The Space Empress He Craved

Chapter 13

POV: Lyra

"Do you mind if I kept you until the evening cycle, Lyra?"

Orion's voice carried a nervousness I'd never heard from him before. His pathways flickered between hopeful purple and anxious amber, creating patterns I was starting to recognize as uniquely his. The Emperor of the known galaxy, the Void Killer himself, was nervous about asking me to spend time with him.

This has to be the bond messing with his head. No other explanation makes sense.

I narrowed my eyes, studying him. "That depends on what you want."

His smile turned sad—an expression that made his pathways dim to melancholic indigo. "I want to talk to you more. I want to know you, really know you. I don't want you to feel like you have to keep things from me."

He took my hand, pressing his lips to it briefly before placing my palm against his chest, over where his primary cardiac pump beat beneath the bio-suit. Through our bond, I felt the desperate rhythm, the way it accelerated at my touch.

"And hopefully," he whispered, his purple eyes locked on mine, "I can convince you that I can love you. I'm not like the rest, Lyra. I only want you. You're the only match and Empress that I will ever be willing to accept." He took my other hand, kissing each fingertip with reverence that made my skin flush. "Please. Please, let me get to know you."

Void take me, why does he have to sound so sincere?

His words bypassed every defense I'd built over five rejections, striking directly at the soft, vulnerable core I'd thought was dead. Was this the bond's effect? This warmth spreading through my chest like stellar radiation? Or was it just him?

I cleared my throat, nodding gently. "Okay."

The relief that flooded his pathways was almost blinding—bright gold joy mixing with purple satisfaction. He took my hand like it was made of precious crystal and led me from the dining hall.

His personal transport was nothing like the military vessels I was used to. Sleek, silent, with an interior that probably cost more than Blue Crescent Station's annual budget. We traveled through the station's upper levels—areas I'd never seen despite five years as Commander. The Emperor's private sector was all curved architecture and bioluminescent gardens, a far cry from the utilitarian military quarters I knew.

His residence made my breath catch. Not a villa—that was too terrestrial a word. This was a suspended crystal structure, its walls programmable matter that shifted between transparency and opacity. The main chamber alone could fit my entire command deck. Art from a dozen conquered worlds lined the walls, and the view... stars above, the view. An entire wall of transparisteel showing the nebula we orbited, its colors shifting like my own treacherous skin.

He guided me to what he called the observation lounge—furnished with seats that molded to your body, a low table of polished asteroid metal. After preparing something at the beverage synthesizer, he handed me a mug of something that smelled like roasted nuts and dark spaces between stars.

"Kavat," he explained at my questioning look. "From the Zenith system. Like ancient Earth coffee but... better."

We sat, and when our eyes locked, I shrugged. "So, what do you want to know?"

His eyebrows furrowed—those perfectly sculpted features that belonged on propaganda posters, not looking at me with such genuine interest. I could see him wrestling with himself, pathways flickering through a spectrum of uncertainty.

"Who are your parents? What do they do? Any siblings?"

I couldn't help it—I laughed. "That's definitely not what you really wanted to ask first, but I'll gladly oblige if it makes you feel comfortable."

Before I could continue, he smiled—that real smile that transformed him from Emperor to just... Orion. "How are you so sure that's not the thing at the top of my head?"

"Well, for one," I explained, settling into the familiar territory of reading people, "you took a little too long coming up with the question. We traveled from the dining hall to your residence—you would've had your first question long before now." I chuckled, my skin shifting to amused gold. "And two, you have a tell when you're trying to lie."

"Is that so?" He moved closer, and I caught his scent—ozone and star-fire, uniquely Lyrokan.

"You might be a good liar when you're prepared," I said, fighting the urge to lean into him, "but taken off-guard, you look very uneasy. Like you're inventing an excuse after being caught stealing rations from the ship's stores."

"Well, if it's my ship, I'm technically not stealing." That charming smile should be classified as a weapon.

"You would be if they belonged to someone else on the ship."

He laughed—a sound that sent pleasant vibrations through our bond. When his laughter faded, I looked at the floor. The polished metal reflected my opalescent skin, currently cycling through nervous blues.

"You want to know about the five rejections, don't you?"

Of course he does. Who wouldn't want to know what's so wrong with their match that five others threw her away?

My smile faded. I couldn't meet his eyes. He took my hand carefully, like I might bolt—which, honestly, I was considering.

"We don't have to talk about that today, Lyra. There are a million other things I want to know about you."

I forced myself to meet his concerned gaze. "Yeah, but your mind won't be at ease until you know."

His expression confirmed it. He wanted to know. Not to judge—I could feel that through the bond. He just... wanted to understand. No secrets between us. He wanted to know my pain, maybe foolishly thinking he could somehow ease it by sharing it.

Sweet, naive Emperor. You can't heal what's already scarred over.

"You seem a little lost for words," I said with a sad smile. "It's okay. I'll just say whatever comes to my mind. So, the first match was—"

"Lyra, before you tell me about that, I want you to know something."

