In my fifth year as a prisoner of war, my memories were little more than shattered glass, scrubbed and rewritten by enemy neuro-scramblers. When the System finally rebooted in my head, I was squatting in the camp yard with a dozen other starving inmates, scraping gray slop from a rusted trough. “Host! Gideon Cole’s corruption index has hit ninety-eight percent. He is on the verge of triggering the Fourth Interstellar War. You are the only one who can stop him!” Gideon was my husband. Of course I wanted to go back. But I looked down at my emaciated wrists, then reached up to touch the jagged, hollow scar at the base of my neck. I gave a dry, inward shake of my head. “I don’t have a scent gland anymore. I can’t calm him down with pheromones. Besides, he’s moved on. He doesn’t love me anymore.” The System wailed in absolute panic: “You can! You have to! You’re the only one!” 1 What was I supposed to do? I scraped the last stringy bit of wild greens from the bottom of the tin bucket, sucked the grease from my dirty fingers, and lay back down on the cracked concrete floor. Five years ago, Tessa Ward had been top-tier—a rare, radiant Omega with a future and a gentle scent of sweet clover. Now, I was just Inmate 89757. A broken husk rotting in the mud. Saving the galaxy was far beyond my pay grade. In my mind, the System kept pitching desperate promises: “Host! If you just get close to him, if you wake up whatever conscience he has left, I can restore your appearance! I can even rebuild your scent gland!” I stared into a stagnant puddle beside my shoulder. The reflection staring back was horrifying: hair like brittle straw caked with grime, hollow cheeks smeared with grease, collarbones protruding like dry branches. My teeth were loose from years of scurvy. “Forget it,” I replied. I scooped a mouthful of murky water with my chipped tin bowl, swished it around my gums, and swallowed. “He’s the Supreme Marshal of the Coalition now. He’s surrounded by pristine, soft Omegas smelling like expensive perfume. What am I going to do, crawl up to him like a beggar just to be humiliated?” “Only your pheromones ever worked on his mental instability!” “I told you, the gland is gone. It was carved out. I don’t even remember what I used to smell like. Right now, I smell like sour mud and pig feed. If he caught a whiff of me, he’d vomit.” “He is going to incinerate entire star systems!” “Let him,” I muttered, tucking the tin bowl under my shirt against my bare ribs. It was my only worldly possession. If I fell asleep without guarding it, another inmate would bash my skull in to take it. “This universe has been rotten for a long time anyway.” The System wouldn’t let it go: “Host, this is a galactic crisis! Tell me what cheat codes you want—invulnerability, physical enhancement—I’ll authorize anything!” I let out a faint, dry scoff. Eight years ago, when it forced me into Gideon’s bed with electric shocks, it hadn’t spoken to me with anywhere near this level of deference. 2 Eight years ago, I was just an ordinary civilian who had barely stepped foot onto a college campus when the “Villain Redemption System” latched onto my spine. I asked why it chose me. Back then, the System didn’t bother answering. It simply set a timer in my skull and pulsed high-voltage current through my nervous system, forcing me onto a transport ship bound for the outer rim—a wasteland scrapyard planet where an eighteen-year-old Gideon Cole was surviving on scraps. I had soft hands back then. I was terrified of pain, terrified of dying. So I went looking for him in tears, offering to share half my ration packs. At the time, Gideon was an untouchable pariah, kicked into the dirt by every scavenger in the yard. His gaze was feral, shadowed, and dead. I was scared to death of him. But I was more scared of the System’s shocks. When the voltage surged from the base of my spine into my brainstem, it caused complete motor failure. Once, I lost control of my bladder right in front of him. Gideon crouched beside me in the rust and watched me for a long, quiet minute. Then, without a word, he unzipped his heavy canvas jacket and tied it around my waist. The jacket was filthy, stiff with engine oil and patched ten times over, but it hid the stain on my trousers. He stood up, dusted the rust from his knees, and walked away without looking back. I sat in the dirt and wept for half an hour. Then I wiped my face, chased after him, and handed him my ration pack for the next day, too. I later learned he had been on that scrap planet for thirteen years, since he was five years old, digging through the carcasses of downed battleships