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  She fell silent. They passed, after a time, through a large room filled with supplies. Dante released her long enough to select a number of articles, which he placed in her arms, and then led her out once more and down a short passageway.

  It was immediately apparent when he led her into the next room that the showers were indeed of the primitive variety. Amaryllis was so surprised, so caught up in nostalgia, that she merely stood stock still as Dante took the supplies from her, settled them on a bench and removed the bandages.

  After explaining how the showers were operated, he took up a position near the door.

  She studied him in silence for several moments, but she wasn't the least surprised that she would not have any privacy. “You could guard me from outside the door just as well,” she pointed out coolly.

  "I could, but I won't."

  Her lips tightened. Finally, she moved to the bench and found what she needed.

  There was heated water. Within moments of submerging herself in it, Amaryllis had almost completely dismissed the cyborg, Dante, from her mind. Those who'd grown up on Earth and Earth's well established colonies seemed revolted by the very thought of having water on their skin, but she'd known nothing else until she'd left her own world. She knew that the particle baths were not only more hygienic but almost as importantly, they conserved a precious resource, but she found them very unsatisfactory.

  This was almost pure heaven and brought memories of her family crowding into her mind.

  She hadn't actually seen her parents but once since she'd decided on a career as a soldier. Her parents had been horrified by her choice and she had been so reluctant to face their disapproval that she'd pretty much cut herself off from them.

  She supposed she could see their point. They'd scrimped and saved for years just to earn the credits needed to make her ‘normal'. They loved her, and she knew they'd done it out of love, but there was also the unspoken and unacknowledged obligation of debt—that they considered she couldn't possibly appreciate their sacrifice properly if she was willing to risk throwing it away by her choice of career.

  Maybe that had played a part in her choice. Maybe, deep down, there'd been some resentment on her part toward her parents. The decision had been far more complicated than that, however.

  A large part of it had been because she wanted to show everyone that had ever looked at her with pity, revulsion, or fear that she was just as normal as anyone—better even because her cybernetics allowed her to do things they could never do. Some of it had been sheer desperation to escape the world and people that had represented as much misery to her as love, and some a desperation to fully live life, if she had to do it on the edge, because she'd missed out on so much of life when she had been confined by the limitations of her defective body.

  Some of it had been anger, and the need to find a release for her pent up frustrations.

  She'd hated the reproach in her family's eyes, though, and except for that one, uncomfortable trip home on leave, she'd avoided them.

  She wished now that she hadn't. She might never see them again and she wanted them to know that her choice had been a celebration of the gift they'd given her, not a reproach for the birth defects and the hell she'd been through because of them. She wanted them to know that she didn't blame them for something they could not have prevented short of not conceiving her at all.

  "Enough!"

  The sharp command jerked Amaryllis out of her abstraction and back to the present. “What?” she asked blankly, trying to think how long she'd been in the shower. It didn't seem to her that she could possibly have used that much water, but then she had no idea what sort of rationing they had.

  Dante, she saw uneasily, had strode across the room toward her and was standing no more than two feet from her now, an angry scowl on his face.

  Amaryllis’ lips tightened in irritation. If he'd given her a specific length of time, she would have complied. His anger seemed unfair, to say the least, when he hadn't indicted anything of the kind.

  Sloughing the residual water from her hair and skin, she shut the shower off and moved past him toward the bench. Lifting the length of cloth she decided must be for drying, she quickly dried herself and then studied the garments he'd selected for her. A wry smiled curled her lips when she lifted them to study them. There wasn't much to the garments ... only enough to cover her breasts and genitals.

  She'd seen such garments plenty of times, of course, but she'd never worn anything like it. Soldiers wore garments designed to protect them as much as possible from injury. They had no concern for current styles and they worked in less than favorable conditions anyway. This was the sort of thing women of leisure wore, not working women—unless they made their living on their back.

  Shrugging mentally, she slipped the garments on. She was still the next thing to naked when she'd dressed, but for the first time in her life, she actually felt a sense of her femininity. She felt—pretty.

  The look on Dante's face when she turned to face him at last was only marginally better than before.

  "I underestimated you."

  Amaryllis blinked at him in surprise. “What?"

  "You are not above using your femininity as a weapon. They taught you to seduce and destroy, did they not?"

  Her jaw went slack with surprise for about two seconds before a wealth of conflicting emotions flooded her. Anger took the upper hand and she spoke before she considered the consequences. “You're a cyborg. Why in the hell would I bother trying to seduce you?"

  His eyes narrowed. His face grew taut with suppressed anger. “I feel everything any other spawn of humanity feels,” he said through clenched teeth.

  "How would you know?” Amaryllis shot back at him, still too angry to consider the foolhardiness of provoking her captor.

  An expression of frustration flickered across his features. Abruptly, he caught her, jerking her fully against his length. “If you are so certain I do not, prove it—human."

  Chapter Four

  A coldness washed over Amaryllis. “You said I wasn't human, that all the hunters were cyborgs—just as you are,” she said stiffly.

