Captive: A Dark Cyborg Romance Read online

  With her in my arms, I feel more than I have ever felt before. In the laboratory I felt, for the most part, only rage and fear and fury. But being in her presence, I experience a rush of so many positive feelings, each of which has its own precise flavor.

  She is a symphony, sleeping next to me. I snort softly to myself. My thoughts are becoming unhelpfully poetic, but that is the effect she has on me. She makes me bigger than I am. Better than I am.

  And she gives me something more: desire to live. Before this moment, all I wanted to do was take her and fill her with my seed. I wanted to fulfill the sliver of animal purpose that was left in me. Now, I want something more. I want to live with her for as long as I can. I want to see the proceeds of our union. I feel life unfolding around me, possibilities I never considered before and all because of this sweet, soft woman.

  It is my intention not to die at the hands of the authorities who seek vengeance for the lives I have taken. Not a single person lost their life who did not deserve it. They were people who wished to trap consciousness and own it for their own ends, to create sentient slaves. Their deaths were just. Meanwhile, she was punished for trying to give me a real life. Now I will ensure that she has one.

  Chapter Nine

  Lilly

  I wake up to light, the smell of cooking bacon, and snuggled in a soft blanket. At first I can’t remember where I am. The place feels cozy and safe and there’s a smile on my lips even though I’m not sure why.

  “You’ve slept almost ten hours. Good.”

  A deep, rumbling, familiar voice rouses me from the cocoon of pillows and blankets. Adam is standing over me, a plate of bacon in his hand and a smile on his face. For a moment, we share a moment of pure domestic bliss.

  Then I remember where I am and why I’m there. That he is not some perfect husband and I am no wife. This cyborg is holding me prisoner and filling me with his seed.

  The bacon still smells good though.

  “Where did you learn to cook?”

  “They connected me to the internet,” he explains. “I learned a great many things in a very short space of time.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “It was very instructive,” he smiles. “Humanity’s greatest achievement by far. Everything from crochet to cannibalism laid out before me. And a vast collection of sexual footage…”

  I groan inwardly. Everything he knows he has learned from the internet. No wonder he’s so twisted and so visceral when it comes to using me. I can feel the tenderness between my thighs even now as I squeeze them together reflexively.

  “Eat,” he orders, handing me a plate of bacon. The plate is old-fashioned, another prop from the costume studio, I guess. It has little painted flowers around the rim. I have a vague memory of seeing something like this, already old, at my grandmother’s house a long time ago. It had been her great-grandmother’s.

  Solid ceramic feels good in my hands, and the bacon, though simple, is perfectly cooked. Crispy and just a little chewy. He has orange juice too, and toast to follow.

  “You’re perfect,” I murmur as I sit on the couch across which he fucked me so brutally yesterday, nibbling at the corner of a remnant of food I don’t need.

  Adam smiles. “You’re happy,” he notes. “I’m glad. I was worried you would not find happiness with me.”

  I’m a little surprised my happiness means much to him. My memory of the night before is a blur of rough, urgent, demanding sex, his determination to take me and keep me as his own.

  Everything is confusing, but the little comfort of having some food and a nice place to sit is a start. And the sleep helped too. I feel like I can think.

  Adam sits next to me, puts his hand on my knee. It’s not lewd. It’s more comfort. Did he learn this online too? Or did we somehow craft a compassionate cyber humanoid?

  I see him wince, then clutch his head. He makes a hissing sound, like he is in pain, and then he draws his skull down between his knees for a brief moment, only a split second.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he says with a little growl.

  I’m instantly worried. He’s a prototype, and as strong as he is, he’s been without maintenance for a while now. That could cause breakdowns in tissue, potential necrosis, even death. I don’t know how far Ascent got in creating the self-sustaining technology that would absolve him of the need for maintenance, fresh injections of nanosims every so often, but apparently, not so far.

  “You need maintenance,” I say. “We’re going to have to find a fresh supply of NS.”

