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  One Night Steined

  Daisy Harris

  Book four in the Love-Bots series.

  Kuriko Mai is a stein with an issue. She never remembers sex. Nor does she recall meeting the men she finds in her bed. Cursed with flawed programming, she’s all but given up hope of having a normal life. However, after years of watching her suffer, her boss Frank can’t stand it anymore, and he’s determined to make her remember any way he can.

  Frank has always loved Kuri. And when he finds himself in a heated embrace with her, he can’t walk away—even knowing she may not remember him in the morning. But when it’s obvious Kuri recalls moments of the passion they shared, the two decide to become lovers in hopes Frank holds the key to ending her malfunctioning programming. Their plan backfires when their erotic experience opens a floodgate of memories so painful, Kuri breaks down.

  In order to move forward, Kuri has to face her past. She just doesn’t know if she can risk the pain loving Frank could cause.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  One Night Steined

  ISBN 9781419938528

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  One Night Steined Copyright © 2012 Daisy Harris

  Edited by Grace Bradley

  Cover design by Caitlin Fry

  Photography: FXQuadro, Crok Photography/Shutterstock.com

  Electronic book publication February 2012

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.

  The publisher does not have any control over, and does not assume any responsibility for, author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  One Night Steined

  Daisy Harris

  Prologue

  April 26, 2026

  Frank King heard the knock of skull against drywall and ran toward the room where he kept the girl. “Ana, stop.” He charged through the door, rushing to where he’d chained her to the wall.

  The newborn stein pinned him with a glare. Ana twisted her lips into a snarl before cocking her head forward and slamming her skull back into the wall.

  “No.” Frank fell to his knees in front of her. Knowing she’d scream if he touched her, he placed his hands on the wall behind her so that when she knocked her head back, she hit his knuckles instead of the concrete. “Please, I’m trying to find somewhere else for you to go.”

  Frank had lived fifty years as a reanimated human, and been mostly happy. So he hadn’t realized she’d be so miserable. He’d found the beautiful reanimated girl unconscious in an abandoned lab, and brought her back to his home to finish her programming.

  “Just kill me,” Ana shrieked. “Kill me, kill me, kill me.” She started chanting the words, bucking against her bindings.

  “I can’t.” Frank half-growled, half-sobbed. “I’ve found somewhere else for you, some people who will take care of you.” He reached for the syringe full of sedatives in his pocket and plunged it into her thigh.

  She sobbed, the sounds getting lighter and calmer as she lost consciousness and crumpled to sleeping on the concrete floor.

  He watched her for long minutes, tears streaming down his face and self-loathing burning a hole in his heart. He never should have finished the reawakening. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered to her slumped body. Frank grabbed some gauze out of his medical kit and cleaned the streak of blood off her temple. “I’ll take you there tonight.” She couldn’t hear him, but he wanted to let her know. He’d take her somewhere with better doctors, with men who knew what to do better than he.

  Back in the late 1970s when Frank had been brought to life, beings like him were rare. As of 2020, a large company called Synaviv had started building more steins. Synaviv made soldiers mostly, but they also manufactured other types. They would know how to fix what was wrong with Ana. If not, they’d have the guts to end her unlife.

  Frank gathered her up in his arms and carried her into the outer room of his lair under Pike Place Market. The two-thousand-square-foot space had been closed off and locked due to water damage, but Frank had cleaned it up three years earlier.

  Struggling to hold her aloft, Frank slipped his phone and car keys into his pocket and went to the front door. At the last minute, he grabbed an extra blanket for Ana. She was still wearing the hospital gown he’d found her in. Frank choked back a fresh tide of pain as he realized he’d never even convinced her to put on clothes.

  Pike Place Market was a latticework of hallways, shops and stairs carved into a downhill section near the Seattle waterfront. Past midnight, the shops were empty, though music rung out from distant bars. Frank hurried down the filthy staircase with his arms full of female. Then he carried her to his beat-up minivan, slid open the door and laid her across the back seat.

  He readied himself for his life without her—the one where he’d once again be alone. Frank had rescued three other steins, not counting Ana—one from an abandoned lab and two who were being used as bait for dog fights. He’d tried to reprogram all three, but none of them had enough circuitry to function.

  It was probably a mercy, Frank thought as he pulled out of the parking lot and wove through the rain-slick streets of Seattle. The steins built for dog-baiting were rudimentary. Their flesh would have degraded over time, even with every bit of Frank’s medical knowledge. Frank’s system was extremely advanced for his era, and he had tinkered with himself over time, adding upgrades based on articles he found in journals and online.

  Frank glanced down at his hands. One had been grafted from a black man, and the other from a white one. Neither matched the brownish skin of the rest of his body. Frank knew he should be grateful. He hadn’t aged or rotted in any of his fifty-some years. However, he knew that with scars on his face and mismatched skin, no one would ever find him pleasing, much less love him. Hell, Ana had screamed in terror.

