She tried to grasp his hands. He pulled them out of her reach and she flinched at his rejection.

  He had to inflict that damage on her. If he lingered longer, he’d put her lifespan at risk. Sunrise was approaching.

  His gaze raised and locked with Odoon’s. “I know when you’re leaving, what your flight plan is, where on Waaban Two you will be found.” He informed the Ahkian. “That information has been shared with all of my brethren. If my female isn’t transported there safely, you will be hunted down and killed in the most painful way possible. Is that understood?”

  The male swallowed hard and nodded. “It’s understood.”

  “Good.” He glanced once more at his female.

  She was so fraggin’ beautiful, the most exquisite creature in existence.

  And for a moment, for one wonderful brief duration, she had been his.

  Tears shimmered in her eyes, his female knowing. She always knew. “Stealth—”

  He couldn’t hear more. If he did, he might relent and stay.

  His soul screamed a protest as he ran, moving at cyborg speed through the structure, out the doors, along the pathways.

  An armed Ahkian spotted him. Projectiles pinged against his body armor. One streaked across his unprotected cheek, leaving a stinging trail on his skin.

  He barely felt it, his concentration on his mission, on safeguarding his female. His lifespan was forfeit. The probability he’d make it off the planet, ever see Zebrina’s face again, was 0.9999 percent. It approached zero.

  But he would die knowing she lived. She had a chance of future happiness. Although the exact number was incalculable due to lack of data, his organic side guessed it was high. Somewhere in the universe, she would be smiling.

  And perhaps thinking of him. Cyborgs were viewed as disposable beings. They weren’t remembered. He would be.

  Because he had been loved.

  He stopped in front of a pile of debris, verified the coordinates. Tension crept across his shoulders. The Humanoid Alliance hadn’t deactivated the device because they’d believed it had been destroyed. The structure hosting it had been bombed and now consisted of rubble.

  He dug through the stone, tossing pieces the size of his form to the side. The horizon was tinged with orange, the sun rising. There wasn’t much time left.

  The monitoring system is still active. Lethal stated unnecessarily.

  Stealth was well aware of that fact. If his female’s ship left now, it would be shot down. Everyone on board, including the only being he’d ever loved, would die.

  His fingertips touched smooth screen. Found it. He extracted the device carefully. The surface was shattered. A human would have found it unusable. He was a cyborg, however. There were enough fingertip-sized contact points for him to utilize.

  He placed his palms on it, searched through the maze of programming, found the monitoring system. A blip appeared at the hangar’s location.

  Fraggin’ hole. The ship was taking off.

  He slashed through the system’s programming, making it appear as though it were a scheduled shutdown. The monitoring system went blank. The system rebooted.

  By the time it came back online, his female’s ship should be out of range.

  He exhaled with a whoosh, sagging against a hunk of stone. She should be safe.

  His mission complete, Stealth lifted his gaze and watched the sun light up the sky. The burst of colors reminded him of his vibrant female, the vivid garments she wore, the joy she gave him.

  He was a fortunate warrior for having known her. He could die clutching that truth to his chest.

  Chapter Six

  It had been two solar cycles and thirty-five planet rotations since she’d seen Stealth’s handsome face and she still waited for him, still expected to see him wander down the loose stone pathway at any moment, his grey eyes glowing with love.

  Zebrina leaned against her digging tool. This might be the planet rotation. He could be returning to her. With hope flickering in her chest, she gazed upward.

  And saw no one. Her warrior wasn’t there. She remained alone. Her shoulders slumped.

  Vegetation swayed with the breeze. The sun’s rays warmed the top of her head. Insects hummed. Waaban Two’s wild terrain was vastly different from the compound on Ahki.

  Would her cyborg like the planet?

  Would he ever see it?

  Odoon believed Stealth was dead. The reinforcement troops for the Ahkian cause had arrived mere planet rotations after Odoon and his illicit cargo left the planet. The locals, having more warriors and more firepower, had won battle after battle, taking no prisoners, eventually emerging victorious. They spared no one, killing every Humanoid Alliance being, including the cyborgs.

  Her warrior might have been the exception. She clung to that possibility. He might have survived.

  Thirty-two planet rotations ago, they received word the cyborgs had rebelled en masse, many of them aligning with the other side, with the Ahkians and other Rebels. Her warrior’s kind was finally free.

  She’d cheered for them when she heard the news and then, in the privacy of her chambers, she’d cried for herself. There had been no communication from the male she loved.

  She flattened one of her palms against her chest. He couldn’t be dead. She’d feel that, wouldn’t she? In her heart? In her soul? Their connection had weakened, but it remained, vibrating in the air around her.

  He had to be alive.

  “Keep your vow. Damn you.” Her faith in him, in them, was waning.

  A solid wall of muscle slammed into her side, knocking her over. “Sorry, Mom.” Vow, her son, her beloved baby boy, strapped one of his arms around her waist, stopping her from landing face first in the soil. His response was inhumanly fast. “I forgot you’re tiny.”

  “Ha.” She gazed up at him and her breath hitched. He looked so much like his father. His hair was black, like hers, instead of brown, and there was no model number inked on his cheek. Other than that, the two males she loved most were identical. “This tiny female can still reprimand you.”