He held my hands tightly, sitting upright with that imperial posture that made him look carved from starlight. "I'm not asking because I want to judge. I just want to know everything about you. And if something made you upset or hurt you, I want to know that even more. I don't want you to think that you have to bear those emotions alone."

He sighed in frustration. "I acknowledge that I can never fully comprehend what you went through, and there's no way to transfer those feelings to me or someone else, but I was hoping—" He shook his head, pathways dimming. "Stars, this is pathetic—"

"It's not." The words escaped before I could stop them, my eyes burning with unshed saline. "It really isn't."

My thumb stroked his palm as two tears escaped, running down my cheeks. I tried to pull away to wipe them, but he held firm. Instead, he leaned in, his lips catching the tears, and I could feel his emotional response through the bond—protective rage at whoever hurt me, desperate tenderness for me alone.

"I'm not like them, I promise," he whispered against my skin. "Give me a chance to show you, okay?"

I nodded, voice temporarily offline. The reluctance in my eyes must have been obvious, but he ignored it. Just grateful I was giving him a chance.

Fool. I'm the one who should be grateful. Even if this ends like all the others, at least I'll have had this moment.

When I found my voice again, I cleared my throat. "So... my previous matches. All five were from different stations, which was fortunate. At least things didn't get awkward back at Blue Crescent after each rejection."

I took a sip of the kavat—it was rich, complex, with an aftertaste like dark matter. "The first was a Sub-Commander from an allied station. He didn't think I had the build to be a Sub-Commander's match. As you can tell, I'm really small, even for a Kaelari. Five-foot-one in a universe where everyone seems to be six feet minimum."

He said I looked like a child next to him. Said it would be embarrassing at official functions.

"The second was a combat specialist—not even a senior one, just in training. We met during joint exercises at Blood Eclipse Station. He told me the bond was 'messing with his neural processes' and that objectively speaking, I wasn't attractive by his 'uninfluenced' standards."

I laughed bitterly. "He actually had a list. My eyes were too large, my skin's color-changing was 'distracting,' and he preferred females with 'less aggressive career paths.' Never asked what he meant by that."

Probably someone who'd stay home and polish his medals while he played soldier.

Another sip. The warmth helped. "The third and fourth were Station Commanders like me. The third was already engaged to someone from a founding family—pure Lyrokan bloodlines going back to the First Expansion. He felt he owed it to his station to choose her over the mining colony nobody. That was actually the most amicable severance. Mutual and respectful."

He even apologized. Said in another life, maybe. But we both knew there was no other life for people like me.

"The fourth one wasn't the type to settle for one partner. He made it clear he wouldn't have wanted me even if the cosmos reset itself before accepting my rejection. Direct quote: 'You're everything I never wanted in a match—too small, too serious, too scarred, and too Kaelari.'"

I could feel Orion's pathways going dark through our bond, his rage building with each word. His hand tightened on mine.

"And then," I took a breath, "the universe decided to really mess with me. My fifth match was a Lyrokan. You already know this one—Sebastian Cummings."

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. Orion's pathways were pure midnight now.

"We met at last year's summit. He took me seriously at first, seemed different from the others. But then the lies started. The inconsistencies. Whenever it came down to another Lyrokan's word against mine, he never chose to defend me, even when I had sensor data and they had nothing but prejudice."

I told myself that was just Lyrokan conditioning. Protect your own species first. I made excuses for him like an idiot.

"The last straw was walking in on him with another Lyrokan—in bed, naked, very much in the middle of things—when he'd told me he was attending an emergency security briefing with his father."

I swallowed hard, the memory still raw. "After that, I went back to Blue Crescent and did something I'd never done before. I prayed. Every night-cycle for three months, I begged the universe to stop giving me matches. Told the cosmos I'd take any other burden—fight any enemy, accept any dangerous mission—but please, no more bonds."

My voice dropped to almost nothing. "I never asked for a match in my life. Never wanted one after seeing what rejection did to others. And after match number five, I begged to be spared. When we met last night, all I could think was: what did I do to make the universe hate me so much that it couldn't grant me this one wish?"

I finally met his eyes, his pathways swirling with so many emotions I couldn't separate them all.

"But from the start, you were different. You asked what I wanted. You defended me publicly. You chose me over your own kind. And I keep waiting for the moment when you realize what everyone else did—that I'm not worth the trouble. That a mining colony Commander who can't even keep a match shouldn't be an Empress. That you could have anyone—perfect Lyrokan nobility with pure bloodlines and unmarred skin—and instead you're stuck with me."

The five-time reject whose skin broadcasts every emotion like a beacon. The girl who'll never belong in your world, no matter how many battles she wins.

"So that's it," I finished, pulling my hands away to wrap them around the cooling mug. "Five rejections. Five failures. And now you know why I asked about rejection protocols when we met. It's not personal, Orion. It's just pattern recognition. And the pattern says this ends one way."

But stars help me, part of me hopes you'll prove the pattern wrong.