Someone was listening

Nyxeris closed the audio feed. She slumped back in her desk chair.

Liara may think she’s gotten rid of all the bugs monitoring her, but working in the Thessia corporate world taught me a few tricks she still hasn’t anticipated. Well, now I know why the Shadow Broker is so interested in the Shepard family. That pen. Artifact. Whatever they were talking about. I know Liara. She fully believes that the perverted little human brat owns her. If I could get my hands on that artifact…

Nyxeris’ fingers closed. She imagined herself holding a small cylindrical artifact.

She could finally get out from under the Broker’s thumb. Out from under anyone’s thumb, really. She could start her own enterprise and propel herself to the top of Illium’s corporate structure.

Or I could just take everything from people like Nassana Dantius. Bitch is building yet another skyscraper, as if she doesn’t have enough already.

She sighed.

There’s just two major hiccups. Admiral Shepard. If her son dies then she’ll inherit the artifact, so I have to kill her, too. And the son apparently controls a Justicar and an Alliance soldier. If I take his head off, though, that might be enough to disorient them long enough to take the pen for myself. Still, it seems too risky to attack them outright.

Her heart throbbed heavily in her chest.

But if I do nothing then the brat’ll sic his Justicar on me and enslave me. I can’t let that happen! Not after all the shit I went through to build myself back up! No, I’m not going to sit idly by and let this opportunity slip through my fingers. Hm. The boss plans to get rid of Admiral Shepard eventually. I doubt he’ll try to stop me if I accelerate our plans. By the time he realizes something is amiss, he won’t be able to touch me.

She opened a commlink with the assets she had tailing Hannah Shepard and her entourage of Alliance soldiers.

“Observer,” a flanged Turian voice answered the call.

Nyxeris swallowed down her fear. She had to act now.

“Tetran,” she answered with the man’s code word. “Do you have eyes on the target?”

“Affirmative.”

“Eliminate her.”

There was a pause on the other line, and for a brief moment she feared her order had been refused.

“Understood. I’ll radio back when it's done.”

The commlink clicked dead.

Nyxeris smiled viciously. Her days of being used by others were finally coming to an end.

I entered the elevator with Ashley and Samara, the two heavily armed women flanking me like an honor guard. I caught them glancing at me when they thought I wasn’t looking. Their eyes glowed with desire and admiration. Their beauty was complimented by the knowledge that if I so much as hinted at it, either one of them would have dropped to her knees and taken my cock in her mouth without complaint. Nothing Liara had said about the pen and its power had changed their minds about serving me, if that was even possible. There must have been something about the mind control that prevented them from caring about what the pen had done to them.

The artifact pulsed warmly in my pocket, as if in agreement. The thing was powerful, probably too powerful. But Jane had warned me the Reapers were coming and what they were capable of. She’d told me how powerful and ancient they were. Knowing that, was it really responsible for me to question a power that had practically fallen into my lap?

No. No, I wouldn’t be squeamish about using the pen. I’d already robbed one woman of her freedom, turned her against everything she believed. It was too late to turn back now and pretend I was somehow a good man like my father had been. He’d had such lofty ideals. None of that had saved him when he’d dropped onto the front lines of Mindoir. He’d probably have thrown away the pen or refused to use it.

“I’d be just like the Batarians, enslaving people!” he’d have said. I couldn’t stop replaying the whole event in my head. I’d watched it all from the comfort of a cruiser viewing window, intermittent flashes lighting up the colony like bright red fireflies. I’d wondered how many people died in each one, if my father was among them. How many people would have been saved if he’d been able to claim ownership over an entire flotilla of ships? He could have cleaned out the Traverse of slavers, saving millions of lives including his own. If he'd lived, Mom wouldn’t have retreated into her cold, unsympathetic shell and thrown herself into her career, leaving Jane and I alone.

I wondered how Mom would have used the pen. Would she have, or would she have thrown it away like Dad would have?

I caught Samara staring at me curiously and was instantly reminded of our discussion earlier.

“What were you going to tell me earlier, Samara? Before we left the gun shop,” I addressed the much older woman. I knew she wanted to discuss this in private, but I didn’t want her to ask me what I’d been thinking about.

She looked like she wanted to ask me something, but bowed deferentially.

“Master, do you know anything about the Ardat-Yakshi?”

I shook my head no. Ashley moved a little closer to me, interest gleaming in her eyes.

“Ardat-what?” she blurted out.

Samara sighed.

