Lance

Under me, Selena’s body relaxed. Her hand fell from my shoulder, no longer scraping it. I’d bet my finest pearls that her blunt nails left scratches. Before I moved my head from the crook of her neck, I slid the blindfold over her eyes. Then I sniffed and smelled blood. I looked down to where we were still joined. My cock had faint traces of her virginity on me.

I felt like she’d given me the world, and I could take so much more from her tonight. But I didn’t. She must be sore. I pulled out and went to the bathroom to clean up. When I came out, she was where I’d left her, legs spread and all. I used the cloth to wipe between her legs, and she moaned. “Again?”

“Hm?”

“Are we going to do it again?”

I prowled over her and looked down at her rosy cheeks. “Are you ready for me again?” Because I was game.

She scrunched up her nose. “Maybe later.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” I lay down beside her and propped my head on my left hand, my right hand on her belly. She was everything I wasn’t. Soft, smooth, and pretty, with curves that made me want to spank her and fuck her for months. I could spend a lifetime next to her. Oh shit.

What the hell was I thinking? I tightened my jaw, tried to chase away thoughts of keeping this woman. She’d slept with me because she didn’t have a choice, given me her virginity because I’d promised to protect her, and not because she wanted me. Oh yes, she’d said she wanted it and had even enjoyed it, but that didn’t mean she would want to stay around as my companion.

Selena cleared her throat, and I scooted closer, her shoulder touching my chest. A smile played over her lips, and I bent to kiss her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Go on and say it.”

“I imagine you’re handsome.”

Well, I didn’t see that coming. “You must be the first,” I said.

“I don’t think so. People who know you like you.” She shrugged. “Not that I know the real you. But still.” She sighed. “I’m rambling.”

I moved a stray hair away from her face. “You didn’t mention your mother when you came here.”

She pursed her lips. “My mom died. Or is dead. Depending how you look at the circumstances.”

Shit. “I’m sorry to hear that. Recently?”

She nodded. “Day after tomorrow will be a year.”

Double shit. I said nothing else, let her talk if she wanted to. I was content just being near her. Fuck me. I was in trouble with this girl. The more time I spent with her, the more I wanted her to stay. But I couldn’t ask her to stay, and I never would. I couldn’t ask her to tie herself to a monster like me. If I was a guy, the way I had been, I would put my entire castle on lockdown until I convinced her to stay. The man I’d been got lost in my memories, and this humanoid creature no woman in her right mind could love replaced him.

Not even my own mother wanted to keep me.

“Dad’s business beat all the competitors,” Selena started. “The cyborg elite started ordering from us for their parties, and offers came one after the other. Diego’s father was wealthier than us at the time.”

“Diego the cyborg you were supposed to marry. Correct?”

“That’s the one. His dad made a deal with mine. You see, both our families are small. Diego and I are both only children. No uncles or aunts on either side of our parents, so basically, we couldn’t climb the habitat ladder on our own. No amount of great booze can replace social status, because with social status, you get Cy benefits. So my dad and Diego’s dad decided to join our families. Mom agreed I should marry Diego. It would help us out, and she believed he’s a great kid. They all do. But he’s rotten, Lance, he’s rotten.”

The scales on the back of my neck lifted. I didn’t like where this was going.

Selena swallowed, then continued, absentmindedly twirling a lock of her long hair. “Mom agreed, but she also thought that eighteen was too young. She had married at eighteen. I wonder if she regretted it and didn’t want me to share her fate. So the marriage was put off until I turned nineteen, then twenty, and now, hopefully, put off indefinitely. I turn twenty soon.”

“Day after tomorrow,” I said.

She smiled, but it was tight, and since my palm rested between her breasts, I felt her heart speed up. “Right,” she said.

“You’re nervous about it. I promised I’d protect you, and I will.”

“Thank you.” She touched my face.

I wanted to pull away but didn’t. For some reason, I let her explore. A woman hadn’t touched me in over five years, ever since I’d let my beast seep into my human body and cover the burn scars. I carried my beast close to the surface of my body and mind. I’d believed his strength would let me wield the water element. It turned out I still couldn’t do anything about the element I should wield. Some days, I wondered if I could ever regain my human skin. I wanted to become a man for Selena.

“Why another year?” I asked, because I wanted to hear about her circumstances. I wanted to know everything about her.

“Because weeks before I turned nineteen, Diego and I went out.”

A growl started in my chest. I suppressed a snarl, but Selena heard enough to pet my chest. “Go on,” I bit out. I asked about this, didn’t I? Now I better listen.

“At dinner, he was all charming and sweet with me. He invited me upstairs into the house our parents had bought for us. To show me around, he said. I admit to having been superexcited. It was my first time meeting him for more than a few minutes in passing, and he seemed nice. Not bad looking either.”

“I would like to rip his arm out and beat him over the head with it.”

“Awww.”

“Mm-hm. But go on. I asked for it.”

She giggled. I liked the sound. Made me want to tickle her.

“So we went up to our house. A glorious large apartment filled with the latest Cy tech. We shared a drink or two, then things got weird.” Selena turned away.

I tapped her cheek, so she’d turn her face toward my voice. “Weird how?” The scales on the back of my neck rose again. I sensed something amiss, something that might make me mad. My beast stirred as well, a tightening in my chest.

“He started to…advance on me. I said no. He said there’s no point in waiting, that we’d be married in a few weeks. Might as well get started now. I asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t.” She ground her teeth. “He wouldn’t fucking stop.”

