it out.”

“Easy for you to say,” Gideon grumbled.

“What went wrong? Dominance didn’t work for her?”

Gideon crossed his arms. “Nah, she liked that fine. I told her more than I should’ve about the classes. Hell, I thought she’d be flattered.” The boss ground his molars and stared into the middle distance. “Not so much.”

Marcus scowled with his boss in pointless sympathy ’cause Gideon wasn’t focusing on anything except brooding. “Exactly what’d you say?”

“Just that we’d studied her emails, journal, blah, blah.”

“She ripped your head off, huh?”

“Pretty much.” Gideon met his eyes for a second then flickered back to blaming-himself territory.

“Which makes you even crazier for her.”

“Yeah, that fits.” His boss rubbed his slick skull with guilty-as-charged painted over his mug.

He squeezed his leader’s thick arm. “She’ll calm down. You’ll grovel. Hell, Horace and I’ll grovel with you. It’ll be all good.”

Horace popped back in a couple of shades paler. “I’m not so sure. She’s not here.”

“What do you mean?” Gideon snapped to attention.

“She’s not in the house. The droid is gone too.”

Marcus wiped the nervous sweat from his hands. “No one got past me. How’d they get her?”

“She must’ve slipped out.” Horace’s face darkened into a scowl.

Marcus started to deny the possibility, changed his mind and sealed his calorie hole. He’d been concerned about securing the farmhouse from intruders, not keeping her prisoner. It was possible she’d gotten past him, probably while he was busy running his mouth.

Guilt pinched the base of his skull. Maybe she left because of something she heard. He tried to remember exactly what he’d said when Gideon came into the kitchen. After a couple of seconds of zip, he accessed his recall bank. There was nothing offensive in his status report. Good to know he hadn’t been the direct cause. Losing her on his watch was bad enough.

“Let’s check the barn.” Gideon took the lead. Horace and he fell into formation as they exited the farmhouse. No mind link was required for the three of them to act like a single unit. The triad was in complete accord. They had a lifetime of experience functioning as a search-and-destroy team.

This mission had two big differences—they’d initiated the operation and the prime objective wasn’t destruction. After they located her, they would ensure her safety and make damn sure she stayed found.

The tanker, truck and motorcycles were all present and accounted for in the barn. They plowed through the rest of the buildings with no sign of Tori.

After the initial search, they met in the backyard. Gideon’s expression hardened into lines that made Marcus shiver, and give thanks they were on the same side. “Clockwise, ten-second intervals, check the perimeter then sweep in toward buildings. We need to find her now.” He gave Horace a shove. “Go.”

A few minutes later, Horace yelled. He and Gideon double-timed it to the geek’s location. Marcus got there less than a second behind the boss. He had loads of time for his heart to lurch and stutter at the muddy skid marks that ended the trail of her small boot prints.

They followed the scary pattern of large footprints and drag marks to where a four-wheeled vehicle, either a heavy car or medium-sized pickup, left deep ruts in the soft earth. The triad did a one-eighty and made tracks back to the barn. A cold north wind whipped against them. Half-frozen rain pelted them as they sprinted for transportation.

Any possibility Tori left on her own initiative shrank to nothing. The three of them had been so caught up in seducing her, they’d let their dicks call the shots and lost the woman destined to be theirs.

Horace had been working on the comm problem. Gideon had been knocked sideways by his misstep with Tori. Marcus had been on watch with no distractions. He had no excuse for letting her get past him. A vein in his temple bulged, pounding an urgent beat. He gave himself a mental shake and got his head straight. This wasn’t about him. Hell, no one’s blame was the issue. The triad’s strength was their ability to function as a single entity. They needed to put that talent to work and get her back.

When they slid into the barn, Marcus finally wised up. He closed his eyes and homed in on the dog’s steady glow in his neural net. His eyes flew open. “The droid’s coordinates put it twenty-three kilometers southeast of us.” He angled his face toward Gideon. “You left her what, fifteen minutes ago?”

“Less.”

Horace’s brow pleated with worry as he closed his peepers to examine the signal for himself. “The pet droid’s signal indicates she’s still moving at almost ninety-five kilometers per hours.”

“Fucking cyborgs, it has to be. Those bastards locked on the dog same as we did.”

Gideon nodded grimly. “As long as she has the droid and it’s on we can track her. We’ll catch them.”

With a mitt already on the truck’s door handle, Horace stopped and kneaded the back of his neck, a sign the geek’s brain was smoking. “They’re heading back to their original camp. Those are the coordinates their time travel techs have programmed. They’re going to transport her to the future.”

Remembered historical accounts of Tori’s death kicked Marcus in the gut. He slammed the lid on that nightmare. They were mechs, they changed history and built a future that made sense or died trying. He headed for the motorcycle.

“Get your ass in the truck, pal,” Gideon ordered.

Fine boss, whatever floats your boat.
Marcus wasn’t interested in wasting time arguing about how they got there. He piled into the cab and clipped his safety belt. “Roll.”

