Mated To The Cyborg: Cyborg Protectors, #2

By Alyse Anders

A dutiful cyborg must fight against his programming to be with his mate.

When Carys is woken up from her cryogenic sleep, she isn't expecting to be told that she's the intended mate of the man standing in front of her. But there's no denying her attraction to the giant of a man standing before her. When Darrick's programming begins to work against him, Carys must do everything she can to save her mate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alyse Anders
• Release date: Jan 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781777038205

Book preview

Chapter One

Darrick knew that as a cyborg, his life was limited with what he’d be able to accomplish. He’d been created as a weapon of war and had served his purpose, only to be discarded by the Grus, the aliens he once called his people. Most of his past twenty years were spent down on what remained of the planet that the Grus had held as their home, spending his days tinkering with computer systems and upgrading the air hoppers that provided the bulk of transportation for the cyborgs.

He had once been an engineer, a creator of systems that kept his people safe, that made the quality of their lives better. Then the Sholle arrived in their solar system and he, like many Grus men and women of a certain age, was designated a soldier, handed a weapon, and shoved out onto the battlefield. He’d done his best to fight to save the people around him. He turned out to be a natural leader and quickly moved up the ranks to become second in command of the ground troops.

And then, he died.

It was shortly after his commander and friend Rykal had been shot, killed, and brought back as a cyborg. They’d gotten caught in a firefight and Rykal was still adjusting to his new cybernetics. A Sholle fighter had somehow snuck up on their flank and was about to open fire on Rykal when Darrick noticed. Jumping in front of the blaster fire had been both instinctual and foolish, as Rykal’s instincts would have kicked in and saved him, though Darrick hadn’t known that at the time. The blast ripped through his body, leaving him broken, bloody and dying. Darrick remembered his vision fading into darkness as a final wave of pain washed over him.

And then, he woke up.

Now, years later as he stood in a waiting room on Grus Prime station, he couldn’t help but wonder if the universe had somehow preordained his actions on that day, and his subsequent transformation from man to cyborg. Because for the last three days he’d been waiting on the station, a place he hadn’t been to since before his rebirth – knowing that something monumental was about to happen to him. More accurately, there was a woman somewhere close by who he knew would change his life forever. All he needed to do was be patient and hope that the Grus would allow him to meet her.

Patience wasn’t something Darrick was known for.

The room was small, but he’d been unable to walk about the station without a complement of armed guards trailing behind him. Rather than be constantly under the watchful eye of Grus security, Darrick waited alone and paced. Rykal had been allowed to come by only once, and even that brief visit had made the Grus security forces uncomfortable. One cyborg, they might have a chance of stopping if there was a problem; two of them could tear the station apart. But it had given Rykal the opportunity to let Darrick know exactly what was going on, telling him who these humans were and what was so special about them.

The thought of a group of women boarding a ship with no weapons or shields, being put into cryogenic sleep, and setting course for a sector of space that they had no intel on, just because they felt drawn to the location, made little sense to his cybernetic matrix. Hadn’t they considered the risks to their lives? The possibility that they might have had a malfunction on the ship that could have sent them so far off course they would have never survived? The potential of alien marauders attacking them, stripping the ship of anything valuable, and selling them off to the highest bidder? They’d thought they were alone in the universe and did not consider the inherent dangers that would inevitably befall them once they realized they were in fact not alone.

They were foolish and impulsive, yet somehow, they miraculously arrived in one piece.

According to Rykal, all the women on board had the same sense of need that drew them to make this journey. Lena, the captain of the Kraken, was one of these women, and it turned out that she was destined to be Rykal’s mate. More so, somehow her very presence was repairing a flaw in his code that Darrick hadn’t even been aware was present in the original twenty-eight re-born cyborgs. If Lena had been drawn to Rykal and was somehow making him whole, then there was a strong possibility that there was a woman still sleeping on the ship who was destined to do the same for him.

It was madness.

He was a killer now, condemned to live the rest of his second life down on the planet, waiting in case they were attacked again and were required to serve and save the Grus people. He’d had the opportunity to have a mate, to live with her in a home and have children. That life was ripped from him the day he jumped in front of blaster fire to save a man who didn’t need saving.

If it weren’t for the constant itching in the back of his mind, he would have dismissed the idea completely.

Darrick looked over at the communications panel, but much as it had been for the past three days, there was no indication that the Grus had allowed the human women to be woken from their sleep. Aidric, the station commander and the creator of the cybernetic controls that ruled his life, had insisted that Darrick stay onboard the station. Aidric knew of the itching in his head, understood what the implications of that feeling were, and Darrick knew that he would soon be used as a test to see if what had happened to Rykal would also happen to him.

They wanted to know if he had a mate onboard as well.

Unfortunately for them all, Darrick wasn’t going to last much longer cooped up in a room with nothing to do. Without thinking about it, he mentally reached out to the station’s AI to see if he could get a status report.

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Alert! Alert! Unauthorized cyborg infiltration!

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Quiet. I’m not going to do anything to your systems. I need an update.

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Warning, unauthorized cyborg. If you do not disengage from central control, you will be deactivated.

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Fine, but can you let me know if the human ship has cleared quarantine yet? I’m getting bored.

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The AI paused, and Darrick could almost feel it considering his request. Odd given that there wasn’t supposed to be any ability for the AI to have emotional algorithms. Finally, it responded. The Kraken has completed quarantine. Human subjects are still being held in cryogenic stasis, by order of Commander Aidric and the high council.

Darrick wasn’t surprised that Aidric was keeping tight control on releasing the new arrivals until he had a plan in place to ensure none of the Grus were put into danger. Their people had been subjected to too much loss, too much death for them to be anything but cautious.

Though that didn’t mean that Darrick couldn’t take a look at the alien’s ship. He knew Rykal or Lena wouldn’t mind, and it wasn’t as though he was going to try and take off and leave the station. He smiled as he headed for the door, only to be stopped when it wouldn’t open.

Come on. I want to go check out the ship.

He could feel the AI’s annoyance. Access denied. Cyborgs are not qualified to evaluate alien equipment.

Darrick was about to give up and resign himself to another few hours of boredom when he had an idea. I’m an authorized engineer. I have the