Mated with the Cyborg Read Online Free

“What are they?”
    “Male. Female. Hermaphroditic—both male and female—and neuter. Some races have a nonsexual gender.”
    He had all that information, yet he hadn’t known Lamis-Odg females were illiterate. That was as odd as having four sexes.
    He arched his brows and thinned the Odgidian ridge on his forehead. “If you were not taught to read, what did your tutoring entail?”
    Heat flooded her face. Thank goodness the veil hid her blush. Why she should get embarrassed in front of an android baffled her. “The home arts…and how to please and pleasure a man.” She averted her eyes.
    When she dared to peer at him again, his expression seemed almost grim. “Ka-Tȇmales are unlike any you have known. Mating is…rather violent.”
    Violent? How violent? She gulped but lifted her chin. “I am Lamis-Odg. My people are strong and resilient, and I’m the daughter of a powerful leader. I won’t wilt.”
    “You should reconsider your decision.”
    “It’s not for me to decide, but if it were, I would still go.” Mariska gestured to her luggage. “Carry my things.” She exited before he could say another word and make her departure more difficult than it was. His questions and comments had cut to the heart of her insecurities. It was as if he was trying to undermine her determination.
    Unusual behavior for an android.
    Unless ... She peeked at him. Both heavy bags were slung over his shoulders like they weighed nothing at all. Unless …her father had him programmed to challenge her obedience and commitment.
    Despite her best efforts to conceal her mixed emotions, she must have betrayed her ambivalence, and her father sought reassurance. She disliked that he’d sent an android to spy on and interrogate her, but she’d lived under those kinds of conditions her entire life.
    Mariska pivoted to face R981. His inscrutable eyes stared over her head. “Relay to my father I will make him proud,” she said.
    The android did not reply, but he had to have recorded her comment. Why hadn’t he acknowledged the order? Clearly, he had gone haywire. It seemed like the more advanced a unit, the greater the errors. Simple droids rarely malfunctioned. But R981 and his glitches were no longer her problem.
    She stomped down the corridor. A growl halted her in her tracks. She spun around. “Did you say something?”
    “No, I did not.”
     
    YOU WILL NEVER make him proud , Kai had muttered. Obido wanted her dead—or, at the least, intended to sacrifice her for a military base. And Kai’s hands were tied by his mission objective.
    Trying to talk her out of going had failed. If anything, it had strengthened her resolve. And what choice did she have? Like she’d pointed out, her father had ordered it.
    Holy hell, she couldn’t read. No female of this assbackward civilization could. Many planets practiced customs deemed bizarre by Terran standards, and diplomats weren’t supposed to judge. “Embrace diversity of thought and culture,” the Association of Planets said in its Declaration of Purpose.
    Fortunately, Kai was not a diplomat, but a cyborg operative who didn’t have to embrace bullshit. A culture that kept half its population illiterate was plain wrong. Fuck diversity. Besides, the Lamis-Odg were terrorists who believed their mythological Great One had granted them a special pass to an afterlife of luxury in the Blessed Beyond. Everyone else, the Unchosen, would spend eternity as their slaves—those who weren’t destroyed in the Great Purge anyway.
    Lamis-Odg terrorized those who disagreed with their dogma, straining the AOP’s progressive ideology and diplomacy. The Association of Planets did not embrace diversity expressed by bombings and murders of innocents.
    Mariska was ignorant of that—and her tragic destiny.
    Any other woman, upon being informed of the sketchy details of an arranged mating—which itself was anachronistic—would have tapped into a computer, gotten the full info, and said, fuck no!