Cyborg Seduction(31)

Kristin tilted her head oddly, her eyes darker, more serious than I’d ever seen them. We’d only known each other a few months, both of us new to the planet, but we were close. We had to be to work together. But not close like Lindsey and me. Not close like Kristin and her Prillon mates.

Lindsey seemed hypnotized as Kristin spoke. “True love is a rare gift and I found it here.” Her gaze darted to me, then back to my mate. “You can, too.”

She shook her head once, definitively. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I have to go home.” Lindsey kept her hands busy, straightening the already perfectly positioned chair, adjusting the camera, checking the light.

“Why?” Kirstin lowered her voice. “Why? What’s so important you have to get back? Are you married or something?”

I listened closely, honing all my senses to hear Lindsey’s answers. Kristin was asking the questions I wanted so badly to ask my mate, but knew she’s shut down, turn me out.

“God, no.” Lindsey’s instant denial chilled my rage at even hearing the suggestion that she belonged to another. But she wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t look at Kristin.

And gods be kind to Kristin Webster of Earth. I realized what she was doing now. She’d been an investigator on Earth, a member of an organization that hunted criminals, as I did. She was very, very good at asking questions, digging for answers, for the truth.

I remained still and quiet so she could continue.

Lindsey wiped tears from her cheeks and everything in me went on high alert. What the fuck was going on with my mate?

Part of me wanted to harm Kristin for making my mate feel any kind of sadness, but I stifled it. It wasn’t Kristin wounding her, but whatever the fuck it was on Earth that held her. Pulled her back.

Fascinated, I watched the women interact. Something strange was going on here, but I didn’t understand the nuances of human communication well enough to decipher their conversation.

Apparently, Lindsey had decided that was enough, that she would not offer more. She ignored Kristin and turned to me, her eyes overly bright, her smile too wide to be real. “Okay. Where are the five human soldiers? I’m ready.”

Kristin met my gaze with a half smile and I nodded my thanks. She’d tried to break through Lindsey’s walls, and I appreciated the effort. But if anyone was going to see into her soul, it was going to be me.

Kristen yelled to Rezzer to bring them in—Maxim had been swift with his orders to organize the interviews—and the giant Atlan walked to a smaller room and opened the door. The five human warriors living on Base 3 walked into the dining hall and took seats at the table across from my mate. Their odd collection of Hive implants and skin grafts, gadgets and silver flesh on display.

All of us wore the same battle armor. While it wasn’t required—only Krael was the one to bring danger to us—it seemed we all felt more comfortable in the Coalition attire. It wasn’t mentioned, but perhaps we were all prepared for harm to come to us again.

Lindsey introduced herself to wary, yet calm handshakes. It was not a custom on Everis, but since each male did it with Lindsey and Kristin didn’t comment, it was a familiar action.

But not too familiar. None of them looked at Lindsey with a hint of heat. They held zero sexual interest in her. Curiosity, perhaps, at the Earth woman who’d arrived outside of protocol.

I watched my mate begin asking them her questions. She wanted to know everything about each warrior. Where he was born. Where he went to school. Why he volunteered for the Coalition Fleet, and how they ended up here. In hell.

My pride grew as she coaxed the men to talk about horrors none would willingly relive. If Kristin was good at intimidating people into answering her questions, Lindsey was a master at seducing their secrets from them. They told her everything, breaking down in tears, describing their capture and torture in detail as she watched them with those wide, compassionate eyes.

She touched them lightly. A hand on a wrist or shoulder. She touched them, held their hands in her own, comforted them…and I allowed it because I could see in them the same thing I felt when she touched me.

Peace. Acceptance. Hope where there had been none.

When she was done, they filed out in a quiet line, calmer than they had been. Perhaps relieved, even glad that their stories would be told. Was it because she was human that they’d shared, that she’d understood? While each one’s story had varied, the basis was the same. They’d come from Earth, fought and had been captured. Tortured. Escaped. Brought here to live out their lives in whatever semblance of comfort they could find.

There was no difference in that because they were from Earth. No, my story was similar, almost identical. Same went probably for the Prillons and Atlans, too. Was what they shared enough for her? Would the men’s stories be what she needed for those on Earth? Would it be enough to send back without her leaving?