Chapter 8 Orion #2
“Everyone knows about it. It’s only the biggest interstellar tragedy in our time,” she says, placing a hand atop mine. Her touch is warm and my skin tingles beneath her hand. “I’m sorry, Orion.”
Her hand shouldn’t undo me like this. The touch is soft, tentative—and somehow it reaches deeper than any sympathy I’ve ever received. My pulse stumbles. The restless ache that’s lived dormant inside me for years begins to stir, raw and uncontained.
“My father was a well-known Xylothian historian. My mother was an accomplished doctor. When they were offered places on the colony ship, they felt duty-bound to go. But the ship ran off course and no one knows what happened next—all we heard about was the crash. There were no survivors, and little more than small pieces of twisted wreckage left floating in the void of space,” I say, the lump in my throat tightening with the horrible memories.
The words scrape out of me—every syllable feels like reopening an old wound.
Night after night, I’d tried to make sense of it—the silence from them, the silence from the gods.
The way my bond with Sylph splintered when I failed her, when the rage took over and I became someone she didn’t recognize.
I chased oblivion through the bottle and through the hunt, punishing criminals harder than necessary just to feel something that resembled control.
The shame still clings to me like smoke.
And now, with Lyra sitting across from me, her hand still resting over mine, I realize how long it’s been since anyone has simply… stayed.
And somehow, against all logic, she’s here—bruised, infuriating, impossible—and I can’t tell if she’s my salvation or my undoing. Both, in all likelihood.
Sensing the shift in the air, Lyra pushes the dice into my hand. When I roll a one and a five, she reaches out to flip the one to a two, offering me an encouraging smile.
“Ask away,” she says quietly.
“Tell me about your parents,” I murmur.
She can’t disguise the pain in her face, though she tries. Her eyes turn glassy and she pours herself another shot of moonshine. After drinking it, she blows out a breath.
“My father was human. He showed up on Velusia one day looking for a good time, and ended up falling head over heels for my mother. He sold her all kinds of lies to win her over—that he was some long-lost Earth prince with vast wealth at his disposal, that he was the universe’s greatest lover, that he was an honorable man and a skilled warrior who would protect her for all his days,” she says, the ghost of a smile playing about her lips.
“Your mother believed him?” I wonder aloud. “He must’ve been quite the con man.”
“Oh, he was. One of the best in the business. Con man, smuggler, and good-for-nothing rogue,” she says wistfully.
“We had a complicated relationship, but stars, I loved him. I was always more like him than my mother. Anyway, in an unsurprising twist, their relationship got rockier over time. My mother was pregnant with me when my father left, but he swore he’d come back for me because he didn’t want me being sold off to the highest bidder. ”
She pours herself another glass, but holds it in her fingers for a long while before drinking it.
“Still, my mother trained me as a Velusian. She told me I’d bring great honor to our house because of my mixed blood, even if it lessened the power of my vellia.
She was…she might have loved me, I think.
But Velusians aren’t known for their parenting skills.
She was distant on a good day, and cold on most other days.
But, true to his word, my father came back when I was twelve.
I still remember their argument word for word.
I never thought my mother would relent—she was so stubborn—but he finally wore her down. ”
“I take it your father taught you in the criminal arts?” I say, pouring myself a shot.
She smiles again, sending a bolt of pleasure through me.
“He did. This is his ship, you know. Modified to his exact specifications.” Something dark passes across her face.
“We had five great years together—running amok all across the galaxy. But then we got word that my mother died. It was hard for me, sure, but my dad…my dad just went to pieces. He refused to go back to Velusia for her funerary rites.”
The pain evident on her face is so agonizing, I find myself unable to draw breath. She soldiers on between the gathering tears in her eyes, continuing as if we’re drawing poison from a wound.
“He got really obsessive about certain things; forgetful of others. He was slipping, and despite all my pleading, he wouldn’t relent or take time off to settle down for a bit.
And then, the last score got the best of us.
Someone tipped off the Feds and they shot him during our escape.
I barely managed to get away, but it didn’t do me any good.
They caught up to me in the long run and gave me the choice of prison or going back to Velusia.