just to trade for nutrient paste. He didn't trust a soul. He didn't need anyone. The System’s directive was clear: Make Gideon Cole dependent on you. I thought it was impossible. But I went to him every single day. If I didn't go, I was shocked; after being shocked, I dragged myself back. I had nothing clever to say, so I just sat by the stripped hull of whatever freighter he was salvaging, chewing my hard biscuits. He worked with his wrench; I chewed in silence. One afternoon, I fell asleep leaning against a bulkhead. When I woke up, someone had propped a slab of corrugated metal over my head to shield me from the sulfur wind. It took three months of this before Gideon spoke a complete sentence to me. He stared down at me and asked, "What do you actually want from me?" I opened my mouth, nearly blurting out that a machine in my head was torturing me. In the end, I swallowed the truth and whispered, "I think you're handsome." It wasn't a lie. Gideon froze, his dark eyes locked on mine for an eternity. Then he turned on his heel and walked away. The next morning, he left a sealed canister of purified water by my boots. On a junk planet, clean water was worth more than human life. I held that canister against my chest, my throat aching with unshed tears. In my mind, the System chimed: “Affection +5! Host, keep up the good work!” I cursed the voice silently and drank the water. 3 After that, things moved quickly. Gideon was conscripted during the border mobilization. I followed him from the scrap wastes to the Coalition's forward military perimeter. He was born for war. Taking apart enemy squads came as naturally to him as stripping starship carburetors. Within two years, he rose from an infantry private to a major. I was registered as his dependent, working twelve-hour shifts in the field hospital changing bandages for the wounded. It wasn't an easy life, but at least we weren't eating hard biscuits in the dust anymore. Sometimes I felt a pang of regret about my abandoned medical degree. But then I looked at the triage ward and thought: wasn't the point of studying medicine to keep people alive? It felt like enough. 4 The day Gideon marked me, acid rain was dissolving the outer plating of the garrison. He had just pulled back from a catastrophic breach on the perimeter. His combat uniform was half-burned away, exposing raw, blistered flesh across his chest and shoulders. When I started yelling at him for throwing his life away, he grabbed my wrists, pinned me against the concrete wall, and sank his teeth straight into the scent gland at the nape of my neck. The pain turned my vision white. But the moment his dark, heavy Alpha pheromones flooded my system, my knees buckled. He caught me, burying his face in my hair. He smelled of burnt polymer and ozone, his entire body trembling with the aftershocks of battle. I asked him why he marked me so suddenly. He didn't answer. Later, I dragged the truth out of his adjutant: during that morning's vanguard assault, Gideon's entire squad had been wiped out. He was the only one who crawled out of the crater. I never brought it up again. If he didn't want to talk, I didn't ask. That was our rhythm. He fought on the line, and at night, he slept with his arms locked around me. I heated his rations, dressed his chemical burns, and shook him awake whenever the night terrors took over. The System's mission parameters had long been cleared. His affection rating was maxed out; his villain index was flatlined at zero. Yet I stayed. The System asked me why I wouldn't leave. “Get lost,” I told it. When it pressed, I told it I would find a way to rip it out of my brain. It finally shut up. The truth was simple: I loved Gideon Cole. I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it happened. Maybe it was the rusted sheet of metal blocking the wind, maybe it was the canister of clean water, or maybe it was the way his eyes searched for me first the second his boots touched the hangar floor. 