Lady Doctor Wyre by Joely Sue Burkhart Read Free Book Online

assemblers crawled out of his pores and cells. All year long, she wore the locket against her skin, allowing her body heat and life energy to infuse the battery cells within, so that if he ever needed a jolt, all he had to do was reach her. She’d also programmed her assemblers to emit alarms if his life energy ever ran too low, so even if he were too injured or weakened, she’d always be able to find him.
    While she would mourn his death, she had an ulterior motive for such a detail—the tiny nanobots could never be allowed to fall into enemy hands.
    He ripped his hands free, seized her hips, and slammed her down, holding her tight against him while he ground his pelvis against hers. Shuddering, she came, giving him her cries through their joined mouths, riding him until he slumped beneath her.
    Gasping for breath, she pressed her fingers against his neck. Rapid but stuttering, his pulse began to slip away because his heart was too damaged to beat on its own. Only her assemblers were able to piece together the damaged organ and force it to beat. His face was ashen, his skin cold and clammy.
    Worried, she flicked open the locket and examined the readings on the small display. So many. They’d managed to self-replicate as well as self-energize. Elated, but terrified of what she’d wrought at the same time, she tapped out a quick command to download the readings to her personal datapad and then keyed the nanobots to return to their host, freshly energized and carrying her commands.
    She pressed the metal to his heart. With shaking fingers, she brushed his sweat-darkened hair off his forehead, nibbling on her lip while she waited. His breath rasped loud and uneven in the silence, the painful wheeze of someone dying, their cells starved of oxygen. “Why do you insist on coming so close to death?”
    He made no answer, couldn’t, because he’d slipped into a temporary coma. She knew it was his body’s way of protecting itself from the invaders creeping into his bloodstream, but it still made her worry. What if he failed to awaken? What if her nanobots someday refused to return to their host? They weren’t sentient creatures, but they were evolving at a frightening rate.
    They’ve likely invaded more of his body than his heart.
    Her mind buzzed with possibilities. Had her research made him harder to kill? Given him faster reflexes? Sharpened his human senses? If she left Americus with him, she could study his responses at will.
    And leave Gil behind to die in Queen Majel’s wrath.
    Irritated at the tears leaking from her eyes, she dashed the dampness from her cheeks. Once she’d been trapped in Londonium, the honored yet imprisoned Queen’s Physician. She’d had no hope of rescue, even if her House had thought to defend her. She’d learned long ago that the only person she could ever count on was herself, and her mind was more than fearsome enough to plot its way out of anything.
    Including the Tower of Londonium, a crashed ship, banishment on a poor colony, and years of isolation for fear of being found by the Queen’s Ravens. She would find a way off Americus without detection and without jeopardizing the few very precious friends she’d made.
    Surely she could plot her way out of a love triangle without one of her men ending up dead.
    “Charlie.” Sig moaned softly, his breathing returning to ease. “I need to go. Not safe for you.”
    His words made her heart throb in sympathy with his. So that’s why he always left her in a hurry; he feared another bounty hunter would track him down and thus find her.
    She hugged his head to her breast and he draped his arms around her, too weak to return her squeeze. “Come lie down for awhile. I want to hold you.”
    She helped him stumble the short distance to her bedroom. He was too weak to even protest the mussed bed where she’d made love to Gil. Cradling Sig in her arms with his head over her heart, she stared up at the cold metal of her tiny cabin. She’d run