Four pairs of cyborg eyes turned as she entered, examining her with what she could only describe as--interest, curiosity, even a touch of hostility. There was no cool, emotionless appraisal, not from one. There was no similarity between them beyond a general physical build, height and weight. Two were blond, two dark, but the shades varied drastically, as did their eye color and facial features, but then she hadn’t expected them to look as if they’d come off of an assembly line. They had arisen from a new generation of cyborg, and had been touted as ‘each as uniquely different and natural as a real, live human.’ It was one of the things that had made tracking them down extremely difficult. They had been designed to blend in with humans.
“We have a hunter among us. She is ... mine. I will expect you to remember that and act accordingly.”
The cyborgs had stiffened at Reuel’s announcement, several of them half rising from their seats. They settled back, their expressions more guarded than before.
“You are not taking her to the camp?”
“Why did you bring her?”
“Why did you not kill her?”
“For what purpose have you brought her among us?”
They spoke almost at once, each question spilling over the question of another, tangling so that it was hard to separate them.
“When I understand myself ... when, and if, I feel the urge to share, I will tell you,” Reuel said coldly. “Until then, it is not your right to ask.”
“You endanger us all, risk the failure of our plans by bringing her among us. That should give us the right.”
Reuel moved to a chair near the others and sat. Wrapping an arm around Dalia’s waist, he pulled her down onto his lap. She resisted, for all the good it did, sitting stiffly erect. He wouldn’t allow even that much rebellion, however. He pulled her against him and held her until she relaxed, dropping her head back against his shoulder. “You see this tiny morsel of mortal flesh as a threat?” he said, his voice deep, husky.
“That is the huntress, Dalia. She has killed almost as many as the other hunters together,” one of the cyborgs growled.
Almost casually, Reuel slipped a hand through the arm opening of her tunic and began to pluck at her nipple with his thumb and forefinger. Dalia stiffened, tried to jerk upright, but his grip tightened until she relaxed once more with the realization that she could not free herself, could not move until he allowed it. Swallowing with an effort, she fixed her gaze across the room, trying to ignore his touch, trying to ignore the fact that the other cyborgs had been instantly riveted by his actions. “This delicate little flower?” he insisted, rolling the distended nipple between his finger and thumb. “I am afraid I find it difficult to perceive her as a threat--at least, not in the way that you mean.”
Dalia was relieved when he finally released her nipple--until he slipped his hand down her belly and cupped her sex. She clamped her legs tightly. Abandoning that goal after only a moment, he slid his hand up her belly and caught her other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, plucking at it until it stood erect and began to throb like an aching tooth.
“If we were men, now, that might be a different matter altogether,” he murmured, his husky voice almost as mesmerizing as the teasing caress of his hand. “She is a wondrous marvel of nature, do you not think? Even I can understand how a man, who is still slave to his hormonal urges, would find himself distracted and vulnerable because of it.”
Almost casually, he lifted his legs, one at the time, and propped the heels of his boots on the table that separated the chairs. As he did so, her legs slid off on either side of his. She scarcely noticed. She was so enthralled by his touch, and trying desperately to ignore the sensations shimmying through her that she hardly noticed when he removed the arm that was around her waist and slipped his opposite hand through her tunic. He cupped her breast in his hand, massaging it even as he plucked gently, rhythmically at the nipple.
She’d lost track of the other hand, the one he’d been teasing her with before. When it skated over her belly, the muscles there jumped, clenched. This time when his hand settled between her legs, she discovered she could not clamp her legs together. She tried, reflexively.
Apparently completely unconcerned, possibly even unaware, of her attempts to prevent his incursion, he used his fingers to part the petals of flesh and slid one large finger along her cleft. Dalia thought for several moments that she would faint. She was struggling so hard to keep her breathing regular, to still the frantic drum of her heart, that she kept holding her breath.
“As a machine, naturally I am incapable of feeling ... anything at all, but I do find this female interesting to study. This, for instance,” he said, pushing her tunic aside and displaying the breast he held in his hand, “is interestingly symmetrical. The color and texture is also interesting in that the shading of the flesh contrasts so sharply from here,” he massaged her breast, “to here,” he plucked the distended nipple.
For the first time since he’d begun to toy with her, Dalia looked at the cyborgs across from them. Any doubt that she’d ever entertained that lust was a concept beyond their capability or understanding vanished. They were, quite obviously, as enthralled by what Reuel was doing to her as she was, and, strangely enough, she lost the vague sense of discomfort that had been nibbling at the back of her mind. As if something had broken inside of her--all urge to fight it--she released a shaky breath that was half gasp, half groan as she felt him push the finger he’d been exploring her sex with up inside of her.
The groan that escaped her had the unexpected effect of making him cease abruptly, though he seemed to withdraw that probing finger almost reluctantly. Removing his hands from inside the tunic, he smoothed it over her. “If we were men, we would lust for this female, allow it to blind us to danger, and reason, and then ... only then, would this small mortal be a threat to us,” he growled, dropping his feet to the deck and pushing her off his lap abruptly.
She stood shakily, staring down at him in confusion. He surged to his feet, grasped her arm as he had before and half pushed, half dragged her from the room and up the stairs. Reaching his cabin once more, Dalia turned on him as he closed the door behind them. “Why did you do that?”
His face hardened. “Did it bother you? Surely, it did not ...being fondled by a machine, in front of more machines. You should have thought no more of it than if I were some mechanical pleasure devise, and they were ... furniture.”
Her lips tightened. “You’ve made your point, many times over. I still want to know why.”
He moved toward her until he was looming over her. “Because it pleased me to do it. Because you are mine and I will do as I please with you at any time it pleases me to do it. So thatyouwould know your danger. So thattheywould know that you are mine and I would kill them if they so much as looked at you.” He stopped, dragged in a ragged breath. “And because I could not stop myself once I had started.”
He gripped her arms, pulling her up against him until her breasts flattened against his chest, then slipped an arm behind her back and caught her face in his other hand. “Is this how you did it, my deadly little flower? Did you allow them to think that you looked upon them as men? Did you sigh and moan at their touch as if you enjoyed it, waiting until their minds were so heated with need that it was easy for you to slip a blade into their heart?”
Dalia swallowed with an effort. “No!” she said shakily. “It would never have occurred to me! I wasn’t trained to do such a thing and I would never have let them near enough to me to try it. I didn’t even know it was possible. I bested them.”
He studied her face carefully. Finally, a dark eyebrow rose skeptically. “Toe to toe, in combat?”
She flushed. “I outwitted them, caught them by surprise. I’m skilled in the usage of all weapons and hand to hand combat. Yes, it was considered that I wouldn’t be perceived as a threat because I’m a female and not physically threatening in appearance, but no one considered, least of all me, that it was even possible to ... lure a cyborg to his death.”
“Least of all you.”