5 The Third Interstellar War ignited the year Gideon made colonel. The air-raid sirens wailed seven or eight times a day. At first, people scrambled for the deep shelters. Eventually, when everyone realized the orbital plasma strikes penetrated the bunkers anyway, we stopped running. During those months, the System remained completely silent. Even an artificial intelligence seemed to recognize that face-to-face with absolute annihilation, metrics like "affection points" were a bad joke. Then high command issued the final breakout order. Gideon was appointed commander of the vanguard spearhead. It sounded like an honor; in reality, it was a suicide detail. His task was to punch directly into the enemy's main fleet to draw their fire, buying time for the evacuation transports carrying the political brass and core scientists to slip through the secondary jump gate. As a low-level military dependent, I wasn't on the passenger manifest. I never expected to be. 6 That night, the sirens were eerily quiet. The horizon glowed a dull, apocalyptic orange from distant atmospheric fires. The barracks door clicked open. Gideon stepped inside carrying the scent of cordite. He wasn't wearing his formal tunic, only a black combat tank top. He walked over to my cot without turning on the lamp. I sat there in the shadows, looking up at him. He had lost weight; his jawline was razor-sharp, his dark eyes threaded with burst capillaries. We stared at each other in the dim light for a long moment. Suddenly, he bent his knees and buried his face against my stomach. It was an awkward, desperate posture. He was too tall, his broad shoulders hunched rigidly, his short, coarse hair prickling against my thin shirt. His arms wrapped around my waist, locking so tight it bruised my ribs. "Tessa... I'm terrified," he whispered. I froze. I had never heard Gideon Cole use that word. To the brass and his men, he was an unfeeling, lethal machine. The System had once classified him as a predatory sociopath. Yet here he was, shaking like a child against my lap. I realized then that he was only twenty-one—younger than me. He had spent thirteen years crawling through trash heaps, clawed his way up through blood and fire, only to be handed a death warrant. Of course he was scared of dying. "Tessa," he choked out, his voice muffled against my clothes. "They refused my transfer request for you. They won't let you on the ships. I'm afraid... I'm terrified I can't protect you." Something inside my chest cracked open—raw, heavy, and aching. I raised my hands and cradled the back of his head. "Don't be scared, Gideon. I swear to you, I'll survive." He lifted his face slowly. "You don't hate me for being useless?" I reached around his neck, pulled him down, and kissed him. He stiffened, instinctively pulling back so he wouldn't crush me. But I didn't let go. That night, I climbed into his lap. And that night, I let him complete a permanent mating bond. Before that, he had only ever given me temporary marks. He used to say that in a war zone, if he died, a permanent bond would leave me an outcast—incapable of accepting another Alpha, suffering through fatal withdrawal agony. But he was marching into the slaughter. I needed him to understand: there was no one else. He had to stay alive to come back to me. 7 When I woke, Gideon was fully geared. He pressed his heavy silver dog tags into my palm and whispered, "Wait for me." I clutched those tags and waited in the sub-level bunker for seven days. On the eighth day, the garrison fell. The enemy breach teams found me, and they found the deep mating scar at the base of my neck. To an invading force, the bonded partner of a notorious Coalition vanguard commander was a prized trophy. The interrogators demanded to know the deployment coordinates of Gideon's surviving battlegroup. I told them I didn't know. They beat me until my ribs cracked. When they asked again, I gave the same answer. Eventually, they grew tired of asking. They strapped me down to a cold steel table and cut the scent gland from my neck. No anesthesia. When the scalpel severed the nerve cluster, I bit clean through my tongue. The taste of hot copper filled my mouth, but it couldn't drown out the agony. The moment the gland was torn free, the invisible tether linking my mind to Gideon snapped. The low hum in my blood went dead. The silence in my head was terrifying. I couldn't feel him anymore. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard the officer drop the bloody instrument into a metal tray with a sharp clatter. "I really don't understand what she was holding out for," the man said, wiping his fingers. "Word just came through from our forward scouts. Her Alpha abandoned this perimeter days ago and broke through with the high-command transport." A guard handed him a towel. "Sir, why leave her behind if he had clearance?" "Why do you think? Are you stupid?" The officer let out a contemptuous laugh. "He made brigadier general on the other side. Three different senate families are already lining up their purebred Omega daughters for him. You think an ambitious war hero wants a low-born stray with an unregistered bond dragging down his political career?" 