It chafed Avion that he couldn’t play with his buddies or impress his girl with his skill. From the sounds of it, these daecroc things were the bomb to fight. I so would have kicked some reptile ass.

If he weren’t broken. At least their escape and take over had gone according to plan.

If too easy.

The daecrocs escorted the remaining slavers to the prison cells and then withdrew to their ship, a massive vessel parked in a hangar bay. Once they loaded it with livestock, which Seth declared “the ugliest, hairiest smelliest beasts evah!” the lizard men departed.

Aramus didn’t like it. “Damn it, and here I was looking forward to sparring with some of them later.”

“Maybe we should have kept a few to play with.”

“Boys and their pet lizards,” Anastasia teased.

“I, for one, am glad they’re gone,” Riley announced. “They didn’t smell too good.”

Only Avion asked, “How come they’re abandoning ship so easily?”

Lilith answered. “We’ve taken over the ship and imprisoned their employer. The daecroc don’t owe them allegiance. Now that we’ve cut their source of revenue, why would they stay? They will simply hire themselves out to another crew.”

As a matter of fact, the leader of the crocodile beings told Aramus to call if they ever had enough funds and needed help going to war.

As if the cyborgs would share that kind of glory.

The takeover went way too smoothly, and Avion didn’t trust it, but then again, that might have had to do with the fact that distrust was easier to bear than hope.

Lilith seemed convinced this secret place they were going to held the answer to fixing him. Yet, from what he gleaned, the Zvali’dus seemed unwavering in their belief that all the cyborgs would be met with extreme prejudice.

Abominations.

They’ve even got a name for us. Avion couldn’t help but be annoyed by the whole situation. We don’t fit on Earth.  We can’t escape in space. And, now, even the place that is the true origin of our nanotech affliction denies us.

Where did they belong?

Where did he belong?

Avion couldn’t claim a foot in any camp anymore, not cyborg or human. He was other. A dying, one-of-a-kind breed.

Yet Lilith didn’t care. She didn’t care if he was damaged. Broken. She wasn’t with him because she admired his skill in battle or how he flew a ship. She just plain liked him.

She’s nuts.

But with good reason, given her past. A past Avion didn’t care about. He looked beyond her killer nature and otherness. To him she was Lilith, lovely, sweet, naïve and, at the same time, too wise.

It wasn’t her fault she had issues. Lilith had many gaps in her memories, fractured recollections tainted by the young and still unschooled mind of a child.

He could see the battle in her as two sides of an opposing personality fought to share one space. How he wished he had the time to help her merge the two facets and accept herself for who she was, organic and tech.

Don’t give up yet.

He couldn’t have said if it was his voice or hers that told him that.

Once Lilith set the course, which the Zvali’dus had programmed in their database, Lilith relinquished control of the ship to Aramus.

“That was nice of you,” Avion said as she led him away, her hand tucked in his.

“I don’t know if his mate would agree. Aramus was rubbing parts of the command center and calling it his precious and his sweet baby.”

“Some people get off on collecting books or glass figurines. I love airplanes. But Aramus is a spaceship whore. The good news is Riley doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Part of that whole love thing again?” Lilith inquired.

“Now you’re starting to get it.”

“I believe I’m beginning to grasp it, but I’m still not sure I’m capable of feeling it.”

Not seeing Lilith didn’t mean Avion couldn’t manage to manhandle her against a wall, his face inches from hers, his body pressed against hers. “You feel, Lilith. You might not always mean to, but a part of you feels emotions.”

“I am not supposed to though. I was taught that emotions lack logic. That the right decisions come from analysis and forethought.”

“And yet pleasure comes from letting go,” he whispered against her lips, not quite touching her, but it didn’t matter. She still shivered as his warm breath caressed her lips. “Let it all go, Lilith. I know you’re keeping a part of yourself closed off.”

“But if I let go, if I let the other half of me loose, what if I can never reel her back?”

By her, he understood she meant the human side she’d suppressed for so long, the slightly crazy part of her that chafed at its confinement. “Why would you want to box yourself away? You are more than just logic and nanotech. You are also human. A woman. A person with emotions and choice and depth. Who says all those sides can’t cohabit together? It’s what we cyborgs have achieved. And while I can’t deny we’re a little insane, who cares? Individuality is beautiful.” You are beautiful.

She sighed against him. “I am tired of fighting her.”

“Then don’t. Set yourself free, vixen.”

He pressed his lips against hers, their soft plushness a sensory delight even in his weakened state. She returned his embrace, opening her mouth for him and daring to let her tongue be the first to stray.

He sucked it. She made a sound of pleasure.

