Page 44 of Smart@ss Cyborg

Becky gasps—but then the Yonderin hauls his heavily gravid female into his arms and begins walking swiftly for the back of the store, obeying his female’s rapidly whispered commands, if I’m not mistaken.

Their scents whirl toward us. The pheromones of victory are being heavily released by his body, as if he’s won a challenge.

Against me.

Chuckling in disbelief, Becky waves to them with her free hand before beginning to rub her belly. “That was wild!” She looks up, meeting my intense stare. “You act like us humans are primitive withthe way we reproduce but you guys go around ready to randomly kill each other?”

If I were able to unhinge my jaws far enough to manage speech, I’d assure her it isn’t random. One of us must enter a mated male’s territory to trigger such a response. Because of advances we’ve made, this is thankfully rarely a concern.

From the rearmost corner of the building where his Stella guided him, the other male Yonderin’s limbic system—the birthplace of physical drives—flares even brighter, and several other rapidly following clues strongly indicate he’s being activated for sexual purposes and will soon be servicing his mate.

Like a champion who has utterly defeated his rival.

“I could be wrong, but I think that guy’s about to get lucky—” Becky starts to say with a quiet chuckle, but she’s cut off when I catch her by the hips, lift her, and seat her rear end on the edge of the store’s counter.

Gripping her belly, she gawks up at me. “What are youdoing?”she says in a near-sonic whisper-screech.

The shopkeeper peers over a stack of wares, and spies us. “Hey! You two can’t—can’tfornicatein here—”

I stare him dead in the eyes. “Look. Away.”

He does. Around us, the store of discomfited, terror-frozen occupants rapidly empties.

Becky makes a noise, and her brain shows activity in her ventro lateral prefrontal cortex—the area associated with embarrassment. “William Frederick Cody!” she hisses. “Take me to the bathroom at least!”

My hands go still on her.She has to void.I clear my throat and force myself to speak like a human being, not snarl like the Yonderin I am. “Ah, time to use the Pythagorean siphon?”

“Say… that… again?”

“The toilets you favor. They utilize a Pythagoreansiphon.”

“Okay… no, that’s not the chief reason for having you take me to the bathroom. Well, now it is, because now I have to go. But I really meant to take you in there for some private time like I think Stella is doing. I think it resets you.”

“Resets?” I ask.

“And it makes you cuddly.” Becky pats my chest. “Do you want to get offended about the words I use, or do you want to fornicate?”

I bring my mate to the Pythagorean siphons. Not to mate, as I refuse to service her so close to an unbeaten male. But to void, as she so often needs to do.

She has never voided in front of me before now though. Becky’s neural activity tells me she’s bashful but her hands show me she’s determined as she pulls me into the siphon box with her in the very same common voiding area that my rival has claimed so that Stella can drag her male past our closed siphon stall and out of the communal siphon room. I canfeelher male gloating as I’m forced to breathe the stink of their mating—an offense to my senses.

“How did they do it?” Becky asks. “There’s almost no way to have sex when we’re this pregnant,” she very nearly grumbles.

I can’t reply. I’m fighting my frustration that I wasn’t allowed to conquer the rival male and victoriously service my mate. (Although she brings up a valid point: she really requires the use of pillows to support her upper half so that her stomach is comfortable while she raises her rump for me to mount. But I appreciate her willingness to attempt a wild claiming had we been otherwise able to.)

When Becky has finished voiding, has shooed me from the stall and washed her hands, we exit and find that the Yonderin and Stella are no longer in the store.

They’re loitering outside the door of this place, waiting. Waiting for us to emerge.

My eyes narrow to slits.

“I think they want to talk to us, and they don’t want you to freak out,” Becky offers. She pats my arm. “Let’s order what we came for and then we’ll see what’s up.”

The shopkeeper is nervous but takes our money and tells us he will have the fencing and posts loaded in our wagon shortly.

Together, Becky and I step out of the shop to confront the other human-Yonderin pair.

CHAPTER 14

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