Chapter Twenty-Two:

***

Norah woke up sometime later, her heart racing and sweat on her brow. She snapped open her eyes and sat up, lifted her hand to her chest, and felt her heart beating like a battering ram against her rib cage. The room blurred in low-light around her as she felt a rush of giddiness and fear flow through her.

Stryker’s medlab. She ran her fingers through her curls and squeezed her eyes shut, willing the whirl away.

Norah took a deep breath and eased her legs off of the pad. It shifted under her as she moved. She wiped her palms over the lab jacket she still wore. The taste of alcohol lingered on her tongue.

I’m thirsty. She shut the thought out knowing she was safe, she was fine and on the mend within the Cyborg’s domain.

Somehow, reminding herself of that, it relaxed the muscles in her shoulders and neck.

Her bare feet hit the floor; glancing down she saw her boots placed on the ground next to her. She stepped past them and headed for the open lavatory across from the bed and shook as the faucets came into view.

She wiped her clammy hands down her lab coat again. Water or dirt, water or dirt. Her eyes clenched shut as she stripped down and took a step into the cubicle. When the water shot out above her, soft as a sprinkle and hot to the touch, she shook out her whole body until the tingles inside her went away.

It’s not so bad. A soap receptacle came out of the wall. It was scentless and heavenly. Even better was the fact that the water felt clean as opposed to the rain that had soaked her for days. Still, she took the quickest shower of her life.

No matter how much she scrubbed, the bruises didn’t come off, the aches didn’t melt away, and her cracked nails didn’t round out. It really isn’t that bad.

It didn’t stop her from using the blower several times over though, until every bit of moisture had dried away. She was out of the lavatory and dressed in a new lab coat, had on her boots and was out the door within moments. Feeling clean almost made up for her persistent aches and fear.

Everything has to be clean when you’re a chemist. Norah’s lips jerked up, she was halfway back to normal.

It didn’t take her much to find her way to the animal laboratory–all she had to do was listen to the voices.

Stryker’s ship wasn’t small per-se, more like compact, easy, and decked out with the best tech on the universal market. One look around his cockpit and bridge was enough for her to discern that.

Norah looked down from the second-floor railing to Matt, Stryker, and a series of robots, cleaning up the lab. Signs of the fight were still there but the debris was gone and many of the scratches had been buffed out. Some deep ones remained.

She looked around for the Wieraptor but found no trace of it. Even the smell of its thick blood has vanished from the air.

Norah’s lips twitched up into a full-on grin. They didn’t notice her and she relaxed as she watched the two men banter and clean.

He knows I’m here. Stryker flexed his muscles and made a show at bending the giant metal table back into shape. She couldn’t hide her smile even if she had wanted to. Their eyes met for a moment before he looked away and continued to play the game with her.

She crouched down and sat on her knees as she watched him, the light-headedness helped her forget the horrors. She was going to take what pleasure she could in the moment.

She could see the twinkle in his eyes. It was everything she needed and everything she wanted. Against all the terrible things that lurked within the recesses of her mind, she was happy. Happy, light-headed, and dry. She was safe, secure, and protected. Norah was on her way home.

Norah couldn’t take her eyes off of the man that had saved her. Her fingers wound around the bars before her as she gazed down at him. As Matt complained, Stryker picked up the heaviest, most damaged equipment and proceeded to fix it. She watched as he did inhuman things and appeared unimpressed.

The more she smiled, the more his eyes were drawn to her.

Matt downed sip after sip of the flask he kept nearby that made her jealous. To be so relaxed, so sure that one’s safety was...secure, must be a wonderful feeling.

He disappeared around the corner with a handful of rubble, leaving her and Stryker behind; the robots trailed him with a load of their own.

Stryker stretched and turned toward her; soon he stood right below.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey.”

“Please come up here and make me feel that everything is safe.” Norah sat back as he huffed and walked up the stairway. She got to her feet.

“I missed you.”

Stryker pulled her into his chest and she relished his grip, his heat. “I haven’t gone anywhere,” she murmured against his chest.

“I fucking hope not, otherwise there’d be something wrong with me.”

Norah smiled against him. “How do you figure?”

“I can monitor you from anywhere on this ship. If you managed to leave without my knowing, then I would have some serious problems with my systems.”

“Or,” she laughed, “I can be just that good. I bet I could win against you in hide and seek.” She tempted him, imagining the outcome, knowing she wouldn’t win the game itself; making him play was victory enough. Heat zipped through her, slow and malleable and wonderful. It was a distraction she didn’t realize she needed.

“Yeah? I’d take that bet.”

“I bet you would!” Matt yelled up at them, his eyes rolled as they looked his way. “The lab is almost clean, so-help-me-god, you better take your games elsewhere or I’m going to quit.”

Norah laughed. “But hide and seek isn’t a dirty game, Matt.” She already felt a fondness for the guy. Maybe because he’s the only other human to survive. It hurt, the ghoulish horrors that plagued her, and the aftershocks of an event she couldn’t quite believe was over.

She felt Stryker run his hand down her back, slowly and with so much promise, the heat inside her sparked.

“Yeah, tell that to the creatures who would be traumatized by it,” he muttered and turned away with a sigh, looking in the direction of the one working computer.

A shiver blasted through her when Stryker cupped the back of her neck and squeezed.

“Do you want to play?”

His question was so simple, so coy, dripping with enough subtext that if it had a smell, it would smell like caramel. Norah gripped the railway again and squeezed the metal, trying to let go of the tension within her. But Stryker continued to pet her from behind, and the more she tried to ground herself, the more she was overcome by the man behind her.

