“Tell me why I shouldn’t break your neck right now,” he threatened.
“You haven’t changed at all.”
“You’ve changed enough for the both of us.”
Nightheart smiled coolly down at him. “Do you really want to do this in front of her?”
“I could do it in front of the masses for all I care.” The aggression in him amplified. Cypher imagined the satisfaction of bending Nightheart’s metalloid frame in two, of ripping the Cyborg’s skin off with his teeth.
To finally be rid of the tension built up inside him. To finally unleash the beast.
A primitive part also wanted Vee to see it, to witness his mastery over all others, potential mate or not.
“Yes, but she might care,” Nightheart muttered, looking past Cypher at Vee.
Cypher squeezed Nightheart’s neck in warning, his nails elongating into claws to pierce him. The scent of Vee’s anxiety—possibly fear—drifted to his nose. He paused.
Was she afraid of him? The violence he carried deep inside?Does she see it?He wanted her to see…but he didn’t want her to be afraid.
Cypher’s face hardened.
He released Nightheart with a growl and took a step back. His hands opened and closed several times, fighting the dominance he hungered to demonstrate. He scrubbed his palms over his face and threaded his fingers through his hair, pulling the strands out of the band at his neck. When his body calmed a fraction, he re-tied it and turned to Vee.
She stood staring at him and Nightheart with wide eyes.
“What?” Cypher rasped, moving to her side. She flinched. It wasn’t what he meant, but he was too tightly wound to apologize.
Nightheart followed, though he kept his distance and took a seat across from them.Good.
Cypher didn’t know what would happen if Nightheart got any closer to her. Candy, flowers, and citrus filled his nose, and he pulled Vee’s chair back, helping her sit. When she sat, he settled too, but hooked his arm around the back of her seat.
She leaned slightly. The wires in his chest shook.
He and Nightheart glared at each other.
Nightheart shifted his gaze to Vee. “I expected you days ago. So you want to renegotiate your contract.”
She winced but nodded. “It’s my fault,” she muttered. “And yes, if that’s possible. I also want clarity. I would have never put Cypher’s information out there if I’d known he existed.”
“You never asked.”
Vee’s face tightened. “No… I didn’t. I realize that now.”
“So, Ms. Miles, you’re willing to back out of your dreams for a mistake that’s already been made? It’s not easy wiping all traces of something like this off the network. Not when there’s a universal event involved.”
Cypher growled. “What are you getting at?”
Nightheart shifted his eyes back to him. “You know as well as I do, Cypher. Taking your shit off the network will cost more—much more—than what we offered to sponsor Ms. Miles.”
“I’m…willing to do everything else,” Vee said. “Publicity-wise. Pro-Cyborg politics. Everything.”
“Like hell you are!” Cypher barked.
“Unfortunately, none of that will work without Cypher. We can dissolve the contract, and you can repay us the three million and find another way to go to the championship, or you continue what you do now.”
“—with me,” Cypher said. “That’s what you’re not saying.”
Nightheart shrugged.
