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Killing me would probably make his dick fucking hard.
I needed to figure out a way to distract him. I needed him to take the knife away from my exposed flesh. I scrambled and opened my lips, saying the first thing that came to my mind.
“Why did you feel the need to take us? Why piss off Vane in your pursuit of money? He’s a brutal enemy to make over a profit. You might grow to regret your choice to take us. And then there’s me. You know he won’t rest until he finds me,” I pressed, trying to distract him from the fact that he was staring straight at my breasts right now. I tried not to squirm under his gaze even though a very intense feeling of disgust was rolling through me.
He took a step back and I breathed a sigh of relief when the sharp edge of the knife pulled away from my skin.
For a moment, he was silent and the only sound I could hear was a drop of water falling onto a stone surface on the other side of the room. Then he broke out in a raucous laughter that left me feeling even more uneasy than the whole exchange had made me already.
“I take it Vane never mentioned me,” he began, and I bit my lip to keep myself from saying anything at all. Instead, I just shook my head and pretended to be interested in what he had to say.
“Vane wasn’t always a thug that soared across the stars stealing and selling cargo for his own profit. Once he served as a commander in the Intergalactic Brigade,” Greyburne began.
I’d heard of the brigade before. It was a coalition that spanned across several different plants within a number of various galaxies, a sort of alliance that functioned to keep the peace. They worked together to defend their people against anyone that may rise against them.
“Didn’t know that, did you? Didn’t know your rough and dirty pirate was once a soldier boy, huh,” Greyburne pressed, his voice highly amused.
“I didn’t,” I answered. I tried to keep any semblance of emotion from my words, but I couldn’t hide my curiosity.
“Yes, he was once a high commander in the brigade. He was responsible for a number of ships that served in his quadrant and he wore that honor with pride, no matter how many planets he had to crush under the order of those above him,” he sneered.
I could see a certain tenseness brewing underneath his skin. It felt like he would strike out at any moment and I waited anxiously, trying my best to lie there unassuming and nonthreatening as he continued to speak. I felt like I was within reach of a snake ready to bite at a moment’s notice should I make the wrong move.
“A long time ago, he was given the order to attack a planet that went by the name of Myakka. According to the intel he received, the people of Myakka were amassing weapons of dark matter from all over the galaxy. It also suggested that they intended to attack the reigning members of the Brigade. The powers that be gave him instructions to follow and Vane arrived on the planet of Myakka intending to carry out those orders without delay,” he continued.
“What happened next?” I pressed, now more interested than ever. Plus, Greyburne had turned away and was staring down the hall, which meant he was no longer staring at my nakedness. With that came a measure of relief.
“When he landed on the surface though, he found something much different than reported. He found families suffering under starvation, too poor to afford the rising prices of bread and sustenance at the local market. He found a dictator that demanded tribute from his people far too often. He found a very rich class of the elite that ruled over the poor with an iron fist. There was nothing that spoke to the allegations against the people of Myakka, but he had orders to carry out and he was expected to do as he was bidden, so he did because he had to,” he said, an angry faraway look overtaking his features.
“Did he kill everyone?” I asked, trying to keep my alarm at bay.
“No. At least, he tried not to but sometimes things get out of hand when you enter into battle, don’t they? You can never really fully prepare for war,” he continued.
“I would imagine,” I answered carefully.
“The dictator wasn’t amassing weapons of dark matter. Instead, he’d been collecting something else, something designed to relieve him of the duty of looking after the poorest of the poor. He had come by an aerosolized virus that he’d been gathering over the years with the intention of using to its fullest potential once he deemed a portion of his populace no longer useful. He had it stored in the lower halls of his fortified castle.”
“What does that have to do with Vane?” I pressed.
“Vane attacked the castle and the surrounding area where the elite lived. He didn’t want to kill those that were suffering, but he didn’t count on the lower class rising up to protect the elite. He hadn’t known their fear. He hadn’t spent the time to realize that if they didn’t protect their ruling class, that they’d be as good as dead. They were left with no option but to fight. So, the men of the brigade were attacked by both the rich and the poor. They killed in mass and when the tides of war shifted in either direction, they acted. At one particularly concerning turn, Vane and his squadron turned their focus onto the castle, intending on taking out the dictator once and for all. Cutting the head off the snake, as it were.”
I bit my lip. I had a bad feeling of where this story was heading, and I suddenly didn’t want to hear how it ended. Greyburne took a deep breath and he continued anyway, completely ignorant of my abrupt edginess.
“Gunfire turned on the castle and the dictator finally got scared. He reacted. He released the entire horde of virus he had gathered and the high winds that day carried the dangerous little particles across the battlefields and into the sector where the poor lived. This virus was engineered to act quickly, to decimate a person’s immune system in minutes, leaving them in excruciating pain. In the end stages of the disease, they’d start bleeding from their eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Touching them would infect another. Breathing the air near them would spread the sickness. It was a biological weapon of war and one that was extremely effective,” he continued.
“But Vane is still alive,” I answered, furrowing my brow. “He should be dead if what you’re telling me is true.”
“Yes. He is, isn’t he? You see, the virus was developed many years before that battle and as such, a vaccine had been developed. The entire brigade had been inoculated against that virus and the dictator hadn’t known that. Every single person that rose to defend the rulers of Myakka that day died because they’d never received the vaccine and it didn’t stop there. The disease continued to spread, even as the battle was over in the days following that terrible massacre,” Greyburne said, his voice hinting at a sliver of sadness hidden far beneath his rough, scarred exterior.
“What does that have to do with you?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. I had the sudden suspicion that there was something more he had yet to tell me, something that would make him hold a grudge against Vane that originated on Myakka, many years ago.
“You see, Myakka was once my home until the Red Sickness wiped out everyone that I ever held dear. My parents fought in that battle and died standing outside that very castle. My brothers died several days later and nothing I did could save them. My sisters bled out in their beds beside me, their cries of agony horrific as they succumbed to the virus that was set free because Vane had just blindly followed orders instead of thinking for himself,” he sneered.
“But you’re still alive,” I pressed.
“For some reason unknown to me, I survived. The virus didn’t affect me even though I touched the afflicted, even though I breathed the same air that they did. I was immune and I have no idea why. Weeks passed and the virus tore through the surrounding villages, long after Vane killed the dictator and completed his mission. He left, but the effects of what he had done were felt long after. Come to find out, the intel he’d gotten in the first place hadn’t even been true, but a rumor started by an enemy race that was interested in Myakka for the precious stone that formed far beneath the surface.” He paused and turned back to me.
His eyes were dark, dangerous, and I felt incredibly unsafe, naked and bound to the bed before him. I wondered if he would hurt me or even kill me to get back at Vane for what had happened to him and his family.
