With the last nearby Astartes dead with a final echoing scream, and Selene healed up to tip-top shape with a new armour — tendril included — covering 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 … oh right, I had two other companions.

 

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

 

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

 

‘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?’

 

‘Indeed. The good Magos was the one working 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 unable to receive any psychic messages. A fractured mind does that. Plus, the telepathic channels 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 wasteland planet, My Lady.’

 

‘We’ll be there in a minute.’

 

I sent an order to the Hunter Drone. It 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 assimilation 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 play Dante was going for was, but his sorry ass wasn’t worth risking empowering 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 single thought was all it would have taken to kill them all, well, aside from Mephiston.

 

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

 

“Oh,” he said. “Welcome. 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 spine straightened. “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 acting like some 18th-century butler. It was … well, fun. In a way. I’ll take it.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“I suppose,” he said, turning around and pointing down a hallway. “That direction should hold the rooms for officers. The commander’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 back into working order. He says the backup generators are still intact and 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 place while Selene is still resting.”

 

“Understood,” 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 connection 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 what? Pride? Ego? Battlelust? And while I fought, and almost died for those vain values, Selene got 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, controlling a swarm of lesser drones like the Hivemind. It wouldn’t have been as … exciting, but he would have died sooner or later.

 

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

 

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

 

As I laid Selene down on an intact bed and commanded her armour to retreat back into her choker, I grimaced again. Her body was pristine, but I could see it in far too many places, through bloody rips in her clothes and blackened burns.

 

I made her a set of silky clothing I wore for comfort 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 collapse down next to her bed. I took a deep, trembling breath as the fractures in my mind felt like an agonising combination 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 extended the timeframe of that by a third by my estimation.

 

“Fuck,” I whispered as I buried my face in 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 outrage, good condition. If she fought back, they must have paid dearly for taking her captive in such a good condition. 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 even set so they would heal perfectly, and along with the drugs, there were regenerative 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 plan was all like: ‘fuck this alien and everyone connected to her’.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Salvaging the situation. That was … well, I already did that in a way. Mephiston, Dante, and the Shadowkeeper’s template was more than the basic win condition I set for myself before coming 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 calculated risk. I thought I played my cards right. I didn’t think Dante was ballsy enough to fuck with me before Guilliman had his big blue feet on the planet.

 

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

 

Why do all of them have to be so damned xenophobic? That was the crux of it, I felt. He had the choice to amicably set up a meeting between me and Guilliman, but the moment he knew I wasn’t vital for holding off the Tyranids — since the whole damned Imperial fleet was on the way to relieve him —, he decided to be heavy-handed and try to control me.

 

Would they have treated me the same way had I been human? Could I have convinced them that I was a human? Maybe if I could resist being so bombastic with my entry, but … come 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 galaxy, wasn’t it? Even talking to a non-human only ever enters their minds once that non-human at the very least has shown themselves to be far too dangerous to kill.

 

Selene … Selene really was precious. A human that didn’t loathe the very idea of my existence. Not only that but one that could find it in herself to love me.

 

People who thought in ones and zeros didn’t count, nor did space elves who were high on my special warp-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 morning,” I said, grimacing at the tangible guilt in my voice.

 

“Huh,” said Selene. Her body relaxed at the sound of my voice and slowly slumped back into 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 porcupine. Though, if he doesn’t have some miracle healing trinket, he will be dead by now.”

 

“Porcupine?” she asked, slowly rolling on the bed and flopping off of it right next to me.

 

“A weird animal that used to live on earth,” I said. A moment later, 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 Dante thought with the fleet only a day or so out, it was imperative to make me compliant,” 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 misconception.”

 

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

 

“I should have,” I said. “But … I thought the situation might still be salvageable. We just need to 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 play these games with them, I don’t want to stand back and watch like some helpless civilian.”

 

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

 

“And then you came and rescued me, didn’t you?” she asked. “I was terrified, you know? I felt our psychic bond shatter and your little reality recoil, twist, and warp. It felt like the world was ending, and on top of that came the Space Marines kicking 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 can 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 enjoyed the 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 telling me that 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 power gives you.”

 

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

 

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

 

“Can I have it?” she breathed.

 

I smiled.

 

“Of course.”