Chapter 4
AEBON REXX
The terrace glints like the top of a jeweled chalice—open to the cloud-choked sky, rimmed in chrome and green crystal, every table a throne of polished quartz. Goldwin knows how to put on a show, and I’m the main act this morning.
Brunch at Lirien's Skyplateau is less about food and more about optics.
I sip my kaf blend slow—dark roast, notes of acid and smoke, swirled with just enough spice to kick.
The zero-g silk dancers twist above, bodies wound in threads of reactive fabric that shimmer in impossible colors, suspended by nothing but anti-grav and grace.
The patrons know me. Or they pretend not to. Either way, they give me distance. Eyes flick toward me and away, breathless, afraid to linger but unable to resist.
I like it that way.
Juno sits to my left, talking, laughing too loud at something a waitress says. I barely listen. My eyes are on the dancers but my senses—those deeper, older senses—are elsewhere.
Something's wrong.
Not the surface tension. That I know. That I command. No, this is something more primal. A vibration in the air beneath the noise. A wrongness that slithers under the kaf’s bitterness and the morning’s humid perfume.
The moment stretches. Holds.
Then breaks.
A shimmer moves through the crowd, too fast, too purposeful.
Two figures—slim, cloaked in distortion fields, blurred at the edges like unfinished thoughts.
The first flicks their hand, and a pulse of light erupts—bluewhite and mean.
Disintegration wand. The kind that liquefies bone before it sears flesh.
The second unsheathes a blade humming with violet static—a pulse katana. Exquisite. Fatal.
I don’t wait.
My table flips before the kaf has time to spill. The glass explodes against the stone tiles. Juno shrieks. I shrug out of my blazer mid-motion, rolling into a low crouch as the bone spurs erupt down my arms like the unfolding of a deadly flower—ivory, jagged, singing through the air as I twist.
The wand goes off, cuts a clean hole through three patrons and part of the hedge. Screams erupt.
I’m already moving.
The first assassin swings again, but I catch the blur of their movement, drive my knee into their gut with enough force to crack synthetic ribs. They stagger. I follow with a clawed swipe that rips through their cloaking tech and part of their neck. They crumple, gurgling.
The second one is faster.
They leap—straight for me—and I spin just in time to catch the blade across my ribs. It glances off a spur, but burns.
I growl low in my throat.
My glaive is sheathed magnetically across my back. I reach for it in one smooth motion. It hums to life the moment my fingers touch it—sonic-forged, Reaper-made, every inch of it tuned to my rage.
The assassin’s eyes widen. Too late.
I sweep the glaive low, and their knees disappear. They scream, drop. I follow through, pivoting with the weight of the weapon and driving it through their chest. It pulses once—silent thunder—and their body folds around it like paper.
Silence.
Then panic.
The crowd erupts. Running. Screaming. A sea of luxury and terror, gowns catching on chairs, blood slicking the polished floor. Cameras flash. Drones buzz. Somewhere, security shouts into comms, but I don’t wait to explain.
I turn to the cameras. I want them to see.
The devil doesn’t hide.
I drop the glaive tip-first into the stone. Let it sing. Let them remember.
Then I walk away, coat trailing behind me, soaked in blood that’s not mine.
Let them come.
I’m ready.
The blood’s still hot on my skin.
I dip my hands into the basin of nanite-infused water, steam curling around my wrists like curious ghosts.
The water shimmers with iridescent flickers as the machines inside hum to life, stripping away the gore, healing the shallow laceration across my ribcage where the pulse katana skimmed.
The scent—antiseptic and ozone—sinks into my nose, foreign, unwelcome.
It’s not the blood that bothers me. It’s never the blood.
It’s what comes after.
I stare into the water as it stains and clears again, the nanites working double time to purify and mend. My reflection distorts, jagged around the edges. A flash of fang. Bone spur. A ripple of red eye beneath the surface.
A victim.
The word makes my jaw tighten.
That’s what the Justice Ministry is calling me now. “Victim of attempted assassination,” “primary witness in an inter-syndicate incident,” “key cooperative informant.”
Bullshit.
I’m not a victim. I’m a warning.
The knock comes soft. My second, Milo, leans in through the secure suite’s archway. “Message from the Ministry just came in. They’re confirming your participation. You’re expected tomorrow at 0900.”
“Expected.” I echo the word, rolling it on my tongue like something sour. “Am I to wear a halo too?”
“They’re assigning you a liaison.” Milo pauses, and I catch the flicker of hesitation in his voice. “Name came through encrypted. But… I think you’ll recognize it.”
My eyes narrow.
“Dawson,” he adds.
And just like that, the steam doesn’t feel warm anymore.
It scalds.
I lift my hands, water sluicing off my forearms, tracking through the fine cracks in my bone ridges. I dry slowly, deliberate, every movement smooth. Calculated.
Aria Dawson.
The woman whose voice has been a thorn in my side and a balm to my nerves. The woman who haunts my thoughts not with sweetness, but with precision and fury.
And now she’s going to be by my side.
The Ministry thinks this is a leash. They think tethering me to my favorite enemy is going to keep me compliant.
They don’t know what they’ve done.
I stalk across the suite, throw on a fresh shirt—tight across the shoulders, the collar undone. No armor today. No masks. Just me. Let her see it.
Let her smell what I am.
Let her learn what it means to be this close to a Reaper with his pulse quickened and his blood stirred.
The assassination attempt failed.
But something far more dangerous just began.