Natch, the droid signal picked then to wink off as if it had never happened. He skipped the pointless hoping the fake dog had suffered a random malfunction. “We’re heading for the original campsite, right?”

“Right.” Gideon looked as fierce as Marcus felt. “We’re gonna run flat out, lights on. We’re catching the ’borgs and knocking the fuckers into next week.”

The boss didn’t add,
before they take off with our woman
. He didn’t have to. Even without the mind link the triad was in lockstep on the same page, same mission—rescue Tori.

* * * * *

Blindfolds weren’t Tori’s kind of kink, especially not the absolute blackout cloth covering her eyes right now. The cyborgs hadn’t stuffed her ears. Tires on blacktop and rain drumming against the trunk were the only sounds she picked up no matter how hard she strained. The metal monsters sure weren’t chatting about anything helpful, like where they were taking her. Maybe they used something like the mech’s mind link.

She dragged in a ragged breath. The duct tape sealing her mouth made deep breathing a whole lot harder than usual. Having her wrists and ankles bound with the same evil binding didn’t do anything good for her comfort level. Obviously the metal jerks didn’t give a damn about making her happy, another bad sign. She missed her mechs desperately, while every pothole bounced her against an unyielding trunk interior. Worse than the minor discomfort, the bumpy ride made it tough to find the emergency release latch. Unless the metal monsters had helped themselves to a really old car, there had to be a nice glow-in-the-dark, user-friendly escape lever. Her fingertips brushed the hard handle beneath her right boot cuff.

Her hands were already going numb, which made more waiting a bad idea. She extracted the knife, praying to a god she wasn’t certain listened that she didn’t sever anything vital. First the binding around her ankles gave way. Then she used her feet to wedge the blade in place and sawed at the tape, immobilizing her wrists. Free of the bonds, she ripped off the blindfold and the sticky gag. She was alone in the trunk. The cyborgs had Tobias. Silly for her to worry about a mechanical toy, she shook off the dull anger over the droid’s fate. Her vision cleared. She spotted the latch release.

The vehicle was going way too fast to make jumping appealing. Sooner or later they’d slow down then she’d make her move. Even if they didn’t apply the brakes, she’d have to leap and roll regardless. A case of road rash or even death was way better than hanging out with the metal monster squad.

She ignored the prickling and rubbed circulation back into her limbs as quickly as possible in the tight quarters and stared at the brake lights, willing them to light up. When the faint red glow finally happened, she nearly missed it. The rear tires lost traction on the slick pavement and the vehicle fishtailed wildly. No way to miss that.

Maybe God had been listening, or maybe she was committing suicide. She popped the trunk. She hung on, clinging to the rim, building the courage to jump. The car’s brakes locked. She was flung, more than tumbled, onto the road.

The fall knocked the breath out of her. She patted down the jumpsuit and her limbs. The clothes held up remarkably well. No rips, not even a scuff mark. She had several contusions and a scraped palm, nothing that would slow her down if she could breathe. Gray fogged her peripheral vision. She willed her lungs to get with the program before one of the metal monsters noticed her lying around, gasping like a fish on the bank. Fresh oxygen roared in with a gasp. After a couple more deep-breathing exercises, she rolled over and pushed to her knees. She peered into the night. Twin red spots beamed back at her from a hundred yards away. Too close. She ducked her head, stayed low and crab-crawled for the shoulder.

A two-foot guardrail seemed as impossibly high as an obstacle course wall. She heaved over it and knelt on the other side to catch her breath. She patted her right boot, heaving a sigh of relief at the hard handle of her backup blade. Free put her miles ahead of where she’d been up until a couple of minutes ago.

The red lights in the distance glowed brighter. She stared at the car, willing it to speed far, far away. The vehicle spun around and rocked unsteadily for an accelerated heartbeat or three. Headlights glared brighter with each yard as the metallic crew flew toward her.

She tucked her head to her knees and rolled down the ravine to a small grove of bare trees. Once there, she dropped to the undergrowth and dug into the damp earth. Mud streaks quickly camouflaged her too-pale face. A pang of regret for the wasted bath pulled another sigh from her throat. Staying alive was more important than keeping her complexion unsullied. She turned away from the highway and stumbled across a two-lane road.

On her left was a decaying corn field, on her right a grove of sparsely leafed trees almost hid a small house. The slumped stalks were familiar territory, but too short to provide enough cover. She darted across the country road and plunged into the next group of trees. She pushed and twisted through the soggy vegetation, hoping to obscure her path, but all too aware hiding her trail wouldn’t help unless she put a whole lot more distance between her and the cyborgs. The uneven ground, knobby roots and pockets of sucking mud made progress painfully slow. A car door slammed much closer than she’d hoped.

Terrified of moving and giving away her position, she froze. Small clicks on the asphalt above her made cold sweat roll down her spine. Soft woofs cemented her vague fear. The cyborgs were using Tobias to track her. The mechanical traitor might look a whole lot like a sheltie, but she already knew he tracked like a bloodhound. Absolutely freakin’ fantastic. She was so over her droid crush.