Page 26 of A Mate For Matrix (Cyborg Protection Unit #1)

His hands were no longer his.

Sleek, gray. Laced with pulsing blue. The same as theirs.

A name struck him like a hammer.

Elaine Brim.

His vision pulsed. Her name shouldn’t have meant anything to them—to these creatures—but it did.

She was connected to this. To them.

The voice—still speaking—shifted.

Matrix looked up slowly.

The stars beyond the viewport seemed… different.

Colder.

He stared out at the ship still approaching in the distance, the faintest glimmer of its silhouette visible beyond their imperfect cloak.

His mouth was dry.

His voice was almost inaudible.

“…She knows I’m here.”

The air grew colder.

The stars outside the viewport blurred, shadows stretching long across the bridge floor, as if reality itself was beginning to warp. Matrix’s breath caught in his throat. Something—someone—was here with him.

Then—

As if a veil were lifting, the shadows twisted into shape.

A woman.

Not human. Not anything he had ever seen.

Her form floated above the deck, bathed in a strange violet glow that seemed to pulse in rhythm with a heartbeat.

Her skin was a shade of metallic gray that shimmered like liquid mercury, but as Matrix watched, it slowly shifted—flaring with iridescent blues, greens, and silvers as if responding to his presence.

She spoke.

“Zher’tai kahl nox’ten vah’dari.”

The sound wasn’t made with lips—it came from everywhere. The words reverberated in his bones and scrambled across his thoughts.

“Zher’tai kahl nox’ten vah’dari …” she repeated.

Suddenly—

Understanding exploded in his mind.

“You have connected.”

Matrix took a stunned half-step back, his lips parting.

He could hear her. Not through sound, but through some neural frequency, like his thoughts had been rerouted to another bandwidth of reality.

Her voice echoed through his skull again, calm and insidious:

“You are connected.”

The phrase reverberated across the mental link like a claim.

Matrix’s eyes darted across her alien form, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

Despite the otherworldliness, she was familiar. Somehow. A shape from a nightmare he hadn’t had yet.

She was beautiful and horrifying at once—her long, floating limbs graceful, her body wrapped in what looked like cables spun from starlight.

Thick tubes connected from her skull into the darkness above, hanging like strands of silken hair shot through with glowing current.

More conduits snaked across her torso and legs, interwoven to mimic the shape of a flowing gown, but formed entirely of fiber and steel.

She drifted closer.

Matrix tensed.

“Don’t be afraid,” she cooed. “You were created to serve me.”

His blood chilled.

He twisted to keep her in sight as she began to circle him, slow and predatory.

“What do you mean?” he growled. “Who are you?”

“You are the one chosen—promised to me—in exchange for knowledge.”

Matrix staggered as a flash slammed into his mind?—

A memory.

Elaine Brim, again, only this time different.

She was standing on a research vessel—his mission. The last one. The one that had nearly killed him.

Elaine’s voice was firm. Desperate.

“I can offer you knowledge for knowledge. The Confederation—you need organic bodies. Just show us… how the Hive survives.”

Pain speared through Matrix’s skull. He dropped to one knee, gasping, one hand clawing at the floor while the other clutched his temple. Blood dripped from his nose, pattering onto the metal deck.

“No—” he choked.

The Queen’s voice purred, wrapping around him like a net of cold silk.

“You will submit to me, Matrix. You are Hive. You will be my General. You will lead.”

Matrix shook his head violently.

“No!” he snarled through clenched teeth as visions of worlds destroyed, devoured by this… creature burned into his mind. “You won’t control me.”

“This world you left… it still exists,” she whispered, drifting closer. “And now I know how to return to it. You will guide me. I will kill the one called Gracie before she can stop us again. We will not be defeated this time.”

He gritted his teeth, the fire in his gut battling the ice in his veins.

“I will never serve you. I will never help you destroy everything?—”

Before he could finish, the Queen raised a slender arm, and agony ripped through him.

The pain wasn’t heat or fire, it was pure neurological torment, like every nerve had been replaced with barbed wire and struck with lightning. His limbs convulsed. He screamed—loud, raw, human.

The bridge vanished. His vision fractured—white hot, then black.

“You belong to me, General,” she hissed. “You cannot escape the Hive.”

His muscles seized. He was slipping. The pain tore through his soul now, eroding the last shreds of resistance.

He couldn’t hold on much longer.

He could feel her infiltrating his thoughts, her commands crawling through him like parasitic wires. She would have his knowledge—his memories—his mission.

A final cry ripped from his chest.

And then?—

Warmth.

Soft.

Gentle.

Hands—human hands—on his cheeks.

A voice, trembling with emotion.

“Matrix. Matrix! I love you so much. Come back to me. Please—come back.”

Jana.

A flash of scent—vanilla and citrus and something uniquely her.

He jerked. Gasped.

The connection broke.

Matrix slumped forward, chest heaving, drenched in sweat and blood. His head was cradled against Jana’s trembling form.

He blinked up at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her lips trembling.

Her tears hit his skin like holy water.

“J-Jana…” he rasped.

“You’re okay,” she whispered, brushing his damp hair from his forehead. “You’re here. I’ve got you.”

The bridge faded into background blur.

The ship, the Hive, the Queen—all distant echoes.

For now.

But he remembered.

The metal planet.

The warships.

Her voice.

Her hunger.

Matrix wrapped his arms around Jana and held her tightly, trembling.

The war that he had fought in when he chased the Crawler wasn’t over.

It was just beginning—with an even more terrifying species.