I blinked and didn’t know what to say. What do you say to this? “I’m sorry” just didn’t seem right.

“In any case, I carried a Taser in my purse, and I got him in the shoulder. His Cy implant, you know, and so his Cy parts short-circuited. One leg and one arm and probably more parts on his body I couldn’t see. Then I ran home.”

I would indeed rip his arm out and beat him with it.

“Good girl,” I told her. Lucky, I meant to say, but didn’t. Lucky that she’d been able to fight off a man probably twice her size and five times stronger.

“Dad didn’t believe me.”

“Christ.”

“It’s pretty common, actually. Lots of people don’t believe you didn’t ask for it.”

“I believe you,” I said firmly. I knew a thing or two about sexual assault. One of my foster moms liked to explore my body more than she should. At the time, I didn’t understand, but I got it now. When social services took away my foster sister, then me, I said nothing to them. But my sister must have, because I went into another home after that. Then another. Then another. Granted, I wasn’t a poster boy for good behavior. Did drugs and got into fights, spent some quality time in juvie. That got me thinking about cooking and later volunteering as a firefighter.

Selena mimicked my pose, laying one hand on top of mine and interlocking our fingers. “Mom acted like she didn’t believe me while Dad was around, but after Dad left all huffy and puffy, she promised me she would give me at least another year. See, Mom believed in the good in all people. She even thought alcohol had made Diego incapable of thinking straight. Made excuses for him. But I knew what I’d seen. When he had me pinned and started ripping my clothes, there was something evil in his eyes. That wasn’t alcohol; not bad judgment either. That was just an evil guy doing horrible things. I tried to tell her that, but she brushed me off, though she said that I should make my jewelry, pursue my hobbies and art for as long as I could before marriage, because nothing quite kills creativity than a man with whom you can’t share your passion. I think she meant my dad. I didn’t think he supported her art. She painted in secret, sometimes showed me her art, framed it, and told him we’d bought it from someone.”

“What did she do to extend the contract for a year?” I asked.

“She threw herself from our penthouse balcony.”

I stared at Selena.

“Yeah. In our family, we can’t have weddings for up to one year after a close family member dies. So that’s what Mom did for me. So you see why I couldn’t stay in the habitat. I’ve tried it all, but I knew that if I stayed, the marriage was a done deal.”

I kept staring at her. My mother had given up on me. Hers committed suicide in the name of love.

“So that’s my tale,” she said.

I said nothing, because nothing could be said. I tucked Selena under me and promised her I would protect her for as long as she asked me to. “You are welcome to stay in this castle for as long as you want. You are not to feel as if you have to sleep with me to keep a roof over your head.” I felt like a selfish bastard already. “If and when you want to leave for another shelter, and by the way, there are other places you can go that are not habitats, I will take you there myself and help you settle. I promise you this.”

Selena threw her hands around my neck. “Thank you. That means the world to me.”

I think she meant the world to me.

* * *

Selena slept. I heard her breathing steady, her heartbeat slower than before. But I couldn’t get any shut-eye, not after she’d told me about that guy. I wanted to hunt him down, rip out his Cy parts, and eat the rest of his human body. I had never consumed a human, but I could. My beast could.

Somehow, I managed to squeeze out of her tight grip even though as I moved her hands, she hung on to me for dear life. I knew all too well the feeling of needing protection and love but not getting any. The feeling of being alone in a world that is out to hurt you.

I strode to her window and looked outside. Unlike from my quarters, I could only see the edge of the habitat from hers. At this time of the evening, the lights had come on and bathed the entire thing in a pleasant yellow glow. All green grass, happy blue lights, and busy cars with chipper cyborgs enjoying their night life. What was the punishment for rape in the habitat? I’d bet a rare pearl they didn’t have one. I bet they believed they’d somehow created a society where such things didn’t exist, so Selena wouldn’t stand a chance. And all of a sudden, outlaws seemed like a party compared to cyborgs.

I glanced up at the space above the habitat. A mini Cy ship hovered above it, cyborgs in small pods running errands between it and the habitat below, the Cy still respecting the old rule that prohibited them from landing on Earth. It was probably why they’d built the high-rises and moved everything from ground level into the air. Like this, they weren’t on Earth, just hovering right above the surface. A few pods flew from the ship to the mother ship in the sky. What’s in it for you, hm?

For no reason in particular, tonight I grew even more skeptical of the Cy alien race’s intentions. They helped us out when we needed them, they provided the technology we asked for, they ensured the human race survived the Ice Age for however long the cold stretched by providing them with Cy parts. Cyborgs could withstand harsh temperatures, the Cy parts warming up the body parts of the person. The Cy built habitats where every human was welcome to come.

The wealthy families ruling the habitats Selena talked about? That was all on us humans. We’d created the societal gap, the high and low society, even before the habitats. We made the rules of how people should be treated. We segregated, not the Cy.

But still, what was in it for the Cy? They seemed awfully polite, didn’t they?

I glanced at the calm Pacific near the shore. I wanted it to lift and touch the habitat’s plasma, break inside, and flood the streets. For no particular reason.

I tapped my claws on the window, then thought about something Selena had said. Jewelry. She made jewelry, I believed. Well, my beast had a thing for hoarding jewels. I wanted Selena to stay, so I’d give her something nobody had given her before. Freedom to pursue her art. A sure ticket to her heart.