With the st nearby Astartes dead with a final eg scream, and Selene healed up to tip-top shape with a new armour — tendril included — c her, I could breathe a sigh of relief.

  No other living human or transhuman was within range of my senses, but I had no doubt they would be swarming this cavern in no time. Or maybe not. There were still Tyranids at their gates and without … ht, I had two other panions.

  ‘Valenith?’ I sent the transmission once I mended his telepathic el, too.

  ‘My Lady? Are you unharmed?’ he sounded frantic, ed.

  ‘I am a bit battered, but I am healthy. What’s up with you two?’

  ‘Don’t care about us. The Astartes betrayed us and attacked Lady Selene!’

  ‘I know.’ Well, someone was turning out to be rather devoted. That was good. ‘I have her. Did you two escape?’

  ‘Ihe good Magos was the one w the transmitters when the order for your capture came in. He alerted me and I was able to extract him in quick order.’

  ‘Good,’ I sent. For a moment annoyance gripped me about them not alerting me about the capture order, but I realised I was not only under a null-field for most of the fight but also uo receive any psychic messages. A fractured mind does that. Plus, the telepathic els were barely existent before I repaired them. ‘Are you two in a safe location?’

  Still, even if they couldn’t alert me, they could have helped Selene escape. That fuckwit Val should be just as capable of Blinking into her room and away with her as I was.

  ‘We settled into an abandoned fortress in some ruined city. It is about as defensible as you get on this wastend p, My Lady.’

  ‘We’ll be there in a minute.’

  I sent an order to the Hunter Dro was to stalk this cave, absolve the tendril inside of it, and make as much of a nuisance of itself as possible. Then explode if it was under any threat of capture or assimition into a bio-pool.

  Giving the Tyranids a free super upgrade like it was still a huge no-no. I didn’t know what the py Dante was going for was, but his sorry ass wasn’t worth risking emp one of the endgame threats.

  I could have killed him. I thought. He was in my grasp, held still under my psychic might, along with all of his top soldiers. A sihought was all it would have taken to kill them all, well, aside from Mephiston.

  I Blinked. Appearing behind Val, causing him to whirl oh lightning hissing to life between his fingers.

  “Oh,” he said. “Wele. My Lady.”

  “What’s up with this ‘My Lady’ bullshit?” I asked though the edge of my lips quirked upward.

  “I thought it appropriate,” he said as his spiraightened. “You have given me enough to warrant my service till the end of my days, or even beyond if you so wish. It is only proper for me to refer to you in such a way.”

  Great, I have an Eldar ag like some 18th-tury butler. It was … well, fun. In a way. I’ll take it.

  “I wao ask,” I narrowed my eyes at him and watched in amusement as his face sched up in … fear? “How e you rescued that coghead, but not Selene?”

  His eyes went wide and down at Selene’s unscious body in my arms. “I- I didn’t know she was in need of resg- I thought she was,” he gulped. “With you, My Lady.”

  I stared at him for a sed longer, but I could tell he was truthful and truly regretful. Though the regret seemed to stem from something other thaing harm befall Selene. Whatever. Not now.

  “Is there a room with an intact bed in this dump?” I asked.

  “I suppose,” he said, turning around and pointing down a hallway. “That dire should hold the rooms for officers. The ander’s rooms are trashed, so those are the best we have.”

  “Good,” I said. “Do you or … where is Zedev?”

  “He is attempting to get the electric grid bat order. He says the backup geors are still intad should be easy enough to get to work.”

  “Tell him to make sure it doesn’t transmit our location,” I said. “I don’t know what Dante will do, but I don’t want them swarming this pce while Selene is still resting.”

  “Uood,” he said. “I’ll set up wards and such. We might be quite far away, but I think their Librarian might sniff us out if we don’t take precautions.”

  “You do that,” I said. “Do you need anything else? Healing?”

  “My e to your realm is all the help I need, My Lady.”

  I nodded and walked off, still holding Selene in my arms like some sleeping princess. Well, that’s what she was to me. Though the princesses usually don’t get beaten up.

  My heart twisted in shame. I ran off to fight because of ride? Ego? Battlelust? And while I fought, and almost died for those vain values, Sele drugged and locked in a dreary cell.

  I should have stayed with her, ran off maybe, or sent drones until that fucker ran out of steam. Custodes did die in lore, and not just from some super-powerful foe. They could be overwhelmed.

  I should have fought like that. From far away, trolling a swarm of lesser drones like the Hivemind. It wouldn’t have been as … exg, but he would have died sooner or ter.

  I could have run even when I felt my toxins take hold of him. He was a dead man walking, but I just went ba like a jackass.

  If I won faster or ran away when my battle was already won, could I have been ba time to protect her?

  As I id Selene down on an intact bed and anded her armour to retreat bato her choker, I grimaced again. Her body ristine, but I could see it in far too many pces, through bloody rips in her clothes and bed burns.

  I made her a set of silky clothing I wore for fort a while back, and only when it was on her did I slowly peel off the ruined pieces of her previous clothes.

  Only then did I colpse dowo her bed. I took a deep, trembling breath as the fractures in my mi like an agonising bination of icy pikes pushing into my brain and liquid fire flowing through it.

  I was far from well enough yet to exert my psychic muscles so much. At least they weren’t torn, if that was even possible for mental muscles. They would heal, but I just extehe timeframe of that by a third by my estimation.

  “Fuck,” I whispered as I buried my fa my palms.

  I had half a mind to rip them apart, but now that I knew everyone was alright and an ambush didn’t loom over my head like a sword of Damocles, I could think more clearly.