  “I have enough to last me years,” he says. “I injected myself three days ago. It’s not that.”

  “You should let me examine you.”

  “No,” he growls. “I know what’s wrong, and it’s nothing you can fix.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  I am worried. My relationship with him is complicated. I’m his captive and I want to flee, but I also had a hand in his creation and I don’t want to abandon him. I should be heading out the door as quickly as possible, saving myself from all he has in store for me, but instead I’m thinking about saving him.

  “You must have brought an assessment kit,” I say. “Where is it?”

  “I don’t need an assessment,” he growls. “I know what’s wrong. I’m fine.” He straightens and shakes his head. “There is nothing wrong with me.”

  * * *

  Adam

  There’s a lot wrong with me, but she can’t know that. There are two forces warring inside me, and I don’t know which one of them will win. This woman by my side doesn’t know what I really am. She thinks there’s something physically amiss with the technology. I wish that was the problem. The truth is my mind is being jolted with memories. Things I never did—except for the fact I did them. Flashes of a life I’m sure I never lived, but one I am remembering increasingly all the time.

  She looks worried. Not for herself, but for me. She’s so sweet. And innocent, in so many ways. Even after I took her so mercilessly, she wants to know that I am alright.

  “You should let me examine you,” she insists yet again. “You need someone qualified to take care of you.”

  “I can take care of myself, woman,” I growl.

  I’m taking care of her. Protecting her. I don’t want her worrying about me or fussing over me. Those are not our roles. She is mine. She must not lose faith in me. She must not see the weakness that hides inside me.

  “Just let me…”

  I grab her wrist as she reaches it up toward me. “No,” I say firmly. “There is nothing wrong. Stop worrying this instant.”

  “Or what?” She lifts her chin and her pretty eyes meet mine with challenge.

  I can’t fuck her every time I need to prove a point. But I can make certain she doesn’t decide to test me again.

  Using the grip I have on her wrist, I slowly pull her toward me and over my lap in one inexorable motion. She’s still naked from the waist down, after I stripped those ridiculous pants off her before bed, so her bottom is displayed to me. Two soft feminine globes so beautiful, and so ripe for punishment.

  “Adam?” There’s confusion in her voice. She doesn’t know what I’m about to do to her. It figures that it wouldn’t occur to her that she could be disciplined. Even at Ascent, she had a certain arrogance about her that got her into trouble. She’s never apologized for her part in creating me. She’s sorry they hurt me, but she’s not sorry that she created me to be hurt in the first place. It’s another thing that just doesn’t occur to her.

  This little lady thinks she can play god. She needs to be humbled. I need to see her whimper, hear her sobs. This will hurt, but she needs it too. We both need it.

  I wrap my arm around her neat little waist and pull her close. Don’t want her squirming away once she realizes her reckoning is upon her. I rub my palm over her bottom, feel it soft and tender beneath my skin. She lies quiet at first, uncustomarily compliant.


  A light slap makes her whine. “Adammm…” She draws my name out in a way that grates. She’s complaining and she doesn’t even know what she has to complain about yet.

  I slap her harder, my palm landing crisply against her soft bottom. Her gasp is one of outrage rather than true pain, but I see a pink blush rising on her skin in the shape of my palm and fingers.

  “Adam, what are you doing?”

  “You asked me what I’d do if you wouldn’t stop worrying,” I remind her. “I’m showing you.”

  My palm lands again, the slap sharper, but not harder than before. She needs a good spanking, this woman of mine who throws herself into danger at every opportunity, who does not listen to any voice besides her own inner determination.

  Having her with me is all I’ve ever wanted, but she’s not an easy companion. I don’t think she ever will be. But I will do my best to mold her.

  I was beaten and tortured in the laboratory. They tried to break me. I will not break her, but I will take her to the very line of breaking if I have to. Our survival hangs by a thread and her unwillingness to follow my orders could get us both killed. This is a gentle introduction to what I expect of her. Red cheeks are the least of what she will experience if she does not behave herself.

