Another streak of electricity coursed through him. He bore down on his feet and sprang into the air, jumping the rest of the way to his ship. The tarmac cracked when he landed, and dust plummed in the air. He connected with his ship before he made it to the hatch. Sirens went off in his head as well as his ship.
Xavier Lyle Dear had been a known half-breed, a junk worker brought up in the Elyrian slums where most half-breeds lived. Xavier had fought Raphael when Hysterian’s ex-boss sought to buy the land where he and many other half-breeds and the poor lived. Thousands of humans, aliens, and half-breeds would’ve been displaced. Xavier protested, riled up others to protest, and sought to stop Raphael from taking the land and developing it.
No one told Raphael what to do and lived.
It happened nearly fifteen years ago now. It was during that time Hysterian had encountered Raphael for the first time and Raphael had offered to help him. Hysterian’s last venture into finding a solution to his skin problem had failed miserably. The head scientist who’d had a hand in Hysterian’s creation died, and with his death, Hysterian had lost all hope that he would ever be fixed.
He’d gone numb.
He’d turned off his emotions and became nothing more than a walking, talking machine, with the added weirdness of his animal.
Going numb was the only way for him to accept the loss, to cope. Not only for a solution, but as a way to avoid grieving for the one person who was the closest Hysterian would ever have to a parent.
It had been a dark time. He’d gone to Dimes, practically living at the club for weeks before Raphael approached him. Before that, everyone left the ‘Cyborg’ alone for fear he’d turn on them.
He’d never hid from others back then. People would touch him and faint or get blitz from the highest high of their lives. People gathered around him, wanting to touch him and take the risk. They paid him for bottles of his secretion.
In his numbness, he found a cult of addicts.
Raphael noticed how much money Hysterian was making him, how people from all over the city flocked to Dimes to touch the Cyborg. He’d become an attraction, and while he was emotionless with loss, Hysterian enjoyed the distraction. He’d enjoyed letting men and women take his hand, hold it, and give him the warmth he’d always craved.
Some lasted for minutes before falling.
He hadn’t enjoyed them dying at his feet, though. It still left a sour taste in his mouth.
But the touching, the warmth, even the fucked-up companionship he’d received from his followers had given him a lifeline. And then Raphael had approached him and solidified the deal.
Raphael convinced Hysterian that he had the money and resources to help Hysterian with his problem, but if he was going to help, he wanted something in return.
Hysterian’s loyalty.
Back then, he would have done anything for Raphael. Hysterian wasn’t proud of it, especially now as he looked back, but he had enjoyed it for a time. There’d been no rules, no need for control.
For a being who’d been created to be controlled… It was like breathing for the first time.
But Raphael was a calculating and cruel man who only cared about his own pleasure. A psychopath and an unhinged, emotionless Cyborg made a great but devastatingly merciless team.
Whether Xavier knew who Raphael was when Xavier went up against the crime lord, Hysterian had no idea. All he knew was when he’d killed Xavier, Hysterian had broken into the man’s apartment and took his hand while he slept. Hysterian had been cruel for so much of his life—torturing information out of war criminals—but he couldn’t be that way to innocent people, even if they had crossed Raphael. He’d never questioned why Raphael had asked him to kill Xavier. Hysterian had been hired to kill people in the past. But during that time...he’d just been numb.
I killed her father.
Hysterian broke into his ship and ran to his quarters. He scented Alexa’s smell the second the hatch opened. He scented Horace’s as well. A glimpse at the security feeds showed him they’d left.
Horace too? He couldn’t fucking trust anyone. Every person in his crew had betrayed him.
Twenty fucking minutes ago, they’d left. His nostrils flared as he slammed his fist into the wall and turned back.
She lied to me.
She seduced me into bed, and for what? To distract me?
To give me hope only to steal it away?
Rage boiled, building, eclipsing reason. His codes urged him to blight out Alexa’s existence, knowing she’d only come here to kill him.She’s an alien.
She’s my enemy.
His hands clenched as he stormed back out of his ship. He needed to find Alexa. He wanted to punish her, make her feel what she forced him to feel.
