Page 22 of Argurma Warrior (The Argurma Chronicles #1)

K aylar was in trouble. His malfunctions were getting worse around Meg. It had taken every bit of the discipline programmed into him over many solars to keep his fury in check when she described what the worthless male had done to her. That he had claimed her casually without the commitment of a mating. It disgusted him and her own shame at what she had been subjected to in her vulnerability just inflamed his anger more. The fact that he had been tortured for days by the sweetness of her scent did not help. It made him illogically aggressive and possessive in ways that he was incapable of anticipating no matter how he tried to calculate it.

With a snarl to release some small portion of his hostility, he heaved the large sheet of metal onto the pile near the front entrance with a little more force than was necessary. It made a satisfying crash as it fell and Meg’s brows rose as she dragged her own scrap over to his side and nudged it over to him.

“Here, I think you can do that a lot better than I can and I really need to hear something stupidly destructive right now.”

His mouth curved in faint amusement despite himself as he took her scrap from her and with one last lingering look in her direction, chucked it after his own so that it crashed and clanged with other metal in an ear-shattering, squealing raucous that made the small human female at his side burst with laughter.

She dragged a hand along her cheek, brushing away the tears that had leaked from her eyes and grinned up at him. “Well, that was pretty satisfactory, I think. I can see how it can make you feel better.”

The corner of his mouth inched up. “Argurma aren’t supposed to feel,” he muttered, aware that she had not yet processed what was considered a malfunction on Argurumal, and then squinted at the metal pile. “But yes, it was adequately satisfactory.”

“Whoa, hold up. What do you mean that Argurma aren’t supposed to feel?” She gaped at him, and her brows puckered in confusion. “Does Terri know that because it seemed like Veral felt quite a lot unless he was really fucking good at faking it.”

Kaylar chuffed, the rusty expression of laughter sounding as foreign to his ears as it did every time that she drew it from him. “Regardless of your nonsensical reference to coitus, I can report that my cousin feels far beyond what is legal. We are capable of emotions. Even the programming of the council cannot remove them entirely without wiping out our race, but they can blunt them and place inhibitors to regulate them until they lack influence and easily ignored unless one is malfunctioning.”

Her mouth went slack in a way that was ridiculous and yet made him want to pull her up into his arms affectionately.

“There is a legal limit to feelings? I don’t get how that’s possible.”

His vibrissae stirred in the ceaselessly restless attempt to stroke along her face and neck in a gesture of self-comfort and need no matter how he tried to control them.

“It is complicated and not. Argurma society advanced long ago to meld our biological nature with that of cybernetics at a point of physical maturity. During that time our cybernetics are installed, our memories and minds are wiped before we are returned to our mother-lines to re-establish lineage bonds but without the emotional familial connections. We are programmed to reason rather than feel. Especially among the elite warrior class to which I belong. Any sign of emotion is considered a malfunction, and a severity of malfunctions can result in termination.”

A look of horror crossed her face, her eyes rounding so that the dark hue of her eyes was surrounded completely in the peculiar white common to her species.

“That’s what you meant about it being dangerous for you. The way your tendrils—I mean, vibrissae—are reacting to me is part of the malfunction isn’t it?”

He dropped his chin in acknowledgement. “I already have expressed malfunctions that my handler deems within acceptable range, but they haven’t caused an emotional reaction in me other than some confusion at times, or more commonly stress to my systems. It is known, however, that there are considerable emotional malfunctions that run in my mother-line. Veral has the most serious case that our line has seen since his own mother was terminated for those she suffered.”

Her hand crept up to her neck as she stared up at him, pinching the fabric at her throat as if seeking comfort from the application of pressure. “And they could terminate you, for showing emotional malfunctions,” she whispered.

His chin dropped again. “There is a high probability that I will not react well when they take you from me.”

Her brow furrowed and she blinked as she pulled back from him. “What do you mean? Why would they take me from you when you are taking me to Terri and Veral.” A look of comprehension and grief passed over her face. “They never sent you for me, did they? You were taking me to your council. Why?”

His vibrissae dropped heavily with his own self-loathing as the shadows in his processors mocked him for his failing in this on top of all the other failings he experienced at the behest of the council.

“I was sent by the council to acquire a human subject to study how Terri was able to form a mating bond with Veral. In all of our history it has not happened, and the bonds among our species are becoming fewer, causing our subsequent mating and breeding to plummet. They wished for a female human subject to study. Notably they ordered me to collect Terri but I let them escape in return for coordinates to your planet.”

