No: Lux wakes up in chains

Softness and comfort are Lux’s first impressions as consciousness returns to her. Letting out a quiet sigh, she opens her eyes and finds herself staring up at a stone ceiling. Still underground, then, but she can feel a bed – a proper bed – underneath her. Soft candlelight is all around.

She tries to stretch, and finds resistance, a clink of metal. Her sleepy mind struggles to make sense of it. Turning her head to the left, then to the right, she sees the chains binding her wrists to the bed frame. Trying to move her legs confirms the same there.

The horror takes a few more moments to become fully apparent. She’s tied to a bed. On her back. Arms and legs spread out. Naked. There’s only one thing that this could –

“Oh, are we waking up?” Radan’s voice. Honey-sweet with just an tinge of cruelty. Lux lifts her head to see him walk into view. The side of his face is bruised, from where Lux hit him. Lux shudders, all too aware of being exposed and helpless before him, her naked body laid out on display.

“Now, I don’t entirely object to a bit of rough stuff, darling,” he says, “but that sucker punch was a bit much. My fault, though. Letting myself get distracted and all, when I should have been paying full attention to you.”

He sits down on the edge of the bed. Lux tries to flinch away, but there’s nothing she can do. “The thing I’ve realised,” he continues, “is I don’t care about Rina and Atara and the Great Machine. I thought I was coming back here to an easy life, but really, this place was never for me. I had so much more freedom up on the surface. From now on,” – he leans in closer – “I’m focusing on what really matters.”

“Please,” Lux whispers, “I just want to go home.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry, don’t worry.” Radan takes her face gently in his hands. “No, I’m not planning to keep you down here forever. Just until I’ve made good on my promise from earlier. After all – you begged me to make you pregnant. And I’d hate to leave the job unfinished.”

Icy fear grips Lux’s spine. “I don’t want that,” she insists. “Please – I can’t – I don’t want to be pregnant – ”

He strokes her cheek. “I know you told yourself all kinds of things,” he murmurs, “all kinds of reasons why you had to say it. But the truth is that you begged me…because you wanted it. And you’ll beg me again.”