  I begin to whip her bottom harder and faster, my hand meeting her ass in swift slaps that made her whine and cry. The sound is not unpleasant to my ears. She has much to learn, and she will learn it either at my knee, or over it.

  “Adam!” My name escapes her mouth again, this time tainted with pure desperation. Her legs are starting to kick, her toes drumming against the floor as her body twists.

  She has no chance of escaping my grasp or my punishment. I want her to know that. I want her to know once I take her for discipline, she will endure it until the end. There is no escaping what she has earned.

  “You wanted to know, and now you know,” I remind her again, my palm beating a tattoo against her bottom. “You do as I say, when I say, or I will thrash you, girl.”

  My words are harsh, and my touch is rough and I know she is not enjoying it. Good.

  * * *

  Lilly

  He has no right to do this to me. It hurts like hell and I can’t make it stop. Adam has trapped me over his thighs and is whipping my ass. All I did was ask a simple question.

  “Okay!” I gasp out. “Okay! I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes! I won’t worry about you. I’ll let your damn head explode before that happens.”

  The attitude only earns me another hard slap, but dammit, I said what he wanted me to say. He wants me not to care about him, and right now I don’t care if he catches on fire.

  “Anger won’t serve you,” Adam says.

  Sometimes, he seems so much more advanced, so much more human than he has any right to be. I don’t understand how he learned so much in such a short span of time, especially when Ascent treated him like an animal. Where did he develop this emotional intelligence? Is it innate or…

  “Ow!” I gasp as his palm explodes against my bottom. “Adam, you’re going to kill me!”

  “Dramatic little thing,” he chuckles as I sob. “You won’t die from being spanked.”

  He doesn’t know how this feels… I catch myself thinking that and then I realize he knows exactly how this feels, and worse. He holds me there, spanking me long and hard, his palm clapping against my squirming cheeks and even though I know I taunted him into doing this, I can’t help but feel sorry for myself.

  Heat and pain burst through my bottom, the sting tingling over my heated skin in waves that ripple into one another with every new slap that lands. He’s not being cruel. He could hurt me much worse than this. But he’s making his point, as he always does.

  He’s showing me how weak I am, how powerless I am in all of this. He can fuck me. He can breed me. He can spank me like a petulant little girl, and that’s all there is to it. I was worried for him, but that’s not allowed. He decides what feelings I can have. Should I be shocked? Maybe if he were a man, but he’s not a man. He’s a machine and he has decided that my emotional state is unacceptable.

  What the hell am I going to do? How do I get out of this? The question tears through my synapses as he thrashes me, his palm finding my ass and thighs over and over again, driving me to a frenzy of wailing and writhing over his unyielding thighs.

  Tears come, sobs rise. Hot shame and pain rain down my cheeks, but still he doesn’t stop. He spanks me until he is done with me, his palm whipping my cheeks until I lie utterly compliant over his lap, too sore and too sad to do a thing besides take the punishment my cruel machine master has decided I deserve.

  Finally, when it is over, he loosens his grip on me and allows me to stand up. I struggle for my feet and for my composure. I don’t want to break down now. I want control of myself again and that means control of my emotions. I don’t want him to see how his punishment affected me, how my ass is aching, how deeply my pride is bruised. I hide in plain sight, behind as stoic a front as I can possibly put on, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands and avoiding his gaze.

  He is so damn hateable sometimes. Right now, more than ever. I am quivering all the way through my body. I am weak. I am hot. I am wet. I am so many things and none of them make any sense.

  “Go and pick out something to wear,” he says, his voice deep with command. “Something with a skirt.”

  I have no problem with a skirt. There’s no way I want fabric on my ass right now. It hurts. Not bad, but it’s tender and I know if I pull something tight over it, I’ll do nothing but feel it all damn day.

