Star Wars: Dark Angel, Dangerous Games

Vader cut her off by throwing her up against the wall. Before she could scream, he clamped his massive hand over her mouth. "I did not give you permission to speak," he hissed into her face. With a jerk of his head, he ordered Jix to continue walking. Jix gave Lylla a sympathetic shrug before obliging his employer and hurrying back to the ballroom. Vader dropped his hand, grabbed her arm once again and forcibly pulled her back to the ballroom. Lylla's breaths came in terrified bursts.

Once they approached the ballroom's arched entrance, Vader slowed his fierce gait. He jerked her to his side. "You will keep my pace, you will acknowledge the guests, and you will NOT make a scene. Am I understood?" Gaping at him with huge frightened eyes, Lylla nodded. Grabbing her hand, he placed it atop of his and led her out into the ballroom. As they entered, the surrounding guests gasped at their sudden appearance. Vader acknowledged them with a reserved nod as they elegantly strolled across the floor. Lylla smiled at them, despite the weight of the terror crushing against her chest.

But once they had reached the other side and disappeared through the exit, Vader's fury had returned stronger than ever. He broke into an unyielding march, gripping her wrist so hard she feared he would break it. Trying to keep up, Lylla's foot caught in her skirts and she fell, but Vader did not stop—he charged ahead and dragged her on the floor behind him. "Vader, please, stop!" she pleaded, grabbing at his cape, struggling to get to her feet. "Please, nothing happened, I swear it! I did nothing wrong!" He ignored her pleas and maintained his furious pace, even hauling her up the flight of stairs and down the corridor that led to his private chamber.

He swiped the doors open with a sharp wave of his hand, then grabbed the back of her neck and savagely threw her into the dark room. Lylla slid across the floor, stopping only when her bare shoulder painfully caught on the hard marble beneath her. Fighting to hold her sobs in, she pushed herself up. "Vader," she implored, "you don't understand—"

"You will speak when I tell you to speak," he said with a tone devoid of any emotion. "Turn around and face me." She moved to obey, pushing herself off the ground until the Dark Lord added, "On your knees." Lylla swallowed her humiliation and terror back down into her gut. Slowly, she sank to her knees and bowed her head. "Remove your collar." Lylla lifted her hands to the back of her neck, unlatched the lock, and pulled the heavy jeweled collar off her long neck. Vader stepped toward her. "Give me your throat."

Shivering, Lylla tipped her head back, tears like acid in her eyes. A strangled sob escaped her throat when she heard the crackle of energy ignite the air, followed by a low electronic hum. She opened her eyes and looked up at Vader standing above her, his armor and mask illuminated electric red by the lightsaber he held across his chest. He pointed the blade's tip between her breasts. Lylla could feel the current from the energy vibrate against her skin. She tried to control her violent shaking, fearing that any movement would bring her closer to her death...

"You wanted him," Vader finally said.

"No," Lylla rasped.

"Do not lie to me, woman." He leisurely drew the tip of the lightsaber up to the hollow of her throat. "You enjoyed being in his arms—"

"Vader—"

"His body, whole and intact, against yours."

"Please stop—"

"You wanted to bed him—"

"No!"

"Another lie?"

"HE DRUGGED ME!'

"DID YOU WANT HIM?"

"YES!" she screamed. No longer capable of any restraint, Lylla threw back her head and wept.

"But you resisted him."

She swallowed her sobs. "Yes."

"How?" She raised her right hand and opened it. There were four bloody half-moons gouged into her palm. "Why did you resist him?"

"How can you ask me that?" she whispered.

"What did he offer you, Lylla?" He circled her, still holding her at bay with his lightsaber. She could smell the burn of stray hairs singed by the blade's tip. "Riches? Jewels? Fame?" He paused. "Pleasure?" Vader came around to face her. "A proposal for which many women would give up everything. But it wasn't enough for you, Lylla. As tempting as it was, it's hardly comparable to becoming Empress, is it?"

Oh gods, she gasped silently. "Please let me explain—"

"Is this what we are, Lylla?" he asked. "Is that why you came to me that night on the Death Star, why you gave me your body?"

"No! I didn't mean it the way it sounded—

"That is what you told Xizor."

"Yes!" she snapped, even as the lightsaber hummed at her throat. "That is what I told Xizor. And the Emperor." His helm tilted. She let out a bitter huff. "Do you all think me so dense not to believe he was there watching the entire time?"