  The highway crossed the lake separating the city of Seattle from the office parks of the East Side. He curved into an arterial and then into the wide lot of Synaviv Labs. Frank parked and swung open the back door, bending to lift the woman he’d thought of as his only friend.

  Ana’s eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t wake up. He breathed a sigh of relief and lifted her from the seat, carrying her toward Synaviv’s loading dock. It was one in the morning, and soft night sounds rustled the bushes and trees.

  Frank lifted Ana onto the raised platform of the dock and then climbed up himself. He pulled a cream-colored sweater and the stylish jeans he’d
hoped she’d like out of his bag. Then he slipped off her clothes and dressed her as quickly as he could. Frank didn’t look at her body as he did it. “I’m so, so sorry.” He begged forgiveness from her limp figure. “They’ll take care of you here. They’ll have teams of doctors, and computer programmers. They’ll fix you.” He touched her face, worrying she’d wake suddenly and shriek.

  Frank finished dressing her. If she was going to wake up around strangers, the least Frank could do was make sure she looked presentable. He wrapped her in a blanket and shrugged off his jacket to fold it into a pillow. Lifting her gently, he settled her into what he hoped was a comfortable position. Frank wanted so badly to kiss her cheek goodbye, but instead he turned away.

  “Bye, Ana.” His voice caught in his throat. “I’m sorry.” Frank crossed a few steps away before dialing Synaviv’s operator. When an automated machine picked up, Frank said, “I think one of your subjects escaped. There’s a woman wandering around in the parking lot. I saw her as I was driving home.”

  Frank hopped into his car and drove a few blocks. Within minutes, sirens sounded and he watched as two ambulances searched Synaviv’s lot. He hung his head in relief. They’ll find her. They’ll find her and fix her and she’ll be happy.

  He looked over his shoulder and shifted the van into reverse, but his phone buzzed in his pocket. Frank pulled out of his hiding spot and out onto the street before talking. Using a cell phone while driving was against the law, but then again so were free steins like him. Frank should have turned himself into the police or a lab like Synaviv years ago. But a very selfish part of Frank enjoyed being free.

  “Hello?” He knew it would be his human informant. No one else had Frank’s number.

  “Frank. Glad you’re up. I’ve located those traffickers in New Mexico.”

  “Hmm?” His head full of Ana and failure, Frank pulled onto the highway and onto the bridge to Seattle.

  On the phone, the human sighed. “Pay attention, buddy. Those sex traffickers, with the steins they’re using as prostitutes?”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah, what about them?” At that moment, he felt just as evil and morbid as the people the human was talking about. After all, hadn’t he put extra effort into Ana because she was beautiful? Had he tried as hard with the male steins he’d found? He couldn’t be sure.

  “I managed to intercept a phone call, and then found their website where they list their locations. I’ve got the address of the place where they’re staying this week, but they’re leaving in the next thirty-six hours.”

  “Yeah?” Frank pulled off the highway and drove into a residential area.

  “Can you go down and get them?” The human waited, silent, for Frank’s answer.

  Frank didn’t have a choice but to obey the man on the phone. He’d worked so hard to make that contact on the Internet—a human who could see things that Frank might not catch. “How far is it?” Frank calculated whether he’d have time to swing back to his rooms under Pike Place Market for brains and organ meats before he left, or whether he’d have to find a sympathetic butcher along the way.

  “It’s at least a twenty-five hour drive. You’d have to leave soon.”

  Frank grunted his agreement and pulled back onto the road. “All right. Text me the location.” He swung into town and picked up some meats from his butcher down by the docks. So early in the morning, the butcher never had any other customers. Frank wore gloves and kept the hood up when he went into the shop, but he was pretty sure the butcher knew. There couldn’t be very many people coming in daily for sheep brains and cow intestines.

  The sun rose over Lake Union as Frank got back on the road and headed south. He drove all day, stopping only for gas and to pee. He ate his meats raw, though in general he preferred to cook his brains. Some steins, the news reported, were known to attack humans and animals if they got loose. But Frank didn’t believe it. He’d only ever eaten brains in plastic bags, served by his maker or from a butcher. After all, someone had to eat the parts humans didn’t want.

  Twenty-seven long hours later, Frank pulled past the rundown motel. It was near dawn. Sun scorched the desolate desert landscape of strip malls, highway and shrubs.

  He pulled past the building to drink the last dregs of his coffee, and then called his informant. The human picked up on the first ring. “You there?”

  Frank hitched the phone under his ear and rifled in his glove compartment for his handgun. “Yep. Any idea how many might be inside?” In front of the motel, a slender Asian girl in a tiny dress sauntered along the front of the building. Frank couldn’t tell if she was a stein or a human, but she definitely walked with the aimless agitation of a prostitute. Other than the girl, there were only two cars in the parking lot. Nine a.m. must have been a slow time of day for the sex trade.

