Had they fucked?
He needed to know. It was his right to know. He was the captain, after all, and if his crew were fucking, it was good to be aware of it. That’s what Hysterian told himself as he neared the room. He and his brethren all had an annoying trait where they needed to know everything that was happening around them at all times. It was embedded in their codes.
Control. It was all about control. When dealing with animal DNA, control was precious, priceless, sanity.
But this wasn’t about control… This was about something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Annoyance? Envy?
Jealousy?
He couldn’t have his one female subordinate become pregnant on her first requisition cycle. At least not by Raul… And fuck, not with a cock as small as the one he saw in Raul’s hand.
Hysterian inhaled deeply, scenting the air.
He smelled Raul’s musk and the chemical aroma of the lab, but he needed to scent the room. His jaw ticked. He was going to throw Raul in the brig if Hysterian found out the man had fucked Alexa. The idea alone made him want to turn back and make his presence known.
He couldn’t smell sex.
That didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
Without Raul noticing, Hysterian opened the door to the quarters and walked in. The door slid silently shut behind him.
His eyes went straight to Alexa’s bunk and the privacy screen securely in place. Was she asleep? The cadence of her breathing and her heartbeat indicated she was.
Sex was the last thing he smelled in the small chamber. Alexa’s hair dye—and only her dye—filled his nose. The stuff was shit incarnate but so fucking welcome when the alternative could’ve been dried cum, sweat, and moldering arousal.
Raul gets to live another day.
Hysterian knew he should leave but stared hard at the privacy screen blocking Alexa from him.
In his mind, Alexa was two different entities. On one hand, he saw her as the frigid, quiet, subordinate that she presented to the world. With her hair tightly pulled back into a bun, no makeup, and wearing a uniform devoid of the merest wrinkle. If he didn’t know she was flesh and blood human, she would’ve passed as one of his kind.
A Cyborg. A damn good one.
On the other hand, her other entity, the one he’d glimpsed on occasion, was entirely different. I didn’t fucking hire this other one.
So why had he heard her voice in his head last night?
Hysterian glared at the privacy screen between them, willing it to dissolve into dust.
I like it when she calls me captain...
He reached down and squeezed his aching shaft, already feeling the pressure building again. Torturous pressure. Pressure he shouldn’t have to be dealing with because he’d spent half the night cycle draining his body.
I’m a Cyborg, and this is my fate?
Disgusted, he dropped his hand and turned away. He’d gone too far. It should be Raul throwing him across the room and bashing his head in. Hysterian was just about to slip out when he heard a moan.
He paused.
Bedding ruffled behind him, followed by the dreaded swish of a privacy panel being opened.
In a blink, he pivoted and pressed his hands on the other side of the privacy screen to stop it from opening farther.
Alexa sighed and pushed harder. He kept it in place.
“Oh, come on,” she grumbled.
Hysterian closed his eyes and cursed.
If she pops her head out, she’s going to see me. He had no explanation whatsoever to give her—or Raul—if Hysterian was discovered in their room. Alexa jerked at the screen again.
“Not today, please, not today,” she begged.
His brow furrowed.
Then she jerked the screen closed and Hysterian took the chance to hide. In a flash, he jumped up and into the unused bunk above Alexa’s, rolling to the back. He heard the screen opening back up below him just as he quickly closed his.
He did something he’d never done before. He fucking prayed. He prayed to every god and devil out there to be anywhere else in the universe than where he was right now.
Alexa moved out from her bunk with a mumble, and Hysterian’s body tensed as if readying for battle. He tempered his systems to keep quiet. He’d never hidden from anyone or anything in his long, mechanical life. The room’s private lavatory door opened, closed, and he slumped with relief. When the bathing unit turned on, he shoved the screen open.
Then Raul walked in.
Their eyes met.
Raul came to a halt. “Captain…?”
Hysterian calmly climbed from the bunk and straightened out his suit.
“Raul,” he responded.
Raul couldn’t look more confused or shocked to see him, but to Hysterian’s relief, having Raul find him was a lot less embarrassing than Alexa finding him.
“Umm… Can I do something for you? Do you need something? How did you…” Raul trailed off, his face going red. He glanced at the bunk Hysterian just climbed out of.
“Yes, you can. You can keep this between us,” Hysterian said. “In fact, I order you to keep this between us.”
“Yeah, of course. Wait. What am I keeping between us?” Raul’s eyes drifted back to Hysterian.
“That you saw me here at all.”
“Are you and Dear—”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
Hysterian wished he’d surrounded himself with a crew that didn’t give a fuck what anyone else was doing as long as they were doing their job.
But Raul stood in his way, and didn’t look keen on moving, so Hysterian had to give him some fucking answer to his question. And soon. Alexa wouldn’t be showering forever.
Showering…
Hysterian paused, adjusting his audio to listen to the spray of water through the wall. The water was cold. He’d used it all. He didn’t sense a temperature shift in the small room beyond.
He refused to imagine the soaking wet female under it… How close he was to her. How cold she must be…
“Captain?” Raul stared at him with wrinkles deepening between his brows.
“I insist you keep this between us.” Hysterian shut Alexa and what was happening behind him from his mind. Wet, cold, or not. Her comfort wasn’t his problem. “I have a tendency to… wander when I’m seeded into the network. I don’t pretend it isn’t a problem, but it shouldn’t affect you or anyone else in my command,” he lied.
“You wandered into the empty bunk above Alexa’s?”
Hysterian glowered.
The bathing unit turned off.
“Yes.”
Raul’s lips twitched, and to Hysterian’s dismay, Raul smirked. “Riiight.”
“Get out of my way,” he ordered.
“If you’re not here for Alexa, are you here for me, Captain?” Raul crossed his arms, mischief in his eyes.
“Get out of my way, or you’ll be spending time in the brig.”
Raul stepped to the side, grinning now. “Yes, Captain.”
Furious, Hysterian stormed past him. Raul followed. Hysterian made it halfway across the room when his twat of a crew hand opened his mouth again. “So, Captain, if you’re not here for Alexa, you don’t mind me pursuing her?”
Hysterian was across the room in an instant with Raul pinned up against the male locust’s habitat. Murder. Hysterian was on the brink of committing murder.