Kind of a rock-and-a-hard-place situation, but I wanted the chance to pay my respects to my mom’s shrine.
Of course, while I was there on Velusia, I was required to participate in the patronage.
I figured it wouldn’t be so bad, you know?
” She laughs bitterly, and it makes me want to shatter the bottle, because I sense where this is heading.
“If I’d known where I would end up, I probably would’ve chosen prison. Within a month, my contract was sold to a patron in an arrangement that financially surpassed the previous seven generations of my mother’s household.”
“Brill,” I utter in a low voice. Some unnamed emotion—jealousy, maybe—rips through me and makes my vision burn red.
“Got it in one,” she says, tossing back her glass. “Still. The bastard let me keep my ship.”
“Which he uses for his own nefarious financial gain,” I mutter.
“Well, he’s not having me hunt down treasures to gift to the poor,” she says sarcastically.
“I’ve been on his tether for fourteen years now, which is longer than most Velusian arrangements.
Typically, they max out at five and then you return to Velusia to find a new patron or enter into civil service.
It’s not a bad deal, actually. You can teach, or work in one of Velusia’s libraries. ”
Before I can help myself, visions of taking Lyra up against a wall of bookshelves assaults my brain and my libido—her legs wrapped around my waist, hands digging into my ass as I thrust into her, all while stifling moans of pleasure in the quiet space.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from groaning.
The worrying, telltale tingle at the base of my spine has built to a burn, despite my attempts to ignore what it signifies.
“Over the last three years, he’s been dangling my freedom in front of me like a carrot on a stick—if I only bring him this artifact or this relic, he’ll release me. Every time, it’s fallen through my grasp. Lately with Iathos, and now with you and the idol.”
The dull knife of guilt slashes at my insides. I suspected she was beholden to Brill somehow based on her behavior and the scant details she’s revealed over the last week, but the confirmation of her situation makes me see red.
“Why can’t you just leave him?” I ask. “You have the ship and the skills to take care of yourself.”
“Been there, done that. I’ve tried to leave before, and he always finds me and drags me back to his hellish planet.”
“In all this time, you haven’t tried to kill him?” I ask, surprising both of us with my bloodlust. “Meet with him under some false pretense and cut his throat. Or poison him. Whatever it takes.”
Her brows lift. “That’s pretty bold talk for a vegetarian pacifist, Ranger.
Don’t you think I’ve thought about it? Brill is powerful and wealthy, with insane resources at his disposal.
It’s not as easy as walking in with a blade hidden in my hair.
Besides, I don’t want a life on the run,” she scoffs.
“Brill’s Void Stalkers would find me and do stars-know-what to me.
They’d certainly bring me back to Brill and let’s just say I hate being on his bad side. ”
Briefly, I glimpse the nightmares in her eyes.
Her gaze shutters almost immediately and I start to feel sick with anger and protectiveness again.
I struggle to square this new knowledge with what I’ve believed about her—her selfishness and disregard for others.
How she didn’t hesitate to kill when the Void Stalkers came for her.
No doubt about it, Lyra is a killer. But she certainly isn’t a murderer.
Lyra sighs, eyeing the almost empty bottle between us and the cup of forgotten dice.
“Of course I dream of revenge,” she says darkly.
“Death, and then some. I want to take everything from him. I want his money, his power…I want him to be isolated from everything propping him up. I want him devastated, in pain, and unable to claw his way back to anything. I want him to feel the abyss of grief and the void of loneliness—loss of hope—utter despair. I want him to wish for death. I want him to feel everything he’s made me feel. ”
I’m nearly choking on my surging temper. Stars, I want to make him suffer.
“I’m so sorry, Lyra. I know the words don’t help, but I can empathize with a lot of what you felt. The darkness. The loneliness. The…isolation.” Let me help you. Let me make him suffer.
She nods, unfocused as she’s lost in her memories.
“What happened to your mother?” I ask.
“I don’t know, exactly. My dad and I just heard that she’d died and when I returned to Velusia, no one would tell me what happened. I missed her funeral, and the Feds wouldn’t let me have one for my dad.” Her eyes well with tears, and this time she lets them spill down her cheeks.