Chapter Eleven

Thunder watched Melissa carefully as she lay on the bed. Was she inviting him to fuck her again? Or was she tired? He hadn’t spent enough time with humans to know their behaviors. The people he encountered in Cyborg Sector were all either scientists or soldiers. He had never fucked them. In fact, he had hardly been aware of their existence.

Thunder hadn’t had a lot of chances to interact with people in his previous life. Whenever they let him out of the stasis chamber, the humans had briefly analyzed him before a mission. The soldiers loaded instructions onto his biochip through the wireless network. He sent reports wirelessly. When the tasks were complete, they locked him up again.

At the time, confinement hadn’t bothered him at all. The monotony was part of living as a cyborg and a soldier. He had accepted it without question. Now he wished that he had taken more time to pay attention to everyone when they poked him with needles and studied his reactions. Maybe he would have understood Melissa more now if he knew how humans thought. Currently, she was a puzzle to him - a beautiful, sexy puzzle that he couldn’t stop working on.

The looks Melissa had given him and the slight upward turn of her mouth suggested that she didn’t mind their intimacy. Perhaps she had even enjoyed it. She hadn’t said it overtly. Did humans talk about such things? Or did they mate and leave it at that? Thunder was willing to let it go for the moment. He thought there were still traces of fear in her eyes when she looked in his direction. The human wasn’t afraid to argue with him, but she didn’t feel completely safe with him either.

Heavy footsteps came from the top of the stairs. Compass opened the door to the storage room. “He wants to see you.” Compass’ black eyes glittered as he looked down at the girl on the bed.

Thunder immediately felt protective. He didn’t want anyone else to speak with her, touch her, or even look at her. They didn’t have the right. Melissa was his, and he would prove it to anyone who dared to challenge him. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Compass raised a dark eyebrow but closed the door and marched up the stairs. Thunder turned to Melissa. “Don’t bother trying to escape. The other cyborgs are not as understanding as I am. I can’t promise what they’ll do if you cause any more trouble.”

Melissa’s wide, cobalt eyes stared up at him. There was fire behind them. She wanted to argue with Thunder again, but she nodded instead. “I won’t.”

Satisfied, Thunder pounded up the stairs, eager to learn what Savage and the others had decided. Anything they tried was going to be dangerous. He was glad for the distraction. The injection of adrenaline would replace all the turmoil raging inside him. Fucking Melissa had temporarily satisfied his carnal needs, but his body seemed to be insatiable. As Thunder climbed the stairs, he felt the distance growing between them and felt an urge to be close to her again.

Savage turned as Thunder emerged from the stairwell, and he pointed his finger at one of the recently freed cyborgs. “Go watch the girl.”

Thunder stopped at the top of the stairs. “There’s no need for anyone else to go down there. She’s not moving.” He wouldn’t have trusted one of his cyborg brothers with her. Savage was trying to put an unknown with her. Thunder didn’t know if the new cyborg would have the same urges he did.

“Did you kill her?” Savage sounded curious and interpreted Thunder’s defensive position as guilt. “I said to keep her alive.”

Though he had killed more times than he cared to count, Thunder didn’t like the thought of Melissa dying, especially from his hands. “No, I didn’t. But there are no other exits besides the stairs. She promised she wouldn’t try to escape.”

“You left her unattended because she made you a promise?” The new cyborg addressed Thunder. He had long, greasy hair that hung down over his shoulders and small eyes that looked like trouble. “I didn’t realize a human’s promise meant so much to a cyborg.”

Savage made a quick gesture with his hand. The cyborg who had spoken went down into the basement despite Thunder’s assurances. When the door to the storage room slammed shut, the cyborg leader addressed Thunder. “What’s going on in your head? Are you turning into a human after spending time with one of them?”

Thunder stood at attention, holding his back straight. He couldn’t tell the redheaded cyborg what he had done to Melissa unless he wanted to risk his life. Cyborgs filled the room at this point, and each one watched him with curiosity. There would be no help from within. On the outside, the faint sound of Purity Force making preparations for battle penetrated the thick walls. Thunder was cornered no matter where he turned.

“She’s too scared to do anything besides curl into a ball and whimper.” His explanation sounded weak even to him.

The cyborg leader pursed his lips slightly, but he nodded and began giving Thunder a situation report. “Purity Force seems to have brought every available person here tonight, and they’re all armed. They have developed weapons that are just as powerful as ours. There’s no point in waiting them out. I’m not patient enough for that, anyway. We’re going follow Compass’ plan.”

