Cyborg Nation by Kaitlyn O'Connor (e novels to read TXT) 📕

“What’s going on here?” she managed to ask as it finally dawned on her that there were undercurrents besides those heated waves eddying through her at the nearness and rapt attention she held of all three men.

Instead of answering her question, the man released his hold on her. She stared up at him a moment longer and turned to look at the other two men. She hadn’t imagined she held center stage. The other two men were studying her with the same intensity. Without any indication of discomfort at all, they held her gaze for several moments and then the three men exchanged a look very like the one the first two had exchanged before when the second man had gotten on the lift.

“She is young. Should we look for someone with more experience?”

Bronte frowned indignantly at the man with the dark, brown hair, torn between a feminine desire to maintain her youth and a professional desire to defend her experience. “I am young,” she snapped. “I was not only at the top of my class. I was the youngest in my graduating class! And I took over my father’s practice nearly a year ago … besides my years in residence! I am fully qualified!”

None of them looked as impressed as she felt like they should have, but then again it struck her that, of the three, she’d never seen anyone any better at hiding their thoughts behind such expressionless masks. Aside from the faint frowns that flickered across their faces, that looked like a mixture of speculation and puzzlement, they gave nothing else away.

They seemed to come to some sort of tacit agreement, though, as the lift halted once more and the doors opened. Bronte’s gaze was drawn by the movement. Surprise filled her when she discovered they were on the roof. In the distance, the sky was just beginning to lighten with the promise that the sun would soon crest the horizon.

Closer to hand, though, blocking most of the view, sat a sleek black star cruiser, its hatch open and gangway extended like a tongue. She’d barely registered the ship, which had no business at all on the roof of the med center since it was clearly not an ambulance, when a blast of light erupted, slamming into the roof inches from the lift opening. The concussion of the blast stunned her, seemed to knock the breath from her lungs.

It didn’t have the same effect, or even nearly that effect, on the three men. The man still holding her yanked her off her feet and charged off the lift directly behind the other two. Contrary to what she might have expected if she’d had her wits about her, the blond did not toss his burden aside. Instead, he ran full tilt toward the gangway as if the thing weighed no more than a feather. The brunette dragged a laser pistol from the holster strapped to his leg and returned fire as the man holding her charged past, also firing with his free hand as he raced toward the cruiser with her under one arm as if she was no more than a feather. He wasn’t even winded when he’d raced up the gangway and deposited her none too gently into a seat.

Stunned, expecting any moment to feel her body disintegrate along with the ship around her, Bronte’s gaze followed instinctively as the man raced to the control console, working the controls so quickly his hands were little more than a blur of movement even before he dropped into the seat beside the blond. An explosion rocked the ship, effectively diverting Bronte. Gripping the arms of the chair she’d been dropped into, her head swiveled of its own accord toward the deafening sound and the metallic pinging of flying metal. She was just in time to see the brunette land flatfooted on the deck, slamming a hand against the control that lifted the gangway and sealed the hatch.

Without comprehension, she stared at the now ragged uniform he wore, taking in the gashes along his arm and leg and the blackened, gaping flesh where lasers had torn into him. There was little blood. Lasers tended to seal the flesh and veins even as they burned through them. What caught her attention and held it, though, was the gleaming metal, not bone, exposed by the wounds.

She was still staring at the metal, trying to wrap her mind around everything that had happened and the implications of seeing metal rather than charred bone, when the man stalked up to her, grasped the restraints she hadn’t had the wit to fasten and quickly fastened her in. He’d barely done so when the craft shot from the roof like a launched missile, plastering her to the back of her seat.

The man grabbed her seat back to keep from being pitched toward the rear of the ship. The metal groaned, as if it was about to be ripped loose from its mooring, but, thankfully, held as he launched himself across the aisle and managed to land in the seat apparently reserved for him.

That feat shocked her almost as much as everything that had gone before. She couldn’t begin to guess how many G’s the ship was pulling in its almost vertical climb, but she knew it would take superhuman strength to combat it.

Any man, no matter if he was built like a tank, as this one was, would have been plastered against the bulkhead at the rear of the cockpit.

The truth, despite the implications, was slow in coming simply because of the shock and her absolute unwillingness to accept what her senses told her.

No wonder, she thought, feeling faint and cold with sudden terror, these men were such marvels of perfection, so perfectly wonderful and beautiful if every way. They weren’t men at all! They were rogue cyborgs … and she’d just spent the last fifteen minutes convincing them that they should kidnap her instead of looking