S C O R P I O N
I felt the sharp edges of the serum leave my body by the time the sun disappeared on the horizon. What claimed me was the waves of aching pain in my chest all over again. I had no patience for it.
I grabbed a large bottle from the bar and slipped into one of the empty tech offices that overlooked the sectors beyond.
It was sharp on my lips as I swallowed sweet oblivion. Her god damn face kept flashing in the reflection of the glass beyond. That pained expression when I turned from the Empress and saw her eyes open slowly. She didn't deserve the relief this time. Not from me. I had been so ready to hand it all over for a woman that told me my title was more important...
I snorted to myself as I knocked back more of the strong liquor.
So very honest over a bottle of Junak aren't you Xavier... You speak so plainly in front of Artella and to me I get nothing. More of it disappeared in the bottle and I slouched against the back of a sofa shrouded in shadow and lights from the city beyond. It warmed my stomach and hazed my mind beautifully. If I couldn't have another serum I would sure as shit have this for the space between.
My wrist holo probably flashed but I didn't cast it another look. I cast the empty bottle a look and got to my feet slowly, placing a hand against the chair. The world spun slightly but it was well enough.
I pushed a hand against the glass and it slid open.
A few staff and techies remained at holo screens and in offices but they didn't pay me any mind. Who the hell would at the end of a shift like this. My palm slapped the lift and it rose to me quickly. I had one destination in mind and it included a blue bottle.
When the doors opened again I found the cool blue light of the indoor pool glowing back and the ripples moving in the water. I leant against the lift for a moment to steady myself before glancing at the blur in the pool. I pushed off it for the bar.
"Scorpion?" A voice cut across the room making me pause before the bar.
I gripped the counter with a hand and cast a look over my shoulder. The blur pulled up from the blue glow of the water slowly. Water ran off her body in rivers and the shine of her skin in a dark bikini that could have stopped an entire room–or maybe that was just her underwear.
I barked a laugh ahead of me and wrapped my hand around another bottle.
"You try too fucking hard, Empress." I slurred, turning my back and taking one of the stools at the bar.
A chuckle sounded behind me along with the dripping sound of her steps. I kept my eyes on the rows of bottles and not the body that appeared beside me with an amused look.
"You see, I don't think I try hard enough." She noted, reaching across me and stealing a drink from the bottle in my hand. I turned slowly and watched the way her lips wrapped around the lip. Even in my state I lingered on the detail.
She took a deep swallow before passing it back to me and leaning an elbow against the bar. The curves of her body were all the more prominent. I glanced at the line of water running from her hair down her chest.
"This is more of the Scorpion I expected..." She murmured, "–not the one I was told hopelessly chased after a blonde from Sector 1."
"I'm out of breath from chasing." I said flatly, pulling the bottle back to my lips. I ignored the fact that it was still warm from her mouth.
"I don't blame you." She smirked, running her damp fingers along the grooves of the rare wood. "A ruler shouldn't have to run anywhere. Especially one like you."
I met her eyes as steadily as I could and her smirk only widened. The bronze in them was almost molten.
"Don't make me break this alliance because you couldn't keep it in your pants." I deadpanned.
"I'm not wearing any. But judging by the way you're looking at me..." She leaned forward and the curves of her breasts squeezed against her. "–you noticed that too."
My throat dried at the sight and scent of her. A warm danger that wrapped itself around me. But she wasn't the only dangerous one. When she took the bottle from me again she trailed her fingers over my own, still damp from the pool water. I flexed my jaw watching her lower lip suck the bottle. My body heated in a darker desire.
"Mmm..." She drawled low in her throat.
She forgot about the bottle and put her hand on my thigh. Even with the combats I could feel the heat. The heat that crawled through my body hungrily in response. When her hand moved higher I seized her jaw with a dark look.
"Scorpion come on–" She murmured, "I think we're past that." She said deliberately running her hand higher up my leg and making the heat between my legs grow in demanding response. But the closer she moved the less reasons I could find in me to protest. The less I gave a shit about why I had to. She pressed the soft heat of her chest against my shoulder and turned the stool to face her more fully.
