Another two days passed spent in isotion and boredom without any word from Eve, until finally there was a knock on the door to our quarters.

  I opened the door to see Eve in the containment cell, surrounded by an envoy of half a dozen power armor soldiers.

  “Special delivery!” Eve cheered, smiling brilliantly.

  Eve was back in her normal true form, the more human one; instead of a full head of tentacles she had long, messy bck hair framed by six long bck tentacles to the side or back of her head. Her face looked basically human, with completely white skin, bck lips, and dark skin framing around her bright yellow eyes in a way that looked like heavy goth makeup. Her face was adorable, and a stark contrast to her outrageous body; she had massive boobs, a tiny waist, with wide hips and a giant firm ass to match—looking like some cssic cartoon pinup girl, impossibly enticing and wildly sexy. She was about a foot shorter than me as usual, which further disarmed her appearance, made her look all cute and harmless.

  Same as when I st saw her, she was wearing that organic bck flesh suit that was made to look like some goth princess gown, all tight up top with frills surrounding a plunging neckline that continued to hug her crazy figure until it fred out in elegant waves as a fancy dress.

  The power armor soldier beside the cell pressed a button to deactivate the repulser shielding, freeing Eve, “We release her into your custody.” He confirmed.

  Eve lunged into my arms and started assailing me with kisses, smming the door shut behind her without a second gnce.

  “I missed you—I missed you I missed you I missed you!” Eve announced between kisses.

  “Evie, sweet-thing, I missed you—” My words were cut off as her assault continued, and she jumped up into my arms and wrapped her legs around me, pushing me back towards the couch.

  Once I backed up against the couch, Eve leaned forward with another violent kiss, sending us both tumbling down, with her staying on top of me.

  “I love you darling, I love you so much—”

  I pushed Eve up and put my hand on her mouth to stop her assault, “Holy shit Eve, give me a second to catch my breath.”

  Eve trilled a cute little giggle, then situated herself so she was more comfortably straddling me, but refused to let me up, “Sorry darling, just excited to be back with you.”

  I nodded along, “I can see that.” I gestured vaguely towards the door, “You want to tell me how the meeting went?”

  Eve narrowed her eyes at me as a low growl rumbled in her throat, “Why worry about that now? We can talk ter.” She said, trailing her delicate, sharp bck nails along my chest and down to my waistband.

  I grabbed Eve’s hand quickly, “Because, I’ll be distracted thinking about all that anxiety-inducing shit if we don’t get it out of the way now; we can py around ter.”

  Eve glowered at me for a few more seconds, but then she just sighed and her face rexed to neutrality, “Very well, what do you want to know?”

  I tried sitting up, but Eve kept me pinned, “What all happened while you were gone? What exactly did the Lord Generals want?”

  Eve rolled her eyes and finally got off me, moving to lie down on the couch, but kept her legs in my p as I sat up beside her.

  “Well first, they didn’t even see me right away; they kept me contained in the cell for a full day before they could be bothered to have an audience with me.” Eve told me.

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “What, seriously? You think it was a power py or some shit?”

  Eve shrugged, “Don’t see why it would be; they hold all the power right now.”

  “Fair point.”

  Eve let out a frustrated sigh, “Once the meeting started, they went over every little detail on everything that happened during the mission—everything.” She looked up at me, “Bmed me for our ship getting shot down while we were still in orbit you know.”

  My eyebrows shot up, “You serious?”

  Eve nodded, “Yep, said I should’ve known to be camoufged from the start.”

  I threw my hands up in a frustrated gesture, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!”

  “Which of course means they bmed me for Seash and his team executing those soldiers, said it wouldn’t have happened at all if I hadn’t broken protocol and remained camoufged and hidden.”

  “You can’t be—they can’t be—”

  “They can and they do.” Eve confirmed, “And from that point they counted off every breach in protocol during the mission, including meeting with Melna and Almana, and then of course when we fought in the tunnels together—you know, to save all their sorry asses.”

  My jaw dropped but I couldn’t summon any words at that point.

  “Here’s the kicker; after the debriefing, they held a disciplinary meeting with me for all those breaches in protocol, had to record them in my personnel file or some nonsense.” She said.