“And they sold me out… us—humanity—out,” she whispered.

He grimaced. “Not quite. Veral had corrupted the data, making it nearly indecipherable. I had nearly given up on it as he calculated when Degarath caught onto the key and restored the data. They never meant for me to find Earth… or you.”

She shivered and backed away from him. “And you are going to just give me over to them to be someone’s science experiment?”

He scowled down at her. She did not compute was he was trying to tell her. “I had no choice. This is my duty. It is what I am programmed for and it shows my mother-line to be in compliance with the council. You were on the verge of starving when I found you, and suffering massive dehydration. There is a seventy percent probability that you would have died within a day or two if I had not captured you.”

“And you just went along with letting me think that Terri sent you back for me. You let me believe that she cared,” Meg hissed, startling him with the vehemence in her words.

“I did not compute what you were speaking of,” he admitted. “But I know that she was very concerned about me having that information. I now process that she was worried for you whom she left behind here. I do not like my task, but the council will care for you much better than you would have survived alone.”

“So I should be grateful that you are taking me in for your council,” she choked with a bitter laugh. “For all your talk that Dale was an unworthy male, you are just like him.”

Kaylar jerked back, his vibrissae snapping up around him angrily as her words stabbed deep and painfully. “Meg, the situations are nothing alike. I am not him!” he snarled, reaching out for her.

Meg jerked back out of his reach, her hand arching down, slicing across the small scales of his forearm in between the protective spines at his joints. He hissed a pained snarl, his vibrissae expanding around him with the need to subdue her as quickly and painlessly as possible. He did not want to hurt her, but he also processed that she was in a highly agitated state and armed.

Growling softly, he advanced only to be forced to dodge the frantic slices of her blade. She only got in a few swings, none of which landed since he would not again be taken by surprise, before calculating her next swing and disarming her in a sharp blow against her wrist that sent the blade flying. Her cry of pain stabbed him as deep as any blade but he ignored it to sweep the weapon far out of her reach so that he could bundle her up into his arms and hold her firmly against his chest. She twisted there, kicking and striking with what limited movement he allowed. She even went so far as to sink her teeth in the vulnerable exposed skin of his neck and he nearly choked at the sense of erotic pleasure that filled him.

Not that he conveyed his reaction to her. She would not be pleased to know that her every movement in his arms aroused him, causing his civix to twitch in its sheath, seeking to break the seam that would sentence him to termination for unlawful mating and disobedience to his superiors. It was the erotic sting of her teeth digging into his scales, however, that he knew that he would keep close to him in his processors, replaying it over and over and how it felt even though it had been delivered in anger. He truly was a malfunctioning male who had sunk now to great depravity to have enjoyed that as much as he did.

Holding her firmly, he walked her over in the elevator and jabbed an elbow spine against the button to take them up to the residential floor. She fought like a wild animal in his embrace, but her struggles were nothing compared to his strength as he finally conveyed her into her room and dropped her on her bed before warily backing away from her as she glared up at him with anger burning in her eyes.

“You are feeling hostile and overly emotional right now,” he said cautiously, his words causing darker streaks of red to run through her cheeks. “I will give you some time to yourself until your calm is restored, and you are ready to discuss this reasonably.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Kaylar,” she snapped. “It will be a cold day in hell before I see anything reasonable about your plan to just allow me to become imprisoned again. Come near me at all and I won’t hesitate to do whatever I can to prevent that from happening.” Her lip curled in a sneer as he backed toward the door. “You know, I take it back. You are not like Dale. He never pretended to be anything but an asshole. You made me think that you were something far more. What a fucking disappointment, and what a fucking fool I am,” she spat. “Now get out!”

Kaylar stepped out of the room, allowing the door to slide shut behind him. He did not move but stared at that same door for a time, sounds of Meg’s furious screams and weeping tearing into him… and deserved it. He forced himself to witness the pain he caused until she finally quieted, and her vitals dropped into a restless slumber on his bio-scanner.

His vibrissae twitched disconcertedly as he turned away, her words replaying through his processors, the organ in the center of chest feeling like little more than a bleeding, gaping hole in his chest as he computed his situation against the one she spoke of regarding Dale. And his calculations came to a bleak conclusion.

She was right, and that was unacceptable. His vibrissae shook around him as he turned away from her door and strode down the corridor toward the elevator. He refused to cause damage to her the way that male had. He had been classified as a monster in his service more than once, as shadows liked to remind him, but he would never be that monster to her.

Even if it meant he had to betray everyone.