The man that had answered her distress call. Had saved her life and had even changed her so much that what had mattered most to her a month ago no longer mattered at all.

An image of them in the vehicle, sinking within the flood waters, the coilers barraging them from every side. That moment when he held her, stared into her eyes, only to look past them and into her soul. Stryker had stolen her from death itself.

She had been meant to die on Axone. She was sure of it.

She was meant to suffer at the hands of Mother Nature for being the greedy, curious human she was. For invading another world; for scouting a place for humanity to move so their mistakes in caring for their homeworld could be swept under the rug. For having the audacity to believe that humanity deserved a second chance.

Norah turned around and met Stryker’s eyes. She gave no thought to the fact that his face had completely healed, only that he was perfect again.

And his question, dripping with sex, had assailed her.

“I love you, Stryker,” she announced as her heart exploded in her chest, forcing its way from her ribcage and up her throat. “I love you so much.”

The Cyborg bulked up and let out a deep breath that whistled under his mask. Please don’t deny it.

She covered her torso with her arms and hugged herself, her belly strained from the air she held captive, ready to protect herself from the vulnerability she felt.

Norah continued with a stutter, “I fell in love with you in the car, that moment when our eyes locked before we almost drowned. I felt so much at that moment that when we survived, I doubted my feelings for shock, maybe even trauma, or just the excitement of thwarting death. But It stayed and, well, I didn’t want the feeling to go and when it didn’t go away, it was such a relief. I keep thinking back to that moment, I had barely met you, and here we were dying together and it felt so right,” she rambled. It wasn’t like her but she hadn’t been herself since the attack. “I loved that moment. I love you…” She took a breath. “Please say something.”

His brow crinkled and she could have sworn if she saw his face, that he was smiling.

“I loved you the moment I heard your voice. When you called for me.” Stryker picked her up in his arms and led them back into the ship.

Matt’s constant musings and complaints trailed off with every receding step.

“So we’re both irrational.” She gripped the lapels of his space suit.

“We are, but don’t tell anyone else–I have a reputation to maintain as a Cyborg,” he teased as he stepped through the threshold of a new door.

“I promise, my lips are sealed. I have a reputation to maintain myself.” Norah laughed and peered around the room that she had been brought to. “We have nothing to tell.”

“Nothing is error.”

“Not in our case,” she murmured and reached up to cup his face, loving the cold metal of his mask over his face. “Can I see you?”

Stryker bent his head down and looked at her. “I can’t risk it, babe.”

“Even if I stand on the other side of the room?”

He sighed. “I’ve killed so many in the past, maimed my brethren, and made mistakes. Even on the other side of the room, if you make one wrong move, I could snap out and bite you before I regain control.”

“I promise I won’t make a move. Trust goes both ways, right?” she implored, her hands twisting into the cloth at his chest.

He set her on her feet and she could’ve kissed him on the mouth with excitement.

Norah rushed to the farthest corner and waited as Stryker did the same. He stared her down, eyes ablaze with electric fire and even worry as he lifted his hand to cup his mask. “Don’t come at me. Don’t move.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

He lifted it off his nose and let it settle around his neck. Norah stopped herself from leaning forward to get a better look at him, one that wasn’t disrupted by a violent fight.

Stryker didn’t look like a snake, he didn’t look like any creature other than a human. She had thought he may have had scaly flesh, a receded nose, maybe even a popped out mouth but he had nothing.

Norah canted her head and took him in, placing each curve and groove within her memory. The skin was paler than the rest of his face and where there was a hook for his nose on his mask, the real thing was straight and unbroken. She wanted to kiss every inch of him, more so because she knew she never would be able to.

“I feel analyzed.” Stryker smiled, and it made her mouth water.

“Part of my job.”

“So I’m a sample subject now? Do you have to run tests on me? I could go for that. I hardly have any water in me, so you might be a little out of your element,” he teased her, and she noticed a gleam to his blue eyes but was distracted by his mouth. His teeth. And even the glimpses of his tongue.

“Your tongue isn’t forked anymore, and your teeth? Aren't they supposed to be sharp?” As she asked him, his mouth shifted and his tongue split apart. His teeth descended into two, long, thick fangs. Norah could almost feel her flesh ripped from her body as she stared at them.  “Oh.” It was all she could manage.

His tongue slipped farther and farther out until he let out a hiss. Stryker shifted back into his humanoid appearance before she could jump back. He placed the mask back on as her pulse thumped and her blood ran cold.

“I see why you wear the mask now.”

Stryker came toward her and took her hand, only to rub her wrist. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

She ignored his sentiment. “You can’t control striking out?”

“Most of the time I can’t. And it’s a problem I deal with by protecting myself and others around me.”

“And your venom is poisonous?”

“Yes, and when it releases into my mouth, my saliva can be poisonous too.”

“But you licked me…” Norah gulped.

“I did. I know when I’m dangerous and I would never hurt you, babe.”

“But you won’t let me come close to you with your mask off?” Norah asked, knowing somewhere in her gut that it was important.

Stryker took a step back and crouched down in front of her. “I would never hurt you because I would never take it off with you nearby.”

“I think you should,” she whispered. “We can create an anti-venom, just in case. I think you need to take it off around me.” He gazed up at her and she couldn’t help herself from stepping into his arms and holding his head against her belly. “I can wait until you’re ready,” Norah stroked his hair and held him to her.

“What If I’m never ready?”

“Then I can wait forever.”

“Does that mean I can keep you, Norah Lee?” he asked. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies and she had an insatiable need to wrap herself around him and never let go.

“Yeah. I think it does.”