I released her jaw and grabbed the neck of the bottle.
I stared wordless. Watching her through a slightly blurred scope as she pushed my thighs slowly apart and pressed the wet skin of her body against me. I thought the bottle would break in my grip as I held it on the bar.
"Still thinking of breaking that alliance..." She whispered close to my ear. It made a brief shudder travel my body. Her hips pressed more deliberately against my thighs and I gripped the glass harder.
"You'll work with us–when I get what I want." I answered in a low voice.
"Is that the only thing you want?" She asked against my ear, running her hands back along my thighs and making the room blur more. I breathed in the scent of her neck and shut my eyes. The combat serum was no where in me. Only the encouraging pull of my desire remained.
She took my other hand in hers and ran in along her stomach. I sat in place feeling every inch of her wet body soaking my clothes through and stuck in a limbo of pain and oblivion. Something didn't push me over the edge. I couldn't remember what it was. Not as she ran my hand higher over the swell of her breasts and sighed against my ear.
"What we want is different." I murmured.
She drew back to a few inches from my face before dropping her hands to my waist and pulling at my belt. This time I ripped a blade from my combats and touched it to her neck. She smiled darkly back at it and raised an eyebrow as her hands pulled my belt loose. My body betrayed me and my mind was in a distant place. My desire however was awake and burning between my thighs.
She pulled it off and I heard it clatter to the floor. My gun holster went with it.
"There's the leader of the Underworld..." She whispered, pressing her hands against my stomach before dropping to the zip of my cargos. I watched her steadily under the blade but it wasn't pressed into her in threat. It was dropping slowly along with my guard under the heat and wetness of her body.
She ran her lower lip over my neck making the heat flash more intensely and the need grow. She hooked her hands in the waist and dragged them lower over my hips and making less of me care about stopping her. She pushed the fabric past my knees and pressed her thighs tightly against me making a low growl leave my throat.
"That's it. That's you." She whispered, running her palms up the bare skin of my legs.
The dagger dropped to the floor with a metallic echo and another sound I couldn't place. It's probably why I didn't notice things I should. Like when a woman's voice cut across the room.
"Get. The fuck. Off her."
Her body went rigid under me and she slowly turned her head to take in the same blurred form of Makayla Xavier standing with a gun trained on her head. It took my liquor hazed brain a moment and the Empress a blink to extract herself off me slowly.
Fuck.
"Xavier... listen–"
"Leave. Right now. Or this round is going through your head." She spoke slowly and deliberately. No room for error or negotiation. Painfully sober.
Dripping with unconcealed rage.
The Empress pulled herself from between my legs and and raised her palms in surrender. Then edged around her slowly without breaking her death filled gaze. I took the standoff to adjust the combats back over my legs but it wouldn't fix the look in those blue eyes now.
The Empress made it to the lift without her head being blown off. The doors slid closed on a dark look in her gaze and left me alone with the one woman I should have wanted here the most.
She turned the gun on me with a look so cold I would have thought our roles had switched.
"I am so fucking glad the alliance is going so well for you–" She choked off the next word and I saw the glint of tears in her eyes. I moved off the stool and she shot a round at my feet. I staggered back into the stool and she glanced at the bottle. A humourless laugh escaped her.
"Really? Really, Alex."
"I didn't ask her to–"
"Nope." She shook her head with a bitter look. "No. That isn't going to cut it for me. You're practically screwing her on that seat and you want to tell me you didn't ask for it?" She demanded, striding forward and dropping the gun to her side. Her eyes burned red with unshed tears and I felt the hole in my chest open up into a crater.
"Makayla I–"
"You're fucking wasted." She realised, scanning my face in disbelief. "At least when I do it I don't screw the first thing I see!"
"No you just kiss them that's much better!" I shot back pushing out of the chair and getting in her face.
She shoved me backwards and I slammed the bar catching myself badly.
"We moved past that! You know it meant nothing to me!" She snarled, sheathing her gun and going for my face. My reactions however were no where to be seen under the circumstances and her slap hit me sharply. Just as it did the night before.
"Keep fucking hitting me Makayla and I'm going to hit back." I growled low, watching her face grow darker as she glared back at me.