  “Disciplinary? What the fuck else could they even do to discipline you at this point—chop your head off and keep you in some new inhibitor field headless!?” I demanded.

  Eve smirked, but she didn’t really seem amused, “That’s what I said, asked what the point to it all was, and they assured me they needed to keep track of my ‘behavioral trends’ and how well I was obeying our commanders.”

  “So, what, it was just like a written warning?” I asked.

  Eve shrugged, “Basically.”

  I groaned in frustration, “Then are they saying the Vyrane mission was another failure, same as the Holistia Nebu?”

  Eve held up a finger, “Funnily enough, no, they consider it a success—especially compared to the colteral damage suffered back in the Holistia Nebu. They said once I got to the capital I followed protocol perfectly—we followed protocol actually; I fought the enemy Predazoan alone with my handler nearby, and I followed along with your orders and everything.”

  I rubbed at my eyes in a frustrated gesture, “At least there’s that.” I looked over at Eve, “So why wasn’t I at the debriefing at all? They give a reason?”

  Eve tilted her head back and forth, “It took a little persistence, but I was basically able to grasp their overall reasoning; they’re testing the waters, trying to see how cooperative I could be without you.”

  I fixed her with a ft look, “You’ve gotta be—already they’re trying to get rid of me?”

  Eve nodded once, “They’ve been trying to get rid of you since they took over, but until their threat assessments show I can be controlled without you, they’ll continue with these stupid little tests.”

  I couldn’t believe the Lord Generals were being so bold; we were just court martialed a couple cycles ago where they determined Eve couldn’t be controlled without me, and they were already pulling shit like this, trying to slowly edge me out of the picture.

  “What did you say when you figured that out?” I inquired.

  Eve shrugged, “Nothing; why bother threatening them when I’ve already made myself very clear on the subject? They know I’ll kill them all if they try to send you back to Earth without me, no way their threat assessments say otherwise.”

  “Shit…” I pinched the bridge of my nose with two fingers, “Anything else?”

  “They asked about your physical enhancements, some test results came in ter and they wanted to go over them with me—what all I did, why, that kind of nonsense.” Eve said.

  “What did you tell them?”

  Eve looked up at me, “That you and your safety are my number one priority over everything else, and I wanted to make sure you’d be safe while we’re on these dangerous missions.”

  “They buy it?”

  Eve waved my words off, “It’s the truth isn’t it?”

  Part of it, sure; the other half was to give me power in case we ever needed to fight the Empire too for the sake of our freedom.

  I shook my head slowly, “Damn, this is all so weird. You know I heard they didn’t see anyone else from our mission—not Seash or Kotlokk or anything. Wonder why they wanted to talk to you directly.”

  Eve gestured to herself dramatically, “I’m the Predazoan asset, the only hope they have for the success of this mission. Apparently, they’ve properly restructured the commanders for the mission with handpicked crewmembers aboard The Judicator—from all over the Empire even. They’re trying to separate themselves from the day-to-day operations, only work at the highest level of the command structure I guess.”

  I smirked at her, “Only the important things, right?”

  Eve smiled back at me, “I am pretty important, yes.”

  Eve grabbed my hand on her legs and intertwined our fingers, gently pying with my fingers with her other hand.

  “They say anything about Kotlokk and his offer to the vyranes?” I asked.

  “I figured you’d ask; apparently, the offer he presented was genuine and something the Lord Generals were actually working to implement to help contain our secret as the Predazoans spread to more worlds. While I can’t say anything is set in stone, I doubt they’ll be sending assassins in the night to silence the vyranes like you feared.” Eve expined.

  I let out a sigh of relief, “That’s good at least.”

  Eve narrowed her eyes at me, “Yes, your little vyrane girlfriend is safe for now.” She said venomously.

  I pulled my hand away from Eve then, “Evie, we need to talk about that night.” I said carefully.

  Eve’s gre continued, “Do we?”

  I met Eve’s harsh gaze, “I mean really, what the hell were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that rancid little whore should’ve stayed away from what belongs to me.” Eve nearly hissed.

  I sighed and shook my head, “Eve, you really can’t do shit like that. Listen, if you want—”

  “No, you listen!” Eve got up from the couch and turned on me so fast I couldn’t even react, holding her hand on my chest and pressing me into the couch, her face just inches from mine, yellow eyes burning into me, “How dare you defend her? You think I give a shit about any of those lower lifeforms? It’s you and I forever, and you best understand those people will be dead and gone in a blink, so why allow them to drive a wedge between us?”

