I stop talking with Fracture to focus on the Creator’s conversation.
“That doesn’t make sense. Someone had her just a few minutes ago.”
The hum of a coilgun approaches, and panic makes me open my eyes. I hear the warping pulse and the crackle of electricity, but my vision is too blurry to sort its location.
A body falls.
“That’s because I’m right here,” a sultry feminine voice growls. “And I’m making damn sure you’re dead this time.”
“Sefi?” I wheeze.
“Hang on. I’ll break you free in a second.”
I squint but can’t see her in my hazy vision. “I’m shaking, Sefi. You can’t let me out.” The words wheeze out. My stomach aches with desperation that I can’t ignore. Teeth elongate in my mouth. “I’m turning, Sefi. I’m losing control.”
“I know.” Metal scrapes against metal. Something tears. “Syth, can you get that?”
Her soft, fleshly fragrance nears me. I follow it, my starved body begging for a taste. I can hear the pumping of her heart as it grows nearer. A warm body brushes mine. Strong fingers brace my jaw. Then, a metal rim meets my lips, filled with scents of blood and nanosolution.
“Drink up,” she says with dark delight.
I down the pitcher of blood one massive gulp at a time until there is nothing left.
“Feel better?”
I blink as my ultromotor surges, my insides thrum with repair, and I gasp for air.
Sefina chucks the empty steel container over her shoulder then leans in close. She whispers to my lips, “I’m going to get you out of here, okay? Do you trust me?”
I manage only a grunt in response. It’s pathetic, but I’m in horrendous pain, and I can’t sort out what she’s up to.
“Still going to eat me?” she asks.
Wrenching my eyes shut, I force my vision to stabilize so I can look at her with clarity. Light mist of blood and nanosolution freckles Sefina’s face. Her hands press over two of the worst slices in my stomach that drain the fluid I’ve just consumed. She holds them for a moment as if she knows it will help my nanos stitch me back together.
She doesn’t pull away with disgust like so many other humans and even Brothers have in the past. She has Medic Rebel’s stomach for nanotech.
“Were you,” I pause for a breath. “An anaja?”
She glances back at someone else in the room and licks a lip. “In a way, but that doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.”
Fresh agony fills me. “I’m—sorry.”
Sefina cups my face, lifts my chin until my eyes meet hers, and surprises me as she bonds her mouth to mine. It’s a long, breathless kiss that thrusts every bad thought and memory of pain into the dark corners of my mind.
All I see and know in this moment is her. Her lips. So plush. So strong. Sefina tastes of sweet, musky flesh, and she’s kissing me.Stars, she’s fucking kissing me!Her lips are intertwined with mine while I’m bleeding my nanosolution and falling apart in front of her.
I must be dreaming.
Sefina slides a hand around the back of my neck and bonds our mouths again, deeper this time.
How can she possibly want me?
I don’t understand, but every nano in me finds a new purpose and races into action to hold me together for her.
When she leans back and licks some of the nano-blood solution from her lips, I know I have to make her mine if we get out of here alive.
“Are you seriously hard right now?” she simpers.