  “There should be three girls total. Shani Brown, Kuriko Mai, and Barbie Monroe. Those assholes are running a flavors-of-the-rainbow gig.”

  “Progressive.” He knew his anonymous informant would hear the sarcasm. Frank scowled at his coffee. “Can any of them talk?” Only high-functioning steins had the ability to form language. Frank hoped the girls inside might have a chance at a normal life, but they could have just been reanimated bodies with no more intellect than blow-up dolls.

  “Almost certainly. The web site claims they’re all programmed with distinct personalities and skills. The Barbie one can play tennis.”

  Frank snorted an angry laugh. “What the fuck?”

  On the other end of the line, the human joined him in a rueful chuckle. “People have weird kinks.”

  “So, it’s probably safe to say there are at least one or two guys in there with them?” Frank stepped out of the car, tucking the gun in his back pocket, and started toward the motel.

  “Yeah. Good luck, man.”

  “’Kay.” Frank clicked End on the call and slipped the phone in his pocket. He marched across the parking lot, nerves sizzling and muscles screaming for a fight. After all the ways he’d fucked up, he wanted nothing more than to crush the humans’ heads.

  “Hello.” The Asian girl strode his direction. She had a confused way about her—eyes scanning parts of her line of sight, posture switching from provocative to frightened and back again. She’d arch her back, making her small breasts plump at the top of her dress only to shrug her shoulders forward in the next instance. Bruises dotted her arms and shoulders and high-heeled plastic shoes left angry red welts on her feet. “You looking for some fun?”

  Frank studied her more closely. Her skin had just the barest hint of a grayish cast. He could tell she was a stein, but only because Frank knew what to look for. She didn’t have a single visible scar. When she lifted her chin to meet his gaze, Frank knew for sure she wasn’t human. No real woman had eyes quite so big. She looked almost like a character from anime. She blinked once—dark lashes over large, liquid-brown eyes. God, she was gorgeous.

  “Kuriko Mai?”

  The girl’s eyes widened. She rubbed her hands together convulsively. “Did you want one of the others?”

  Frank wanted to wrap his arms around her so badly his fingertips tingled. “No.” He stepped closer, praying she wouldn’t scream and run away. Frank lowered his voice. “I’ve come to help you. Can you show me where they’re keeping the others?”

  The girl, Kuriko, shivered so hard he wondered if she was going to have a seizure. Worrying she would collapse, Frank swept an arm around her shoulders. “Can they see what you’re seeing?” He’d heard that some of the newest steins had implants in their brains that allowed their makers to read their minds. Seemed like advanced tech for a sex slave, but anything was possible.

  Kuriko shook her head. Then she pointed out one of the hotel room doors, and then two others. “They’re in there.” Her voice quivered as she spoke.

  Frank felt sorry that she was so frightened, but his ego soared that she was letting him touch her. He started toward the door, not bothering to hide. In full sunlight he scared the shit ou
t of just about everyone. And Frank had amped up his reflexes so he could out-draw any human. “I’m going to get you out of here, Kuriko.”

  She shadowed his steps, one pace behind and still clutching his hand.

  When Frank stopped outside the first door, he glanced down at the girl. “You’re not scared of me?” He wanted to double check, because once that door opened, he’d be firing. If she was going to start freaking out, he needed a different plan.

  Kuriko gazed up at him with her huge, cartoon eyes. Her red-painted lips parted and Frank flinched a little—scared she might be about to scream. But Kuriko only said, “Why would I be scared of you?” Then she smiled—actually smiled—at him. “You’re just like me.”

  Fireworks of hope exploded in Frank’s chest. He gripped her hand tighter. “Yeah, I am.”

  She eyed the road, then the horizon. “And you’ll take us away from here?”

  Frank pulled her into his arms, and she let him. He could have died happy in that instant. “I’m going to save you. Don’t you worry.” Then he breathed in the mango-shampoo scent of her hair. “I’ll fix everything. And you’ll be just fine.”

  Chapter One

  October 1, 2073

  Forty-Seven Years Later…

  Beep. Beep. Beep. Kuriko Mai glared at her Hello Kitty alarm clock and slapped it off. She dragged her pink satin covers over her cheek.

  Her back met something warm and hard. Some guy was lying next to her. His arm wound around her waist as he nuzzled her neck and his morning wood poked her thigh. She froze in place, frightened to wake him, but after a long moment Kuri resigned herself to the fact that she had to get up.

  Struggling to be quiet, Kuri rolled out of bed and pulled on her oriental robe. Her lips pursed to tell him to leave, but she couldn’t force the words out so she walked through the bathroom and stepped past the shower stall to Shaniqua’s room and eased open the door to her roommate’s lair.