A mystery, then. Maybe they are all mysteries.
Himmy is a charmer even though that name of his is impossible to say. In fact, I’d go so far as to call him dangerously charismatic. Every word across his tongue is sweetness secretly laced with a threat. Not that I was afraid of him while we danced. I wasn’t. But I probably should’ve been. He’s tall—they are all tall—and has light brown hair and one of those perfectly trimmed shadow beards. He was also looking very handsome in his suit and all his metals and ribbons were silver, white, and black. They matched Xyla.
Which brings me to opinion number three.
Xyla isn’t what I expected. Yes, I still think she’s even more dangerous than all these brothers put together, but she was flirting with my bot the entire night.
Until he blew a hole in that storefront and got arrested, that is.
I would like to make friends with Xyla. I would like to know where a girl might get one of those black bodysuits that seem to be all the rage. Also, I’d like a few weapons of my own. I think Xyla is just the person to handle these things for me.
Opinion number four.
Crux is lying about something. I watched him talk to Serpint out of the corner of my eye as I danced with Himmy, and I saw it. I saw all the tells of a man lying. He knows something the others don’t, or he’s hiding something from them, or… I don’t know. I just know there’s more to him than I can see right now.
So far nothing about this station is what I thought. And every single one of these men who run it, including the AI and the bots and borgs they include in their inner circle, isn’t what I thought either.
What is this place? It’s not just a rowdy safe haven for transient outlaws. Where did this ALCOR come from? And how did this little group of people get their hands on what amounts to a floating metropolitan city?
Mysteries. All of them.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” Serpint asks, just as the elevator stops at his apartment.
“Our day,” I say, pulling him closer to me. I’ve got my hands wrapped around his upper arm in a possessive way and I didn’t realize I was doing that until just now, so I let go and try my best not to blush.
To my surprise, I can control the glow. There’s a little hum inside me that I know is the light in reserve. It’s always there just below the surface, waiting to be unleashed.
Serpint looks down at my hands, now suddenly free, and takes one. Leading me into his quarters.
My gown is long and the skirts are full. They swish a little as I walk. Serpint looks over his shoulder at me with a sly grin, mischief in his eyes as he leads me straight back to the bedroom.
Oh, I’ve been thinking about this all day.
When we pass through the open door he twirls me around so I’m facing him and slides one of his large, strong hands along my waist. “You look stunning, Lyra. Absolutely stunning. If someone had told me yesterday morning that you’d turn into… this tonight, I wouldn’t have believed them.”
“Yeah,” I say, laughing a little. “Well, I was doing my best to look like shit. So… I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“Good,” he says. “That’s how I meant it.”
He leans in and kisses me and I automatically kiss him back.
It’s a nice kiss. A soft, warm, gentle kiss.
But it’s not the heated passion we experienced yesterday.
In fact, I don’t even glow. Not even a little.
What the hell? Because I feel good. I feel turned on. There’s a thrum between my legs that lets me know I want him. I’d like him to strip me naked and fuck me.
But that need is missing now. I cannot even imagine this night turning supernova. There doesn’t seem to be an imploding universe in our immediate future.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, still kissing me.
I don’t want to talk about it because I’ve kinda gotten used to the idea that I was his and he was mine. And this mythological soulmate bond is real.
But now it feels a lot more like a stupid children’s fantasy cooked up by a restless and bored mind.
And I don’t want it to be that way. I want to go back in time and feel the way I did last night. I want to rip his clothes off, and he mine, and fuck until we blow the whole place up.
Oh, God. Did I really just think that? What the hell is wrong with me?
“Lyra.” He laughs a little into my mouth. “What are you thinking about?”
Not anything I can tell you, I silently think. So I do the only thing left to do.