  “Only because I allow you to do that,” he muttered.

  “Be careful with the other beings.” She clucked her tongue, having heard about his latest escapade. “They’re not as strong as you are.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Are you listening to me, Vow?” She didn’t ask if he heard her. Her son had enhanced senses, like his father, and could detect a nourishment bar container being opened from across a domicile.

  “I’m listening to you.” His face darkened. “And I was listening to him too…like you told me to do.” He curled his top lip. His attitude toward Odoon and the other humanoids was a source of conflict between them. “He called me a machine.”

  The Ahkian male must have done that. Her son, being mostly cyborg, didn’t have the ability to lie. But he did tend to omit pertinent details about situations and he was extremely sensitive about being different.

  “You shouldn’t have pushed him.” Violence wasn’t always the answer.

  “He was crowding me.” Her son lifted his chin.

  He was stubborn…like her, like his father. “Then back away from him.”

  They gazed at each other for a moment. His son’s gray eyes were stormy with emotions.

  “You don’t understand.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his flight suit and slouched. “No one does.”

  She smothered a smile. Her son might be physically fully grown. Cyborgs matured in one solar cycle. But emotionally, he was the equivalent of a human with seventeen solar cycles. Everything was unfair. No one understood him.

  Unfortunately, the latter was often true. He was the only cyborg on the planet. Some beings, too many of them, assumed he was an emotionless weapon, viewing him as a cold-hearted killing device.

  She knew he wasn’t. He felt as much, perhaps more than a human. But his machine side perplexed her. She was often at a loss for ideas as to how to help him deal with it.

  “Listen to the cyborg transmissions.” She had suggested that to him in the past but he refused to do it, cutting himself off from that part of him. “You don’t have to communicate with your brethren. Just listen to them.”

  “I don’t want to be a cyborg.” He kicked a rock. It flew across the field and pinged against a container, shattering it. “Everyone hates them.”

  Many of the beings on the planet, especially the Ahkians, hated his father’s kind, blaming them for the Humanoid Alliance wars, the deaths, the killing. Vow heard their talk, viewed every comment as being directed at him, and she didn’t know how to shield him from that hurt.

  “Not everyone hates them.” She shook her head. Her curls stuck to her sweat-dampened cheeks. “I love your father, very much, and he is a cyborg.”

  “My father’s dead.” Her son scowled, looking so much like Stealth it made her heart ache. “And he left us. He chose his mission over being with us.”

  “Your father is alive, we didn’t know about you when we parted, and he will return for us, for both of us.” They had talked about this…many, many times. Her son perceived Stealth’s absence as abandonment.

  “I shouldn’t care.” Vow stomped away from her, destroying the furrows in the ground she’d spent almost a shift digging.

  He shouldn’t care. Her son couldn’t say he didn’t care because that would be a lie. He cared…deeply, his pain flowing into destruction and fighting, and sometimes during rest cycles, when he believed he was the only being awake, she heard him bellowing into the darkness, the sound twisting her insides.

  “I’m fucking this up, Stealth.” She talked to her missing male as she tried to repair the damage their son had done to the dips in the soil. “Come back to me soon. I need you.”

  She chattered to him while she toiled, telling her warrior about the tasks she’d completed. The one-way communication eased her sorrow.

  If she had contact with another cyborg, she would ask him to reach out to her male. She couldn’t give that responsibility to Vow. Although he appeared grown, he was a child, her child. Asking him to search through the transmission lines for his missing father was too large of an emotional burden to give her son.

  “He needs to connect with your kind, my male.” She pulled the seeds out of the pockets of her flight suit, dropped them in the tiny trenches in the ground, spacing them apart as Odoon had shown her. “The only resemblance he has to me is his hair. Otherwise he’s all you, all cyborg.”

  Deep down, she realized what she should do. She should hire a pilot to take them to the Cyborg Homeland, wherever that was. Their son would meet his brethren, Stealth’s brethren, learn their ways.

  But she was waiting for her male.

  And she was afraid.

  If Vow met other cyborgs, he might wish to be with them. Permanently. Their son desperately wanted to fit in and on the Homeland, he would do that. The other cyborgs would embrace him, mentor him, train him.

  Her son would leave her. She’d be alone.

  “I will bring him there.” She couldn’t be selfish. “I merely want a little more time with him.” She had also envisioned his father showing him the planet, sharing it with both of them.

  And seeing it for himself. Stealth had never been to the Homeland.

  Once he was free, he’d return for her first…because he loved her. They would then travel there.

  “You’ll have that father-son experience.” It would solidify their bond. “And I—”

  “Are you talking to the plants again?” Odoon’s voice originated from behind her.

  She turned and smiled at the big Ahkian. “They’re good listeners.”

  He blinked, pausing in place for a moment before resuming his approach. The male didn’t like it when she talked to her missing warrior. She suspected it reminded him of his more permanent losses.

  “Did Vow do this?” He tapped the broken container with the toe of his boot.

  “I can craft a new one.” He had shown her how to do that. They sourced as much as they could from the land around them.

