P3t1

  “So?” I asked curiously while w my way through Seleangled mess of hair, trying to work some soap into every lock of hair with my fingers. “What do you think?”

  “You are adorably naive,” she said, eyes closed and voice a bit absent as we both sat in the scalding goodness of the thermal bath. “That won’t work. I know you’ve tried to make it better, but it still feels like those humans are to be your pets instead of subjects. Well-kept and cared-for pets, but pets heless.”

  “That’s what I was worried about,” I said with a sigh, tinuing to wash her hair. I gently rihe soap out of it, guiding her head beh the water until only her face was left above. “What do you think I could ge to make it better?”

  “Don’t give them everything on a silver ptter,” she said, crag open ao stare up into my eyes. Her gaze lingered on my face before sinking lower and giving my bare chest an appreciative look. “Humans don’t do well when they are givehing for free. You have to make them work for it, you give them houses, food and water for free, but make all three the bare minimum so they work for the upgrades and a better standard of living. Some might thrive in the society you’d build with your idea, but most would not, most would … likely devolve into hedonism. Like the Aeldari.”

  “Fair point,” I said, lifting her head out of the water again as I got t her hair. Making my fingers excrete heated air with a bit of soul energy was simple enough that I needed no specialised tools. “But how would they ‘work for it’? I don’t hem for anything. I could maybe give them credits for fancy artwork and architecture that I like so that they could switch them in for bes?”

  “If they have the materials and the need for things, since you don’t give them away, the jobs would create themselves,” Selene said. “Give them the opportunity to mihe earth and to grow their own lumber and in no time you’ll have dozens of stonemasons, architects, borers and carpenters. They’ll want fancy houses and nice furniture, especially if you give them matg houses at the start. As you’ve said, humans love their individualism, but what they love even more is having something others don’t and then bragging about it.”

  “Letting them mine would create a weakness in the arcology’s defences,” I said, thinking aloud. “There are some nasty species of both flora and fauna on this little poid that could sneak in through aunnel. Some could do so even if I added yers of security and air-locked doors to the entrances.”

  “It’s your choice,” Selene shrugged, groaning in a way that sent shivers down my spine as I started massaging her scalp. Not that what I was doing to her stopped her from tinuing the versation. “Could make some mining drones and trade minerals for services they do to you. It’d make for a fasating ey if you exged mined minerals and stone for pieces of art.”

  “True,” I hummed, enjoying every little gasp and groan my lover made. Even if they made it a bit challenging to tihinking about nation building. “Art and creativity. Those are the two things they give me.”

  “Creativity is not reserved for art either,” Selene said. “You could be discussing these topics with a room full of highly educated people with varying viewpoints and psychologies. I think your idea from those mock High-Lords is nice, but you could expand upon it greatly.

  “Also, news. If you aren’t willing to let people out of the arcologies, you have to at least supply them with information about what’s going on out in the wider world, axy even. I still think you should let them explore the p, even if some of them would end up as chew-toys to one of the horrors you’ve made. You should at least make them think they are free to do as they wish.”

  “I really should have chosen a safer po start on,” I said regretfully. “That’d have made this at least a bit easier.”

  “You could probably get that Ethereal to give you Vallia iurn for delivering a whole human-poputed p into their grasp,” Selene said. “No?”

  “Maybe,” I said, frowning as I thought it through. “I’m pretty sure the ohey sent to me st time wouldn’t be opposed to it, but I know they too have politid he was not representative of the Tau’s overall stane. Could be they already think they’d giveoo much.”

  “They’ll give in,” Selene said, a smirk pying across her lips. “They always do. Don’t be afraid to push them, even if they are wise enough to fear your powers as a ‘mind stist’ they’ll still keep violence as the absolute st resort. The Tau are synonymous with promise.”

  “I don’t know,” I muttered, thinking back to how the Ethereal spoke of other Witches and their experiences with them. ‘They tend to violently explode after some time’, he had said. Would that be enough for them to be on the fence already and pull the trigger the moment I stepped just a bit out of line? “I might have to work on ving them that I’m more stable than ue Psykers.”