"You wanted him to hear? Why?"

"Because if the Emperor believes that I feel NOTHING for you, that I am only using you, he will not try to tear us apart!" She saw Vader straighten in response, and he lowered the saber slightly. "I don't have to be Force-sensitive to see that he despises me." She looked at him unflinchingly. "As long as he thinks that I am nothing more than a silly, ambitious slut, he'll become convinced that you'll get rid of me. And until then, he'll leave us alone."

"He has already heard you pledge your devotion to me," he reminded her.

"I could have been lying."

"Were you?"

She sighed through clenched teeth. "You can believe what you want, Vader, and you can even kill me for it. But I know the truth."

"And what is the truth, Lylla?"

Her eyes glittered in the glow of the lightsaber, but her voice was firm. "I love you."

Nothing was said for a fleeting eternity, the hum of his lightsaber and the breathing of his mask the only sounds in the room. Eventually, the red beam shrank back into its hilt. He clipped it back onto his belt and turned, walking a few steps away. "You may stand." She did, ignoring the weakness in her legs, pushing the strands loosened from her hairstyle off her damp brow. Vader stood motionless for several moments before turning over his shoulder. "The Emperor is correct in one thing. You are clever."

Lylla exhaled. "Thank you, my lord."

He turned fully around. "Your trial is now complete."

"Trial?" She lifted her head and squinted at him. "What trial? What are you talking about?"

"This night would prove to me whether or not you were truly loyal," he said bluntly. "You used your talents and cunning to show me the full range of your capabilities, and you remained faithful under the most pressing of circumstances. You have exceeded my expectations. You have demonstrated yourself worthy as my consort."

Her jaw slacked as she stared at him. "Are you saying that this was all...a test? The entire night, the Emperor?" She bit the name through her teeth. "Xizor?"

"Yes," he replied.

"And this," she pointed to where she was just kneeling, "What just happened here...this was part of the 'trial'?"

"Yes."

A tremor started deep in Lylla's core. "And if I had failed, what would you have done? Would you have killed me?"

"No. If you had failed, I would have sent you back to where I found you."

The tremor ignited into an explosion throughout her entire frame. "You BASTARD!" She hurled her weight at him, madly swinging her fists, actually striking him twice and just missing the sensitive control panel in his breastplate before Vader caught her wrists and viciously pinned them behind her. Lylla still thrashed and screamed, "How could you do this to me? How could you put me through that! What am I to you, a GAME?"

"Control yourself, woman!"

"Or what! You'll run a lightsaber through my neck? Or sell me back into slavery? Maybe just throw me to your stormtroopers like a piece of meat to a pack of dogs?" She howled with rage as she struggled in his grip. "Let go of me, you son of a WHORE!"

Her screams turned into a pained yelp when Vader grabbed the back of her hair and yanked back her head. He pressed her face into the grid of his breather. "If you want to live to see another day," he growled in a voice entrenched in the Dark Side, "you will NEVER call me that again."

"That's right, Vader," she hissed into his mask, "threaten me into submission, terrorize me into obedience like you do those sniveling rats you call 'officers' that cower at the very sight of you—"

"If you didn't conduct yourself like a bitch in heat by wandering off with some lecherous reptile for the whole galaxy to see—"

"You MADE me dance with him! You set me up!"

He clamped his hand around her throat before he spoke again. "Let me make this perfectly clear to you, Madame Sa'thraxxx. Your words, your deeds, your very existence are no longer your own. You are nothing more than a symbol of my rank, as are my troops, my ships, or anything that is mine! Everything you are belongs to me! I OWN you!"

Lylla stopped struggling and wilted in his grasp. The white fire in her eyes was snuffed out, and her expression disintegrated from rage to anguish. "Nothing's changed, has it?" she whispered. "I am, and always will be, nothing more than a slave." She clenched her eyes shut. "Please let me go."

Vader slowly released his hold on her, and she slid from his grip. He watched her stumble to his desk and lean on the edge, cradling her head in her hand as she quietly wept. He felt his ire simmer again. "I see we still have much work ahead of us. If you are to prove yourself capable—"

He was cut off when Lylla suddenly howled at the ceiling and spun off the desk. "Prove myself, prove myself, PROVE MYSELF!" she shrieked. "What more do I have to do, Vader? I have given you everything—my body, my heart, my LIFE—and STILL it is not enough!" She beat her fists into the desktop. "Why do you treat me like this!? Why can't you trust me!?"

