Chapter 23 Lyra
lyra
A Place in the Sun
I can’t believe I made it out. Scratch that—I can’t believe we made it out.
The minute we made it into the cruiser, Orion set about cleaning and bandaging the worst of my injuries.
He made me chug an entire bottle of water and sternly insisted I eat two protein bars, despite the fact that that’s all I ate during the days in my air duct hiding spot and the sight of them makes me want to hurl.
His attention to the care and keeping of me is both adorable and incredibly infuriating, but I suspect that’s because it’s been a very, very long time since I’ve had someone caring for me in a purely selfless, generous kind of way.
Once my injuries and the worst of my malnourishment have been assuaged, Orion gathers what supplies he can so that I can take a very unceremonious sponge bath in the small cruiser’s cramped bathroom.
Sigh. My luxurious soak will have to wait, I suppose.
Though his attention has been entirely focused on my well-being, he’s been mostly silent since we rocketed through Ooneryx’s noxious atmosphere. The cruiser’s cabin is dim, the lights low like Ada set them that way so I can try to sleep. But I’m not asleep.
I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep soundly again.
We’re a couple days out from Xylothia now, finally slipping through void-dark space, nothing but stars in every direction. The idol is locked down in a secure cabinet in the cargo chamber behind me. Agent Vega is gone, and the compound is behind us. Brill is somewhere out there.
And Kraxis…Kraxis is dead. Orion killed him. For me.
The realization keeps catching in my chest and I’m ashamed to admit that it hurts.
It shouldn’t—but it does. Not because I’m mourning the bastard, but because I’m having to confront the fact that if Orion hadn’t met me, his body count would be considerably less.
His first day on my ship, he told me how much his people honored life and sacrifice and abhorred selfishness and violence.
And yet…he snapped Kraxis’s neck. I watched it happen.
I watched him make that choice steeped in absolute anger and hatred and certainty.
Would he have, if he hadn’t met me? Have I completely ruined this upright, honorable Xylothian ranger just by being who I am—decidedly a hot fucking mess?
I wrap my arms tighter around myself and press my forehead to my knees, tucked up on the bench opposite the flight deck.
Neither Ada nor Orion have spoken much since we left.
I know they’re trying to give me space, which I’m both grateful for and miffed about.
Orion’s just been sitting in the cockpit, checking our trajectory, murmuring quietly to Ada, trying not to look at me too long.
I wish he would. I wish he wouldn’t. Ugh. It’s possible my thoughts are the messiest they’ve ever been. And my heart? My heart’s worse.
I can still feel the warmth of Orion’s hands on my waist, still hear the rumble of his voice when he told me I was his mate.
That word. Mate. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since—not for one second.
It echoes in me louder than Kraxis’s last breath.
Stars, how fucked up is that? I just witnessed the brutally violent death of one of the few constants in my life over the past 14 years and all I can think about is what the hot Xylothian said to me before he did it.
Sorry, Kraxis, you piece of lizard shit.
May the Death Goddess make your afterlife worse than the living hell you made mine.
Orion’s gaze keeps flicking to me when he thinks I’m not looking. The look in his eyes threatens to crack open my ribs and carve out my heart with how earnest and yearning it is.
Mate. What does that even mean to a Xylothian? Hell, what does that mean to a Velusian?
I know what it means to me, though—it means terrifying.
It means permanent. It means giving up pieces of myself I’ve never let anyone touch.
It means handing over my tether, auction or no.
But I can’t stop thinking about the way he looked at me—like I belonged to him.
Like he’d rend the galaxy in half to protect me, and weak, romantic, soft-hearted wimp that I am…
I hate how much I want that. No one’s ever wanted me like that.
Brill wanted to possess me, my lovers wanted me sexually, the Feds want me judicially, and Kraxis?
Well. Kraxis just wanted me to bleed. Orion’s only ever wanted me for me.
The cabin rocks gently as the ship adjusts course. I glance up, and there he is—tall and too handsome for his own good, muscles stretched under a thin white tee-shirt, boots braced wide for balance. He catches my eye for a heartbeat, then turns his gaze to the console again.
He’s definitely a coward, but I’m definitely worse.
Because I’m the one who walked away from him first. I’m the one who said take the idol, save your people, go. And he did! But now he’s here. And I’m here. And the idol’s safe. And Brill is out there somewhere—but for tonight, at least, we’re free.
And still, he hasn’t said it again.
I sit up slowly. My voice sounds like gravel. “Orion.”