8 The System had long vanished after fulfilling its protocol. Yet somehow, I stayed alive in the labor camp. I survived on a single, stubborn breath of something I couldn't name. Every day, I hauled debris with the other prisoners, fought for scraps of rotten broth, and slept on frozen concrete. When someone died, their body was dragged out at dawn, and a new prisoner took their cot by dusk. I held on like that for five years. Until today. I was chewing on a raw, frozen tuber when static crackled through my auditory cortex. For a second, I thought I had finally lost my mind, which felt like a relief—insanity meant no more remembering. Then the synthetic voice boomed: “Host! I’m back!” I swallowed the bitter pulp and said, “Get lost.” The System didn't leave. It began blaring updates about Gideon: his corruption rating was at 98.7% and climbing. It claimed he was mobilizing the entire Coalition armada against the neutral sectors, that a Fourth War would turn billions into ash. It babbled on, offering to unlock god-tier perks. “What good are perks?” I asked quietly. “When someone stops loving you, no cheat code will make them look at you twice.” Beside me, a prisoner missing an ear rolled over in the dirt. He dug grime from between his bare toes and sniffed his fingers. I turned my back to him, staring at the gray wall. “He’s the Supreme Marshal now. If I tried to get near him, his honor guard would shoot me into red mist.” “Don’t say that! He’s your husband! If you can’t reach him, no one can!” “Gideon announced his engagement a year ago. It was broadcast on every interstellar relay. You’re a supercomputer—didn’t you see the holovids?” There was a cracked, low-res monitor in the camp yard that occasionally played Coalition surrender terms. A year ago, standing in line for spoiled grain bread, I looked up. Gideon was standing at the top of the senate steps in a black ceremonial uniform. Beside him stood an Omega in white silk—fair skin, glossy hair, a delicate hand resting on his forearm. Gideon looked down at him. The resolution was terrible, so I couldn't see his eyes. But he didn't pull his arm away. That was all I needed to see. I took a bite of the sour bread that day. The sand in the flour ground hard against my molars, but it was fine. Gideon had made the sensible choice. Who would remember a rotting, broken corpse in a trench when they had a pristine life waiting for them? “That engagement was a political cover! He’s only ever cared about you!” the System shrieked. “Trust me, he’s about to glass three colonized planets!” “Then I definitely shouldn’t go,” I thought, closing my eyes. “I don’t want to get caught in the blast radius.” Suddenly, the perimeter sirens tore through the camp. My body reacted before my mind did, jerking upward. My spine struck the concrete wall, sending a dull ache through my ribs. All around me, crippled inmates scrambled to their feet—men with missing limbs, blind eyes, hollow bellies—all bowing their heads in practiced terror. Blinding spotlights swept across the yard from the main gates. I raised a dirty forearm to shield my eyes. The heavy chain-link fences were obliterated as armored personnel carriers smashed through the perimeter. Mud and black water sprayed into the air. Troopers in matte-black tactical armor swarmed the compound, their rifles raised, red laser sights painting the mud. "Down! Hands behind your heads! On your knees!" 9 I dropped instantly, pressing my forehead against my knees and locking my fingers behind my neck. When my dirty nails brushed the cratered scar on my nape, I flinched. The one-eared man beside me was shaking so violently his teeth clicked. "What's happening?" he whispered. "I don't know," I murmured. "Probably an execution detail." "I still have half a crust left in my pocket." I glanced at him sideways. "If they shoot you first, can I have it?" He muttered a curse under his breath. A pair of high-gloss combat boots stepped down from the lead vehicle into the mud. The camp director came sprinting across the yard, slipping in the slurry and dropping directly onto his knees before those boots. "M-Marshal Cole, Sir!" Even across enemy lines, raw military power demanded absolute subjugation. “Host! Host! It’s him! Your husband is here!” the System screamed in my ear. “Stand up! Run to him! Hug him!” I buried my face deeper into my knees, shifting slightly behind the one-eared man. Run to him? The twelve guards flanking him with heavy assault rifles would vaporize me before I took two steps, scraping my remains into the slop buckets. "The registry." The voice cut through the rain. I held my breath. I had lived with that low, rasping timbre for three years; I would recognize it through