Chapter 53 #2
That part of my brain that had a little bit of an evil type of humor decided it was time to throw some chaos her way. The truth, laid out plainly, was like a sledgehammer.
"Because I'm his baby momma and his fated mate dick tentacles chose me," I said, unable to keep a smile from quirking the corners of my mouth.
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish.
Oh, now I needed to make my escape before she really freaked out.
"Right, this is taking too long. I'm really sorry that you're in a fragile state, and I absolutely know what kind of condition you are in and all that, but I don't want to relive all that by being empathetic and comforting to you, so you're going to have to do this on your own, but with much better medical care.
" I turned away from her. "One of you takes care of this human.
Treat her like a valued guest, and have a medical look over her.
Take her back to Earth once she wants to go. "
One of the soldiers immediately broke off from the group like an eager beaver headed for the woman.
She looked at him, her eyes so wide the whites could light up the room.
"I should probably go back," she said.
Right, I should probably give her a fair warning on that one, too.
"Just to give you some better context on the going back to Earth thing, there might be riots or something on Earth in a short while," I said.
"I'm going to do some first contact craziness, and then I'm going to blow up a bunch of buildings and things like that.
It frankly would be safer to stay here for a bit, and then you can go back down whenever you want.
Do what you want. You are safe here, and if you need a place to crash, I got you for as long as you want. "
I didn't know her, but this was a big ship, and making that offer felt like I was finally discharging my debt, the unfair debt I had placed on myself for not having at least tried to stop him when he hurt me.
There was one more thing I could offer her.
"If you want, you can, like, stab him or desecrate his corpse if you like," I said. "And just in case you are confused about morals or whatever, don't attack me or these cat boys will absolutely pown you."
I handed her one of the extra knives I had stashed in my new boots, custom-made on the trip to Earth, complete with a beautiful little knife holder.
I turned away from her.
"Cat boys?" the ginger soldier next to her said.
Funny they would be confused about that and not pown.
I wondered if their translator could handle slang or not.
I shrugged.
I had a task I needed to accomplish.
I absolutely could have taken the time and given that woman a hug and a cup of tea and done all the kumbaya stuff, but I knew that if I paused in my mission, if I stepped aside to take a minute to comfort and coddle another person, I wouldn't be able to do it.
She could take care of herself.
"I don't want to leave," she said behind me.
"Then stay," I tossed back at her, waving my hand at the soldier who was now looming next to her. "But I don't think you're going to like what you see."
I walked back across the room to the kneeling prisoner, not giving the woman another thought. She deserved to be here and witness this just as much as I did. I wasn't going to take it from her, even if this was something that was better done without a witness.
I'd also considered broadcasting this to the entire world with a whole “buwahahaha I'm your ruler, I'm coming for you rapist shit bags” message, but I had dropped that manic idea in the trash.
I didn’t need to rush into things while my head was in this space.
I would instead proceed with the little to no witness plan. It would be easier to do that anyway if I wasn't trying to convince an audience that I was right and that they should support me in my bloodthirstiness.
I definitely didn't want to give the angry they-don't-have-the-basic-social-skills-to-get-their-dicks-wet male population of Earth any advanced notice that I was going to really fuck some shit up.
They were probably going to launch enough space marines at the ship as it was.
I hesitated.
I was going to have to figure out how to deal with prisoners of war who legitimately would think they were defending the planet. There was no way the larger governments on the planet would sit by and just let me do what I needed to do.
I was going to need a hard core social media campaign.
I needed to get the general population on my side as much as possible.
If they liked what I was doing, it would be harder for the governments to oppose me.
Even though most of the governments had tight control over their populations, there was still something to be said about popular opinion and the threat of the masses.
The goal of any of the rulers on Earth was to keep their populations afraid and willing to submit to control.
I was going to have to combat that fear and balance it out with positives.
Or I could just blast everything that needed to go to shit and then leave.
Oh, this was going to be a lot of work.
I brought my focus back to the present moment, pleasantly surprised that I had gotten so lost in the huge project in front of me that I had forgotten about my own personal revenge moment. It was like Bryan didn't even matter.
He didn't matter.
It didn't matter if I killed him or let him go.
Not to me anyway.
Zale watched me from across the room. I could feel the warmth of his gaze like a weighted blanket across my entire body.
His support was silent and steady. I felt safe.
It was the type of relationship, the way of feeling while in a relationship, that I’d always wanted, but had long ago thought I could never have.
I had gotten to the point where I’d thought that it was a myth.
That love was something that other people pretended to have.
But this, here and now, was the real thing.
This man, this powerful, loving, possessive, protective alien of a man, was waiting quietly there for me, but not interfering. He was supporting me. He was happy to stand back and watch me accomplish this goal, but he made sure that it was a goal that was within my reach.
He lifted me up and supported my dreams.
Even when they involved murder.
If I wanted him to, he would do this for me.
But this was something that I needed to do for myself, but also for more than myself.
This wasn't entirely about what my actions meant to society.
This was about what my actions meant to me.
It was about what it meant I was willing to do to my enemies. It was about what I was willing to do with power. But even with the weight of all that - I did need to do this for myself.
I needed to do this to become the kind of woman I needed to be to get things done. It was time to be done spending years avoiding my problems.
If I couldn't seize justice for myself, how could I ever think to take care of a planet?
It was time to follow the fuck through.
I took a deep breath and turned to Bryan.
"Right," I said. "Bryan."
He made a terrified sound, his jaw clenched tight.
For a moment, I couldn't figure out how they had gagged him. Then I realized there was a small device attached to his cheek. For a moment, I considered removing it.
That moment passed quickly.
I didn't need to hear anything this piece of shit had to say.
I pulled the knife out of the sheathe I had strapped to my leg.
Bryan made another muffled noise.
I had spent a lot of time thinking through how I wanted to do this.
The airlock and a gun were perfectly valid options, but I had asked my mate what was the normal choice for his species.
If I was going to be the Empress of his people, I wanted to make sure that I followed their customs as much as possible.
I already knew I would shake things up enough as it was.
Even so, their custom involved a great deal of ceremony, and I could only do so much.
I gripped the knife tightly in my hand and walked over to Bryan.
"Bryan, I'm going to execute you now," I said. "You already know why."
He let out a scream as he tried to get away from me, his eyes wide enough to show the whites of them.
I didn't draw it out.
I put the tip of the knife against his chest.
Before I could push, he lunged to the side, knocking the knife from my hand as he fell to the floor.
For a moment, I felt utter disgust looking at him there, helpless and bound.
This was what he had done to me. He had rendered me helpless, unable to fight back, unable to even recall what he had done, so that when I tried to talk about it, all I felt was fear and helplessness.
If I did it this way, I would be the same as him.
I picked up the knife.
"Release his bonds," I commanded.
No one contradicted me. No one argued that I should do this a different way. My mate didn't say anything from the doorway.
The soldiers quickly untied him, removing the electronic gag and stepping back.
It was just me with a knife and the man I was going to kill.
As well as four trained gargantuan alien soldiers and a man who had given me my enemies' heads in a box. I may have given the man the pretense of a chance, but he had no chance to actually hurt me without them stepping in to stop him.
I just really didn't want to do this with him tied up and helpless.
"You crazy bitch!" Bryan gasped out as he struggled to his feet.
I should have been more specific with the guards and told them only to remove the bonds on his feet and hands, not the one gagging him.
He really didn't deserve these last words.
"I didn't do anything to you! You're a goddamn liar!
You're just some insane bitch who was obsessed with me and couldn't handle the fact that all I wanted was someone else. "
That old familiar hesitation flashed over me.