Chapter 19 Lyra
lyra
Why Is it Always a Gross Tunnel?
Kraxis frowns at the scanner like it’s personally offended him. Good.
“This readout doesn’t make sense,” he growls.
I’m sitting against the back wall of my cell, stark naked minus the scratchy blanket I’ve got wrapped around my shoulders. His beady yellow eyes narrow as I giggle manically, then start humming David Bowie. I let my head roll to the side, eyes half-lidded, limbs loose.
“You took the haggra,” he says, more to himself than to me. His fingers dance over the scanner again, twitchy and impatient. “But your blood levels aren’t consistent with a double dose.”
Because I didn’t take a double dose. I palmed the second pill and flushed it the moment I had the chance. One was already a risk, and it’s already doing its job, softening the edges of my reality. Two would’ve put me face-down on the floor, drooling while he took notes.
But I don’t say that. Instead, I smile—lazy, hazy, and a little too wide.
“Oh, I took it,” I purr, trying to sell it with everything I have. “And it’s like…stars, like I’m melting. Like everything’s wrapped in velvet and my bones are singing.”
I lift my hand and trace slow spirals in the air, watching the way his eyes flick to my fingers. I add a little tremor, just enough to make him see what he wants to see.
He looks back at the scanner, jaw tight. “Your neurochemistry isn’t responding the way it should.”
“Maybe your scanner’s broken.” I giggle again. Stars, I hate giggling. “Or maybe I’m just special.”
Kraxis doesn’t like that. As much as I despise the reptilian asshole, he’s actually decent at his job.
If he wasn’t, Brill would’ve shot him out an airlock long ago.
Of course, as good as he is as Brill’s second-in-command enforcer, that makes his dogged pursuit of me that much more annoying.
Kraxis doesn’t stand for anomalies, or guesswork, or subjects that smile when they’re supposed to drool.
But I can feel the shift—he wants the data to be wrong more than he wants to believe I tricked him.
Perfect.
I settle back against the wall, heartbeat steady under the haze, letting the one pill ride just enough to keep the act smooth. He walks a step away, muttering, distracted.
Good. That’s how I want him, the big scaly butthole. Distracted.
One pill soothes some of the visceral rage that’s making my vellia simmer beneath my skin. Two would’ve buried me, and I’m not quite ready to be buried.
“Gag her,” he snaps. “And search her. No sudden movements. She’s still dangerous.”
Two Void Stalkers—Thall and Borric, the dumb and dumber of Brill’s bootlicking buddies—follow orders without hesitation. My blanket is snatched away, and it takes a gargantuan amount of effort not to plant a fist in Thall’s vulnerable temple when he smirks at my nudity.
Borric holds a small metal ball in front of my face, which scans my mouth and shoots out robotic fingers that promptly wrap around the lower half of my face.
The gag tastes like steel drenched in engine coolant.
They shove me into a silk robe—because Brill’s nothing if not theatrical—and bind my wrists in front of me with shimmering cable coded with a fingerprint lock.
The robe’s too long. The fabric drags behind me as they march me through the lower decks of the Edax Deorum like a sacrificial goat on a leash.
Thanks to the small amount of haggra I’ve already ingested, my limbs feel like jelly.
I trip—twice. The second time, Kraxis grabs my elbow and hauls me upright with enough force to pop a joint. My vision whites out.
Welcome back to Ooneryx, Lyra.
The ascent from the ship’s shuttle bay to Brill’s compound is a blur. I only remember flickers: the taste of copper in my mouth. The wail of distant sirens. The distinct scent of Ooneryx’s desert air—metallic, dry, a little like singed circuitry and rotting ambition. Then, Brill’s private study.
Somewhere in my snarky, warped little mind, I hear a sardonic chorus of dun dun dunnn.
For all my pathetic attempts at sneaking into this place, I expected something a bit grander—lavish in its ugliness.
Filled with ancient torture devices and the heads of exotic, extinct animals lining the walls, or something.
Something in line with Brill’s character—which I’m certain I understand better than a lot of the people who live and work at the compound.
Imagine my stoned surprise when I see that it’s not.
The room is...silent. There’s nothing on the matte obsidian walls.
For all his greed when it comes to buying—and stealing—millions of credits worth of art, artifacts, and cultural treasures from across the galaxy, there’s nothing on display in this private, secret space.
