Chapter 11 Lyra
lyra
Temptation Always Leads to Damnation
“Shit,” I grunt, seeing Orion’s pupils dilate until they’re pools of black surrounded by a slim ring of emerald. He’s sucked in too much of the atomized vellia and while I know it’ll wear off eventually, it will make our escape decidedly more complicated.
Orion shakes off the security guard and crawls toward me, reaching for my outstretched hand.
“Let’s go, Ranger!” I shout. “I’d say we’ve more than worn out our welcome here.”
As he gets to his feet, we take off down the hallway, eager to get to the crowded mass of people on the casino floor. He grips my hand with desperate strength, as if letting go will untether us from the safety we can almost grasp.
The commotion behind us escalates again, and before I can turn around, the buzz of a plasma blast zings past my head. I duck into a crouch just as searing pain and blazing heat singes my right shoulder.
“Fuck!” I shout, stumbling to the floor. Pain explodes across my back and down my arm—I’ve been hit.
Fobos’s triumphant cry rises over the noise and I look back to see him standing in the vault’s doorway, his face a mass of darkening bruises and syrupy trickles of green blood.
He grins cruelly at me and aims the pistol again.
I wince, huddling into a ball on the floor as I prepare for the inevitability of death at the hands of one of the worst lays of my life. How humiliating.
But the pain of death doesn’t come. Instead, a shrill scream splits the air.
I crack one eye open and look up at Orion—vibrating with fury, pointing a glowing plasma pistol at Fobos. The other security guards blink in shock, still too dazed by the Velusian grenade to do much except stare.
Fobos clutches his shattered horn—still sizzling from the plasma blast. He screams obscenities at Orion, who glares at him with dark, toxic malice I wouldn’t have believed possible from the honorable Xylothian.
“Orion!” I call, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.
With lithe, lethal grace, Orion sprints back down the hall toward Fobos’s cowering form.
Before Fobos can realize the danger he’s in, Orion grabs him by the neck and lifts him off the ground.
Fobos gasps and chokes beneath Orion’s iron grip, clawing at his arms and kicking his silly cowboy boots.
Who is this ranger? Certainly not the Xylothian I brought on board with me—the long-suffering, do-the-right-thing, paragon of virtue I’ve begun to begrudgingly kindle some affection for.
The synesfores dotting Orion’s neck flicker black, matching the darkness of his eyes. I watch helplessly as Orion tilts his head—almost curiously—and he snarls in a low, deep growl.
“How dare you hurt her. I should rip your head off.” He starts to squeeze and the wheezing, choking sound emanating from Fobos makes even me gag.
Orion isn’t going to kill Fobos—is he? For the first time since we met, I taste the sharp bite of fear.
If he kills Fobos in a vellia-induced haze, he’ll never forgive me.
With sickening dread, I realize I can’t stomach the thought of his disgust and hatred aimed at me.
“She—isn’t—yours!” Fobos coughs.
“She is mine,” Orion roars. “And you are unworthy to try and take her from this world.”
With that, he throws Fobos clear across the vault, letting him smash into the back wall with a nauseating crack. I gape in astonishment as Orion readies himself to fight his way back through the hallway of security guards.
His words hit me with more force than the plasma blast, twisting my insides into a Gordian knot of emotion.
It’s the vellia, I tell myself. Only the vellia.
Orion is no more mine than I am his. And—technically speaking—I belong to Brill, which makes me adamant that I don’t ever want to belong to anyone.
So, what’s with the fluttering in my stomach at his words?
“Orion!” I call again. “Forget it. Let’s go!”
Finally, he lifts his gaze to me and nods. He bolts down the hallway, vaulting over the remaining guards. We barrel through the casino and out the front door, not pausing for breath until we reach the ship.
“Ada, we need to get gone now!” I say. “Is our route to Omicron-13 clear? I want us in light speed as fast as, well, light speed. You got it?”
Calculating route to Omicron-13. Mild traffic in the Farin sector, but no active Fed incidents. Now scanning for beacons from any known Void Stalker craft or Ooneryx-registered vehicle. Bringing light speed engines online. I take it the mission didn’t go as planned?
