want them intruding there. Besides, the woods were dangerous. Especially for an unenhanced human female. They had no implants. No nanotech. Hell, it was a safe bet none of them had ever been outside before. They were from Earth, transported here as refugees from a dying planet.
Typical. The humans had destroyed their home and then abandoned the least desirable members of their species to die a slow death along with their homeworld. Humans corrupted everything they touched, which was why he didn’t think of himself as human. He was a cyborg.
The shuttle settled on its landing pad. A few seconds later, the engines powered down. They’d be disembarking soon and taking their first steps on a new planet, under a strange sky. Haven’s newest colonists. That’s how the leadership council referred to them. As if they were just like the others who called this place home. They weren’t. They were potential mates for the males of Haven—Vardarian and cyborg alike.
Not him, though. He had no interest in pairing up with a woman for more than a night of mutual pleasure. He could find willing company among the cyborg women, as well as a few of the unclaimed Vardarian females. A committed relationship was not on his radar, and if he lost his mind someday and decided he wanted something more, it would not be with a human. They’d already taken too much from him. He didn’t trust any of them.
He caught a flash of bright pink hair among the crowd standing near the tarmac and amended his thought. At least one human had proven herself trustworthy—Phaedra Kari. The first of her species to be claimed by a pair of Vardarian males, she was now the consort of the Vardarian prince who had helped found the colony. Phaedra was smart, loyal and fiercely protective of Haven and everyone in it, particularly the cyborgs she’d helped to bring here. They might have been left in cryo-stasis forever if she hadn’t fought for them.
A message came through his internal comms channel. “You know I can see you. Right?” It was Edge, the unofficial leader of the colony’s cyborg population.
Striker scanned the crowd, using his cybernetic eye to zoom in until he picked out Edge near the back of the group gathered to greet the new arrivals. “Of course you can see me. It’s not like I’m hiding up here.”
“Yet you’re lurking in the trees instead of joining us,” Edge said.
“Lurking is not the same as hiding. I was in the area and heard the shuttle’s engine. Thought I’d check it out.”
It was a lie, and they both knew it. He also knew the other cyborg wouldn’t call him on it. It wasn’t only because Edge had command functionality embedded in his programming that they looked to him for leadership. He was a surly bastard, but he knew what his people needed from him. In Striker’s case, that was simple. He wanted to be left the fraxx alone.
“You’re welcome to stand with us,” was all Edge said.
“I know.” There wasn’t anything else to say. Not that he’d actually said anything out loud. He did most of his communication by his internal channels. His voice—what was left of it—wasn’t something he used often.
There was a minor stir of activity on the tarmac as the handful of Vardarian males present launched themselves into the air and flew back to the colony. The council had decreed that the males couldn’t approach the women until they’d had a chance to adjust to their new home. Once a Vardarian caught their mate’s scent, things happened quickly, with all three falling into a mating fever that couldn’t be denied without risking the sanity and even the lives of everyone involved. For now, the winged wonders would have to wait to find out if their mate was among the handful of women aboard.
An opening appeared on the side of the shuttle. Even at this distance, his enhanced senses allowed him to hear the hiss of air as the seal broke and the pressure inside the cabin equalized. A set of stairs unfolded from beneath the doorway, extending down to the tarmac.
Striker caught himself leaning forward and forced himself to take a step back. He wasn’t interested. Not really. They were humans. If they were lucky, maybe this first batch wouldn’t be able to acclimatize, and they’d end the refugee program before any more arrived. That could happen for plenty of reasons—the higher gravity, cultural differences, the change in climate. Hell, the