The Cyborg Tinkerer by Meg LaTorre

Author:Meg LaTorre [LaTorre, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: iWriterly

Chapter 21

Pain tore Rora from sleep.

As she jolted upright, soft sheets fell from her chest, revealing a gleaming cyborg implant on her right arm.

Is this actually real?

For so long, she’d dreamed of getting a new implant—one that actually worked—and now that she had one, she was speechless, numb.

She should be happy. But instead, her mind was strangely blank.

Glancing around at a bedroom far larger and tidier than hers, Rora’s gaze settled on a tinkering table with tools. Belatedly, she realized she was in Gwen’s room. More specifically, she was in the tinkerer’s bed. Her cheeks heated as she spotted Gwen curled up on the floor with several throw pillows and a quilt blanket. Even in sleep, exhaustion marred her features, but it didn’t diminish the stubborn vibrancy that was Gwen.

Against all odds, Rora had successfully seduced Gwen, manipulating her to break circus rules and create a refurbished hand.

I should leave.

The thought zipped through her mind, unbidden.

Instead, her cyborg fingers curled around the sheets and pulled them to her face. Beyond the faint smell of oils and metals, typical of tinkerers, was Gwen’s aroma of vanilla and lilac. Scrunching the sheets, she pressed them to her nose as her gaze moved across the room to the woman sleeping on the floor.

The woman who’d risked everything for her time and again.

First with the dragon and now with installing a new implant.

But if Rora was to perform for the emperor, she had to make it through the final competition—whatever it was. She couldn’t let herself get distracted by a pretty face, especially now that she had her new hand.

Slowly, she lowered the sheets from her face and swung her legs over the bed.

Pain zigzagged up her arm from the movement. Installing machinery into bone and sinew was never easy, particularly without anesthesia, but she had made it through. The pain would pass. It would be worth it.

Slowly, Rora slipped into her shoes and crossed the room.

When she came to where Gwen slept near the door, she hesitated.

I didn’t even have to sleep with her to get a new hand. She did this for me willingly and without strings.

Interestingly, disappointment swirled through Rora, and it felt like her feet were rooted to the ground.

Biting her lip, she glanced back and forth between Gwen and the door, and made her decision.

She headed for Gwen’s work station in the corner of her room and wrote a quick note using a spare quill and parchment. Placing the note beside where the tinkerer slept, Rora grabbed one of Gwen’s large sleeping shirts and pulled it over her head, covering her cyborg arm.

She’d need to figure out how to keep her new arm a secret from the show management team. First, she’d talk to the performers who’d seen the dragon bite her implant and somehow convince them not to say anything.

For now, she’d need to keep it covered.

As Rora stepped over Gwen and reached for the door handle, she paused, looking back.

The tinkerer rolled over in sleep, a breathy sigh escaping her.

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