Page 41 of Ruled By Their Desires

He took a steadying breath. “I did what I thought was right for her and us in those early days and I make no excuse for enjoying sex, I’m no monk.” Her father didn’t say anything. Just waited for him to go on. “I’m all in on this RW. I mean it. I’m tired of denying what we have, so I’m trying and fucking it up. If she’ll have me, it will be marriage. No one else but her.” He just looked at him. Marcus sighed, then rubbed at his chin. “There’s something else, the quad has been doping her with their blood since the Crono incident. I’m not making excuses for what they did, but you know how they are with her. They see her as their child to protect and they did the only thing they could think of, to make that happen. She’s changed RW, no longer aging. The KC’s can’t ever get her and find out. She’d be better off dead.”

RW rarely showed emotion but he did now. “The fuck they did. What the hell were they thinking?”

“Yeah that. I asked the same question.”

He could see RW thinking about it. Working it through. He shook his head and blew out a breath. “I’m not thrilled they did that but understand why only too well. There’s been no side effects that I can recall or see?” He asked, Marcus shook his head, the quad would have said. “Okay. It hasn’t made her ill then and we know she’s better than anyone else who’s human.” He pondered it some more. “Maybe, it was a good thing. It might bring us closer.”

He gave a nod. “Maybe. It probably saved her life back then and since and explains how she’s that good apart from her own skills which are exceptional. Genetic transfer was tried while I was KC, I remember it.” RW leant forward.

Marcus shook his head. “They took humans, manipulated their DNA with KC without the conversion looking for quick alternatives, tissue transfer, blood, bone marrow. The results were bad, madness bad. But when Moon was first given it, it was a drop a day and she was a juvenile still developing, growing pains and all that and likely exposed to the virus and ill like everyone else was. It’s possible it bonded to her cells because there was something to repair like all the other changes going on in her body, it had something to bond to and it attacked the virus. Connecting to the changes in her body to survive, converting her metabolism to be effective in controlling it or maybe the small increments over time. Whatever it was, it clearly worked and has given her the edge. It’s something to consider for the future RW.” He looked contemplative now. Marcus understood it. It was a lot to take in and a big leap to make.

He pushed it home. “All those kids we lost to the virus, we’d never lose another, and they’d be a force to be reckoned with, but it would need careful handling. There’s a chance that if they kept using it their lives will be extended, their abilities passed on to their children. It might also be the same for SC children. They could be born more RW. A new mix of the best of both of us. It’s a major decision to make. To offer it to all or some but our children will be better and different we need to recognise and accept that. So blood transfer might have to come with conditions. Short life use, until they joined or married, sex with precautions until then. I don’t know it needs to be a tribal decision, but the SC are not going to stop nature taking its course. They want children RW. Want something to live for. My gut says it needs to be a change for everyone. And it’s possible it could work on the injuried too, but the scientists can’t find out about this RW, no paper trail, nothing that can be found by the KC’s, it needs to be kept need to know or will put a target on all their backs. If they find out fertile Cyborg blood changes humans….”

RW nodded. He let him think that over. They drank a little more and worked through some other issues before the conversation came back to Moon.

“What’re your intensions with my daughter?”

He guessed it was time to fess up.

“Everything she’ll give me, I want those babies and I want it legal. I was married once. You probably know that. I loved that woman with everything I am RW. Had two amazing, beautiful children who were my whole world too. I was an all-in kinda guy back then too, they were my sun. When I woke to SC and realised what had been taken from me, how, I had got them killed as KC, the years that had passed meant nothing, the pain for me was intense and very real, as if it was at that precise moment they’d passed. I cannot explain how that felt, I think I checked out for several years before I plugged back in again and I carried that pain for decades, kept it close. It was the only thing I had left of them, wanting to keep it more than wanting to have another connection to a human again. I didn’t think anything, or anyone could take their place. And decades later we came to your village and…. I met Moon.”

His smile was genuine thinking of it. “She was so beautiful and open even as a child. Do you remember she came right to us without fear?” RW gave a nod. He shook his head. “An eleven-year-old child who could read me like no one else. Who saw through all my shit, and called me on it and when I tried to distance ourselves from her, she brought her own game to face me down, to confronted me not at all intimidated. Told me straight to back off her quad or she’d take them from me and stem me.” He grinned. “She was magnificent and I, one of the strongest of our kind, knew in that moment she meant it. Believed it and she was right. Her quad was never going to leave her once they’d bonded. I knew that. It’s what made me act. They love her and she loves them in return. And I couldn’t look at her without knowing I’d thrown away that love by rejecting her. It was so stupid,” he shook his head. “In truth, I was offended she didn’t want me as an uncle too, but even then, she was smarter than me. She knew the difference I couldn’t see. I was never meant to be an uncle who couldn’t be more than that. I was meant to be something far greater and that, faced with my history, the loss of my family, sent me running. I couldn’t face that again.”

“All understandable. And now?”

“And now, I need to accept that she was right and stop letting my fear of losing someone again, take from me my second chance in this life. She is more alive to me than any memory of my previous love. And I hope she forgives me.”

RW sat back in his chair. “You are a great leader Marcus. Exceptional. Proven over and over again, saving many lives but if you’re looking for my approval to be with my only child, I can’t give it. Not because I don’t think your worthy, you are but because you don’t know how to make yourself happy. I’m not sure you want to be happy and Moon deserves that. I’ve got Sandra your latest fuck buddy giving me shit for what you pulled in my office in the training ground, I know Moon coming back early with the quad had something to do with that but even so, you are not an affectionate lover Marcus. Generous yes but you’rer cold and hard. And I also have Sarah complaining you fucked her in that prison but won’t fuck her here. Do you even know what you really want? Because I’m not seeing it and Moon wont either.”

He wiped a hand down his face feeling tired. He’d just talked more in a few hours bearing his soul than he had in decades. “I don’t want them. Never wanted any of them really. Just wanted a few minutes where the world slipped away, and I could feel something once more. And more increasingly over the past ten years, I wanted the dream. But couldn’t have it so took what I could, even for a short while. I never hurt them RW, not physically and I was honest about what they were asking for. I wouldn’t do anything less than give it to them straight but you’re right, I didn’t give anything of myself either. I’m trying to change that.”

“Then maybe you should give her space until you know.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Then be prepared for the fallout, because there will be some.”

Boy did he know that. He was already in the middle of that war. Mav came running back in. He was one of his, their head of in-house security, he’d given him his orders on arrival. “We’ve got it, a signal. It wasn’t on anything from the silo mission. We’re tracking it now.” They were both up following him out.

“Moon?” Marcus asked.

“Let her sleep.” RW told him.

“She’ll be pissed.” Her father snorted. He clearly wasn’t worried. “She’s always pissed about something, about time it was for a reason.”

Marcus followed down the corridor not sure that was a good idea. He didn’t need any more bad blood between them. “She found this and I’m not sure we would have without her being her. We’re going to need to change how we deal with the humans out there from this point forward. I want some of those working for the KC’s. We need to know why.” He told him as they charged down the hallway junction and met several other Cyborgs standing around with scanners.

“Agreed, things are changing, and we need to meet it.”

The scanners were all pointing in one direction. “Let’s go,” he told them.

Moving quickly down another corridor he saw where they were heading. Accommodations. It wasn’t long before they were all standing in front of a door.

“Signal just blinked out.” Mav told him as he checked the other scanners all reading the same.

“So it’s not on all the time then?” RW said.

“No. Sporadic.” Mav told them. “Likely stronger when it’s in use. We’d not picked it up, we need to improve that.”

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