Nox wrote most of the day away. With this last word, the pen fell to the bounded page. He stretched his neck to the right, then to the left until he claimed a satisfying pop. Skimming over the words, a longing stirred in him. Something that started in this very room when Rayne came to him almost a month ago full of promise. Until he snuffed it out. Maybe there was—

Korac burst through the observatory’s double doors. Why did he always use both? “Sire, there’s a disturbance at Iona-29. I believe your lure proved successful.”

Blood pumping with excitement, Nox approached the monitors and projected the feed to fill the room. “Good, good. Let’s see how their unit does.”

As the King added sound, his General shook his head, listening on the comms. “They’re describing a single assailant and—”

A crash thundered throughout the room. Cries died out and gurgling replaced them. Silence followed. Nox looked back to Korac, who stepped closer with the comms. “Iona-29 Security. Respond. Over.”

Nothing. Dust settled on the feed.

A familiar female voice resonated seductively from the security tap. “Keep your eyes and ears open, boys. You don’t wanna miss this.”

“Rayne.” On a growl, Nox embraced the mixture of emotions—anticipation, arousal, and just a touch of fear.

The hall camera captured guards waiting outside the security door. Music played throughout the building. The door busted open, and a white light permeated the hall. The guards doubled over with their hands covering their eyes. The white void enveloped the camera momentarily.

Screams erupted in the blind interference. When the visual returned, Rayne dropped a lifeless guard to the floor. Her fair skin and clothes—a simple black tank and black cargo pants—soaked in red blood.

“Is she…?” Korac leaned closer, fascinated. “She’s lip syncing.”

Rayne stepped forward, feet in time with the beat. At a certain phrase, she peered up and smirked at the camera.

Nox’s heart pounded in his chest. All that blood all over her, and she put on a show for them.

Korac rolled his eyes, shifted his jaw, and sucked in his cheeks. “It’s Marilyn Manson’s This is the New Shit. She’s mocking me…”

Nox nodded in approval. “It’s good for you every once in a while.”

As the chorus picked up, Rayne stepped into an open room with several assailants. Two of them were Icari. The King grinned. “This should prove interesting.”

To the beat, Rayne smashed one human guard’s head through a cinderblock wall, disarmed a combat knife from an Icarus, and rendered him unconscious with a mid-flip kick to his temple. Still singing, she slashed a human behind the knees and shoved the knife through the underside of the other Icarus’ chin. Blue blood showered her face. She tilted her head to the side as if listening or reading something not heard or seen by the camera.

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A motion she repeated after each blow, but subtly, as if she tried not to draw attention to it. But Nox saw every wince of her eyes, every breath of her chest, every strain of her exquisite form. “There. What is she doing?” It seemed familiar.

The General glared closer at the screen. “It’s hard to say. Gauging? Thinking? Something.”

“She doesn’t want us to see it, but it’s significant. Take note if she does it again.”

The last soldier in the room shot her with a 45mm. She spit the bullet out in her hand and glared at him. The woman looked utterly insulted. Faster than Nox’s eyes could follow, she threw the bullet back. The man collapsed to the floor. Dead. Then came the subtle drift of her gaze as she concentrated on the unseen enigma.

Korac caught on with a confounded frown. “You’re right. She’s… evaluating…”

They both concentrated on the feed as Rayne entered the next volley. Immediately, two CoN followers captured her arms in chains. Golden chains.

Nox licked his lips before saying, “She’s not responding to them at all.”

Rayne gripped her fists into the chains. Her chest heaved once. Twice. When the second chorus began, she screamed and collided the two men together in an awesome spray of blood, bone, and brain matter. The chains disintegrated off her skin as she turned to face a camera.

That beautiful rage. All for him.

The next unfortunate taker took advantage of their eye contact and pinned Rayne roughly to a wall. Surely at her allowance. But why—

Rayne gave an erotic, psychotic smirk to the camera as the guard pressed himself firmly against her.

“She’s trying to provoke me.”

Korac gave him a once over. “Looks like it’s working, sire.”

Touche. Nox’s heart thrilled to her homage of the school massacre.

Rayne ripped into the guy’s ribs and opened them like butterflied chicken. He screamed as she tore one rib completely out and stabbed him in the eye several times with it to the beat of the song. After his screams died, she threw the bone shank across the room into another taker. It went through his skull.

Spinning and flipping with blows. Singing and fighting to the rhythm. And that curious puzzle she worked on so meticulously. The movements, the pacing, the gore. She dealt maximum pain while eliciting maximum fear. Beautiful in her violence.

After Rayne massacred the last man, she peered into the camera. Nox swore her eyes locked right onto his as she sucked her middle finger slowly into her mouth, cleaned away the carnage, and slipped it out, flipping him off. Her blue eyes blazed.

Korac glanced between the King and the screen, bewildered. “Yea, that’s definitely for you.”

Nox’s pulse quickened, and his eyes narrowed. Did she know how she affected him? How could she know? His desire conflicted with his sense of command. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to forget the exercise, charge into the base, and take her back to his castle quarters on Cinder. Headstrong. Fierce. Rayne refused to submit to him. And Elden help him, he loved it.

As the song wound down she sang the last lyrics, walking into the camera with that pretty rage naked on her face. Then the camera feeds went black.

Korac checked the console. He shook his head. “All the feeds are gone, your majesty.”

Nox gazed at the desert before glancing at his writing. He smirked. Genuine admiration flooded his voice, “She reclaimed that entire base in under three minutes while drawing it out for fun.” He turned back to his General.

Korac pressed ‘CTRL’ and ‘S.’ When Nox arched a brow at him, the fair-haired Icarus responded with a shrug. “It’s for training purposes…”

“Quite.” After a moment of deep thought, Nox ran a hand through his hair. “She’s smart. She kept us from seeing her unit’s abilities. Sagan we’ve witnessed first-hand. What about Tameka?”

As his General housed the disc in a case, he said, “As far as we know, Merit never displayed any particular talents.”

Nox shook his head. “I don’t trust it. Get that transponder on Sagan within the next forty-eight hours.”

Korac nodded. “It will be done, your majesty.”

“If there’s one thing I learned from the Lyriks, never underestimate a redhead.”