“Up! We’re under attack!”

Drew manhandling her off the bed brought Claudia out of sleep instantly. She gasped and clung to him for a second as sleep burned its way out of her brain. But he turned and dumped her, not unkindly, on the bed.

She scrabbled for her clothes as he grabbed a weapons rig from the corner of the room and hauled it over his naked shoulders. She gasped at the sight of him outfitted for war. The big weapons he carried so easily looked lethal in his hands.

“The alarms on the perimeter have been tripped,” he told her as they raced through the corridors to the main section of the treebase. Other, grim-faced cyborgs burst into the corridors, running in front of and behind them.

“How do you know?” she gasped, almost tripping over a knot in the wood beneath their feet, but he was already there, his hand under her arm to haul her upright.

Drew didn’t answer, just caught her gaze and tapped the side of his head. Right, his implants, she realized. All the cyborgs used a common pathway, almost like telepathy… the rogue ones must have switched the main one off and adopted another one. Pike had gone practically apoplectic when they’d gone silent on the main channel, but she hadn’t realized they’d have the presence of mind to use another.

But then… no one had realized they were working as a team now. They’d thought it was just random misfires and malfunctions of the cybernetic circuits. That each rogue was operating on its own agenda according to whatever digital bugs had gotten into its onboard computers. But everything she’d seen proved otherwise. Grimly, she realized Pike must have known that all along from the non-rebelling soldiers’ footage. Footage she’d never been allowed to see…

80 was already in the main section of the base, his face grim when he spotted Drew as the soldiers crowded around them. “We’re outnumbered three to one,” he said after a quick glance toward Claudia, obviously speaking for her benefit. “They tripped the outer sensors. We’ve been tracking them since,” he said, looking at them as he loaded the big machine gun he carried.

His hands moved on automatic and she shivered at the mechanical movement. It wasn’t a human movement, the action too precise. It had been one of the hardest things to get used to when watching them after their… conversion. The units were all as grim-faced as they prepared for battle. No emotions on their faces. They were as mechanical as the machines they’d been turned into.

But then she spotted one of the cyborgs at the back. In the middle of the precise, automated movement they were all using to check their weapons, he paused for a second. Then he turned the big gun to the side and brushed his fingers against the side of the rail. Without a pause, he returned to the same routine as the others were using but she’d spotted it and it made her heart leap.

That wasn’t a movement coded into their cybernetic systems. Soldiers often clipped things, good luck charms, to the rails of their weapons. Whatever that soldier had clipped there wasn’t there any longer, but somehow the movement, an automatic one, had survived what had happened to him. It was something from his organic side…

And it had to mean there was a way back for them. That she could bring them back to the men they were.

“Okay, get units on the perimeter…” Drew’s expression set and his eyes unfocused for a moment. She’d noticed him doing that before, accessing his internal memory or communicating with the others. “We’ll mount a defense while 86 organizes a retreat. Doc,” he turned to her. “Get 78 ready to move. Fast.”

“Drew…” She put a hand on his arm when he started to turn away and he stopped, looking down at her. But his eyes were warm, not the cold brown of his cyborg half, and she shivered, remembering what they’d done. How he’d touched her… tasted her… then held her in his strong arms as they slept.

“Please,” she whispered, her hands trying and failing to wrap around his huge upper arm. “Be careful. I couldn’t bear to lose you… not a second time.”

His expression shifted and, for a second, the laughter lines at the corner of his eyes crinkled and she was looking at Drew again. Pulling her close abruptly, he dropped his head and grazed her lips with his. The soft kiss rocked her right down to her soul.

“You won’t,” he promised on a low growl. “I’ll always come back for you… besides, we have more…” He smiled and brushed her lips again. “Calibration to do. Lots more.”

He let go of her so abruptly she staggered back, catching herself on a tree wall as she watched him walk away. Heat flushed her cheeks as her eyes dropped to his tight, firm ass… Flexing and clenching as he drove his cock deep inside her, again and again, until she screamed his name in pleasure.

“Seems the cap got over his snit,” 80 cleared his throat and commented. She jumped. Damn, they moved fast and so silently. The main room was already empty, the cyborgs following the silent orders of their leader.

She ignored the flush on her cheeks as she turned to him. The amused look in his eyes made her realize suddenly that if Drew could sense her arousal, so could every other cyborg unit around her. Shit… couldn’t a girl keep anything secret around here?

“78?” 80 asked, his eyebrow raised. “You tell me what needs to be done to move him and it’s done, Doc.”

“Yes, yes, come on,” she said quickly, turning toward the impromptu medical bay 78 was in.

He was already awake and trying to sit up when they reached him.

“Not a chance, handsome,” she snapped, shoving him back down flat with a hard hand. He dropped back down with a soft grunt and lay there as she quickly checked him over. His wounds were healing nicely but he was still less than a day out of major surgery.

“We need a body board—”

“I can walk,” growled 78, trying to sit up again.

She rounded on him, fury bursting through her. Wasn’t that just like a man? Seemed the cyborg units had retained that part of their gender makeup even through everything that had been done to them.

“Lie down or I’ll make you lie down,” she hissed suddenly, losing her temper with damn stupid males and their egos. “I spent hours patching you up and if you die, it’s not just your ass on the line. It’s mine as well. So you’re not going to do anything that puts my life at risk… and if you do, I’ll pump you so full of drugs you’ll spend the next month playing with the fairies. Understand me?”

“Damn, Doc,” 80 whistled. “I can understand what the boss sees in you now. You’re gorgeous when you’re mad.”

“You,” she ordered shortly, in no mood for his cheek. “Find me a bodyboard. Now.”

78 blinked at her, his expression blank, and then he looked sheepish as 80 threw her a salute and disappeared.

“Yes, Doc,” 78 replied, as meek as a kitten. Then his expression shifted a little.

“What?” she demanded, hands on her hips.

“If you’re giving out good drugs… can I have some later?” The wounded cyborg asked, a little smile playing with the corner of his lips.

She arched her eyebrow. “If we get out of this alive, I might just bloody join you.”