Chapter One

This wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen. None of it was.

Hayley was suspended in a tank of yellow-green liquid, staring out at the face of a man she had once thought she might love. A man who had handed her over to a mad Tau Ceti scientist named Norem and then left her to be experimented on.

Aliens, all of them. And now, she was one, too, even to herself.

No, she was worse than an alien. She was some sort of Frankenstein’s monster. DNA had been spliced into her genome, giving her gills and blue-tinged skin. Parts of her body had been removed and replaced with mechanisms. After hacking into Norem’s computer files, she had learned what they had removed from her had been reclassified as ‘materials.’ Been used in still more experiments, cloning projects, DNA modification of other individuals, other people. They were hurting her—maiming her—and the results were enabling them to hurt even more people.

That all ended now.

The idiots had been trying to create a stronger super soldier. Their successes had far surpassed their grandiose expectations, and they’d never realized it. She had the strength of a Cygnian warrior, as well as some of their invulnerabilities. Hayley had the amphibious nature of the Tau Ceti, along with their ability to cling to vertical and horizontal surfaces—at least, with her remaining organic hand and foot. She could magnetize her cybernetic limbs and stick to metal surfaces even more effectively.

Thanks to her latest enhancement—an augmentation implanted in her brain that was intended to make it easier for the Tau Ceti to integrate autonomous control of her cybernetics—she could access any computer near enough to her and take control of it. She’d been exceedingly careful so far, not wanting them to realize how screwed the Tau Ceti were. Hayley had wanted a few more enhancements and tweaks before she started to wreak havoc on Norem and everyone who had ever shaken hands with him.

It had been all too easy to alter the programming of the nanites they had infused into her system. They only obeyed her now and had been modifying the mechanisms implanted in her body, at her command. She had switched out schematics so that the scientists experimenting on her were actually installing all the requisite parts she needed for her nanites to create weapons, shields and life support systems that would help her survive even in the vacuum of space.

She had a long ‘TBD’ wishlist—‘to be destroyed.’ Things were going to get messy.

Norem was at the top of her list. She had wanted him to be the first person she ended. The only person she thought she could bring herself to kill.

After months of torture, Hayley had dreamed of nothing else but taking down the man responsible for her pain. She had intended to kill Norem herself, but Dean had beaten her to it. Yet another thing the shape-shifting mercenary had stolen from her. This Scorpiian was equally culpable for the horrors she’d suffered at the hands of the Tau Ceti. She should have added Dean to her TBD list long ago.

For all she cared, Dean could take Norem’s place in her fantasies. In the end, all that mattered was that she would be free.

Dean stood before her, eyes glittering with quicksilver, his face a mask of despair. If she didn’t know better, she’d think his heart had been broken, just as hers had been. Except, she did know better. Dean didn’t have a heart. He was a cold, cruel, ruthless mercenary. She’d be doing the universe an immense favor by ending him.

Norem had installed her tank in a laboratory in the most recent ship he’d acquired for them. His extreme paranoia was well founded. The Centaurans who had allied themselves with the Tau Ceti were finally beginning to realize the error of their decision. Norem was the Tau Ceti’s lead scientist. He was becoming careless, letting details slip that raised Centauran suspicions about him experimenting on sentient life forms. The Centaurans would have killed him themselves if they’d had solid facts instead of mere hints and suspicions in regard to what he was doing. Instead, they’d given him yet another ship.

Given her a ship.

Hayley’s command to the ship’s computer opened the grate at the bottom of her tank. The liquid began to drain. Dean’s eyes widened. Her body slowly drifted downward as the tank emptied. Finally, her feet rested on its base. Clenching her left hand— the metal hand attached to her metal arm, thanks to Norem—into a fist, she pulled it back. The look of astonishment on Dean’s face made her smile.

“Hello, Dean,” she said, just before she punched through the transparent side.

The material that made up the tank was the same that they used in the viewports. Supposedly, it could withstand asteroid storms and weapons from other ships. When Hayley struck it, it shattered into a thousand pieces that shot across the floor, showering Dean with shards. Gashes opened up on his face and quicksilver flowed down his cheek before being reabsorbed as the wounds sealed themselves. He kept staring at her, as if he hadn’t even noticed the injuries. Hayley would give him some that he couldn’t ignore.

Snarling, she leapt forward, readying her arm for another strike. This time, her metal fist connected with his chiseled jaw, sending Dean sprawling back. He staggered, arms flailing to keep his balance. The ship’s control pad flew from his hand, sliding across the floor. Hayley didn’t care. She didn’t require it anymore. The ship was already hers. The computer…

Something was wrong with the computer. There was another presence in the mainframe—another intelligence. An AI?

It didn’t matter. She would teach it to obey, right after she finished delivering justice to Dean.