"Because I will NOT be betrayed by ANOTHER WOMAN!" Vader roared.

"I AM NOT HER!" she exploded back at him. She watched her words hit him like a cannon blast. "You think you're the only one living with her ghost? She hangs over my head every fucking minute of every fucking day! I have had enough, Vader! I will NOT be punished for the deeds of Padme FOOLBERRIE anymore!"

"NABERRIE!" Vader harshly and involuntarily corrected.

Lylla shrieked like an animal and hurled her arms across the desktop, sending datapads and flimsies flying in all directions. She staggered out onto the balcony and collapsed on the rail. Her body quaked with loud, brutal sobbing.

Vader broke into a furious pace, stalking back and forth across the chamber like a caged animal. He clenched and unclenched his fists, battling to control the fury that threatened to engulf the entire palace. "Stop crying!" he barked at her. "Learn to control your emotions! If you are to be my consort, then you will have to—" He was again cut off by her screaming in savage frustration. She heaved herself off the rail and stormed across the chamber toward the door. "Where do you think you are going?" he demanded.

"Home!"

He captured her arm. "You do not have my permission to leave!"

"Then GRANT it!" she spat. Their eyes locked in a steadfast glare for many long moments. Some of Lylla's hair had come undone from her headdress, and her painted face was smeared from crying. But her eyes flashed dangerously and she showed no signs of cowering. Abruptly, Vader dragged her to the doors. They slid open to reveal Wrenga Jixton jumping away from the spot where he had been listening the entire time.

Vader shoved her into the hall. "Fetch Madame Sa'thraxxx's cloak and take her back to her apartments," he ordered Jix. "Leave by the loading docks on the omega level and use a fully enclosed service speeder. And make absolutely certain you are not followed."

"Yes sir, Uncle D." Jix turned to Lylla and flashed her a grin. "A pleasure, Madame."

Lylla pulled herself together, standing tall and proud. "You are Lord Vader's man, the one who was spying on me in the garden?"

He gave a slight shrug. "Just following orders, ma'am."

Lylla nodded, pursed her lips...and slapped him across the face. She then turned on her heel and marched down the corridor. Jix brought a hand to his stinging cheek. "Nice to meet you, too." He turned to Vader. "You'd think her hand would hurt by now."

Vader said nothing. He merely watched her as she disappeared down the stairs. Eventually, he turned around and returned into his dark chamber, the doors hissing quietly behind him.

* * *

Lylla hadn't moved in her seat since they had left the palace. She sat perfectly still, her cheek in her hand, staring blankly out the dark tinted window at the frenzy of Coruscant's traffic. Jix glanced at the enigmatic scarlet-haired woman sitting next to him as he drove. He debated whether he should try to engage her in conversation, figured that it was probably unwise, and then decided to do it anyway. "You did very well out there this evening."

"Did I ask for your opinion?" She sounded exhausted.

"No," he sighed. "Just thought you might want some cheering up."

"I don't."

Jix drew his lips into a thin line and shrugged. He let a moment pass before he spoke again. "I've worked for Lord Vader for a while now and, I can tell you, I've never heard him raise his voice like that before."

"Like what? Like a rabid Cammendon?"

"Exactly." Lylla slid her eyes from the window to look sidelong at Jix. He continued. "I've heard him bark orders, but I've never heard him sound so...passionate." He looked at her. "You are special to him, Madame. He needs you."

She scoffed through her nose. "Oh yes, he needs me. That's why he threatened to kill me tonight."

"Puh-leeze," Jix said. "Uncle D threatens to kill me at least once a week. If he didn't, THEN I'd be worried. Trust me, if he wanted you dead, he wouldn't give you any warning. You'd just be dead."

"Then what does he want?" she asked wearily.

"Let me tell you something," said Jix. "Vader is the most feared man in the galaxy, second only to Emperor Skinbags back there." He grinned when Lylla, in spite of herself, cracked a small smile. "All those women there at the ball, the princesses, the aristocrats, the noblewomen and heiresses? He could have ordered any one of those women into his bed at any time, and no one would have dared defy him. Hell, he could have a harem that would make Xizor's girls look like a credit a dance with a half-a-credit change. But he doesn't. And do you know why?" She shook her head. "Because he's been waiting for the woman who could see beyond the mask." He glanced at her. "He's been waiting for you for twenty years, Madame."

