Free Cypher (The Dragon's Bidding Book 2) by Christina Westcott

dark and impenetrable. The Nameless Man awoke with an
edginess that warned he’d been trapped in a nightmarish dreamscape, but he
remembered only fear and anger, and a terrible sense of loss. The present
consisted solely of sound and smell. And sight, but his training warned him to
keep his eyes closed and his consciousness hidden until he’d assessed the
situation.
    Training? He couldn’t
remember any training, and yet the knowledge was there. Couldn’t remember how
he’d come to be here, or why. Or who. He didn’t even know if he was he…or she.
Or something else entirely. Could not recall…a name.
    He pushed down the
panic and concentrated with the senses available to him. Sounds hammered
against his brain.
    Too loud.
    His mind reached out
instinctively to turn down the noise inside his head, and a jumble of icons and
alphanumerics blazed in the darkness, a computer display seemingly written on
the underside of his eyelids. The digital chaos receded as he thought-clicked
on the programs, banishing each to a toolbar marching down the right side of
his mind-sight.
    How had he known to do
that?
    If not who, he at least
had a name for what he was. An augie. A cybernetically augmented…what? Man? He
thought of himself as male, but still had no memory of any life he might have
lived before a few seconds ago.
    A cloying scent clung
to his body, clogging his nostrils and coating the back of his throat,
confirming he’d just come out of an operating tank. But why had they wiped his
memory before making him a cyborg?
    Around him, electronics
chirped and muttered in a large echoing room. The inhead display fed him
dimensions of the space and pinpointed three voices, all female, 3.7 meters
away. A warm laugh bubbled from one, igniting a surge that raced down his
nervous system straight to his groin.
    Oh, most definitely
male .
    A set of footsteps
moved toward him. A small woman, judging by the short, quick stride. He dialed
up his hearing and listened to the whisper of her clothing sliding across her
skin, the cadence of her heartbeat accelerating as she came to his side. In the
back of his mind, a wordless whispering began, swelling in intensity as she
grew closer. A half-remembered scent of woodsy soap mingled with the dark,
musky womaness of her, making him ache to drag her to the floor and bury
himself deep inside her.
    Fingertips brushed his
bare shoulder, driving a sharp, involuntary gasp from him. Beneath the thin
blanket covering his hips, his body responded to the touch. The woman chuckled,
deep-throated and appreciative. The feather of her breath across his face told
him that she leaned over him, but he didn’t realize how close until her tongue
traced the outline of his mouth. He parted his lips and pulled her in, their
tongues moving together in an achingly familiar dance. His soul knew this
woman, knew every dark and sweet recess of her mouth, every caress of her
tongue, every secret pleasure of her body.
    When the need to
breathe forced her to break the kiss, he refused to let go, seizing her lower
lip in his teeth. He needed to see her, this wanton angel who felt so familiar
to him, and he left the safety of his darkness to open his eyes.
    His soul might know
her, but his mind had no clue who she was.
    Not a classic beauty,
her not-quite blonde hair curled around a face with features too strong, a jaw
too stubborn. This woman needed no one’s protection, nor would she allow anyone
to dominate her. She would stand shoulder to shoulder with him in a fight, and
Yig help the person who found himself facing her in battle. Eyes the cool gray
of sea fog locked gazes with him, then darkened to the color of cold iron. Her
arm blurred up with a speed too quick to follow, her fingers clamping around
his neck and jamming the air in his windpipe. Ice frosted her words.
    “Who the hell are you,
and where is Wolf?”
    The Nameless Man
reached to pry her fingers from his throat, but his arm came up too fast, too
hard, and