The Scorpiian just kept staring at her with those soulful brown eyes. Not speaking. Not moving. Not reacting. She would move him herself.

She grabbed the front of his shirt—rather, the part of his body made to look like a shirt—and lifted him off his feet before hurling him across the room. He hit the bulkhead with a satisfying crash, sliding to the floor. Before he could stand again, she was on him, her enhanced speed letting her move faster than she had even realized. She braced herself against the wall to help stop her momentum, needing to learn her body while using some of her enhancements for the first time.

“You… took… everything from me!” she screamed, punctuating her words with brutal kicks to Dean’s torso. The Scorpiian didn’t curl into a ball, didn’t make an attempt to defend himself. Was she even hurting him? Could he truly not feel anything at all?

She had thought he loved her. He had told her that he loved her. Another lie. The most egregious of them all.

She grabbed him again, this time, holding him over her head. She could bring him down on her knee, the way she’d seen done in the movies and snap his spine. Except, he would just heal. Where was the satisfaction in that? Scorpiians could change shape at will. He had shared that with her—shown her his true form even—right before dumping her with Norem when she’d had a little mini-freak-out.

Who wouldn’t freak out at the prospect of leaving their planet with a boyfriend they had just found out was a shapeshifting Gray? She had only needed time, before—

Before what? Before flying off into the sunset to get our very own ‘happily-ever-after?’

Tears blurred her vision. She didn’t want that. She had never wanted that.

Now who’s lying?

She flung Dean across the room, needing him away from her. He hit the deck in front of the empty tank, rolling over the broken shards. Slowly, he lifted himself onto his hands and knees, turning back to stare at her. The razor sharp shards protruded from wounds that oozed quicksilver.

“Why aren’t you healing yourself?” Hayley screeched in frustration. “Why aren’t you fighting back?”

His breath rushed out in a gasp that seemed to empty him.

“Because I will do anything to help you through this,” Dean said. “So, if this is what you need…” His voice trailed off as his features once more twisted with sorrow.

Her heart tugged at his expression, at his words. He seemed sincere.

He had seemed sincere before.

“I need for you to have been there for me,” she screamed, turning to the nearest workstation. She tore it from its moorings and threw it at Dean. He didn’t even try to dodge it. The heavy block of metal struck him with an ominous crunch before rolling off of him. He lay flat on the ground, wheezing as his chest struggled to pull in air.

How hurt was he? Was he trapped in that human form? No, she’d seen him change shape earlier. He had shifted from Norem—the most hated form imaginable to her—to this. A face she had once lovingly traced. Arms that had held her close as they ran through rain-soaked streets on a dark night in Paris. The night they met.

I don’t want him to die.

What did she want? What did she need from him?

She didn’t know, except that it wasn’t this.

“Heal yourself,” she ordered.

He looked over at her and shook his head, the movement barely perceptible. She stalked closer.

“Heal yourself,” she demanded.

Again, he shook his head, more firmly this time. He rolled to his back, wincing as he stared at the ceiling.

“I deserve this,” he wheezed painfully. “This and more.”

“Dammit, Dean.”

Hayley reached down and hefted him to his feet as if he weighed nothing. Sinuous strands of metal snaked out from her left arm, tiny clamps on their ends opening and snapping shut. Piloted by her nanites, the strands roamed over him, plucking the shards from his wounds and cauterizing the worst of them. He took a few more deep, rattling breaths, then closed his eyes. The misshapen part of his chest filled out as he finally healed at least that.

God, she had forgotten how gorgeous he was. His unruly brown hair always looked stylishly windswept. His strong cheekbones and lithe frame made him look as though he’d just stepped out of Hollywood. And those expressive brown eyes… They never failed to make her heart flutter.

Even now.

“Why didn’t you come for me?” she whispered shakily.

“I did. By the time I returned to the base, you were already gone.”

“I wanted you to save me.” Tears escaped her eyes. She hadn’t known she could still cry. Dean winced as he watched them roll down her cheek. He reached up to brush them away.

“I wanted to save you, too,” he said.

Gently, he dared to clasp her right hand—the one still made of human flesh. She couldn’t bring herself to pull away. He studied her face, his expression tightening as he took in the ports that had been implanted just above her ears, the lines of circuits glowing just beneath her skin that she knew were visible when she was this worked up, the creases in her neck where her gills currently were closed.

“What Norem took from you—” His voice broke and he looked to the floor briefly. When he met her eyes again, his had flooded with silver. “He took you from me . He took everything we could have been. He took… everything, from us .” Dean blinked, and the quicksilver filling his eyes drained out as tears of his own. “You were my everything, Hayley. You still are.”

—

Thank you for reading Rom: A Scifi Alien Warriors Romance!