Cyborg Nation by Kaitlyn O'Connor (english readers TXT) 📗

had said ‘us’. He’d changed that to ‘me’ when she’d asked him about it, but then he’d told her the law on his world required ‘no less than two, no more than four’. Gideon was also the one who’d told her they had no mates and no hope of having one.

Because there had been far more male cyborgs than there had been females! The company had churned out thousands as soldiers, god only knew how many more for construction and other hazardous jobs, to say nothing of those sold as pleasure bots. The demand for females hadn’t gone much further than female pleasure bots for men and maids.

Even if the company had succeeded in destroying a good portion of the cyborgs when they’d gone rogue, there would still probably be a hugely disproportionate number of males to females.

So they’d enacted a law requiring the women to take two to four men if she contracted?

Considering monogamy was still the most commonly accepted co-habitations, that was almost mind-boggling—especially since those societies that did practice multi-partner family units were primarily made up of one male and several females.

They usually did that, though, because of a disproportionate ratio of female to male.

Which, apparently, was what the cyborgs had decided to do.

That was actually pretty deflating. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just deflating. It hurt, too. Even though she’d told herself she knew Gideon probably wasn’t capable of feeling affection, or love, she realized that, deep down, she’d convinced herself he felt something. All it was, though, was a … Neanderthal male determination to have a female!

The bastards!

She stewed over that for a while, considered telling them all to go to hell. It dawned on her after a little while, though, that she’d already deduced there had to be many times more male cyborgs than females.

And she was going to be stuck on a planet with them with no way to escape!

Considering the way Gideon, Jerico, and Gabriel had behaved, she couldn’t imagine what it might be like to have three times that many fighting over who was going to get her. That horrifying thought quashed the vague notion circling around in her mind to teach the three a lesson by rejecting their offer.

She wouldn’t even have wanted to if not for the fact that it hurt, and it wouldn’t have hurt if she hadn’t felt anything for them—not the same way, anyway, she reflected. She wasn’t going to do something stupid just to get even with them.

Some courtship, she thought indignantly!

On the other hand, they couldn’t help it. She thought that was what had suckered her in to start with—this need she had to mother everybody—they were so needy. They didn’t know it, but they were.

Anyway, she couldn’t overlook the fact that they were willing to fight each other for her at the drop of a hat. She would feel much safer having to live among the cyborgs if she had three that were perfectly willing, and able, to pound anybody that looked at her crossways into the dirt.

She was still peeved about it!

She discovered when she left the bath that Gideon had awakened and left. Feeling a little put out about that, she finally shook it off and looked around for her clothes.

She was more than a little put out when she saw the uniform. She’d thought that tearing noise was the sound of the interlocking mesh closure. She hadn’t realized that Neanderthal idiot had shredded the thing when he couldn’t get it off of her!

Dropping it to the floor again, she stalked to the door of the cabin and opened it.

Gideon, she saw, was in his seat at the helm, Jerico and Gabriel standing behind him and they weren’t making any attempt to talk quietly among themselves.

“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked, puzzlement in his voice.

“Looking for the contract,” Gideon responded absently.

“What contract?” Jerico asked quickly.

Gideon lifted his head to stare at the two men blankly for a moment. As he did so, however, he caught sight of her. “The co-habitation agreement,” he said slowly.

“Did she agree? What did she say?”

Gideon looked up at Gabriel uncomfortably.

Bronte stared at the three men, feeling disbelief settle and twist in her belly. Despite the fact that she’d thought the three were conspiring against her, it was another matter entirely to find herself facing them and have all doubt removed.

Gideon, she realized, looked uncomfortable because he’d ditched his ‘comrades’ the moment he’d seen the lay of the land.

She was tempted to wait and see how he planned to get himself out of this one. On the other, she knew how this story was going to end—in the hold where all of their disagreements ended up.

“She said you have to ask her yourself,” she answered before Gideon had come up with a response, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame.

Jerico and Gabriel both whirled guiltily at the sound of her voice and froze like two hunting dogs that had just spied their quarry when they saw her standing in the doorway of the cabin completely nude. Gabriel recovered first, striding quickly toward her. Jerico was about two steps behind him and Bronte was beginning to regret the impulse to toss that challenge into a potentially volatile situation--as she so often did regret her impulses, and with good reason since they usually turned out badly.

Just as she straightened away from the doorframe to run, Jerico threw one leg out and tripped Gabriel up. Gabriel hit the deck and slid toward her several feet, but as Jerico leapt over him, he managed to snag Jerico around one ankle. Caught as completely off guard as Gabriel had been, Jerico pan-caked on the deck within a few feet of her.

Instead of trying to leap over him as Jerico had done, Gabriel leapt on top of Jerico, slammed his head against the deck a few times and then slugged him in the face with his fist for good measure. He beamed at her as he got to his feet.

Shaking her head at