Containing Malice (Rebel Cyborgs #1) - Cynthia Sax Page 0,42

face when I kill you.” The toe of the guard’s boot connected with her lower back.

She arched her spine. Fuck. That was painful.

For most of her lifespan, since she’d gained maturity, she’d been a medic. Out of habit, her one functioning hand slipped into a pocket of her jacket. Her fingertips touched the grippers.

She grasped it. It wasn’t a laser scalpel, but it would have to do.

Picton kicked her again, targeting the same spot, as she’d predicted he would. The male wanted to maximize her agony and that tactic would accomplish that goal.

She rolled over and jabbed the grippers with all her remaining strength into his left leg, driving it deep into cloth and skin and flesh.

“You cunt.” The guard shrieked. He bent over to clasp the wound, to pull the metal out of his limb.

Amidst his cursing, his whimpers, his issued threats, Illona heard the swish of a door opening. It sounded as though it had occurred a great distance away from them.

But it must have originated from the entrance to the chamber.

Awareness swept over her. Her nipples tightened and her pussy grew wet.

There was only one being who could make her horny while teetering on the edge of death.

Malice, her cyborg, had arrived.

Her lips curled upward. Picton would die. Her hate-filled warrior would kill the guard, would deliver that vengeance after her death.

Her diversionary tactic, the prolonging of her lifespan by a few moments, had worked. Malice would be safe. Valor would survive. The two cyborgs, her male and his friend, would free themselves and find joy, peace amidst their own kind.

A shadow fell over her.

“Time to die, cunt.” Picton slammed the reprimand stick down on Illona’s face.

Pain exploded over her. Colors burst in her brain.

And then everything went black.

She slipped into unconsciousness with the knowledge she’d helped as many beings as she could.

Chapter Twelve

Malice had been 95.2358 percent certain he’d experienced, over his lengthy lifespan, the worst torture a human could inflict upon a cyborg warrior. He’d been taken apart, stripped of skin and flesh, isolated from his kind and other beings, abused in all the ways a male could be abused. There wasn’t more that could be done to him.

He realized this planet rotation he had been wrong.

When he watched, though Valor’s visual system, his female being brutally beaten, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t go to her, protect her, stop her pain, he encountered an entirely new level of torment.

He howled through the transmission lines, feeling every blow as though it had struck him. She was small, fragile, human, his, and she was fighting courageously for her life.

Alone.

He wasn’t by her side, couldn’t tear her enemy apart from limb to limb as his primitive nature pushed him to do. All he could do was yell encouragement she couldn’t hear, rage against the universe, strain against his invisible bindings.

The impact of the stunning was dissipating quicker than it had in the past. But that was still too slow to prevent Illona from being damaged. His little medic was waging a losing war against their shared foe. She wouldn’t survive for much longer.

And he wouldn’t survive without her.

Malice roared with outrage. Harnessing all of his enhanced strength, he flung his body upward. Agony ripped at his big form as he pulled himself away from the sleeping support.

He fell, hard, landing with a thud on the floor. Slapping his palms against the tiles, he pushed himself to his feet. He moved with great effort across the chamber, fighting the remnants of his immobility, needing, seeking to reach his female. That was the only goal in his processors.

His agility and speed increased with each painful step. By the time he had remotely accessed the Humanoid Alliance systems and opened the door, he was fully functional once more.

There was no time to spare. According to the relayed footage, the enemy had caught his female, had downed her.

Malice ran along the hallway, propelling himself forward faster than he’d ever moved. His muscles burned. His heart pounded.

The guard waiting outside Valor’s chamber didn’t see him coming. Malice snapped his neck so hard, so quickly, the male’s head separated from his torso.

Before the skull hit the floor, he was blasting through the door. A second guard turned his head. His eyes widened. He raised his gun.

Malice ripped that arm from its socket, caught the gun, ignored the male’s screams, and stunned Picton. The male had raised his reprimand stick, had planned to strike Illona again in the face.

A growl rose in Malice’s throat. That