Page 83 of Phoenix's Last Heist
He bolts for the corridor as Kraxis stalks off in the opposite direction. I catch up just in time to grab Orion’s wrist and drag him through a side door and into a closet barely big enough for a vacuum mop and our collective regret.
We slam into each other in the dark, breathless, pressed chest-to-chest in an awkward tangle of limbs and heat and holy-shit-we’re-alive.
I don’t say anything. He doesn’t either.
Outside, boots thunder past. Voices echo down the corridor—too far to catch specifics, but angry enough to keep us frozen.
Then silence. We’re still for a beat, then another.
“I’m starting to think you missed me,” Orion whispers, his breath hot against my ear. Lust is never far from my mind when it comes to him, and it burns through my body like a struck match.
I bite the inside of my cheek to hold in my manic, relieved, choking-with-tears laugh.
“You were supposed to go back to Xylothia and forget about me,” I whisper, pressing my face into his neck and inhaling like an addict. “You’re such a disobedient idiot.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, threading his fingers through my filthy clumps of hair. “I didn’t used to be. But I picked it up from someone along the way.”
He’s grinning—I can feel it in the dark. And I hate how much I missed that grin. I hate how much I missed his everything.
Calm down, Lyra. Donottry to fuck him in this closet.
I peek out the door. Kraxis and his Void Stalker groupies are gone.
And for a single breath, a single blink in this flickering, half-lit hell, we’re still safe.
22
orion
Down and Blacked Out
The closet is stifling.There’s barely enough room for the two of us to breathe, let alone think. My back is pressed to the cold inner wall, and Lyra is flush against me—every inch of her body molded to mine like we're melting into each other’s personal space.
Her leg’s hooked over mine, her hip wedged hard into my thigh, and her breath comes in short, shallow bursts against my collarbone. My synesfores pulse in time with her heartbeat—the mating instinct buzzing beneath my skin practically singing at her proximity. The only thing keeping me from ripping her pants off and sinking into her warm, wet cunt is sheer restraint, and even that’s wearing thin.
Outside, the world flickers in and out of existence. The compound's lights stutter violently—emergency systems glitching in waves as Ada dutifully rolls the blackout through each sector. One second it’s pitch black, the next it’s a seizure-bright pulse of crimson and yellow that slices through the slats in the closet door, casting fractured shadows across her face.
Kraxis has returned.
I feel Lyra tense when we hear him barking orders—his voice hard and clipped, hunting.
“Sweep the north corridor. Scan every panel, every seam. She’s here somewhere. Find her, and Brill pays a million. You know what’s at stake if we don’t find her,” he rages at his crew.
Every few seconds, his boots echo too close. Muffled voices ricochet off the concrete and carbon steel walls. Something mechanical groans nearby—maybe one of the compound’s retractable hangar arms trying to reboot.
But all I can think about is her.
Lyra. In my arms. Alive.
And more dangerously—close.
Ever since Vega’s plan came together, I haven’t been able to shake the vision of her broken in some dark corner of this compound—stripped of her fire, hollowed out by Brill’s cruelty. And now she’s here—trembling against me, dirty and exhausted and still the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen.
She’s so stars-damned beautiful, I ache with wanting—burn with it, like she’s a star and I’m about to be incinerated by drifting too close.
She tilts her face up. Her violet eyes meet mine, wide and wary in the dark. There’s a smear of grease across her temple, a gash half-healed on her jaw. Her full lips are cracked but parted slightly, and when she exhales, it ghosts across my skin like a drug.
“You almost didn’t make it,” she whispers, voice ragged.