I knew he didn’t do it for love of beauty, but it still throws me for a loop that in this place that’s meant to be his refuge and inner sanctum, it’s as devoid of pleasure and joy as the cell I just vacated on Kraxis’s ship.
One wall-length window filters orange light from the burning horizon outside, casting the dark tiled floor in a muted gold.
The only furniture is a large black stone desk and a pair of antique Martian-style armchairs.
There are a few books on the desk, two large screens that I’m unable to read, and a solitary glass decanter half full of glowing blue liquid, which I’m sure is a potent Neptunian liquor that I can’t remember the name of.
That’s it. No guards, no weapons, no servants, no audience. Dopey, latent fear percolates through my body, blessedly unable to take root.
It’s just Brill, sitting behind the desk, staring at me like he’s about to interrogate me for a crime we both know I didn’t commit.
It’s been several months since I’ve seen him in person, and even though it’s not that long in the grand scheme of things, he looks older—sharper.
Bones press against skin like he’s been carved from disdain itself.
His orange eyes gleam like a predator’s and he smiles when I’m pushed through the door. It’s not a good smile.
"Leave us."
Kraxis hesitates, probably ready to recite the full list of my sins and transgressions to ensure I’ll be appropriately punished. "She—"
"I said, leave us."
He says it softly, which is worse. We all know that’s the tone Brill uses before he defenestrates someone. Shit, do those windows open? Kraxis gestures to Thall and Borric, who almost trip over themselves with the effort to hurry from the room.
The minute we’re alone, Brill sighs dramatically and starts to pace, coiled with that restless, predatory energy he can't seem to mask. For a moment—one stupid, traitorous instant—I remember what I thought of him the first time I saw him.
Years ago, at my serrika auction on Velusia, Brill had looked like control made flesh.
Among the bloated bidders and glassy-eyed diplomats, he stood out: tall and motionless, his skin a hard lattice of bony plates that caught the torchlight like dull metal.
His horns spiraled high and elegant from his skull, curved in a way that suggested age and power without ever tipping into grotesque.
The claws on his hands glinted like carved obsidian, and when he moved, it was with a slow, deliberate grace, like something used to sandstorms and silence.
Those eyes—orange, slit-pupiled, unreadable—locked on me once during the bidding, and something inside me faltered.
I remember thinking he looked handsome, in the way a knife might, gleaming in the dark just before it sinks in.
There was no kindness in him, but there was precision, restraint, a sense that if he chose to hurt me, it wouldn’t be out of clumsy hunger—it would be a decision, and somehow that seemed safer.
I didn’t know yet how dangerous cold mercy could be.
He circles to the front of the desk and leans back against it, folding his arms across his chest in a way that’s too controlled to be as casual as he wants to appear.
Warning bells are sounding in my head, but my body feels sluggish and rubbery with the haggra coursing through my veins.
Even if I wanted to summon my vellia, the spark is buried under fog. Just a little longer.
"You’ve put me in a difficult position, Lyra,” he says, his voice a low rumble of rage. "You’ve embarrassed me. Repeatedly. Stolen from me. Lied to me. Betrayed my trust."
Almost too late, I realize I’m supposed to be nearly insensate with haggra. I blink blearily at him, sure he’s going to prattle on about how horrible and ungrateful I am, and how generous he is by not torturing me to death every time I’ve failed to bring home one of his prizes.
“Anyone else would be a puddle of shredded organs on my floor, but I’ve always had a soft spot for you, little Lyra,” he whispers, stepping forward until he’s standing a hair’s breadth in front of me.
With a vicious grip, he snags my chin, his claws pricking into my cheeks between the metal fingers of the gag.
I feel blood well beneath the points of contact, but the haggra dulls the pain.
“And how have you repaid my indulgence?” he hisses.
A muffled giggle spills out of me at the thought of his abuse being indulgence, but it also serves my purpose of behaving like a loopy idiot. Still, I know what’s coming—Brill hates to be laughed at.
His other hand flies back, slapping me so hard my teeth click against the metal of the gag. Stars burst behind my eyes and blood fills my mouth.
"You should’ve been mine,” he bites out, licking my blood from his claws and shoving me backwards.
I stumble slightly, but manage to keep my balance.
“You would have been kept in comfort, in luxury, at my side. You are an instrument of pleasure, Lyra, but your resistance to that has forced me to use you ill. Now, look at you! An errand girl bringing back items from my shopping list—denying her true nature because of pride and petulant whims.”