  I tried to stand up, but Eve held me down, “A wedge? Eve, you can’t just go around torturing people! You want to be human don’t you? You can’t go around sacrificing your humanity anytime—”

  Eve snarled, her fangs lengthening before me, “I don’t have any humanity, not as you understand it anyways, and you need to realize you won’t retain your humanity either in a few thousand years, so you need to learn where to draw your line in the sand, and it better not be around some cunt who tries to get you away from me.”

  I felt a hot fsh of defiance in my chest, my resistant human spirit, “I will always be a human, Eve, no matter what happens or how I might evolve, that part of my soul will never die.”

  Eve barked out a bitter ugh and took a step away from me, “So this is when you finally stand up for yourself? Against me? The whole Empire is trying to contain us, and your strategy is to just follow orders to show ourselves compliant and hope beyond hope they’ll free us for our good behavior.”

  I stood up quickly, “Don’t change the subject, this isn’t about that right now, this is about your unnecessary cruelty against someone I called a friend.”

  “Friend?” Eve stepped closer to me, lips peeled back to show her angry fangs, “Is that the kind of friend you want, some bitch who only got close to you with the hopes she might get to fuck you?”

  I threw my hands in the air in a frustrated gesture, “So what, you don’t trust me? You think I would ever want anyone besides you? I would think you of all people should know what kind of power you have over me.”

  Eve shook her head, “It isn’t about trust or our bond, I don’t want you around any of those women—you belong to me.”

  I sshed a hand through the air, “As what, a possession?” I crossed my arms and gred at Eve, “You didn’t just hurt Almana that night, you know? You hurt me too.”

  Eve let out a shrill scoff, “How? By giving you all kinds of pleasure, doting on you and loving you over and over that night?”

  “Eve, I didn’t give you permission for any of that back then; I didn’t want to do all that in front of Almana, so technically that was abuse.” I insisted.

  Eve’s face turned harsh as she snarled again, with that eerie hiss echoing behind it. Suddenly, Eve manifested bck tentacles from her back and shoulder and wrapped them around me before I could react, then smmed me into the far wall, knocking the wind out of me.

  “Then I will abuse you again and again until you learn the depths of my love for you.” Eve said coldly, walking towards me as her organic princess gown melted away.

  I tried to struggle, to pull away, but Eve was a million times stronger than me, and her hold on me now was inescapable.

  “Eve, I don’t want this, I’m not giving you my permission or consent or—”

  Eve walked over and leaned up to kiss me, furiously, almost violently, plunging her tongue deep into my mouth, massaging my tongue and coiling around it in ways that wouldn’t be possible for anyone else.

  ~So be it, I’ll take you by force—abuse you if that’s what you think this is~ Eve hummed in my inner-ear as she kissed me desperately, eyes burning with lust and fury.

  It had been a long time since I felt this way with Eve, but the first trickling of fear gripped my chest, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as if I was in terrible danger.

  Eve pulled away then, her long tongue trailing out of my mouth slowly, eyes shimmering with the fearsome obsession she had for me.

  “Resist me and I’ll love you, fight me and I’ll love you, hurt me or hate me, and I will love you still.” Eve tilted her head to the side, and in that moment she seemed incredibly alien, predatory even, “For how much you say you love me, you still have absolutely no idea the depths of my devotion to you—all for you, my one and only, my forever.”

  It was a long time coming, but after being with Eve for over a year, I started to realize even after accepting her advances, even after our decrations of love, even after fully submitting to her, I was still in danger.

  Eve said a long time ago before all of this she would give me a choice, and while I found it to be a rather limited choice—choose her or no one, I was starting to think that choice had been an illusion all along.

  Eve manifested a few more tentacles to wrap around me and brace herself where she stood, hanging onto the walls and ceiling even. She leaned in close, eyes only inches from mine, lips trailing just out of reach from my skin.

  “I love you Adam, like no one ever will—like no one else can.” She said softly, sounding sweet and seductive, but hiding a hint of violence, “Now let me prove it to you.”