DIVISION 52 - BOOK II

CHAPTER LXII

He scowled at her before I strode forward slowly and met his angered eyes. His emotions quickly changed and he melted back into the shadows.

A hand grabbed my jaw and tugged it downward.

My glare turned into a smirk as I watched her under the low lights. I glanced at her new glass before ripping it away before she could take a sip.

"That's enough."

"I don't remember asking permission." She retorted flatly.

"No. That's why I'm saying it."

Our silent war over eye contact was interrupted by something my second said in the comm line but again I was too distracted to hear it. Makayla wasn't too far off the same mark the way she was looking at me.

I sunk the rest of the Junak in her stolen glass without another word and faced her glare. It wasn't angry it was amused.

"I've never seen you lose that control around me..."

"If it means keeping you from dangerous levels of drunk I'll do it." I drawled, throwing the glass over my shoulder and not caring about the impact.

"Maybe I want dangerous levels with you." She said directly onto my lips.

Heat flashed through my body as I felt the rest of hers press across mine. I took the next breath through my nose as her hands hooked into the sides of my combats and her chest went flush to mine. She knew exactly how to make everything impossible and possible all at once.

"Makayla..." I tried, tilting my head up to the ceiling.

It only made her kiss my throat.

I groaned loudly despite the beat of the bass around us. The dark space of the Crypt did nothing to hide my desire for her and she knew it. The music peaked around us and I wanted to join the ecstasy of dancers around us. Lost to the pulse and movement of simple things. It wouldn't be such a sin if we did... But I knew there was something I should have been paying attention to–

Makayla kissed me again and I lost the will entirely.

She had the rest of me.

Our bodies moved in sync slowly against the hum in the air and rush of our own heartbeats. Her hands slipped up under my combat skin along my back. I shuddered against her as her nails ran lines along my back. I claimed her lips deeply and secured the back of her neck. Her warmth on me was the only thing. For now it was all that needed to exist. Like the oxygen in me that burned when it was absent. We'd drink it in now.

I wasn't sure how long we were lost in our own world. The night seemed the same. The taste of her lips as glorious as ever. Our heat and the perfect fit of our bodies unchanged.

The only thing. Was that beep in my ear. That comm link that was dragging half of me away.

It wasn't until Makayla drew off me and tilted her head to hear the same that we started falling out of our limitless world.

"Wait–what?" She mumbled in a daze as I held her face inches from my own.

I released a breath and listened.

"–tella. What the fuck have you been doing? Artella is AWOL–"

"Proximo, slow down–"

"Xavier, are you fucking hearing me!" He snapped down the line making a protective instinct rip me back into focus and interrupt my second's snarl.

"Stop. Where are you?" I stated simply.

"SO glad you could join us, Scorpion." He retorted bitterly, so far from his usual emotionless demeanour. I pinched my brow and slipped my hand around Makayla pulling us from the centre of the room. She remained silently scanning our surroundings as I led us towards the exit.

"While you've been fuck knows where I've been informed Artella's brother has been assassinated and he has burned all his comms–"

"Dex is dead." I interrupted.

Makayla stopped dead beside me and stared at me with emptiness in her eyes. I ran my hand over her arm and waited on Proximo's one word response.

"Ryko."

We stared at each other.

There were no words for that. Of course. Who else could send things to a flaming dumpster fire other than the spawn of satan herself.

"Pull your sister out of that sim. I don't care what the risks are. She's going to hack that motherfucker's Imperial line and get us two steps ahead before sundown. I've had enough of this shit."

Proximo's response was simple and emotionless once more.

"Consider it done."