Page 41 of A Cyborg for the Alien Mercenary

He shrugged. “Don’t have one. Never did.”

He felt both Anson and Ryke turn to stare at him. “What… we’ve heard you speak at least a dozen languages over the years,” Anson said. “How is that possible without an implant?”

Covak shrugged, his massive shoulders rippling beneath his body armor. “Vorrtan are good with languages. We learn by immersion, not by relying on technology to do the work for us.”

Turning back to the scanner, he studied the shapes of the letters. They seemed familiar, like if he just squinted and looked at them sideways, they’d make sense. His smile widened as he spotted first one word and then another… then it was a cascade as the language made sense. His claws clacked against the keys as he began to type, setting up the scan and initiating it.

“Amazing,” Anson murmured, looking over his shoulder. “I’d really like to know what the first emperor put into you guys when he built the Vorrtan. You worked that out almost as quickly as I could have.”

Covak grunted. It was what he and every other Vorrtan were made for. Adapt, overcome, conquer. He looked over at Jesh and added “protect” to the list.

His eyes locked on to the screen as her scans flickered to life. He leaned in, squinting at the images. Then his breath caught.

“Frex me,” he growled. The data made no sense. No, human bodies didn’t work like this… couldn’t work like this.

“What’s wrong?” Ryke demanded as he and Anson crowded in behind him.

He jabbed a claw at the display. “This isn’t human tech. No way in hell they managed this.”

“What do you mean?”

His fingers flew over the controls, bringing up more detailed scans. Each new image only deepened his amazement and concern.

“Look.” He gestured to the screen. “Her system isn’t just enhanced with cybernetics. It’s built from the ground up. Her entire skeleton, her joints—they’re all artificial.”

His jaw clenched as he studied the scans. Jesh’s insides looked like a fucking battleship. Some kind of high-tech mesh cocooned her organs, pulsing with energy. Her nervous system… shit. He’d never seen anything like it. His years of medical training suddenly felt like a joke. He might as well have been a kid with a toy doctor’s kit trying to understand a quantum computer.

“My god,” Anson breathed, as he reached past Covak to flip through the files and images. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

He met their gazes as they all came to the same realization. Jesh wasn’t just a soldier who had been trained for war. She had been literally built for it.

“What’s wrong?” Jesh called out, her voice tense.

Covak turned, plastering on a fake smile. They were behind the operator’s screen, an electro-field ensuring the operatorwouldn’t be subjected to any residual effects from the scanner, which also meant she couldn’t hear their conversation. From where she was, she wouldn’t be able to see the results of the scans either.

He caught the worry in her eyes and had seen the vulnerability that lay beneath her fierce exterior last night. His gut twisted. All he wanted to do was shield her from this shit, to walk across the room and pull her into his arms… hold her like he had last night. But he couldn’t. Not right now. The clock was ticking.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he stepped outside the field to reassure her. “Just some issues with this primitive as fuck technology. I’m grabbing the last set of scans now.”

Covak spun back to the console and punched in the final scan sequence. This shit was going to blow their world apart, especially Jesh’s. He clenched his jaw. Didn’t matter what freaky tech she had inside her or who came gunning for her. He’d rip apart anyone who tried to hurt her. Not just as her medic or teammate. As her mate.

The final beep of the scanner echoed in the tense silence of the room, and his fingers flew over the keys as he gathered all the data and saved it to his storage key. Yanking it from the system, he looped it around his neck as he stepped aside to let Anson at the console. Within minutes, the male would have destroyed any trace of them in the system and any evidence they’d ever been here.

Striding across to the bed, he hauled Jesh up against his chest, holding her protectively.

“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Davis followedthe doctor out of the examination room, his heavy boots silent on the polished floor. He stayed light on his feet, ready to plaster himself into the meagre cover offered by the doorways he passed at a moment’s notice in case the doctor turned around, but the guy didn’t seem to realize he was being followed.

Davis shook his head. Furtive and almost definitely up to something, but he wasn’t checking his back… he wouldn’t last a day in some of the places Davis had found himself. Those places had taught him to follow his instincts and always check when someone acted sketchy. Like the doctor… the man’s behavior stank worse than week-old fish left in the sun. Yeah, sure, he was already breaking oaths and contracts by letting them use millions in medical equipment unsupervised, but this was more than that. There had been a calculating look in his beady eyes when he’d looked at Jesh and the other Reapers that Davis didn’t trust for a second.

No, he was fairly sure Doctor Rettnor knew what the Reapers were, if not who. And if he had already taken a bribe from Maxim Martell, who else would he take money from… and for what?

The doctor disappeared around a corner up ahead, Davis tucking himself in the lee of a door and freezing for the half second he would be in Rettnor’s peripheral vision.

He expected to be caught then and there, but the doctor swept right on by. Davis shook his head, his lip curling back slightly. Forget a day, this asshole wouldn’t last a few hours.

Hurrying to catch up and see where Rettnor had gone, he reached the corner just in time to see an office door close. A smile creased his lips. Bingo. He reached it in a few strides,pausing for a second outside. Muffled voices leaked through, making him frown.

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