"Yes it seems like getting even is all you care about!" She shouted harshly.
"You think that is what this is?" I demanded, pushing up from the wood and trying to steady my body and vision. "Do you have any idea–what I was about to do before you hit me last night?" I growled, grabbing her wrist.
She hesitated a breath before the hardness returned to her eyes and she yanked her hand back. I held firm staring into her gaze while the room blurred around us.
"Don't you dare pin this on me–"
"I was going to give it to Proximo." She stilled under my glare. "My title. To make sure that look didn't cross you ever again when you looked at the Empress."
Tears did fall openly down her face now. I pulled her towards me as she fought me. Wrapping my arms around her as she shook her head and kicked at my legs. "No–don't touch me–don't!" She sobbed making me lose my balance a moment before I caught her face in my hands.
"Stop. Makayla... Just stop." I murmured, feeling her attacks lessen every second.
When I relaxed my grip she twisted her leg with a strength I didn't have right now and threw me sideways into the pool. I gasped in a mouthful of water before I surfaced. Coughing heavily and feeling reality hit me more squarely and soberly.
The look on her face could have stopped my heart entirely.
"You did this–" She rasped, backing from me with tears running down her cheeks. "We had everything and you threw it away for her. I hope she's worth it, Scorpion." She bit out.
"Makayla don't–we need to talk–" I coughed dragging my body to the lip of the pool.
"We're done." She finished, turning for the lift.
I rolled onto the floor and dragged my drenched clothes up with my body and ran for her. She drew her gun off her hip and levelled it at me. I stopped metres away before her. Then decided she would have to pull the trigger to stop me. I moved my feet and heard the safety click off. I didn't stop until the barrel pressed against the base of my neck. The water ran past me in streams as I watched her.
"Here we are again." I murmured, staring at those blue eyes.
"We didn't have to be." She whispered, the gun shaking in her hand. I pushed it aside and took her hand in mine.
"You're going to have to pull the trigger to stop me from coming with you, Makayla." I stated without the lingering effects of alcohol in my voice anymore. "I can't take back what happened. I couldn't see past last night. I couldn't stay present while it carved me up inside. I didn't deal with it and now I'm stuck wishing I had just god damn hit you back instead of leaving you."
She scoffed and raised her hands above her with the gun.
"It's a bit late for that now Scorpion isn't it?" She exclaimed with a glare through the tears. "All I can see is that woman all over you and you doing nothing to stop it." She growled, pushing me off her. I caught her wrist trying to take away that hurt but she pushed both back into me struggling. "It's too late–Alex!" She yelled yanking her hands and trying to rip herself away. I lost my grip on her wrist and the hand wielding the weapon slipped back with a loud shot.
I could feel the surprise on my face.
Even before the pain registered and before the look of horror stole her face. She dropped the gun and caught me as I dropped to my knees.
"No, no, no Alex I didn't–Alex please NO!"
My abdomen felt warmer. I glanced down at the red circle before Makayla pressed her hands tightly against me. "Alex I didn't mean to–please don't–" Her tears were flowing freely now as she ripped her comm to her lips and shouted down it. Her hands came back red.
The room felt further than it did even at the end of a bottle.
Warm hands gripped my face stained with my blood as my eyes drifted to the ceiling above. I didn't see my life ending this way. I sure as hell didn't see it at the hands of Makayla... but the way things had gone... I thought distantly. I felt like she had deserved to take her shot for a long time. I stared at the agony on her face as she shouted something at me.
Her shouts danced around me lost in the hum building in my head. In the darkness that was more inviting than ever before.
Her eyes were beautiful. How could I have seen any other's for a moment and betray her?
You took your shot. I thought with a dying sense of humour.
The lift opened behind her and bodies filled the room with more shouting. She was dragged off me and pinned against the floor. Don't. Don't touch her... My mind was drifting as I held her eyes that stared at me and then something pinched my arm. My head rolled as the drugs took my system over.
The last thought I had was of a pair of sky blue eyes more clear than the rippling water beyond us. Ones that trusted me with her life. Ones I trusted with mine.
Then I saw nothing at all.