Second story in the saga of Cedric the Sex Slave Cyborg. This story was originally released in an anthology "Echoes of Possibilities" Following the demise of the publishing company,
this story will be reissued in 2014 as a stand alone.

INITIATION

Book 2 in the saga of Cedric the Sex Slave Cyborg 


Life has taken a dramatic turn for Cedric.

Jen was different. She was bred to be different: taller, stronger and faster than the majority of her clan. She accepted those differences because without them she could not fulfil her role as warrior and protector. What she found difficult to accept was her inability to satisfy her sexual desires. Her fellow bounty hunters managed to build meaningful, loving relationships. Why couldn't she?

 Cedric was also different, but he was constructed to be different. One of a kind. On a desperate mission to learn from the best - the feared warriors of the Anasazi clan - his decision to join their all female space-faring crew as combat cyborg should mean the secret of his unusual past would be safe. Wouldn't it?

SQUEE - MY FIRST REVIEW FOR INITIATION

by Kate Cotoner ( a co-author in the Echoes of the Future anthology) from the Goodreads site.

Initiation by AB Gayle
The sequel to ‘Reversal’ in Echoes of the Future, ‘Initiation’ shows us what’s become of Cedric the cyborg after the assassination of his master/lover, Sebastian. Cedric joins up as a soldier cyborg to seek revenge for Sebastian’s killers, but first he needs to gain experience of killing, so he gets himself bought by a group of female bounty hunters. Jen is the only one of the group who isn’t into women—she likes men, and though she tries to fight her attraction to Cedric, she discovers that cyborgs make remarkably good partners in bed and at work. While ‘Reversal’ was very funny, ‘Initiation’ is a more emotional read (and more space opera, with lots of fascinating details about alien creatures). I really enjoyed seeing Cedric and Jen, two ‘outsider’ and lonely characters, coming together as lovers as well as a team.


Intro: The concept of a female only planet came from a short story by William Maltese called "Anasazi Medicine Bag" In this he describes how a massacre of the Anasazi tribe resulted in them turning all the non Anasazi on the planet gay. The upshot of this was the annhilation of those tribes. Faced with a future where men no longer were concerned with propogating, the women turned to other means to ensure the tribe's survival. Cloning females with different skills.

Excerpt:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Hack, hack, slash, backslash, resume ready stance.

He was getting the hang of the routine.

The Freely fell at his feet. After a surreptitious glance at his bounty hunting mistress to see how she handled the dead bodies, Cedric kicked it aside and moved on.

Only one target left. The dark shape rolled towards them and uncurled its body. Cedric took a step back. With meter long appendages, he needed to stand just outside the range of attack to prevent being hit. The creature unfurled its limbs ready to strike.

Hack! One limb gone. Hack! Another . . . .

Cedric drew his blade back to slash at the head. The barbs on the Freely's upper arm struck his cheek, gouging out a large chunk.

Drat, this one had four. The last arm came towards him with unnerving speed--

He froze.

"Damn cyborgs. Give you anything out of the ordinary and you're hopeless." Jen's blade hacked down at the two extra arms and finished off the kill. "Just as well I'm watching your ass, or you'd be minus your pretty head."

With a careless flick of her wrist, the dark-haired warrior chopped off the Freely's snout and added it to the sack hanging from her belt. "Shit. I hate the stink of these things. Here, you carry it; you're the one without olfactory organs."

She handed him the bulging sack.

Cedric swallowed and wished he could shut down his smell module. The way the cat piss aroma streamed from the bag, you'd think the stench had a life of its own.

They collected the remaining bounties from the dead creatures and set off back to the shuttle. As they walked, he stayed one step behind, his stare fixed on the muscles of his mistress's firm, round ass as it moved under the soft leather of her jumpsuit. From the back, she could be mistaken for a man, matching him in height and breadth of shoulders. It was only when her front came into view that you could tell she was female. The low-cut V of her bodice showed off a dark, deep cleavage and gave a glimpse of a well-endowed bust hidden just beneath the silver leather.

After a few steps, his mistress stopped and adjusted her belt. "Flaming hell, I'm as horny as a three-headed mountain goat."

Cedric shifted uncomfortably in his body armor. The metal suit might protect his body, but it had been made for a totally different type of cyborg. The last thing he could afford at this stage was to have his secret discovered. He'd come here with a specific purpose and he'd have to put up with the discomfort if he was going to succeed.

Cold registered in his temperature-sensing module. A gust of wind had blown across the liquid leaking from the cut under his eye. Thankfully, pain was not one of the modifications Sebastian had made. Though the emotion he'd felt inside ever since his creator's death seemed to be as close a thing to pain as he ever wanted to experience. He wiped the fluid away with the back of his hand.

His action hadn't escaped the eagle-eyed gaze of his companion.

Long fingers grasped the edge of his jaw and turned his head to one side. Dark brown eyes met his briefly before inspecting the wound. "Shit, you better have Cyn attend to that when we get back on board."

"No, mistress, it will be all right. My body has self-healing properties."

A small smile lifted the corner of her lips. The fingers at the edge of his jaw relaxed and stroked down the side before leaving his skin. "Pity. A scar there would add a dash of the devil to those angelically beautiful features of yours. Is it the first time you've been wounded?"

He nodded.

She laughed and playfully punched his jaw. "Consider yourself initiated then."

He swallowed. The warrior was still standing too close. Without looking, he could sense her body's arousal hadn't dissipated. The constriction of his suit became almost painful.

"You're not a standard army cyborg, are you?" Her eyes narrowed as she fingered the synthetic matrix which was already knitting together.

The compulsion to answer her question truthfully could not be overcome. "No, mistress, was there a problem with the way I operated?"

"We'll discuss it during debrief. Come on, Rach wants to lift off."

Above them, the stream of the propulsion jet glowed against the purple-black of Scylla's night sky.

The bounty hunter's hips swayed as she climbed the metal steps ahead of him. At the top, she reached down and grabbed the bag of snouts so he could hoist himself through the narrow opening.

Drat. He'd been sprung before the end of his first mission. 

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