Page 12 of A Mate For Matrix
The moment his gaze locked on her bare legs, her survival instinct kicked in. Her swing was fast and fueled by adrenaline. The brush cracked like a baseball bat against his temple. She winced as the impact reverberated down her arm. The wooden handle broke.
His eyes widened, then crossed, and he dropped like a redwood.
Jana stumbled backwards. Only when he didn’t move did she release the breath she was holding. Her hand trembled as she pointed the broken scrub brush at him in triumph.
“Oh, yeah! Break into my house and see what happens! Who's your momma now, punk? No one messes with Jana Dixon!” she exclaimed, bouncing on her feet like a prizefighter before having to grip the towel when it started to loosen. “Oh, shit! Okay, Jana, call the police and get dressed. Call first, dress second. Where’s my phone? Where’s my phone?” she muttered desperately, trying to remember where she had left it.
“It is in the kitchen. There is no need to notify your local security officers. Matrix is an agent with the CPU,” the voice said calmly.
Her gaze snapped to Linguine. “I… you… you talk?” she squeaked, towel gripped like a lifeline.
Linguine nodded.
The brush clattered beside the prone man. Her throat moved up and down as she tried to speak. Her eyes remained locked on Linguine. She could have sworn the voice came from him, but that was impossible.
“I… I beg your pardon?” Jana whispered, staring at Linguine. “Did you… Did you just… talk?”
K-Nine stood and stretched, completely unbothered by her existential unraveling. He shook his massive frame before taking a step closer to the man on the floor. Jana watched as the wolf-dog bent and touched his nose to the growing lump on the man’s temple.
“That is going to hurt when he wakes up,” Linguine muttered before releasing a deep sigh and sitting down. “This is Matrix. I am K-Nine. We are agents with the Cyborg Protection Unit.”
“You can… talk,” she said again, still staring like her brain had left the building. “You…. Dogs can’t talk. I mean, not like people talk….” Her voice faded, and she reached up to grip the towel again with both hands.
“I am a genetically enhanced member of the Protection Unit. All members of the unit are cybernetically enhanced to work in pairs. We hunt down and apprehend or eliminate dangers to all worlds under our protection. The governing forces of Zion created the CPU within their military ranks. They believe that such teams are necessary until the Confederation Council is stable. In our team, I am the one who was enhanced the most,” K-Nine explained.
“Oh,” Jana mumbled, staring stupidly at him before glancing down at the man on the floor again. “You can talk,” she repeated inanely.
“Matrix finds you attractive,” K-Nine said with what could only be called amusement. “You should dress before he wakes.”
Jana nodded and took a step backwards. She started to turn before she paused, her worried gaze quickly scanning the living room. As if they could sense her distress, the three kittens suddenly appeared and darted down the hallway toward her bedroom. Jana glanced at K-Nine again with an expression of uncertainty.
“I’ll be right back,” she said hoarsely, lifting her hand and extending her index finger to direct him to stay put.
“We will be here,” K-Nine promised, lying down next to Matrix. “I do not believe he will wake before you return.”
“Probably not. I did hit him pretty hard. I’ll… I’ll be right back,” Jana repeated with a distracted nod before turning and hurrying down the hallway to her bedroom.
K-Nine watched in amusement as Jana disappeared. He turned his head to gaze down at Matrix’s still form again. His system was finally back online. With a flick of his ear, he turned off the embedded beacon.
“Yes, you hit him pretty hard, in more ways than one,” K-Nine chuckled.
He watched Matrix, covered in potting soil and unconscious on the floor, and nodded in satisfaction. Matrix was going to love it here.
His systems had rebooted just when Matrix had appeared. There had been an instant of disorientation before everything clicked. Still, K-Nine had not missed the increased respiration or the scent of Matrix’s reaction to Jana.
A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth, revealing his sharp teeth. K-Nine would have the family he had always dreamed of and knew that Matrix secretly wanted, too. Plus, he had promised Sennara that he would find a life mate for Matrix, and he would not break his promise to her.
Matrix and he had only discussed family units once. It was shortly after they’d started working together. Matrix had bluntly explained why he thought it was best for CPU agents not to have families.
“The situation was different for my parents, since my mother could serve with my father on the same ship. This is too dangerous,” Matrix had declared with a wave of his hand. “No female wants a life mate who is always gone, or who might never return from a mission. Besides, having a life mate could make us weak. There are those out there who would use a life mate against us. No, my friend, we are destined to be alone, except between assignments when we visit the Spaceports.”
K-Nine was tired of the Spaceports.
No more Spaceports. We have a family now. And if Matrix has a problem with that, well… he’ll just have to get over it, K-Nine thought.
There were others in the CPU that had a life mate, contrary to what Matrix had said. Matrix would have to accept Jana and the kittens, because as far as K-Nine was concerned, they were already his family.
Chapter Seven