Compass had been standing behind Savage but chose to emerge and speak. “It’s a reversal of our original idea. We’ll split into four teams, and each one will go through a different door. We won’t be able to wait long before every team runs for cover. The goal is to get the hell out of here. We don’t care if you take out anyone from Purity Force along the way. The most important thing is to get out of here alive so we can save more cyborgs.”

“What about the human?”

The cyborgs all turned to stare at Thunder. Savage’s glare was the most humiliating of all. “What about it?”

Thunder tried to play things off as though he didn’t care about her, but he had betrayed himself simply by asking the question. “You said you wanted her alive. Does she have a part in things to come?”

Savage’s ugly face split into a wide grin. “I did say that, didn’t I? You have a remarkable memory. But that was then, and this is now. We should leave her down there. I don’t want her to be our problem any more or have the humans blame us when something happens to her. If she manages not to kill herself, Purity Force can decide what to do with her. She’s one of their kind, after all. If they want to keep her or use her as an example to the other humans, it doesn’t make a difference to me.” He watched Thunder as he spoke, waiting for a reaction.

The blonde cyborg did his best to keep any emotion off his face. He couldn’t reveal his true thoughts about the human. It would put both their lives in danger. “That sounds good to me.”

“Does that mean I can have a few minutes with her?” Compass ran the tip of his tongue over his straight, white teeth. He stared at Thunder as he spoke and took a few steps across the room toward him. “I have a feeling she could be quite entertaining.”

A flood of rage overtook Thunder, and he fought to keep himself under control. He didn’t want to start a fight right now. But Compass was not getting into the basement. The cyborg might be harboring ideas about Melissa.

“Stop thinking like a human.” Savage threw a light punch in the middle of Compass’s chest and stopped his progress. “We have to focus on getting out of here. If we win, our victory will affect cyborgs all across the country. We’ve set one group free already. I plan to repeat it until we are all united.” Savage remained focused on the overall goal.

Compass took the blow with good humor, keeping his coal eyes fixed on Thunder. “If he can have his way with the human, I can too.”

“If you do, I’ll cut your cock off!” Thunder roared.

Savage whirled on the blonde cyborg at the revelation. “Did you mate with the girl?”

Thunder stared into the intense dark brown of his leader’s eyes. He detected hate in there, mixed with something else he couldn’t identify. Was there any point in denying his actions? The other cyborgs were just as likely to be proud of him as they were to deride him. He decided to tell the truth. “I did.”

Savage looked like he might explode. “I thought we were all on the same page, Thunder. The humans were outraged when a cyborg raped one of them. What do you think they’ll do when we start mating with them?”

“This is different.” If Thunder could explain what had actually happened with Melissa to the others, they would know his actions were far from rape. But it would be impossible for them to understand without experiencing it themselves. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Don’t you think I know that?” the leader roared. He strode across the room. Why was Thunder causing so much trouble? “But the difference is that it’s worse! It’s one thing if the humans think we are uncontrollable, but we will be elevated to an entirely different threat level if they believe we want to take their wives and sisters for ourselves. The girl has to stay behind. She’s lucky that we’re leaving her alive.” He stabbed a finger into Thunder’s chest.

“She’s mine. I will decide what happens to her.” Thunder’s statement wasn’t intended to start an argument. He was just verbalizing an internal truth. Melissa had gone from being an inconsequential pawn in their battle to something far more important to him. He casually pulled back his right elbow. It was a signal every cyborg would recognize. He could have his plasma gun ready to fire at any moment.

“Can’t the rest of us have a turn with her first?” Compass didn’t know when to quit. “It doesn’t make any difference to you, does it?”

Savage backhanded the dark-haired soldier, sending him crashing into the wall. “I suggest you don’t talk again until we’re out of the city.” He turned back to Thunder, who looked pleased to see Compass put in his place. “I can’t fix what you’ve done already, but I don’t have to keep assisting you. I won’t make any additional efforts to help her. I’m only giving you leeway because of my respect for you. She stays here. You leave with us. That’s the end of it.”

None of the cyborgs had openly defied Savage before. He controlled them all, including the ones who had recently escaped from the stasis chambers. If Thunder chose to challenge him, he wouldn’t make it out of the room alive. But Thunder knew there was nothing keeping Melissa safe for the moment. He would have to take any concessions he could get and make careful decisions when the time came for action. “Yes, sir.”

Savage gestured toward the stairwell. “Go back down there and be with your human while you can. I don’t want to see you right now.”

With anger boiling inside him, Thunder turned and descended the stairs. Melissa’s life hung by a thread. He was also vulnerable. What would happen to them even if they managed to escape? He mulled over all the possibilities in his mind, but predicting the future wasn’t one of his cybernetic enhancements.