  Selene was in a, well, despite my e, good dition. If she fought back, they must have paid dearly for taking her captive in such a good dition. None of her wounds were even close to life-threatening.

  Bruises, light burns, some cracked and broken bones here and there, but nothing that would kill her. Thinking back, her broken bones were eve so they would heal perfectly, and along with the drugs, there were regeive agents that Astartes use to speed up their natural healing.

  They made sure to keep her as intact as possible while detaining her.

  That was not something someone would do whose pn was all like: ‘fuck this alien and everyone ected to her’.

  Dante wanted a bargaining chip, or quite probably something to make me cooperate. They wanted me pliant. They didn’t think they could take me otherwise. Well, they were fug right. Not even that Shadowkeeper could take me.

  He came close, though. That fight was … dangerous. I khey had fancy toys, but those things were nasty as hell. And more of them seem to be ing.

  If I want to salvage anything from this situation, I o do it before those fuckers learn I am here.

  Salvaging the situation. That was … well, I already did that in a way. Mephiston, Dante, and the Shadowkeeper’s tempte was more than the basi dition I set for myself before ing to Baal.

  Still, there was so much more I could fleece out of Guilliman at virtually no cost.

  My greed was festering again, but … this could be a calcuted risk. I thought I pyed my cards right. I didn’t think Dante was ballsy enough to fuck with me befuilliman had his big blue feet on the p.

  I thought I showed just enough strength to dissuade somethily like this from happening.

  Why do all of them have to be so damned xenophobibsp;That was the crux of it, I felt. He had the choiicably set up a meetiween me and Guilliman, but the moment he knew I wasn’t vital for holding off the Tyranids — sihe whole damned Imperial fleet was on the way to relieve him —, he decided to be heavy-handed and try to trol me.

  Would they have treated me the same way had I been human? Could I have vihem that I was a human? Maybe if I could resist being so bombastic with my entry, but … e on. I saved his miserable life. The least he could do was not to kidnap my lover.

  This was just how humans worked in this gaxy, wasn’t it? Even talking to a non-human only ever eheir minds ohat non-human at the very least has shown themselves to be far too dangerous to kill.

  Selene … Selene really recious. A human that didn’t loathe the very idea of my existenot only that but ohat could find it in herself to love me.

  People who thought in ones and zeros didn’t t, nor did space elves who were high on my special -juice.

  She stirred. I felt her mind slowly go from slumbering to half-wakeful and to waking. Then, I could tell the very moment her eyes slowly cracked open even as I remained with my back resting against the side of her bed.

  She snapped up, hands propping her body halfway to a crouch. Her entire being was coiled like a spring and her aura was dripping with wariness.

  “Good m,” I said, grimag at the tangible guilt in my voice.

  “Huh,” said Selene. Her body rexed at the sound of my void slowly slumped bato the bed. “You seem alright, are you alright?”

  “Mostly,” I murmured. “Some things will take a while to heal.”

  “Did you get him?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “He ran off looking like a pore. Though, if he doesn’t have some miracle healing tri, he will be dead by now.”

  “Pore?” she asked, slowly rolling on the bed and flopping off of it right o me.

  “A weird animal that used to live oh,” I said. A moment ter, an illusory replica of the animal was running around the room, only stopping to hiss at us and bristle its spikes. They call those spikes, right?

  “It’s kinda cute,” she noted.

  “It is,” I nodded.

  “Soooooo,” she said, drawing out the word as her gaze pierced the side of my face. “Last thing I remember is … getting held down and … they drugged me, didn’t they? What happened?”

  “It seems Dahought with the fleet only a day or so out, it was imperative to make me pliant,” I said with a scowl. “Kidnapping you was the only way they could do that, though I’m sure they thought they could take me if need be. Hopefully, I rectified that misception.”

  “Did you kill them?” she asked, eerily calm for someone who was debating whether being in a retionship was heresy just a week ago.

  “I should have,” I said. “But … I thought the situation might still be salvageable. We just o be much more careful, only meeting through illusions and drones … “

  “You won’t take away my armour this time,” she said as her hand grasped my own. “I would have butchered them if my armour could still heal me. If you are to py these games with them, I don’t want to stand bad watch like some helpless civilian.”

  “Of course,” I nodded easily. Then I took a deep breath a out. “I’m sorry, Selene. I … went out to fight aloo satisfy my ego, or pride, or whatever and I left you in that of snakes basically naked.”

  “And then you came and rescued me, didn’t you?” she asked. “I was terrified, you know? I felt our psychid shatter and your little reality recoil, twist, and . It felt like the world was ending, and on top of that came the Space Marines kig down the door.”

  “I’m sorry,” I hung my head.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “Do better. You are alive, I am alive, and both of us are mostly healthy. All we do is to not repeat mistakes.”

  “Damn, that’s deep.”

  “Serving in the Guard was good for something,” she said.

  We sat in silence for a few moments. I released a frown I didn’t know I was holding and just ehe warmth of her body pressing into the side of my own.

  “I want to be powerful,” she said as her grasp tightened on my hand. “I want this nagging worry in my head tellihat I am weak, that I am just a statistic, that I am just a simple human to finally go away. I want the freedom that pives you.”

  “You merely o ask,” I said, slowly tilting my head towards her. “I give you a body like my own. All you ever o do was ask.”

  She arched her neck, her steel-grey eyes narrowed at me challengingly.

  “ I have it?” she breathed.

  I smiled.

  “Of course.”

  P3t1