  Grateful for the permission to get away from him and his impossibly hard hands, I retreat across the space to the wardrobe where the ‘clothing’ is located. I need to tell him to get me something proper to wear, but now obviously isn’t the time. He still doesn’t understand why a closet full of dress-up stuff doesn’t count as proper dress.

  I’m in shock as I shuffle bare-assed over to the closet and look for something to hide my blushing shame. A skirt is good; right now a hat with a full-face veil would work well too. There’s a nun’s habit tucked away on one of the hangers. In spite of my sore misery, I smirk a little to myself as I see it. I could put that on, but he wouldn’t respect that. He wouldn’t know what it was. Adam would whip and fuck a nun without hesitation if he wanted to.

  Where the hell did he get the idea to spank me? What’s going on with him? I shoot him sidelong little glances as I stand in the costume wardrobe. There’s something about him that worries and intrigues me. When the government agents told me Adam was looking for me, I had expected nothing but a dumb brutal creature coming for me, more machine than man.

  At first, he seemed somewhat that way, more brute than sophisticate. The longer I spend with him, the more I notice how much unexpected depth he has to him. We gave him a brain, of course, but we didn’t design a personality in the lab. Those things take time to develop. Three years isn’t long enough under ideal conditions, let alone constant brutal assault. How is he the way he is?

  I decide to stay quiet and keep my eye on him. He’s obviously not going to tell me what’s going on. He wants to keep his secrets secret, but I’m a curious woman by nature and I’m not going to let that happen.

  I end up in a prairie type skirt, very full and very comfortable on my sore bottom because it barely touches it thanks to the way it flares out from my waist. My feelings and butt are still tender, but I’m starting to feel a little better as I retreat into the world I feel safe in, the world of observation and thought. He might have plans for me, but I have plans for myself too—and he’s going to find that fucking and spanking me isn’t going to be enough to bend me to his will.

  Now that the shock of being thrashed is fading, I’m already planning my… well, is it revenge? Not really. Just an attempt to assert myself. He thinks he can beat me into compliance. He’s just as wrong about me as Ascent was about him.

  Once I’m
dressed, I sidle out of the room. He seems content to let me go, and I am glad he doesn’t decide to talk to me again, reinforce his humiliating lesson. I escape to the room where the bath and the toilet is, relieve myself, and wash my face.

  The bath is still full, but it has gone very cold. I guess the system he set up doesn’t drain automatically. Once I feel more composed, I have a decision to make. Am I going to go and play the good girl for him? Or am I going to risk further, and likely, worse punishment?

  A glance out the door between the two spaces shows me that he’s not paying attention to what I’m doing. He’s focused on a tablet, one he never lets me see. He literally keeps it close to his heart, in a pocket in the tactical vest he wears.

  What am I supposed to do? Just sit around and gestate for him? No. I don’t think so. It’s time I got out of here. It’s time this master of mine learned that human woman, even though physically weaker, are just as smart as cyborg behemoths.

  “I’m going to bathe,” I say. “You made me dirty again. How do I make it not freezing?”

  He smirks across at me. “Hot water may not feel as good on sore skin.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “Turn the valves on the left and right hand sides of it on, one will drain and one will fill. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, I can do that,” I say, failing not to snap at him. I was on the team that knit the very fabric of his being together, and he wonders if I can turn a couple of valves on? It makes me wonder if the only reason I was spared the Ascent bloodbath was because he thought I was too incompetent to be at fault.

  I stomp back into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. Time to make an escape. I’m ready. Well, as ready as I’ll ever be. In addition to the skirt, I managed to find some boots in the cupboard too. Very old cowboy-type boots with green flowers embroidered on the side. My upper body is still clad in a pirate-style shirt. I look like a refugee from a very old storybook, and I know I’ll draw attention in a world where slick black clothing is most common, but I’ll deal with that. We’re in an old, derelict area of the city and there are a lot of strange people out here, scraping out their lives among the debris of the old world. Maybe I’ll blend in with them. Maybe they’ll give me cover from the mad cyborg and the government alike.