POV: Lyra
Livia consumed some intoxicating solution before she slammed the emptied container on the counter. She muttered under her breath lividly, "What the void is that Kaelari made of?"
Sasha drank half of the contents from her glass before saying, "It doesn't matter. Everyone breaks over something. We just haven't found what breaks her yet."
"How can Greg even like her?!" Livia whisper-yelled, still unable to accept that the Duke expelled her the other night and showed affection for me by how gentle his tone was when he said my name.
Sasha seemed to have already calmed down from her previous encounter with the Duke. "Males don't know what they want, Liv. He's just blinded for now, like the rest of them."
Livia continued to hiss, "Do you know that even the Kaelari were ready to attack my relatives? How dare they?! We are the superior species! They shouldn't even have the gall to think of doing something like that."
Sasha took a sip. "It's because of that Kaelari. They think that they are on par with us now because our Emperor is bonded to one of them."
"We can't let her get away with this!" Livia exclaimed. "The Kaelari who did that should be punished! That void-spawn should be brought to her knees and apologize for what she's been doing to all of us!"
"I'm with you there, Liv. But we need a Plan B now." Sasha didn't like Kelissa Kylton, especially when she knew that the late Emperor and Empress were trying to arrange-match their son with the Lord and Lady's only daughter. Sasha's own father was not a Lord, so she felt inferior to Kelissa... that was until word spread that Orion refused to bond with the daughter of that esteemed family. The Kyltons were so humiliated and angry that they relocated to a distant system. No one had seen them or heard from them in years, until Livia made the call.
Livia was aware of Sasha's hatred towards her cousin but she couldn't care less. She was after the Duke. There was something about his willful disregard for authority that activated something in her neural pathways. Livia didn't tell her relatives that Sasha had a hand in deciding to tell Aunt Kylton about the Emperor being bonded to a Kaelari. Kelissa expressed mutual hatred for Sasha when she saw Sasha trying to seduce the very person she herself was pursuing.
After a few more drinks, Sasha sent Livia home. Livia entered the dark quarters. Her parents were visiting some friends and her brother worked in another system so she was alone for now. She entered, and threw the access codes with the other sets before sighing in exhaustion. She was making her way towards her sleeping chamber. But when she walked past the dark living area, her sensors caught a presence. With her Lyrokan vision, she looked into the dark and saw a figure sitting crossed-legged on a seat in a dark corner. She squinted, and when her vision finally adjusted fully to the darkness, she saw that it was Greg.
She smirked coyly. "Well, Your Grace. It's good to know you're comfortable letting yourself in. Finally in the mood to experience what I told you about the other night?"
Greg uncrossed his legs and stood from his seat. He took slow steps towards Livia without uttering a single word. Livia assumed that he was accepting her offer. Her parents weren't coming home anytime soon so they could very well engage in intercourse in the living area if they wanted to. She, too, approached him in slow, seductive steps as she threw her purse on the couch and waited for him to make his move.
When he stood before her, his black eyes bore into hers and Livia misread them as being lust when, in fact, Greg was actually angered. Her pheromones started filling the room. That was when Greg pushed her mercilessly against the wall. He pinned her respiratory tube with one hand and emitted a threatening frequency as he asked, "Why did you send the Kyltons this evening?"
She was shocked but tried to choke out her words. "G-Greg, what are you talking about? I didn—"
Greg released her neck only to slam her cranium harder against the wall. A crack began to form where her head made the impact. If she weren't a Lyrokan, the force would have resulted in severe neural damage. But because of her strength, the impact on her skull just made her feel slightly uncomfortable.
Greg uttered his next words slowly, one syllable at a time. "Don't. Lie. To. Me."
His grip was tightening around her respiratory passage. She was losing oxygen so Greg grudgingly released her. She fell on the floor with a loud thud at his feet. Livia coughed and took in large volumes of air to replenish her respiratory system. Greg squatted and lifted her chin up roughly as he repeated his question. "Why did you send them?"
Livia was still catching her breath as she furrowed her brows in annoyance. "Why is that so important to you? They weren't even there for you. They just went for the Emperor."
"Hmph." Greg scoffed at Livia's amateur attempt to lie. He glowered at her as he said, "They weren't really just there for my cousin, were they? You sent them there to catch her off guard and to hurt her, to hurt Lyra." Livia's shocked expression confirmed Greg's suspicions. At that moment, Livia regretted the many years she bragged to everyone about being the Kyltons' relative.
Greg threw her head towards the floor. Without giving her time to recover, he lifted up her body and pinned her against the wall by her shoulders as he said, "Lucky for you, the Empress was neither hurt nor broken, or I wouldn't be leaving without terminating you myself tonight. Consider this a warning. If you even try to hurt her again, rest assured that I'll terminate you painfully slowly. Is that understood, Livia?"
Livia's optical units were glistening with tears of rage and jealousy. He was protecting the Kaelari! How could that be?! What the void did the Kaelari have that she didn't?! Livia spat in despair, "Why do you even care about her? You are nothing to her!"
Greg threw her body against the storage unit at the side before he firmly declared, "The Empress doesn't have to reciprocate my feelings for me to act on them. You stay away from her or, I promise you, your termination will not come without an insane amount of anguish."
"You're a fool to choose her, Your Grace." Livia spat in a whisper.
He cocked his head to one side, and watched Livia pushing herself off the floor before he said, "I'd be more worried about your own intelligence if I were you." He left her there and exited.
Livia's angry optical fluid was streaming down her face. The Kaelari had to be terminated, she thought. But she had to be more careful this time. Greg cannot find out that she was behind whatever she was going to plan for the ugly, little thing. She and Sasha had to be more discreet with their Plan B. She only hoped that they could hatch a plan and execute it before the Kaelari underwent the bonding ceremony with the Emperor. It was easier to terminate their cousin species than it was to terminate a Lyrokan, so they had to act fast!