  "Idid not. It was Kiran who spoke, but I suppose we all look alike to you humans."

  He knew. Amaryllis suddenly realized that with perfect clarity, knew she should have realized it immediately and would have if she hadn't been in such a state of turmoil. What had been his purpose in bringing her here, then? Why hadn't he simply denounced her, dragged her before whoever was leading this band of rogues? Or simply slain her on the spot? He didn't need privacy to kill her. He would only have had to announce that she was human and no one would have even questioned his actions.

  When she remained locked in shocked silence, he shifted his grip on her, freeing one arm. His hand settled lightly on the bare skin of her waist, then skimmed upward, settling just beneath one breast.

  Amaryllis swallowed with an effort, fighting a surge of panic, and something else she didn't even want to think about. She wasn't helpless. She'd been well trained. Unarmed, she might stand little chance against him, but she still had her wits and her strength.

  Her wits had deserted her, though, and taken her strength with it.

  She felt dwarfed by his size and the sensations that evoked wasn't just fear.

  With an effort, she gathered moisture into her dry mouth. “If you believe that I'm human, not cyborg, then why did you bring me here?"

  He frowned. After a moment, some of the tension seemed to leave him. His grip loosened fractionally, not enough to allow her to escape, but sufficiently that she could drag a deep breath into her laboring lungs. To her surprise, a faint flush colored his skin.

  "Perhaps so that you would consider me favorably."

  The tone was almost flippant, seeming to belie the suggestion, but his body language said otherwise, and she realized with a touch of surprise that he was telling the truth, that the bath had been in the nature of an offering. Courtship? He'd said they were looking for mates, but then she had been so acutely aware that she was the only one among them that was human, and therefore not compatible, that it simply hadn't occurred to her that he would decide he wanted her and she wondered if that was the reason he'd singled her out in the field to begin with. “I don't ... look upon you as an enemy,” she lied. She would've been willing to suggest something far warmer except that she didn't think for a moment he would believe her.

  His lips tightened into a thin line. “No?” He tilted his head, studying her appraisingly. “Because you consider that I am no more than a machine and a machine can not be an enemy? It is merely a thing."

  She couldn't think of a response to that that wouldn't just piss him off more. At the moment, she definitely didn't—couldn't—think of him as a machine. The body pressed so closely to her own felt as real as any other man, but far better than anything she'd ever touched, and her body certainly didn't know the difference.

  After a moment, when she didn't deny the accusation, he slipped his hands along her arms, tugging them behind her back and manacling both slender wrists in one of his large hands. He pulled her closer, dipping his head toward the crook of her shoulder and breathing deeply. “But I smell the perfume of your flesh and it sends pleasure through me.” He slid his free hand in an exploratory caress up one arm and cupped her face. “I feel the softness of your skin and it begs the touch of my mouth and tongue so that I can bring your essence inside of me and savor it."

  He rocked against her so that she could feel his lower body pressing into her belly, feel the hard erection that told her he wasn't lacking in any of the parts that made him a male. “I want to bury myself so deeply inside of you that you can not think, can only feel ... so that you know I am no machine, but a living entity ... just as you are."

  Amaryllis swallowed with an effort, trying to fight the pounding of her heart. Her lips tingled with the nearness of his mouth to hers. She could feel his heat.

  She realized suddenly that she wanted to feel his lips on hers. She wanted to ignore every protest screaming at the back of her mind and yield to the promise his heat offered. It took more strength than she would ever have thought possible to deny the desire welling inside of her.

  With an effort, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “Why would it matter to you—what I think?”How could it matter? Unless The Company had lied to them—which wouldn't be a great surprise considering their penchant for it—and there was far more to their creation than they wanted credit for.

  Frustration clouded his features. After a moment, he relaxed his hold on her, stepped away.

  "You should ... leave me here,” she said a little desperately. “You know I don't belong. If you take me, they will discover, eventually, as you did, that I'm human."

  He shook his head slightly, but she wasn't certain what the denial was—a refusal to release her or a refusal to believe that she would be exposed for what she really was. He had to know that the longer she stayed, the greater the chance that someone else would figure it out.

  "I would not leave you if I could. When we leave this place, all trace of our presence will be removed."

  Therewas no hope of escape then. She could either take her chances with the cyborgs, or have no possibility of survival at all.

  "What will they do with me when they discover?"

  He frowned, apparently considering, and finally shook his head. “It will be better not to know."

  He grasped her arm then and pulled her from the facilities, walking her quickly down one passageway after another. As they progressed deeper into the ship, they nearly ran afoul of other groups of cyborgs, striding purposefully about the ship as they went about preparations for departure. Each time, he pulled her into a cabin off the main passageway before they were seen, leaving her in no doubt that he had something in mind that didn't include turning her over to her captors. They came at last to a narrow corridor and turned down it. Doors opened off of it more regularly than any of the others and Amaryllis realized that this area must contain smaller cabins for the cyborg crew. About a quarter of the way down, he pushed a door open and thrust her inside, following her.