“As you’re aware, when an Asari mates with her partner, she bonds with him or her in a way that transcends the physical world. It is a deeply intimate experience and the means by which my species can reproduce with non-Asari,” she licked her lips. “Some Asari are born with a rare genetic defect that turns this bond into something fatal to their partners. They burn out the minds of their bondmates, killing them. These Asari are known as Ardat-Yakshi.”

Wow. Sexually transmitted diseases that could cross species, I’d heard of, but I’d never heard of Asari that killed their mates through bonding.

“So can’t they just, you know, not bond with people? You’d have to be cold-blooded killer to keep doing that with people if you know it kills them,” Ashley said.

Samara’s face looked grim.

“The act of bonding is highly addictive to an Ardat-Yakshi. It is like a **** that twists the mind to prioritize personal pleasure above all else. She will kill countless others and feel nothing but joy. She will not stop until she is dead.”

I frowned.

“If the Ardat-Yakshi are so dangerous, how come no one seems to know about them?” I asked.

The Justicar gave me a knowing look.

“Procreation with aliens is considered to be the lifeblood of our species. The Matriarchs of Thessia would not want this information to be widely known,” she said. “Even the majority of Asari are left unaware. Ardat-Yakshi are a product of pureblood unions, which is why the stigma against such was created and spread by the Matriarchs in the first place.”

Ashley snorted. “Looks like optics are more important to the big wigs on Thessia than keeping people safe.”

A ghost of a smile appeared on Samara’s lips.

“Ardat-Yakshi are mercilessly hunted down by my order. When they are diagnosed with the defect, they are given a choice: live a life of seclusion or be killed,” Samara looked pained. “Two of my daughters chose seclusion. My oldest, Morinth, was too proud to accept any constraints on her life. She fled. That was four hundred years ago and I have been hunting her ever since.”

I put a hand on Samara’s arm.

“I’m so sorry, Samara. I can’t imagine what that must feel like.”

She smiled gently and shook her head.

“It is not your fault, Master, and while I appreciate your sympathy, this is something I have dealt with for centuries. I will be fine.”

I smiled at her.

“Well, now you won’t have to deal with it alone,” I said, Ashley silently backing me up.

Samara’s eyes shimmered.

“Thank you, Master. I… apologize. I didn’t want to bond with you until you knew. I didn’t want you to learn about my greatest failure after I’d done something so intimate with you.”

I frowned at her.

“Is your daughter… Morinth… is she on this planet right now? Is that why you’re on Illium? To hunt her?”

Samara nodded.

I grasped her arm firmly and looked into her eyes.

“We’ll find her, Samara. I promise. And I just realized something. Thanks to the pen, you might not even have to kill her.”

Samara shuddered. Her deep blue glowed with naked desperation. She looked like she wanted to kneel. To grovel and kiss my feet. Anything to express her love and devotion to me.

“Yes, you’re right!” her normally stoic gaze grew frantic. “With the artifact, you could make her renounce her ways! You could make her do whatever you wanted! Master, please. I beg you. Induct her into your Justicar order. Make her serve you as I do!”

I drew Samara into a hug. The woman buried her face into my neck, trembling. Her lips touched my skin gently. I heard her inhale deeply through her nose.

“I will. You and Morinth will be together again. That’s a promise,” I whispered into her ear.

We broke the hug. She stared into my eyes for what felt like an eternity before closing the distance and kissing me. Her lips were soft and plump. I loved the texture. The subtle desperation of the way her lips moved against mine. She moaned.

The elevator chimed and the door swished open, cutting our kiss short.

We stepped into the building lobby. The room was darker than I remembered.

“Is it just me, or were the window shutters open when we first came in here?” Ashley muttered.

What?

The windows were covered by something metallic. Shutters? I glanced around the room for any sign of Nyxeris, but her desk was unoccupied.

We made our way over to the front door, but it refused to open.

“I don’t like this,” Ashley drew her **** rifle. “Samara?”

“Ambush,” the Asari Justicar’s skin glowed with the telltale midnight blue-purple of dark energy. She drew her **** rifle as well, panning over the entire room. She glanced over at me. “Master, stay close to me.”

My heart skipped a beat as I huddled next to my most powerful servant. An ambush? Here in Liara’s office building?

I activated my omnitool and tried to interface with the building’s security.

“Shit. Firewalls are too strong,” I should have figured they would be, considering Liara’s occupation. I pulled up Liara’s contact information. Maybe she could explain what was going on. I sent a call to her omnitool.

The omnitool’s screen flashed a bright red warning.

Connection failed to establish.

“Dammit. I can’t contact Liara.”

A pit opened up in my chest. Fuck. I hoped she was all right.