  As I said that, I let my memory of my versation with the Ethereal flow through my Bond with Selene.

  She blinked zily, eyes gzing over and going distant as she reviewed the new memories I’d given her.

  “You … might be right,” she admitted after a moment, shaking her head. “Never khey were that knowledgeable of Psykers. Should have assumed though. They have billions of human subjects by now, there had to be some new Psykers born among them.”

  “I’m sure there are some among them who would just love to finally uand how Psykers work,” I said with a growing grin. “It has to drive them up the wall that an Imperium they see as barbaric savages is so much more advahahat they ’t even fathom the basics of some of their sces.”

  “We are going around in circles now,” Selene said, and it took me a moment the pyful pout on her lips for what it was. “I think a ge of topic is in order.”

  {??????}

  “Really?” I smiled as she took both of my wrists and backed up until her back ressed up against me, then she guided my arms to embrace her uhe water’s frothing surface. “What topic would you like to discuss my love?”

  Taking the invitation for what it was, I trailed my fingers along her bare stomabsp;

  She squirmed a bit, settling in my p and then turned around, her face so close to mihat I felt her breath on my skin. She looked up at me with those beautiful, intelligent eyes of liquid silver that spoke of a want I felt growing in myself.

  I ed my arms around her waist and pulled her closer. Selene needed no further iive to arch her ned lean in for a kiss, her arms ing around my neck.

  Her slender body pressed into mine as our embrace tightened like we were trying to meld into one. Her tongue licked ay lips, and with a smile I let them in, deepening the kiss.

  Selene was hungry, gone was the poised noblewoman and the dignified captain I’d met so long ago. Nowadays she was more willing to show her true self to others, but it only truly maed at times like this.

  Fighting, sparring and lovemaking. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and was not shy in taking it, hting for it.

  And now she wanted me.

  A fact which she made sure I knew, her arms leaving my ned starting to wander while her tongue wrestled with mi was like she didn’t know what to touch, what to grab and what to tease but wa all. It was an addig feeling, being wanted so much.

  Not being oo just be on the receiving end of things, I loosened my embrad my fingers slipped from her waist, travelling lower and lower.

  Selene pulled away from the kiss with a gasp that turned into a humm of pleasure as my fingers slipped between her legs, which she eagerly parted for me.

  “Four days was too long without this,” she gasped, smiling dreamily as she sank lower in my p until she had her head resting on my shoulder. “You have muake up for.”

  “You never came to me,” I pined, ing one arm around her waist so she wouldn’t slip further while the other drew teasing circles on her ihighs.

  “You were busy,” she retorted, though I could see the smile on her lips. “Didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Well, I’d have loved to be interrupted.”

  Her answer was cut off by a gasp as my fingers found their mark, drawing a moan out of Selene as she arched her babsp;

  Soon the small grove housing the spring was filled with moans of pleasure, gasps and groans, first Selehen mine as she worked to return what she’d been given twofold. We became a tangle of limbs a bodies, enjoying the moment and each other.

  Everything and everyone else be damned.

  {??????}

  *****

  Octavian Gaius, one of the God-Emperor's Ten Thousand, wearing the fi golden power armor mankind could make, k with his head bowed.

  “I beg you, Captain-General,” Octavian said. “This is no longer a mere disagreement, not one where the honoured Shadowkeepers’ methods will earn us the results we need. It is my firm belief that it is in His Majesty’s best ihat you order them to give up on their quest.”

  Octavian looked up, having already shown more respect to his superior by kneeling that any one Brother of the Adeptus Custodes should. He k was a must though, lest the Captain-General failed to uand how truly desperate he was to be heard and listeo.

