Angela Knight - Unbound

The group discussed several more ideas over the next hour, only to reject them all. Finally Chogan called a halt to the discussion in order to release Riane from her tube.

The moment the cylinder’s lid opened, Nick bent and scooped the pretty young Enforcer into his arms. Riane moaned something that might have been a greeting before pulling his head down for a kiss. The raw passion in that kiss blazed with such intensity, Alerio had to look away. Absently, he rubbed a palm over his aching chest.

“Pheromones!” Frieka gasped, pretending to stagger. “Choking . . . clouds of lust!” Straightening, he gave the couple a stern look. “Go find yourselves a bunk before you reek up the whole Outpost.”

Nick pulled his mouth away from Riane’s long enough to smile down at the big cyborg beast. “You’re just jealous.”

“And you’re still not married,” Frieka retorted. “Get it together, would you? I want another cub to spoil.”

Riane laughed and reached down to ruffle his thick fur. “We’re working on it, Fuzzy.”

“That’s the Goddess’s own sweet truth.” Frieka rolled his vivid blue eyes. “Sharing quarters with you two is like being trapped in a porn trid.”

Jessica held up both hands. “Okay, that’s it. I don’t need to know any more.”

Alerio headed for the infirmary door. “And on that note, I’ll leave you all alone.”

“Oh, gods, please don’t,” Chogan muttered.

The next morning, Dr. Chogan helped Dona climb out of the tube. The help was appreciated, considering her trembling knees. She glanced around the ward, trying to ignore the usual post-regen spins.

The chief wasn’t there.

The disappointment Dona felt was completely irrational. So was the sudden flash of pique. “Any problem with me going to the gym and sparring with a combat bot? I feel the need for some exercise.”

“You mean you feel the need to beat up a dead ringer for a certain traitor.” Chogan handed her a tablet to sign. Paperwork might not be printed on actual paper anymore, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t as obnoxious as ever. “After all that time in regen, you’re as healthy as you were before Ivar bloodied his knuckles on your face.”

“Good. I really need to hit something.

It took Dona the better part of an hour to work out her frustrations on the combot. It put up a lively enough fight that she was nursing bruises by the time she decided she was ready to cool down.

At least I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Without, if the gods are merciful, dreaming about the chief.

She was halfway through a second set of repetitions with a grav-bar when Alerio stalked through the gym’s double doors in a pair of black snugs and a very bad mood. Spotting her, he gave her a wary look.

Despite his dark, lowered brows, Alerio’s half-naked body made Dona’s own body purr in hungry approval. He looked nothing short of massive with all that genetically engineered muscle on display, rippling beneath tanned skin and a dusting of black body hair. His waist appeared even more ridiculously narrow compared to his powerful shoulders, and his abdominals rolled with every step above the waistband of his thin black snugs.

And his ass was a true thing of beauty.

“I see Chogan let you out of regen,” he said, his voice a delicious velvet rumble.

“Yeah, thank the gods. Those things make me claustrophobic.” She tried to concentrate on raising her grav-bar and controlling her breathing. “Too much like a coffin.”

Alerio’s gaze flicked up and down her body. He could see a lot more of it than usual, since she wore only a narrow breast band and snug shorts, both in vivid blue.

Something hungry stirred in his dark eyes, making her acutely aware she was slick with sweat and probably smelling like a goatbuck. She certainly didn’t feel sexy, not with her aching, exhausted body and the bruise forming on one cheek where she’d missed a block.

“You’ve been sparring.” The erotic hunger in his eyes vanished behind a wall of disapproval. “You sure that’s a good idea, considering the concussion Ivar gave you yesterday?”

Dona shrugged. “Chogan said she had no problem with it.”

“Oh.” He looked away. “As long as you got her approval.”

Was it her imagination or did he look embarrassed, as if he’d expressed inappropriate concern? But Alerio was her commander; of course he was entitled to question her about anything affecting her fitness for duty. Unless it was more than that.

Feeling heat flood her cheeks, Dona pretended to adjust the grav-bar while watching him out of the corner of one eye. Alerio had drawn his shoulder-length hair back in a tight, severe club. It only emphasized the masculine elegance of his Warlord’s angular bone structure and square chin. The gym’s stark lighting shadowed the deep hollows beneath his cheekbones and the wolfish line of his nose. The intricate green and gold lines of his facial tattoo only emphasized those stark good looks.

Dona had once researched Vardonese tats, so she knew the chief’s denoted his rank during his service with the Vardonese military, his combat history, and his status as a product of House Dyami.

And I’m staring. He’s going to notice. Trying to distract herself, she looked down at the grav-bar she held braced, half-forgotten, in both hands. The quarterstaff-length rod was equipped with a grav-field unit that amplified its weight according to the settings the user chose. Dona had set the bar at two hundred kilograms, a weight her cyborg muscles could handle with ease.

If I had any brains at all , she thought, ordering her implant to increase the bar’s setting by another fifty kilos, I’d head for the showers and leave the chief to his workout .

Which she fully intended to do—after she’d watched him bloody “Ivar’s” simulated face.

Dona had missed Alerio’s actual fight with the battleborg, since she’d been unconscious at the time. She was going to enjoy watching the traitor get his ass kicked—even if “Ivar” was only a combot in disguise.

As Alerio entered the combat circle, a door opened in the bulkhead. The combot stepped out, its big body as gray and featureless as a kiosk mannequin’s. Obeying some silent command, a wave of color washed over the android’s translucent surface as its trid imagizer projected the face and form of Ivar Terje across its bland surface.

The pseudo-Ivar was dressed in the same crimson Xeran T-suit the real traitor had worn the day before. Only the helmet was missing, leaving the bot’s head bare, red hair bristling in a novice priest’s cut, silver horn implants jutting from his temples. He was blandly handsome in the way of the genetically engineered, with a narrow, ruler-straight nose and a wide mouth that looked far more sensuous than it actually was. All in all, the bot looked exactly like Ivar, which made the sneer he aimed at Alerio all the more chilling.

“Begin hand-to-hand practice match,” the main Outpost comp intoned from its hidden speakers. “Full contact rules.”

Which essentially meant there were no rules. Combots were designed to let Enforcers go full-out, to practice the moves they’d use in the field against opponents intent on killing them.

The chief didn’t say a word. He simply lunged at the combot, exploding into a whirl of punches, blocks, and kicks that forced the big android to retreat across the combat circle. Its big arms blurred as it tried to block Alerio’s attacks.

After that first flurry of blows, the two spun apart to stalk each other.

Dona absently pumped out another set of repetitions with the grav-bar, barely aware of its weight in her preoccupation with Alerio.