Lylla eyed him cautiously. "He told you that?"

"Of course not. But the risks he took with you tonight told me everything."

"You seem very loyal to Lord Vader."

Jix shrugged. "He saved my life."

Her thoughts drifted to her last few hours on the Death Star. "He saved mine too." She said nothing more.

He fixed his eyes back on the throughway. "By the way, in case you were wondering, my name is Jixton."

"Do me a favor."

"What?"

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. "Don't talk anymore, Jixton."

Part III

The enormous halogen drones that had lit the night skies had been extinguished, blanketing Imperial City once again in night, signaling the end of all Coronation Day festivities. Out of the dark, a black speeder tank and its bike escort pulled silently into the port of the top floor of Lylla's luxury complex. Two Black Hole troopers climbed out of the midsection, flanking each side of the door as Lord Vader rose from his seat and stepped out. "Form a perimeter around the port."

"Yes, my Lord," said the commander. He signaled two troops on speeder bikes to hover above the port, and another two to guard the other side of the building as Vader walked to the large glassine doors.

He waved his hand across the doors, using the Force to unlock the codes. Just as he stepped into the unlit living area, Lylla's servant girl, Palissa, was coming from the galley with a steaming cup and saucer in her hand. She was about to cross to the set of stairs leading to her mistress' bedroom when she saw the towering Dark Lord standing in the doors. She inhaled to scream, but fell silent when Vader passed his hand again. The cup and saucer tipped out of her hand as she crumpled onto the divan behind her, asleep.

He moved through the dark and ascended the stairs. A small antechamber led him to an arched doorway. He stood in the entrance, perusing Lylla's bedchamber.

It was enormous, with a platform that circumvented the entire room with her huge bed sunk into the basin. With thick rugs and stuffed pillows covering the floor and exotic tapestries adorning the walls, the room was sumptuous, sensual, and inviting. The glow of the city-planet outside sifted softly through glassine doors that led to the balcony. He looked to his left. Lylla's ball gown lay in a satin pool on the fur rug, her high heels and undergarments tossed on top of it, and her jewelry thrown across the vanity. He turned his attention to the bed.

Lylla lay on her side, her back to him. A satin sheet draped over her hip, leaving the rest of her nude. With the slender line of her body carved by the filtered light, he noted the dip in her waist before it rounded into the curve of her hip, the dimples set in the small of her back, and her long legs entwined in the black silk sheets. Her black and scarlet mane had been cut for the night into loose curls around her neck. He took another step closer, and listened to her breathing. "You're awake," he murmured.

She didn't move. "Yes."

"You were expecting me?"

Her voice was small and tired. "I don't know what to expect anymore."

He moved to the two steps that led to her bed and stepped down. Bending slightly, he took her wrist and lifted her arm. Finger-shaped bruises marred her ivory skin. "I've hurt you."

"I've had worse." She drew her arm away and turned into the pillow.

Vader clasped his hands behind his back as he moved away from the bed to the windows. He planted himself there and looked out the doors before he spoke again. "In three days, I will be leaving on a mission to seek out the Rebel's fleet," he stated. "The final modifications are being made on my flagship, the Executor. Those modifications include the completion of your quarters." He waited for a response, and received none. He continued. "I have made arrangements for you to accompany me. You will find your quarters to be much larger than this, and you may arrange for any ornamentation you wish." He turned over his shoulder. "Is this satisfactory to you?"

She chuckled sadly. "Do I have a choice?"

A pause. "Yes." She peered over her shoulder at him. "You may remain here, on Coruscant, in your current position, with no fear of repercussion. However, before you make any decision, I strongly advise you consider the consequences if you stay here."

"I thought you just said there would be no repercussions—"

"Not from me," he said. "But there are several factors you must take into account. First of all, your face has been broadcast to the galaxy, therefore everyone now knows who you are. You will have no privacy. You will have reporters following you everywhere or posting themselves outside your door. I can't execute every reporter in the galaxy, no matter how appealing the idea. And since I will be gone for over a year..." He felt her tense, "you may find your residency here less than favorable. Secondly, there is Xizor."

Lylla lifted herself onto her elbow. "What about Xizor?"

"You have insulted and humiliated him, actions he does not take lightly. I can furnish you an armed escort, but even under guard I fear you will prove a far less elusive target than I have been to him."

She stiffened "Will he kill me?"