“A room?” he questioned. I don’t wish us to be disturbed for what I have planned.

You should preserve your strength.

Fuck that. I need a reason to live, and that reason is you.

She almost crushed him as her arms came around his ribs and squeezed. It gladdened him that his words struck a chord with her, yet at the same time, it saddened him. One, because it was so obvious she was starved for affection. And, two, despite her belief, Avion couldn’t promise he’d stick around to give her the love she so ardently deserved.

But altruism was for someone else.

Avion was selfish. Dying or not, he needed to taste her one last time. Needed to show her that she was a woman, not just a host governed by the machines that existed within her. A woman with needs and emotions.

A woman with desires…

The room they stumbled into didn’t have a bed, but it did have a door that locked and a couch, or so she announced before she pushed him down on it. He might have protested her take-charge attitude, but he allowed it since she followed him, straddling his waist, the gown she wore riding up her thighs.

Without his eyes to show him, he relied entirely on his sense of touch. He reveled in the silky softness of her skin as his fingers trailed across her thighs and over the swell of her hips to rest on the indent of her waist.

The rustle of fabric teased him. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Removing my clothes.”

“You are nude?”

She grabbed his hands and placed them upon her perky breasts. His hands cupped them, thumbs brushing across already erect peaks. “Entirely nude. But you are not. Yet.”

Her smaller yet deft hands divested him of his shirt, baring his torso to the satiny fabric of the couch. He lifted his hips for her as she yanked at his loosely fitted trousers. At her gasp, he could so easily imagine his cock springing forth, thick and hard. He didn’t need eyes to know she stared at it, but her sudden touching of his shaft drew forth a groan from him.

“You like it when I touch you?”

“Love it. Just like I love touching you. Feeling you.” He let his fingers roam her skin, tracing her every curve, feeling her every shudder. She couldn’t hide the smell of her arousal, the musky perfume mouthwatering. The moistness of her core wetted his lap where she sat straddling him.

But he wanted more than her to touch him. He craved a taste.

Gripping her around the waist, he tugged.

“What do you try to do?” she asked.

“I want to lick you.”

“Lick me where?”

Instead of saying it aloud, he let a single finger stroke across her damp folds.

She shuddered. “Oh. Oh.”

Lucky him, she didn’t have further questions, merely compliance to his wish. With his head leaned back, he felt rather than saw as she brought her sex to his mouth. He nuzzled her mound, the soft down of her pubes tickling. He kissed his way down to his goal, and she shuddered in his grip.

Despite her squirming, he held her as firmly as he could, his hands anchored to her hips as he brought his lips to her sex and flicked her with his tongue.

A low moan emerged from her.

He licked again, a long, wet swipe then a short one. He lapped at her moist core, spreading her nether lips and tasting her sweet honey. Slender fingers threaded through his hair and tugged, pulling at him almost painfully, but he welcomed it. It kept him focused and aware that, for as much pleasure as he got from this, hers was tenfold.

As if they had all the time in the world, he let his tongue and mouth explore the sweetness of her sex. He located her clitoris, a swollen nub, which, when nibbled on, had her hips bucking and her sex thrusting at his face.

Awash with pleasure, Lilith allowed herself to feel and not control. She let loose, and he reveled in it. He also wanted more.

More of her.

As his tongue lightly flicked her pleasure button, he inserted one then two fingers within her channel. Her muscles squeezed around him, wetly pulsing. He thrust them in and out as his tongue teased her. He pumped and licked and panted as he felt her pleasure tightening, evident in the tension humming through her body.

She pushed on his fingers, trying to drive them deeper, but they didn’t have the length she craved.

Only one thing did.

“I want,” she gasped.

“I know what you want,” he growled. He placed one last kiss on her sex before pushing at her hips, drawing her down.

She grasped his intent and guided her body the rest of the way. The head of his cock hit the opening to her core, and then he was sheathed.

His turn to have his hips buck and for him to cry out. She took him. All of him. Deep and tight.

Astride his lap, Lilith rocked back and forth on his shaft, driving him in and squeezing him so perfectly. Panting hard now, he did his best to keep up, but Lilith was the one in control now. With her hands splayed across his chest, she rode him, fast and hard. She rose and dropped on his cock with force. She squirmed on his lap, pushing him deep.

He couldn’t hold on. It was too much. Not enough. Too good. Too…

“Lilith!” He yelled her name as he came, and she said his too, but in his mind.

Avion. Her affection for him surrounded him, along with the blissful glory of their orgasm, a meld of spirit, body, and mind that had him wrapping his arms tight around her, determined to never let her go.

Until death do us part.

Which, unfortunately for him, came too fast.