  Captain-General Trajann Valoris stood before him, his cold and horribly scarred face giving away nothing of his thoughts. He was the 17th Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, the Emperor's representative among the High Lords, the leader of the Ten Thousand and the single greatest warrior of the Imperium besides the Primarchs.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was measured, and each word came with a weight that forced oo listen with rapt attention. “Am I right to assume you speak of their quest to retrieve Subject G-1, Brother Octavian?”

  “Yes, Captain-General,” Octavian said.

  “Your disagreement with the Shadowkeepers is known to me,” Valoris said. “I’ve turned a blio your … petition. I was made to believe either side succeeding in their quest would have served our Lord’s is. Was I wrong, Brother Octavian?”

  “No,” Octavian said, only his superhuman stitution and biological inability for fear or doubt keeping his voice even and fident. “You merely cked the information I’ve only e across in my test enter with the being now inhabiting Subject G-1.”

  “That creature has met and fought with a member of the Adeptus Custodes three times,” Valoris said. “One of our Brothers fell at its hand, and you failed to capture it not once, but twice. What knowledge have you gleaned from your final enter?”

  “I saw the creature battle with a Greater Daemon I’ve identified as the Bloodthirster Ka’Bandha,” Octavian said, answering the question instead of addressing the statements. “The moment before its banishment, the Daemon addressed the being possessing Subject G-1 as ‘Anathema’.”

  A pregnant pause hung thickly in the air, as if the world itself was taking in a sharp breath. Octavian stiffened, feeling a familiar, yet impossibly heavy weight settle on his shoulder and he iently go the side.

  There, one an a artifact from the darkest times of a humanity fashioned into the form of a Golden Thro the Emperor of Mankind. To the naked eye he was, but a withered husk, dead beyond doubt, but he was her.

  He was something greater than anything else, thahing else in this paltry existence. He lived, not through his mortal coil but through his unfathomable psychic might.

  His attention, even just an infinitesimal fragment of it that Octavian was now blessed with, was heavy.

  “Are you certain?” Valoris asked, voice maybe just the slightest bit tighter than before.

  Of course Octavian was certain, he wouldn’t have spoken otherwise. Custodes didn’t lie, not to Brothers, and absolutely not about something of this magnitude.

  Tha Captain-General should have known that, and Octavian was certain that he did. The fact he still asked must have meant the news shook the a warrior just as much as it shook Octavian.

  “Yes,” he spoke the word despite knowing it was redundant. He khe ahe moment his attention nded on Octavian, for his thoughts and memories were an open book to the Master of Mankind.

  Octavian waited with bated breaths, hoping, wishing that the Lord spoke to them. To him. Valoris must have had a simir hope, for they wouldn’t be having this discussion ihrone Room otherwise.

  The Emperor spoke to his son after all, maybe … just maybe …

  As, minutes went by, ay for Custodes, and the only sounds filling the Throne Room was the beating of hearts and the w of are maery.

  “Brother Octavian,” Valoris finally spoke. “I want aensive report ohing you’ve learned of this being. Leave nothing out. Personality, capabilities, tendencies, everything. This situation is … unique. We’ll have to proceed with care, sider your earlier request granted.”

  “Unique?” Octavian inquired.

  “This would not be the first time we’ve received a report of a Demon cursing out a mysterious being using the word ‘Anathema’,” Valoris said, turning his head to g the still form of the Emperor. “But almost all of them had been proven to be shards of the Emperor's soul ag autonomously. He could appear as a child, an old man, a woman, a ghost, a spectre or anything else.

  “So.” Valoris turhe full weight of his attention ba Octavian. “Speak. I have yet to decide whether to sider this being a possible material maion of one of his soul-shards or if somehow a yet-unknown being has somehow earned from the Great Ehe very same title our Lord has.”

  “Uood,” Octavian said, then he began to speak. He spoke for hours, days perhaps as he started from the very first dream he received a ail out, not even his failings and the defeats.

  P3t1

  Patreon also has a 6.5k word long proper NSFW smut Interlewd chapter. It is titled 157.5 for those wanting to go and take a look.