STARLIGHT UNBOUND by Deus Ex Machina - HTML preview

STARLIGHT UNBOUND

spill out into the city. She was positioned like a statue of grace and control, thanking patrons as they left, her tone smooth and polite —the perfect government-approved artist.

“Thank you for coming. Your continued support for Harmony means everything.”

The words fall from her lips with effortless precision, but Lucien senses something beneath them. A script. A mask. Her gaze, however, is anything but rehearsed —sharp, searching. Hunting. He feels his pulse quicken when her eyes find him in the thinning crowd.

He reached the exit and Lyra extended her hand, her smile polite, gentle — practiced. “Thank you for visiting. I never got your name?”

Lucien hesitated, his palms damp. The noise of the gallery faded, the city beyond the glass doors a distant blur. He took her hand, expecting a standard formality, but her touch is... different. Soft, deliberate, a gravity in her grip that remained a moment too long.

“Luc... Lucien.”

A slight smile played at the edge of her lips, and then, with the smallest pull, she leaned in. Too close. The smell of cigarettes and paint returned to his senses. Her voice, low and husky, drifted against his ear, a whisper made only for him.

“You feel it, don’t you? That pull? It’s already in you. You know what you want.”

The words strike him like a current, sharp and undeniable, sliding under his skin and settling deep inside. He felt unsteady, as if the ground beneath him has shifted.

Lyra leaned back, releasing his hand with the same careful grace, the polite mask slipping effortlessly back into place. As though nothing happened at all.

She extended her hand again, but this time, when Lucien takes it, something small and smooth is pressed into his palm. The movement is seamless, invisible to anyone watching. The coolness of the item burned against his skin, an anchor tethering him to the moment.

Lucien feigned a smile, nodding stiffly, and stepped past her into the cool city night. His mind started spinning, his heartbeat loud in his ears. He suppressed the urge to open his hand. Not yet. He was still caught in the electric spark of her touch, in the words still reverberating through him.

“You know what you want.” Do I?

The thought remained with him as he descended the stairs.

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