  "You will be safe here ... for now."

  Amaryllis looked around the small cabin curiously, but she knew it must be the cabin that had been assigned to him. Beyond a narrow bunk barely wide enough for one and a locker, the room contained little else.

  "Facilities there,” he said, pointing to a narrow door on the back side of the cabin. “But this is shared by four cabins and only safe for you to use between shift changes.” When he'd explained the rotation, he moved toward the cabin door once more, but hesitated once he'd reached it.

  "Give me your word that you will not leave the cabin."

  "Where would I go?” Amaryllis hedged.

  His expression tightened. He shook his head slightly. “This is a dangerous game, Amaryllis."

  "Survival isn't my idea of a game,” she retorted.

  He studied her thoughtfully for several moments and finally left the door, advancing upon her. Surprised, Amaryllis backed away. She'd forgotten the bunk. The backs of her knees caught the edge of the frame. Her knees buckled. Before she could recover her balance, he was upon her, pinning her to the bunk. A brief struggle ensued for possession of her hands, but she was in no position to find the leverage she needed to escape. In moments, he'd subdued her struggles.

  Shifting, he caught both her wrists in one hand, and then ripped the silky skirting from her garment, securing her wrists together with it. The sheer fabric was soft but chafed her wrists as she twisted her hands, trying to pull free, and she quickly discovered that it was far stronger than she would've thought.

  When he'd finished binding her wrists together, he pushed her arms above her head and secured the binding to the head of the bunk. After tugging on it a couple of times to assure himself that she was secure, he rolled off of her and moved to the door once more.

  "Asshole!” Amaryllis snarled at him as he reached it.

  He hesitated and turned his head to glare at her. “I realize that you are handicapped by your human weaknesses, but you may wish to consider the consequences of making your presence known."

  Amaryllis gaped in outrage.

  He'd called her stupid and weak! He thought she was inferior because she was human! “Bigot!” she muttered furiously. “It's better than being a fucking machine!"

  It was obvious from his expression that her shaft had struck home with a precision equal to his. For several moments he looked so furious that fear tickled at the base of her spine. Finally, he merely pulled the door open and departed, locking the door behind him.

  A combination of relief and uneasiness washed through her when she heard the sound of the lock.

  He was right. Shewas stupid or she wouldn't have allowed her temper to overrule her head. Whatever else the company had told them about the cyborgs that might or might not be true, there was no doubt that they were unpredictable. Insulting the one cyborg who knew her dangerous secret was probably one of the least intelligent things she'd ever done.

  She struggled with the bonds for a time but found that the more she tugged and pulled the tighter the knots became. After resting for a few moments, she began trying to move herself into a position where she could use her teeth to loosen the knots. An earnest effort failed to produce any results, however, and she subsided to rest again and consider her options.

  Regardless of what he'd said, she thought she would prefer to take her chances on the planet than with the cyborgs. Whatever they had in mind to use to erase their presence here, she didn't believe they would destroy the entire planet even if they'd had the weapons to do so, and she was willing to stake her life that they didn't. If she could only free herself and escape the ship undetected, then cross the clearing to the wooded area beyond, she could hide herself until The Company sent ships to discover what had become of the mission.

  That was a lot of ifs, particularly when he'd removed her locator—both locators. Mentally, she called up an image of what she'd seen before and since capture, both of the compound and the ship. The compound had been no more than crude wooden huts, but the entire area was surrounded by a wooden palisade built from the trees cut to clear the compound. That constituted a very large area to navigate undetected, ending with a wall that would be difficult, to say the least, to scale.

  More immediately, there was the problem of getting loose and finding her way out of the ship. She didn't think it had been locked down yet. The cabin where Dante had imprisoned her seemed to be a good distance from the workings of the ship, but she'd been hearing occasional movements that she thought must mean they were still preparing for departure.

  The thought had scarcely entered her mind when she heard footsteps directly outside in the corridor. She held her breath, wondering if Dante were returning. The steps passed the cabin door, however, halting close by. In a few moments, she heard movement in the cabin adjoining the one where she was and then in the facilities. Her heart leapt in her throat and she craned to stare at the door Dante had told her led to the facilities.

  There was no lock on it ... which explained why he'd decided it was necessary to tie her even though he'd locked the outer door.

  She lay perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe until she heard the cyborg leave once more.

  When the last of his footsteps faded along the corridor, she studied her situation and began trying to work out a contortion that would bring her teeth within range of the bindings. She'd broken a sweat by the time she managed it. Every muscle and joint in her body was screaming at the unaccustomed strain. Ignoring the pain, she began gnawing at the knots.

  She'd begun to think she was beginning to make some headway when she became aware of a vibration communicating itself through the hull, the frame of the bed and the mattress. She stopped, gasping for breath, hoping against hope that she'd imagined it and that it was nothing more than muscle fatigue.

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