A crackling violet ball of energy filled my vision so suddenly I barely had time to dodge. Samara’s hand reached in front of me, grasping the biotic energy before crushing it with a thoomp. The sound of crackling static filled the air.

“There, by the stairs!” Ashley yelled, firing her rifle. Dark blue contrails split the darkness of the lobby. A blue oval flickered to life on the other side of the room.

Then I saw her. An Asari with purple skin and amber eyes narrowed hatefully. Nyxeris was trying to kill us.

“Fuck. I should have figured you’d be fast enough to save your little master. Doesn’t matter. Once I have my hands on that pen, the Shadow Broker and Liara and all those cunts on Thessia will wish they’d never met me!”

She grunted. A ball of bright violet energy grew in her hands. She stepped out of cover to throw it. It careened towards me with a speed rivaling Ashley’s hypervelocity rounds.

Samara was faster. She appeared in front of me faster than I could even blink, her rippling blue-purple biotic barrier swallowing the powerful biotic attack like a drop of water on a sponge.

I couldn’t help but stare at her stupidly. Just how powerful was she?

“Foolish child. I can feel your potential just as I can sense its disuse. If you’d honed your abilities, your attack might have tickled. As you are now, you cannot hope to harm me. Surrender and my master may be merciful,” the Justicar intoned coldly. She manifested her own orb of biotic energy. This one glowed bright blue and seemed far less unstable than the one Nyxeris had shot at me.

Liara’s assistant let out a half-mad chuckle.

“You may be powerful, but the automated turrets Liara installed here were meant for someone like you, ****!” She activated her omnitool. “Prepare to serve your new Mistress!”

“Not so fast, bitch!” Ashley had taken advantage of Nyxeris’ focus on Samara to approach the woman from behind. Nyxeris had barely a moment to glance in Ashley’s direction before the soldier fired a concussive blast from the underbarrel of her **** rifle.

Nyxeris’ kinetic barriers flared briefly before breaking as the **** of the concussive round propelled her across the room, slamming her into a wall.

Samara stared at the woman impassively and stretched out a glowing hand. A bright blue biotic field surrounded Nyxeris, lifting her off the ground. She cried out impotently as her body followed the movements of Samara’s hand. Samara drew her hand downward forcibly, sending Nyxeris careening into the floor with a nasty-sounding thud.

“Guh…” Nyxeris spat out a glob of blue blood. Her eyes seemed unfocused, dazed by the impact.

Samara clenched her fist and drew it toward herself.

Nyxeris’s form levitated off the floor and moved towards us. As she grew closer, I saw just how much damage had been done to the woman’s purple-black hardsuit. The arms had been damaged beyond repair, exposing her violet skin. The chest had a large depression in the center, likely where Ashley had hit her with the concussive shot.

Her body came to a stop in front of me, suspended in midair by Samara’s biotic powers.

Ashley approached, a fierce, angry look on her face as she kept her rifle trained on Nyxeris’ head.

“What do you want to do with her, sir? If you want me to kill her, just say the word,” she spat hatefully. It looked like she wanted nothing more in the world.

I didn’t answer her. I approached Nyxeris’ floating body. Panicked sobs shook her. Suddenly she looked like someone very much out of her depth.

Suddenly, the elevator opened again. Liara rushed out, her skin glowing bright blue. Her eyes fell on me, then Nyxeris, then me again. She rushed over to me, her eyes looking me up and down, checking for injuries.

"Goddess, this is all my fault! I should have been watching my assistant more closely. I'm so sorry, John. Are you all right?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, I'm good. And don't worry about it. None of us could have expected Nyxeris to ambush us like that, but Ash and Samara came through and saved my life."

Two women gazed at me, proud smiles on their lips.

"So it would seem," Liara said. "I owe the two of them a debt I can never repay."

She turned to glare at Nyxeris and flared her biotics.

“Please Liara,” Nyxeris whispered hoarsely. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Don’t… don’t kill me. He... the Shadow Broker made me do this. I-I’ll tell you everything I know. I’ll be your ****! Anything! Please just don’t kill me."

"Oh," Liara crossed her arms under her big breasts, pushing them upward. "It's not me you should be pleading with for mercy. My owner will decide your fate."

The gorgeous Asari gazed up at me. I saw nothing but acceptance in her blue eyes. Whatever decision I made, she'd support me one hundred percent and more.

I reached into my hardsuit pocket and retrieved the pen. Nyxeris’ eyes widened when she saw it. Then they glazed over. Her mouth hung open, allowing a glob of saliva to pool at the edge of her lips before dribbling down her chin.

I pressed the pen against her arm and began to write.

Liara smiled.