Mating Fever(15)

The tissue gave way with a sickening sound of wet suction, of flesh tearing, and I grimaced as I finished the task.

Black fluid leaked from the wound as I pulled, at least twenty long tendrils—like five-inch needles—appearing as I removed the object and broke the connection to the Nexus’s brain tissue.

I thought the extensions were dead metal, but the moment they broke free, they writhed and moved like worms searching for earth.

“Agh!” I yelled and dropped the thing onto the hard rock floor where it continued to move and search like a centipede stuck on its side. Chunks of the Nexus’s dark blue flesh clung to the base of the implant. Tissue and implant. Everything a good little girl brought home to the mad scientist in the basement.

“God, that’s disgusting.” I winced just looking at it.

“What that?” The beast’s rumble made me jump, so absorbed in the task at hand that I’d nearly forgotten he was there. His voice echoed off the walls.

“We need to get that, and his helmet, back to the Karter. That is the key to winning the war.”

If he noticed that I didn’t answer his question, he didn’t say. Instead, the beast grunted and stood. “Done with body?”

I looked at the limp form of the dead Nexus and nodded. “Yes.” I was sure Doctor Helion would cream his panties if he could have the cadaver to play with. But that thing was huge, heavy, and the extraction coordinates were more than a mile away. Even with a beast along, there was no fucking way I was trying to take the body back with me.

The beast picked up the body and carried it to the entrance of the cave. He scanned outside before tossing it as far as he could. It took a second before I heard the sickening thud of it hitting the ground below.

Good riddance.

The beast turned back to me as I stuffed the odd, wriggling thing into a containment cell Helion had given me. The sack was about the size of a preschooler’s backpack, but would seal airtight. No contaminants would get in or out. The thing that seemed to want to tunnel into the nearest brain—which was mine—would be trapped within the metallic lining, and special fibers on the inside would keep the tissue samples alive until I could get it back to base. Along with the creature’s helmet, Doctor Helion would have more than enough new toys to play with.

I tracked down the Nexus’s helmet and settled the sealed bag inside it. Together, they weighed about five pounds. I could carry that out of here, no problem.

Done, I turned to find the beast watching me from just inside the cave’s entrance.

“You safe.” His huge body swayed as he spoke the oddly gentle words. I might have been safe, but he was still in full battle gear. He had yet to remove his helmet. So while he said I was safe, I knew to wait until he’d put his weapon away and removed his head protection to relax completely.

“Yes. Thank you.” I set the Nexus helmet aside, my headache returning but not as bad, more like a steady drum beat than a chainsaw. It was an improvement, and I had a ReGen wand in my pack. “We’ll be safe in here. The cave is lined with highly charged magnetite. No signals can penetrate the rock. As long as we stay away from the entrance, the Hive scans won’t be able to pick us up.”

“Stay. Tomorrow, transport.”

“Yes.” I knew that, too. Protocol was for anyone trapped behind on a mission to make their way to the designated secondary transport location the following morning where an extraction team would be waiting to get Coalition fighters to safety. We just had to stay alive until then.

“Name.” The beast said the word, not as a question but as a demand, assuming I would answer.

I didn’t see the point in arguing about it. And he had just saved my life. “Megan. Megan Simmons.” Lifting my arms, I removed my helmet for the first time. My black hair was pulled back in a braid, the coarse curls barely restrained. “You?”

With one last look toward the cave entrance, he settled down onto his knees and took off his helmet.

“Nyko.”

Oh. Hell. No.

I gasped as Warlord Nyko, the single most aggravating, annoying, arrogant, overbearing, drop-dead-gorgeous, alpha-male-on-steroids collapsed at my feet.





Chapter Five

Nyko



I opened my eyes to the most beautiful female I’d ever seen. She was waving a ReGen wand over my torso and mumbling to herself. I lay as still as possible, just studying her. The Mating Fever diminished somewhat from being unconscious. I could think a little more clearly, probably say more than one or two words at a time. Perhaps that was why I should have recognized her the instant I entered the cave and hadn’t; my beast seemed to have recognized her from her scream alone. She’d worn her battle helmet and her face had been hidden entirely by the protection visor, the dark color doing well to shield her from the bright flare of the ion pistol, and from prying eyes as well.