Chapter 23 Cassiopeia’s Gambit #2
It’s the scratch of the printer that must stir him awake. At the sound of his groan, my fingers halt over the keyboard. Alarm claws into my chest with one sharp twinge of guilt, before I bury it and abandon the console.
With cautious steps, I cross the dim quarters toward the alcove where Orion’s bed is framed by charts and data readouts. He’s stretched out on his back, the hard planes of him softened by sleep and the sedative I took from his lab.
“So you drugged me.”
His voice is low and gruff, but absent of any resentment. I swallow past the tightness in my sore throat. “Not heavily,” I admit. “I didn’t use nearly as much of the paralytic that you do, but the sedative was necessary.”
A wary edge carves his features, and I sense his rising unease as the guise falls away.
While he was under, I used his belt to restrain his wrists to the wrought iron frame.
He makes a groggy, failed attempt to move his arms, tendons flexing against the leather.
A stark reminder that, once he regains full use of his muscles, the belt won’t hold him for long—just long enough to offer an escape.
“Restrained by Orion’s belt. Fucking ironic.” His chest rises and falls on a sluggish, resigned breath. “Damn. You are good at keeping secrets.” His gaze pins me. “Did you finally get what you needed from me, then?”
The passive acceptance in his tone punctures my weakened defenses. I resist the urge to touch the ache beneath my left breast. “And then some,” I say, my voice unsteady as the joke falls flat between us. “But it wasn’t easy. Any of it.”
His gaze locked hard on me, I feel the weight of his unspoken demand, and I nod once. “Your biometric lock would’ve been impossible to bypass, except you gave me the code yourself.”
His attention flicks toward the hardware in the corner. Two black racks are stationed there, coax cables woven like veins into a metallic, barrel-shaped cryostat.
“I didn’t realize I was that easy.” He cocks an eyebrow, adopting an amused countenance.
Taking a deliberate step forward, I say, “Did you know male fireflies pulse in a sequence?” This earns a confused look from him. “Each species uses its own distinctive flash pattern to communicate, to find a mate.”
His expression dims, all amusement fading as a crease forms between his brows.
“You use a Temporal Authentication Pattern—a TAP—for your access code. That’s clever,” I continue, allowing a despondent smile.
“It’s the Fibonacci sequence with an accent on phi.
” I tap my fingers lightly against my wrist in demonstration.
“You’ve tapped it into me, Orion. On my wrist, my thigh.
Emphasizing the seventh tap with heavier pressure, a firmer touch.
Like a firefly’s pulse, your own distinctive signal.
” I pause, watching as he registers this information.
“I’ve observed your counting ritual so many times, obsessively tapping this sequence over and over. Always twelve taps. I’ve felt the exact pressure on my skin…and I noticed the moment it altered. One small deviation, an extra tap.”
It was after that night on the shore, stranded on a rock together, that his compulsive count changed. The night I must have become his victim, his obsessive thoughts centered on the thirteenth constellation.
And I misread this change. Catastrophically. Believing at the time that Orion himself was the final victim in his pattern.
Orion swallows, eyes never leaving mine. As if triggered, his fingers twitch against the belt: One—thumb. One—index. Two—middle. Three—ring. Five—pinky. Then a final tap with his ring finger.
“Ophiuchus,” I say in confirmation. “Thirteen taps. It altered your sequence, and therefore your code.”
His jaw tenses. “Yes, my entire being warped for one anomaly.”
With a controlled exhale, I glance toward the printer tray, bolstering my resolve as I command my legs to move. After I retrieve the printouts, I let my fingers graze over the marble pieces set on the board, selecting one.
I look up at him. “I mimicked your cadence on the touchpad, the plate on your console designed to read the timing and weight of your taps.”
His tongue slowly sweeps his bottom lip as his eyes darken. “Clever little starling,” he whispers hoarsely.
Throat tight, I force a swallow. “I have a knack for pattern recognition.”
“Apparently.” The conflicted pull of his features spears me.
Every stolen breath, every stolen touch, every stolen heartbeat between us—
They were always numbered.
Orion makes a deep sound, something between frustration and admiration, as his drowsy gaze coasts over me. I also took the liberty of stealing his clothes, wearing one of his oxford shirts and a pair of slim joggers.
“Fuck,” he mutters roughly. “Why do you have to look so goddamn sexy right now.”
