Cyborg by Kaitlyn O'Connor Page B

most feared, and sought after, cyborg of all. “Reuel?” she whispered in a voice threaded with awe.
    He shrugged. “I don’t know what the likelihood is that we will find we have all evolved the ability to procreate, but it certainly isn’t impossible if it has already happened once.” “Making plans already?”
    Amaryllis and Cain both turned to look at the huntress who’d joined them.
    Cain’s lips flattened into a thin line of irritation. “Merely discussing possibilities.
    You know my partner, Violet?”
    In pretty much the same sense that she knew all of the hunters. She recognized both the name and the face. “We didn’t train together,” Amaryllis said non-committally.
    Violet divided a look between Cain and Amaryllis and smiled thinly, then fixed Amaryllis with a significant look and jerked her head in the direction of the observation booth above them. “I just thought you might be interested to know that the dark twin has been released from the brig at last.”
    Amaryllis’ heart skipped a beat as she instinctively glanced in the direction that Violet had indicated. Dante was standing at the front of the observation booth. Beside him stood Reese. Her heart did a back flip when she saw that both were looking directly at her. Disconcerted, Amaryllis looked away again quickly, trying without success to keep the blood from rushing into her cheeks.
    Violet, she saw, was smiling like the cat that ate the canary.
    When she glanced at Cain, she saw that he was still studying the two in the observation booth.
    He didn’t look particularly pleased.
    She didn’t especially want to ask, but she couldn’t seem to resist. “What makes you think he’s been in the brig?”
    Violet shrugged. “It’s what we heard … that one of the cyborgs had been caught harboring a huntress and was confined to the brig. Then, low and behold, you appeared in the barracks. Naturally, I assumed….”
    As badly as Amaryllis wanted to wipe that smile off of Violet’s face by knocking her head clean off her shoulders she didn’t particularly want to end up in the brig herself.
    Besides, her thoughts were chaotic. She’d assumed that Dante had betrayed her, but it seemed less likely that he had if he’d been thrown in the brig for hiding her.
    Did that rule out the possibility altogether, though?
    She thought it might, but then she also thought there was a strong possibility that she wanted to believe he hadn’t used her and then callously turned her in … which meant she should distrust her reasoning since it was obviously tainted with emotionalism.
    She absolutely didn’t want to consider what sort of emotionalism might be involved. Moreover, she couldn’t help but notice that both Cain and Violet were watching her with interest.
    “Why did you call him the dark twin?” she asked, more because she was trying to turn the conversation to something less uncomfortable than because she had much interest.“His brother, Reese, is fair,” Violet pointed out dryly.
    A jolt went through Amaryllis. “Brother? They’re cyborgs.”
    Violet chuckled. “And? Look at the two of them. Except for their coloring, they look like twins--which means they have to share at least one parent gene donor. Besides, I partnered with Reese. Don’t tell me you partnered with Reese a year and a half and he never mentioned his twin brother, Dante?”

Chapter Eleven
    Amaryllis reddened, but she saw she didn’t have to say anything at all. Violet had read the answer in her expression.
    She wanted nothing so much as to escape the inquisition, and the smug look on Violet’s face, but there was no escaping the rec room until the cyborgs allowed them to leave. She glanced at Cain, wondering if he’d set her up for Violet.
    His expression was carefully neutral, but anger flickered in his hazel green eyes.
    “Is there a point to this, Violet?”
    Violet shrugged. “I suppose you could say I was just testing the wind.”
    Cain’s brows rose. “For