Angela Knight - Unbound

He dropped into a combat crouch, knees flexed, his hands raised loose and open. Muscle rippled up and down his powerful torso, biceps, triceps, and deltoids rolling under his smooth, tanned skin. A pattern of black hair formed a cloud across his broad chest, narrowing into a thin trail that dove into the waistband of his snugs.

Dona ached to touch that tempting trail. Burned to follow it, find out where it led . . .

Idiot. He locked you in a cell just a few months ago, remember? He thought you were a traitor. He believed the frame fucking Alex Coridon constructed. Just because you were dumb enough to fall in love with Ivar.

Or at least, she’d thought she was in love with Ivar. In retrospect, Dona realized she’d only used the traitor to distract herself from her inappropriate infatuation with their commander. Which was why the condemnation in the chief’s black eyes had flayed Dona to the very soul.

So why couldn’t she drag her eyes away from him now?

Dona tried, but she couldn’t seem to stop watching Alerio battle the combot. She’d rarely seen the Warlord go full-out. He fought with a kind of cold, focused concentration, his intent black gaze missing nothing. Weaving to avoid the combot’s deadly fists, he threw brutally powerful punches with the full strength of his Warlord body behind them. Even the combot had a hard time blocking those merciless punches.

The bot re-created Ivar’s fighting style perfectly, in all its ruthless strength and agility. Alerio must have recorded their battles as a template, because the android precisely duplicated Ivar’s speed, strength, and reach. Right down to the way he dropped his left hand, leaving a weakness in his guard. She’d been too busy fighting the thing off to notice that before.

Dona opened her mouth, but before she could point out the weakness, Alerio went on the attack, hammering the bot with blows that rocked its head on its shoulders. The android snarled one of Ivar’s favorite curses and spun into a kick. The Warlord leaped over its scything leg and, still in midair, kicked the bot in the face.

As the combot staggered and nearly fell, Alerio landed, light as a dancer. Any impression of delicacy vanished as he moved in hard, hammering its face and body with punch after punch. The bot roared and hit him hard, actually knocking him flat on his ass.

Where he promptly kicked the bot’s legs out from under it.

The android hit the ground hard as Alerio surged to his feet and pounced. Right into a kick in the gut hard enough to make Dona wince. The Warlord reeled backward, fighting to suck in a breath.

She froze with the grav-bar half-raised, watching, just as breathless as he was. Idiot. Shaking off her hypnotized fascination, Dona belatedly felt the grav-bar’s weight and started pumping out reps again.

Alerio shook off the blow and surged toward his opponent again as the combot leaped to its feet. It closed with the chief yet again, slamming a brutal punch past his guard into his hawkish nose. Blood spurted.

Dona winced. And caught her breath as rage blazed in the chief’s eyes. Uh-oh.

The bot threw another punch, but Alerio ducked and counter-attacked, ramming his bladed hand into the bot’s throat. A blow like that would have laid a human out with a crushed larynx, but it only made the bot cough and shake its Ivar-like head.

The chief didn’t give it any more time to recover. Snapping into a savage spinning kick, he drove his heel into the bot’s ribs. It reeled backward to slam into the rear bulkhead with a crash, barely catching itself before it fell on its face.

One arm curled protectively around its side, it wheezed as if nursing broken ribs. The bot didn’t actually have ribs to break, of course, but it was programmed to react to blows of sufficient force as if it did. It backed away, watching the chief warily.

Sweat streamed down Alerio’s broad back, but his steps didn’t hesitate as he circled his enemy. His hooded eyes glowed with red sparks that suggested he was deep in riaat, the Warlord berserker state. Otherwise his face was as expressionless as an executioner’s.

Despite herself, Dona felt a deep, familiar heat gathering in her belly as she watched sweat trace gleaming trails down the chief’s sculpted chest and long legs.

Lost gods, I want him .

Too bad Dona knew better. She was damned if she’d get caught in that trap again. Not after what happened with the colonel . . .

“Dyami!” Bellowing the war cry of his House loud enough to make her jump, Alerio lunged at the bot yet again. He bulled right past its defective guard to shoot a pair of vicious punches into its “broken ribs.”

Obeying its programming, the combot went down to one knee.

Alerio fell on the bot like a starving wolf on a stag. One hand clamped around the droid’s throat as he cocked a fist.

Coldly, deliberately, Alerio hit “Ivar” once, twice, then a third time, the blows landing with punishing force. Dona would have winced if the android hadn’t been wearing the traitor’s face. Instead she felt only a dark satisfaction as the chief methodically beat the shit out of “Ivar.” Especially when the bot slumped into faux unconsciousness, simulated blood spilling from its nose and mouth.

Alerio’s mouth twitched into a grim smile distorted by bruises as he rose and backed away from his beaten foe.

“Match complete,” the main computer intoned. “Chief Alerio Dyami is the victor.”

The Ivar projection vanished, and the bot rose slowly to its feet. “I am damaged,” it announced in a voice that had developed a definite wheeze. “I will not be available for further sparring until I have been repaired.” With that, it limped back to its charging bay, presumably to undergo servicing for whatever damage it had suffered.

“You broke the combot.” Dona returned the grav-bar back to its rack and walked over to join Alerio.

“Or it broke me.” With a groan, the big Warlord fell back against the bulkhead, breathing in pumping pants.

Which was no surprise. Practice bots were notoriously tough. But then, they had to be. Most Enforcers were combat-rated cyborgs who did not pull their punches even in practice matches. Alerio certainly hadn’t.

“Don’t be too impressed.” Grimacing, he grabbed a towel from a nearby shelf and wiped his sweating face. When he started rubbing slow circles over his broad, slick chest, Dona’s eyes helplessly tracked the towel with more interest than was good for her.

“I doubt I’ll be able to walk tomorrow,” the chief continued, apparently oblivious to her fascination. “That bot can hit almost as hard as Ivar.” With a wince of pain, he dug long fingers into the thick trapezius muscle that bulged between his neck and left shoulder as if trying to massage a knot that had coiled there. “But then, I did recalibrate its strength to match Ivar’s. I think the Xerans upgraded his tech again.”

“I thought so, too.” They’d done so at least once before, at least if you believed Ivar’s boasts. “When we fought six months ago, Ivar was a hell of a lot stronger than he’d ever been before. And he’s even more powerful now.” Frowning, she absently rubbed her face, where Ivar’s big fist had left so many bruises. “He certainly kicked my ass.”

“What do you expect? He’s half a meter taller than you are— and fifty kilos heavier,” Alerio told her bluntly. “Add in the genetically engineered bones and the triple-thick nanofiber reinforced muscles, and you’ve got a battleborg monster. That’s not even counting whatever the hell the Xerans did to upgrade his tech.”

She shuddered. “I noticed.”