Born

Placing his big calloused hands on her shoulders he steered her to the edge of the pool. Water lapped at her toes first and she took a step farther in, until it reached her naval. Glancing over her shoulder she saw he had closed his eyes. His feet were barely wet. “Are you all right?”

He nodded, eyes still shut tight. “I am in heaven.”

Never would she have imagined the Breds felt so deprived. She tried to envision an existence without meat or hot baths, two of her only creature comforts, and found she didn’t want to even picture it. “You may stay as long as you like.”

His gaze fixed on hers. “And you, angel? Will you stay here with me?”

“I am not an angel, Cormack. Or do you need me to retrieve my whip and jog your memory?”

Kicking up a great deal more water than she did, he moved deeper within the pool, until he could sink down behind her. “You do not hurt the undeserving. I bet you would rescue us all if given half a chance.”

Allora glanced away. “People cannot be rescued from themselves.”

His hands snaked around her and he pulled her flush against him. His bare front aligned with her naked back, his erection nestled almost between the cleft of her cheeks, but there was no demand evident in his embrace. In fact, he began massaging her tense shoulders, his movements unhurried. “They can if they truly wish to be. I believe that.”

As the tension leeched from her stiff muscles, her mind wandered. Allora still hadn’t given up on her plan to abandon the colony. Perhaps find a vacant settlement. Being on her own could not be any more difficult than being shunned by the Borns, feared by the Breds. If she fit in nowhere, then she had to carve out her own existence.

Yet the thought of never resting for fear someone would discover her and kill her in her sleep loomed.

Already she had to watch where she traveled in the lines, as many of the Borns would try and trip her.

Mel secretly tasted her food for toxins, lest one of the kitchen supervisors tried to poison her again. She would have to do without hot baths and meat, probably live on paste for years until she could harvest her own crops. And then there were the Cyborgs…

I’ll never know a touch like this again. Unless…

“Come with me.” The words flew out of her mouth before her brain had time to process the thought.

His hands stilled. “What did you say?”

She turned to face him. “I cannot stay here, cannot tie myself to Gaul for the good of the colony.

And if I refuse his suit the overlord will withdraw his protection. I must escape. You have much to gain too.

Please Cormack, I do not wish to go alone.”

He didn’t respond, possibly considering her offer, perhaps deciding that he was better off going back to the barracks to rut with a female who hadn’t lost her mind. Desperate to make him see the possibilities, she pressed onward. “Cormack, you know your time is almost up. You told me earlier that you were not ready for the journey to be over. Help me find another place where we can live in peace.”

He shook his head, as if trying to wake from a daydream. “To have that sort of existence, where I answered only to myself…, but it’s too dangerous for you.”

Lifting her chin, Allora stared at him. “My mind is made up, I’m going. The only question is—do you want to come with me?”

8

Cormack’s heart stutter-stepped in his chest. She wanted him, not just his body pleasing hers for the night, but to venture out with her. Fear mixed with excitement inside him, as though she had lit a fuse and he waited to see if fireworks or a bomb waited on the other end. He could be with her, just her, living as his own master, never to be whipped again. To die of old age, like a Born. Perhaps he had already been recycled, for surely this couldn’t be real.

“What of the Bred madness? What would you do if I turned on you?”

She blinked up at him, her adorable mouth drawing down at the edges. “Shoot you, of course. It is the only humane thing to do when the madness comes.”

His hands shook as he held her still. “Would you teach me to read?”

She nodded, smiling. “If that is your wish.”

“My task mistress,” he drew her closer, needing to hold her and assure himself that she was in fact real. “Who knew the day you beat me would be the best of my life?”

She smiled up at him and he could wait no longer to taste her berry ripe lips. Angling his head down, he claimed her mouth in a searing kiss. She moved closer, her wet torso sliding against his, pebbled nipples pressing into his chest, her pelvis aligning her sex with his.

He gasped and her tongue took advantage, invading his mouth, tangling with his own, even as she worked herself against his aching cock, riding him. With only a slight shifting of his hips he could plunge inside her, be surrounded by her wet heat, let her channel milk him dry.