a planetary bombardment. Gideon was standing less than sixty feet away. The director scrambled with a datapad. "Right here, Sir! The third transfer batch of laborers and prisoners—four hundred and twenty-one total. All accounted for." The yard was dead silent except for the low idle of the armored carriers. "Four hundred and twenty-one," Gideon repeated flatly. "Yes, Sir. Two died of infection last week—cremated immediately. We haven't purged them from the central ledger yet—" "Purged?" Gideon stepped forward, his voice dropping to absolute zero. "Who gave you permission to purge anyone?" Crack. A single shot echoed. The director collapsed into the mud with a strangled gasp. Through the gaps in my tangled hair, I saw the director's wide, unseeing eyes staring directly toward my patch of ground. My breath hitched. “Go now!” the System urged. “Just say ‘Gideon, it’s me,’ and he’ll drop his weapon and hold you!” “Shut up,” I snapped internally. “He’s executing people. I’m not trying to die today.” Gideon didn't look at the corpse. He turned slowly, his gaze sweeping over the hundreds of shivering figures kneeling in the muck. I pressed my forehead flat against my knees. "Line them up," Gideon ordered his lieutenant. Soldiers shoved through the crowd, slamming rifle butts into our shoulders, herding us into rough, trembling rows. Gideon started from the front, walking down the line. "Look up." A prisoner raised his head in terror. Gideon glanced at him and moved to the next. "Look up." My heart began to hammer against my ribs like a trapped bird. He was looking for someone. Who? Certainly not me. Perhaps an allied officer, or an undercover asset who had been captured. 10 “Host, he’s coming! Five yards! Three yards!” The heavy footsteps slowed in the mud. The one-eared inmate was on my left. Gideon stopped before him. "Look up." The man snapped his head back, his facial muscles twitching in spasms of fear. Gideon paused for a second, then took one step to the right. The black boots entered my field of vision. "Look up." I didn't move. My neck felt like lead. At that exact moment, the phantom itch flared in my severed scent gland. I wanted to scratch it, but with rifles pointed at my back, I kept my hands locked behind my head. "I said, look up." A soldier stepped forward, his heavy palm striking the back of my skull. "The Marshal gave an order! Are you deaf?!" The blow landed directly on the jagged scar tissue. A sharp, nauseating pain shot down my spine. I lost my balance and tumbled sideways into the freezing sludge. "Defiant piece of trash," the guard spat, unholstering a shock baton. "Stand down!" Gideon's arm shot out, catching the baton mid-swing. The guard went pale, immediately stepping back into a rigid salute. Gideon slowly crouched down in the mud. His gloved hand reached out, fingers closing firmly around my chin, forcing my face upward. My greasy, matted hair fell away from my cheeks. I opened my eyes. His face hadn't changed much in five years, except the shadows beneath his cheekbones were deeper, his gaze colder than space. I blinked through the rain. His fingers tightened around my jawbone until it popped, the pressure making me wince. "Name." I parted my cracked lips. My loose teeth knocked together. "Eight-nine-seven-five-seven." His hand froze. His pupils dilated, his gaze locking onto my face—tracing my eyes, the bridge of my nose, down to the corner of my mouth where a rat had bitten me two winters ago. “Are you insane?!” the System screamed. “Tell him you’re Tessa! Why are you giving him a prisoner number?!” “He doesn’t recognize me,” I thought dull-eyed. “I don’t even recognize this face in the water.” I looked at him and rasped, "Officer... Inmate 89757. I haven't had dinner today." If this was the firing squad, my only wish was a piece of bread first. Gideon's breath hitched. He abruptly let go of my jaw, and I slumped back into the mud. He stood up, turning his back to me. "Adjutant." "Sir!" "Take her." The adjutant stepped forward to haul me up. Before the officer could lay a finger on my rags, Gideon let out a vicious curse: "Goddammit." He spun back around, shoved his aide aside, and scooped me up into his arms. His jaw was clenched so hard the muscles jumped. "I owe you everything, don't I?" “See?!” the System cheered. “He knows it’s you! He’s taking you home!” I rested my dirty forehead against his shoulder and sighed. “He’s probably taking me to an interrogation cell to harvest my retinas.” “Do you have anything in your brain besides paranoia?!” “A crust of bread.” The System: “...”
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