“That’s putting it lightly,” I say, turning to look at Orion for the first time since I witnessed his violent outburst. He stands behind the navigator’s chair, white knuckles gripping the headrest like he’s about to wrench it from the seat.
His whole form radiates tension, as if a soft breeze might blow in and snap him into the monster he was mere moments before.
His eyes are still dilated black and the tendons along his neck strain beneath his skin.
Warnings sound in my head—something dangerous skates beneath the ice of Orion’s exterior.
“Orion?” I ask cautiously. “Are you okay?”
He shakes his head slowly.
“No.”
“Are you injured? Were you hurt?” I ask, concern bringing me to my feet.
He takes a step back from me—his face filled with warning. The possessiveness and lust in his eyes steals my breath, but with the tensing of his muscles, I can see how hard he’s fighting his response to the vellia.
“Stay away from me, Lyra” he growls.
Excitement thrums in my veins. When I use my vellia, I’m usually stressed to the point that sex is unappealing, but seeing the way Orion wants me now is utterly intoxicating. Ignoring the magnetic pull I feel for him seems impossible. I move slowly in his direction.
“Please,” he rasps. “I can’t—I don’t want…”
I shake my head to clear it and take a step back.
What the hell am I doing? I can’t—won’t—take advantage of him.
The thought makes me sick. Despite wanting him like my next breath, I can’t take him like this.
Disappointment and shame burn through my insides.
The pain in my shoulder throbs in earnest and I wince.
Orion catches the movement and his nostrils flare.
“You’ll need help patching that up,” he says, his voice gravelly.
“I’m fine,” I argue, waving him off. He snags my hand out of the air and holds it in a vice-like grip. I arch a brow and something in his gaze softens almost painfully.
“Please,” he says quietly. “I can’t stand to see you hurt right now.”
Part of me wants to push him away, but given what we’ve just been through and how unsettled he seems, I nod. I slowly lower my hand from his grasp.
“Okay,” I concede. “Thank you. The first aid supplies are in—”
“…the laboratory,” he finishes. “I know. I organized them before we arrived.”
Ada engages the autopilot and shoots us through the atmosphere of Mallorus, pulling away from the swirling red and black planet with as much speed as she can muster.
Passing moons blur into streaks of soft gray as we enter light speed, but the inside of the ship remains still and quiet.
Orion and I walk toward the lab, the thick silence between us growing heavy with the weight of unsaid words.
“Sit,” he commands, pointing to the cot in the corner of the lab. I glare at him, but bite back my curt reply. I’ll give him both barrels tomorrow—when we’ve both had some time to sleep off the nerves of everything we’d just been through.
I hop up on the edge of the bed and angle my wounded shoulder toward the light he drags over, giving him the opportunity to survey the damage.
“Well?” I ask, trying to ease some of the tension. “Will I live, Doc?”
His brows pinch together in irritation.
“Take off your shirt,” he says.
That pulls the smirk right off of my face.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say.
He sighs. “I can’t see the edge of the wound beneath your shirt. You’ll have to take it off so I can clean it and see how bad it is beneath all this blood and dirt.”
“But the grenade…my vellia…” I stammer.
“I’m fine,” he insists.
“Are you sure about that?” I press. He certainly doesn’t look fine. He looks like he’s hanging onto his sober sanity by a thread thinner than spider-silk.
“No, but it doesn’t change the fact that you need help with this,” he replies. “The…urge…to take care of you is stronger than the one that demands I fuck you.”
My mouth drops open at his delicious words.
This is definitely not the same Orion I’ve come to know over the past few weeks.
Under the effects of vellia, he’s dominant, insistent, and powerful—and it’s driving me crazy.
Heat kindles between my legs and goosebumps rise along my skin.
I take a deep breath to center myself and try to block out the frantic desire. Focus on the pain, Lyra.
My wound begins to bleed again and I bite my lip from the discomfort of drawing my shirt up over my head.
Orion watches the fabric bare my breasts—the muscles in his jaw flexing so hard, his teeth might crack.
The juxtaposition of this dark, nearly feral side of him ignites something deep within me.
He’s like some kind of fallen angel, and it makes me want to sin something awful with him.
I slam my eyelids closed, afraid to address the feeling.
Not wanting to look into his black and green eyes and see what I’m afraid to see—the mirror of my own flawed longing.