Author's Note: This chapter was first written on paper while in a town in Peru called Lagunas. While walking. Needless to say my handwriting is borderline illegible.
Alec watched nervously, not sure what to expect, though the fact Chrome had yet to rend either himself, or his fellow human, limb from limb was probably a good sign. Gently he helped the praetorian to sit down, her spined back shredding yet another chair.
Chrome swatted him away gently, her claws creating the slightest cuts on his shoulder. Alec took the gesture for what it was, her way of saying she didn't need help, even praetorians had their pride.
She hissed softly, sadly his xenomorph wasn't good enough to understand without the translator.
Hearing the sound, his captive began to struggle in earnest though to no avail, and to even less sympathy from Alec.
"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I'm sorry things turned out this way." He commented, removing the soldier's gag.
A globule of spittle caught him in the face. Calmly Alec put the gag back in before wiping it off with his sleeve. There was another long hiss from Chrome.
"I'll take that as a no." Alec sighed, "It's a shame. I'd rather hoped we'd be friends."
In reply the private glared.
"Fine be that- urk!" Alec trailed off as a tail wrapped around his throat, hoisting him into the air. Clearly Chrome had got tired of being ignored.
The praetorian pulled Alec back to her, spinning him so they were face-to-face, her inner jaws darting out to stop, resting softly on his forehead. The threat clear.
Alec tried not to look hurt. Not that it mattered, as far as he was aware Chrome couldn't even 'see' his face in that level of detail.
"Et te Brute?" He quietly commented.
Chrome roared at him, this time Alec understood some of it, and he was angry.
"How dare I?" He yelled. "I have fed you, cared for you, cleaned and stitched your wounds, even turned off the sonic defences for you! I think I've earned a little fucking leeway from you."
In response the praetorian tightened her tail's grip on his throat.
Alec weakly tried to pry her off but without any success. Black spots appeared across his vision, then just darkness tinged with betrayal.
Piusnex sat down wearily, her wounds aching. Annoyed at her weakness, she swatted the human away, instantly feeling guilty as the scent of blood filled the air. She hadn't meant to cut him.
"I'm sorry, my human." She said softly, somewhat hurt when there was no reply, especially as it was the first time she'd ever vocally laid claim to him.
Still it was understandable, her hiss had scared the angry human, the one she was supposed to let apologise to her. Her human could be so very odd sometimes.
She let her thoughts wander, naturally they quickly focused in on the bane and saviour that was her human.
Twice he'd saved her life now, he'd fed her, he was the only thing keeping her from going home. He was... her friend and finally, she at last realised, she loved him.
At least she thought that's what the joy she felt when he was in the room was, and the fear that he'd get hurt when he wasn't.
Of course the only reference she had to go on was the Queen's own recounts of how she'd felt about her own mate before he'd been killed by the humans.
Now she just had to muster the courage to tell him.
"Human. I need you to listen to me, this is important." She requested, not knowing he didn't have a translator in the room.
He barely even looked up. Why would he be more interested in the human than her? Unbidden anger boiled to the surface. With a casual flick of her tail, her human was brought face-to-face with her. With great precision she stopped her jaws just short of punching though his skull, knowing he'd understand.
"How dare you ignore me! Here I am about to pour my heart out to you and you're more interested in talking to that killer! I love you, you idiot."
Well she'd said it.
In reply her human started shouting at her.
Dying inside she tightened her tail around his throat and held him until he went limp before discarding him.
With that done, Piusnex stood and walked up to the human bound to the table, who was busy whimpering.
It was very kind of her human to give her such a large meal.
Yeythwei scowled, annoyed at the ease of the kill. Even just his wristblades the oomans had been easy prey. Still they'd survived this long against the khainde amedha so they must have been skilled for oomans.
He had still taken the skulls as trophies, noting that the ooman from the hive was not amongst them. Not that he was worried, the ooman had a great understanding of the hard meat, the chances of him being killed before he could hunt him down was minimal.
At least he had a shelter now, and some guns, primitive though they were.
The Queen hisses sadly, two praetorians had been killed in a skirmish on the outskirts of the city, though the two had accounted for the deaths of over ten warriors, which, if the other hive was as lacking in prey as she expected, should prove to be a heavy loss. But praetorians were not so easily replaced, their knowledge, personality and insight took time to develop, with nearly all of her veterans dead, the hive was almost leaderless outside of the caves.
Author's Note: Finally decided on an ending... in other news I probably won't update until the Christmas hols, or half term, also I've been pressured by friends to begin writing an M-rated oneshot with Alec and Piusnex – your thoughts please.
I also am now writing for commission, so if you have something you want written send me a message.