Free Cyberella: Preyfinders Universe by Cari Silverwood Page A

would hate him forever, in spite of the bondmating? That would be tragic.
    He thought fast while he held her inches from him. The way she panted through those red lips would drive him crazy, if he stayed this near her for much longer. He let her go and took a step back.
    “I give you a choice. It’s true I swore off slavery.” He shut his eyes, for a second, and put his hands to his scalp, anchoring them in his hair and thinking some more.
    “What choice?”
    The pout she wore was offset by the wildness in her eyes. Such a feral creature. He would get this to work, but perhaps he needed patience.
    “I free you, if you agree to grant me, three times in the next six months, a week of your complete presence, your complete obedience. You will be mine on those days. You will not try to leave Riptide until that time is up.”
    “Six months?” She blinked, clearly thinking this through. The way she stared at his feet said it wasn’t easy for her. “If I’m free otherwise and not a slave. I’ll agree to this. No sex.”
    What a stipulation. His mouth tweaked as he considered it. This could still be very interesting. He would make sure of that. “Very well.”
    She smiled. “Fine. I don’t care if you make me scrub floors for a week.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait. This is like granting you three wishes.”
    The translator gave a green light to that word.
    “You can call them that. Three wishes.”
    “I’m no fairytale genie. But okay. I still agree.”
    She folded her arms, making her breasts lift up. A distracting and naked girl, presenting her breasts to him. He made himself look at her face and to his surprise saw amusement at his reaction. She teased him? Wait until he had her for a week.
    “Now, remove your code.”
    “In six months’ time, I will.” By then, he would have convinced her to be his. He was a patient man, when he wanted to be. “In six months, you’ll be mine.”
    “What? You never said you’d wait until the end.”
    “You never asked.”
    “In six months, I will leave.”
    “We will see.” He stepped forward and walked around her as he spoke. “Already, I have ideas as to what I can do to you, without fucking you. You didn’t rule out the insertion of other things into you. I plan to have you begging for more, as well as begging me to stop.”
    That she swallowed subtly then blushed, satisfied him all the way down to his toes.
    He realized then that he’d missed something. Dresdek had been right. She should have wanted to smash something over his head for implanting his code in her. Her anger had been there but relatively minor compared to, say, threatening to kill him. The one explanation? The bondmating was affecting her. The signs were there. She was resisting but her culture might have nothing like bondmating so that was understandable.
    This would work. It had to.

Chapter 10
     
    Avoiding Torgeir made for a lonely, boring day. Ella sat on the deck in the kitchen, wrinkling her nose and poking the open panel on the chef-o-mat with her finger. The amount of corrosion on the AI boards was appalling. Cracks in the protective clear layers had let in moisture, she figured. Now all the thing would make was a meal with some smoked meat like bacon, eggs, and custard or chocolate fish. Death by space vacuum was looking tempting.
    Mimi sniffed where her finger rested. Her nose was stubby yet wriggly and her fine metallic fur wriggled at the same time as her nose.
    “Hey! It’s already got problems. Shoo.”
    The critter seemed to have decided she was worth following and had emerged from her hiding place. Most of the time Mimi had four tiny legs and with her sitting on her backside as she was, she resembled a pet dog...well, one that’d OD’d on food, expanded to big balloon size, and turned into rust-red metal.
    Ella stood, dusting off the bits of decayed plas-g that’d fallen out of the panel. As she straightened, Mimi leaned in and slurped her long silver tongue all over the AI