The idea that the EPED had been watching him, keeping tabs, filled him with rage. It was a death sentence to encroach on a Cyborg’s personal systems without allowance.
Years in exile. Years alone. All because of the people he worked for.
His eyes trained on the ships that surrounded them, closing in by the moment. Vibrant arrays of light and metal debris littered the battlefield.
Juke was right; there was no need to fight or to stand down because the Peace Keeper fuckers were probably already boarding the ship.
“Are you going to kill me, Cyborg?”
Gunner was halfway shifted before Juke could finish his question. A low growl hummed darker, needier, up from the back of his throat. Once again his human teeth dropped out of his gums and scattered around his feet. His eyes swayed back and forth between Juke and the ships closing in.
Did they watch him now?
“I would bargain my life for your ship,” Juke said. “But they have it. The only reason we weren’t with the rest of the fleet was because of our cargo. We were on our way to Elyria—as you may have guessed—until we weren’t.” Juke stared fixedly at the teeth that rattled around between them.
Gunner canted his head. Would he kill Juke? The idea held favor. “The slave rings,” he whispered. “You were on your way to the slave rings.”
Elodie and everything she was arose in his head. Her shivering, dirty figure leaned up against the cold walls of the brig, the smell of her sweat and the heat of her flesh against his skin; the sound of her sighs and soft gasps of air. The barriers she erected over every calculated response and the way her eyes grew wide when he penetrated those barriers.
Gunner pictured her, standing naked at the flesh market.
He knew her ability to act under the pressure of an ongoing nightmare. Would she have survived the Elyrian slave markets? Some did.
The men out in the hallways hollered, their voices rising, the ruckus increasing as they fought through the jagged tunnel into the bridge. The ship rumbled and vibrated and groaned. The lights on the dashboard flared red. He didn’t need to connect with the systems to know that the boarding process had begun. Gunner drew back his lips to feel the stifling air drift across his canines.
“Juke.” He rose slowly to his feet, meeting the captain’s eyes in the glistening panel glass. He closed the distance, shaking his head. “I’m not going to kill you.”
Juke closed his eyes in relief.
Gunner lunged forward and sank his teeth into the man’s back, gouging out the vertebrae, yanking until his spine tore through flesh, muscle, and then finally the layers of cloth that had once covered it.
The bones splintered apart in his mouth and blood sprayed through the air. A shocked, guttural sound escaped Juke’s lips before no sound came at all.
I lied.
Chapter Twenty Two
