POV: Lyra
The station's observation corridor was empty at this hour—most beings either at the morning consumption period or preparing for the day's ceremonies. I'd slipped away from the dining hall, needing space to think.
Needing distance from Orion's pathways constantly reaching for mine through our bond.
Seventy hours until Lady Vespera arrived and I became irrelevant.
The nebula swirled beyond the transparisteel—purple and gold bleeding into each other like a bruise healing in reverse. Three moons hung suspended in the void, their gravitational dance visible in the slight shimmer of their atmospheres. Beautiful. Deadly. Like everything in this void-cursed [damned] galaxy.
"Lyra."
I spun, hand going to where my sidearm would be if I'd worn it. Sebastian Cummings—my match three and the Minister’s son—stood in the corridor junction, his pathways pulsing that desperate gold I remembered from our brief, disastrous match.
My skin immediately shifted to hostile grey. "Mr. Cummings. This corridor is off-limits to non-command personnel."
"I know." He stepped closer, hands raised in surrender. "I bribed the guard. Needed to speak with you privately."
"We have nothing to discuss."
"Please." His voice cracked. "Just hear me out. Five minutes."
I should have walked away. Should have reported him for security breach. Instead, I crossed my arms and waited, skin cycling through impatient silver.
He took a shaky breath. "I made mistakes, Lyra. Terrible ones. When we were matched, I was young. Stupid. My family's expectations—"
"Your family's expectations included you horizontal with another female while lying about your location."
He flinched. "I was intoxicated. Sasha said—"
"Sasha." The name tasted like reactor coolant. "Your sister who's currently throwing herself at the Emperor? I noticed this yesterday"
"She's not—" He stopped, pathways flickering with something that looked like guilt. "Lyra, that's actually why I needed to talk to you."
I waited, skin shifting to suspicious yellow.
"Sasha is... focused on the Emperor. Has been for cycles. When she heard about your psychic match with him, she became obsessed with removing you from the equation." He swallowed hard. "The assassination attempt. The poisoned drink. That was her. Will this information make you believe that I’m on your side?"
My blood went cold. "You have proof?"
"I have suspicions. Strong ones. She has contacts in the server staff. She's been acting erratic, possessive. And she keeps talking about how 'the Kaelari problem' will solve itself soon."
My skin shifted to rage-red before I could control it. "And you're telling me this why? Familial loyalty isn't exactly your strength."
"Because I still care about you." He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the synthetic cologne Core Worlders favored. "Because watching you with him is killing me. Because I know I destroyed what we had, and I've regretted it every cycle since."
Through the bond—that constant, unwanted connection—I felt Orion stir. His consciousness reaching for mine, sensing my elevated emotional state. I slammed my shields tighter.
"Sebastian." I kept my voice flat. "What do you actually want?"
His pathways shifted to hopeful blue. "A second chance. Come back to me, Lyra. The Emperor will discard you—they always do with Kaelari matches. His contracted bride arrives in days. But I won't. I've learned from my mistakes."
"And conveniently, if I leave Orion, your sister gets what she wants."
He had the grace to look ashamed. "That's not—"
"That's exactly what this is." My skin went cold steel-grey. "Sasha couldn't seduce him, couldn't assassinate me, so now she's sent you to manipulate me emotionally. Remove the competition through heartbreak instead of poison."
"Lyra, I swear—"
"Save it." I stepped back, putting distance between us. "I may be mining colony trash, but I'm not stupid. Go back to your sister. Tell her this approach failed too."
His pathways darkened with something ugly. "You think you're better than us now? Because an Emperor looked at you twice? He'll tire of you. They all do. And when he does, don't come crying to me."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
I turned to leave, but his hand caught my wrist. The touch sent nothing through my system—no sparks, no heat, just the cold grip of someone who'd once had the power to hurt me.
"Let go." My voice dropped to combat registers.
"Not until you listen—"
A growl echoed through the corridor. Not from me.
Sebastian's hand vanished from my wrist as Orion materialized from the shadows, seven feet of Lyrokan fury with pathways pulsing midnight black. The temperature dropped twenty degrees. Frost crystallized on the transparisteel behind me.
"Touch her again," Orion said, his voice carrying subharmonics that made the metal walls vibrate, "and I'll remove your hands at the wrists."
Sebastian scrambled backward, pathways cycling through terror-white. "Your Eminence, I was simply—"
"Leaving." Orion stepped between us, his massive frame blocking Sebastian entirely from my view. "Now. Before I reconsider letting you keep your hands."
Footsteps fled down the corridor. A door hissed open and shut.
Orion turned to me, his pathways slowly cooling from black to concerned purple. "What’s going on here?"
"Nothing." My skin was still hostile grey, but underneath, something warmer tried to surface. "You didn't need to intervene."
"He was touching you." The words came out rough, possessive. Through our bond, his rage still burned—not at me, but at the male who'd dared to lay hands on what he considered his.
"I had it handled."
"I know." He stepped closer, and the heat from his body made my skin flush despite my control. "I felt your anger through the bond. Your capability to defend yourself was never in question." His hand rose, hovering near my cheek without touching. "I simply couldn't tolerate watching."
My skin shifted to that traitorous rose. "He told me something. About the assassination attempt."
Orion's pathways flickered. "What?"
"His sister. He claims she orchestrated the poisoning."
The black returned to his pathways so fast I stepped back involuntarily. "Sasha Cummings?"
"It's unverified. Could be misdirection."
"Or could be truth." His hand finally touched my cheek, and the neural sparks cascaded through my system like lightning. Through the bond, his desire surged alongside his rage—a complicated tangle of wanting to protect me and wanting to touch me and wanting to destroy anyone who threatened me.
My breath caught. My skin flushed deeper rose, bleeding into crimson at my throat.
He noticed. His purple eyes darkened, pathways shifting to that dangerous violet.
"Lyra." My name on his lips sounded like hunger.
His thumb traced my cheekbone, leaving trails of neural fire. Through the bond, I felt what he wanted—to press me against the transparisteel wall, to taste my skin, to watch my colors shift as he touched me. The intensity of it made my knees weak.
"Orion." Warning or invitation, I couldn't tell which.
"Tell me to stop." His forehead pressed against mine, his breath warm on my lips. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll walk away."
I couldn't. The word wouldn't form. My skin cycled through rose to crimson to gold, betraying everything I tried to hide.
His lips brushed mine—barely a touch, a question rather than a claim. The neural sparks from that minimal contact sent shockwaves through my entire system. Our bond blazed open, consciousness merging, and for one perfect moment I felt everything he felt: desperate love, bone-deep loneliness finally ending, certainty that I was his and he was mine.
Then reality crashed back. Lady Vespera. Contracts. Politics.
I pulled away, skin shifting to conflicted purple.
"You have a contracted bride arriving in seventy hours." The words tasted like ash.
I fled before he could respond, my skin cycling through colors I couldn't name, his confused anguish echoing through our bond with every step.