He turns instantly. “Yeah?”
I lick my lips, still raw from days of dehydration. My nerves tangle in my gut.
“So, um, you said I was your mate.” Smooth, Lyra. Real smooth.
There’s a long pause as the silence thickens between us.
“I did,” he says finally. His voice is calm. Controlled. Too careful.
“Were you serious?”
His eyes meet mine—vibrantly green, burning even in the low light. He swallows, his throat working nervously.
“That’s not the kind of thing I’d joke about.”
My heart thuds once, hard enough to make me dizzy.
I take a breath. Then another. “What…what does that mean to you? Having a mate?”
He hesitates, like he’s not sure how honest he should be.
“Tell me,” I say, softer this time. “Please.”
He exhales and crosses the room slowly, not touching me, but sinking onto the bench across from mine. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, fingers laced.
“Xylothian matehood isn’t destiny,” he says. “Not like it is for some species. It’s biological. Instinctual. A kind of recognition. Our bodies know. Our instincts know. It’s not always about love. But…sometimes it is.”
His gaze lifts to mine.
“With you, it is.”
I want to look away, but I don’t. Because it means something. And that terrifies me.
“I didn’t choose it,” he continues. “But I’d choose you a thousand times over.
Being my mate means you’re the one for me—the only one.
You’re the one my body recognizes, the one I crave, the one I would die for.
It means…you’re already inside me, etched into my bones. And I will never want another.”
My throat tightens.
He says it like it’s the clearest truth in the world. There’s no pleading, no pressure. Just reverence.
“I know it’s not fair,” he says with a small shake of his head. The green shimmer of his hair catches the low light of the cabin, a woodland rainbow. “I know you didn’t ask for this. I’m not asking you for anything. I just…need you to know.”
“And if I say I don’t want it?” I whisper.
“I’ll walk away,” he says instantly. “If that’s what you want. I’ll never force a bond on you. I’d rather die than cage you.” Eyes flashing, he adds, with heart-wrenching determination, “I’d never ask you for your tether.”
Something in my chest splinters, and suddenly the space between us feels much too big. Maybe that’s what I’ve been chasing all along—not freedom, not fortune. Just the right to be wanted for who I am, not what I can give.
“You’re not caging me,” I whisper.
He blinks.
“You never were. Well…except for that time when you tied me to your cot and threatened to turn me over to the Feds,” I add, awkwardly.
A slow grin tugs at his mouth, and for a moment, I can breathe again.
And stars, the flash of those even white teeth and infuriating dimples—it takes nothing else for the heat to bloom between my thighs. My body hums with a pulse of want I can’t suppress. And I see the moment he senses it, the way his nostrils flare slightly and his jaw tenses.
“Lyra,” he murmurs, voice low, warning.
“It’s not my vellia,” I say quickly.
I shift, breath catching. The air feels thick between us now.
But the need isn’t just physical—not anymore. It’s layered with longing, fear, grief, and a smattering of hope that I don’t know what to do with.
Yeah, I want him, but I want more than that.
I want someone who stays. I want someone who sees the worst of me and doesn’t leave.
I want safety. I want to be wanted this fiercely, without my vellia and without some hidden agenda.
And truthfully, I’m terrified. I’m so fucking scared that if I let him in, he’ll tear down the walls I’ve lived behind my whole life—walls that have kept me safe, but walls that have made me lonely.
Freedom isn’t the finish line I thought it was—it’s the part no one tells you about, what comes after the running. Maybe it’s not about what I steal or who I outsmart. Maybe it’s about who I get to be when no one’s holding the leash.
“You said your body recognizes me,” I say, shifting closer.
“It does,” he says, voice barely a rasp.
“Then what happens when you touch me?”
He’s breathing hard now. “You know what happens.”
“Show me.”
“Lyra—”
“Please.”
That one word breaks whatever willpower he has left.
In an instant, he’s on me. His mouth finds mine, wild and hungry, and I gasp as he pulls me into his lap. His hands roam my body like he’s memorizing it, and maybe he is—because I’m doing the same. I tear at his shirt, needing him skin to skin.
“I’ve wanted you since the day I met you,” he growls, teeth grazing my neck. “I tried to be good. I tried to stay away. But stars—”
“Don’t,” I pant. “Don’t stay away now.”
His fingers slip beneath the waistband of my pants, finding me scorching and soaked.
“Fuck,” he groans. “You’re wet already?”
“You did this,” I murmur.