“Goodnight.”
He stared at her for a moment longer, wanting more but not getting it. Giving up, he strode to the panel door and closed it partially behind him, leaving several inches open.
What the hell had come over him?
His audio picked up Vee exhaling heavily, and his hands fisted at his sides.
Cypher growled and stormed into the bridge.Fucking confused is what I am.He stopped himself from punching another hole in the wall or letting his bear come out so he could roar at the top of his lungs. Females confused him. Distance from this situation was what he needed to get his head on straight. Maybe he needed a full-on head transplant. He had one waiting in storage...
He settled for calling Nightheart instead.
Seconds later, Nightheart’s IP attached to his.The fucker’s nearby.
Cypher wasn’t surprised. With bugs turning up on many of his brethren’s ships, him rooting out and finding most of them, he had his suspicions on who had been planting them.
That, and he knew Nightheart better than any other Cyborg.
He and Nightheart fought side by side for a time during the war, and during that god-awful time, he witnessed Nightheart transform only once—and saw his frightening shifter side go up against unbeatable odds that no one else possibly could, not even another shifter class Cyborg. Seeing Nightheart in action was enough to put the pieces together about the bugs. No one else had ever seen the president and CEO of the EPED release his creature except Cypher. And for that, the two of them were bonded in a messed-up way. At least according to Nightheart.
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
“Nightheart,” Cypher snarled.
“Welcome to Earth, buddy,” Nightheart responded.
“Why are you doing this?”
“You know why.”
“It’s not going to work,” Cypher warned. “I won’t join you.”
“But you’ve considered it, haven’t you?” Nightheart mused coldly. “Don’t tell me you haven’t. Your abilities are wasted on Ghost, sorely wasted. Imagine what it would be like to have boundless freedom, money, and power—and the chance to let your animal roam again. To be savage, primal, and strong. To answer to no one…but me.”
Cypher dropped into his captain’s seat and palmed his face. Of course he’d considered Nightheart’s offer. Nightheart had been trying to get Cypher to join his team of Monster Hunters and Retrievers for decades. More so now due to Nightheart losing half his employees in the last few years.
Without requisitions coming in, without the badly needed resources spread throughout some of the most dangerously known planets and moons coming in, without heroes stomping out threats that no one else had the power or abilities to handle, Nightheart and the EPED were losing vast sums of money and influence.
“I could do all of that already if I wanted to. I could have all of that if I wanted. Have you ever thought about that? I don’t need you.” Cypher countered. “No one needs you. Especially not me. I could crush your metal skull in without breaking a sweat. And for fuck’s sake, Nightheart, why did you bring her into it? You posted my information all over the fucking network!” Knowing Vee was closeby, despairing, had him baring his fangs.
“I didn’t post it. She did. How do you like her, by the way? I think I chose well.”
“But you gave it to her, told her to do so,” Cypher snapped, his anger rising. He wanted Nightheart’s thick skull between his hands.
“You were trapped on Ghost. It was for your own good.”
“My own good!? God, you’re delusional. I’ve told you this once, but I’ll tell you again: my bear is a solitary beast, and when it’s around others for too long, it lashes out. Remaining on Ghost was for me as much as it was for the protection of everyone else. Don’t you know anything about the animal I’m spliced with?”
Nightheart chuckled. “Excuses.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
Nightheart laughed louder. “I don't doubt that, friend. No doubt at all. I wouldn’t have it any other way. So you want me to send you the contract?”
Ignoring him, Cypher hissed, “Vee’s apartment was ransacked this evening.”
Nightheart’s laughter halted.
“Was it you?” Cypher asked.