An unwanted flare of heat burns through my flesh. “It’s possible I did drug you too heavily,” I say. Tilting my head, I study him closely. “But I have to ask… Did you allow this to happen?”
A storm swirls behind his eyes, hurt tangled with currents of anger that twists my heart into a painful knot. His gaze holds mine intently before lowering to the chess piece clutched in my right hand.
With a weighted exhale, he says, “Chess isn’t just about the moves on the board.
It’s all the moves off it, too. All the subtle actions leading to that critical moment.
The way you hold your breath in anticipation when you want something.
The fury you try so hard to smother. How your fingers curl into fists when you can’t.
It’s not that I was expecting something specific—” He manages to shift his forearm, the belt strapping his wrists creaks with the movement. “I was just expecting something.”
“You read me pretty well, too.” My pulse hammers in my neck, fingers tightening around the marble piece. “For what it’s worth, you did surprise me. Turning me into your victim.” I shake my head lightly. “I honestly wasn’t expecting that, Orion. However, you also saved me—”
“And I seem to find myself deeper in trouble every time I do.” The corner of his mouth tics upward, failing to mask the dejected resignation behind the hardened planes of his face.
“Well, intentional or not, you played some good moves to divert me,” I say.
“Hmm, maybe.” His voice drops dangerously low, eyes heating as his lips twist into a wicked grin. “But I admit, your move is so much hotter, little starling.” He flexes his wrist against the leather, sending me a devastating wink.
“I looked through your code,” I say quickly, and the mention of his algorithm immediately captures his full, furious attention.
“Orion, I could’ve never been one of your victims. The moment you fixated on me, you made me one.
I tried to find the proof of that, but your code…
Truly, it’s above my capabilities. But you had to have altered something, some parameter. ”
“I could never have predicted you. Not enough data points.”
“I’m not a set of data points.” My shoulders drop in a low shrug. “I’m just a girl with a score to settle.”
Reflexively, I fist the cool object in my hand.
Despite the anguish ripping me open inside, despite the threat he still poses, I daringly close the final gap between us.
Placing the printouts on the edge of the bed, I ease myself down beside him.
Close enough that his scent of wild ocean spray sears my throat.
Leaning over him, I reach up and place the chess piece in his open palm, helping him fold his weak fingers around the white queen. “Smothered mate is technically a mating pattern,” I say. “It might be the knight’s play, but it’s the queen’s sacrifice that sets the trap.”
I press my lips to his ear and whisper, “Checkmate.”
His throat works on a swallow. “I knew you could strike with a dirty gambit, but damn, baby. That’s brutal.”
“You had it coming.”
As I straighten, his gaze follows me. “Yeah, I did.” A faint smile tugs at his mouth, and my gaze is drawn to the scratches on his cheek where my nails raked his face. “But what was your sacrifice?”
I hold his gaze a measure longer, letting him see the pain of exactly what I’ve given up. In this game, there are no winners.
A serious note deepens his voice as he demands, “But why risk it? You got inside here, got my access code. What you apparently wanted. Why take it this far. Why fuck me, Collins. Let me do…that.” His voice breaks, the candor he usually exhibits catching in his throat, and he releases a clipped breath. “Why risk your heart,” he finally says.
I break his gaze, mine wandering over the intricate ink covering his chest. I rise slowly and move over him, straddling his thighs. Palms braced to his stomach, I feel the flex of his abdominal muscles beneath my touch.
“There’s power in surrender,” I say, meeting his eyes through the dark. “I needed you to let your guard down fully, to trust me completely.”
A flash of raw anger ignites in the depths of his teal eyes. “I would’ve given you anything you asked of me.”
Except the truth. The thought lodges like a blade, buried deep. I waited for that truth to come in the shower, for him to let me all the way in.
As I make a move to pull away, urgency tightens his voice. “At least give me some kind of an answer. Something—anything.” A ragged breath escapes him, then: “Your name.”
I hesitate only a beat. “Hollyn Elara Cawthorn,” I say, a whisper of a name that lances the bruised organ beneath my ribs. “But her story is far too complicated. So I chose this one for myself.” A dejected half-smile tugs at my lips. “Something we have in common.”
“We have more than one thing in common, angel. The symmetry is uncanny.”
More than he knows.
“She died a long time ago, though. Which is why you had to have altered the code, either deliberately or unconsciously. Because, as Collins Rayne Holbrook is a ghost, that name should’ve never flashed across your screen as one of your victims, Reaper.”