  “He needs discipline, Zebrina.” Odoon shook his head. “He needs a father.”

  “He has a father.” She frowned. “And I can discipline him myself…if that is needed.”

  Her mother had raised her practically on her own. The commander had been focused on his career, on himself. Other than a few acts of rebellion, like a forbidden love affair and patricide, she had turned out fine.

  “Discipline isn’t necessary in this case.” She focused on her son’s situation. “Breaking the container was an accident.” He wasn’t aware of his own strength.

  “It wasn’t an accident.” Odoon stood close to her. He had donned his best chest covering, the one he told her he wore when meeting important beings.

  There must be an Ahkian event happening this planet rotation. She glanced yearningly toward the wall at the edge of the agri-lot. She and Vow hadn’t received an invitation.

  That was normal. They were tolerated…barely…and that was only due to Odoon’s acceptance of them. The Ahkians would never embrace them.

  She was human. Vow was physically a cyborg. They were viewed as the enemy.

  “Your son needs a father who is present.” Her friend was dwelling on that topic again. “He’s running wild.”

  She didn’t appreciate his criticism of her son. “His father will be present.” She pushed dirt over the seeds she’d planted. “When he returns—”

  “He’s not returning,” the Ahkian male yelled, his face turning a darker shade of blue. “The cyborg is dead. You have to accept that.”

  She looked up at him, meeting his gaze. “Why do I have to accept that?”

  Why did that matter to him? Her belief in Stealth wasn’t harming anyone.

  Odoon raked his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. “It isn’t healthy for you or your son. Trust me. I’ve been through this.”

  Her irritation dissipated. She couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through—discovering the bodies of his female and children, cold and lifeless, on his domicile’s floor.

  “Our situations are different.” She clasped his hands, squeezed his fingers. “My mate is still alive.”

  “No cyborgs survived.” He held onto her hands, not allowing her to pull away from him. “It has been over two solar cycles. How long will you wait for him? How long will you put your lifespan on hold for a being you’ll never see again?”

  “He always returns to me.” Stealth couldn’t be dead. She tilted her head back, refusing to allow the tears to fall. “Always.”

  “He won’t this time.” Odoon pulled her against him, wrapped his arms around her.

  Part of her screamed that it was wrong. He wasn’t her male. He shouldn’t be touching her.

  Another part of her needed to be held, craved the comfort. She rested her cheek against the Ahkian’s chest, remembering how she’d do the same with Stealth.

  Only the male holding her wasn’t her warrior. The heartbeat was different, a single beat rather than a cyborg’s triple beat. Odoon smelled like a humanoid. Stealth would say that made him easy to track. And there was no connection between her and Odoon other than mutual respect and friendship.

  She stepped backward, wiped the moisture off her cheeks. “You don’t know Stealth. He’s done the impossible in the past.” He’d survived situations that would have killed other beings. “He’ll do it again.”

  Odoon sighed. “Ahki has been deemed safe for children. We’re returning home.”

  “That’s exciting.” She was happy for him, sad for herself. She’d miss his company.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I reserved three spots for us on the final transport. I’d like for you and Vow to come with me.”

  Stealth wouldn’t expect her to be on Ahki. That wasn’t their plan. She opened her mouth.

  “You don’t have to decide now.” Her friend lifted one of his palms, stopping her refusal. “The transport leaves in thirty-nine planet rotations. You have time to think…about what you want, about what is best for your son.”

  She didn’t require time. “Odoon—”

  “It could be a new start for all of us.” His blue eyes flashed. “I would introduce you as my female, present Vow as my son. You’d be accepted.” Sweat beaded on his forehead. That was how much this meant to him. “I love you, Zebrina. I can’t imagine my lifespan without you. You make me happy and I hope I make you happy.”

  She nodded, her head spinning. “You’ve been a good friend to us.” That was how she’d viewed him—as a friend and she thought he saw her the same way. “But—”

  “Friendship is the best basis for the bond between a male and a female.” He wouldn’t allow her to speak, seemed to sense her rejection. “My female and I reached maturity together. She was my friend before we discovered our love. It will be the same way for us. I’m certain of that.”

  “And if it isn’t the same way?” She had nothing left to give him or any other male. Stealth had all of her. “What will happen if I never love you in a romantic way, if I spend my entire lifespan waiting for my male to return?”

  “Then we have our friendship.” Odoon shrugged. “It’s more than I ever expected to have again.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “You would be satisfied with a non-physical relationship?”

  “Love isn’t a requirement for a physical relationship.” He slid his hands over her arms. She quashed the impulse to move away from him. “But I can move as slowly as you need to move. I can satisfy my urges in other ways while I wait for you to desire me as much as I desire you.”

  He desired her. She stared at him, trying to reconcile her friend’s face with his revelations. “I never knew you felt that way about me.”

  Had he always wanted to fuck her?

  That made her feel dirty, as though she’d betrayed Stealth by being with the male, talking with him.

  “You weren’t ready to hear how I felt.” Odoon’s gaze flicked over her face. “You aren’t ready now, either, but you should have all of the facts before you make your decision. I require a commitment if I’m to present you as my female.”